Getting older

 General Health, My MCL  5 Responses »
Nov 302007
 

After completing the 109 miles of El Tour de Tucson, 2 weeks ago, you might recall my post about unbelievably managing to down 4 pints of Guiness.

Well, while I was downing those 4 beers, I was having a discussion about lymphoma, with the coach and 2 of the participants, when I was asked what I thought the reason I had been fortunate enough not to have needed treatment for the past 5+ years.

My immediate response was, I just felt it was the luck of the draw, and that there really isn’t anything one can do to prolong the inevitable.

Now whether that is true or not would certainly spark a wild debate, were that to be the intention for this post, which it isn’t. After all I’m not even sure I believe it totally. Else why would I continue to ride my bike as much as I do, and have not had a hair cut since my diagnosis. (We certainly can’t forget the story of Sampson?)

In fact, I do believe those are two contributing factors, along with a little bit of luck and avoiding any medications, vitamins, supplements etc., that has enabled me to escape the need for treatment to this date, and which is what brings me to the point of this post and cartoon, courtesy of Walt Handelsman, which I thought worthy of sharing.

It just seems rather apropos at the moment.

 Posted by at 4:45 am  Tagged with:

A different Thanksgiving

 Life  4 Responses »
Nov 222007
 

As if enough things haven’t been turned upside down enough this year already, so it must have been destined for Thanksgiving this year to be different as well.

Every year for the past I can’t recall how many years, we have had Thanksgiving dinner, at Edie’s nephew’s home in the Valley.

But this year, Edie’s nephew decided to go back home to Ohio, and spend Thanksgiving with his mother and family there, leaving us to fend for ourselves.

Now it’s not that I love spending Thanksgiving in the Valley with Edie’s family that much (it really is a love hate relationship, I dread the 50+ mile drive), I have sort of grown accustomed to the routine.

So this year instead, we had a Thanksgiving day brunch at Mr R’s Grill in the Long Beach Marriott hotel, with Edie’s niece (who also lives in the Valley), her husband and two boys.

It was nice, the food was good and plentiful, Edie got to spend some time with her family, and best of all I didn’t have to drive all the way to the Valley. Her niece drove to Long Beach.

Still, there just seemed to be something missing today. It wasn’t the same, and at my age different is not always a good thing.

I guess that old saying

you don’t really appreciate what you have, until you no longer have it

or something to that effect, really does ring true.

 Posted by at 8:01 pm  Tagged with:

It was 4 beer ride!

 Cycling, Life, Vacations  No Responses »
Nov 182007
 

This was a tough ride, despite the fact there was only about 2700 feet of climbing, and is about the best way to describe how I felt after completing the 109 mile El Tour de Tucson bike ride.

The toughest part of the ride were the two dry river bed crossings, one at the 8 mile mark, and the other at the 46 mile mark (conservatively estimated at 200+ yards each), which had to be traversed on foot, carrying your bike on your shoulder. [Fortunately my bike weighs less than 16 pounds.]

Plus, by 11 AM the temperature was in excess of 84oF, making the ride that much more difficult.

Still, we (I was riding with a group of 5 other Team in Training participants) managed to complete the ride in 7 hours and 12 minutes, which doesn’t take into account the fact we didn’t cross the start line until 15 minutes after the official start time. (This is a mass start race, and there were about 4000 cyclists in front of us at the starting line.)

So when you take in to account the two river bed crossings, which took a minimum 10 minutes to navigate each, our time was well under 7 hours. [A very respectable time.]

But for me that wasn’t the end.

Remember I am the honored teammate for the greater Los Angeles TNT chapter, so while I was tired, and would have preferred to go back to my hotel and rest, I still needed to cheer on all the other participants on my team. After all, they were riding for me.

So I “sucked it up” and returned to my hotel only to take a quick shower, before retuning to the finish line to cheer on the other Team in Training participants, as they crossed the finish line.

This was followed shortly after (the last group finished around 5:30 PM) by dinner, and a trip to the Frog and Firkin bar, next to U of A, and our hotel. By the time we left, it was 12:30 AM, and I realized I had downed 4 pints of Guinness, which is a lot for me. (Those who know me best, know it typically only takes one pint before I feel bloated.)

At that point even though I was tired, and definitely ready for bed, it was still a great day. I’m not sure I’d want to do it again, but …………….

Oh yeah, and I wanted to give a special thanks to Irwin, Alfred, Justin, Wesley and Curt, my riding buddies, without whose support, I might not have finished, and all the other greater LA chapter participants, for making this a truly memorable and yes, an enjoyable ride.

 Posted by at 9:06 pm

The art of forging

 Life  3 Responses »
Nov 142007
 

Before I head off to Tucson for the 109 mile El Tour de Tucson tomorrow, with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training, I thought I’d leave you with this picture, which incidentally won 1st place in a recent photo journalism contest in Ventura, CA, depicting one of the manufacturing units, and it’s crew, where I work.

To be clear, I’m not one of those guys you see there (back in Pittsburgh, we used to call them mill hunky’s) doing the back breaking, dangerous work. (As I’ve described it many times to others, I’m an educated mill hunky! :)

I’m the one, standing in the [distant] background (who you can’t see), that tells manufacturing what temperatures the parts need to be heated to for forging, among other things.

The unit the crew is working on is a 50,000 pound hammer. Just picture an old time blacksmith making horse shoes using a hammer, then multiply that by 50,000 times, and you’ll get the picture.

I think it’s amazing, when you consider all the rapid advancements in technology being made today, there are still technologies around, that haven’t changed much since the 19th century.

The blast furnace is another such technology. If you ever get a chance to see one in operation, I suggest you take it. You’ll literally think you’ve been transported into the past.

 Posted by at 7:10 pm

33 years and counting

 Edie, Life  5 Responses »
Nov 082007
 

Well today was Edie and my anniversary!

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 33 years since we were married.

Apparently it was so hard to believe, it didn’t even dawn on me, until Edie reminded me a few minutes ago.

Oh well, I guess I’ve just got too many other things on my mind.

At least I hope that’s my excuse. I’m not sure I can come up with a better one. :(

 Posted by at 4:28 pm

Killing two birds with one stone

 Edie  1 Response »
Nov 052007
 

Being I had 3 relatively intense bike rides this weekend, and I’m not planning on riding today, I thought I’d take this opportunity to update everyone on Edie.

But before I do that, I wanted to apologize to any subscribers who may have received duplicate and/or triplicate notifications of posts. There was a glitch in my Subscribe2 plug in when I upgraded my blogging software. I have since fixed that problem, and you should no longer receive duplicate and triplicate notifications. Of course, you may not receive any notifications, so this post is also a test of that fix.

Ok, enough with the administrative stuff!

Last Friday, Edie had her catheter (the one for her dialysis) removed.

She had been resistant to this prospect initially, since she was concerned her kidney problems would return, requiring her to start dialysis again, and she didn’t want to have to go through reinserting it. Apparently inserting it was somewhat painful.

The nephrologist was concerned that if the catheter was left in too long, it could become infected, and I had heard stories about muscle tissue, or whatever, growing around the catheter, making the removal even more difficult and painful.

Eventually, after her last creatinine test was still below 3.0, she relented, and it was removed.

I was hoping that would boost her spirits some, but it seems to have done more to boost my spirits than hers.

Edie also stopped taking Ativan 3 times a day for anxiety. I was unaware she was taking this drug, but it sure answered the question why she was sleeping more than Morris.

Fortunately the drowsiness was the only side effect she experienced, and hopefully she won’t take this drug any more, as I just discovered there are quite a few other more serious side effects, I’m not interested in learning about first hand.

Other than that, everything else is normal. Edie’s counts are all still good, and this is her week off from chemo, so I’m guardedly optimistic, she she’ll be back to her usual self very soon.

 Posted by at 6:00 am
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