I Will Win My War on Cancer

7-15-10 The End I hope

2010-07-15T16:21:00.002-04:00

Well it's been a long hard battle, but for the time being, I have no detectable cancer in my body. I must get a CT Scan tomorrow because I was to get one this past week, but no one told me about it. The surgeon's right hand is not much good. He was to tell me a lot of different things in the Hospital and failed to do so, and he was to call and set up a CT Scan for me in Fort Wayne, but failed to do so. Dr. Rushing is very high on Dr Reiger, but not so much on her Doctor Assistant.

I got a good report from Dr. Reiger as to how the surgery went and how I am recovering. I think I mentioned that I was swimming but that I was not allowed to swim until I got permission from Dr. Reiger. Again that was to be told to me in the hospital, but it was not. I now have permission to swim in my pool but no where else for 7 weeks. I can exercise, but not to lift more than 15 lbs. My scars are still healing on the outside, and there are still stitches on the inside that need to be healed.

I'm scheduled to see Dr. Rushing in two months to see how things are progressing, but he feels confident that all will be well. I feel pretty good, but still have some pain in my chest or lungs. My scars are healing, but they don't have skin covering everything, so I have to stay out of any water that might have any little critters in it.

I don't think I mentioned it before, but my eyesight has been getting much worse in the past two months. I went to the eye doctor today to find out that I do have cataracts and will have to have my eyes checked and new glasses at least. It is caused by the steroids that I received with the chemo. If it ain't one thing it's another, these days. I've really noticed it when I drive and I can no longer read the street signs. I've also had trouble trying to read the paper etc. I really noticed it last week when I went to the gym and they have no sound on the TV's, just the closed caption. I could not read the fast moving caption part. I could read the head lines, but nothing else. Today when they tested my close up vision on my left eye, I could only read the really BIG letters. My right eye I could read down to the forth and fifth lines, but my left, line two. I'm talking BIG LETTERS.

Well kids for now I'm going to close the blog. I hope it is forever, if something else happens. I'll put it on FB and then maybe start doing the blog again. Let's pray that never happens again. Again thanks for all your prayers and concerns. It showed that over 150 people read this blog at one time or another. Thanks to all of you. Love Tom

7-7-10

2010-07-07T16:38:00.002-04:00

It's Larry's 62nd birthday. He could stop working and take his SS and get Medicare. If I were him, that's what I did. Thank God for Medicare, and Sharon's medical from the State of California. It has saved us a small fortune in medical bills. It's bad enough having to pay all the co-pays, but to had to pay for the surgery's would have put us in the poor house.

Speaking of the poor house. We had our insurance canceled two years ago after the two water losses in the basement. One in June the other in January. We had to pay over $7,000.00 for our homeowners and then it was a $5,000.00 deductible and limited coverage on everything. They would only cover up to like a $500,000 on the house and $50,000 on contents. They then canceled our insurance this year because they said our credit was bad because we fought the insurance settlement with the guy from Service master and lost because they said I got paid so I had to pay this guy whatever he asked for. It didn't matter that I had a $1,000 deductible and he overcharged me some $3,000.00. The judge didn't even consider it. She just said if the insurance co. paid you, then you have to pay them what they ask for.

Well thank God they canceled me, because we found another Insurance Co. that wrote a real Homeowners Policy with the correct amount of coverage on the house and replacement cost on everything and full coverage on contents. It cost $18oo.00 a year. I tell you, you better look before you buy.

As for my health. I seem to be getting better day by day, but not near as quickly as I would like or that I expected. I tried taking just one pill at a time, but trust me that only worked for about an hour. I usually have to take two pill every 4 to 6 hours. If I let it get much longer than that, it takes too long to catch up. I had to get more pills today and found that they can't get me the really good pills, because they are #2 rated narcotics and that can only be gotten by written prescription. So now I have 90 of the weaker version but still limited to two every 4 to 6 hours. They told me to take 4 number 200 advill in the morning and the evening plus the pills. He said that should do about the same as the good stuff.

I have an appointment for the 14th of July to see the surgeon and Dr. Rushing. I should know more then and will let you all know. In the mean time, it will be little action on the blog. I'm swimming each day for about an hour. I try to do at least 10 min. at a time free style and then the rest of the time brest stroke or just cleaning to pool or whatever has to be done in the water. The pool is again in beautiful shape. When I can swim every day, the pool is always first class.

I tell you more when I know it, probably on the 14th or so. Love to all Tom

7-3-10

2010-07-03T08:49:00.002-04:00

Well, I finally got someone over here so I could do some chores. My brother David was so kind as to come over on Thursday. Since then we have been on the move. Thursday we got the pool up enough so we could at least get in, but we were shooting for 85 so it would be comfortable. Friday it finally reached its mark, but first we had to do some chores.

Our first stop was to the butcher shop to pick up a case of steak. Then we headed for Kroger's so I could refill the house. We had been gone since June 3rd as far as my shopping was concerned. As Sharon always says, you do the shopping, because it has to be what you want and how you want it so everyone is happy. I don't know why she says that, but it must be true if Sharon always says it.

We also had to go to the bread store because we had no bread at the house of any kind. My last bit of a bread product was an old flat bread from the freezer.

We also went to the Cony Island to have a great breakfast. If you have never had a cony breakfast, you just haven't lived. I've been trying to tell them to have a special with a omelet and then cony sauce over the top and cheese on top of that. For some reason they just don't want to do it. They have all the typical breakfast specials, but the one thing that they could have that no one else could have, they just will not do. I've tried to tell them that I am a food expert, but they just don't seem to care. Since at least half of the Fort Wayne police force eats breakfast there every day, I guess they think they know more than I do.

So after our chores were done and our breakfast complete, we headed back to see how the pool was doing. It was flat ass perfect, 85 degrees and a beautiful clear and worm afternoon. Sharon came home for her afternoon nap and after she got up she came down and watched us swim. You can't really call it swimming for me yet, but I do get under the water and I must mention I don't have anything on. I have been trying to get some of the bandages to fall off of me. When the surgeon did it, she took the skin with it. They did all fall off yesterday after the swim. I still have plenty of stitches, but they said it's ok as long as they are not open, to keep them exposed to the air etc..

I'm still having to take pain pills about four to six hours, but I'm going to try today to only take one pill each time as apposed to two that I have been taking. We'll see how that works out. The good thing about that is that if you feel you need another, you can take it, since you can take two every four to six hours. As for the rest of my health, my BP was 123/76 and my HR was 84. My BS was bit high because we went to the Essen House for dinner last night and I had some things I should not have had. We then came home and when Sharon finally arrived, we watched a movie together.

Well I'm going to get David up and we are going to go buy fireworks for tonight and tomorrow. I've also just been asked to go to the Lake from my neighbors who just moved up there while we were in Carlsbad. They miss us already. So I'll sign off for now, I'll start again on Tuesday. Tom

6-30-10

2010-06-30T15:18:00.002-04:00

I have found out that you forget a lot when your on pain medication. Sharon asked me today if I applied my medication for my radiation recall. I remember thinking I should do it, but I never carried out the thought. That has happened a lot recently. I keep thinking it's Tuesday because it has only been two days since I've been home and that means it's Tuesday not Wed. That makes sense doesn't it. It seems perfectly logical to me.

My BS is still a bit screwed up. It was 189 this morning. My BP was 112/71 and my HR was 73. I found another insulin pen today that I can use when my BS is too high in between meals. I don't like to use them, but when you are trying to get regulated, it's the only thing to use. Hopefully it will be corrected by the weekend.

Brian, Darrin, and the kids took off for Tim's in Northern Michigan at around 2pm today and will be gone until Monday. I'm home alone, so if anyone wants to come over and cook etc. feel free to do so. You can actually do what ever you want too. The pool is in great shape and warm. I'm easy to please food wise, and I'm a brilliant conversationalist. I broke, so don't expect any money, just plenty of thank yous and pleases. I'm very easy to take care of as long as you do it just the way I like it. Just ask Sharon, she has been doing it her way for 47 years.

Hopefully by the time the kids get back, I will be off the drugs and able to drive the car I let them barrow for the week. It's great having Darrin and Riley home, but there not actually here very long at all. We did get a chance to be with them in Carlsbad, so it is about as long as we ever get to see them. I think there was a song about that. "I'm going to grow up just like you dad."

Love to all Tom

6-29-10

2010-06-29T10:47:00.002-04:00

Hi ya kids hi ya hi ya. Well I made it through the surgery and now I'm at home recovering. I do want to thank all of you for your prayers and concerns. I will now give you a funny blow by blow of what I can remember of the surgery days or is it daze????/

It's 5:20 am Friday the 25th. of June 2010. I'm in front of the check in lady, and she has no idea what she is doing or why she is doing it. She asks Matilda some questions and she too has no idea of what they are doing. We ask if we should take the ribbon of paper we just produced when we checked in. She's not sure and asks Matilda again. Matilda is not sure either. They both decide it's best if we both sit down and wait to be called on by Sapphire. When we get the call, Sapphire, as you might expect, is new, and has no idea of how to even work the typewriter. Yes, I said typewriter, the computer is not working. We find that Sapphire, is new, because she is from a crack team of fill-in's. It seems the POOL of fill-in's are being tested to see if they have any, who can actually, FILL IN.

We are finally escorted to an actual medical pool that is also being occupied by the FILL IN'S .COM club. This one does say RN on her name tag, so we expect she is actually an RN. Or at least we think so. She is now asking actual medical information. Such as are you here for an operation?????? Explain the procedure you are expecting. Are you able to do this procedure yourself???? No, she didn't say that!!!! I just thought she might say that at this point. She then asked all the stuff about my medical history and the medications I was on etc. After that, I was escorted to another exam room and a new nurse appeared. This one had no identification on her at all. When I ask her about that fact, I was told she forgot it in the car this morning. I told her I would wait for her to get it, she just laughed and continued to give me a BP test and a Blood sample for diabetes. I then asked her where she went to school, for what she asked? I said for Nursing. She then asked, are you kidding me, I said no I'm just shitting ya. No. I want to know where you went for Nursing. She went to a two year accelerated program from Ivy Tech. I wanted to ask which parts did they eliminate in order to accelerate the program.

I finally met up with a real doctor and she was just that, a real doctor. She was Asian, but she could type faster than Cate, so I knew she was good. It turns out she went to Yale and was quite smart. She then handled all the other information until we met with the actual team that was to do the surgery.

The doctor that was going to handle putting me to sleep was a resident from Australia and she was in her final year of residency. More on her later. Dr Reiger was the last person I met with before the actual surgery. She again explained what she was going to do and how long it would take etc. We had been told up to four hours, but she said it would not take more than an hour and a half. With that I was escorted into the operating room after I kissed Sharon good bye.

In the operation all I can remember is how damn cold it was. When I saw Dr. Reiger in winter thick gloves, I panicked, but by the time I could say anything, I was asleep and the next thing I could remember was waking up in recovery.

Eight hours later I was finally sent up to a room. The floor that I was to be on for the next four days was completely full. I don't remember much until Saturday morning. The effects of the drugs were just wearing off and I was getting a bit testy. All I can really remember is telling the nurses that I was not going to take their drugs that I have much better drugs of my own. Believe it or not, the one nurse bought that line. As it turns out, so did the doctor that was on call for my surgeon. He said I could take my own pills except for the diabetes medication. He said they had perfected a great diabetes procedure and I would have to take theirs. Believe it or not, their's sucked. I still had to take it. I will not get into the disagreements, but they never got my blood work below 180, and it was as high as 320. Today my BS was 152 after only half a day on my system. I will not go into all I had to do to be able to get home yesterday, but let's just say I had to challenge the doctor on call to a foot race. I said I felt just fine, but they made me get off all the medication for pain and all my injections before I could leave. I did, but it was not easy to do so. I'm now on just pills for pain, but I am able to do it. It will be a week or so before they get all the tests back, but I'm sure I will free from any detectable cancer at that time. I have it from a good source. God. He told me that I would be OK, at least for now. He did say however that prayer was still a darn good idea. Thanks all, I love each and every one of you. Tom

6-22-10

2010-06-22T16:27:00.002-04:00

For those of you that thought I dropped off the face of the earth, you were wrong. I just could not get to the computer. At the CBI you are only allowed to use the computer for 20 minutes at a time. I have a hard enough time just signing in, much less answering any e-mail etc. I could not write much in the time left over. I then came home to find that my internet was down due to a storm on Friday. So today we got the new Router and now I can communicate again.

I hope I have not lost too many viewers, I'm scheduled to go to the hospital Thursday and I will have my surgery at 7am on Friday. If they can do the scope type surgery, I'll be out in two or three days, if they have to do more than scope, I will be in another day or so. I have to go Thursday to get some tests done etc. I did have my blood test done and my hemoglobin came from 7 up to 11.2. I found out that normal is from 12 to 18. However they said it was good enough to have the surgery.

I have been trying to do as much activity as I can stand. Today I had to cut 16 bolts out of the cement where we had the slide, that the Insurance Co. said I must eliminate, used to be. It seemed like a simple job since we have a drummel tool that has every attachment known to man. However this man was not able to put the right combination together to get the job done. I tried like four different combinations and all of them were too small to actually cut the bolts. Since they have been in the ground since 1988, I guess they were harder than the new junk they sell today. I finally had to get a drill driver and an old cut off saw blade that I had and got down as close to the cement as I could and cut them off. Of course I had to change all my clothes because I was scared to death that something would go flying and cut me somewhere. So I'm out there in a winter jacket and long jeans and goggles and winter gloves. It had to be at least 85 and I was sweating like a stuffed pig. It would have been OK if I could have done it quickly, but it was not happening quickly. Besides that, after I cut them off as close as I could, I had to then grind them down so they did not stick out of the cement. All in all it was a two hour job, and then I had to put all the damn tools I had gotten out, away. Hell, it took another 30 minutes to do that. I still haven't wound up all the power cords I had to use to get the power to the drill. That's another thing, I could not find my battery powered drill, so I had to have three power cords that I had to hunt for, to get the job completed. Now I'm tired after writing all this out.

As to my health, I'm still have to treat the radiation recall with the three different topical treatments that I have. It has gone down quit a bit, but it still is swollen. I had to use it quite a bit today with the drill and all, but it seemed to be OK after I was finished. My BS was 125 this morning which is OK but not great. My HR was 79 and my BP was 128/72. I have much more energy, but I still have to rest after about 30 minutes of activity. I have been sleeping well and getting about 7 to 8 hours a night.

I will try to keep you all up to date as to what is happening. I can still use the prayers, I did get the Prayer for the Sick yesterday, but I will take all I can get. Thanks for listening. Love ya, Tom

6-14-10

2010-06-14T19:58:00.002-04:00

The weekend was busy and now I'm waiting for the gang to get here. Tom and I are going to the Del Mar Fair tomorrow and I'm excited to see how far I can go. I've been feeling good, but my radiation recall arm is still big and red. I've been using my medication, but it is being mean. My BS is OK and was actually at 86 one morning. We went to Pollo Loco and the meal was great. Tom did not want to go, because he said it wll just be another fast food junk place. He loved it. So did I. They grill the chicken and it has the best taste and it is moist as it can be. It actually falls off the bone, but it is still moist.

I'll let you know how I do tomorrow. I'm going to see how many of Sharon's old Lottery people are around at their booth. Untill later. Love Tom

6-12-10

2010-06-12T16:40:00.004-04:00

I thought it was time to let you know that I still exist. I've been in Carlsbad for an Annual meeting and then I headed for Phoenix on Tuesday. I had some things I had to do and some people I had to see. By the way, the real estate market is still in terrible shape. Most of the homes are upside down unless you bought in the early 90's and I did. Most of the ones that were bought in the 2000's are as much as 1/2 there original price. It might be a good time to buy, but not a good time to sell.

From Phoenix I went to the Las Vegas area, and it ism no better real estate wise. The strip is still there and there were a bunch of California people driving to Las Vegas from LA etc. I stopped to see a friend who has a new business near Las Vegas and he thinks things will be good for him shortly. Now only time will tell, we'll have to see how them wind blows.

As for me, my radiation recall has returned. I've got the medication, so it should get better in about a week. No way to check my BP and HR but my BS has been OK I'll keep you informed

I was on the computer at the CBI and there is a 20 minute limit and I had been on much longer than that and a lady ask me to please let her use it for just a few minutes. Being on the board, it's not a good idea to tell her no.

The entire family will be here in less than a week. It's Caila's 18th birthday on the 18th of June. Her golden birthday. It's the only time in her life that it will happen. It's also the only time in her life that she will turn 18. So any way we are going to celebrate.

Love to all

Tom

6-02-10

2010-06-02T20:06:00.002-04:00

Happy Birthday Sharon, she has finally caught up with me, we are both the same age for the next 3 months. As she said today, she got the best birthday gift she has ever had. We found out today that I have only one Sarcoma, left on my lungs. It is close to the surface and should be able to be gotten with a scope and a camera. When I met with Dr. Rushing today he was very matter of fact, and called me a survivor once again. He examined me and said everything look just fine. He then went and looked at the CT Scan. When he came back in, he said I have some very good news. There is only one Sarcoma on your lung, and it has shrunk in size from the last scan. He then went on to explain what that could mean. As he said, they will not know if it is entirely dead at this point, or what % of the sarcoma is dead and what part alive. He also explained, for the first time, that the sarcoma on my arm was actually different than what he had at first thought. Sarcoma's are the rarest of all cancers, but there are still many different kinds of sarcoma's. The reason they stopped giving me chemo the first time was that they could not stop the sarcoma from growing. The chemo they decided to use was not the best one for the kind of sarcoma it turned out to be. The one that I have on my lung is as rare as hen's teeth. The surgeon was actually excited to be able to remove the sarcoma so she could have it analysed and tested to see what chemo's work on it, and which ones do nothing. She told us they never get to see this kind of sarcoma. I've known I was always special, but I didn't know how rare I was. This whole thing has been an experiment I now find out. It was a new use of already tried chemo's, but they were administered differently and in higher amount than normal. They took me down as low as I could go. I found out today that there was no way I could have had any more chemo.

I still do not know what happened to the other sarcoma's that were first visible on the scan. As Dr Rushing said, I know what we can do, I still do not know what God wants to do. He explained that they have not been able to kill sarcoma's under normal circumstances. They have killed just about every kind of cancer in the lab, but not in a human. I only know this, I will never underestimate the power of prayer. I know I had a tremendous amount of people praying for me. I even had a lady at the grocery tell me she was praying for me. To my knowledge, I have never met this lady. I was checking out and she was in front of me, and as she was ready to go and I was getting things out of my basket, she touched my hand and just whispered, I praying for you sir, good luck with your cancer. The ladies at the bread store told me Tuesday that they were all praying for me.

The other prayer that has come almost true it the fact that Maura's old roommate that owns the Boston Celtics, has offered me and Maura a ticket to tomorrows game. I must now some how get on the early flight out of Fort Wayne to Dallas so I can get into San Diego early enough to catch the 6pm game in LA. Now I still need prayers for that to happen. I know it is not all that important, but it sure makes a guy feel special. I knew there was a reason I was always nice to her when she would come to visit during college with Maura. She has been a great friend to Maura and her family.

As for me, my BP was a little high today at the Dr's office 140/78 and my HR 76 This morning it was 123/65 but my HR was also 76. My BS was a little high again at 156. I feel so much better, I drove both ways, 250 miles today. I did happen to get a hours nap after I got home at pm. It's now 8:30 and I have to o pack. This might be my last blog for a while. It depends on when I can get on a computer in Carlsbad. Love to all. Tom

6-01-10

2010-06-01T12:43:00.002-04:00

June 1st., do you believe it. I got up early today, 6:30am and took a long hot shower and got dressed and headed for the bread store. It is the first time I have done the bread order in about three months. I had to get five racks of bread, so it was one of our larger orders. If you get there around 8am there is usually only restaurants there fighting for the good stuff. This time there was a church that gives the bread to the deserving people of their church. There was one of their guys on the floor kneeling in prayer in front of the white bread. I sort of joked and said something funny, at least I thought it was funny, and the other guy said he is giving thanks for the abundance of bread today. I wanted to say if he gets out of the way, there will be twelve less loaves to pray over. I've seen these guys before, but have never seen the guy who was praying. He seemed to be one of those over the top religious guys that prays over anything. When they couldn't find the kaiser rolls I wanted him to pray for me. Not really, I just asked one of the girls if they had any in the back. Thank God, they did. So I knelt down and said my prayer, paid and left.

My next stop was the butcher shop to get some beef for the beef Manhattans. Believe it or not, beef has gone up 20% in a week. Pork went up 40% a week or so ago. We will definitely have to raise prices if this keeps up. It's ok if it is just up for a couple of weeks and then comes back down, but this is crazy.

By the way I was able to walk and do all the lifting in the bread store. At the butcher shop I had the boy lift the 50 lbs of beef, but I did walk the entire distance back to the back of the store. It is a very large place, they have an electric cart, but I walked today. I then took of to the Essen House and was able to walk all the halls of the Manor House. I have not been able to even walk from the restaurant to the nurses station for at least the last two months. Today I was able to walk the entire circumstance of the place. I feet hurt, but I at least have the energy to do the walking. I'm sure that by the time I get back from Carlsbad I should be much stronger and able to walk much further and faster.

My BP today 123/56 my HR 68 and BS 171. It was a bit high today, because Brian brought home some cheddar cheese pop corn and I had some before bed time last night. Brian made me do it.

I'm all pack and ready to go to Carlsbad. Tomorrow we head for Indy early for a 10:30 appointment with Dr. Rushing and a 11:30 with the surgeon. We will know what's what tomorrow and I will let you all know tomorrow night because I will be busy Thursday on my way to Carlsbad.

Thaks all yolks, Tom

5-30-10

2010-05-30T18:51:00.002-04:00

Well the 500 was a very interesting race with Dario Franchitti winning it all. This is his second win and he led most of the way for those of you who don't follow such events. Helio was second most of the race, but stalled his car in the final pit stop and lost 10 places coming out. My friend Arie had a young driver Mike Conway who actually got to lead the race for 15 laps until he had to pit and everyone else had already pitted. It doesn't really matter, what you can always say is: I let the Indy 500 for 15 laps in 2010.

I was talking to my brother David and two years he an I and Larry were guests of Arie for the time trials. He was working with an other young man named Alex Loyd. That year he ended his race right in front of Arie's suite in a crash coming around turn four. Today, Mike Conway ended his day in almost the same position, against the wall and damn near destroyed his entire car. Fortunately for both of them, neither was hurt badly. Alex Loyd finished 3rd. today and Danica Patric finished 5th. That's her best finish to date. What is crazy, is that she was so upset early with how the car was handling it didn't even look like she would finish. I've been interested in the 500 since 1958 and have come to understand that it is all won in the pits. You can have the best car going, but if they mess up in the pits you can loose 10 positions in 5 seconds. That's just one little mistake. When you consider they are traveling 100 yrds in seconds, it doesn't take long to loose a lot of precious time.

As for me today, I got up very early and could not sleep past 5:30 so I went to early mass and went to the store for Sharon and came home and tried to do some more work around the house and yard. My BP was high today for some reason 147/80 but my HR was OK with 81. My BS was 121. I feel pretty good, but still get tired way to fast and have to be careful about dizziness.

Well my beautiful wife wants the computer, so I'll talk to you tomorrow. Love to all, Tom

5-29-10

2010-05-29T18:07:00.002-04:00

Now this is what a normal day should be closer too. Up at 6:30 and take a nice long shower. Take my time getting dressed. Go down and see all the stuff on the computer. 7:45 head to Sam's and the meat market to pick up some supplies for the Essen House. 9am arrive at the Essen House. Help Sharon get the meat out of the car etc., still not able to do much lifting. I did open the doors for her though. 9:15 help myself to the breakfast buffet. I'm just starting to get my taste buds back. There are some things that I can taste and they taste pretty normal, but sweet and salty thing are still strange. I can eat cold stuff like ice cream with sugar, etc. but I still don't like the taste of chocolate. And I love the taste of Chocolate.

Next thing Sharon had for me to do was to go to GFS and get some makings for the salad bar. So off to GFS some 20 miles away and almost across the street from where I got the meat this morning. After getting the GFS stuff I wanted to go to Lowe's and get some chlorine tabs for when the pool opens this week. So I ask this CUSTOMER SERVICE lady if she can help me and of course she said she could. So I took off for where she pointed me to and of course it was not there. I then asked the next CS person where to find the chlorine and was sent to the garden center. At the garden center they wanted to send me back to where I just came. Finally I remembered at the other Lowe's closer to my house the chlorine is behind the garden furniture not the garden plant area. So off I went to the garden furniture area and was able to locate the chlorine, but no tabs. It has now been about 30 minutes and I'm getting plenty tired walking around. I finally found another CS rep and asked if they could check to see if they had chlorine tabs. I finally left 20 minutes later after not hearing back for the helpful CS rep.

Now I'm sure most of you would have given up hunting for chlorine tabs at this point, but not this old fart. I went to my Lowe's and went to one of my CS people and he got Jim and Jim went right over and got the tabs and brought them to me. Then when I tried to check out there was something wrong with the computer and so I stood there for another 20 minutes while they called the bank card center to see what the problem was. Now after entering my credit card number by hand, I was ready to get the hell home.

After making my lunch at about 12:30 I sat on the couch until about 3pm and then decided to go out side in the pool area and start setting out all the pool furniture. It took a lot longer to do that job than I remember. I could get a swing out and then sit down and take a break. Get the pillows out and sit down. Get a table out and find the legs and put the table together and sit down. Finally about 4pm Sharon came out and said she was going back to the Essen House. I then completed getting all the furniture set up and decided to give the weeds one more squirt of weed killer. When I feed the birds in the winter, I find that all that stuff is, is weed seed. It causes more damn weeds and stuff than you can count.

Now that's the kind of day I used to be able to do. However, I was so shaky that I decided not to cook for myself, but to go out to eat at a new Chinese Buffet. Not a good idea, it was worthless. So now I'm home and waiting for the LA game to start to see if I'm going to see the LA vs Celtics game or the LA vs Suns. I don't care which one, I just want to see one of them in person. I can go to Phoenix if I must, but I would much rather see LA vs Celtics.

As I said to a friend today, it's nice to have friends in high places. It's also nice to know the Grossbecks. And my daughter Maura, who would give up her seat for her old man. Since I'm the one that stayed up until midnight watching the game last night, I get the ticket. Anyway no matter what happens, I want the Celtics to win again.

That's all for now, Love ya, Tom

5-27-10

2010-05-27T16:50:00.002-04:00

It has just been a year since I started this blog. That is when I found out I had a Sarcoma and that I would have to have surgery to have it removed. I also was informed that there was no actual cure for the cancer, but that they have had some success with removal and with chemo and radiation I might just beat it. They said that I had a 80% chance that I will still be alive in 12 years if all goes well. They then explained that if it came back, the one place I didn't want it was in my lungs. They also felt that they had all the Sarcoma's when they did the surgery. It looks like they did get all the cancer in my left arm, the problem became the fact that is spread to my lungs.

When I saw Dr. Adhami in Fort Wayne the second time in January, he admitted that he was very surprised to see me this soon. He did again explain that Dr Rushing was still the best doctor that I could be seeing for a Sarcoma. He then went into the treatment that Dr. Rushing was prescribing for the treatment. He said that it would be rough on me and that it was somewhat experimental in it's amount and duration of infusion. He said that they would probably do 6 rounds of chemo and then an operation on my lungs. As of today we did 5-1/2 treatments.

When I went in today, I was told that I would not be given the final chemo treatment. My hemoglobin was too low to get the hard chemo treatment any more. I had to get two leader's of blood. B-Negative is my blood type and they had to order it from the Red Cross. Since I have not given blood since the 80's they asked if I knew people that may have donated blood that I could request their blood. I said that I didn't know any personally, but that I was a Harley rider and I know that they give blood each year and maybe they would do it for me. Within a few minutes they came back and said they were preparing the blood for me.

I'm not sure who gave me the blood, but thanks to whom ever did it and I will say a prayer for all of those that may have done it for me. The other thing that happened while I was getting blood is the fact that the American Cancer Society provided food for all of us that were receiving blood and other medications. I have always resisted donating money to many of the different charities because you never know what they are doing with the funds and how much they spend on the administration of the funds. The young lady said that all the food in donated and that it is volunteer that deliver the food to the hospitals and place like the infusion center. I will be much more generous the next time they call.

Well here is what going to happen. Tomorrow I go to get the CT Scan at 10:00 but first I go to the chemo center to have the access my port and draw the blood that Dr. Rushing will need on June 2nd. They need to see how my hemoglobin count has come up and to check in general how my blood counts are. If all is well I will go to see the surgeon that remove the Sarcoma's from my lungs. According to the nurse at Dr Adahmi's office it should be at least a month before they would do any surgery. I have an appointment at Adahmi's office set for June 21st. when I get back from Carlsbad. Again that is to see how my blood counts are doing and to see if I need any more blood. She felt that if I do the working out etc. that I should be fine. She said that all my BP 123/72 and HR 84 etc was very positive indication that everything was going to be fine on the 21st.

As for the blog, I stopped the blog once because I thought I was cured so to speak. At this point I don't know that fact. I will be slowing down on my reporting because I will be in Carlsbad and Arizona and will have little to know ability to write when I'm in Arizona. I will be staying at friends homes and don't know what there computer situation is. I do know that one of them has now friggen computer. I will jump on when possible and there is something interesting to tell. If someone knows how to make the blog tell when I have reported something, let me know. Until then thanks for everything and I will hope to see many of you soon. Love ya Tom

5-26-10

2010-05-26T17:45:00.003-04:00

Today I got a post on FB from a old friend and he was talking about a website that was for banning demonstrations at soldiers funerals. Before I had my cancer I was given the opportunity to ride in a Patriot Gard ride to a fallen Hero's funeral. As it turned out I had my picture in the Fort Wayne paper as I drove under a large American flag that had been hung across the street. Believe me I saved the picture, but with many of the things I wanted saved, I put it somewhere for safe keeping, and now I can locate it. I was very lucky in the early 60's and Sharon and I had three children and I was never contacted for the Service. However, with my father having served in the Big One, I joined the American Legion as a son of a vet and have been active until my cancer. The other thing that happened was that they were forced to close the swimming pool because the stated got all over them for the Cherry Masters that kept the club in the Black all these years. They now play Texas Holdum, but in the same area where there used to be a pool. I haven't been there lately, but it still does not lessen my feelings about our armed forces, and the hero's that protect what we have.

Tomorrow is fast approaching, I still have the same feelings. Let's get this damn thing behind me. I ordered some special donuts for the nurses tomorrow. I wanted to have a special desert, did I spell that wrong?, made, but our poor restaurant manager is down with a bad back. She too has to get a CT scan to see what may be the problem. The nurses make the process so much easier. They have to deal with people like me every day. They have to be some of the most dedicated people on the planet. They all know that many of us are going to feel like #%^&&^%$$$. for the next week of so, but they still try to make us feel as good as they can while we receive the infusion.

Sammy is finished with school today, so I get her for the next week until the Kinder Care gets their summer program going. The really have a great program for the kids. Every day they go someplace special for the kids. They go swimming, to the zoo, you name it and they keep them so busy for the entire summer. I'm having our pool opened on June 2nd. so she and the kids can swim while I'm in Carlsbad. When I say kids, I mean big kids, like Cate's friends that are still living in Fort Wayne. Even some real big kids that are friends of Sharon. They love to sit at pool side and then jump in when it gets to hot. The one old kid is getting married and I'm sure she will be working on her tan before her wedding in July. Someone has to watch the chemicals in the pool.

For those who care, my BP was 111/63 and my HR was 83 today. Since I had to take the steroids, my BS was 268 this morning. I'm trying to eat right, but it is almost impossible to keep it under 200. I'll keep you informed as best I can for the next few days. If you don't hear from me, you all should know by now. Love you, Tom

Tuesday 5-25-10

2010-05-25T09:55:00.002-04:00

Forgive me to those that try to read this every day. I just don't like to write when I'm not feeling well. I'm so excited about having my last chemo and then being able to go to Carlsbad, I can't wait. I hate the effects of chemo believe me, but it's like many things in life, you just got to get through them. As Sharon keeps telling me, at least your not in the hospital. There is a lot to be said for that. As the doctors have told me, my hemoglobin is so low that I can't have any energy. The chemo lowers my immune system, so I get this damn cough back each time. It's easier to just sit on the couch and let the time go by than to try and fight it.

Today is much better, my BP is 130/70 but my HR is still way to high at 115. My BS is 134 and I think I've got a handle on it. I say that, but last night when Sharon came home, we were both hungry for some sweet stuff and she went to Zesto's. I agree with Cate who says: there is just no substitute for that stuff. I just had a medium in a cup, but I did put a shot of chocolate on the top. I don't know why I do that, because I really don't like the way it tastes while I'm having chemo. If anyone doesn't believe the fact that we eat with our brain, I've got some good evidence to the contrary. I see something that I know that I used to like, and I eat it even if it doesn't taste the way I want it too. Am I the only one that does that??? Come on Maura and Cate, give me some feed back. You too Moe, even you Larry. I know all you guy love the sweets now and again. Will you eat it if it looks good?? Anyone!!

So enough about food. Now I want to talk about getting back into shape. Believe it or not, I get tired cleaning the bathroom. I decided today to clean my sink and toilet. By the time I cleared the sink of all the junk that has accumulated over the past few months, and cleaning the toilet, I had to sit on the toilet for about five minutes and recover. That's how bad I am at this point. I want to go to the gym, but since my HR is already at 115, I'm afraid to take it much higher. The reason I agreed to go to Carlsbad is that we have a great gym and I can start to walk on the sidewalk that faces the ocean. I remember when I had the back operation and I couldn't even remember how to walk. I started to walk down 3rd ave. and get to Callaways. Then I tried to get to the second block and so on. Hell I was young then, I sure hope I will have the guts to do it at 67. It will take lots of prayers guys, because I've become some what of a lazy guy these past few months.

What I do know for sure is that I have to do it so I will be strong when I have my operation. I still have the fishing trip to Cabo planned for October, and that is the kind of thing I have to set as a goal for the rest of my life. One step in front of the other and keep on keeping on. I also want to take a boat and go up the Sea of Cortez sometime this year. I'm going to need a lot of money, so I sure as heck hope the Manor House get full soon. We are now at 42 and counting. Just 10 more and we are full. We hope to get some more money and go for 24 more rooms. Again that's the kind of goal I need to keep on keeping on. I really can't do a whole lot anymore with the construction side, but I do know how to make sure the others work their asses off. I can also keep Louis focused on the task at hand. He has so many projects going, I'm the one that has to keep him headed in the direction that will help me and my family. It's all about me you know. I think I've said that before. Well it's still the same!!

I do want to thank all of you that read this blog., it keeps me going, knowing I have to write this each day. I also want to thank Sharon, Brian and Louis and Mary and Anna, for all they do each day to make the Manor and Essen Houses going. They have kept it going when many have said it will never make it. Thank God for all those that work for us and keep that place going so well.

More tomorrow. Tom

Saturday 5-22-10

2010-05-22T19:38:00.002-04:00

This is day 3 of chemo and I feel like ^%(&%&%. I'm just glad the time 500 time trial are on from 11am until whenever. Helio won the pole for the 4th. time. He is also going for his 4th. win. It was a good day for everyone. There were only two crashes and one of them got back in the race.

Cate and a few friends were in the fourth turn watching the action. She called me because that is where we sat the first time I ever took Cate to the Indy. She, as many young ladies is a Helio fan. She might also have a girl favorite also, I didn't talk to her about the woman that are trying to get in the race this year.

As for me, it's one of those head to bed deals. It's hard to believe I quickly you turn from feeling OK to feel like you have the flu. My BP was 123/67 but my HR was up again to 90 this morning. My BS was 101 so I've got that baack under control at least for a while.

Not much more to say, I hope to be feeling better tomorrow. Love Tom

Friday 5-21-10

2010-05-21T09:32:00.002-04:00

This has not been a good week for my classmates of LCC. First it was Kathy Quinn Lynch and yesterday it was Carol Prenezio Fleichman. Both were friends of my since grade school.

For my family, Carol was the daughter of the husband and wife that owned the clothing store up on Allentown rd. they sold mostly children's clothes. Mom would take me and you guys and go cloth shopping. One of the first times I went in I saw Carol and recognized that we went to school together. I can't remember if she actually worked in the store or if she was just the a lot. Over the next few years we became better friends and always talked at school and when mom went shopping I would always volunteer to go with her. Moe, I remember going with you more than David and Larry. You never liked anything and hated putting on clothes. I doughty that you remember her, but she was a very nice young lady.

It is sad to see people under 70 passing away from things that I think had to do with that damn refinery. John and Dan Bowler both worked their and they both died of cancer. So many people in Lima have died of similar problems. Strokes and heart attacks, cancer, you name it, much can be linked back to that awful smoke and junk that they spued out of that place. I remember as a kid stepping in some kind of toxic junk that ate the bottom of my shoes off. Some one then told us to get the hell out of there and never come back in here again. Sometime after that the entire place was fenced off. I'm sure it was a dumping grounds for toxic waste of some kind.

If everyone that reads this blog would say a prayer for their souls I would appreciate it. Also say a prayer for anyone that lived their in Lima and may have a serious health issue.

This is day two for me after chemo and so far I feel OK but not great. My BS was 495 last night but down to 185 this morning. I had to take a large dose of insulin last night to bring it down. My BP was 135/70 and HR 83. I started with that cough again but am going to the drug store to pick up a script to take care of that.

More tomorrow. Love Tom

Thursday 5-20-10

2010-05-20T14:41:00.002-04:00

Believe it or not this is my 180 blog. That's damn near one a day for a year, I mean one every other day for a year. It's that damn chemo brain already. I know what I want to say the fingers and brain can't get it together. I tell you kids, it ain't my fault. I can spel add and do at that stuff, it m mind that gets it all wrong. I smrt as can bea.

Well today is the last of the single chemo's. One more next week, and then get well and have surgery. I can't wait in once seance, but not really excited about the surgery. It's like the old thing and the stepping into the fire. It hurts like hell when you do it, but feels so good when you stop.

Next Thursday is my last of the two chemo treatments. I'm hopping that I don't have to get the stuff for the white cells. I'm actually going to Carlsbad on the 3rd of June and not coming back until the 20th. they said I need to really get fit in order to get ready for the surgery. We have a great workout room and plenty of sidewalk to walk along the beach. the great thing is they have about three miles up an incline, and benches along the way. It's easy to walk until your tired, it a bitch when you have lasted as long as you can and have no way of getting back. With me, I'll go as long as I can and then sit until I feel I can make it back. If not I sit my ass down and wait until I feel I can go on. It's not as thought I trying to win a race. I'm just trying to push myself to get stronger and better cardio.

If anyone from the Carlsbad area is still reading this blog, know that I am available for what ever. I'm also thinking about going over to Phoenix to see some of my property and see Karen, so know that Karen, I know you sometimes read this blog.. I also have a very close friend in Wickenberg who owns two nice ranches one in the Wickenberg area and one in Big Timber Montana, who I just might drop in on. To say you are going to drop in on him is a misnomer. His drive way in Montana is 28 miles from the lower ranch to the upper ranch. If he doesn't know your coming, you might miss him for a week or more. Arizona is not so bad. It only about 8 mile from his house to where the cows etc are housed. He has a an unbelievable set up on the ranch. He has three or four actual rail road cars set up. One is a bunk house which was a passenger sleeping car or just one car that was set up for someone to live in. He also had a cook shack as he calls it. It must have been where they cooked for the train and then a mail room car that he uses for supplies etc. There are a bunch of corrals and other out buildings, but it's like a scene out of a western movie. He always kids about have a place to stay if France, his wife, ever wants to get rid of him for a while. With all this he still does not own a computer or an internet connection, so I don't have to worry that he will read this blog. and see what I have to say about him. He also has a beautiful home, but if I don't let him know I'm coming, I'll end up in the bunk house for sure. Hell one time in the Kaibab, he put me in a horse trailer and he sleep in the back of a camper in a warm sleeping bag. I was under a horse blanket. He didn't tell me to bring a sleeping bag etc. he just assumed I traveled with such supplies. Hell doesn't everyone?

Just so you know and for those keeping score, my BP 120/60 and HR 72. See when I've had a week or so off, I bounce right back. I also have put on 5 lbs. which he said is good. My other problem however is my hemoglobin is 8.5 and it should be at least 10 and 12 is best. I've got to bring that up for the next chemo and he surgery. It's what gives you energy etc. At this point I'm very low on energy. I feel OK, I just cant do ^%$#&#^.
That's it for today, Love ya all Tom

Wed. 5-19-10

2010-05-19T17:37:00.002-04:00

It's a very sad day today. Kathy Quinn Lynch died yesterday after a long illness. From what I was told she had been in a great deal of pain and finally died from a massive stroke. We all know she is in a better place and at long last at peace. We all know that we are going to die, it's different for each of us. I've know Kathy almost my entire life. I've not had much contact with her for the past thirty or so years, but I know her well enough to know that she suffered silently. She will be missed, but not forgotten. Many of you who read this blog knew Kathy, I know you, as I do, wish her family well. That's all for today. Love ya Tom

Tuesday 5-18-10

2010-05-18T22:56:00.002-04:00

I'm just fine, but just don't feel like doing much writing these days. I'm just happy to be feeling well before my next and last chemo session. It always happens right before I get my chemo. Once I've been off for a full week I start to feel better. I have been busy with other things and I keep busy until bed time. I've just watched American Idol and I think that Lee will win and Chrystal will come in second. I have not watched it a lot this year, but I do think the last three are very talented.

Maura's neighbor Nix, has Burn Notice and a new show with Tom Hanks son that looks like it will be funnier than can be. Maura saw the pilot and said it was excellent. It's some what of a cop show but funny. It's going to be on FOX.

Two more days and I start the last round of chemo. I'm excited to get it over with, but a little hesitant about the surgery and when it will happen. We want to go to California for Caila's 18 birthday of the 17 to the 21, but it will depend on when they want to do the operation. We have a call in to the Dr. to see if it can be after the 21st, but we have not heard back yet. We'll keep you i touch.

For now,good night! Tom

Sunday 5-16-10

2010-05-16T21:20:00.002-04:00

Big day today, got up at 6am and got ready for the day. BS was as low as it has been for some time 93. That meant that I had to make breakfast very quickly. I don't do well below 100. Many people want to be that low, but I'm much better at around 110 or so. My BP was 128/75 and the HR was still too high at 91. Breakfast was 2 eggs three bacon and one piece of rye toast. I was off to mass at 7:20. I had the Indian priest today and he had one of his days where he starts talking so fast I can't understand him. It started out with Christ ascending into heaven, but he lost me after that. I do remember the last part however. Christ is the one you can count on.

After mass Sharon and I got ready to go to Indy and see Cate and Kyle perform their dance. They have been taking dance for the past several months so they will be all ready for a 7 wedding summer. They were like number 75 so you had to sit through all the other dances if you were a true dance lover. And you got to know where I fit in there. I did do it however. Bob, Kyle's father, some how had a deal at church that he just had to go to after about 30 min. We got there at one and they danced at three. There were some good dancers, but the thing I loved to do is watch the dance instructors prancing around the room getting all the students to get ready etc. You could dance with your own partner like Cate and Kyle did, or you can dance with your instructor or a friend. I can't take two ladies dancing together. Much less two guys. That didn't happen. But there were many that probably would have preferred dancing with a guy rather than some of the partners they were paired with. I'm not sure what motivates people to take dance lesions, but some of the older ladies I think love those little instructors. They had one guy in a wheel chair that sort of freaked me out at first, but he had two girls that fought over him and it was one of the funniest numbers of the day.

Believe it or not, Cate and Kyle's performance was one of the best of the beginners. They rate the dancers as to how long they have been dancing etc. Cate and Kyle were at the first level. After they performed, their instructors came over and said what a good job they did for their first performance. After that we decided it was time to leave and we headed for Granite City for a bit to eat. I must say the flat bread pizza was good. I was not all that hungry and I didn't want much, but for a very plain pizza, the peperoni pizza was OK. After dinner Sharon slept and I drove home. Sharon's comment as we pulled into Fort Wayne was: It sure is nice to have a day where I didn't have to do a damn thing. It makes me feel good to be able to do something for her, because she works 7 days a week at the Essen House and then comes home and does house work.

It's almost 10pm and I'm heading to bed. More tomorrow Tom

Saturday 5-15-10

2010-05-15T19:33:00.002-04:00

Yes, I have been busy, and no, to any more garage sales. I have been very busy with the garage sale, but didn't make and money. I had this older gentleman at the last minute come in to see if I had any fishing equipment for sale. I said not really, but I do have some ocean rods and reels if that is of interest to him. He said yes that he has been pulling in some large river cat fish and would love a good big outfit. He came into the separate area of the garage where I have the big rods etc and started looking at one of my most expensive set ups. He took it outside and wanted to see all about it. He was very excited and thought it would be just the thing for what he wanted. He asked me what I wanted for the unit, and I gave my standard line when somebody wants something of mine that is not really for sale. Your the one that wants the outfit, what do you want to offer. He said will you take 15.00 for it. Since I only had about $500.00 in it I was very happy to accept a bid of $1,500.00 for it. He then noticed that there was a piece missing. I told him he could probably get that replaced for less than $50.00 and even less if he went to the Penn web site and got it directly. He then looked at me and said he was only bidding $15.00 on the entire thing. I looked at him and just shook my head. I asked him if he knew what a Penn real was worth. He had no idea. I had explained to him that it was made of bronze and would never rust or deteriorate. I also explained that you could use it to catch up to a 200 lb fish with no problem. He had looked at a tuna set up that I have and I explained about tuna and how big they got and how you had to have the special rod that he was looking at to really catch a big tuna. I told him the rod alone was over a grand. I guess he was just not into listening. The great thing was at the end he wanted to give me his name and if some how I found the missing piece, to give him a call. He then made me find a damn piece of paper and a pen to write his name down.

I then cleaned up the best that I could and headed over to the Essen House for that wonderful fish buffet. They were so busy that I couldn't even see Sharon for about a half an hour. Usually these people like to eat by 6pm but I guess with the day light savings they are starting to eat later in the day. Once Sharon got free we both went out to look at all the possibilities for the next expansion. When I lay awake at night I try to think of possible dimensions to make sure we will have enough room between the restaurant and the existing phase three to put in 24 more rooms and a nurses station. It has been so darn wet that I have not had a chance to pace it off all the way. We have to have at least 50 feet for the width of the building. We have an easy 54 with plenty of off sets. The dimension that I was worried about was the length. As it turns out, we can make it with ease. I stepped off 100 paces which should be somewhere in the 300 foot area. We only have to have 150 at the small end and 200 at the better dimension. We should have no problem. That is before we get the architect involve and see what the restrictions are on the type of build and tenants we will house.

We also looked to see what we can do with the ice cream parlor, and we think we have that figured out also. I'm so glad we had the opportunity to look all this over, now maybe I can fall back to sleep when I get up it then middle of the night.

Today was also very busy, up early to get a present for Mary L, it was her 29th. birthday again. As I said on the card, she is the hardest working lady we know. Took the card out to Mary and did some shopping for Sharon. At about three o'clock I went out to find I had a bad flat on my passenger side rear tire. That was the second flat in two weeks. Sharon reminded me we had to go to Indy tomorrow and I better get something done now. So we went to Kroger, got some air and headed to Discount Tire. I really like DT because even though these tires were on the Esclade, they would fix the tires for free because I'm a returning customer. That policy paid off for them today. As it turns out, the flat was because I wore right through the tire. Once they looked all the tires over they said I did need at least three and that if I purchased four now I could get two different discounts and as much off as $150.00 off four tires. So four tires are now on the Esclade. I'm now home writing to you guys and just about to say good night. We'll let you know how Cate and Kyle performed their dance. Good Night Tom

Thursday 5-13-10

2010-05-13T16:54:00.002-04:00

All day yesterday I got ready for the garage sale, so I didn't have time to write, so today I had to sit there all day and wait for the garage salers' to come by. Believe it or not it was 45 degrees this morning. As the day wore on it finally got up into the 70's but it took until 2pm or so to do so.

It's very interesting to watch the different kind of people that do garage sales. I had this one guy come in early and started to look at some of the 300 books I had out and finally turned to me and ask if I had them in any sort of order. Now after you have been look at a bunch of books for about 15 minutes, couldn't you tel if they were in any sort of order. When I said yes I do, he look at me and said what order. I said random. If it was if he didn't understand what I just said. So he stood there for a little while and finally said: I'm very busy today and can't seem to figure out your indexing system, could you tell me where all your history type book are located. I finally said said, sir I don't have any kind of system, I will tell you that there are history type books in there, but you will have to search for them. He said well I just don't have the time today. He then spent the next twenty minutes doing nothing but talking to me and explaining how much he joys he great southwest. How he always wanted to be a 49er. and wished he lived back then. I explained that I had lived in Tombstone and also enjoyed the Southwest. He then started talking about the West and finally asked again if I had any books on the Southwest. Once again I explained that I might, but he would have to search for them. After a few more minutes, he just turned around and left.

The one's I saw the most today were grandmothers and mothers of small children. There were some grandfathers there also, but mostly they were carriers of items that grandmother found for the grand kids. Since Brian was selling many of Sammy's old clothes and toys, it was a popular palace for grandmother to spend some time looking. I love these older woman who will spend an hour looking through clothes and then finally come up to you and ask the price or the size. I had one lady who brought about ten items up and wanted me to tell her first the size and then how much for all of them. Sine I can't see for nothing, I was unable to find the size either so I asked a Mexican lady if she could help find the size. As she did so there were two items that she liked and wanted and then it started. It seems the sizes were very different. One's were size 3 and the next was size 5 and so on. The Mexican lady was obviously looking for her own child and could hold up the clothes and tell if they would fit, the grandmother had no idea what size to choose. As it went on the grandmother picked out a snow pants and coat and was very happy with the idea that her granddaughter would someday grow into them. The Mexican lady bought a Barbie bike and three different outfits.

One thing I did find out today, It's not near as much fun selling things at a garage sale as it used to be. I was able to sit and move around from 8am to 4pm. That was a good thing, but sitting around when it was 45 degrees was not fun. It did get to where I had to take off my winter jacket etc. but have to stay in one place for 8 hours was a pain in the kister. I didn't even have time to take my BP or my HR or my BS today. All I can say is I made it until 4pm., came in sat down on the couch and fell asleep until 4:45. I then came in hear and wrote this blog. I get to do it all over again tomorrow and Saturday. Saturday Brian and Sammy will be able to help me out and do most of the running. I keep you informed. See Ya Tom

Tuesday 5-11-10

2010-05-11T16:35:00.002-04:00

I was thinking it was the 10th again today. I looked up the cost of the air fare to San Diego today, and they want a bunch. I can't believe the American Airlines agent that said the cheapest seat was $525.00 and when I questioned her she got snotty. I hung up and called back to find it was only $375.00 if I flue from Fort Wayne to San Diego. I thought it would be cheaper to fly from Indy to LA so that is what I asked for. It's crazy what they are trying to do with the air fare. This carry on luggage thing is also a rip.

I'm feeling somewhat better today. I was able to get out today for a while and went to breakfast out and then have been working on the computer most of the rest of the day. I have been able to find most of the information I had on the old computer. They just put it on a separate file rather than on documents. If I take my time for the next couple of days, I'm sure I'll find most of it.

Tom Whitney if your listening, send me that info on all the class of
'60 and '61 again. I saved that on my favorites and I can't seem to be able to bring it up. I can get the first one you sent, but not the last one's.

I'm trying to get healthy so I can possibly go to the Indy 500. Cate and Kyle have tickets and I would like to be able to see the race, but climbing all the up to the Paddock Penthouse would be a bitch. Maybe I can just get a seat in the Paddock this time. Sitting I can do no problem. It's walking a couple of miles to get to the seat that I'm a little concerned about. I'm going to try and get to the gym here the next few days and see how much cardio I can get going. When I work on the bike thing I can usually go for 30 minutes. If I don't have to walk much further than that, I should be OK. I'll keep you posted as to how it is going. I'm hoping not to have that last shot after my last chemo treatment. The shot is to bring up your white cells and if I don't have to have any more chemo, I should be able to do that naturally and not have to get that damn shot. We'll see what they say. My last chemo is the 27 and the race is the 30th. that cutting it about as close as I can. If not, I sure I will be feeling much better when Darrin and Riley arrive at the end of the month.

More later. Love to all, Tom

Monday 5-10-10

2010-05-10T18:48:00.002-04:00

I'm going to cut to the chase real quick. Sunday and Monday have not been good to me. It seems that the third and fourth day after chemo and that shot for the white blood cells sucks. I was able to go with Cate to the Essen House for the fabulous buffet, but she had to drive, and I was not having a good day. For some reason my eyes have a very difficult time with the bright light and it was nice and bright yesterday. Sharon had a great crowd and was not even able to stop and eat with us. They just had the best weekend ever. They had a big birthday party on Friday and then apparently all kinds of family was in town for Mothers day and they all decided to come to the Essen House for dinner. Sunday, Mothers Day, is always big, because we have Prime Rib on the Carving Station along with Ham and Port Tenderloin. You can't beat the price of $13.95 for that kind of meal. It only goes from 11 until 2, but we sure pack them in.

As for today, the same kind of side effects, no energy, dizzy and don't feel like doing anything or eating. It's a little better tonight. Bobbie just stopped over to help me get this computer going. It looks however like they didn't save &^%&% on my documents. I can't find anything even with Office in here. I hate these computer people that tell you they can do something and then can't. Some day I will learn to save all this stuff on some source in syber land.

I'm still ok on my BP 121/72 and HR 94 today. My BS is still a bit high, but that's because I'm trying to eat things that will taste good and that is very hard to do right now. Nothing taste good. I had pineapple today, which I love usually, and it was not even close to being good. I had Taco Bell tonight because I was thinking that would taste good. Not one bit, I can't use salt any more because it does not taste good, so I was thinking that maybe hot would work. Not so much. Well I only have one more round of chemo and it should be better. Enough bitching for the day. Love to all. Tom

Saturday 5-8-10

2010-05-08T08:37:00.002-04:00

I didn't get time to write yesterday, I was very busy with having to go back to chemo to get a shot that helps increase my white blood cells. I also had to find out what I could do about my low hemoglobin count. It seems the only thing that will increase it is meat, eggs, and dairy products. So I went to the store and stocked up on some things that will help me but not kill me. The eggs are actually no problem as far as I am concerned. My father ate at least 2 eggs every day of his life when he was my age. Now Margo says he didn't do that towards the end of his life, but Ithink that is more because his health care providers thought as do many Americans, that eggs increase your cholesterol. Since I have visited a very large eggs producing farm and talked to some people that really know about eggs, I have changed my mind about the connection. Eggs do have cholesterol, but it does not cause increased cholesterol in your system. My total cholesterol is 104, so I can't see them hurting me all that much. It much the same with meat. I try and eat more of the low fat meats these days. I bought black Angus beef that was already cooked and had very little fat in it at all. I then got some turkey, and some ham that again was very low in fat. I will have to admit that there was some sausage on sale that was probably not my best choice, but I will put it in my salad, so at least I'm not going to put it in a sandwich.

I also spent a great deal of time trying to get this computer to act like my old one. For some reason I can't get the different programs to keep me signed in all the time. I have to always put my aol password in and when I sign in to blogspot I have to do the same. It happens with ebay also. Anyone with some ideas as to what I should, please let me know. It is much faster that my old computer. but they lost most of my documents or I can't open them yet because my Office product is old and the computer guy will not use my disc because I don't have the codes anymore. I've asked three people to look into getting me another Office, but no luck yet. Cate is here this weekend for mothers day, so maybe she can get Bobbie over here to help me out.

While I was working on putting in all my phone numbers and addresses for my friends and family that were lost in the conversion, I had two very disturbing phone calls. Marc Kouzmanoff called me to tell me that an old friend from RIA had died. He was the head editor of the Federal Tax Coordinator and had become a good friend. He and I had a day on the podium together where he challenged me, almost by accident, as to how CCH was used correctly. Now that was our largest competitor at the time and he and the staff did use it all the time to do the tax research that analysed and put in our own tax service. I made the statement that most tax researchers don't know how to use CCH correctly in the first place, with that he took exception and said I should no make statements like that. He felt I was almost insulting a researcher like himself. I then had him show me and the entire sales staff how he used CCH. When he was finished, I asked him if that was all he did. His answer was, that's all you have to do. I then showed him how they updated their service and that he had left out three of the most important steps in the research process. When it was over he sat me down for about an hour and discussed how important it was that I did that in front of the entire sales force. He told me how important it was to understand how to do tax research correctly and in all his years he had never realized how to update the service and how difficult it was to do. He then admitted that he always wondered why my region always sold so many Federal Tax Coordinators and why everyone who worked under me seemed to be so good when they were promoted. For the next 8 years he always sat down with me when I was in New York and wanted to talk. When I was fired, he was the only man from the home office staff that called me and said how sorry he was to see me leave. He eventually learned that I had won the law suite and again called me to tell me how sorry he was that the whole thing had happened and he felt they had made a big mistake to have ever let me go. I am also very sorry to see him go. He was the only black editor that we had and a very smart man and wonderful person. He will be missed.

I got another call from a classmate, Chuch Reid, my best friend from Marmion, letting me know that Paul Danahy had a stroke while on vacation with his wife. He had never had any kind of trouble that anyone knew about. He was in good physical condition and not an once of fat on him. He loved to do field testing with his dogs and was a big bird hunter. He was resting on the beach and one minute he as alive and the next thing he was dead. You know when you get sick with cancer you have some idea that your time may be up soon and you start to do some thinking about what has to be done now, when you think your in good health, sometime you do not think about what you should be doing to get ready for eternity.

I'm feeling pretty good for the second day after the shot I got yesterday. I must admit I have had to take some pain medication, but that just because of the Radiation recall and the fact that your bones hurt like you have the flue. My blood pressure was a little high today, but that I think is because of the flue like symptoms. 141/72 my HR was 81 and the blood sugar was still out of control at 365. It should be getting back to normal today or tomorrow, I stopped taking the pills last night. It usually takes a day or so to get back to normal. I'll keep you informed.

Have a great weekend and don't forget about Mom, living or deceased. Love to all Tom

Friday 5-6-10

2010-05-06T19:39:00.002-04:00

I'm still trying to get this computer to perform like the old one was set up. I still can't get the fonts and size of font to work. This damn thing still likes to do it it's way. My aol has a mind of it's own also. I can't get an icon to go on my start up screen. I have to go to the Internet icon and then it comes up aol. I've tried to put in two of my important programs and they will not set up correctly. My printer will not do the HP start up screen so I can decide what I want to do. You can do a number of things, fax, copy, scan. and some other things I don't need that often. I can get it to do anything but copy. That is a manual thing that I can actually do with the copier. Darrin, I can't wait until you come home and show me what the ^%$^**^$* to do with all this stuff. The other thing is this shuts down when you don't use it for some time, it's one of those green things I guess. If it stays off too long then the entire computer shuts down and they you have to go through boot up. I love change.

Today was my first day for the two chemo's. I got there at 7:30 and got out at 1:30. Not bad when you consider that Adahmi didn't show up for out 7:45 appointment until about 8:30. He always has some great excuse for not being on time. He then takes about 10 minutes to look at my chart to see who I am and what he should be talking to me about. I then have to remind him of the mistakes that were made the last time and ask him to change it on the chart. I take 12 pills so I don't have to get the one medicine that kicks my blood sugar sky high. It still goes up, but when they give it to me in my port, it is too much to fast. It lasts longer in my system also. This will effect me until at least Sunday. I can't really taste anything anyway so food is not all that important any way. I went to the Golden Carrol today because I wanted a salad and some meat. The salad was OK, but the meat was bad. Or at least too me it was bad. I took a bit out of each thing and set it aside. I was able to find the spinach and cauliflower and it was OK, noting special. As mom always said: put enough butter and salt on it and it will taste better.

The experience at the chemo session was OK once I got into the chemo fusion area. It just so happened that it was Nurse appreciation day and no one in the place knew it. I heard it on the radio as I was coming in, so I wad a hero when I wished each of the nurses that helped me. a happy nurse application day. I then told them they should be on the DR's butts for not knowing it was nurse appreciation day and they should have planned something special for them for lunch or something. As I was leaving I did see one of the Dr's being cornered by three of the nurses. I gave them the thumbs up and left. I love seeing action taking place. I'm sure the Dr's will love me.

I didn't find out today that my hemoglobin is lower than it should be. They don't like to give the chemo if it is below 10, mine was in the 9's. They do have a pill that they can give you that will increase it, but if it goes above 12, you might have a heart attack or a stroke. I told him I didn't want any part of that pill so let me have it the way it is. He said I would be very tired and that I should not try to work out for at least a week. Since I off for a week I hope that by the 20th. It will be back around 10. If not I might have to get a blood transfusion before they will give me chemo again. They don't really like to give a transfusion unless it is in the 7's. So I will need the prayers to get it back in the 10 for the next time. My BP was good 123/70 but my HR is still high 113. I'll keep in touch. Love to all. Tom

Wed. 5-5-10

2010-05-05T13:34:00.003-04:00

Remember when I said my computer was having problems? well it did. I know have a new tower and that's about it. I don't have any of my old programs or any of my settings. It's a bitch when you get old and your computer takes a dump. I just tried to set my type and letter size, it will not let me do it. I love it when your computer thinks it's smarter than you are. It is a lot faster than my old computer, so it types letters that I didn't want in the first place. Now though I will have a good excuse for mis-spellings. I just tried to set my fonts again, no &%&% deal.

To bring you up to speed. I had a very nice Saturday and was able to get a lot done for the party on Sunday. I had the entire family less Larry over for dinner. I had Margo and Don at the Essen House for Brunch. Don had never been there before and tried to make up for that at the buffet. I guessing that he liked it. Margo said he has not had that much food in a long long time. We then toured the Manor House and I showed them what we are going to do for faze four and five the Ice Cream parlor and the Rehab to Home and the Alzheimers(sp)unit. We will be adding a total of 24 rooms. 12 for the rehab to home and 12 for the alzheimers unit. The state has said that the need for both type of housing is critical for this area. We are very close to filling the Manor House and we know that there have been residents that have had to leave us because we could not handle rehab or alzheimers.

After we left the Essen House and Manor House we headed back to the house to see all the family that was to arrive. Cate showed up just as we left Antwerp and Moe and David showed up about 7pm. I had made Beef Wellington and Margo made potatoes and broccoli and a salad. It was enjoyed by all, since no one talked during the meal. I usually only cook the beef wellington at Christmas, but since Sammy only has one First Communion, I thought I would go all out. It was Zestos for desert or is it dessert. Any way they had that after dinner and we are not in Arizona, so pick the one that is the after dinner treat, OK

Sunday was the big day for Sammy. She and Cate had practiced receiving her first communion, so it went off without a hitch. Unfortunately I was not feel well and was unable to attend the service. It's usually that third day after chemo that is the worst. I was able to stay down stairs, but I mostly stayed on the couch. Monday was somewhat better, and I have been well enough the past two days to actually workout for 30 minutes at the gym. I need to work on the Heart rate, because it has been higher than normal when I work out and just in general. My BP is still well under control, but my HR has been 124 and 113 just after working out. It usually is no more than 103 or so. I have to start taking the pills that jump my blood sugar today, it also keeps me up at night. Last night I got up around 3am and went down stairs so I didn't wake Sharon. I got into a coughing jag and finally got up so I didn't wake Sharon. I took some medicine when I went down stairs and the coughing stopped. Sharon thinks the cough medicine is the thing that is causing the high HR because it has some sort of medicine in it that increases your heart rate. It's going into the second week with this cough, I hope it ends soon. It just zapa all the energy I have, which is not much to start with.

Well, I'm going to try to get this computer put back together again. I'll lwt you know tomorrow as to what happened. Love Ya Tom

Friday 4-30-10

2010-04-30T09:28:00.002-04:00

It was an interesting night. They gave me steroids yesterday to make sure I didn't get sick or anything. However there are some side effects. Like your blood sugar going so high it just shows on the meter as HI. It also prevents you from sleeping. I went to bed at 11 pm and finally fell asleep at 5:30 am. I then got up at 7 am.

What I was able to do during that time was to correct the entire Economic Structure of the Western Hemisphere. Now it will take some time for the changes to take effect. But under my plan the elections of 1011 will see a big change in the makeup of the House and Senate. After that there will be some serious changes in some recent legislation. After that there will be lowering of the tax rates and the business people of America will show the way to recovery. I also have some plans that can't be discussed in public, but you will see them when they happen.

I was also able to design the new building project at the Assisted Living. I actually got up at 3 am and came down to my office and looked at pictures that would enable me to get the damn plans out of my head and on paper. It is genius if I have to say myself. I believe very much that the Lord does give you inspiration when you need it. I had been concerned as to how we were going to do it on the one side of the old gym, and all of a sudden it came to me as to how we could attach it to the Manor House and also connect it to the new dining hall area. I had to get up to see if there really was room to do everything I was thinking about. As it turns out it just very well might work. It will save a bundle if it works out. It also allows us to put the new ice cream parlor in front of the kitchen and does not necessitate a drive up window at all.

I'm sure that most of you wonder what the hell is he talking about, but I do hope to have all this on my blog. as you may see there are pictures of the Manor House and Essen House now. Take a look, it is genius you know. I also have some great pictures of the boys and me down in Cabo. I think there is also some Aspen pictures there. You know my kids love to take pictures. Darrin and Brian both have degrees in film. I try to claim all the credit for their abilities to take pictures, but I think they think their education helped them more than my genes.

I thought the computer crashed, but it just farted I guess. If all is well with it, I write tomorrow. Love to all Tom

Thursday 4-29-10

2010-04-29T18:16:00.002-04:00

Day one of the second to the last chemo session. As I finished my chemo I called Sharon to see how everything was going and she could hardly take the time to talk to me. She was jammed and the cook got sick and Anna had to take over the grill. Her words were, CAN YOU HELP??? I quickly got on 469 and headed to 24 to Antwerp. When I got there she was full in the back room with quickly arriving rotary people and in the middle section with residents and in the front with hungry customers. Since I have not been trained to take a customers order, I was assigned the residents. It used to be that I knew almost all the residents by name and what they liked to drink etc. Well guess what. We now have 41 residents and many of them are brand new. We lost three residents to the Lord and then added a bunch of new ones. I quickly went into funny mode and tried to use what names I could remember and then laughed about chemo brain. Since we have a special of the day, most of the residents want food ASAP so if you just say: Want the menu today or do you want the special, they will say OK and it is somewhat easy. Since Anna and I used to work together on feeding the residents it went pretty smooth. You see I don't write anything down and just shout out: I need three menues or three specials. If they get them too me quickly, I can remember who I was suppose to serve the specials too.

After about twenty minutes of mayhem the chemo started to do it's business and I was whipped out. I was able to see one of my chemo friends, Diana, who had just graduated from her chemo after one year and a day. She had breast cancer and is now cancer free. She came in to celebrate. Sharon comped the meals, and they were truly happy. They are heading to the Blue Chip Casino and for some reason feel REAL LUCKY!! God love them, they have been in my prayers ever since I met them a year ago. You can beat this stuff, at least for a while. And sometimes, forever. Only God knows which way that's going to go. We can only accept what he has in store for us.

I'm now home watching Sammy, and we have this agreement: Help grampie with what he has to do and the treats are yours. She is like any kid at that age and will usually start with the sweet stuff, but she also like the healthy stuff. Today it was two sweet and one healthy. Well that was Brian on the phone and grampie just ordered a subway, BMT for me. I'll have enough for at least three meals. When I get the chemo I feel hungry, but I never can eat much. I have not taste buds and food soon becomes uninteresting and I just stop eating. I will usually loose 6 to 8 lbs in the two weeks of chemo. I don't stop eating, I just don't eat near as much.

Well time to go, Brian is on his way. Love to all

Wed. 4-28-10

2010-04-28T20:34:00.002-04:00

Well tomorrow is the first day of the chemo and then just three more and I will be done. I have one next Thursday and then I'm off for a week and then I have another on Thursday and then the last one and I'm finished with chemo. It is something I look forward too but not something I want to think much about. You just have to raise your head above it and know it will soon be over. I still need your prayers.

Today was a very interesting day, I had to get everyone in the family on the same page. It's like a Chinese fire drill trying to find out who is coming when and with whom. I will report her on what I know for sure. Moe is coming on Saturday as are Don and Margo. D&M will be at the Essen House at 11:30 so Don can try the Saturday morning buffet. Moe is also invited if she wants to meet us there. Cate said she may also meet us at the Essen House, she will leave Indy at about 9 or 9:30. David is coming on Saturday also, but no one know what David will do, not even David. He does want to do his fryer, so get ready for Onion rings and potato chips and French fries. It will a very healthy First Communion party. It gives you a chance to be sure and pray for your health at mass on Sunday. Since David will not be attending the mass, we will pray for him.

It's great having these family get togethers. We used to do it, but when we lived in California and we had to fly everyone out there, it just wasn't near as often. Sammy is the guest of honor this time. She has her First Communion on Sunday at the 11 am Mass. After mass we will have our full family gathering. Bring your camera.

As for me, I'm feeling much better with the caught. The medicine that Carol gave me as certainly stopped the caught. There is still some junk down there that I need to bring up, but I'm not continually coughing. BP 125/67 HR 84 and BS 149 this morning. I was able to get out and get some walking in today. I went shopping and made a point of walking fast and going up and down all the isles. The problem with that approach is you buy too much #$#%% . I'll let you know how it went tomorrow. Love Tom

Tuesday 4-27-10

2010-04-27T15:24:00.002-04:00

I had a very interesting thing happen yesterday. I actually had my diabetes doctor call just to see how I was doing. I'm not all that surprised, considering the type of person she is, but when she said she was thinking about me and wanted to call, that really got to me. She then mentioned that she had a bad caught last week, and was going to call me then, but just got to busy with all she had to do. I then coughed for her quite by accident and she said: you've got that caught too don't you. That's one of the reasons I called she said. I figure with the low resistance that you might very well get this. She then said she is sending a prescription to the drug store and I could pick it up in an hour.

Last week I had called her office because I had one prescription for the gout that I have had for years with another doctor who has now retired. He and I were friendly and he knew Carol Burns my diabetes doctor. I had received a call from the doctor who was taking over his practice and wanted me to come in and see her. I explained to the lady that called me that I was in the midst of chemo etc. and did not have the time to come in, could they just order the medicine for me. I got a call back explaining how dangerous it would be for them to just order a prescription for someone they had not given a full physical too. I then tried to explain my situation, I have three cancer doctors and Carol Burns and they have given me every kind of evaluation known to man. I tried to explain that I had the gout since I was in my twenties and that I had been to the University of Michigan to the top gout clinic in America and that they were the ones that had prescribed the medication and that I had been receiving that same thing since 1978 and have never had the gout since. She finally said: sir, if you want this prescription, you will have to come in a have a complete physical. I told her to kiss my back side and that I would never cross their office doors again. That's when I called Carol's office and asked if she would write the order. Debby, Carol's nurse, called back in about fifteen minutes and told me to go pick it up.

I tell this story only to show the difference between great health care providers and the rest of the medical profession. Believe it or not, I do understand why a doctor would not write a prescription for someone they didn't know or had no records on. I had been going to that same office since 1997. All they would have had to do was to call and talk to Dr Jones and he would have OK the medicine, but someone just didn't feel like doing a complete job. It was just easier to tell the patient to come in or else. Can you imagine what it's going to like when the Obama Care kicks in. YOU VILL DO IT AND YOU VILL LIKE IT, OR DIE POND SCUM!!

As for me today, I do have a bad cought, I do have some good medicine that seems to be helping. My BP 122/68, my HR was high today because I had been up running around first 98 and my BS was 109. I wanted to go work out, but I just have no energy with my lungs full of junk. I just hope I can get this under control before Thursday, my first chemo day. I'll keep you informed. Love to all. Tom

Monday 4-26-10

2010-04-26T14:11:00.002-04:00

The past few days have been very interesting. Facebook has drawn together some of the people of my past that I would never have known how to reach. I now know where four of my past neighbors are that I have wondered about for years. It's funny that you never seem to forget your youth. My daughter has even ribbed me about not knowing all the ladies that I dated. The girls I understand, but I have gotten in touch with many of the guys. There all over the world. That is what is so amazing about facebook.

When I grew up we lived at 560 N. Nixon. It was a middle class neighborhood with mostly newer homes. That was homes built sometime in the 40's and 50's. In our case we had neighbors on all sides that had kids our own age. The McKinley's, the Knisley's, the Quinn's, the Kettering's, the Faurote's, that was just the people who's house was with in a block of us. You expand that two to three blocks and it went crazy. We then moved to the corner of Wendell and Pears and the same kind of thing happened. By that time I was in the 8th grade, but it is also when you started really meeting neighbors. St Charles was a new school and I was in the first graduating class. So were a great many people I have not seen or heard from for a long time.

I'm now facebook friends with four of my Wendell neighbors and three of my Nixon neighbors. I've actually gotten in touch with some others that are not on facebook but that have contacted me from friends on facebook.

It's funny, Dr. Rushing told me that many of his patients find that cancer teaches them things that they have long forgotten. It also teaches them to appreciate thing they might have in the past. If this has taught me anything, it's that you really do find who your friends are when you are sick. Many are afraid to talk to you for one reason or another. Others just don't want to be bothered with someone they can't relate to anymore. Then there are a lot that you find that only liked you for what you can do for them. I've been blessed to find many of my old friends.

As for my medical report. I've gotten a &^$^$ chest cold. That is what I was getting just before I went to the doctor. It is in my lungs and making it hard to breath. My BP 130/69, HR 80 and BS 129 this morning. I helped Sharon get the bread and took some money to the Bank. I went to Wendy's for lunch and came home and took an hours nap. I've now gotten on the computer, answered some e-mails and written my blog. I must now go take another nap. Not really, but I don't have a bunch of energy today. More tomorrow.
See Yea Tom

Sunday 4-25-10

2010-04-25T18:20:00.002-04:00

Well I do want to say at 6am it was a beautiful day. As a matter of fact in Church today they didn't have to turn on the lights in the church. I know that because I sit in the back chapel and that's where they control all the lights. It is so pretty when they can leave the lights off and let the leaded glass windows shine all their colors through the church. You do feel like you are in a real special place. It also keeps the people in church much longer after mass. We all have to feel the same feelings about how beautiful it is.

So after Mass I went back and fixed a little breakfast and then took off in search of some switches for the gas stoves over at the Essen House. I can't figure out why the people that sell industrial equipment don't stock any kind of replacement parts. They honest to God wanted to know if we needed a new gas grill. I was like, Yea and I'm going to buy it from the dealership that stocks replacement parts. Now do you have any?????? So when I ask where he thought I might get some he said try the big box stores, they sell everything else. I said: they don't sell Industrial Equipment, why should they have parts for them. I don't know, but I know we don't sell them.

So off to the Big Box stores and after about thirty minutes I finally found some on my own. I had to ask four or five "Industrial Engineers" before one of them knew what exactly I was hunting for. The one guy knew it would be in the KNOB department. When I went there it was for knobs for like your kitchen drawer. Then another sent me to the outdoor gas grill department. He knew for sure they were over there. I finally found them by accident on the shelves behind where the regular kitchen gas grills were sold.

But find them I did, and that makes Sharon happy when she can send me on a mission and I come back with something. They have been looking for three weeks. I now have four more days of normal times before I start the chemo again. Sammy is going to have here First Communion next Sunday and I have to get everything ready for food etc. before the chem brain and the chemo effect start to come on. I did get some beautiful beef tenderloin now I have to stay healthy enough to cook it. If not Don Sullivan is a good griller and David is always ready to lend a hand. My BS has gone high again 200 but my BP was 124/65 and my HR was 84. I went over to the gym, but was not able to do as much as yesterday. I was pretty tired after the hunt for the gas knobs. I never realized how far I used to walk in those big box stores until I had to hunt for this stuff. I usually exercise on the equipment for 30 minutes, and I was as tired when I got done looking as I am when I exercise.

It rained so hard today that it flooded the Essen House, thank God it was after the big crowd's had already eaten. Poor Sharon had already arrived home when they called her to please bring over fans and other equipment. Isn't owning your own business a kick??? Thank God for Sharon, I would have said: do the best with what you got, Sharon was out of the house with equipment in hand in five minutes. She did not get back until after 5pm.

Well it's now 6:45 and I'm about to sit down and watch some TV. I have a very hard live these days. Love to all. Tom

Saturday 4-24-10

2010-04-24T17:58:00.002-04:00

I wanted to wait until the end of the day because it was such a nice day for me. The weather was not all that great, but I had a great day. I actually sleep 7 hours non stop. That's the first time in months. I got up and went to my favorite breakfast restaurant, Coney Island. They have a great $5.00 special of two eggs, hash browns, toast or one pancake, and coffee or tea. I had one pancake today, because they have non-sugar diabetic syrup. the waitress has been serving me since I moved to Fort Wayne. She knows I own the Essen House and has gone to Antwerp just to see how good it is. I also found out today that she is a 11 year cancer survivor. That damn stuff is everywhere. I told her about my sister Margo and how she has helped and supported so many woman who have had breast cancer. After you have had it you realize the importance of support groups. It's the first time you have faced cancer, but it ain't the first time it's been faced.

After breakfast I headed to the gym, a place that I have not been for a while. I sat down and tried to figure out what settings I could use so I could go for thirty minutes. When I was very fit, about 40 years ago, no I mean in my 60's, I could do the 9 or 10 for as long as I like or until someone else wanted to use the machine. Today I picked 6 and went for 30 minutes. My left arm was really screaming right away. I looked at the timer after about 5 minutes and thought there was no way I'm going to last. And like most things in life, it got to the point I could not feel the pain any more. At about 15 minutes, I was ready to throw in the towel when the last night highlights of the all the basketball games came on the Sports channel. I told myself to go until the highlights were over and then stop. When that happened, I had five more minutes for the full 30 minute workout. I made it, I was proud of myself and felt OK when I got done. I then went over to the machine that takes your BP and HR and sat down. It only can register my left arm, so I have to be very careful as to how I sit in the chair. My first reading was like 107/55 and 110 HR. In a way that scared me so I then went over to one of the trainers and asked him to do it on one of the regular machines. 122/67 and 103 HR. That seemed much more like it. I've learned over the years, if it doesn't seem right have someone else do it for you. I have one at home that sometimes goes crazy, but when it does, I just go to the gym and have them take it again.

After the gym I went home for a while and then out to see Louis. Since I had not seen him for more than a week, he wanted me to bring him up to speed. As we talked, am Amish man called about his brother who also has cancer. He told us the kind of cancer, but it was as long as the full name of what I have. The last Louis heard the cancer was all over his body. The report today was that his cancer was in remission. He now has to get a bone marrow transfer, but his cancer is in remission for at least the time being. We then talked about why it happens to certain people and not others. After fifteen minutes on the subject, we decided, only God could answer that question and he doesn't think it's much of our business we decided. We all decided we would find out in heaven.

Louis and I have to talk very quickly during these chemo times. I can talk with some ability during this week just before the next session. After about next Saturday, one week from tonight, I start that damn chemo brain, I think I know what I'm saying, but I will not do well when it comes time to remember what I said and to whom. We got a lot talked out and it looks like there is a lot of work ahead of us. You can keep us in your prayers for the restaurant and assisted living also. We need 12 more as of tonight to be full. It's amazing what happens when some people see you coming close to a successful finish. Many people love what we have done in Antwerp, others still don't like they fact that we didn't graduate from Antwerp High.

I headed home to play a little Omaha High Low 8. It's my favorite because there are so many different things that can change the hands on 5th. street. I also use it as a way to keep my mind going. It's much like Texas Hold'em but you have a low had if it adds up to under 8. It's split pot game or high can take it all if there is no low hand under 8. I won a bunch today.

I then went to the kitchen where I made a rue for some Chinese food that we had in Indy yesterday. After I doctored it up, it was much better than what we had from the restaurant. They can use a Wok, but they no nothing about how to season their food. It's all raw and cooked well, just no taste at all. I then had a small piece of candy and came to write the blog. So it was a good day and thank you for reading this and careing. Love yea, Tom

Friday 4-23-10 A

2010-04-23T16:57:00.002-04:00

Well here goes kids. We drove down to Indy at 7am this morning and neither one of us were in too good a mood. I have not been feeling well for the last few days and had a tough time during this last chemo session. I'm really not sure what is going to happen. Since I was not feeling well, I figured the Sarcoma's had increased, or the size has grown, and the chemo is not working like it should.

When we first see the Dr., he comes in with the same greeting: How's my survivor? He's a great guy and I love his attitude, so I respond in a very positive way and said I was OK today, but that I was not well during the chemo at all. We then went over some of the real bad times when I was in the Hospital and all, and he assured me that I was strong and very healthy for having this cancer. My blood work was doing exactly as it was to do, and that my BP was 130/70, and I had to be feeling some anxiety today. My pulse was 81 and my temp was 99. Weigh was 10lbs less than the last visit. They don't want you to loose a bunch of weight, but since I have it to loose, they done mind the loss.

After we talked for about an hour he then examined me and and said he would be gone for a while to look at the CT Scan results. When he came back it was just like no big deal, everything is just the same as the last time. You still have 5 sarcoma's in your lungs and they are the same size as last time. It was then that we started to discuss what exactly did that mean. He then explained how what he tries to do is to find the correct combination of chemo medicines that will stop the growth of any new sarcoma's, and to keep the one's that do exist, in the same form and size. As he then explained to me again, I do have sarcoma's on my lungs, and that is the worst place to have them. However since he has been able to determine the correct formulation to stop any further growth, it means that he has not cured a sarcoma, but he has stoped any further spread. It is now possible to remove the one's that are there, and we should not have any further sarcoma's for the foreseeable future. They will never say that you are cured, because like he said, we have successfully killed every kind of cancer cell in a test tube. However you body is not a test tube and we don't know how you get this cancer and how to cure it. We can do what we can do and hope they never come back. Does that always work? No, but it feels pretty damn good from where I sit. If I can come back on this blog after my surgery and tell everyone, I have no detectable cancers in my body, I will be as cured as I can get. Then it's just a matter of time as to how long that lasts. I'm telling you now, it sure feels good now. I'm back on the positive track again. I fell off this past couple weeks. Oh yea of little faith. I have to keep positive, I know that, that's why I didn't write in this for about a week or so.

I do have some interesting things to share that did happen the past week or so and will share those thoughts in the next few blogs. Thanks for all the prayers and support. It means so much to me. Tom

Friday 4-23-10

2010-04-23T06:57:00.001-04:00

On our way to Indy for results of the CT Scan. Will let you know later. Love Tom and Sharon

Wed. 4-21-10

2010-04-21T08:19:00.002-04:00

Today's blog is about my oldest daughter and her daughter Caila. Maura graduated with honors from University of Michigan. On her own she left everyone she knew and everything she had ever done and went to LA. Why? because she wanted to do what she wanted to do. Be creative, artistic, let people know who she is and what she wanted to be. She asked me to spot her the first months rent, because as she told me, she would be working by the end of the month. She did find a job and she did pay me back by the end of the month. She had several jobs at first, but ended up at Warner Brothers. As many of you know by now, she met and produced a number of album covers for some pretty famous artists.

I can go on about her career but that is not the point of this discussion. What she also wanted for her children was a good Christian Education. She has sent her two children to Catholic schools since first grade. She has spent thousands of dollars on all kinds of special projects that she has spear headed to help the church, the school and her children. Caila has attended a Private Girls Catholic Prep School for four years. She has had problems with ADHA and a number of other problems that I can't even begin to explain. If you are interested in finding out go to Maura McCarthey's facebook and become her friend. The crux of the problem is that they suspended Caila 9 weeks before graduation. I can't even write this without going crazy. I've defended the Catholic Church for most of my adult life. I know there were times when I too was not happy with what was going on in the Church. I've had to defend it to my Catholic friends who I went to high school and grade school with. I've tried to defend it to my own family. In this case, I can no longer defend it's attitude or it's behaviour.

Maura has a very close friend who has been very fortunate in life and has pledged to help her in her battle against this wrong doing. She is not a Catholic, but a Christian, and someone who has a blind child. She has already faced what happens when someone doesn't think you are normal. No Caila is not normal, but she is a Catholic, and she is human, and she has not been treated like she is either.

For all of you that follow this blog, forget about me, I'm a hopeless case. They can't cure what's wrong with me, but we can get behind Maura and Caila before this school ruins her life for good. I don't know what one person can do, I only know what many people can do in a case like this. Support Caila and Maura, go on her Facebook page, she has a web site offthewallgraffiti.com. If you can think of something for them to do, let her know or just do what you have been doing for me, support.

As for me, I've not been feeling well that is why I have not written, I have my CT Scan tomorrow and my follow up appointment Friday. The way I feel now, I have a feeling that I will be facing surgery soon. I'll keep you all informed. Thanks again for listing and keep the faith. Tom

Monday 4-19-10

2010-04-19T11:37:00.002-04:00

Still have the flue symptoms and not feeling at all like writing. I've been on the bed and head most of the last two days. I want to keep it positive, so I'll see how I feel later. Love Tom

Saturday 4-17-10

2010-04-17T08:11:00.002-04:00

I'm feeling well today so I'm heading for the Essen House for the wonderful Breakfast Buffet. I also want to let everyone know about my friend Tom Whitney. He is now stranded in Iceland. He went for three or four days and has been there since the eruption. God only know when he will be able to leave. As I told him, he will have a story to tell the rest of his life. Right now it is hell I'm sure, but he will know for sure he will not want to be in a place like that for an eternity. And there isn't even any fire there. Oh yes he did send out some new information on the 50th. reunion and even sent it the second time in a format that yours truly could open. I'm so cheap that I have a very old version of MS WORD. Thanks Tom, I told you I would give you your praise. That's from me but I'm sure the class mates appreciated it also

Myles and David were in Iceland last year and said it was just beautiful. They actually mixed up the names from Iceland and Greenland. Iceland is green much like Ireland at times. I guess Greenland, Not so much.

David and I had a good time yesterday looking over all the old red maple doors and paneling that I saved from the old school. I spent many hours in 2005 with the idea that I would be able to use all that in the restoration, however, under the new code, etc. the solid oak doors that I saved, that just happen to weigh more than 80 lbs per door did not have a fire rating on them so no can use. They are at least an inch thick and beautiful. He's going to use 4 or so to make a guy a bar. I do have an Amish friend that will refinish one of them to brand new look, for about $200+ depending on the finish you might want. I have also have several that have glass panels in them also. If anyone is interested let me know. I had forgotten about them because I had them stored in a Barn of the Amish man who will refinish them for you. They are housed in Grabill IN area.

As for my health, blood sugar still in the 400 but that should end today. I have taken the last of the pills that make that happen. BP 123/74 and HR 78 this morning. Now the shot that I got yesterday to make the white cell count get back in the safe area does cause your joints to ake, so I must be on the pain pills, but I have learned when I can drive and when I shouldn't. If I wait about two hours after I have taken them I can control the symptoms. I still have no pain, but I can concentrate OK, I think, Of course with Chemo brain, I don't much remember anything anyway.

Well it has been two hours and I'm hungary so of to the EH.

More tomorrow. SEE YA Tom

Friday 4-16-10

2010-04-16T07:40:00.002-04:00

I don't know about anyone else but I can't get signed on to AOL to get anything. But I did want everyone to know that I made it through Chemo day and I'm feeling OK but very shaky. My blood sugar is right at 400 and I need the pain pills and the gels for my radiation recall. I am going out today for meat for the Essen House and David is coming over and we are going to see about some red oak 70 year old doors that I have stored at an Amish barn and he wants to make a large Bar for one of his paying customers. By the way if you need a great Handy Man in the Greater Lima area he is available for a couple of months. He is very reasonable and do almost anything that does not require large heights.

Maybe more later, It is very difficult to type today because of the shakes.

Thursday 4-15-10

2010-04-15T17:06:00.002-04:00

That's right guy, the dreaded TAX DAY. Since I know all of my friends are on top of the ball, I'm sure this is just another day for most of you. I can remember back in the old RIA days, we had not been able to see anyone on books ect. for at least a month. Autotax was another thing all together. On the West Coast it was hard to sell because we did not have all the states we needed and their was a little company, I can't remember the name now that was cheap and had all the states for the people who had moved to the West.

For me it was day two of the Chemo and it was a comedy of errors. Keeping it light, I had a 7:45 Appointment for which I was there by 7:20am. as usual. Of course the check in Lady was there but no one else was around so I could drop off the Cherry Cheese Cake I had made for them. I finally found a lady in the infustion area about 7:45 so she could put it in the refr. My next important move was to get into the blood drawing area so they could access my port. I sat there until about 8:30 when a lady from the pick your vain not your port side came out and called my name. Ane of course at that time I had to inform her that I had a Port and needed to go into that area. Her comment: Well it not on the schedule that way !!!! well that's just wonderful I said. Whose responsibility is it to read the medical file on me? I don't know who does that, all I get is the order. I then said: I want to see that person, now !! or their supervisor, ASAP. She then admitted that she guessed it was her responsibility to do that today because she was the only one in the department. I then asked how long before I can have an RN access my port ?? She said it would be so time because the elderly man that just went in is having a problem with his port and she is having trouble flushing it and being able to draw any blood.

At 9:10 I was finally in the port area and it took about 10 minutes to stick me. The nurse said she saw me at 7:40 and wondered why I was not coming in to see her as usual. She again said she has no control of the schedule, she just sees whoever is on the orders. She apologized and then we had a chat for the next 10 minutes because Adahmi was running and probably not see me until closer to 10 am.

She right, he came in about 9:40 and apologized for being late and started looking at my chart I'm sure for the first time since the last time I saw him. We discussed what had happened the past week with all the problems etc. I had been having. He also saw that I was pretty close on the white blood cell count and to low on some other things they check, but he felt I would probably very tired and sluggish for the next three to four days, but didn't think I should put off the chemo. He then put me on the exam table and had me do the usual breathing and taking deep breaths and felt for lumps all over my body. he said he thought everything else was fine. My blood pressure was 130/70 and my heart rate was 80. However my blood sugar, because of the medication I have to take for three days was 479. I have to carry another form of insulin so I can bring it down into a saver area like in the 200.

So next thing I finally do, at 10:20 am, was to go into the infusion room and the first thing they want to give me was the intravenous version of the pills I had been taking that kick my blood all to hell. So she then goes over and looks at the chart and come back and tells me I smart to bring the pill that I had been taking, becaue I was right, I should not have the IV and she can't understand why the mixed it that way in the first place. We then got into how you should always have a advocate with you in a doctors office and the infusion room. You should also have everything written down so you know what you got and for what reason. Believe it or not, the rest of the day, until 1:35pm went much smoother. They also went crazy for the treat. I watched several of what we call the Fort Wayners go back for seconds and a couple went back for thirds. I call them the woddlers. There legs are so large the can actually only waddle. It's impossible for them to walk like you or me. For the size of peace they took each time, it had to be at least 400 calories. Plus they had a lunch delivered, that looked like a full picnic basket of all the goodies.

Other than that, I come home to catch up on some aol communication, and they are having problems and there were 187 calls ahead of me. So if anyone emailed me on AOL, it will probably be late tonight or tomorrow.

That' all FOLKS Tom

Wed. 4-14-10

2010-04-14T09:41:00.002-04:00

To all you procrastinators, tomorrow is the day you need to at least file your tax return. You can file and not pay you know, but if you don't want trouble, you do need to file at least an extension. And for those who didn't get what Tom Whitney had sent around, here it is. I've had several requests for it http://www.whitneysoftware.com/xLCC1960/eMail.php

As for my situation, for some damn reason this radiation recall has decided to raise it's ugly head. It makes that radiated area look like I have a very bad sun burn and it swells up about twice the size of normal. As long as I take the pain pills I don't feel it so much, I just don't want those damn doctors to see it and send me back to the hospital. That's where they make the big bucks you know. If I'm lucky, I will start my second day of the chemo and then I should only have one more round before I have surgery. My blood count has to be high enough tomorrow and if so they will give both infusions of chemo. I don't like how that makes me feel, but I want to get this %$#^^%$ over with so I can have surgery and maybe be better for a while.

I don't know about any where else in the country, but it is starting out to be a beautiful day. We and the neighbors are going to have a garage sale on or around the 30th. They have one about every other year or so. With all the kids they have, it's usually well attended because everyone loves to get small kids clothes at a discount. Now if we can convince Brian that Sammy is not going to stay the same size the rest of her life, maybe we can get ride of 10 or so boxes of old clothes. To say nothing of an entire garage he brought with him when he moved in. We also have a refrigerator, a lawn mower , and more junk than ten households should have. My job it seems is to price it all. Being the tight wad that I am, I start everything as high as I think it can go, and then love to haggle. My two favorite shows on TV are Pawn Stars and American Pickers. I just wish I had all those experts that I could call on. I just know I sold the best antique for way to little money. Even when I know I got a good price, I always wonder if I could have held out for more. I'm a friggin mess after it all over. The only good way to do it is, I price everything, and then leave, and don't look again until after it is all cleaned up, and Sharon lies about how much we made.

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Oh by the way, David, my baby brother was let go yesterday from his construction job. He lives in Elida and is a Plumber, Electrician, finished carpenter, can lay wood floors and tile. He is not the fastest person in the world, but did one hell of a job on my $80,000.00 rehab of my basement that had to be torn down to the studs because of mold. If you need him give me an email. I'll give him your number. Tom. P.S. Margo, he loves you, but doesn't want to have to go to Cincinnati if he doesn't have to.

Tuesday 4-12-10

2010-04-13T11:12:00.002-04:00

You know one of the things that keeps happening to me with all the damn pills I have to take is, I going blind. I have to take these steroids and for some reason they cause your close up eyesight to get real fuzzy and distorted. Of course all my family says I can't spell anyway so what difference does it make. You know to a certain extent that is true, but because I have been writing this blog each day, my typing skills have improved so much my fingers can see what my eyes can't. But what I really wanted to comment on today was Tom Whitney.

I know he sent me an email saying he was going out of the country to see some of his family members. I'm not sure how many of the classmates know how much work he put into getting that roster together. He and I spent a day together one Saturday and he was explaining just what king of work it was to put that thing together. He then spent the time to do it for the class of '61 because his wife graduated with them. I guess she only went to LCC for one year, but somehow he was able to assemble just about as much info. on them as he did for us. I've written to some of the class that are not on Facebook and tried to get them to do so. I know that some are not as computer knowledgeable as others, but I think it would be neat to have as many as we could on the FB by the time we had the 50th. We might be old in the eyes of some of the students at LCC, but we all know we are still young at heart. I think it's a kick to hear from someone you have not spoken too for 30 or 40 years. Believe it or not they do remember who the hell you are. The other thing is they have probably forgotten why they didn't ever want to speak to you again anyway. That's the great thing about getting old. You can't remember pain, and they BAD things you remember don't seem so bad anymore. It's much easier to forgive someone when you can't really remember why you didn't like them in the first place. I know I have forgiven two people that I had not spoken with in many a year, and found out I still did like them down deep. What seemed so important then, seems so damn silly now. Let's get all the old %#%^%$^$ out of the way and have a 50th that we well only remember the good times. I'll never forget how funny Gary and Ted were at the 40th. Let's all have those kinds of memories for the 50th. God only know when we will see and hear from each other again.

Again Tom Whitney, thanks for all the hard work.

About me, screw it, I'm fine. Tom

Monday 4-12-10

2010-04-12T11:06:00.005-04:00

You know there is a thing called Chemo Brain that everyone who has had Chemp will tell you about. You think you know exactly what's going on, but in reality you don't know, or remember anything. I saw this picture on Facebook today and mentioned that I was pissed that I was not in it. Maura then sent me a not mentioning the fact that I took the picture. I then got a note for Cate saying I did take the picture. A few minutes later I was told by Brian that Maura took the picture using a Tripod. See how they try to screw the old man up.

Number one they don't want me in the picture, then they try to pacify me by saying I took the the picture and then Brian, who lives with us and should know how screwed up I can get, tells me not only was I not the picture, but Maura took it and I was not even in the room. You see what I have to live with. I feel like Rodny Dangerfield !!! See if there is anything left when I finally do kick the bucket. I will have take a picture of where I put it, but I'm sure I will have forgotten where I put the picture. Check in Cabo thought. That's where Sharon wants to scatter my ashes. If it's not down there, GOOD LUCK !!! Don't look in the banks though, I promise I will have nothing left in there.

Now about today, what a beautiful day. Again I sleep until 9am. God I love doing that. Got up, took my shower, and then watched the great coverage of Phil and the Masters win. You talk about someone who deserved that win. I've always admired Tiger's play, but I always felt Phil was the peoples champ. He certainly got what he deserved. I didn't get to see the end because I went to dinner with John, Pat and Sharon, but it was great to have a chance to see it all over again this morning. Tiger, if you ever think your going to come back from your BS you better take a close look at Phil and who and what he is and what he means to Golf.

All is well with me today, BS a little high 145, BP 130/71 and HR 82. I finally got rid of the flue like symptoms. Every joint in my body was crying out yesterday. Today, not so much. Enjoy this beautiful day. Tom

Sunday 4-11-10

2010-04-11T14:26:00.002-04:00

We had a very nice dinner last night at the Essen House. They still have the best salad bar around. To say nothing about the potato dumpling soup. Actually if I didn't love to eat, that should be enough. But the fish and chicken and the mash potatoes and gravy just call out to me. I also don't don't want the girls up set that I didn't try their casseroles then I saw the coconut cream pie and didn't want Mary to be slighted in the least. At the end we all decided it was well worth the calories.

We also showed them the Manor House and all the other features that make the Place a home. We now have more bunnies than you can count. Those rabbits do stay busy. We must have 12 if we have any. One of the residents had one in the hall tonight and was somewhat up set that it got her all wet. I explained that they mark their friends that way so none of the other rabbits will think they can horn in on them. She then asked how many time they would do that. I said it was best to leave them in the box once they had bonded. I also told her she could wear an apron if she wanted to.

It looks like the Nursing Home that we were trying to help is going to have to shut down. The union voted again, nut they refused to take any of the cuts that would allow it to stay open. Some of the workers are very upset about looking their jobs, but I guess the others don't believe we will have to shut the doors. Our job now will be to help the residents find other places to live. We can probably take a few, but there is quite a difference from a person who needs nursing care and on that just needs assistance.

I didn't get to mass today. I was not feeling well during the night, so I had to take some medication that helps me get through the flue like symptoms that come around after the third day. At least the Masters is on, do I'll have something to watch. BS a little high 168, BP 134/76 and my HB is 89 today. I've got pain in every joint and it is very difficult getting around. The other thing that has happened though is the Hyaluronic Acid has been back ordered and I know that helps with my joints. No, not that one, but the other one's for sure.

More later, Tom

Saturday 4-10-10

2010-04-10T11:26:00.003-04:00

You know It never ceases to amaze how powerful this FB is. I'm starting to hear from people I have not seen or heard from in 30 or 40 years. It's great to finally find out what happened to people after their working years.

I just heard from my wife's uncle who we tried to work with for ten years here in Fort Wayne but we fought most every day all day. He always wanted to control the business but was unable to do so because of the family situation. Sharon finally grew the business back to where it could be sold, and asked no one about selling it, she just did it. At the time, she was so looked down upon by her family it was hard to take. I had to leave because I could not take the attitude any more.

What finally happened was the economy, all of a sudden the family has realized that she was the smart one and knew when it was time to get out. What is really great is the fact that the entire side of the family is now back together. The one Uncle that we were friendly with passed away about a week ago and it was great seeing the family. I was sick and unable to attend, but what has been great is that they have all called me and asked how I was doing and letting me know that they pray for me each day.

John, the one we had all the trouble with, actually called yesterday and he and his wife had a 25 minute conversation. We talked about our golf games and the fact they don't get better as you age. What you have to remember is, why do I play this game, is it for fun? or do I think I'm going to get better. We both know the answer to that question. We also talked about the wild animals that we both have living in our back yard. There are time that you would like to kill them for the stuff they do to your yard etc. but then you quickly realize you would miss all the times you laugh at them as well. Neither of us are much into killing anything.

At the end of the conversation he asked me if we would ever like o go out to dinner. After I got all over him for never having been to the Essen House of the Manor House, he said he would love to see it. Believe it or not, I just heard from his wife Pat, that they will be picking me up at 5:30 and we are going to the Essen House for dinner.

I've actually known Pat, for as long or maybe even longer than John. She was a friend of my neighbor in Lima and they went to Nursing school together in Dayton. She a great gal and prays for me each day.

I've also heard from 9 of my old employees. As many of you know I was terminated from RIA in '92 because they said I was in the Real Estate business. Well after a year of fighting, I finally won a large settlement and have been able to parlay that into some rather large sums. However all the employees were told they were not permitted to talk to me ever again. I was told that if I ever told anyone how much the settlement was for they would come after the money. I also had to sign an agreement that I would never work for a company that they owned or controlled. I signed it now problem, only later to find out they purchased a company that I was working for call Barkleys. Just two short weeks after the final paper work was finished, I got a call for a young lady in HR and she had to tell me I was terminated one more time by Thomson. Believe it or not, I saw her about a year later in a Hotel in LA and she came over to me and explained how difficult it was for her to have to call me. We had met a few times at the home office and she said she really like me. She also said her boss and the owner of the company said he didn't want to be the one to tell me either. He had been to my home and seen my Harley and love it soooo much he went out and bought one. After he sold the company, he purchased a Harley dealership and still ownes it today. I called him about two years after that and let him know that all was forgiven.

Well that all for today, check it out tomorrow, I feel gust fine today, blood sugar 104, blood pressure 112/60 and heart rate 81. I did exercise to hard yesterday and my leg does not feel all that well, but that doesn't matter at all.

Tom

Friday 4-9-10

2010-04-09T09:44:00.002-04:00

First day after chemo and I'm feeling OK. Now I must say I'm still on some pretty medication, but as long as I'm not in the hospital or praying to the circle basin, I'm happy. I actually got to sleep until 9am.

I did have another thing that happened yesterday at the doctors office with Sue. At the end of the examination she wanted to look at my arm where the operation had been and the radiation recall had flared. When she saw it she noticed that I had some creams on the area. She then says; You know we really need to know what your are putting on that area. I then asked her if it wasn't in the medical records she had in her hands? Nothing she said that she saw. I then mentioned if she had read anything that Dr Rushing had sent them. With a sheepish grin on her face she said that she had not. As she went to that section of the report, there in yellow underlining were the names as well as the directions for what I had on my arm. She then tells me how important it is to have all the information on my records, because of how rare my cancer is and that the radiation recall is the first recorded case in history.

You had to know what was going through my mind as she said it. They practice medicine and it you let them they will practice on you. Why the &%&%%( do they have this information if they don't read it before they come in to see me. As a good attorney will tell you, never ask a question you don't already know the answer too. Otherwise you look like the fool.

As I said befor, I like Sue, she just needs to learn who to prepare for a meeting with her patients. Or the best thing I can think of is that I meet with Adahmi and Sue can be in there watching.

More tomorrow. Tom

Thursday 4-8-10

2010-04-08T18:00:00.002-04:00

So I get to the chemo doctor at 7:45 to find they switched my appointment to 9am. It seems Adahmi will not be in an I get to see Sue again. As I have said before, she is nice and all, but not my doctor.

In reviewing my file, I ask her about the anti nausea medication that I thought last time before my first round of chemo. She said that it is safer to take the pills a day before, the day of, and the day after the chemo. She said she noticed that I did not take the pill this time. Is there a reason I didn't want to or something. I don't think soooooo!!!! I told her I call to check on it and was told I didn't need tooooo. She then tries to cover for the PHONE NURSE, who I still think is a $3.50 phone nurse for someones fantasy, by saying she only went back to your last week of chemo and not your first week. It is better to take the pills, but we will give you the infusion today instead. It ain't the best thing for you Tom, but frankly Tom, I don't give a damn. If it were me, Yes, but you, tough it out big boy.

I then ask her about the diarrhea medicine she told me about that didn't work, Imodium. It's over the counter but in my case it just didn't stop the diarrhea. She then blurts out, oh yea, Taxitear is known to cause severe diarrhea. I guess I should have given you a scrip for this other stuff. I'll do that for you this week. Again she is a very nice lady, but they just don't listen to your concerns. She then comes out the real beauty. Today you l0ok so healthy and in good shape. I guess I need to see you when you have lost the 10 lbs and can't get out of bed. I'm really sorry you were sick, maybe this time we can catch it early.

I left feeling sooooooooo confident about this week. Oh yea, she thinks I'm supposed to get a CT Scan before the 23rd, but she will know for sure when I come back next week. Will I be seeing you? Or will I finally get to see Adahmi? Well you know Dr. Adahmi really doesn't work in Fort Wayne on Thursday, but I will see if he can see you first thing in the morning. About an hour later while I was take the chemo, I did get a card saying I will be seeing Adahmi at 7:45 next Thursday. I wonder if I didn't say anything if I would have see Sue again. I think she let him know that I want to see the DOCTOR. He is the one making the BIG BUCKS!!

We will see what comes next. I'll keep you up to date day by day to see what happens this week. I'll try to keep it up beat no matter how I feel.

I'm such a real trooper aren't I. My friggen arm got stuck behing my back. I'll try to have it back by tomorrow. Tom

Thursday 4-8-10

2010-04-08T06:57:00.002-04:00

Not much happened yesterday. Sammy has been sick and on Spring break, so Grampie has been baby sitting. She and Brian both have bad cold's.

Off to Chemo today. Wish me luck and prayers. I write some more later today if all is well.

Tuesday 4-06-10

2010-04-06T13:22:00.002-04:00

Another fun fact about health care. The last time I started my chemo I was given a prescription for a medication that I was told to take one the day before chemo. Then take another one the day of chemo and then one after chemo. Since it is now Tuesday and I have not been given any script, I called Dr. Adami's office to see what was up. Of course you can't talk directly to anyone. You have to leave a message telling them your full name, spelled out, your date of birth, what Dr. you are seeing, and what is your question. So I take the time to do everything I've been told to do and then I get a message that once they have reviewed my file they would be back to me with an answer.

It's now two hours later and I get a call from the PHONE NURSE, doesn't that sound dirty. Like you have to pay $3.50 and hour to talk to the Phone Nurse. Well any way, this one is brilliant. The first thing she asks is "What do you need? I then asked if she had my file in front of her. No she said, I usually can answer most questions without it. So I told her about the pills before during and after chemo. She immediately responds, I'll send something to the pharmacy. Which one do you use. I then asked what is the prescription for? She gave me the name and said it for nausea etc. for when I take the Takatear. I then explained that I was not scheduled to get that this week. She then says well then ask the nurse when you come in to have some ready for you for next week.

If I had not asked what was the medication for, she would have had me taking this stuff this week and probably nothing next week when I actually do need it. I then said I remembered taking something last the last time before the first round of chemo. Her answer, well maybe they did the same thing last time. I don't know why someone would have told you to take this the first week. She then asked if I got sick the last time. I said that I did get sick. She said it should not have been from the chemo, maybe you just ate something bad, yea, like the pills I should not have taken. That would never happen.

Just remember you have to ask questions. You have to know what they are going to do and what can you expect. Don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't forget my motto: IYLTTWPOY.

Butler gave those Blue Devils all they wanted. You could have made a bundle if you took Butler and the points. They have a lot to be proud of.

Two more days until it starts all over again. I just pray the CT Scan shows no more sacroma's and no larger.

See ya, Tom

Monday 4-05-10

2010-04-05T17:56:00.002-04:00

I'm not at all sure what is going around, but I see from FB that Cate is sick, and I stayed home all day with Sammy, who is also sick. I got sick in the morning myself, but it's not as bad as right after chemo. I was hoping I would not get this again until after chemo. I was able to have dinner and so far so good.

I'm looking forward to watching basketball to night. If Butler wins it will really be exciting for the Indy crowd. It's such a small school with a very young head coach. Good Luck Boys!!!

I don't know if everyone saw what happened to that young man that was on Spring break and fell to his death. He had everything to live for and felt the need to get wild and crazy and ended in tragedy. I understand he had a full ride to Notre Dame and probably a professional career also. All I can say is I was at a couple of Spring breaks and advised the parents to not encourage drinking. However I can remember many of the dads who thought they were big shots, buy drinks for 17 and 18 year old boys and girls. I'm not saying they didn't have drinks at my home, but it was never encouraged and never supplied by us. They grow up fast enough, if they do drink, don't let them leave. If they are drinking, don' t let them get crazy. We are the only one's who can watch over them until they are 21. After that, God help them.

I have heard from my California friends and family and all is clear. I do have some good friends in Cabo, I've not heard anything bad about that area. I know the hotels are built to a strong code, but most of the houses are one story and made with not re-bar. I guess the only good thing is that the palm frons that they cover the roofs with are not all that heavy.

That's all for now folks, I'm going to get ready for the game. Tom

Sunday 4-4-10 Easter

2010-04-04T09:40:00.003-04:00

Cate and I are getting ready to go pick up David and head to Larry's in Dayton. Sharon is at the Essen House trying to figure out how she is going to seat 81 reservations with God only knows how many people in each one, in about a hour. Our best servers have decided they need to be with family, which we totally understand, but it does put added pressure on Sharon. We do have a great staff, but on big days like this it is scary. It always seems to work it self out, but until it's over, it is a lot of pressure. The great thing about Antwerp, and most small towns, is that the people who are there will help out if they see you are in trouble. We have volunteers that will actually get up from their meal and help if they see someone needs it.

All's well that ends well. Great day, great fun, great meal, long drive home.

Cate and I are driving to Lima and picking up David and then Sharon will meat us there and we will all drive to Larry's together. I hope you all have a great Easter with friends and family. May God bless you all. Tom

Sat 4-3-10

2010-04-03T16:23:00.005-04:00

Sharon actually slept until 7:30 this morning. I couldn't believe it, but the Essen House actually functioned with out her for the first two hours. I will have to admit that she got a call from the kitchen as we were pulling into Antwerp. It was not a bad emergency, but still needed her decission making ability. We were pretty busy, but nothing like tomorrow will be. The big problem is that everyone gets out of church at the same time and they all want to eat Brunch at the same time. We have put a breakfast buffet in for Sunday, that's for the one's that don't go to church and only want breakfast.

As we were leaving we heard from Cate, and she was on her way home from Indy. We made a quick stop at the Amish market and then headed for home. It is sooo nice to have her home for a little while.

Cate and Sharon went shopping and I was able to take a nap. You see Sharon got to sleep until 7:30, but I had been up since 4:45. I haven't had to take any kind of medicine for the last two days so I feel good about that. I still have no energy, but my blood pressure is 125/64 and my heart rate is about 82. Now how many guys heart rate would be 82 when your 23 year old daughter comes home and brings the gals with her. Do you think they might hit the bars tonight?? I guess it is OK since Lent is over and I have absolutely no control over any of them any more. Cate is home today and then leaves on her own to go to Dayton to have dinnere with the family, and then she is headed back to Indy and Sharon and I are headed back Home. Happy Easter to one and all. Hope you enjoyed the picture of the girls.

Friday 4-2-10

2010-04-02T19:52:00.002-04:00

It's very seldom that I have written in the blog twice in the same day. However, today I was doing something that I very rarely ever do. I was watching the history channel and a story came on about the real Last Supper. Having gone to Xavier University to college, you learn that the Jesuits tell you that is wise to question just about everything. One thing you probably don't know about the Jesuits is: They don't necessarily follow the Pope on everything he says. Since there was a time when we actually had three different Popes and the same time, there not toooo sure if the one we have now is the correct one. They don't make a big deal out of it, but if you ask them they will give you their interpretation of the situation.

This being said, I watched a program today on the History Channel about the REAL LAST SUPPER. It was given by an archaeologist and a biblical scholar. The most interesting part was what the archaeologist has found out about how and where the Last Supper was held. It's interesting that the Bible was written as you know, by at least four different authors about 40 or 50 years after the death of Christ. Three of the authors seem to indicate that the Last Supper was also a Pass Over Seder. Only John says it was a day before the Seder. The guy that really has screwed up most of our thinking on the Last Supper is Leonardo da Vinci. He's got it all screwed up. First of all, if it was the Seder meal, then the families and men and woman would have been invited. They would not be sitting at a table with everyone facing the same direction. History of the times, tell us that most likely they were seated on the floor or reclining. The Seder meal is for the entire family, and epically children. The idea was to educate the children about the flight into Egypt and the Pass Over itself. Jesus would certainly have had his mother and Mary Magdalene and other family members of his apostles and followers. Since it was at least Pass Over week, Jerusalem would have been packed, and they would have more than likely been in a poorer section of the city. Most commonly they would have been on a flat roof of a home with a make shift roof above their heads. They would have sat in a circle so everyone could see each other.

The other interesting thing is what they would have eaten on. They would have eaten out of bowls. Each person would have had their own drinking container, and most likely it would have been made of stone. They did have pottery in those days, but they mostly drank out of stone cups as apposed to pottery cups. If you drank out of a stone cup, it was considered clean. This is why the archaeologist feels that the Holy Grail will never be found. First, it was probably not a decorated object at all. It was more than likely just like all the other stone cups that everyone else was drinking out of. Since the meal would have been served by a family, the dishes would have been collected after the meal and the one Jesus used would resemble all the others.

As I said before, Leonardo da Vinci probably has crewed up the Christian view of the Last Supper more than anyone else. On his table he shows loaves of bread, since it was Pass Over week for sure, there would be no loaves of bread. During that week the Jews eliminated all Leaven out of their homes. They cleaned their homes so well as to not even have dust that would have Leaven in it. Again the table is all wrong and it shows that the time of day is early. For sure the Seder is celebrated in the evening. As to how Jesus was pictured, Leonardo made him look more modern than he would have been. The archaeologists feels that he would have looked much like a man from the AD 33. Shorter hair and a full beard. Leonardo has him looking more like a man of Leonardo's time.

The other thing I found interesting is that they know the time of year that Jesus died because of the Pass Over Week. I never realized why the time of Pass Over and Easter were also so closely linked. I also realize now as to why Lamb is served for both Easter and the Seder meal.

They also mentioned about the fact that it has never been realistically proven that Jesus was born on the 25th of December. As they said, if you listen to the Bible, the Shepard's didn't tend their sheep in December. Not that it makes that much difference, but it is interesting that they have the time and place of his death exact.

Just a little history for you on Good Friday. Also I wanted to Mention that Myles McLaughlin becomes a Catholic tomorrow. He will be Baptised and Confirmed on the same day. Congratulations Myles, I know you have worked very hard to make this day come true. We will all say a prayer for you. We are very proud of what you have accomplished.

Tom

Friday 4-2-10

2010-04-02T08:14:00.002-04:00

It's Good Friday and many of us are not having to work today, or the young ones don't have school. I always remember this time as exciting because it meant two more days and all the Easter candy you can find. However, I also remember the deal with the rain etc. from twelve noon until three. The time that Christ suffered and finally died on the cross. We were to spend some time reflecting on that during those three hours. As a kid, maybe 12 years old or so, I was old enough to see why we were to do that, but not sure how the hell God was able to control the weather all over the world so it was rainy during that time. I can still remember the Good Friday when it was just beautiful the entire day. It was that year that I realized that the important thing about the day was not the weather, but that we were to reflect on what happen that day and how it now effects our lives today.

After I wrote my blog. yesterday, I started to reflect on who had come back into my live in the past year and how that has affected my life. Yesterday alone I heard from an old college friend that I have not heard from in over a year. His life is again all upside down because he is going through a very bad divorce. As we talked about how I was etc. it was apparent he had bigger issues at this time than I did. He did want to know about my situation, but what I got out of it was how I could give him some sound advice about his own life. He has tried to live with an drunk for the past 18 years. He was never a heavy drinker, but in order to cope, he started drinking with her. Thank God he did make it back to church and was able to realize that sometimes the best and only way to cope with a drunk is to leave them. After about an hour we both felt sooo good about having this time to talk. It used to always be that we would talk, but since I did not want to get involved with the two of them, we have not seen each other for about six years. We now plan to see each other this summer. If it were not for both of our problems, we would not have communicated this season.

I also talked to an old old classmate, we went to kindergarten together. We were talking because her brother was out West to see her and fell and broke his hip. I was calling to see if he was doing OK. As it turned out he had been unemployed for a few months back in NC and came to help her fix up her house for some extra money. As it turned out, his friend told him to get food stamps since he was not receiving any income. When he went to do so, the lady at the agency said he should apply for Medicaid at the same time. He was just 60 and was lucky he decided to do so. He is a very proud man, but realized he had no insurance and could not take the risk of going without coverage. Had he not done that, he would have been on the hook for the $40,000.00 hospital stay plus the recovery cost. They actually made him leave the hospital and put him on a plain back to NC because Medicaid covered the cost of an accident, but nothing more. In order to get coverage, he had to be in NC. So even though I'm not for the Health Care issue, I do see how it can rune someone who has no coverage.

I also heard from a high school friend who has it all. His father was the largest independent oil distributor in the Midwest. He has two very large ranches in Montana and Arizona, yet he calls me each week to see how I am. He has also had cancer, and is now trying to recover from a crushed lag that he suffered some five years ago. A mule rolled over on his leg and he would have die if he had not mustered the strength to crawl over a half mile to a road that was actually his drive way so to speak, 26 miles long. As it turned out there were some neighbors, from 30 miles away, that just happened to have gone out for a evening ride, that found him. The leg was smashed in 12 places and he has had to have it redone three different times. The last of it, is his ankle, he has been in a cast for the past four months, and has been unable to ride his horses or mules. He called to let me know he was feeling better and felt he was going to be able to get back on the golf course soon. When he was recovering from prostate cancer, I did call him also, but never once a week. At best once a month, when he fell of the mule, I also checked on him, but again once a month or so. But this guy, one of the hardest, toughest guys alive, checks on me once a week. How does a guy like me get so lucky. Yes, I've got cancer, and they say there is no cure, but I have felt so lucky this past week, that I really feel alive and happy to have so many wonderful friends. Thanks to all of you who constantely check on me. I love you all. Tom

Thursday 4-1-10

2010-04-01T15:01:00.002-04:00

Happy April Fools Day. I laid awake for about three hours last night trying to get to sleep in the middle of the night. I sometimes have my best ideas at that time, and sometimes I feel real sorry for myself. Last night was really a good night after all. The one thing that happened was I sleep until 8am. When I did wake up it was beautiful outside. I was also very excited because I had some ideas that I was able think through about some things at the school. When I first took over the project I had some very definite ideas and would not let my mind think about any other way to accomplish certain things. That changed last night about 3:30 am. When I was finally able to talk the right people, they agreed it was a workable idea after all.

Since I was feeling much better I decided to make a quick breakfast and head for the Essen House. When I arrived the residents were just having their late breakfasts. The early one's are finished by 8:30am. As I approached a corner booth there were four residents talking about how nice the day was. I just happened to mention that it reminded me of San Diego and or Phoenix. The one lady said: I always wanted to go out West, but the furthest I got was St. Louis. Is it always nice in San Diego? It was then I realized how really lucky I've been. Not only did I live in San Diego for 13 years, but got involved with the Carlsbad Inn and have been on the Board ever since. We lived in Phoenix for 7 years and have some of the best friends we have from there. My closest friend helped me purchase real estate and managed it for me. His wife still does it for me today. What great friends.

Speaking of friends, I have been so fortunate lately to have sooooo many of them come back into my life. Today for instance I heard from one of my oldest friends from for Arizona. He calls me each week to see how I'm doing. I heard from another one who I've known for 30 some years that used to work with me. I also learned that many of my old friends are actually much more liberal than I am. I've also noticed that they are all still good friends. My oldest daughter is one of them. The one great thing about all of them is they all know I'm RIGHT. You know for many years I was not permitted to talk about politics, so I never knew how many of my employees and good friends thought differently about how we view the world. As I get older, and can look back on it. Who really cares. What is really important is how do you feel about each other. I now know that they all seem to care about how I'm doing, and I'm damn glad to call them friends.

This is the time of year that all Christians reflect on what happened 2010 years ago. It was a very sad time for Jesus, but look what it did for all of us. He knew what he had to do and did it. As I go forward I need to keep that thought in mind. We all have to do what we got to do. I thank all of you for taking the time to include me in your time. I promise I will do everything in my power to do the best I can do also. It's great to be alive, let's all celebrate that thought on Easter.

I know that I also have some great Jewish friends and this is the time of Pass Over for you. I hope you are all able to celebrate this time with your friends and family. Thank you also for your support. I look forward to seeing some of you in Carlsbad in June. By the way, Wayne and Bob Wilson want to be included.

Go out and celebrate the day. Tom

Wed.3-31-10

2010-03-31T19:12:00.002-04:00

Well it might have reached 70 degrees today, I'm not sure until I hear the news tonight. We have this guy on the weather that has grown his beard and is going to shave it off on the first 70 degree day. Also, if you guessed the right time, etc. you can win a John Deer garden tractor. I really hope it hit 70 today, it has been the dumbest contest I have ever seen. I hope to God I never looked as dorkie as this guy in his beard and mustache. Is however exciting that Spring is just around the corner.

I also wanted to thank all of you for the kind words on my recovery etc. As Sharon says: at least I'm not in the F$%^@#%# hospital. I've talked to several people who have been through Chemo, and it effects everyone differently. The first batch this summer was easy, now that I look back on it. I had a few bad days, but nothing like what happened two weeks ago. The thing that really pisses me off most is the fact that my taste buds are all screwed up. As many of you know I drink ice tea as apposed to any kind of soft drink. Well believe it or not, the ice tea even tastes bad. Larry I even tried to do like you do and add all kinds of sweeteners. Still nothing. hell water even tastes different. I made one of my favorite sandwiches today and ate about four bites and stopped. However I did by some Top Roman noodles today and added some beef tenderloin with it and the S&^&% is so bad anyway, it actually tasted OK. So I'm going out and try to find stuff I have never liked and see how that tastes with this taste bud situation. Hell Maura, I might even go get some yogurt again. It can't be much worse than some of the other things I've tried.

I was excited to see today that the reunion and my board meeting at the Carlsbad Inn do not interfere. Last year we had it on the 18th weekend, but thank God this year we all decided that the 25th. would work just as well. I don't normally try to miss a meeting, in 24 years I've only missed like three. I've had to do a couple on the phone, but I still have to get my two cents worth in. I know they think they can run the place with out my help, but I know they still need the guidance. Randy is good, but he only has 20 some years of experience. He is just starting to get the hang of it. And being that he is so Liberal he needs my right hand guidance.

Cate, I hope your feeling better, it's just too nice to be feeling anything but great. Love ya, kid, keep smileing.

Dad

Tuesday 3-30-10

2010-03-30T12:05:00.002-04:00

This month has flown by. I've been feeling pretty good this morning so I got up and got my s&^%& together and bought all the meat for the coming feasts at the Essen House. I love it when I can put deals together. I always check at Sam's to see if they have any great deals early in the morning. I should not give this information out, but earl in the morning they discount any meat that must be sold in the next two days. Now, I call that aged beef, and love to get it at a discount. Today for instance I got USDA Choice roasts for $2.38 a lb as apposed to $3.99 a lb for the same thing. We freeze it any way and when we serve it, it's all gone in about 20 minutes. We will also cook it and then serve it in pre packaged servings for beef Manhattans. They love that meat served open face with mash potatoes and gravy on two peaces of bread. Now that's comfort food all the way. Put a little dressing on the side and you got heaven on a plate. I'm drooling just thinking about it. You see the Amish can eat that all day long because they work it off before lunch and after lunch. With me, well, not so much. I work it off by not having it but once a month. I've actually lost about 16 lbs. here in the last weeks so I get to have one of those soooon.

I also picked up port tenderloin, normal price $1.99 when on sale, today I got a box for $1.63. We are going to have roast beef, port tenderloin, and ham on the carving station for Easter. We've already had a ton of reservations, so Easter should be a big day. Thanks Toby and Larry for inviting us to your house for Easter. I do like to do the carving, but it's actually nicer to be served by Toby and Larry.

My next stop was to get the corned beef. I can't get much of a discount on that, but as I have said before it is the oldest and best corned beef in the country. I love it, but I just can't have tooooo much of a good thing. It's OK to have a sandwich. but when it comes to a full meal, I need to be careful. It's all the other stuff that gets to my stomach.

It's starting to be good bike riding weather again. Be careful, you know they don't watch for us. We lost 4 riders in Carefree because a dumb ass garbage truck ran into the back of 8 while stopped at a stop sign. He was reading his log. I hope they give him plenty of time in another life to read his log in hell. That just makes me sick to think of the lives that are effected.

For all those that will be traveling for the holiday, be careful and drive safely and watch out for the bikes, they are everywhere. Love to all. Tom

Monday 3-29-10

2010-03-29T17:28:00.002-04:00

I've been tardy for a couple days,because I have not been feeling all that well and I always want to have something interesting to say. Well here goes: Saturday night I did get out to the Essen House to see the Auglaze Rough Riders. We had 45 of them at the restaurant. It was quit a sight to see. Even though these guys live in mid-America, they sure do love the west. Doc. Holiday was there I'm sure that was him, he coughed and spit blood just like Doc did in Tombstone. Wyatt was there in his black coat and hat. Gabby Hayes made an appearance, as a matter of fact he was the MC. He had a beautiful pair of matched 45. Now understand that Sharon had told me I was not allowed to get dressed up in all my utter finery, but I didn't listen. I put on all my old jewelry and knives and cowboy hat etc. Then I went out to Louis's and had my picture taken with one of his horses. I figure if I don't wear that stuff when I can, it will go to waste. No way we can have that happen. Besides, I had four or five of them come up to see all the different things I had on. And as all of you should know by now, IT'S ALL ABOUT ME !!

I did get up early Sunday and made it to the Palm Sunday mass. I didn't remember how they turned out all the lights at the end of mass. I had not been feeling well and must have fallen asleep, the next thing I know one of the priests came by to see if I was alright. I sit in a little chapel in the front of the church that can't be seen by anyone unless you come back into the dressing area. Once they turned out the lights, I decided to shut my eyes and that was it. I then realized I really was not feeling too well and went home and layed down for most of the rest of the day.

I did find out some great news from my brother Larry however. He and Toby went to the state finals basketball game where his long time friend Bob Seggerson, and the LCC Thunderbirds won the state basketball finals. Bob had been a close friend of Larry's since they were in grade school. He was able to have many if not all of his brothers at the game with him. He has been at LCC for many many years and I think has always been the basketball coach. He's a great guy and deserves that honor as well as his team.

Speaking of sporting events, Saturday night at the gym at the Essen House we had a tournament of Corn Hole. We raised $700.00 for the ACDC of Antwerp. There were 45 teams and they came from three different states. We built all the boxes our selves so we will be able to do this kind of thing again. We had 9 tables going all at one time. $100.00 for first place, $75,00 for second and $50.00 for third. You would have thought they were playing for a million. I'm telling you, I stood there and watched one game when every bean bag went into the hole. These guy were serious players. As the one guy said, they only miss when they want to hit someones bag away. It was very interesting and I hope to see it again.

I was able to help Sharon get the bread order today and order the Corned Beef from butcher shop. Sharon and her Brother Dick are at a viewing for their Uncle Louie who passed away last week. He had been sick for several years. He had been the President of the bank in Selina for many years. They had also been members of Shawnee Country Club. He was 86 years old.

Well that's about it for now, when I get a chance, I'll put the picture on the blog of me and the horse. More later. Tom

Friday 3-26-10

2010-03-26T16:31:00.002-04:00

Well it day two and I got the shot this morning that increases my white blood cells but makes you feel like you have the flue because it effects your bones as it increases your cell count. It should only last two days or so she said with a smile on her face. She said to not let up on the pain pills but to ad ivepropen(sp) because it acts also like a anti inflammatory. So I guess I will feal like 4 martini's and you know what they say about a martini: One's not enough and 3's to many. With 4 you would need two woman that would be willing to deal with a drunk.

I must admit I feel pretty well. It will all depend on how it goes tomorrow. I am excited about tomorrow though. We have large group of western gun slinggers who are coming to have big dinner at the Essen House. They will be bringing all their guns and fire arms and different clothes they wear when they perform in parades etc. They are from about 4 different stated and have been in the Rose Bowl etc. Sharon said I was not able to get into all my Indian jewelry and cow boy stuff. She said she didn't want me to show them up. The party is for them not me and my bull shit. I got to at least wear some boots, and a belt buckle and a neat cowboy hat. I will not wear my bola tie, because that does always draw attention. I'll be good, but not great. It's just what I got to do. I don't get a chance to wear that stuff that often in Antwerp. I'm still a Tombstone guy with my roots in the mid-west. OH to be back in the West.

I'm taking the Amish to the event also, they do love to watch old western movies believe it or not. They get to wear their hats and boots why not me. I'll let you know how it was tomorrow.

As to my health: BS way to high 400+, but BP 122/64 and my weight is still down 5 lbs as of today, but that is fully dressed, not nude like I do in the morning. They say I'm in good health for the health I'm in. It's a ball being this healthy. Thanks Maura for all the healthy food advise. I do drink my drink etc. Only after that do I have a PEEP. Love to all. Tom

Thursday 3-25-10

2010-03-25T14:59:00.003-04:00

The first thing this morning I took my blood sugar, 299 so I had to take 10 units of insulin before I did anything else. Second thing I did was to take the thing that makes my BS goes wild, Dexamethasone two tabs. I then went down and had some breakfast that will also make my BS elevate. Now off to the Infusion center for my appointment with the Port Room to have my port re-stuck. Then in to see Sue the Nurse Practiconer for Dr. Adami. She was great and answered all my questions as to what medicines did what to me and what the side effects of all of them where. I also told her about Protocel and she said it ok to use after the Chemo but not during. She also said that it would not kill the Sarcome's because it is not an antirobic cell.

Next I went into the Chemo area and had a few more poisons put in my bod. First: Gemzar 1625 mg. That's the stuff I just had that gave me all the problems with my stomach. Next was Angemet, 200mg that's for anti-nausea medication, then Benadeye 25 mg, and Zantac 50mg. to help prevent reaction to the Taxotere that I received next. Now I'm home and get to apply the three gels that I have so the Radiation Recall doesn't start all over again.

That's my day so far, I've had a ham and roast beef sandwich and after this I'm going to lay down for a nap. Let's just hope that nothing reacts with anything. More Later

Wed. 3-24-10

2010-03-24T22:54:00.002-04:00

OK so I'm somewhat nervous about tomorrow and I'm still up. I just received a thing for Larry that I sent around to most of you on my blog. It said that if I read it that I would get a miracle tomorrow. I need one believe me. As I said on my FB, I get two different medicines for chemo and three topical gels to put on my arm so the Radiation recall doesn't bother me. I also have to take two more pills tonight that jack my blood sugar all to hell. then two more when I get up tomorrow and then the same the next day. I will also have to get a shot to make sure the white blood cells are high enough to have chemo.

I did have a pretty good day today. I was able to get out until about noon and then I actually won a bunch of money playing poker. It's fun money, but I love to win because I know that I'm able to concentrate. After tomorrow I will give it up until the Chemo brain thing turns off. The one good thing about having the chemo this week is that I will not have anything the week of Easter and we will be able to go to Larry's for Easter. Toby always has such a spread for us. It's like eating in a fine restaurant, it's even a little fancier than the Essen House.

Well it's now 11pm and I need to get my beauty sleep so the nurses will swoon. You got to keep them interested you know. I have a good time with them and they love it when I bring treats. For some reason my presence is just not enough. Sharon is not feeling well so I need to go make sure she has taken something before she goes to sleep.

Until tomorrow. Tom

Wed. 3-24-10

2010-03-24T10:09:00.002-04:00

You know it always seems to happen this way. The day before I have to start Chemo again, I start to feel OK. I got up today and it looked so good out I just left it out. I went to the bagel shop and got a bagel and then I went to the drug store and got some drugs and then I went to the grocery story and went way over board. I tried to eat something before I went, but I have been very hungry lately, but didn't feel like eating. Well not so much today. First off I got a pound of the Greek olive creme cheese spread. That so good on so many things. Your fingers, on a bagel, rye bread, off a spoon, wrapped in ham, roast beef. I'm sure I'll think of something to do with it.

All the lunch meat was on sale, so I got the most expensive roast beef $8.99 a lb and this great imported ham, 7.99 a lb. I even got the tuna salad that is 6.99 a lb. They were all discounted, so I bought them with the money I saved. Then you get the Kroger discount at the gas pump. My God I just could not go wrong today. They even had bacon on sale, the good stuff at $6.99. Since I lost about 8 lbs this week, I thought I better have plenty to keep me going. I also found garlic tabs on sale and stocked up on them. OK so I also found some Easter candy for .99 and bought just one egg carton of marshmallow eggs.

I have to start on the medicine today that will help me through the next chemo round. This is the tough one. I get two different kinds and that is the one that kicked off the arm problem the first time around. I didn't have a problem this time with the arm, but the stomach problem is something I don't hope to have again. This was the first time for that. If it ain't one thing it's another. If I didn't have anything to complain about, this blog. would not be at all interesting. In thinking about it, I think I would rather not do this blog. than to have all this $#@$#@ in my life. But since I can't do anything about it, thanks for listing to my ^%&^%$.

More tomorrow after the chemo. Tom

Monday 3-22-10

2010-03-22T20:31:00.002-04:00

The last two days have not been fun. From the head to bed is all I have been doing. The third and fourth days after Chemo are not fun. The last two times it was the inflammation of my arm, this time it was all in my atomic etc. I've literally been in bed or on the john for two days. I am feeling a bit better tonight, that's why I decided to bring you up to date.

I'm really not sure if it was the Chemo or the fact that Obama got his way. I sure as hell hope the people show the Dems the door in 2011. I know that both sides do their thing, when it comes to getting things passed, but this was as low as I've ever seen. I'll admit I was upset with George at the end of his term, but this guy has to be stopped before the country is bankrupt.

I have had some luck keeping my blood sugar under control during this time. Maybe by the time this round is over, I'll see how to control it better. If it ain't one thing it's another.

I want to thank Larry, Dave, and Moe for being here this weekend. I know we didn't get to do a lot, but it's always nice to have family around. It's fun to bring up the past and laugh about old times. Congratulations to Bob Seggerson and the LCC basketball team. I want to see you guys in the State finals this year. As you may have noticed Xavier is doing well again this year, so I'v go LCC, Xavier, and Ohio State to bring something home.

It looks like Sharon is wanting to get on the computer, so I will sign off for now. More tomorrow when I feel better. Tom

Saturday 3-20-10

2010-03-20T18:30:00.002-04:00

What a beautiful day, I got up at 9am to find my brothers and sister up and have a cup of coffee and talking around the kitchen table. Just like old times. We then decided to go see Sharon at the Essen House and a bite to eat. One of the nurses that helped me so much with the infusion had been in and Sharon took them on a tour of the Manor House also. They said they loved both places and would be back for sure.

I'm taking the medicine that knocks my blood sugar all to hell, but I've been able to control it much better since I know it is going to happen. It was actually 105 this morning, but then I have to take the pill that kicks it back up into the 300. My weight varies quite a bit during this time because I retain water and had to stop the diaera so I've not gone for four days. I've tried to stay off the pain medication, but had to take a couple right before church tonight because I could feel so bad $#%% coming on.

David and I are both in the kitchen, so it should be interesting as to what happens for dinner. I have a corned beef cooking, and he has decided to do a stir fry. I guess that should work. Only time will tell. I'm feeling a bit drugged up right now, but I'll be fine.

I just was in touch with two old friends today on FB. Linda Datson, who I've known since I was 7 and Tom Lynch who I've known since high school. It's great to touch base with all my old friends. When it all said and done. that is what you have left that means the most. Old friends and great memories. Live is short, enjoy it while you are here. Oh yes, Barb, I'll try to see you tomorrow at Sue's viewing about 3pm.

More tomorrow Tom

Friday 3-19-10

2010-03-19T14:26:00.003-04:00

This was the first day in a long time that I did not have to get up to do a damn thing. It felt so good I sleep until 8:30 am. I was actually able to get my entire body wet. Not port to worry about getting damp or wet. I actually stayed in their for like 15 minutes until it started to turn cold.

So then I came down and read my e-mail and had a bunch of mail to return and letters to write to one of my lovely tenants that was not paying the rest of her rent. She actually used 14,000 gallons of water in a month. Of course I got the bill because she had not yet turned the water over into her name. I would not either if I used that much water. David said it is almost impossible to use that much water in one month.

I then had to write a letter to Medco Health and let them know how screwed up their insurance coverage on pills is. They were informing me that I could now get the generic form of flomax from them. I then recounted the experience I had in the hospital with the wonderful generic Flomax. I said before they burn the notice they should get one of their people who use Flomax in the office to read the letter and then see if he wanted to use the generic. I'm sure it will get no further than the round file.

After all the writing, I actually felt good enough to go over to the gym for the first time since taken the antibiotic. I used my bikey thing for 30 minutes and got another exercise for trying to make my left arm got straight. I'm having difficulty at the elbow because they took something out that used to let it straighten out completely. I hang a 10 lbs. weight on a rope and let it hang from my fist. You can sure feel what is left of the muscles etc. pulling against the weight. She said she didn't think it would ever be perfect, but try this until you can't stand it any more.

I have a conference call coming in a 6pm today. Since I can't be at the meeting in Carlsbad they have a device where I can see them and they can see me. I'm going to get in my bathing suite and pretend I have just come in from the beach. Randy said said it was 78 out there today, I put my thermometer in the sun and it actually got up to 76 hear in the sun. It really is a very nice day.

For my classmates that read this, I heard from Tom Lynch today and he is recovering from some surgery himself. I had asked if he would be at the showing for Gary's wife Sue, but he said he would not be able to travel. I'm going to try to make it Sunday sometime. My sister Moe is Peggy Brinsfield, Ron's ex-wife and a friend of Sue's. I'm sure she will have all the details. Moe is coming her for the weekend, so we will probably just go back to Lima together. She lives in Columbus, so she will go through Lima to get home. If anyone is going to be their at a certain time, let me know. I'd enjoy seeing you.

Well that's it for now. The family is going to the Essen House for our Saturday morning Buffet, come join us if you can. I'm usually good for a nice discount. Hell I've even bought before. I think I remember doing that.

Love to all, Tom

Thursday 3-18-10

2010-03-18T14:39:00.002-04:00

It's the first day of chemo and I have just finished taking all the (*&(&(&()*&. I need to fight the effects of chemo and the Radiation recall. I've got some great pain stuff. I also have vicaden to take if the good stuff starts to wear off. I can only take the Oxycontin(sp) every 6 hours but if I start to shake or chill, I'm to supplement with vicaden(sp) I could go and get the exact spelling of the drugs but at this point F+++ it.
They have kicked in and your damn lucky I can still type.

I did take more donuts into the chemo nurses, so they were extra special today and prescribed the good stuff. I never knew there was something stronger than vicaden. Boy was I wrong. This ^$^^$^. puts you in a whole new world. She told me that is where I'm going to want to be when the radiation recall and the shakes and chills kick in. They want we in front of all that this time. She says she knows people who have decided to take their chances with the cancer rather than to face this reaction any more. Guess what KIDS. That ain't happening here. I still got a whole lot of ^%$^$ I need to do. I'm taking 6 people to Cabo in late October, and hope to sail the Sea of CorteZ in early October. I've also go my 50th class reunion in Lima and then the one at Marmion too. Then theirs Sharon and my 50 wedding anniversary. To say nothing of Cate's wedding and first Child and of course Thomas's wedding and child. Hell I've got as much as 10 years I got to get through. Caila, Avery, Ryley, Sammy. I'm going for all their weddings and first kids. THIS ^$^$^ BETTER WORK REAL WELL.

LOVE TOM

Wed. 3-17-10

2010-03-17T14:21:00.003-04:00

I wait all year for this opportunity. Actually since I don't drink any more, it's more about the corned beef and cabbage than the BLACK BUSH, and the green beer. I just got back from the Essen House where the special of the day was C.B. and cabbage and potato's. Get this, the residents loved it, because they have had it before, and know that I buy the best corned beef in America, and the people in the kitchen know how to cook it. Now their neighbors, who have never tried it, didn't order a single special. We had a party of 30 Paulding county representatives in the back room and not one person would try it. Believe me, it's been an up hill battle to win these people over. I found Anna, our Amish restaurant manager hiding in the center room eating an entire plate of it. She said: this is so good. I asked her if she ever had it before. Never before coming here she said. I tried my best one day to get her boy friend Earl and her brother Amis just to try a bite out of a sandwich I made for them. Neither one would even take a bit.

I went to the Dermatologist today to find that all my rashes etc. were just fine. He even said: I wish all my patents were this easy to solve. He even said my legs looked great. I kissed him and took the bill to the front desk, just as he had asked me to do. After his visit I took the donuts that I purchased, sealed, I might add, to the nurse's at the hospital. They were very glad to see me and hear that I would not have to be coming back. Hay Brian, remember that pretty girl that I said I met that was studying to be a ER nurse, well she was there today and wanted to make sure I said hello to my single son. She is hot, got any thing you can fake today???????

I start my chemo tomorrow. I feel much better today but not all the symptoms are completely gone. I still have to be careful when I feel the urge. And to Maura, I don't feel the urge to dress up like a Pom Pon girl and danc around the gym. I must be getting older. You'll have to ask Maura if you want that story. TA TA for now!!!! Tom

Tuesday 3-16-10

2010-03-16T22:01:00.002-04:00

I'll keep it short and sweet. I was sick as a dog yesterday. There was nothing funny about it, so I didn't enter it in the blog. Besides, I never left the bed and the couch. I'm not sure if it was food poison, flue, or a reaction to the antibiotic. I was able to get out of bed today to go to two different doctors.

It's 11am and Sharon and I are in Dr Adami, office. I quickly get my blood work done, and then sit until 12:30 in order to see Dr. Adami. I do like the man, but I hate to wait. Since I believe I have the flue, we decided to wait until at least Thursday to have more chemo. Dr. Rushing has ordered smaller quantities of the two different medicines. Since they both believe that I had radiation re-call and not an infection, they want to get started right away.

After Adami's office I went directly to the emergency room of the hospital so I could see the Infectious decease doctor, Dr. Hemachandra. She is a very nice lady, but here medical background is a little less than stellar. She went to school in Granada. You know, the place we had to invade to save our students. She had to go through residency and internship somewhere, but I'm not sure where. Now are you ready for this explanation as to why I got the treatment I received. As she said from the beginning, an infection like she thought I had, can kill you if untreated. ( Now Mr. Obama, here is why Tort Reform is so important) She realized with the second trip to the hospital that I just wasn't as sick as someone with an infection. She was reluctant to take me off the medicine because she could get taken to court if for some reason I did have an infection. She said when she heard Dr. Rushing's explanation she knew then she had made a mistake. However, she didn't stop giving me the infusion until she could see me. Thank God I got sick, or I would have had two more infusions of that )&)()_&)*(.

All together (They practice medicine and if you let them, they will practice on you!!!!!!!)
She is a very nice person and she did apologize to me. She said that if it did come back with a high fever, to call her.

Now, can you believe how much money was spent on a mis-diagnosis. 30 days at over $1,000.00 just for the medicine. Then there is the emergency room that I had to go to each day. Two stays in the hospital for a total of 9 days. It had to cost close to $80,000.00 for a mistake in a diagnosis. I hope they don't tell my insurance company. They canceled my homeowners after two natural disasters flooded my basement. Both time the power went out that caused the problem. Once we were gone for two weeks and some water got in the basement when the sumpump was off. The second time we had an ice storm and we were out of our house for a week just before Christmas, and the pipes burst. How in the hell do you prevent that kind of loss???

Well one good thing, I have Insurance and Medicare. Please Mr. Obama don't reduce Medicare buy 600 billion.

More tomorrow, Tom

Sunday 3-14-10

2010-03-14T15:18:00.002-04:00

I don't know about anyone else, but it was hard getting up this morning. It feels like I'm an hour behind the world. The young priest at mass said that the older priests always let the younger priest have the first mass after the time change. It was funny to see the oldest priest we have come in about a half an hour after mass started. He did make it in time to help with communion, but usually he is there much earlier. He was also in civilian clothes and only through a white garment over him rather than his normal priest clothes with a collar.

I did feel somewhat better today knowing that I just have two more infusions and I will be finished, I hope. I must now find the radiation doctor so he can confirm that the left arm is what it should be and not infected with cellulitis. I then must have him contact the infectious decease doctor so she hears it from him. I then must see her Monday at 11am so she can notify the hospital that I don't have to come their each day. I wonder how much this is going to cost my insurance and Medi-Care. Thank God for the insurance.

I need to make a public apology to my daughter Maura, I'm sorry I tried to tell you how to practice your religion. I was out of line. You are correct, you may do that however you choose. I love you and I'm sorry.

The Pud and Nan clan 5 are going to get together next weekend. Sorry Margo that you will not be here. We know that it will be nicer in Florida, but we will miss your direction at our gathering. We look forward to seeing you when you return to Cincinnati.

I have an appointment with Adami on Tuesday and I should know something then as to what will happen next. For all I know I might be starting Chemo on Tuesday or it may be Wed. I'll keep you informed.

Thanks again for all the prayers and well wishes. Until tomorrow. Tom

Sat 3-13-10

2010-03-13T12:20:00.002-05:00

We show up an hour early for my appointment and get all the prelim. stuff done fast. So at 11am we think we are going to be out by at least 1pm. At 12:30 I asked the guy sitting across from us since we arrived, what or who he was waiting on. He said his friend went in at 9am with Dr. Rushing. So now we know when I will be next. About 12:45 they call my name and we go in to see Dr. Rushing. The thing we love about him is that he sits and talks to you like no other doctor we have ever met. He must schedule his appointments 2 hours apart.

When he comes in he says: Hello Survivor, how are you feeling today. So Sharon and I figure he has looked at the CT Scan and all is well. He then sits and talks to us and asks all the questions that were marked on a questioner that he has you fill out before he see you. After spending about 45 minutes on all that information he tells me to hop up on the examination table for a look see. He then goes over your entire body pressing down to see if there is any spot on y our body that might hurt. When that was finished, he talked to us a bit more and then said he had to go look at the CT Scan. Sharon and I at the same time: You haven't looked at the CT Scan results yet? No he said, if you reveal the results of the Scan first, then the rest of the appointment is about the CT Scan results. If I examine you first and get all the information that I need from you, then the appointment has been successful for me. Once I read the Scan results and then we can talk about what we are going to do next.

He then leaves and said I'll be back in about 20 minutes. When he returns he says that he now has to go down stairs because he couldn't read the report because it had to be read on a MAC. I know Maura, you think MAC is the best. Apparently Dr. Rushing doesn't see it that way!!

As Sharon and I sat there we didn't say much, but we were both thinking the same thing. Why is this taking so long. About 45 minutes later he come back into the room with the film. He just very matter of factly handed us the film and say: It all looks good!!! there are still only 5 spots and they are still the same size. Sharon and I just looked at each other and both could hardly hold back the tears.

He also then explained that the infection they thought I had was not an infection at all. Remember what I say about doctors: They practice medicine and if you let them they will practice on you. What it was is a Radiation recall. What actually happens is, the are of my incision reacts as though I just had radiation. It swells up and has to be treated both topically and with steroids. Since they know it will happen, they can control the symptoms, but they can't stop it from happening.

I will now need to get three to four more bouts of chemo before they do the surgery. They want to try and kill any small sarcoma's that don't now show up on a Scan.

Just so you guy's know. I just talked to Larry, who is just back form the Wine country of California. As he hung up Bev called and we just talked for 20 minutes.

I was at the Essen House this morning after the infusion to see how Sharon had decorated the back room for a wedding shower. One of the servers said: Sharon if I ever decide to get married, I'm going to hire you to decorate and do the wedding. She has a great way to make a Barn Like atmosphere look like someones dining room. She used purple and silver that matches the color of the backdrops we use to cut off the different rooms.

I saw Louis Lengacher at the Essen House also and he came over to congratulate me on the good CT Scan. It whispered in my ear: Isn't it amazing what prayer will do. I know his entire church prays for me. As a matter of fact he sent out a voice mail yesterday to all his people to pray for me and another Amish fella who also has cancer. Maura also felt that she helped by telling me to tell my body not to feed the sarcoma's. I know that the Lord works in mysterious ways. Just like Maura telling me to tell my body not to feed the sarcoma's. Maybe that's the instrument he used to have his miracle happen. Who's to know!! All I know is I was ready to hear that I only had a small time left. I very happy to hear from Dr. Rushing that we are just going to do some chemo and they take the sarcoma's out. As thought he never had any doubt.

He then told us a story of a real miracle as he says. He was helping a cancer patient that needed a special medicine that was only available in certain trials. He searched the internet and everyplace else to see if a trial was possible for this man with this medicine. After several days he had just about given up when he got a call from the company that owned the drug to see if he would be willing to do a trial on their new drug. As he said: That's how miracles are performed. That man would not have lived without that trial.

That's all for now folks. Thanks for all your prayers and

Thursday 3-11-10

2010-03-11T16:28:00.002-05:00

You know your looking good when someone you hired as the first nurse at the Manor House doesn't recognize you. Now I've got to say that she retired last year and has not seen me with no hair. But she stared at me three times and didn't recognize me. She finally came over, after Sharon ask her if she had seen me. She said: How are you feeling? Well, I said, I thought I was feeling OK, but I must look like (&^*((*&.

I did get to go over to the Essen House today. I took Laura, a nurse friend of our over to see if there might be a place for her at Dallas-Lamb. She has been a Pharmacy Representative for 25 years, but her company was sold and she is without work. She is a registered nurse with a bachelors degree, so she is thinking about going back into nursing. It's very difficult to go from making $100 ++ to looking for work as a nurse. She could bring a lot to the table, but she wants more money than we can offer I'm sure.

Well it's all about tomorrow now. I'm going to get my infusion at 7:30 and then head for Indy. I'm pretty much ready to hear what up. At this point, I don't have any choice. The hardest part is not knowing and worrying about something you can't do anything about. At this point I'm ready for what ever.

I'll fill you all in tomorrow. Until then, PRAY!!!!!!!! Tom

Wed. 3-10-10

2010-03-10T14:49:00.002-05:00

This morning Sharon said: You didn't sleep very well last night. Yea, I said, I was really worried and couldn't get everything off my mind. She said: I would think that Thursday night would be the night that you couldn't get much sleep worrying about what the doctor was going to tell you. I said that is probably going to be a tough night too, but last night was the last time I could pray for a miracle. Dr. Rushing had explained to me about the odds with a Sarcoma when I first met him and he explained about what it was and what it wasn't. He said if everything went as well as possible, I had an 85% chance of living 12 years. He said that some people are actually OK even after that time. What I was not hearing at the time was that it didn't sound good for a cure. He explained that he knew what he could do and how far he could go, but what he didn't know was what God wanted to do. He said he was the only one that could cure it no matter what. That's why I was praying every night since. That's why I have been so appreciative of all the prayers that people have been saying for me. It's now in God's hands. Actually it has been in his hands from the beginning.

This morning really did go well. I arrived about a half and hour early for the CT Scan because I usually get my infusion at 9am I left the house at 8:30 and got there at about 8:45. I had called the hospital and told them I had some what of a conflict and could they book me at about 10:30 after my CT Scan. They said it would not be a problem, just come over when I was finished. To my surprise they called me in about 9am and I was finished about 9:20. So I went directly over to the hospital to find that they had already ordered the medicine and they took me in right now. I was complete with everything by 10am.

I then took our tax return to the post office to be shipped to Bruce in San Diego. Sharon had been all tweaked about getting the return finished early this year, but once we got going we did it in two days. After the post office I went to the grocery to get more antioxidants. God I love that word. I then had a talk with the grocer to see if he knew all the antioxidants. He said he would think anything green would be good to start with. I said WRONG!!
I then pulled out Maura's list and showed him what he had been missing in his diet. It was all good until the guy in line behind me started to get antsy. I did get an artichoke today. I didn't think they were in season, but the lady in that department said they had some real nice one's today. I got two, I'll let you know if I like them. I do enjoy artichoke if they are fresh and not to hard. I know some people like them hard, but not me. I cook them for at least two hours and sometimes more depending on how large they are. If anyone wants my cooking instructions let me know. For a $10.00 donation to Off the Wall Graffiti you can get it. How do you like that Maura. Get ready for the money to roll.

Thanks everyone for the prayers, keep them coming. We'll let you know the results Friday. No matter what the results, I will continue to fight and do what I can to win this battle. Your prayers are the only true cure. Love you all. More tomorrow. Tom

Tues. 3-9-10

2010-03-09T11:28:00.002-05:00

Ok so tomorrow I get the all important CT Scan at 11am. This morning I got a little testy with the people at the hospital, because I have been told that I have to call them every morning, to let them know, about an hour in advance, that I am on my way. Today, I got there and the medicine was not there until like 9:30. When I went to complain, the nurse explained to me that the antibiotic that I am taking takes longer to mix than any other one. She also explained that it cost over a $1000.00 per copy and that if I called and said I was coming, and then did not show up, I would have to pay the cost of the medicine out of my pocket. My Insurance and Medi-Care will cover the cost if I get the infusion, but if I order it, and then don't take the infusion, the bill is to me. That is some scary %#^$^.

I went from the hospital to Lowes and got a new shower head and a new mirror for Sharon. We are going to wait on the grab bars until we find out if and when I will be operated on.

It is another beautiful day so I stopped and got a car wash and then had to head to TCBY and have a yogurt. Of all the good things that I now have to eat, that is pretty good. I did have my Lemonade drink with my breakfast this morning. I'm getting used to it now. Just as I get used to it, I'll have to switch to the other concoction. I sure as hell hope I get better soon, or this *&^* is going to kill me.

I still don't have any energy, the nurse today said that is one of the side effects of the antibiotic's that I am taking. She said there are others, but if this is the only thing that I have, I'm lucky. My arm is still not better, but as she said, it looks a lot better than when I first came in. Barb is her name and she is really the one that keeps track of how I'm doing. They were to draw blood yesterday, but the nurse on duty did not read the entire chart and only gave me the infusion. I realized it last night and when I called this morning I mentioned it to the person who answered the phone. That might be why everything was so late, maybe the person on the phone was the person who was to do it yesterday. They always say their name when I call, but I can never remember what they say.

We are going to try and get the taxes done today so we can send them out to California to have them done. I've always used the same guy for 25 years because he knows everything about all my stuff. And stuff is important, and you got to know your stuff.

Enought stuff for today. Love to all that care. Tom

Monday 3-8-10

2010-03-08T14:25:00.002-05:00

On a quest today to find suction cup grab bars and combo shower head and hand held shower head. I went to my infusion today and talked to one of the nurses that reminded me about what I needed in my shower or bath when I have had surgery. As she said, I will probably need something to sit on and grab bars and a shower head that you can hold and direct the spray. As she said, I will not want to get certain parts of my body wet for the first week or so after surgery. I'm glad she mentioned it to me again. because I remember that she mentioned it to me once before, but I forgot about it. On ebay I have found several that look good, I think I will check out some of the box stores and see if I can buy them here locally. That way I don't have to wonder if they will work or not. Some people on ebay work well with sending items back, others don't.

We stayed up and watched the Oscar's last night. The first part was fun and funny, then it started to get real boring. I really only want to know who was the best actor and actress and maybe supporting actor and actress. I want to know the best picture, but that about as much excitement as I really care to see. Unfortunately last night the board the **&*&^% out of me for most of the night. I was happy to see Sandra B win best actress. She was great in Blind Side. Right after I saw that movie I said to myself, she will win best actress for that roll. I was also happy with the other winners. Jeff Bridges was great according to Tom. I loved the show, Sea Hunt, that he and his dad had in the '50's & '60's. The guy from Inglorious Bastards was great also. You just loved to hate him so much.

Well it's 2:40 and I only got 5 hours sleep last night, so I'm going to bed for a while. Oh yea blood pressure 129/62. BS 103 this morning after a long john and four peeps. Oxygen level 98% and my temp was 97.8. If all my vitals are so good, why do I have no energy?????

More tomorrow. Tom

Sunday 3-7-10

2010-03-07T12:20:00.003-05:00

Up early and out to 7:30 mass. The to the hospital for my infusion. While I was at the hospital one of the nurses that infused me the first time saw me.
She said one of her friends dad had three sarcoma's removed from his lungs last week or so. They did the big one first and then he came back and had two more removed. She was explaining to me about how many lobes or something that your have and that they can remove block of your lungs where the sarcoma's are. He was actually operated on here in Fort Wayne. My doctor in Indy said the only person he knew that could perform the surgery I needed was in Indy. She is a woman and a specialist with the lungs.

I've also been informed by Maura that I need to drink, or eat or some how consume more antioxidants. So today I went to the grocery and bought two bottles of Antioxidant beverages. One is Pomegrante Lemonade that I just tasted, right now, for the first time, because I couldn't spell Antioxidant and I knew the bottle had it on it. It is not near as good as I was hoping, but it's not bad. The price on the other hand is excessive by any measure. However if you think that is expensive, I got another one with Pomegrante and four other Antioxidant's in it and the price was just under the last spot price of gold. I also bought some yogurt for the first time. Since I have never had it I found some that said Key Lime Pie and another that said strawberry cheese cake on it. Since I like both of those on their own, I figured it might taste OK. To make sure I would have something today that would taste good, I also got 3 donuts and two boxes of Peeps, just in case. As I have told you before, this blog is all about me. I'm damn sure going to take care of the kid, believe me. Well if I survive the day I'll put more on later. Tom

OK so I have more to say, the yogurt was awful, never buy Kroger cherry cheese cake yogurt. I actually had to put joy in the drain to kill the smell when I put it in the disposal. I had the Pomegrante Lemonade with my lunch, and it was passable. I will drink the entire bottle, I'm not sure if I will reorder Artichokes . Maura sent me a list of all the Antioxidants on my facebook, Artichokes (cooked)Blackberries Black beans Black plums Cranberries Cultivated blueberries Gala apples, Granny Smith apples Pecans Pinto beans Plums Prunes Raspberries Red Delicious apples Red kidney beans Russet potatoes (cooked) Small red beans Strawberries Sweet cherries Wild blueberries. For some reason they all did not copy, but I'm sure I will get the entire list and eat each one, one by one. She also said if you eat fruit, don't eat any protean with it. No apple and hamburger combo's. I also had a long john and four peeps today after I tried to eat the yogurt. I had to do something to get that taste out of my mouth.

It's now time for the Oscar's, come on Sandra, she was great in Blind Side.
More tomorrow. Tom

Sat. 3-6-10

2010-03-06T19:25:00.002-05:00

It a little later that I start most of my blogs, but I have had an exciting 18 hours and will fill you in. It started last night at about 6:30pm when Catie and 4 of her friends showed up for a small get together. It seems Emely Feltz decided to announce who was going to be in her October Wedding. All I really remember is what, and how, it effected me. As you all know, this thing is about yours truly. If it's not important to me, it's just not important. Cate was named as Em's Maid of Honor or is Made of Honor. Anyway that means that Sharon will have to be home a few days before the wedding to help Cate with all of her responsibilities. What that means to me is, we are going to be in Cabo that week. I let Em know how I felt about her choice of dates. For some reason she didn't feel the need to change the dates to accommodate me. That calls for her name being removed from the bed in Catie's bed room. It's been there since 7 grade. Hay, you cross me and you pay big time.

Also along for the party were three of Catie's closest friends. Christine, Bobby, and Erica. Cate said she came home to see me, and I love her for that, but then she went out somewhere with those girls and I didn't hear from them again until about 3am. Unfortunately an old fart like me doesn't sleep very well after being awakened in the middle of the night. I didn't say anything because I love all of them, and was happy to have them back in the house again. While Cate was growing up, the McLaughlin household was party starting central. It seems they would all meet over here and then take off for parts unknown. The next morning, as in this morning, you would usually find them somewhere in the house trying to sleep. Being a good dad, I decided to grab a bit on the run rather than to try and make breakfast in the kitchen. It would have been turn around time for sure, but again, I love having them around.

What I loved was the note that they left for Sharon. It was their breakfast order from the Essen House. Sharon was up and out at 7am as usual and they expected her to return with breakfast around 10am because they were heading back to Indy as soon as they finished breakfast. It was sad to see them go, but we will be back in Indy on Friday for the results of my scan.

At about 12:30 Tom Whitney showed up and we had a real great time talking about old time and just about anything but politics. It seems Tom is somewhat Liberal, and I am Conservative. I think he was aware of that when he saw the life size cut out of Sarah Palin in the TV room. He did stay until 2:30 when Tom McLaughlin had to get his nap so he could continue his day. He was able to see another friend of his who also lives in Fort Wayne, so the day worked out just right. He came back to my place around 5pm, we talked a while and then went to my favorite place for dinner, Wendy's. Hay, when I'm buying, we go first class or not at all. We did talk about the 50th. class reunion and how much fun it will be if everyone shows up. Neither of us could figure out though how so many of our classmates have gray hair. Some of them even look older. It is amazing what time does.

Tom just left so I'll complete the blog for the night. Until tomorrow. Tom

Friday 3-5-10

2010-03-05T15:19:00.002-05:00

This has not been the best day ever. I got sick last night and it hasn't been much better all day. They told me there would be days like this, that would be good in a song. I'm trying to get better because Cate comes home today and I don't want to miss out on all the fun. I know several of her friends will be over also.

I did hear about an old friend who I have written about in this blog, Katie Lemley. AKA Kay Barone for Lima. She and 50 some other woman are going on a cross country bike ride for like 60 days. As most of you know Sharon and I have done some rides ourselves, but it's much easier on the legs when you have the 1400cc under your ass. Your butt gets sore no matter what, but you need to be in much better shape to be on a bike. Good Luck Catie.

Tom Whitney was also going to stop by maybe this weekend, if your on your way Tom, I'll be home tonight as far as I know. If not I'll be at the Essen House in Antwerp. Unless you've got a lap top you will not get this any way, so if your coming today, I hope we find one another. If not try another day.

That's all folks, Tom

Thursday 3-4-10

2010-03-04T10:31:00.002-05:00

Just got back from my infusion and wanted to let everyone know what will probably happen next. I have a CT Scan on the 10th. to see what my lungs look like. We know I have 5 Sarcomas on them now, we hope that is all there is. We also hope they have not grown much. Since this infection is giving me soo much trouble, I will probably not be able to get much more if any Chemo. I see Dr. Rushing in Indy on the 12th. to read the CT Scan and to see what is next. It is my feeling that after the 23rd., when the infusions stop, he will want to do surgery on anything on my lungs. I'm praying there are still only 5 and that they have not grown much.

From the very beginning Dr. Rushing told us that Chemo could not kill the Sarcoma's. They might be able to kill the very very small one's, but nothing that is seen by a CT Scan. His only hope with Chemo was to kill any that may have escaped from the first Sarcoma. Please pray with us that there will only be 5 of those little suckers on my lungs and they are able to be removed easily. If there is ever going to be a miracle, this is when it can happen. If this is done, and I'm clear for a while, I will be the happiest man alive.

Thanks for your interest.

Wed. 3-3-10

2010-03-03T13:21:00.002-05:00

I went a little early today to get my infusion and met a very nice young lady that was studying to become a PA and an emergency driver. She sat there the entire time I was getting my infusion and talked to me about what was going on with me and what still needed to be done. After all my history I asked her what she was doing and she said she was going through a divorce and felt the need to get an education that would support both her and her son for the rest of her life. I explained that I had a son that had recently been through custody battles and she then went into her problems. Her ex had beat both of them and was still trying to gain the custody. She said she was broke because of all the cost of the attorney fees she has had to pay to fight this guy. She has a restraining order against him but he can still fight her for custody. I told her I understood all too well. She is about Brian's age and very attractive, but I didn't want to mention anything to her until her battles were well behind her. Sorry Brian, she was a pretty little thing.

After my infusion I was able to go to the gym and do my bike thing for 30 minutes on 6. Before the cancer I could do 30 minutes on 9 without too much effort. I always tried to get my heart rate up to about 115 when I did it, I can do that now with 6. I know that's not what I want, but I'm at least trying to get my exercise in each day. I can really feel how out of shape I have become. As I told Louis, I sure I could run a 100 yard dash, but I could only complete about 10 yards.

After working out I went to the meat market and got some great roast beef and brots for the Essen House. I love when they have sales on boxes of meat. I saved $10.00 on the brots and $22.00 on the beef. You only have to buy a few more of each thing to make up a box. They never mention the box discount unless you ask unless they are having a special. I sometimes forget about the box pricing when they have all the meat out so you can just pick it out and go.

One more stop at my favorite place. Wall-Mart, and found a pair of support stocking for $10.00 less than the one's from Walgreen's. You see I save all the gas it takes to go all over Fort Wayne with the savings I make. If I only had more energy these days. I came home and knew I had to do my blog, and now all I want to do is go take a nap. Sharon has already come home and up in her bed. She left today at 6:30 and then has to go back to close tonight and be home at 9pm. What an Angel!!!

More tomorrow.

Tuesday 3-2-10

2010-03-02T16:52:00.002-05:00

Well what the hell, I don't know where to start. I just started reading my Friday draft of my blog and realized how many mistakes etc. there were and just published it any way because I wanted to let everyone know how sick I was becoming. Friday night I was to meet my diabetic doctor, Carol Burns and her staff at the Essen House for dinner. I had not been feeling well since Thursday, and it was snowing like crazy at 5:30 on Friday, but I was going to meet Carol and her husband and staff.

The weather was really bad, what usually takes 15 to 20 minutes took over an hour to get to the Essen House. So we got there at 7:20 not 6 pm as we expected. Carol and her husband and grand kids were already there and so we started to eat as soon as we got there. We took a quick break to show them the Manor House when we found out that some of her staff were stranded behind a wreck. They loved the M.H.. Carol said, It really does look like like a Hilton. This doesn't feel at all like a Nursing home. As I explained to her, it's not a nursing home, it's an Assisted Living. This is there home. That's why we have farm animals that they can feed and play with. Most of these people were farmers or live on a farm at one time in their lives. They love to watch the chickens and the ducks and the rabbits. As a matter of fact the rabbits just had six babies. We also have a bird cage full of exotic birds. We have a huge flat screen TV with a Wii. Most of these people didn't have it this good in their own homes before they arrived here. We accept people on Medi-Cade. Very few A.L. in Ohio will accept M-C people because they say you can't make any money on them. We built an entire wing for their care. The rooms are smaller, but they eat the same food and have all the other goodies that the richest man in Antwerp has. And we do have the richest man in Antwerp in our House.

Boy I got on a soapbox didn't I. Anyway, after I fell off the soapbox, we ate and then Carol wanted to see my bad arm. When I showed her she just looked at me and said: You have to get to the hospital NOW. That put a real damper on the night, to say the least. I still had to drive the Amish home, go home myself, meet Sharon, who had driven her own SUV there, and go to the hospital. So I'm driving on country roads in a blowing snowstorm when all of a sudden, Mary, from the back seat, say: Your going off the road Tom, it should have jogged there and you went straight. All of a sudden I'm in a ditch. It is now when I discover the difference between four wheel drive and all wheel drive. Louis says: go out into the field Tom, it's a lot harder and straighter than this ditch. So against my better judgement, I did what he suggested. He was right, with the all wheel drive, the wheel that was stuck stopped spinning and the other three wheels pulled me straight out into the field. Once I got straightened out I just turned once again toward the road and pulled right back onto the road. I did not parallel the ditch, I just drove right through it an onto the road. Now how did an Amish guy who does not drive a car know what to do. "THEY PRAY A LOT". They also know the fields and ditches around their community and even with horses, they get in trouble when it's wet in the fields and they have to do much the same to free a team of horses when a farm implement gets stuck.

OK, so I get home about 9:20 and we are off to the hospital. We get there and it's the same old BS that I had to go through 10 days earlier. So I'm trying to fight the system by saying: Look, I was just here two Friday's ago, look it up. What I forgot was that I was dealing with a person who only knew one thing. Your name sir? Your home address? Have you got Insurance? Who is your family doctor? etc.etc. etc. So about 11 pm I'm in an Emergency room and have to go through the same old BS with the ER people. Finally at midnight I see a real live doctor who looks at my arm and says: "that looks like cellulites". No S+++, Dr. Kildare, I knew that before I came here. What I want is the F++++++ Daptomycin, that will cure the F++++++ cellulites. Oh, you mean you need to be admitted and have an IV.?? RIGHT!!!!!!!! Soo now it's about 1am and I'm finally rushed to the 7th floor to my own room. I can't remember much else, because I had Sharon give me a Zanex and a pain pill or two while we were waiting to go to the room.

Next day Saturday. It's about 5 am when a skinny little shit comes in and grabs my bad arm to tell me he need to take some blood for a sample. I told him to let go of that arm and get the F+++ out of this room. I said I have a port for drawing blood and a arm band on the left arm that saying not to touch. So I suggest you leave before I turn on a light and get your name and badge no. I didn't see him again that I can remember. At about 8am the Chemo doctor, this is number 6, of the 11 member team, came in the room to basically tell me they put me on the wrong floor. I would be moving to the 2nd. floor cancer ward. He then proceeded to tell me I had cellulites and that I need to see the Infectious disease doctor that day. He obviously didn't look on my chart, to see that I already have been through this drill and I know the ID doctor by name. But, he could say that he saw me and another $100 please.

I was moved to the second floor to a very nice room. It was about as large as one of our Medi-Care rooms, but still very nice. At 11am the ID doctor came to see me. She was the partner of the man I saw the first time. I must say at this point, she's a hell of a lot better looking. She gave me a complete examination and then explained how dangerous this stuff was. Because of the Chemo I have not immune system, so the infection will attack the weakest part of your body. Usually that is an old wound or some part of the body that is the weakest. In my case it was the site of the Sarcoma removal. After reading my medical history, she saw that I had a heart attack and that it could be the next place for this stuff to attack. She said if I had not come in last night, I might be dead today. If it attacks your heart you usually don't make it. She says now that we must get the Daptomycin until the 23rd. just to be on the save side. It usually takes 12 to 14 days, but with my cancer etc. she wants 24 days. This rest of Sat was quiet and I watched the Olympics.

Sunday was also quiet until about 9pm and I'm watching the Hockey game and I need to pee and I for some reason can't. I try again later and still no luck. After the game I decided I needed to tell the nurse we needed to do something. It's then I find out that the medicine I had been taking for Flow Max is not the same S+++ they have been giving me in the hospital. They love to tell you it is, but the only time to find out the difference is when a problem develops. "LADIES" you might not want to read the rest of this. Guys listen up!! If you ever have to go into a hospital and you take a certain kind of prostate med. make sure it the same formula. What happened to me may seem funny now, but I was in real trouble. The nurse was older and in the business for 31 years. She didn't realize what the real problem was until it was to late to do the only thing remaining. I had to get a cathater. If you don't know what that is bcause I can't spell it correctly, it has to be inserted into the penis and then into the bladder. If the prostate is in the way, they actually drill a passage past it and into the bladder. When I say drill, it ain't with a power drill, it's by litterly screwing this thing around, under or through your prostate until it relieves the bladder. If they can't do it that way, you are rushed to surgery NOW!! This lady had been trying for about 15 minutes and she was dripping wet. I had to take the pillow case off my pillow to wipe her eyes so she could see. She needed both hands to do what she was doing. She finally looked at me and said: Tom, do you want me to stop? I said no, but may I ask you a question? are you a Christian? She shook her head yes, and I said I have been asking the Lord to guide your hands, so please proceed. She said she had been saying the same prayer. It wasn't a minute later and she was through. It was the most painful thing I have ever had done to me. When they ask from 1-10 what was the pain, I asked if 11 was ever hit. If so, I was there. The good book says he will never give you something you can't handle. He was giving me a real test. I damn near passed out with pain.

Now the funny part of the story. The nurse's name was Beth and she actually worked an hour and a half over time to do what she did. I was so greatful to her I gave her two free meals at the Essen House. You can laugh, but that is the only thing she would accept. She said she didn't do nursing to get rich. She loved doing what she did. I told her she was a lucky lady to love what she did. I told her I loved doing what I did also, and since I owned a restaurant, I loved giving free meals to people I liked. With that I asked for some Zanix and a pain pill so I could sleep. She then said she was way past her off duty hours and would have to tell the next nurse to get them for me. She did say she would have to write all this up and that it would be about 45 minutes before the nurse would be back but to stay awake or she would not give them too me. So I'm in, and out, of sleep, when I think I actually dreaming, I look up and see this vision of beauty standing over me about to listen to my heart or something. She was very close to me when I finally felt her presence. When her eyes finally caught mine I'm not sure what she thought. I told her I thought I was dreaming and that she was about to kiss me. She said she had to get my vitals and was trying to be as quiet as possible because she had heard what had just happened. She then turned on the big light and I about died how beautiful she was. The only thing I could think about was, what would I have done if she was the one that had to do what Beth had just done.

I did tell her about Tommy, but he was about three years to young, and she felt a 42 year was a little to old. So guys I tried, but no sale. She was a sweat heart and talked to me until the pills took effect again. You may not believe this but the next thing I felt was this little shit grabbing my left arm again saying he need to draw some blood. I told him he and I had already met and I was the guy that told him to get out now. He then tried to explain how he didn't turn on the light to see the PINK ARM BAND and he would not bother me again. It's was 8:30 when Angie, the night nurse introduced me to the morning nurse. She promptly said go back to sleep I'll get all your vitals later.

The two doctors came in about 9:30 on Monday and both said that if the other approaved, I could go home. The young morning nurse said: Tom, when would you like to leave? I said about 1:30 or 2pm would be fine. That was at 11am. She said if I get it done by then what do I get. I said a 20% discount off two buffets at the Essen House. She actually live about 8 miles from Antwerp but never felt she could afford to go to a real restaurant. She went to the A&W but never a sit down. At 3pm she came in and said she had done all she could do and had everything on her end done two hours ago, but the lady from the chemo doctors office had not signed off yet. I told her to call the lady's answering service and inform her that Mr. McLaughlin would be leaving the hospital with or without her approval by 4pm. She said: would you really do that? My reply: WATCH ME !!

WE WERE IN THE CAR AND ON OUR WAY AT 3:45 PM

Friday 2-26-10

2010-02-26T13:55:00.003-05:00

I'll tell you when Chemo Brain has really kicked in. I know I was on the computer today earlier because I had been shakey last night and had to take some pills to make that stop. When that happens to me I can't type because my fingers keep hitting the wrong keys. So I'm sitting in the TV room wondering if I have done my blog yet. I have no F++++++ idea if I have or not. I then look on my watch to see what day it is and because of what's happening to my close up eye sight, I can's tell what day it is for sure. I then firgure out if I go on the blog that I can look on the Edit position and find out what the day was yesterday. Now you know how F+++++ up my mind is. I'm afraid to go on Poker Stars because I lost $500,000.00 with my last Chemo experience. I'm back up again, but it took me three months to do it. So my games are hearts, solitaire, and adlai patients, but I'm not sure if I'm spelling it correctly and frankly Cate, I don't give a damn!!!

What I do remember is the fact that my diabetes doctor Carol Burns and 10 of her people are coming to the Essen House for dinner tonight at 6:30. I've asked Louis and his family to come also and to sing for them. As it turns our Carol and her husband are also singers, so we might have something going on tonight. I'll have to remind them that I need my beauty sleep, so it can't go on all night.

I'm having trouble with my heart beat 114 standing still, blood pressure 112/62, but I am retaining water I can tell. I've

Thursday 2-25-10

2010-02-25T12:28:00.002-05:00

It was a hell of a day yesterday. It was the first day of no more infusion, however Sharon felt that my left arm was getting larger and redder so I went to the Chemo office to have them take one last look. After seeing three different people I was told to keep and eye on it and take to aspirin and call in the morning.

I then went to see Carol Burns my diabetes doctor. I informed her that I have no change my family doctor to her from now on. Dr. John Smith was my family doctor for about 10 year and always told me that Carol was one of the smartest people in the medical profession. So I figured why not choose her rather than some person out of his office.

She gave me the once over and told me that she would do what ever she could for me and try to keep the sugar under control when they give me this next batch of Chemo. She is also bringing her entire staff to the Essen House for dinner on Friday. She has said she was going to do it for a couple years, but this time Sharon was with me. It was the first time that she and Sharon had a chance to meet. Sharon agrees with me that Carol is a wonderful person, and someone you can put your trust in.

After seeing all these doctors and taking the pills they said I was to take, I went upstairs to take a nap and stayed up there the rest of the night. I had no dinner and was not able to watch the Olympics. This morning I didn't feel much better, but it is now 12:40 and I do feel somewhat better.

I've been on line most of the morning looking for a yacht that can take Sharon and I on a cruse up the Sea of Cortez sometime from next October to March. The lady is a doctor and said she would love to take us and thinks I smart to get it done. She also runs one in Alaska in the summer time and said I should do them both. I know Sharon has always wanted to do Alaska, I've sort of wanted to do it, but I'm not big on cold.

I'm thinking about asking Jim Taylor to go with me. He loves to dive, I know and it's always nice to have an Admiral along on a boat. He might also want to go t Alaska since he already lives in Seattle. They said it holds up to six people with three state rooms.

I'll keep you informed. I've got to get through this now, I got places to go people to see, things to do. Love to all. Tom

Tuesday 2-23-10

2010-02-23T08:17:00.002-05:00

I had soooo much fun yesterday I just didn't have time to write. I saw Dr. Adami at 8am and he had to talk to two other Dr. before he could clear me for two more hours of Chemo. They decided to give me the same amount as last time to see how I stood up to it. My blood count was in good shape. My blood pressure was 130/78 and my sugar was 134 and 97 on the oxygen. They told me my blood counts too but they said them way to fast. My little brain much time to soak the much info in. It was good enough to get Chemo thought.

As soon as I finished Chemo they wanted me to go to the hospital and get my morning infusion of antibotics however. From their I went to let see, oh yea bed. I got home anout 1:30 took two pills so the symptons were some what lessened and fell asleep until about 3:39 when Sharon go me up to say good buy. I think I feel asleep again until she came home and had me make my dinner. Oh yeah. some people called me during that time also. Chuch Reid, Margo,Bev, Tommy, Brian , Collett, and I'm sure others, but my mind was not working very well. Chemo Brain they call it. You can only remember what you feel like and the rest you say, I have Chemo Brain, (what was it you said, or told me to do????????) It's very selective as I remember any way.

Well I'm off to see the last of the hospital and the infusion. I get this damn needle taken out of my neck and should get a good nights sleep. I may write more today, if I can remember. I have to see Dr. So at eleven thirty, Sharon just called to remind me and to see if I was alive and kicking.

LAter Tom

Sun, 2-21-10

2010-02-21T12:57:00.002-05:00

One more day and it will be our 47th anniversary. I still remember the first time I ever saw Sharon. It was at a Xavier vs University of Cincinnati basketball game. Believe it or not she had a cast on her arm. She looked so helpless and cute. I just had to help her out. Actually I had met her on the phone when she called the dorm for another guy and I just started talking to her. The first thing I did was to set her up with a friend of mine, because I already had a date for the dance that we were going too so I fixed her up with my friend from Lima. Thank God it was close to Spring Bread and he met his wife down in Fort Lauderdale and she became free for me to pursue. I then called her a couple of time before school was over, but either she had a date that night or I had a date on the nights she was free. It wasn't until the last day of school that we could finally find time to have an actual date. We went to Cony Island and I actually paid a friend of mine to take her on a rollacoaster(sp) that I was not about to ride. I was an old wooden one and it was in no way safe. The damn cars came off the F++++++ track when it went around the corners and down the first hill. I did pay to take her dancing at the Moon Light ball room and that is where we fell in love.

I then ask her to a party in Lima that we are having and she said she could get a ride over. When she called me to find out how to get to the party etc. she tells me she is coming over with a guy she dates from Fort Wayne. I about shit. Here I think I have a date for the party and now she is coming, but with another guy. I quickly start calling some of my girl friends, to explain the situation, and that I want to make her as jealous as I can. I know she liked me, and had no idea why she was coming with some other guy.

The date that I finally got was with a hot blooded Italian and she was perfect for what I wanted to do. I couldn't believe she wasn't in love with me. She was all over me like white on rice. She was crazy anyway, and that night, she won a academy award, for sure. At the end of the night Sharon and her date Jim, were getting ready to go back to Fort Wayne so we were saying good buy and I invited them to a party at my house the following weekend. That's when Jim said he was going on vacation for a couple of weeks, but maybe when he came back they could come over. RIGHT !!!
That was the last date he ever had with her. She was at my house every weekend for the rest of the summer. And for that matter, just about every weekend until we got married in Feb. on the 22nd. Don't tell anyone, but she was pregnant when we got married. They said it would never last. We also had to get married before Lent, because in those days you didn't get married during Lent. I think Ash Wednesday was the next week.

Thank God I married Sharon when I did, or I would never have passed English. Someone told me they like the way I write this blog, but no one likes the way I spell and the way I murder the Kings English. Sharon will not even read the blog because of how poorly I use the Kings English. As I tell her, it ain't funny if it isn't a little off color, and poor english. I love you anyway Sharon and am so glad to have had you all these years. I hope to God we make it to 50 years.

As for my health, F+++ it, I'm not all that healthy, but my blood pressure was 125/64 my blood sugar 122, the oxygen level 97, heart rate after 30 minutes on the UN-Bike 105. I actually feel pretty good today and got a good nights sleep. I see Dr. Adami tomorrow at 8am and we will see when I can get the Chemo started again. Lets all pray it's soon. I've got to get back killing those F++++++ Sarcoma's so no little ones appear.

Until tomorrow. Tom

Sat.2-20-10

2010-02-20T09:58:00.002-05:00

Just a couple thoughts on my mind today. First, I had a bad night last night. I went to bed at about 11pm and was up again at 1:30am. I know I was awake until at least 2:30am and up again about 4:30. At about 5:30 Sharon go up so I turned the TV back on and just listened to a re-broadcast of the Olympics. This morning my blood pressure was 130/76, but my heart rate was high at 100. My blood sugar was 115 and my oxygen was 96. So why am I so tired. I wanted to work out again, but I just don't have the energy today to do it. At least not now, maybe later after a nap.

A good thing last night. I went to the Essen House for dinner and picked up Mary and Louis Lengacher. We also saw my friends Larry and Diana. Diana has breast cancer and I was with her in Chemo and Radiation. We all sat down and had the buffet together. What a great buffet for Lent and Friday night. First was the fish, all you care to eat, shrimp, clams, frog legs, chicken, chicken and dumplings, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes and gravy, five different soups, salad bar and brownies for desert. It is the best value for $9.95 there is. Oh yea and the best onion rings I've ever had. Since I'm watching my carbs, I just had the fish and some onion rings, but the rest of the table had a bit of everything else. We had a pretty packed house and was told that one of the other restaurants in town was closing their door March 1st. They have another place in Hicksville and thought they could make it in Antwerp also. They found out as we did, that the restaurant business is not near as easy as everyone thinks. It took us two years to turn a profit. They tried to do it in six months.

I also had the opportunity to watch a lot of the Olympics again. Evan, the skater that took the gold, had been challenged by the Russian that if he could not do a quad, then he should not be the gold metal winner. Evan was a calm as he could be and said that he actually respected this guy and had traveled around the world with him. He also then explained how the judging was done, and how the difference between what he did, a triple, and quad, was very little. He also explained how he actually beat him on his performance and the only thing he didn't do was the quad. It's like the Russian can do a quad and the American can't, so I win. Scotty Hamilton did the interview and asked some pretty pointed questions. In the end Scotty agreed that Evan did have the better all around performance.

Scotty was the last American to win gold since like 1968. But what I love about Scotty is that he beat cancer in the late '80's. The information I received about my cancer was provided by an organization headed by Scotty.

I'm starting to loose a little of my facial hair. I noticed today that I really don't need to shave any more. I'm not going to shave off anything, because they say that I might loose some hair, but it should not make me go bald.

It's now 10:30am and I'm going to try and get a nap so I feel better this afternoon when Sharon get home. Night all Tom

Friday 2-19-10

2010-02-19T12:20:00.002-05:00

The Olympics were interesting again last night. The girls half pipe was beautiful and the young lady from Australia was excellent and deserved the win. We had the best looking snowboarder, but she finished 11th. I think. She sure was pretty though. Beauty on a snowboard only gets you so far I guess.

Evan, I can't spell his last name, men's single skater, took the gold and defeated the Russian defending champion. We had that on when we went to bed, but both of us fell asleep before it was over. I actually saw the ending this morning at 4:30am or so on a re-broadcast. I'm not into the skating like Sharon is, but he did skate the best of all the men for sure. This has been the best the US has done in the Winter Olympics for sure. I can remember watching and thinking we will never win a Winter anything. Dick Button has always been around, but hell he won in like '48 and '52. I was still wet behind the ears. The TV coverage wasn't in High Def. either. The color wasn't any good for certain. You couldn't tell the Russians from the Americans by their uniforms. I remember there was plenty of snow all the time though. Much more then than you see now. Hell there were times that's all you could see was snow. Remember that???

About my health. My blood pressure at the hospital was 144/79 and my blood sugar was 166. I didn't ask about anything else, but I think my temp was 97.6. I'm a cold blooded SOB. Or at least that's what I think the nurse said. After leaving the hospital I decided it was time to grab some breakfast and then go to the gym. I actually worked out for 30 minutes on my bikey thing. That's the first time I have felt good enough to last the 30 minutes. My blood pressure was 110/62 when I was finished. My trainer said that was excellent and he was happy to see I lasted 30 minutes. I went home and got there just as Tiger was giving his apology.

I have very mixed feelings about Tiger. I feel he is the best golfer ever, but his attitude has always put me off a bit. He sounded sincere, but he has a hell of a long way to come back. He can't have this attitude that he is superior to everyone anymore. He needs to be more like Phil and sign autographs and talk to common folk. The're the one's paying his sponsors to keep him around. I can't see her staying around for very long. I'm sure he has made some deal with her people to make it look good for a year or so, but I'm sure the love is gone.

Speaking of love, I just want to thank all of you who read this information each day and call me all the time. Cate, I do appreciate hearing from you each day. I know you don't always want to hear my sales advise, but I love hearing about your day and your successes. There is nothing more fun than selling when you are at the top of your game. Once you get it down, it a ball helping people get what they need and want from you. Once you have that figured out, the world is your oyster.

Maura, I love that you are trying to help the artists that do the graffiti. They need someone like you to help them achieve their recognition. If anyone reading this has not yet seen her web site, go see it. Offthewallgraffiti.com. Oh yea, you can donate $10.00 to the cause if you like what she is doing. Even if you don't like it, donate. What the hell, it's tax time, and you can write it off. Next year though.

It's now time for me to fix my lunch and take a nap. I was up way tooooo early today, and have worked sooooo hard, I better rest my little ass for a while. Til tomorrow Tom

Thursday 2-18-10

2010-02-18T11:03:00.002-05:00

So I'm already back from being infused and all I can think about is last nigh and the Winter Olympics. What a night, I don't know if it's because I feel I'm fighting hard to beat this cancer, or what, but I have never been so emotional about these athletic's before. When I saw what Lindsey Vonn did on her run for the gold, I could not hold back the tears. Epically when they showed the re-run and how when she landed that last jump she couldn't even put any weight on her right leg. Then when she lost it with her coach and just started balling, it was like everything she did for the past eight years suddenly came to fruition. To think of what she had to overcome to put the pain behind her and just gut it out. She is truly a champion. Julia Mancuso did a great job also, and deserves all the credit in the world. This is the first time I can remember two American woman doing so well in any of the big races.

Shani Davis did a heck of a great job also. He is just such a soft spoken man you would not think he had that killer mentality in him. I thought he was going to be beaten by that Bum guy.

What can you say about Shaun White that hasn't already been said. The cool thing about him is if you live in Carlsbad or Oceanside or any of the beach communities, you can see him just walking around. He usually has a few of his buddies with him, but he will stop and talk to you and sign his autograph no problem. We have seen him many times eating at different restaurants in Carlsbad. I will tell you he seems to like Mexican the best. He's also has been known to stop in to a couple of the hot spots in town in the evening. Since I never go to any of those spots, this is all hear say on my part. But my source's swear it's true.

I found out today that I still have to get these darn infusions until the 23rd. Sharon and I celebrate our 47th wedding anniversary on the 22nd. so I hope I remember to stop in on the 23rd. It's been a wonderful 47 years and I would not change a thing. As a plaque on my wall says " A FISHERMAN LIVES HERE WITH THE BEST CATCH OF HIS LIFE". I couldn't say it better myself. That's why I bought the plaque.

Just so you don't get bored, my blood pressure was 130/72 my blood sugar was 122 and my oxygen level was 98, what ever the hell that means. Why the hell don't I feel better???? I think I'll go take a nap. Night all Tom

Wed 2-17-10

2010-02-17T08:21:00.007-05:00

I've got lots to say today so I will start early and end when I damn well feel like it. To start with, today is a kick ass day to watch the Olympics. For those of you that don't know, my daughter Maura was the person who designed the first logo for the X games in 1995. What most people don't know is that they were held in Rhode Island, not somewhere in Southern California. She wasn't even sure if she was going to be paid for her design, or if they would even give her credit for the work. But being the person that she is, she did it anyway. So this family has been watching some of the craziest things that people have ever done on skateboards and what ever else they could go down a hill on. She also has just started another fantastic project called OFF THE WALL GRAFFITI. You can find out all about it at Offthewallgraffitti.com. It's a project to give the artists a place to show off their artistic ability on places other than public property. Sort of the same idea as the X games did for the skateboarders. I want all of us to give this idea of hers the same respect and acceptance that the X games gave to the skateboard outlaws as they used to be considered. I'm saying this today, because you will be able to see one of the most successful skateboard outlaws perform in the Olympics. Believe me, having been part of the Carlsbad community since 1985, I remember when they had signs on the streets saying it was against the law to skateboard on public property. If it weren't for some farsighted citizens, Shaun White and Tony Hawk, would still be OUTLAWS. As it turned out both of them are fabulous athletes and doing very well.

I also want all of you to go to offthewallgraffiti.com and look at all the pictures that are on the site. I'm going to put a picture that hangs in my home that one of my boy's says, that it is the only thing he wants out of our entire house. How well would you have graded this picture?? Would you hang it in your house. How do you think parents of these graffiti artists feel about how well their kids can draw?

I tried to get the picture to follow the last paragraph, but I don't know how to do that. You would think after 109 posts I could figure this damn thing out right.

Well anyway, I went to the hospital today and got my infusion and thank God they took the needle out for a day. I'll have to have it accessed again tomorrow, but tonight I get to sleep with out it being in. Just one more week and then more Chemo. As much as I hate looking forward to having Chemo, I want it to be able to kill any microscopic little sarcoma roaming around in my lungs.

I'm going to go do some honey dues and then watch the Olympics. Thanks again for reading and those prayers. Tom

Tuesday 2-16-10

2010-02-16T13:51:00.002-05:00

You know I figure life is very interesting as you get older. I've fought my weight all my life and I've had high blood pressure since about 1990 and diabetes since '92. Now I've got cancer and this thing they call Chemo brain has my world completely turned up side down.

I got up today and went over to the hospital to get my infusion and the lady took my vitals and told me my temperature was low, 97.6 and I better be watching my blood pressure because it was 101/62 and my heart rate was 67, and I lost two more lbs since yesterday. They brought in a real comfortable lounge chair that I could actually lay back in and a pillow for my head. I was so comfortable that I fell asleep while I was getting my infusion. When the nurse came in she gently shook me and asked if I was OK. At this point I have no F++++++ idea how I'm supposed to feel. If I say great, Sharon has honey dues for me to do, if I say I don't feel too well they've got another F++++++ pill I can take. My answer from now on will be"Why the F+++ are you asking?" I feel well enough to drive myself over here and get the infusion, but not well enough to do something I don't feel like doing. So no more open ended questions, I will only answer closed ended questions, for those of you who have never attended one of my sales courses, a closed ended question is one that can only be answered with a Yes or a No. Are you old Mr. McLaughlin "Yes". Do I give a shit? NO.

After all this I decided that I would go over to the gym and do my best to try to do about 30 minutes on my exercise biker thingy. At about 25 minutes I started to feel light headed so I went over to the trainer to get my vitals done and he then informed me that my blood pressure was 95/60 and that my blood sugar was 74 and that I should probably not do any more exercising today.

I then drove home and watched a little of last nights Olympics. Bode Miller has certainly turned it around and it's too bad he didn't win a gold. .09 is just way to small a margin to get third place. God bless him for coming back for his third Olympics. It was also great to see the snowboard cross guys come in first and fourth. The girl that won the bumps kicked some ass also. You talk about pressure, the last run of the competition. I love watching that stuff. I have to admit, I cry at shit like that.

The thing that I didn't watch much of, was the ice skating. You know that Sharon was Miss Fort Wayne on Ice, when she was about 16, so she does love to watch, but I understand the American kids didn't score high on the judges scoring, but they both skated their highest scores ever. I hear the winners both screwed up their final performance but won anyway. To me it's all about trying your hardest and not giving up.

Well that all there is today from Mr. Philosopher. Tune in tomorrow for the never ending line of BS he has to share.

Oh yea, Sharon fixed me a salad of hot dogs and lettuce and a piece of rye bread for lunch. Now that' eating!!!!!!!

Monday 2-15-10

2010-02-15T08:24:00.002-05:00

Sharon and I had our first date for quite a while. We went Mexican. I had nothing that was good for me, but it was very delicious. I did not have any desert however. We are watching the Olympics and enjoying every minute. I can't believe it has been eight years since Park City.

I had some trouble last night with the rashes flaring up. At 2 am I starting itching uncontrollably. I had to get up and apply this location so I could get back to bed. I finally had to take two V's to stop the pain. I'm on my way now to see the hospital to see what might have caused it. Hell maybe it was the Mexican. I'll let you know later. I'm going to Sam's again for the E.H. and then pick up the bread for the week. I don't know why I have to work today, the banks sure as hell aren't. Thank you Mr. Presidents.

Sunday 2-14-10

2010-02-14T11:01:00.003-05:00

I actually got to drive my car for the first time in a week or so yesterday. I first went to the hospital to get my infusion. The sad thing about going to the ER on a weekend is that everyone is either part time, or covering someone else shift. When you walk in, they don't know what your doing, or what you want. I tried to explain that I was there for an infusion of antibiotics, but she didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I started walking down the hall towards the infusion area and she had a hissy fit. She said you have to check in here first, I said my name is Tom etc. and kept walking. She finally got out of her seat and had to go through another office to get into the hall. By that time I was at the other reception area giving my name to that receptionist. When the first lady showed up, the lady that I was speaking to looked at her and said, "Can I help you?". The first receptionist just looked at both of us and said, "Well, I guess I not needed here".

I was then checked in and escorted to an infusion room. No more than ten minutes later they were infusion me. It only took about 30 minutes once they got started. That's a lot faster than the 2 hours I was told it would probably take each day.

Today I had the same nurse that I had the first day of my treatments. I haven't gone into that experience yet but it was also quite a cluster f+++. It seems I was released from the hospital because all they were really doing for me medically was giving me infusions of medicine. Now we already know how exciting it would be to have our Government, no matter who would be in charge, run our health care program. Get this, if I stayed in the hospital and let them feed me and have nurses assist me and every f+++++ doctor that even thought he might be able to charge me walked into my room to say, "HOW YOU FEELING". Medicare would be happy to pay the bill. Now if I didn't want to stay in the hospital, but just wanted the infusion for thirty minutes a day, they were not going to pay.

When I heard that from the BOSS of the ER department, I went nuts. I told the nurse to get her BOSS in here, and now. She then tried to explain why she didn't think this would be covered by medicare. After twenty minutes of arguing with me she left in a huff. The nurse came back in and said her boss was very upset and crying. I said I really felt bad that I made her cry, but that she didn't understand how absurd the circumstances were as to why they would not pay. I said, is your bosses, BOSS here?, she just so happened to be in the building. When she walked in to my room she was very nice and explained to me that they had found a provision in the Medicare information that indeed did cover this situation.

So when I came in today the nurse that had seen all this was the nurse on call. She then hooked me up and had my medication ready as I sat down. We chatted for a minute because she had an intern with here and was showing her what she had just done. She asked if I had any questions and left the room. When the infusion was over she came back in and unhooked me and cleared my port and I was getting ready to leave when she said, Mr McLaughlin, may I ask you what you did for a living? I just laughed and said why? She said I figured you had to be a college professor or so sort of high powered business man. I've never seen in all my years anyone intimidate either of the two ladies that you dealt with on Thursday. How did you know to do that. Most people would have just told them to bill them for the treatments. I said, "young lady, you don't get to be where I am if you don't ask a lot of questions." Besides I would rather die than pay for something I didn't have to.

I then gave her a 25% off coupon to the Essen House and told her if her BOSS wanted to come in I would give her one also. Her boss never showed up, but I told here the offer was still open.

I went to Sam's Today for the Essen House and now I'm home and plan to spend most of the rest of the day following the Olympics.

More Tomorrow

Fri. 02-12-10

2010-02-12T13:20:00.003-05:00

OK, so if you can follow a Chemo Brained individual, I got up on Thursday and my left arm, where they removed my bicep and sarcoma, was about twice the size that it should have been. I also noticed a rash on my right arm and on my lower trunk area. With diabetes I occasionally would get a rash when I was high, so I just figured it was that. As the day advanced I started the shaking and chills once again and my temperature went up to 102. Sharon called the Dr. and he said take two aspirin and call him in the morning. The next day,Friday, I was sick as S+++ and my left arm was now three times its normal size. My temperature was over 101 so we decided to go to the Dr's office. When we got there Dr. Adami was not there so we talked to a Nurse Practitioner about my condition. She examined me and asked a boat load of questions and then finally said, you need to see a Dr. Twenty minutes or so later I see another Dr. that I have never met before, Dr. Epstein. He looks over my chart and her notes and looks at me and says, Your going to the Hospital now. I love that bed side manor, get your ass to the hospital boy, whats the matter with you!!!

By the time I reach the hospital I truly believe that I might be on deaths door step. I've never felt this way and with all the junk about the whit and red cells and let's risk it anyway, bull s+++, I figured we gambled and I lost big time. I then ask to have Fr. Tony meet me at the hospital and give me the Prayer for the sick to find out he's ON his way to Indy and will not be back until tomorrow sometime. So now not only am I going to die, I'm not going to have that Priest thing at my bed side. Me scared?, f+++ no, what do I have to be scare about. So now they come in and start hanging IV's all over and start my port working once again. They asked if I wanted any pain pills or anything, and I accepted right now. Even though they have all this medicine flowing into me and I'm supposed to be tired and sleepy, I'm wide awake. I guess I want to be wide awake if I was going to die. I stayed that way for the next 48 hours. I might fall asleep for a few minutes, but never more than an hour.

On Saturday, Fr. Tony finally showed up to give me the Prayer for the sick. I felt much better in a spiritual way, but no better physically. They finally decided late Saturday to give me Zaynix, or something like that, for your nerves and to calm you down. I finally fell asleep Sat. night at around 9:30 and sleep until 6am.

I watched the Super Bowl some what, I remember the first quarter was good, but I then lost interest and slept of and on the rest of the day. I was awake for the end of the game. I really like the Colts, but if they have to be beaten, I'm glad it was the Saints.

All I really remember about the day was how badly I felt and how terrible the rash was becoming. I had a rash from head to toe. I itched like a mad man but knew I could not scratch it or break the skin at all. I took a bunch of different pills and went to sleep.

First thing Monday I insisted on seeing a specialist on skin problems or diseases. There happened to be a Contagious diseases specialist in the hospital so he came in to see me first thing Monday. I told him I believed that my problem was that I was allergic to the antibiotic they were giving me. After a full examination and discussion, he agreed with me and decided to change the antibiotic. I was still very itchy and inflamed the rest of Monday, but by Tuesday it was starting to subside. They had started to give me an anti itch medicine and I was able to once again get some sleep.

I must say that the nurses at Park View were excellent. Three of them knew Tom and Cate, so I had to be good and they had to be on their best also. Since the only real problem I had the last couple of days was the rash, it was very easy to take care of me and I was just eating and sleeping while killing time watching TV. Sharon was a saint during all this. She would do her Essen House duties and keep the place flowing and then check in with me to see when she should be there to see any of the doctors who needed to talk to both of us. As you all know by now,"THEY PRACTICE MEDICINE AND IF YOU LET THEM THEY WILL PRACTICE ON YOU" I think I'll make a sign that says TPMAIYLTTWPOY.

As of Thursday it looks like Dr. So, the contagious disease specialist is in charge of when I will receive Chemo again.

So this brings you up to today 2-12-10. In ten days Sharon and I will be married 47 years. Just three more years to reach that 50 mark.

Today by the way I got my infusion at 9:30 and out by 10:30. I then sat in the DMV until noon trying to get a handicapped tag. If you don't have one around these hospitals you can get a parking spot for blocks.

I'll do my best from now on to write each day and keep it light and funny. Anything has to be better than last week. I'm still shooting for the quarterly meeting of the Carlsbad Inn Board, so I hope to see all of you that I can at that time, 03-18-10 to 03-21-10

Thurs. 02-11-10

2010-02-11T18:14:00.002-05:00

So you guys want to hear my side of this F+++++up mess. So Tuesday morning I arrive at Dr. Adami's office expecting to breeze through the Chemo treatment. Not so fast fat man. First they make me take a blood test to see if I can even have Chemo. On my first go around it was no problem passing the test, without even studying. Hell, this time I studied and damn near failed anyway. It reminded me of freshman Latin. I think they passed me just so she would not have to sit through class with me again. I must have gotten a D-- on the blood test, because Adami's partner, because Adami was on the road to Angola, looked somewhat concerned and said we had a decision to make. We could either wait another week and see what my blood count was, or take a risk and have the Chemo anyway. I said I was not about to make that decision, Adami is who needs to make that decision. She left the room and came back 20 minutes later and said Adami said to go for it. Easy for him to say, he's not going to suffer if the risk doesn't work out. Hell he get paid more if I get in trouble, RIGHT!! So once that decision is made I then asked about the medicine that I didn't take last time that helps if your blood counts are not in order. She damn near fell on the floor at that time. She said you had Chemo and didn't take that medicine. I said I tool it the first time and I got sick as S+++. So back to Adami to see how he wanted to handle this situation. After another 20 minutes she comes back and said Adami said to just give it with the infusion and not to worry about the fact you should receive one shot the day before the infusion, one the day of the infusion and then one the day after the infusion. Just give him a large dose the day of the infusion.

So there I was, feeling really confident that I was working with the best and one partner doesn't really feel good about what her partner just recommended. So now what do you do, S+++ or go blind. Since I already have problems reading the fine print, and I do take one on a regular basis, what did I have to loose.

After the infusion, I felt OK for a while until I started with the chills and shakes. I took a bunch of V's the rest of the day and night and got up early Wed. to go get the shot that will start my bones and muscles to ache. The great thing about this shot, they have to put it in your arm and it has a very large needle and it take about a minute to administer it once she starts it flowing. She then informed me that the reason it takes so long is that it is real thick and if you tried to give it fast, you would probably knock the person out with the pain. As she puts it in she keeps asking if your all right. I guess if they see you can follow them and answer the question, your not going to pass out.

After the shot I drove right home and hit the couch for a bit of a nap..It was almost 2pm when I layed down.

More tomorrow. Tom

Thursday 2/11/10

2010-02-11T12:24:00.002-05:00

Tom is finally home from the hospital where he's been since last Friday. Following is a day-by day scenario ( or as much as I can type right now and will add more later)
Tuesday Tom received a new chemo medicine called Taxotere along with the gemsar he had received the week before. On Wednesday his left arm where the previous tumor had been removed started to swell and turn red in color. He was also shaking with the chills and feeling very sick. He also got neulasta on Wednesday because his platelets were at 17,000 (normal 140,000). By Thursday morning his arm was still swelling and he was retaining fluid. He was taking vicodin to deal with the pain and chills. By Friday morning he was in so much pain that I took him to the oncologist. After talking to a nurse practioner she decided to see the doc. After reading his chart and seeing his arm he put him in the hospital right away for IV antibiotics and a saline solution. On Saturday Fr. Tony from St Charles stopped by to administer the prayer for the sick. By Saturday afternoon Tom's whole body was covered with a rash. It kept getting worse but they gave him Zanyx or however you spell it so he didn't really care. Sunday the Colts lost and that was as much he could deal with. On Monday they brought in a contagious disease specialist who deduced he was allergic to the antibiotic and put him on a different one . At last he began to get better and he was released Wednesday but has to go to the ER every day for a week to have antibiotics infused. Takes about an hour.

Tom wanted everyone to know at least what had happened and I'm sure when he's feeling better he will fill you all in with a day by day, blow by blow experience. He did try to keep all of his nurses and support people laughing and he was well-liked by all of them. He appreciates your prayers and support and I'm sure he'll be blogging by tomorrow. Right now it's all he can manage not to scratch his entire body! In the meantime, further chemo has been postponed until platelet counts are up and rash is gone.

2010-02-06T06:05:00.002-05:00

February 6, 2010
Just to let everyone know, Tom is in the hospital for three days getting IV antibiotics. He will return home Monday. His cell and platelet counts were very low so he got an infection and his diabetes complicates things so the doc figured the best way to get after it was via IV. He has his cell phone with him and would welcome calls. 260-402-6453.

We were going to have friends over to watch the super bowl, now not so much.

Nevertheless..........GO COLTS!!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

2010-02-03T16:28:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry for the delay on the blog, because I have been so shaky that I've been unable to type. Since my last post there have been some very interesting developments. The good thing was that the CT scan was negative. The bad news is that the "gemsar" that they gave me not only kicked my ass but it kicked S*** out of my red and white blood cells. I thought that it was just a matter of being able to take the side effects in stride but I of course was wrong. Dr Adhami was not in on Tues. so we met with his partner and she informed us that we had two choices: take a shot of decadron and wait a week to have chemo, or take chemo then with the knowledge that it could lower my blood count even worse. After two calls to Adhami and one to God we decided to go for the chemo.

After I made that decision I find out that there are like three other medicines that they have to put in the chemo to try to offset all the F8888888 side effects of all the S8888 they're going to put in me. The best news is that the one medicine that I didn't want because it effects the bone marrow and makes every bone in your body hurt, the last time I took it I was down for 48 hours I have to have and I had it today.

After the treatment yesterday I started to shake uncontrollably. You feel as though you're cold and that you've got to put blankets on to warm your body. After about an hour of shaking I decided I couldn't take the shaking any more and took two Vicodin. After about 45 minutes the Vicodin started to work and within another hour and a half I finally stopped shaking. Now the downside to the 4 dog night was that it caused my temp to go to 102.2. I was told to call the emergency # if my temp goes over 101. When we talked to Dr. Adhami he said to take a couple Tylenol and call him in the morning! What the H else is a doctor going to tell you to do. So I took the tylenol and Sharon got me an ice pack and within an hour or so my temp was back down to 99. I have finally decided that taking vicodin before any of this s888 starts to take effect is the best course of action. In talking to my brother today he said that's what he did with his shoulder operation. While I was talking to him I started to shake and I told him I still had an hour before I should take another vicodin and he said are you nuts...if you're starting to hurt take a f88888888 pill. I'm going to take his advice.

As I was ending my conversation with Larry, Sharon came in and I asked her if we could go do the blog. So that is about as current as I can bring you. I'm dictating, Sharon is typing for me until I get my coordination back.

Thank you for all of you that have shown concern a to why I was not writing my blog. I do enjoy writing the blog and please know that when I don't it's because there's nothing to tell you or I'm incapable of typing.

So far the side effects of the neulasta I got today have been much gentler than the last time. I can't really stand for very long and the most comfortable position is on the couch. Of course my family thinks that's my favorite position if I'm hurting or not but today I have a great excuse to be there.
Love to all,
Tom

Mon. 02-01-10

2010-02-01T19:14:00.002-05:00

At 8am this morning I was at the CT scan facility ready for action. At 8:45 they were finally ready for me. Actually is was best that they were so busy, because at 5:45 when I got up my blood sugar was in the 60's. I was not to take any food since 5am. I then started to look for something I could find that would spike my BS but not destroy the no eating policy. I then found Sharon's trail mix, it had all kinds of peanuts and stuff, but only two raisins and two M&M in the entire bag. Oh she never HIGRADES her trail mix. But let me tell you, if you ever look into that bag before taking a hand full, she would call you out, right now. So the next place I looked was in the refrigerator and nothing, no orange juice, or anything that would solve my low blood sugar Finally, after bending my knees, as my mother always told me to do, I found some of Sammy's, Juicy Juice, and it had 25g of sugar. After taking that it got much better and I headed for the GI, CT scan.

If you have never had to drink the stuff that they coat your "whatever" with, you have not lived. Two sixteen bottles of the stuff. They now have it put in lemon aid looking bottles, but trust me it is not lemon aid. After sitting for an hour letting this junk settle, they came to get me and ushered me into the CT area. I had put on the card this time that I had a Port so they could access that as apposed to trying to stick my veins. When you receive so much Chemo, your veins are very easily collapsed. As it turns out, this nurse had just passed the tests required to be able to stick a port. The other facilities that I have been to have never been able to draw from my port. She had decided to do this on her own first and then went to the state to let her do it for her cancer patients. I told her how happy I was to know that they had this ability and that she did it on her own. Let me tell you, if your in Fort Wayne and need a CT with contrast, that's what they call it, and you want a good nurse, go to door #3 of the cancer center at Park View North.

After getting stuck the treatment only takes about twenty minutes. They just lay you on a table feet first and they but you in a round thing that takes pictures while you are slid back and forth inside it. It's the getting stuck and being worried about what it might show that is the hard part, oh yea that other drink stuff isn't fun either.

Well I lived another day so we will see tomorrow how I did on my tests. They were never that easy for me in school I know, and I didn't study at all for this one.

Hay Grace and Ron, thanks for the call. You too Catie, Tom and Maura. Love to hear from any of you people. It's a bitch sitting on the couch.

And no Cate, I didn't spell check it tonight either. Love to all, Tom

Sun 01-31-10

2010-01-31T10:06:00.002-05:00

Well I didn't sleep much last night. I was up at 1, 2:20, 4:30, 5:45 to take my medicine and then I finally got up to go to Mass at 6:45. I think Sharon is about to change bedrooms. I feel like I'm going through the change. I wake up hot as can hell one hour and then the next thing I know I'm shivering and shaking. I finally took a couple of aspirin at 2:20 and fell back to sleep until 4:30. I was then up and down until I took the rest of my Protocel at 5:45.

Mass was good today, they talked about love and the priest gave a real good sermon about love. When your sick, you appreciate it when people stop by or call you on the phone. You truly know who loves you when your sick and you hear form them. I must remember that for the future. I'm not always that good about calling people when I know their sick. I sometimes wonder what to say. I know now, get better, I hope your feeling better soon, I'll pray for you. Is there anything I can do for you, etc etc etc.

I got a card for Marty, yesterday. You know who you are. And yes I do remember all those Tea Parties and JW, BH, CH, JT, DP, DP,. That was a long time ago, but great memories. I thank you for the not, send me your e-mail address and I will write to you. I don't know how to write a real letter any more. Tell those ladies in your monthly meetings to drop me a line also. Barb P, does try to keep me up to date with what is going on in Lima. I do like to keep up with how everyone is. I heard from Grace B the other day. She is now in Georgia, I didn't know that. I still want you ladies to come over to Antwerp and see my restaurant and assisted living complex. It only take about an hour.

Margo, I hope you and Don got off safe today. For all of you that don't know, Don got a cell phone 513-374-1738. I understand from Margo that he even has the directions with him. I hope he has learned that he need a cell phone provider. They have a phone in Florida, but no long distance provider. Hopefully they will carry it with them and we can get in touch more often.

I let you know how my LGI goes tomorrow. Tom