Sunday, May 23, 2004

FryDay08:39 PM CST (Link)
Mel and I were at the Gamma Knife Center in San Antonio at the crack of dawn Friday morning.

The nurse immediately put me on a gurney and started to work. After sticking me twice in vein, she and the IV therapist finally found a good one and started an IV of fluids. The IV would be used first to give me a sedative and later to deliver contrast material for the MRI. The sedative would relax me, maybe even put me to sleep. In fact, I probably wouldn't remember a thing, the nurse said.

Then they kicked Mel out for the remainder of the time. Radioactive materials and untrained civilians just don't go well together, I suppose.

The doctor came over and started fitting my head into the frame (fuzzy pic because it's a scan from a Polaroid instant picture). I felt pressure but no pain because of the sedative and injections of xylocaine at the screw points. The sedative worked through the MRI, too. I think I snored. But soon after the doctors started working on the game plan, the sedative wore off. I remember everything.

Twelve times into the blast chamber at 3 1/2 minutes each. Between each exposure, a team of doctors and nurses would swarm in, unbolt me from the collimator, sit me up, adjust the sides of the frame, lay me down, bolt me back in, and swarm out again.

Once they left, the blast doors would open and the table would move, slowly, slowly, into the chamber holding the Cobalt 60. Past stainless steel and then into concrete. If I were more than slightly claustrophobic, I would probably have freaked. Fortunately, though, there was enough room above my head to keep my fear to a dull roar.

After everything stopped moving, there was silence. Utter silence. Radiation is a silent killer. I could hear every scared breath I took, because they forgot to turn on the classical CDs I had brought to drown out the silence. Fortunately, they remembered after the first exposure.

After the treatment, they were quick to get me out of there. The doctor and the nurse unbolted the frame. The nurse bandaged the bolt holes and wound my head (front and back) with a long bandage. Then they scooted us out the back door because there was another patient awaiting treatment near the front door. I felt like someone who had been caught cheating on their wife, but I guess I understand they don't want to expose patients to potentially scary sights, such as bloody bandages.

We stayed Friday night in San Antonio just in case I had a severe reaction. I didn't, so first thing Saturday, Mel and I probably broke a few speed limits driving back to Austin. We both were glad to be home.

I couldn't take the bandage off until today, so I was up at 6 a.m., waiting for Mel to get up. She didn't budge until later, though, so I read the paper and ate breakfast and then went back to bed. Finally, abotu 10 a.m., we were both up at the same time and Mel helped me unwind the bandage. What an utter relief. I wash my hair every day, so going two days without washing it was itch-city.

My head is still numb from the xylocaine, though, and the stuff is migrating down my forehead, so now I've got really puffy eyes. I was really disappointed to find that the holes in my head from the frame aren't very big. I guess I wanted at least some physical reminder of this ordeal.

Oh well. At least I got a T-shirt.

Saturday, May 15, 2004

Radioactive Cobalt Blues03:32 PM CST (Link)
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give. - Eleanor Roosevelt

Anyone seen my courage? I must have misplaced it.

Next week, I’m going to have my head examined. Again. This time in preparation for radiation treatment on my pituitary tumor. Seems my tumor has grown 1 mm since January.

While that's not much in terms of absolute measurements, it's quite a lot when measuring the space available in my head and it's enough to indicate that this thing is unstoppable by surgical means. I could have another surgery, but chances are near 100 percent that it would come back again.

So, it’s time to bring out the big guns. I’m going to get zapped by a Gamma Knife – blasted by 201 beams of vibrant gamma waves produced by radioactive cobalt. Each beam itself is relatively harmless (allegedly), but where they intersect, they are like RAID on cockroaches.

I don't know why there are 201 beams, instead of 199 or 200. But to pass the time while I'm in the zapping chamber, I think I'll make up a song. How about 201 Radioactive Beams in my Head, sung to the tune of 100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

When I first learned in January that that my little lagniappe had returned, I was really upset. But I'm OK with everything now. We'll get through this as best we can and go on with our lives, just like Eleanor said. What else is there to do?

But you know, there are advantages to being radioactive:
* I won't need a nightlight when I need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.
* We won't need coals or propane to grill dinner. Just slap a steak on my noggin and it's instant medium rare. You don't get those appetizing marks left by the grill grate, but I can pull the meat through my teeth to simulate them, if you want.
* I won't get lost on a foggy morning.
* We won't need the heater anymore. Mel and the animals can snuggle and we'll all be toasty warm and we'll save beaucoup bucks on the gas bill.

Saturday, May 8, 2004

Plumbing Dignity11:49 AM CST (Link)
You broke off the ball float in your toilet trying to raise it a bit to keep the toilet from running. Now what do you do? As an expert in plumbing repair, let me tell you how to stretch a 15-minute fix-it job to fill 3 hours.

Friday, 11 p.m.
The first thing you need to do is find an adjustable C-clamp. Why? It’s 11 p.m. on a Friday night and you can't get the wall-side water valve to turn and you don't want to turn off the water to the house because showers and other nightly duties remain to be performed. Plus you have to consider the water-essential morning routine the next day because your partner has to work on Saturday.

1. Use the adjustable C-clamp to pinch the inside-toilet water valve closed. You’ll get an early start on the repair job after your partner leaves for work the next morning.
2. Grab a can of WD-40 and squirt the pesky valve so that it can soak overnight.

Saturday, 8 a.m.
3. Kiss your partner goodbye as she heads out the door for work.
4. Go to the toolchest in the garage and grab a handful of pliers and wrenches.
5. Take the tools to the bathroom.
6. Sit down in the kitchen with a cup of coffee and the newspaper, just to relax and gather your thoughts.

9 a.m.
7. Finish reading the newspaper.
8. Remove the cat from the arm holding the newspaper and shake your arm to restore circulation.
9. Go outside and turn off water.
10. Come back inside, grab a wrench, and try to remove the wall-side water valve.
11. Try to turn the water valve from the other side of the toilet.
12. Go back to the original side and try to turn the water valve.
13. Get the WD-40 out and give the water valve another good squirt. Shift your attention to the valve assembly inside the toilet.
14. Try to remove the lock nut holding the toilet valve assembly.
15. Use the other hand to try to remove the lock nut holding the toilet valve assembly.
16. Switch back to the first hand to try to remove the lock nut holding the toilet valve assembly. Finally, it turns.
17. Realize that as the lock nut holding the toilet valve assembly turns, so does the toilet valve assembly inside the toilet. Nothing is coming loose. You are screwing in vain.
18. Switch back to trying to remove the wall-side water valve, in hopes that the WD-40 has done more penetrating in the last 10 minutes than it had in the last 10 hours.

10 a.m.
19. Scream in frustration when none of the nuts you are trying to turn even budge.
20. Cry a bit.
21. Stand up slowly to give your cramped backbones and muscles a chance to untwist.
22. Wipe hands and face on paper towel. Try to get WD-40 off your cheek.
23. Call your partner and cry, throwing curses at the unyielding toilet.
24. Call your brother-in-law and beg him to help.

11 a.m.
25. Watch as your brother-in-law does everything you were trying to do with the greatest of ease.

11:15 a.m.
26. Test flush to make sure there are no leaks.

Wasn’t that easy?

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