Riding the Tilt-a-World

Trust me, you don't want to be under this ride without an umbrella

This is a personal post today, although to maintain the integrity of this blog I'll pause to say that everyone in politics can go f**k themselves.

Not that I'm paying attention to news; the only thing happening in my world right now is seeing my wife, Kathy, through to a successful outcome for her acute leukemia treatment. And between you, me, and the NSA, I'm not handling things as stoically as I might wish. This is rough going, folks.

That being said, Kathy is doing well in the hospital (albeit very fatigued, which is a regular part of leukemia) and responding well to the chemo so far.  The upper limit on a normal white cell count is 11,000.  For some years she was edging her way up to the low 40 thousands. Then, over about a week's time, things went crazy.  Her count was up to 167,000 when we got that terrifying "two to three weeks to live without treatment" prognosis. I'm no math whiz, but that's WAY the hell more than 11,000. Plus the numbers were doubling and tripling in record time. 

Happily, with some chemo pills to get her through the weekend, that number dropped to 40,000 again on Monday, and today - on chemo - it's down to 13,000. Nearly normal! Unfortunately, this only tells a teeny bit of a complicated story, but as a first step on the thousand-mile journey, we'll take it.

Considering she's going to be in the hospital for a month, I'd hoped the room would be vaguely inviting. Foolishly, it turns out. It's a very hospitally hospital room, which means it has all the important stuff and no real luxuries or calming elements. There's a big TV, but we're a TIVO family who has been fast-forwarding through commercials for years. For Kathy to actually have to watch commercials in real time is torture. I've tried to come up with workarounds, but Kathy is reluctant to learn new technologies at the best of times, and this ain't the best of times. 

In fact, she called me as I was on my way to the hospital today - a very rare thing since she despises her cellphone and doesn't know how to use it. I, on the other hand, also despise my cellphone and don't even know how to ANSWER the sumbitch. So we had a brief and confusing call (while I was driving) after which I tried to hang up the damn phone. Later, at her bedside, I realized that both of us were still connected, and had each burned up about 30 minutes of Tracfone time. And don't even TALK to us about texting. If picture postcards were good enough for our grandparents, they're good enough for us!

According to the postcard, this Texas bank was never successfully robbed by anything with horns.

Still, I'm not a complete technical nincompoop, so Wednesday I'm going to try setting up an Amazon device (yes, they're spying bastards but I needed Prime delivery) which will let her listen to any kind of music she likes, play radio stations, listen to podcasts (Scott Adams' is great), or even audiobooks - controlling everything with her voice, which is handy when you're hooked up to various lines, wires, and sensors. 

Kathy was in good spirits today, actually eating a bit (despite no appetite) knowing that a storm is coming soon in which solid food won't stay down. Which is much the same effect people experience when watching a Biden speech.

I'll give further updates when I'm able, but in the interim, my whole family thanks you for your supportive comments, thoughts, and prayers. I honestly didn't know how much they'd mean to me until this very moment.    -Stilton