In answer to questions from many of you, Rick is between courses of treatment right now. He starts up again after his next doctor's appointment on the 22nd of July.
He has been feeling pretty good since he hasn't been getting the treatments, and if all looks good on the 22nd, he'll have three more treatments. I don't know what comes after that.
You will learn that Rick's dad, Mark, has a medical situation shaping up. Read on for details. Rick does not mention, but I think it's interesting, that Mark now has a tattoo in his abdomen.
Rick mentions moving, and we will be moving, back to our house, which has not sold in almost two years.
Now, here's Ricky:
July 9, 2009 – Thursday
July 4th kicked off an explosive period, predictably enough. Loop editor Ed Swan is going on vacation and needed two submissions in a row for the paper, so Mary and I were kept busy writing and drawing through the middle of the week to have our contributions for both deadlines ready by the 7th, which we did, miraculously enough.
This was also our first week of having Allysan stay with us for the week while school was out – a nice switch for all but it added to the busy-ness of the period. The whole reason for my taking this week off was to be totally free of work responsibility so we could spend time with John and Julie Blakemore, and daughter Sarah, arriving from Australia and Ireland, respectively, also on the 7th. Or maybe it was Monday, the 6th.
At any rate, John & Julie came over for the day Tuesday morning and Sarah arrived later in the afternoon. A joyous reunion after too long of an absence!
Wednesday, J. & J. were occupied most of the day at the Social Security office over town at 9th and Lenora, working out the details of John's social security allotment from Uncle Sam – a complexity since he's an American citizen as well as an official Aussie. While they were occupied with that, Sarah came over and spent part of the day with us, catching up on everything that's occupied her life as an adult. The last time I saw her she was about 3 feet tall so there was a lot of ground to cover.
Likewise, in the midst of all this, the Quartermaster Heights “water system” blew a leak in its sub-standard piping. With no water meters on the system and the pipes consisting of untraceable sub-standard styrene, we had no clue as to where to start looking. Some of the older residents recalled that the last time this happened it was due to the sub-standard piping in our (i.e., Reva's) house.
A quick check revealed that the repairs made under the house then were (guess what) sub-standard, and dripping but plainly not the leak we were looking for this time.
Harley and I spent two days walking around the neighborhood consulting the sub-standard pipe map until Harley found it in a ditch, coming out from under a large tree. Apparently it had been leaking minimally since the day the pipes had been put in and the leak had fed the tree which wrapped its roots around the abundant water source until the combined weight of the tree and the roots' stranglehold crushed the pipe. Before the leak could be repaired the tree had to be cut down and the massive root ball cut away.
This has been quite a vacation.
We got to spend a nice day with John and Julie over here. We packed up this afternoon (Thursday) with Allysan in attendance and hiked the beach at Lisabeula, which I forgot how to spell. We got home shortly before Gregg Rechtin arrived and we polished off no less than three complete pizzas with grapes and strawberries on the side.
That almost completes the major events of the week to date, except for:
Dad Tuel called this evening with the results of his latest colonoscopy. He has a miniscule tumor, almost microscopic but nonetheless malignant, in his transverse colon. So far, his doctor believes it can be removed by laparoscopic surgery, and he's going back in tomorrow to set a date for its exorcism. He'll try to call back tomorrow night with further information.
Geez! What a year this has been so far, at least medically. Very challenging.
July 10th, 2009, Friday
Dad's surgery is set for July 31st, the earliest date they could arrange. His doctor said if he'd come in for the colonoscopy a few days earlier, they probably could have removed it (the tumor) this week.
Hmm. July 31st is looking like an impacted period of time. I'm going on call the day after I return to work next Monday. We start the move back to Beulah Park on Saturday, August 1.
My next date with Swedish is the 22nd, the day after I come off call and my next day starting on call will be August 4th, shortly after the move starts and Dad goes in for surgery.
While Mary took JD to work (4 p.m. to midnight) Allysan wanted to go take a dunk in the pool and while she was splashing around, John, Julie, and Sarah dropped by for a last visit before continuing their journey on to see Bruce and Hugh – their last stop on their world wide excursion. Oh, it's hard to say good-bye. We wanted to go with them!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Day After the Last Treatment
The last treatment of the first series of treatments, that is. Rick is lying down right now, because yesterday's instillation hit him hard and he's recovering from the effects. He looks tired and a little gray still this morning. So he went and got back into our nice warm bed, with a good book (Patrick McManus' novel, Avalanche, the second of his Sheriff Bo Tully mystery novels. This and the first novel, The Blight Way, are available at your local library. For Vashon Islanders: this is Patrick McManus the writer who lives in Spokane, not Patrick McManus the guy who lives on Vashon and has a little career as an Albert Einstein impersonator). The book is entertaining, but I think Rick will be asleep soon, if not already.
(pause)
Yup, he's out like a light.
He is glad that this first series of six treatments is over. Now he is free of the medical community until July 22, we hope, when he will return for a biopsy to see how things are going, and then another three weeks of treatments, if everything looks OK at that time.
We were told that each treatment would make more of an impact on him, and while that has not been entirely the case, I can sure see it this time. Rick has really been knocked flat. Of course, he was on call last week, so worked half days last weekend. On call weeks took it out of him before he started the cancer treatments, so I can see why he's in complete collapse today.
My part of this is trying to figure out how to pay the regular bills as well as the medical bills. What savings we had were pretty well tapped out over the last year – sound familiar, anyone? - so it's a challenge. But, hey, I really enjoy a challenge. Although I've decided I need to keep the nitro pills at hand when I'm paying bills. Stress causes chest pains, and I'm not good at dealing with challenges when I'm having angina.
All I'm looking for here is a little sympathy. I figure plenty of people have it harder than we do, but the crap we're dealing with is sufficient that I wish to acknowledge it. So don't feel bad if I don't answer an email or otherwise respond immediately to whatever. Life is a little overwhelming right now, and sometimes I need to step away from reality and watch the waves at the beach for a few hours.
I'm hoping to attach a photo or two to this blog – a picture of Rick in the waiting room, and a head shot of Theresa, the nurse who does Rick's instillations, among other things. Even though she hates Vashon Islanders, she and Rick have formed a cordial working relationship, and she seems like a nice kid.
Also, a shot of the orange fish in the aquarium at the clinic office. This fish spends most of its time trying to find a way out. We admire its spunk, and pity its frustration.
Thank you for continued prayers and good wishes – we feel blessed in friends and family, and so grateful.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
More from the Tabletop Diary
This morning's tabletop diary entry:
June 7th, 2009 Sun
Yesterday I received a manila envelope-sized notification from the Washington State Department of Certification Services, serving me with a notice of polite businesslike intent to revoke my water worker's certificate if I do not complete my obligation to them to acquire 3.0 continuing education units (CTUs) by December of this year. My certificate #4199 will be invalidated and cast into the outer darkness by February of next year and my position as an unpaid government minion will be terminated and purged from the holy memory banks of the Washington State Department of Health data base. Amen. Forever and ever.
This governmental entity/appendage, an artifact from the draconian Nixon administration, was Federally Mandated in the early 70s as a reaction to the irritating re-occurrence of the Ohio River's tendency to catch fire and burn for days at a time. More importantly, Mr. Nixon was being caught up in an increasingly irritating incident known as Watergate and needed a diversion for the public more effective than simply announcing that he was not a crook. He therefore created the Safe Drinking Water Act and dumped the responsibility for its implementation into the lap of one John Ehrlichman, a son of the Northwest whom he did not trust, to keep him (Ehrlichman) out of his (Nixon's) hair.
Ehrlichmann took these federal riches back to his home state of Washington as a potentially huge feather in his political cap. He ended up going down as a Watergate conspirator anyway, a victim of political necessity, and 37 years later I'm soon to be out of compliance with the Feds if I don't get on the stick. Politics eventually victimizes everyone. A recent cartoon of mine bemoans this sad fact of life.
(P.S. I fed the dog.)
June 7th, 2009 Sun
Yesterday I received a manila envelope-sized notification from the Washington State Department of Certification Services, serving me with a notice of polite businesslike intent to revoke my water worker's certificate if I do not complete my obligation to them to acquire 3.0 continuing education units (CTUs) by December of this year. My certificate #4199 will be invalidated and cast into the outer darkness by February of next year and my position as an unpaid government minion will be terminated and purged from the holy memory banks of the Washington State Department of Health data base. Amen. Forever and ever.
This governmental entity/appendage, an artifact from the draconian Nixon administration, was Federally Mandated in the early 70s as a reaction to the irritating re-occurrence of the Ohio River's tendency to catch fire and burn for days at a time. More importantly, Mr. Nixon was being caught up in an increasingly irritating incident known as Watergate and needed a diversion for the public more effective than simply announcing that he was not a crook. He therefore created the Safe Drinking Water Act and dumped the responsibility for its implementation into the lap of one John Ehrlichman, a son of the Northwest whom he did not trust, to keep him (Ehrlichman) out of his (Nixon's) hair.
Ehrlichmann took these federal riches back to his home state of Washington as a potentially huge feather in his political cap. He ended up going down as a Watergate conspirator anyway, a victim of political necessity, and 37 years later I'm soon to be out of compliance with the Feds if I don't get on the stick. Politics eventually victimizes everyone. A recent cartoon of mine bemoans this sad fact of life.
(P.S. I fed the dog.)
More from the Tabletop Diary
This morning's tabletop diary entry:
June 7th, 2009 Sun
Yesterday I received a manila envelope-sized notification from the Washington State Department of Certification Services, serving me with a notice of polite businesslike intent to revoke my water worker's certificate if I do not complete my obligation to them to acquire 3.0 continuing education units (CTUs) by December of this year. My certificate #4199 will be invalidated and cast into the outer darkness by February of next year and my position as an unpaid government minion will be terminated and purged from the holy memory banks of the Washington State Department of Health data base. Amen. Forever and ever.
This governmental entity/appendage, an artifact from the draconian Nixon administration, was Federally Mandated in the early 70s as a reaction to the irritating re-occurrence of the Ohio River's tendency to catch fire and burn for days at a time. More importantly, Mr. Nixon was being caught up in an increasingly irritating incident known as Watergate and needed a diversion for the public more effective than simply announcing that he was not a crook. He therefore created the Safe Drinking Water Act and dumped the responsibility for its implementation into the lap of one John Ehrlichman, a son of the Northwest whom he did not trust, to keep him (Ehrlichman) out of his (Nixon's) hair.
Ehrlichmann took these federal riches back to his home state of Washington as a potentially huge feather in his political cap. He ended up going down as a Watergate conspirator anyway, a victim of political necessity, and 37 years later I'm soon to be out of compliance with the Feds if I don't get on the stick. Politics eventually victimizes everyone. A recent cartoon of mine bemoans this sad fact of life.
(P.S. I fed the dog.)
June 7th, 2009 Sun
Yesterday I received a manila envelope-sized notification from the Washington State Department of Certification Services, serving me with a notice of polite businesslike intent to revoke my water worker's certificate if I do not complete my obligation to them to acquire 3.0 continuing education units (CTUs) by December of this year. My certificate #4199 will be invalidated and cast into the outer darkness by February of next year and my position as an unpaid government minion will be terminated and purged from the holy memory banks of the Washington State Department of Health data base. Amen. Forever and ever.
This governmental entity/appendage, an artifact from the draconian Nixon administration, was Federally Mandated in the early 70s as a reaction to the irritating re-occurrence of the Ohio River's tendency to catch fire and burn for days at a time. More importantly, Mr. Nixon was being caught up in an increasingly irritating incident known as Watergate and needed a diversion for the public more effective than simply announcing that he was not a crook. He therefore created the Safe Drinking Water Act and dumped the responsibility for its implementation into the lap of one John Ehrlichman, a son of the Northwest whom he did not trust, to keep him (Ehrlichman) out of his (Nixon's) hair.
Ehrlichmann took these federal riches back to his home state of Washington as a potentially huge feather in his political cap. He ended up going down as a Watergate conspirator anyway, a victim of political necessity, and 37 years later I'm soon to be out of compliance with the Feds if I don't get on the stick. Politics eventually victimizes everyone. A recent cartoon of mine bemoans this sad fact of life.
(P.S. I fed the dog.)
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Offshore and Today's Entry in the Tabletop Diary
Rick wrote this morning:
June 6, 2009 Sat.
D-Day Europe, 1944. The beginning of the end for Fortress Europe.
After three weeks of heat, culminating in this week's temps into the low 90s, a transitional period blew into town on Thursday evening with hot high velocity wind events, "micro bursts."
This morning it's all collapsed like a soap bubble and clouds and rain have arrived with temps in the mid-fifties.
Yesterday, Friday, June 5, was the fifth and next to last BCG "instillation" and I'm also on call for the poor beleaguered Water District #19.
The heat has driven the treatment plant mercilessly, running both filters nearly 24 hours a day to keep up. Additionally, we shut the wells off for a month on May 10th as we do every year in order to monitor the aquifer levels. Usually this is okay because usually we don't have any serious dry weather until maybe a week or so in July and/or August, but this year we got ambushed.
This year is not a La Nina or an El Nino year it appears. I've heard it referred to as a once-in-a-blue-moon occasion which has to be called an "El Nada" year; that is to be presumed as a whole year when nothing is predictable, weather-wise.
Friday, June 5, 2009
Week Five
Second to last treatment of this series this morning. We have it down now: leave the house by 6:30 to catch the 7 a.m. ferry, because if we catch the 7:15 a.m. ferry every car in Seattle is on the road. My theory is that most people in Seattle leave for work at 7:30. That's the way I explain the guaranteed gridlock at 7:45.
We drive in on Spokane Street, get on I-5, stay to the right, take the Madison exit, and head up the hill to the parking garage for the Arnold Pavilion and the Nordstrom Tower, then head up to the urologist's office. I think I've given the details for what happens there in previous postings.
Up until now we have taken the 10:20 ferry home. Couldn't make that 9:25, so we'd stop and get coffee and breakfast (MacDonald's – we're not talking fine dining), or just coffee to drink in the ferry line on the dock. Today, though, we got in and out, and except for a delay on Fauntleroy where they are digging deep rectangular holes in the pavement and then filling them back in with concrete, had a pretty straight shot to the 9:25.
So now we're home, and I'm writing and Rick's cartooning. We're doing this as fast as we can before we both topple over from lack of sleep.
One more treatment, next Friday, and then 6 weeks off.
You know, when you hear the word “cancer” it throws you right off your feed and off your game. I've been pondering the power of that word ever since Rick went through this the first time, in 1998. What we've learned is that many cancers are very treatable these days, but you don't think of that until you've been through that initial feeling that the world has fallen away beneath your feet.
It's such a nasty shock – I mean, it's easy to say, “We're all mortal,” in an intellectual detached way, but when it hits you that you, personally, are mortal, RIGHT NOW – that's a whole 'nuther thang, and there isn't much detachment at hand.
But then you are in the toils of the medical system, and your life depends on and revolves around appointments and treatments and ferry schedules, all the rather mundane details of doing what you have to do to get well again. You do it all, you miss work and go places you never wanted to go and do things you never wanted to do, so you can go back to being detached about mortality.
I don't think the detachment is ever quite the same as it was before cancer, though.
We drive in on Spokane Street, get on I-5, stay to the right, take the Madison exit, and head up the hill to the parking garage for the Arnold Pavilion and the Nordstrom Tower, then head up to the urologist's office. I think I've given the details for what happens there in previous postings.
Up until now we have taken the 10:20 ferry home. Couldn't make that 9:25, so we'd stop and get coffee and breakfast (MacDonald's – we're not talking fine dining), or just coffee to drink in the ferry line on the dock. Today, though, we got in and out, and except for a delay on Fauntleroy where they are digging deep rectangular holes in the pavement and then filling them back in with concrete, had a pretty straight shot to the 9:25.
So now we're home, and I'm writing and Rick's cartooning. We're doing this as fast as we can before we both topple over from lack of sleep.
One more treatment, next Friday, and then 6 weeks off.
You know, when you hear the word “cancer” it throws you right off your feed and off your game. I've been pondering the power of that word ever since Rick went through this the first time, in 1998. What we've learned is that many cancers are very treatable these days, but you don't think of that until you've been through that initial feeling that the world has fallen away beneath your feet.
It's such a nasty shock – I mean, it's easy to say, “We're all mortal,” in an intellectual detached way, but when it hits you that you, personally, are mortal, RIGHT NOW – that's a whole 'nuther thang, and there isn't much detachment at hand.
But then you are in the toils of the medical system, and your life depends on and revolves around appointments and treatments and ferry schedules, all the rather mundane details of doing what you have to do to get well again. You do it all, you miss work and go places you never wanted to go and do things you never wanted to do, so you can go back to being detached about mortality.
I don't think the detachment is ever quite the same as it was before cancer, though.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
O BCG
It has been a big week. Rick and I celebrated birthdays, our friend Sonya came to visit, and Rick had his fourth BCG treatment.
What he is told about the BCG treatments seems to change from week to week. At first he was told, “It's like a vaccination.” It is immunotherapy, meaning that the BCG revs up his immune system, as a vaccine would. His immune system then attacks the BCG, as well as any cancer cells that are hanging around. This idea pleased Rick: “They're making my body into a cancer killing machine!”
Yesterday someone explained to him that yeah, the BCG does activate his immune system, but unlike a vaccination, the treatments do not produce a permanent effect. When the treatments stop, the effect stops.
So gradually we learn what's going on.
He has two more treatments, two more Fridays, to go in this course of treatments. Then he'll have six weeks off, at which time he'll have a biopsy to see how the inside of his bladder is doing. After that he'll have three more treatments, and then, perhaps(?) six weeks after that he'll have another biopsy. If everything looks peachy then, he'll go six months before coming back in, and if he's looking OK then he'll go to annual check ups to monitor his condition.
At least that is the myth I'm telling myself today. I think this is what we can expect, but things change and we learn something different.
Today he said he felt lousy when he got up, and he went back to sleep for an hour or two. As he was frying an egg for Allysan, he told me, “I think I'm having a BCG day.” So he's not feeling so great today. Knowing that he's not supposed to be feeling great might be some small consolation, but doesn't make him feel any better. Only “tincture of time” and the prayers and good wishes of those who care for him will do that. Thank you for those prayers and good wishes.
The birthday celebrations were lovely.
Sonya came up on Monday, and on Tuesday we observed my birthday. On Wednesday, the eve of Rick's birthday, friend Gregg came over for dinner and we put some little candles that Sonya got on the pizza. They were letters on toothpicks that said “Happy Birthday,” and we put them around the rim of the pizza, lit 'em up, and sang the birthday song to Rick, then ate the pizza. I got out my guitar and sang “When I'm 64” and “In My Life,” among other songs. Then I brought on the birthday brownies. A good time was had by all!
Thanks for all the birthday calls and emails – these things mean a lot to Rick. He has really been enjoying hearing from you.
So that's week 4 here in bladder cancer treatment land.
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