Happy Valentines Day

Hello all and welcome to another episode of Greg’s insomnia fueled blog posting, brought to you live at 2:15 AM on Valentines Day.

Happy Valentines Day! May you all find true love. If it is even half as strong as the one I have found, it will be enough to fulfill you for many lifetimes.

I haven’t posted in a few weeks, and the last one I did was really not as much as I had to say, but I am just going to have to leave some stuff out.
You guys don’t want to know every detail anyway, sometimes I get carried away. Then I go back and read this stuff, and think, it is pretty pompous of me to assume that people actually care about half the crap I write here. Why should I be so interesting to them?
So I will try to keep it to the highlights this time, although so much has happened in 2008 already. I can’t believe it is mid February! What a crappy year so far (nice way to start a posting right?).

There has not been really any good news to speak of, but a ton of bad.
Lets see.
1) Got two implants put in, they were totally not what we were told they were going to be, and a much bigger deal to recover from than we were told. Mega bait and switch got pulled on us this time. It is a long enough story to warrant a book, and it really should involve a phonebook full of lawyers after everything came to a close.
2) Have been at MUSC for one reason or another 22 out of the last 37 days. Should have a building named after me by now or at least my own parking space. I think I am going to start lecturing there; maybe they can put me on as an adjunct professor.
3) One of those 22 days included a near death experience, the likes of which I have never had before.
4) Have felt the worst I felt since the diagnosis of this fun little hobby of mine since back in 2002, that lasted about 3 weeks.
5) Got my first brain scan done. (Came back clear, does that mean I don’t have any brains…. clear?)
The list goes on, but enough of that.

I have a CT scan today, what a romantic way to celebrate V-tines. I get to drink a liter of badly flavored pina-coloda, radioactive goo. Then get an IV with more sickening radioactive dye flushed through me at 50 MPH, and sit in a big donut shaped machine for the afternoon. I am swooning with anticipation. Oh and by the way, the nice painful operation to get the implants put in which supposedly remove the need for an IV ever again, does not apply to the CT dye, as it has to be put in at high velocity. So that port is useless in this situation.
This CT scan is the big picture one that will tell us the overall progress or regress of my many blooming tumors and blood clots. Friday we will have a meeting with the Dr. to get the results and do our big quarterly planning session for what is next.

This week is my recovery week from Chemo last Monday thru Friday. It has been a rough one again. On Wednesday I slept on and off until 6PM when Cindy got home. I was up for about 2 hours for lunch and to do dishes, at 1:00 but back down again after that. The other days have about like this one, but they should get better soon (please). This whole week I have not had to strength to do anything but stay on the couch and periodically drag myself to the bathroom. Even that procedure took help from Cindy on Sunday and Monday.
Tomorrow I am going solo to the CT scan, so that will be quite the challenge. I will at least double up on the pain meds. I really need to get some rest tonight and not be on here writing to all of you. But I can’t turn my brain off yet. It has been shut down all week.

Let me get to some lighter topics if you still have time to read this while your boss is not looking.
3 of my 4 sisters were able to come down for a visit a couple of weeks ago and miraculously enough those were the best 2 days I have felt all year so far. I am glad they got to see me in good shape instead of miserable.
All of my sisters and my dad chipped in and did a special treat for Cindy that weekend. The theme of the visit was to give her some much needed time off from taking care of my cantankerous old crusty butt and go to a spa for a massage and have her favorite meal prepared (eggplant parmesan). It was wonderful and she enjoyed it immensely, especially the part where she got a break from me, LOL. Many thanks for taking care of my girl and letting her know her herculean efforts are appreciated.
During the visit Tammy presented me with two new sweat shirts. Here is a picture of us together with our matching “Puck Pancreatic Cancer” shirts.

The other one says, “F@#K CANCER”, exactly as I typed it. Let me tell you, these are a huge hit down at the Hollings Cancer Center. The nurses in particular went nuts for them. If you are interested she got them at this site called http://www.cafepress.com/. Go to the shop by category section, and choose medical and fitness. There is a plethora of ailments they cover and hundreds of designs. Great gift ideas for anyone with some kind of sickness or family of somebody sick. I learned here that the purple ribbon is the Pancreatic Cancer symbol thingy. Go check out the site, it is funny to read them if nothing else.

Cindy is a genius. Enough said, and the following idea of hers will prove it.
She noticed that everything I need to get to is always just out of reach or in the other room, and when I really don’t feel good, doing something as simple as sitting up to reach for the phone or a drink can be a big deal. Hurts my stomach, takes energy I don’t have and so on, I know that sounds ridiculous, but there are days when I literally cant even get to a sitting position in bed on my own no matter how hard I try. God forbid I need something that is in another room when I am home alone on those days, like a medication, which we keep in one central location.
So she had the idea to get a Rubbermaid storage drawer set that would be on wheels that I could move from room to room, chair to chair, upstairs or downstairs. I could store everything I need inside it and use the top as a nightstand/tabletop. Well that kind of a tool seems obvious now, but then it was a total revelation neither of us had ever thought of. We got totally excited and went right then, that night, to Wal-Mart to try to find such an item.
They had exactly what we were looking for and it only cost $16. We were back home in a flash and I was quickly planning out the organization of this wonderful tool.
I took it several steps further, you know me, I always go to the extreme in everything I do. So I was planning customizations and additions to the cabinet to make it even better.
It is so useful it deserved a proper name. I christened it the:

“S.S. Cindy - Mobile Command Center” or MCC for short.

Features or the MCC:
- 4 factory installed drawers, each devoted to some grouping of items, (level 1, top drawer, is medications, and writing materials for instance)
- 2 custom installed hooks installed on the port side for hanging or attaching future items as needed
- A custom installed trash bin on the starboard side
- A 6 port power strip with an 8 foot cord located on the lower aft side, to supply power for laptops, cell phone chargers, space heaters or whatever
- 2 custom installed lights that turn on automatically when level 2 is accessed and opened, this illuminates the entire MCC from the inside as it is constructed from clear plastic, very handy in locating items in the MCC in the middle of the night
- Custom installed clock
- and more to come I am sure

Hell, I think we should patent it and sell it to all people with limited mobility or handicaps. This is the greatest thing ever! I love it, and could not survive without it now. It is so much more valuable than the $16 price tag, even with all the customizations.
Here I am giving the tour of it to Wendi (right) and Tondi (left) before many of the customizations were done.

Here it is in the current configuration

I still have so much more to tell you about, but that is all I can do now. This burst of energy is about over. Until we speak again. Love to all of you who care enough to suffer through my blog postings and are interested in me.
Greg Hill (Captain of the SS Cindy – Mobile Command Center)