Almost Ready to Resume
Resume chemo, that is. My blood numbers are pretty much in good ranges. The antibiotics worked very well. I visited the hospital last Wednesday (March 25) and got a CT scan too. We could not find the abscess at all. What was measurable on March 11 is now gone without a trace. Dang, I wish it were true of that tumor!
My CA19-9 number went up since March 11 too, which is why we’re resuming the chemo. It was working so I’m going back on it and we’ll watch my side effects a lot more closely. I’m a little worried because the infection became almost lethal within 4 days after the infusion, and my white blood cell count was pretty close to normal on the day of the last infusion. Nevertheless, I absolutely can’t leave that cancer alone.
The social networks are afire these days. FB was lagging a lot. My remote work has been impacted by network congestion and extra loading on our cloud based Office 365 apps & storage. At least my employer and peers make sense and are kind & supportive to each other. This is not the case in the my association circles on FB. Just forget about Twitter.
I’m trying to get over the feeling of outrage about the blatant incompetence in most of the executive branch of our Federal government. Only a select few would have made it by initial screening for any of the professions & execs I deal with. The majority could only have gotten where they are through the crony system in DC.
The stroking that the orange one is now demanding to get any attention is a new low too. Maybe it’s not incompetence as much as it is plain ol’ sabotage.
I do not want to end this post with that note. It just sorta boiled out of me just now. I’m going to put down my personal browsing and go back to work, where I only need to worry about explaining complicated things in the simplest, easiest to understand terms for the execs.
Oh, and it looks like Burning Man won’t happen. Most of the regional events have cancelled for this year. Ignition NorthWest has been checking in with us emeritus board members and our consensus is to also cancel our Critical NorthWest even in July too. The current board is going to decide and announce pretty soon.
This is a weird time for us. It’s the first time in human history where we’ve had the instrumentation and communication capabilities to observe a brand new, highly virulent virus emerge, complicated greatly by its long incubation time. The impact to society is only beginning to be felt, and because it’s happening in slow motion relative to human perception, the virus currently just looms as an amorphous threat to most people. It’s like tracking a slow hillside detachment that doesn’t turn into a landslide until the very end. Our models tell us that the landslide is about to happen, but for most of the USA the landslide will happen over and over again over the next month or so, and then recur repeatedly until either the virus evolves into a more benign version or we monkeys come up with a decent vaccine. I think the wait is almost literally killing us, and the economic system our “bold and fearless” wealthy folks have built for themselves.
April 17, 2020 @ 1:02 pm
Geoff, I have been thinking a lot about your situation as I read news (obsessively) and check in with other friends and family, trying to keep our spirits up and move forward rather than waiting for life to catch up to us and (maybe) run us over. As I hear it, Burning Man will be happening online and in our hearts instead of on the Playa this year. Hope all is well with you and with the people you love.
April 17, 2020 @ 1:33 pm
Yep, BM is virtual this year. Same thing with all the region events as far as I know. One of the things we worried about was the fact that theme camps would be revving up for their projects now, and this is the worst time for people to congregate and work side by side. So yeah, we’re Zooming a whole lot.
I learned that my Mom tested positive for CV-19 exposure but has had no significant fever, no breathing issues, no digestive issues, etc. She’s bored out of her mind as I hear it second hand, but her nursing home has not had the disastrous number of deaths that some of the other homes have had in New Jersey. They shut it down very quickly.
Melissa & I are doing pretty well here. We’ve had a year of practice living under the same roof 24×7 before this so we’ve ironed out most of the difficulties that face a couple in this situation.
I guess I should do another post soon, as I just got another infusion yesterday….but maybe it’ll be better if I post on Monday since Saturday & Sunday are the problem days after one of these.
April 22, 2020 @ 1:44 pm
I’m sure you’re pretty tired this week but I wanted to drop a line and let you and Melissa know I’m thinking about you both (and your Mom as well). All busy and staying put here, so nothing fun to report. Wishing you all the best!
April 23, 2020 @ 12:40 pm
Mom is doing well physically. She has the virus but seems to be asymptomatic, but she’s 92 and very weak. She’s also pretty much become passive and doesn’t seem to want to even pick up the phone. She’s getting a lot of supportive care and with the pandemic she’s been isolated in her room with only the tee vee running. I think she’s severely understimulated, wants to end it, but her Christianity prevents her from even talking about managing that desire. I talk with my sisters in NJ at least weekly and they are doing what they can to get through to her but without her active participation (picking up an iPad, answering the phone when it rings or even dialing out,…) it’s been pretty sparse.
Last Thursday’s infusion was so easy I’ve forgotten to write about it. Instead I’m ranting in writing and saving it locally until I’ve edited it to make sense. Nothing about the cancer except making an analogy of how the republican party and the personality types who support them have become a cancer on our society. I definitely have to refine that or find a better way to say it.