Month 20

Here we are again. A month into the new year already…and Spring can’t be too far behind. Let’s enjoy it all!

We did a little bit of traveling in January….went to San Francisco to see an old fraternity brother and wife and watch the USF Dons beat St. Mary’s in basketball. While in ‘The City’ we dined with another college friend, and also shared a meal with our niece and nephew.

From SF we headed up to Grants Pass for a four night stay to visit with Scott, Heidi, and granddaughter Elyra.

Health-wise, I feel pretty good…. and way more energetic than a few months ago. I’m paying more attention to yard maintenance….raked tons of leaves, planted a veggie garden, worked on cleaning up my ‘office’ space…and now I’ve got to get out on the golf course more.

I am still feeling the effects of my hormone shot (it lasts for six months)…I get the occasional ‘hot flash’. And it’s weird how it comes upon me. Just kind of out of nowhere, it’s like, ‘huh, I’m feeling a bit warm.’ And I guess the shot has something to do with the mood swings that occasionally descend on me.

My eating is still an issue: if I eat too much at one sitting, I feel bloated, a little nauseous, and I just want to sit and not talk to anybody. Aside from that, I’ve certainly gotten my weight back. Today’s weight was over 143 lbs. Now I’ve got to eat more sensibly, and less quantitatively…I don’t want to grow out of my 32 inch pants!

My endurance still is not good, but I’m working at getting it better. I was told, ‘your lungs are muscles…you need to stress them.’ So I’ve been putting in more time and at a higher ‘stress level’ on the elliptical machine at the Y. And I’m seriously thinking about going back to swimming in a couple of months. That should increase my lung capacity, or give me a heart attack. And I want to snow-shoe into Echo this winter. That should also stress my lungs, or kill me.

Mentally, I’m also feeling good. The attitude is positive, I’m happy to be alive, and thankful for where I am. I’m not out of the woods yet, but I’m hopeful that all will be well. Sometimes I feel a little guilty for having made it this far, when I think about the friends and acquaintances who have already died from this dreadful disease, or those who are just entering into their long and uncertain struggle against it. Cancer is about the worst thing that has come out of Pandora’s Box.

At the end of this month I will be getting my first PSA reading since my radiation treatment for the prostate. And in April I will have another PET scan to see if I’m still all clear of cancer. I’ll get one of these every six months for two years, and then I guess I’ll get one once a year after that….

So on that note I’ll see you next month. There’s probably only a couple months left for this blog business….there hasn’t really been that much to report.

In closing, here’s a poem that’s been around for a while, but it seems fitting to share it, with the release of the movie Vice.

Change of Heart

The evil one is still alive
His snarl and his glare
His hardened heart was giving way
But then he found a spare.

So some poor soul gave up his ghost
With his last gasping breath
And the evil one could now postpone
His rendezvous with death.

And will this change Darth Vader's view
On how to make things right?
Will his perspective soften now
Or will he always opt to fight?

I think he'll stay the same old way
With a forecast mostly rainy
I doubt this heart will change him now
For this wouldn't be Dick Cheney.