Superstar

Photo by Dick Riniker - La Crosse Tribune

There is a lovely article in today's La Crosse Tribune. It's about my step-son Jordan, who has been selected by his school, La Farge High School, to represent them in the Extra Effort Award program the Tribune is sponsoring. Three winners in the area will be awarded one year's tuition at one of three schools - Viterbo University, Western Technical College, and University of Wisconsin - La Crosse.

Go Jordan!!

MRI Results Day

My amateur reading of the MRI turned out to be correct - less enhancement than 3 months ago. Less enhancement (white stuff) is always good. Dr. Minehan said, since this report is so good, we'll wait 4 months (was scheduled for 3 months) for the next MRI.

Click on the picture to see it bigger.



The left side of the image is the MRI from November (post-radiation). The one on the right is from Wednesday. The arrows point to the where the tumor used to be.

Not much more to say. We be celebratin'!

MRI Day

No matter how many times I do this (4 times now?), there seems to be no escaping the anxiety preceding the event. I have no reason to expect anything to change, but one never knows.

I had the MRI this morning and as usual, it was uneventful; I may have even fallen asleep at one point. I also remembered to alert the techs that I'd be asking for a copy of the imaging results. When we were done they told me to hang for a couple minutes and I could take the CD home with me. Uh oh. Then I had to decide if I wanted to look at it with neither professional supervision nor a radiology report to refer to. Of course I had to look. I'm not a professional, but it looked fine to me. Even less enhancement than before. We'll wait for the professionals to weigh in Friday. More then.

Saturday I came in 4th in a poker tournament that started with 38 people. Of course I would have liked to have come in 1st, but I'm actually tickled to have done as well as I did. My goal is always to survive long enough to get close to the money and hope to catch some luck coming down to the end. That happened but a couple other players had even better luck. Too much fun.

Working Stiff

That's me. I am now employed in the Graphics department as an assistant. The position is part-time, so I'll be working 4 hours every afternoon. I'll be making enough to make it worthwhile but not too much to effect my SSDI benefit. All things considered, it's a very happy situation. I'm sure the work will be challenging, at least at first, but that's a good thing. And I adore the people with whom I work.

No medical news to speak of. MRI next (not this coming, but next) Wednesday and will visit with one of my oncologists that Friday. Except for the remaining three months of chemo, I'm not taking any drugs. That's good.

Our 2007 income tax refund arrived in our bank account Friday. This year's was significantly meager compared to past years so we decided to blow it. To accomplish this most efficiently, we spent Friday night at Ho Chunk Hotel & Casino in the Wisconsin Dells.

I took a chunk of my loot and sat down at the poker table. I wasn't expecting to lose it all but I was prepared for it if it happened. I played for 6.5 hours and ended up earning just over $20 an hour. Good times. Very good times. It wasn't just that I came out ahead; it was just fun! I'm not ready to go pro or anything, but I didn't feel the least bit uncomfortable playing with these people. I usually play online and, as one might expect, people often behave boorishly. Not at the live tables. Everyone is quite cordial, in fact.

We've had an unusually cold and snowy winter. Thursday we had about 15 inches of light, fluffy stuff and today we're getting at least 10 more inches of heavy, wet mess. Not good times. Here are some pictures I took yesterday:

From the back of the house looking at the garage.

From the garage (corner at left side of frame in previous photo) looking at the back of the house. Shot from the corner of the garage.

Front of garage. Shot from alley.

Another angle of Garage Mountain.

You can see that I'm going to have some issues with where to put this new snow. We shall see.

And finally - here's a recent shot of the ol' bean. For those of you keeping score at home, there's new hair growing where we haven't see hair since the days of the dreads. Slow going, but good times anyway.

O, Happy Days

Where shall I start? Let's get the medical stuff out of the way. Basically, no changes. I'm in the middle of my third cycle of chemo - three more to go after this. So far the side effects have been minimal. Keep in mind that I've become accustomed to a little mush brain and an inordinate urge to nap, but it's been that way since about half way through radiation. This chemo doesn't seem to be effecting me too dramatically. That's good. Next MRI is the last week of February.

No noticeable difference with the removal of Keppra from my regimen. That's good. So that's it for the medical stuff.

Back in November, I applied for Social Security Disability Insurance. I was advised that it usually takes 4-5 months before one gets a decision. This past Monday, I got a call letting me know I have been awarded benefits. By my calculation, that only took a little under 2.5 months. Score. I should get my first check the first week of March... 2 weeks after my short-term disability from work runs out. Not bad.

I also applied for medical insurance through SSI back in November. That is still pending, but it may not matter one way or the other because... I may be going back to work! I applied for a part-time position at the same company that still (nominally) employs me. I don't want to say too much about it until there's a decision, but it sure sounds like a perfect deal - for me and for the department.

Besides the fact that I think I can do spectacular work in this job, another major upside is that as long as I'm scheduled to work at least 20 hours a week, I get to keep my medical insurance benefit exactly the way it has been. This would be huge. This is why the SSI medical insurance may not matter.

I was also pleasantly surprised that the thought of returning to work makes me happy. I am tickled at the prospect of being useful again to the coop. More potential happy days.

There's been a situation in our lives that started not too long before I left on my big road trip to the West. I haven't talked about it because of it's sensitive nature. Today it was resolved in a most satisfactory fashion so I'm going to talk about it a little.

OK, maybe I won't say that much about it after all. Let's just say that Lori's world has been rather hellish since returning from a medical leave of absence earlier this month. In a horrible situation, Lori acquitted herself heroically. Next Monday she will return to her former position in the cheese room. Considering what she went through, I think there's no other way to describe the outcome than "victory". She still has a job at the coop, it's a job she'd rather be doing anyway, and she walks away with her integrity and self-esteem intact. I couldn't be more proud of or happy for her. My hero.

A New Record!

I knew it had been awhile since I updated but I really didn't think it was THAT long. I told my dad last week I just don't have the volition to update. That's what it is. No volition.

Not a lot of news on the brain tumor front. Second cycle of monthly chemo was last week. Since I never really felt like I recovered from the first month, I can't WAIT to find out how I'm going to feel later this week or so. Maybe it won't amount to much difference.

Some good news is that I'm getting off the Keppra (anti-seizure med). I had another EEG last week and my neurologist gave me the green light to wean myself off it. This is a drug I've been taking since before the surgery. I do remember a mild side effect when I first started taking it - just a little wooziness; I haven't really noticed it at all since the surgery. It will be interesting to see in a couple weeks if I notice any difference getting off the Keppra.

I'm just finishing the 3rd book (The Amber Spyglass) in the His Dark Materials trilogy. The first book in the trilogy, The Golden Compass, was released as a major motion picture back before the holidays. Tom Sawyer meets Back to the Future meets Lord of the Rings - all basted with a generous glaze of Paradise Lost. Good stuff.