Halloween, The World Series, and nearing a week off

For the first time in  a couple of decades my wife and I participated in handing out Halloween Candy. This was due to our Granddaughter Briana asking us to join them at their house in Gilbert on Halloween night.

She and her boyfriend have just purchased their home and we were glad to see they had such a nice house. We put chairs and a table in the driveway and gave candy to the trick or treaters. Briana did the actual handing out and Vicki and I engaged the parents and kids in conversation. It was a nice night.

The World Series ended Thursday with Houston taking the championship. I hope it helps the Hurricane affected folks feel a little better. The series was both interesting and entertaining, with some midnite drama in game 5 with a final score of 13 to 12 for the Astros. The Dodgers tied the series at 3 to 3  in game 6 forcing a game 7. For the first time in many years the games kept my interest and were enjoyable to watch.

This week and the first of next marks the end of taking pills for Cycle 5. After this coming Tuesday I get a week off. I am hopeful that this month I will regain some strength during  my off week.

That's it from here,

Here's this weeks' contribution to my "New Normal" 

Stuck (Poet’s complaint)

I am stuck with unfinished poems

Like laundry left undone in the machine

Some thoughts and threads do splinter

Before I find out what they mean

I’ll take it as a sign to be patient

Forgetting the ease of the past

Remembering what work must be done

If what I’ve created will last

Even though to me they’re living

Just in this moment alive and complete

To readers or listeners in the future

Perhaps they need legs more than feet

To mention their timely creation

And their living in memory so brief

Would be far more than gilding the Lily

More like teaching theft to a thief

More like mist are these thoughts poetic

More like rain than water or ice

More intense than flame or fire

More often more naughty than nice

If given free rein this thing would remain

In limbo neither darkness or light

So I attempt to control, though I often extol

Damn it’s difficult to get them just right.

Hang in there,

RT

Cycle 5

On Tuesday of this week I started my 5th cycle of the Clinical Trial. In addition I had blood work and a CT scan the same day. 

When I met with my Oncologist and told him about my shortness of breath and the fullness in my chest he showed me the scan taken that day. There was a lot of fluid in the space between the inner and outer lining on my right side. Way too much. He scheduled me for a Thoracentisis to drain the fluid.

I was not familiar with this procedure, however we scheduled it for yesterday and they drained over a liter and a half of fluid from my lungs. I feel much better. 

The scan also showed that the tumors in my lungs have not grown and may have even diminished a little. My Oncologist stated that the drug is working and we will continue on with the trial.

All in all good news. I am experiencing less fatigue so far and I have a good appetite. This is about as good as it gets while in treatment. We'll see how the next 3 weeks goes.

Now for this weeks' "New Normal" contribution.

Twixt

Twixt perfect and decrepit

that’s where I belong

on the way out but trying

to go out feeling strong

Twixt smart and seriously stupid

not a genius but not a dunce

One who learned from his mistakes

though some happened more than once

Twixt handsome and butt ugly

scars and deformities abound

yet still presentable in public

as funny as that might sound

Twixt sober and inebriated 

that would explain this rhyme

not for nothing is it “Twixty”

I’ll explain it some other time

Hang in there,

RT

Simple Pleasures

In spite of the continuing fatigue even though I am in my off week we had a fire in our fire pit tonight. I had a stogie and a couple of whiskeys as well. These are the simple pleasures I miss so much.

Vicki and I sat in our backyard around the fire pit and reminisced about times we spent camping with the kids on our boat on Apache Lake. The fire brought back a lot of great memories. We talked about her parents, her high school years and lots of other stuff. I treasure these times. There are never enough of them.

My "Off Week" has been somewhat disappointing. For what ever reason I have not gotten my strength back this week. I struggle getting out of bed and feel too tired to do much of anything. Just splitting some wood for the fire wore me out tonight. Never the less we had a great time and I enjoyed a good cigar and some good whiskey. 

There are 2 more days left before I start taking pills again. I intend to enjoy them as much as possible.

On Tuesday I will get a scan as well as some blood work at the Mayo clinic. I am hoping for good results.

That's it from here.

Hang in there.

Here is this weeks' contribution for the new normal,

The Answer

In time 

I found the answer

to the question

life had put to me

nothing big and spectacular

just what it meant to “be”

Our very mere existence

a miracle so rare

we take for granted every day

we just can’t see it there

Yet if you’ll heed what I say

perhaps you’ll come to care

That God is in the living

the here and now and you

Believe it if you feel it

come to know it’s true

Be thankful for every little bit

of water green and ocean blue

God’s in everything you see

Observe and get a clue

RT

Peach Cobbler

The last 4 pills of cycle 4 of the clinical trial went down tonight. I celebrated with the last of the Peach Cobbler that Vicki and I made last week. For some reason I had a craving for cobbler; peach, blueberry, or whatever other kind of cobblers you can make.

Cooking with Vicki is one of the joys of our being retired. I look forward to  cooking many more dishes (mostly desserts) with Vicki. Food is still important to us, though we are having to change our diet to more healthy offerings. She ordered a book for pre-diabetics that contains a lot of new recipes we can try. 

This next week I hope to get back some energy, start walking in the mornings and just generally feel better. I feel like I have aged past my chronological age during these last few years of chemo and cancer treatments. It would be great to be able to get back in to shape, if even just a little bit.

We are going to our daughters' for haircuts on Thursday. That will probably be the only time I get out this week. Maybe we'll stop by the cigar store on the way back and pickup a cigar for me. The nights are getting cool enough for a fire and smores. We can hang out in our back yard and I can have a drink and a stogie. 

I know, the excitement never stops, huh?

That's about it from here.  

Since we're talking about food, here's this weeks' offering.

The Crockpot

On those Sunday mornings

when my wife puts beef or pork

into her crockpot

I find myself transported by the smells

which for me are like hyperlinks to past times

and my childhood

On this morning with hands in dishwater

looking out the kitchen window

at Robin and squirrel and solitary finch

the aroma of the crockpot wafts me back

to family homestead and country life

a small rural Alabama town

Boiled peanuts and largemouth bass 

my first motorcycle and my first kiss

when the world was still new to me

and I to it.

Hang in there,

RT

More New Normal

It's Saturday night and I'm watching the premier episode of Saturday Night Live. I miss the good old days of John Belushi, Gilda Radner and Jane Curtain. The weekend update is still pretty good most weeks, but the sketches these days are lame. 

The yard is looking great thanks to our gardener, Ryan, who takes great care of all the plants and trees. I have 9 days left in my 4th cycle of the clinical trial and then I should feel good enough to have whiskey and a cigar in the off week. It's very pleasant to sit on the patio and view the yard in the cool of the evening.

These last two weeks have went pretty good, though we did go to a funeral service for Vicki's Uncle Clint last Saturday. He was 79 and contracted a fatal infection in his spine after receiving an injection a few months ago. He was a nice guy and a good Christian man. 

On the way home I got caught by a red light photo camera at an intersection on Arizona Ave. I went into the intersection under 40 mph on the yellow but it turned red when we were halfway through. Vicki says they won't send me a ticket, but I am doubtful. State law says if you enter the intersection on yellow it's legal, though I think they will send a ticket anyway and I'll have to fight it. We'll see.

Speaking of Vicki, she went to her Doctor this last week and they are changing her Thyroid medication to help with her aches, pains, and fatigue. I am hopeful.

In keeping with the "New Normal" here's this weeks' contribution.

I live with a Woman

I live with a woman who I Love

When snuggling we so tightly cling

And fit together like hand in glove

That between us there can be no thing

After all these years, hours and days

Many kids, jobs, houses we have had

Still I prefer her special ways

Of being like a second skin clad

Of moving with me, against me slow

Then warming needing space and time

Yet knowing when the need does grow

Back into my arms and sphere to climb

I make time and take time 

If needs I push and shove

To clear the deck for mission prime

To live with the woman I love

Hang in there,

RT

My "Off" Week

This Monday was the last day of my third week in cycle 3 of the Clinical Trial. I will not have to take any pills till next Tuesday. While I have this time without Stivarga in my system I hope to be able to enjoy some different foods and maybe even a Cigar and a Whiskey.

It takes a few days for me to bounce back and each time I bounce back it's a little slower than the time  before. I held off on taking Marinol today  because it makes me tired and I am tired of being tired. There were a couple of errands that only I could do that needed to be done(just one really, getting propane for the grill) and I gassed up the car as well while I was out. That was a major event for me.

We had some sad news this week. My wife's uncle Clint passed away earlier this week. They have a big family and it will take some time to get the whole family together. His service will be on Saturday the 23rd. Vicki has just one surviving Uncle now who lives in South Dakota.

As I said in last weeks post about my new normal, I have some writing from 10 years ago that I am adding to my posts.

Here's this weeks' contribution,   

Life & Death

Love is such a powerful 

force for good 

or bad

I blush to think of what I’ve had

and wasted, trashed and thrown away

thinking there’s always another day

Friendship is so

wonderful and

rare

Simple pleasures you can share

when someone fits into your life

is there in pain and bitter strife

Breath in the

Delights of

existence Grand

Rejoice in those who take a stand

to live as fully as they will

take the cup and drink their fill

For pain and suffering 

will surely 

come

It’s up to you to add the sum

of life’s sweet blessings into the mix

Knowing that fate will play its tricks

And stand and fight for all you can

Make the best of your maker’s plan

Live with Passion to your last breath

Your story’s told between life and death

There it is, 

Hang in there,

RT

The New Normal

I am well into the third month of the Stivarga Clinical Trial at Mayo. My strength and stamina are slowly getting better on most days. If I am to continue to take this drug for the foreseeable future it will take some adjustment on my part.

I must be willing to get up off my ass regardless of side effects and do something, anything really, other than laying around in my easy chair and wishing I felt better.

While I may not be up to great physical exertion quite yet, I am going to attempt some intellectual muscle building at least.

I have held off commenting on our current political status and hope to continue in that mode. Instead, I dug up some writing I did in another time and place. At one point my wife and I moved to a small town in North Carolina and bought a fixer upper in a semi-countrified community just north of the town on a lake.

During the almost 2 years we spent there working on the house I had a few months of inspiration and found myself awake at 2 in the morning writing poems. I am going to add one of those to each of my blogs till I run out of them.

Here's this weeks contribution.


ANYBODY CAN

Anybody can write anything these days
And post it on the Internet
Not really dependent on older ways
Of finding audiences with interests met

I know this factually to be true
of course the deed I've surely done
not willing or able to wait on you
just writing like I'm the only one

who has got the magic words
to tell the world it's troubled state
and not giving the reason why 
it's coming from this old reprobate

Fortunately or unfortunately for my reader this is but one of 50 or so I penned during my period of inspiration a decade ago. Be warned, more will come. This is my new normal.

Till next time,
Hang in there,

RT