You may have noticed that we haven’t posted any long updates since last November. In large part, that’s because most of the news was boring and\/or unpleasant. Since the cancer I have is colon cancer (albeit of a skin cancer type), the details of my adventure have been painful, undignified, and unaesthetic.<\/p>\n
I had two rounds of chemotherapy, one in the hospital in October and a second at home in November. I had fifty or so blasts of gamma rays in a tomotherapy machine, which led to a major loss of pubic hair and sunburns where the sun don’t shine. Those ended when December did.<\/p>\n
Since the beginning of the year, I have been sleeping 14-16 hours a day, recovering from the doctors’ efforts to kill me. That’s how modern cancer therapy works. The idea\/hope is that all the cancer will die before the rest of me does.<\/p>\n
I am still in pain, but not as much as before. I can sit at my main computer for almost an hour at a time before the pain gets severe. I still have to run to the bathroom several times a day, but I can manage to get as much as three uninterrupted hours of sleep at a time, so that’s an improvement. My hair and beard are growing back (except down south), but much slower, whiter, and more curly than before.<\/p>\n
The pain medication I’m taking makes me more sleepy and foolish than usual, so I’m not getting much writing or other online activity done. I can play games on my laptop lying down on the couch, but that’s about it. Once in a while I get some housework accomplished. I do flyby posts on Facebook when I remember and have canceled all my other online networks.<\/p>\n
On February 15, I’ll be getting a PET Scan. That’s where they bring in several cats to sniff my butt. If they decide I need lab tests, they will summon the retrievers. If all my tumors are gone, I’ll be declared in remission. If not, more treatments, including surgery, are possible. We don’t want that.<\/p>\n
Our goal is complete remission by the end of March, so we can focus on the move to Oregon in April and May.<\/p>\n
We continue to cheerfully accept all healing energies and monetary donations<\/a> sent our way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You may have noticed that we haven’t posted any long updates since last November. In large part, that’s because most of the news was boring and\/or unpleasant. Since the cancer I have is colon cancer (albeit of a skin cancer … Continue reading