Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water?

By golly, I was beginning to enjoy my exit strategy. I mean, no bills to worry about, no need to clean the garage this year, forget teeth cleaning, cataract surgery, knee replacement. Who would ever know if the kids succeeded or not. I spent my days from bed to recliner watching, The Andy Griffith show, the golden girls, Roseanne, everybody loves Raymond, spent most of my money, and just let the guys around here wait on me hand and foot.

Husband has been having some angina pain, but I didn't pay too much attention to him because I know how competitive he can be and his sister just went through some cardiac stress tests etc. Well, anyway, he went in for a couple of tests and he is beyond stints, coronary arteries are too plugged to try and push the plaque out. So he has been advised to have open heart surgery, that is a quadruple bypass operation!
He's scared and has asked for a second opinion, but tentatively it is scheduled for next Weds. Thank God we have two other men in the house to help the two of us out. Like Stephen in Libby says, "Those F...n old fogies are going to wear us out for the next few years. His wife's parents had some major medical problems in the last coupled of years.

So: Here is a statement of love: Sydney said to his cardiac surgeon, "Doctor, my wife has terminal cancer and I don't really care about living without her. Can't you just patch me up until then?"

naps and tv

boy, I'm getting to feel like an old foggy.....nap every afternoon and then be sure and watch news, jeopardy and the wheel of fortune. Now lately I have been watching old Everybody loves Raymond series, or old Golden Girls, and o by the way have any of you watch 88 year old Betty White on the Hot in Cleveland show? She's my new role model.

I can't decide if I am tired or if I have just fallen into a lazy life style. I guess it doesn't really matter.

Went to the doc yesterday and all is fine. He said go ahead and take the Steroids if I want. His thought was that once I got off of them my system would settle back to normal after a week or so. He is probably right. Back to the doc on Aug. 26th...

Some friends came to visit us with a home made rhubarb pie. We weren't home but we ate it and then they came back a few days later to visit and to offer any spiritual comfort they could. They were so sweet. The Mrs.was in tears trying to assure me that I would not just disingrate with death, but would join my family and other loved ones in the here after. The love was felt.

I do like that idea.

Did any of you see the huge new sun that was discovered out in space somewhere? much larger than ours! And I make such silly assumptions that there is not enough room for all the humans created from the beginning of time. I am so finite.

My son is sure God heard his prayer of desperation when he won $1,000 last week. I personally don't think God is into gambling prayers....but what do I know. Seems like every time I think I know, I find I don't.

I've been thinking lately about all the man made rules regarding religions. After all when Paul was marketing the Christian religion it was pretty basic. Now there are so many rules that have been created by man, or have been discarded by man, that I am beginning to understand why the fundamental churches are trying to return to Jesus and his teachings.

I'm glad that in spite of all my questions and rebellious thoughts God has a plan for me (whatever it is).

Another Birthday

The doc told me three months to a year....well almost five months....means I either fooled him or I have seven months...hell he don't know! Anyway I'm 72 now!
I got out the steroids yesterday and increased my dose and already feel better. I suspect the weakness and nausea are caused by radiation to the brain area that controls that. Kinda like motion sickness or mineirs ear disease.
Anyway one oncologist has tried to wean me off the steroids and the radiation oncologist says "take three or four when you feeling bad, it won't hurt anything"
Yesterday a friend of mine met me at Gibson park with a picnic lunch: dip made from salsa and sour cream and cilantro, chicken salad sandwiches with rosemary and other foreign herbs that were delicious, goat yogurt with honey on blue berries and strawberries. She also gave me a sweater/shirt set that perfectly goes with a pair of slacks. She said she only paid half price, but it was still a lot more the goodwill prices. Such fun.
My other friend took me to the casino and paid for the fun....but we both failed to cash in $50 winning and pooped them away.
In the evening Sydney, Gardner and I went to the casino. Sydney left as soon as he was $9 ahead. I had to stay with Gardner who kept giving me money and kept wasting his own. I pretty upset...Finally made he quit when he had $100.
This morning, while I was still in bed, he went back to the casino and won $750.00.
He needed it.
I'm already feeling better with the steroid increase and so I think I will clean the refrigerator today. Happy July to all.

Dignity be dambed!

Well, our visitors came and we talked non-stop for two and a half days, catching up on kids, retirement, medical stuff and travels.
We took them to a concert type gathering down by the river. Shaved Ice, pronto pups, burgers etc.
With the adjustments I have been making with my steroids I have had very little energy so I just found a place in the grass and plopped down (not giving any thought about how I would get up.
Well it came time to leave, the guys in our group each offered a hand and tried to pull me up. My bad knee would have no part of that. At one point they did pull me half way up but I fell forward. By now the concert crowd is watching us! I decided if I could get to a tree I could pull my self up. I crawled through the hippies and families, who were trying to look away, except the children who were delighted in my dilemma. The tree was of no help, so I just sat there, leaning against the tree while the little children ran in circles around me and the tree. I should have taken my hat off and my teeth out. They would have run.
One of the guys in our group got a chair and they held it down with their feet while I managed to pull my self half way up and then all the way up. I will never sit on the grass again!

hair??

I do believe some hair is growing on my wrinkled head. Well the stuff at the nape of my neck is growing because there was no radiation done back there, but I see a few strands that are longer than their neighbors, so something is going on? I have been cutting back on my steroids and I sure can tell. A little bit dizzy, a little bit of nauseous, and very tired. I did manage to do some maintenance house cleaning this week though.
Sydney, the husband, has been have some kind of sensation in his chest that he can't describe too well, so he had a stress test today, which was fine, and he will see cardiac dr. on the 26th just to rule that out. I think there has just been too much death and dying going on.
We have company coming tomorrow. Our rich friends, they drive a Jaguar...nice folks with health problems of their own.
The Catholic Vigil and Mass for my friend that died probably made him turn over in the expensive pine casket. For some reason, he left the catholic church many years ago??? Anyway his family were consoled and that is what is about sometimes. Another thing, how do any of us know what our neighbor's relationship with God is at the time of his death?
Looks like I am going to have another birthday! Three months to one year - life expectancy is now 4 1/2 months to one year! Have a good weekend...a RE-joyous each morning that you are still here, if this is where you want to be.....

Epiphanys and realities

Today my friend died. He was 85. We only found out he had cancer a week ago, but I think he has known for a long time. I met him in 1958. His wife was in the hospital with a new set of twins and he was setting up the three room apartment in the basement of the house I lived in. His little boy was 2 1/2 and trying to help. Neither one of them spoke clear English. My friend was French and his little boy copied his accent.
I never thought anyone in my immediate circle would die before me, just goes to show me and you too that we don't have yesterday anymore and we don't have tomorrow yet. Only today.

Sydney and I traveled 2200 miles last week. Across the green, green grass of Montana, North and South Dakota, and Wyoming. Every place was so green and beautiful and the tall grass waved like the ocean across the prairie. We saw the president head and Crazy Horse, which has a face now. I won $120 in Deadwood, which meant I only lost $! on the trip. There was so much walking to do that I gained a lot of strength on the trip. I still feel the effects of the radiation which has been done now for 2 months, but its just a tired feeling, nothing else. I am in a period of remission and am still bald, think I will always be now. I'm thankful for this time...hope it continues a long, long time.

I still struggle with my belief in the next world. There are times I think life is like a light switch. Turn it off and the light goes away but turn it back on it comes back, but is it the same light? Does it matter? do we all belong to the same light?
I have a friend who believes that when we die we return to that source, call it a light, or a universal conscience. I wonder then why did God make only one of me if he was going to mix us all together in the same pot anyway? I have had a lot of trouble accepting the Catholic's belief that the bread and wine actually become the true blood and body of Christ. But the other night at Mass I was thinking about all of us belonging to the same source, GOD, and if we pass into that when we die,then what is so unbelievable about Jesus passing back into the physical realm during the Mass? Food for thought.....
If there is only one trip here I sure am happy that God put me in America, but then I feel sad that I might have taken a place a starving African could have used and I wonder if I have fulfilled what ever mission I was set upon to justify my good life.