Apple says it’s not to blame for a series of exploding iPods and iPhones, according to a report published on Friday. The company has been under fire, so to speak, for devices overheating and shattering across Europe and the U.K
Yeah … it’s all a plan by Google and Microsoft to try to gain market share.
Well today (Tuesday) was my first actual cancer treatment, all of the visits to this point had just been planning and dress rehearsals. The radiation was first, about 40 minutes in there – they put me on the table – secured me with the mask and shoulder straps – did a couple of x-rays and then ran the machine though its paces. I got up off the table, straightened my shirt – took a few photos and went upstairs to the chemo lab.
After a brief wait they came and took me back to a room lined with recliners, each with its own IV stand and pump. Here they took some blood samples, put in an IV and started pumping in the fluids – some four different bags worth plus a needle or two of some other stuff for good measure.
This entry is getting posted a bit late simply because I have been too sick to mess with it! But better late than never.
As I see yet another church giving support to gays I recognize that it isn’t a religious thing when people reject gays or even gay marriage – it is strictly them trying to justify their bigotry.
From the news wires this morning:
DALLAS (Reuters) – The largest American Lutheran denomination cleared the way on Friday to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve in ministry, ending a policy that had opened leadership posts to them only if they remained celibate.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America also encouraged its congregations to find ways to support or recognize members in “accountable lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”
In 1988 Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, a former Libyan intelligence officer, killed 270 people by bombing an airliner. Today, after serving eight years in prison, he was released … free to go home to his friends and family.
He was sentenced to life in prison and now that he is facing the end of his life (due to cancer) the Scottish courts have decided to let him go. They call it “compassion”. Where is the “compassion” for the friends and families of the 270 people that he murdered?
I got a call from the hospital today – Monday will be a dry run to check out the setup and then on Tuesday at 8am I will get my first radiation therapy followed by 5 hours of chemo.
I’m already feeling nauseated. Seriously.
I know I should recycle more. I do feel guilty when I don’t. But sometimes it just seems they try to make it hard to recycle things!
Here in Raleigh there used to be recycling centers located throughout the city. They were nothing more than a collection of specialized dumpsters labeled for different items. Since the city implemented its curbside recycling program they only accept certain items – cans – glass bottles – newspapers – cardboard – certain kinds of plastics. Anything placed in the little green bins not meeting their guidelines gets left behind for you to deal with.
Well at the moment I have a couple of old computers to trash – they are big metal cases with a little bit of electronics inside. I also have a couple of large glass aquariums and a large, heavy floor buffer. The city will not pick up any of these items as part of their recycling program and there are no longer any neighborhood recycling sites to use. What’s left is a drive out to the recycling bins at the recently moved county dump – about 30 miles round trip, but that is just robbing Peter to pay Paul – I use up gas and pollute the air to save a bit of other resources.
Guess I’ll just have to go on feeling guilty.
Well this week I went to the hospital and they made a mask for me. It was made from a warm plastic that was pushed down over my face and stretched all the way down to the back of my head. It will be used to hold my head into position so the radiation can hit the exact same spots each time. They will put it over my face and bolt it to the table I will be on during the radiation treatments. They also will be holding me in place with some clamps over my shoulders.
I also got my first (and last) tattoo. Not a butterfly … just a small dot on my chest that they will use (with the help of a laser spot) to line me up into the same position on the table each time.
Other preparations this week took me back to the dentist twice. He took impressions of my teeth to make fluoride trays for me. What I got back today were clear plastic molds of my teeth that fit snugly over them. He also provided a bottle of grape flavored fluoride treatment. The radiation oncologist had told me to get them made and wants me to wear them during the radiation treatments to help protect my teeth. And of course I’ll use them for applying the fluoride treatment.
Well on Thursday I had my first appointment with my radiation oncologist. He’s the one who figures out how much radiation I’ll get and exactly where it will be targeted. We talked a good bit and as part of the exam he decided to take a look inside me via a tube up my nose – referred to as nasal endoscopy.
I’m sure this was done during my last surgery when the ENT surgeon was taking biopsies all over and looking for any signs of cancer but I wasn’t awake for it. This time I was most definitely awake! I’ll skip the details but suffice it to say that after a spray of something up the nose to numb me a bit and then a well lubed up thin, flexible tube with a light on the end was slid in my nostril. He actually put it in about a foot and pulled it back out several times when I started to gag. After looking around we started discussing the treatment plan.
Basically it’s going to be radiation therapy 5 times a week for 6 weeks along with chemo 3 times during that period. My next appointment there is on Tuesday.
It was 40 years ago next weekend, in the summer of 1969, that the all-time greatest event in rock music took place – Woodstock. Nearly a half-million people attended that event – to hear 30 plus music groups perform on-stage.
Diverse groups – wonderful groups – names like: Jimi Hendrix – Joan Baez – Jefferson Airplane – The Who – Johnny and Edgar Winter – Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young – Blood, Sweat and Tears – Ten Years After – The Grateful Dead – Santana – Creedence Clearwater Revival – Janice Joplin.
A bit from Wikipedia sums it up nicely:
After the concert Max Yasgur, who owned the site of the event, saw it as a victory of peace and love. He spoke of how nearly half a million people filled with possibilities of disaster, riot, looting, and catastrophe spent the three days with music and peace on their minds. He states that “if we join them, we can turn those adversities that are the problems of America today into a hope for a brighter and more peaceful future…”
Saturday evening, Gabino and I went to an AIDS fundraiser put on by the Crape (sp) Myrtle Festival. It was held in downtown Raleigh in a renovated church directly across from the Old City Cemetery.
Leslie Jordan was performing and there were to be two shows. People were invited to see both shows for the same entrance fee and it seemed that everyone was taking them up on the offer. The old church couldn’t quite stand up to the crowd and the floor support beams began to break loose!
Bottom line they emptied out about half of the people and went on with the first show. When it came time for the second show they were a bit more cautious and moved Leslie outside to the roped off parking lot. They moved the sound system and setup a folding table and then they put Leslie up on it. Leslie Jordan really is a very short man and seeing him prancing around on a table only added to his comedy act.
An art finance company that lent celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz $24 million against the value of her entire collection and her properties has sued her for violating the terms of the agreement. Basically they say she isn’t being real cooperative in their attempts to start foreclosing on some of her stuff … but why does she owe $24 million anyway?
Photographer Annie Leibovitz recently took out a loan against her photographs and properties in order to pay off her outstanding mortgage debt. Miss Leibovitz is perhaps not alone in suffering from the global economic crisis, but most of her financial woes are not her doing but rather stem from her inheritance of her long time partner, Susan Sontag’s, estate.
Same-sex couples do not have the same privileges as straight married couples when it comes to inheritance. If your partner passes away and leaves their estate to you, you have to pay up to 50 percent of the value of your inheritance in taxes. However, if you and your partner were recognized as a married couple, you wouldn’t have to pay a dime. And it is precisely this unjust double standard that got Annie Leibovitz into financial trouble.
How would you feel if you suddenly had to pay half of the value of your home to the government in order to keep on living there?
My first visit to an oncologist was the 6th of July. That’s some four weeks after I first heard the word cancer mentioned. There were actually two doctors that talked with me and laid out what they felt should happen.
They explained some about the cancer – basically neck cancer – a squamous cell carcinoma. The primary cause is smoking and/or drinking and possibly HPV – a virus. They also discussed treatment with me. They said that the standard treatment in similar cases was a radical neck dissection (remove all lymph nodes from one side of the neck), followed by chemo and radiation.
They ordered more tests, an MRI, a PET scan and a test for HPV – and they scheduled me to come back in two weeks for results and more planning.
