Well I got my MRI results and I was a lot more optimistic than the images. We know this is an extremely aggressive cancer, and my nine months of stability have ended. There were four areas that increased in size which also included crossing over to the other side of the brain. So he said it's possible that when it crosses to the other side, you may get a little wacko. But then again, how would I know, since I'm pretty wacko already. So we are going on to plan C., which we knew would eventually happen. We knew that if my home remedies stopped working they would have to get into chemotherapy. So they scheduled me ASAP which happens to be Monday, March 1 at 1:15 PM. I know they talked about a AVASTIN, which is the drug of choice for the type of cancer along with some other type. It is given through IV and I know the major side effect is increase bleeding due to blood thinning. This could prove to be interesting since my blood is pretty thin right now. I have a lot of bruises and when I bump into things which I don't even know I'm doing half the time because of lack of feeling, I lose a layer of skin down to the area where there are blood vessels. Special note; when you put a corticosteroid on the area be ready to scream bloody murder because it stings like crazy and not just for a second but for a good half hour. Lesson learned the hard way. I'm not sure if I have skin or wet toilet paper wrapped around me. So it looks like I'm going to be logging a lot more hospital time.I will probably get everybody up-to-date next Tuesday.
Now there is always a silver lining, because I said depending on my MRI results which in this case, it got worse, I would change my diet around so I could eat more types of food that I enjoy and start going to restaurants and eating anything I like. I will still have my grog in the morning until I run out of the supplies to make it, and I will continue with my peroxide therapy and my Avamar therapy which I will have been on for two weeks so it really hasn't a chance to kick in. I will still be trying to keep the sugar content down too.
Now let's get to the cheerier side. This past Tuesday, I was at the hospital from 12:30 PM to 6:15 PM. I started on the 12th floor for support group then walked down to the basement for the MRI then to the second floor for blood test then to the Kinsley wing to visit a friend who unfortunately is a head case like me, but the good news for her is that it is not cancerous. Of course anytime you're dealing with the brain, I guess we could never consider that good news. So anyway I got my fair share of walking in that day. when I got back home, 4 former ballplayers that played on my team were waiting for me for dinner and a movie. As usual, I don't mention names,"houghever" one of them brought over his homemade recipe for burritos which were excellent. Someone else was in charge of bringing the movie, which was quite an"undertaking", because he just brought the disc, and as far as we know it is still in the movie theaters. This could explain the black SUV parked across the street with the two guys in a black suits and sunglasses. He said it was an action adventure film, called on "the edge of darkness", and I thought to myself this is good because I need something with a lot of action to keep me awake after a long day. But I think the movie could've been renamed to"the edge of nodding" , Since it put me out and when I did wake up and looked around I wasn't the only one nodding off. but because of the movie and bringing it in that disk it opened the door for a lot of humor. for action-adventure movie, it was only missing two things, and that was action and adventure, otherwise it is pretty much right on.
Until next Tuesday, goodbye to one and all.
pogo
Friday, February 26, 2010
Thursday, February 18, 2010
getting a little busier
In my last blog, I described how exciting my weeks are, which I may have to do more often because I think I drew the sympathy card and the next two weeks are going to be pretty busy. Tomorrow which will be Friday, me and Sue are going out to dinner at red lobster with a good friend of ours, which we used to do twice a year with our wives, but it's been several years, since he moved out of state for a while and now is back,so we have a lot of catching up to do. When we went there in the past we would usually spent about four hours there, and conversation was never a problem. I love their food there and their quantity, but I would still have to watch out what I eat, but there should still be enough choices.
The weekends are usually pretty quiet, however my Tuesday morning gamers said that they should let them know that if nothing is going on, to give them a call and if it works out we can do some weekend gaming. That's the life of retirement, having free time most of the time, but the one thing that trumps gaming is the grandkids.
Next week Tuesday, I'll probably have my busiest day ever. Starts with the gamers from 10 AM to 12:30 PM, then off to the hospital for the support group from 1 PM to 2:30 PM, this is going to be followed up by another MRI and a blood test, and then I have a couple of friends coming over at 6 PM that are bringing over dinner, then we are going to watch a movie, which after that day hopefully I'll be able to stay awake through it. I better go with an action-adventure movie so I don't start doing the famous nod.
The next day on Wednesday, I got someone coming over to do Reiki on me, which will hopefully be relaxing and helpful.
On Thursday, at 10 AM, I have a massage specialist who specializes in people that are disabled coming over for a couple hours to work me over. At 3:30 PM, I have a doctors appointment at the hospital to go over the MRI results and the blood test. I will be interested to see how the results end up, because I've been on this aggressive peroxide therapy for quite a while now, plus about a week ago I started a special supplement which is supposed to expose the cancer cells to my normal immune system. So I'm pretty optimistic that things will be stable and would be great if it showed signs of the cancer shrinking. I will keep everybody up-to-date by next Friday when I will blog again.
The next day on Friday, my red lobster friend will be over all day for a couple games of chess.
Then on Saturday, February 27 we will be celebrating my youngest daughter's birthday which was actually January 31, but as we say in our family, better late than never.
So when that social calendar starts opening up again, I'll have to blog again on how boring my life can be.
I can't end without letting everybody know that once again the world of electronics and technology let me down again. Sunday night, AT&T u-verse went out again for the fourth time in a month.I got on the phone with them Sunday night to let them know how happy I was with their service( sarcasm)and the earliest that they could get here was Tuesday morning. Well I got to thinking and then I realized that Monday night was one of the two nights where we have all the shows that we watch and so I called back the next day and actually got a very friendly and helpful person on the other line. She was able to get somebody over here on the Monday noon to four slot. She checked our history and said that they would fix the problem permanently this time, and of course my comment was shouldn't it have been fixed permanently the first time. She was in total agreement and spent extra time and put in extra notes to make sure that it was done correctly. The guy that came out was very thorough, was inside the house outside the house, check every wire and connection and found multiple problems. He seemed confident that everything should be back to normal, but just in case, he gave us his business card and said to call him directly if there is any problem. So far so good.
And of course my computer went down on Tuesday where I lost my connection to my business which I heavily rely on and of course it was payday for the staff and boy if you want to see a group of people panic when you tell them the computer is not working and I can't get the payroll done, but who can blame them. For several hours during the morning I tried to fix things, but with my usual skill with computers, nothing worked. However, I had to leave for a while and when I got back everything was working fine. The only really fancy thing I did was unplug the printer and then plug it back in and that must've fixed the printer and the computer. I'm not going to argue about it, just as long as it works.
So my next blog will be next Friday and hopefully I'll have nothing but great news from the MRI.
pogo
The weekends are usually pretty quiet, however my Tuesday morning gamers said that they should let them know that if nothing is going on, to give them a call and if it works out we can do some weekend gaming. That's the life of retirement, having free time most of the time, but the one thing that trumps gaming is the grandkids.
Next week Tuesday, I'll probably have my busiest day ever. Starts with the gamers from 10 AM to 12:30 PM, then off to the hospital for the support group from 1 PM to 2:30 PM, this is going to be followed up by another MRI and a blood test, and then I have a couple of friends coming over at 6 PM that are bringing over dinner, then we are going to watch a movie, which after that day hopefully I'll be able to stay awake through it. I better go with an action-adventure movie so I don't start doing the famous nod.
The next day on Wednesday, I got someone coming over to do Reiki on me, which will hopefully be relaxing and helpful.
On Thursday, at 10 AM, I have a massage specialist who specializes in people that are disabled coming over for a couple hours to work me over. At 3:30 PM, I have a doctors appointment at the hospital to go over the MRI results and the blood test. I will be interested to see how the results end up, because I've been on this aggressive peroxide therapy for quite a while now, plus about a week ago I started a special supplement which is supposed to expose the cancer cells to my normal immune system. So I'm pretty optimistic that things will be stable and would be great if it showed signs of the cancer shrinking. I will keep everybody up-to-date by next Friday when I will blog again.
The next day on Friday, my red lobster friend will be over all day for a couple games of chess.
Then on Saturday, February 27 we will be celebrating my youngest daughter's birthday which was actually January 31, but as we say in our family, better late than never.
So when that social calendar starts opening up again, I'll have to blog again on how boring my life can be.
I can't end without letting everybody know that once again the world of electronics and technology let me down again. Sunday night, AT&T u-verse went out again for the fourth time in a month.I got on the phone with them Sunday night to let them know how happy I was with their service( sarcasm)and the earliest that they could get here was Tuesday morning. Well I got to thinking and then I realized that Monday night was one of the two nights where we have all the shows that we watch and so I called back the next day and actually got a very friendly and helpful person on the other line. She was able to get somebody over here on the Monday noon to four slot. She checked our history and said that they would fix the problem permanently this time, and of course my comment was shouldn't it have been fixed permanently the first time. She was in total agreement and spent extra time and put in extra notes to make sure that it was done correctly. The guy that came out was very thorough, was inside the house outside the house, check every wire and connection and found multiple problems. He seemed confident that everything should be back to normal, but just in case, he gave us his business card and said to call him directly if there is any problem. So far so good.
And of course my computer went down on Tuesday where I lost my connection to my business which I heavily rely on and of course it was payday for the staff and boy if you want to see a group of people panic when you tell them the computer is not working and I can't get the payroll done, but who can blame them. For several hours during the morning I tried to fix things, but with my usual skill with computers, nothing worked. However, I had to leave for a while and when I got back everything was working fine. The only really fancy thing I did was unplug the printer and then plug it back in and that must've fixed the printer and the computer. I'm not going to argue about it, just as long as it works.
So my next blog will be next Friday and hopefully I'll have nothing but great news from the MRI.
pogo
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
a week in the life of Pogo
Since this is one of those weeks where there wasn't much exciting things going on, I thought I would give you an idea of what a typical week is like for me. Get ready to yawn, because it's not that exciting.
I have a special hospital bed that is set up in our living room and i usually climb out of bed somewhere between 5 AM to 8 AM. The first thing i do is get dressed, which I can easily do within about five minutes now, considering that half their body does not cooperate. From there, I transfer myself to the wheelchair and roll-on into the kitchen where I take my supplements which is roughly around 30 pills and I take that with my peroxide solution. I do this first thing in the morning because I have to do it on empty stomach and then I have to wait for an hour before eating. Next comes breakfast, which is the exciting grog which I have every morning, which is a special mixture of flaxseed oil, freshly ground flaxseed, organic low-fat cottage cheese, and fruits and berries. This is all mixed together with a hand blender, and if to thick, organic 0 g of sugar apple juice is added. This is then choked down with the help of my oxygenated water.
Usually the rest of the morning is dedicated to office work, going through the e-mails, blogging, phone consults, and meetings. That usually gets me to noon or 1 PM.
The rest of the afternoon is usually divided up between working on jigsaw puzzles and doing my own personal physical therapy which involves a minimum of 20 minutes of walking each day, my core exercises which is a combination of sitting and standing stretching as far as I can go to the right and left at different angles which helps with balance and strengthens the oblique muscles, I also use a 15 pound dumbbell to help strengthen my upper body on the right side, which includes shoulder press, rowing, tricep extension, and bicep curls. When I go down for my nap between 4 and 5 PM, I will do my glute and quadricep exercises which are done in bed that involves arching my back so only my shoulders and feet are touching the bed and sqeezing my cheeks together. And then that is followed up by usually an hour to an hour and a half nap which is all dependent on my bladder. After that it's dinner time, and then the evening is dedicated to TV whether it's catching shows that we DVR or movies.
I do have some standing activities on certain days during the week. Every Tuesday morning, I have three people come over for playing board games. On Monday and Wednesday afternoon when I go over to innovative fitness where i do at least a half hour on a sitting step climber with the resistance of 6 out of 10, and that is followed up with about 30 to 40 minutes of aqua therapy. Then I get to hit the showers which is the highlight of the week, since that is my only ccess to shower facilities. The second and fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 PM to 2:30 PM is our cancer support group at St. Luke's Hospital.
Occasionally, I will have friends stop by and play games or just talk. But pretty much during the winter months, i stay inside. Usually once or twice a week, our grandson comes over and I get to watch him cruise around the house. I also play online chess with a friend and so far I am up two games with no losses.
On weekends, Saturday and most of Sunday is usually a combination of play, exercise, and possibly office work. Sunday during the football season, I would have people come over to watch the games.
It is rare for me to have Dr. appointments. Every three months I have an MRI done and blood tests and then see the doctor for the results.
How is that for excitement. Just a little different than my previous lifestyle.
Until next week, if anybody is still awake out there.
POGO
I have a special hospital bed that is set up in our living room and i usually climb out of bed somewhere between 5 AM to 8 AM. The first thing i do is get dressed, which I can easily do within about five minutes now, considering that half their body does not cooperate. From there, I transfer myself to the wheelchair and roll-on into the kitchen where I take my supplements which is roughly around 30 pills and I take that with my peroxide solution. I do this first thing in the morning because I have to do it on empty stomach and then I have to wait for an hour before eating. Next comes breakfast, which is the exciting grog which I have every morning, which is a special mixture of flaxseed oil, freshly ground flaxseed, organic low-fat cottage cheese, and fruits and berries. This is all mixed together with a hand blender, and if to thick, organic 0 g of sugar apple juice is added. This is then choked down with the help of my oxygenated water.
Usually the rest of the morning is dedicated to office work, going through the e-mails, blogging, phone consults, and meetings. That usually gets me to noon or 1 PM.
The rest of the afternoon is usually divided up between working on jigsaw puzzles and doing my own personal physical therapy which involves a minimum of 20 minutes of walking each day, my core exercises which is a combination of sitting and standing stretching as far as I can go to the right and left at different angles which helps with balance and strengthens the oblique muscles, I also use a 15 pound dumbbell to help strengthen my upper body on the right side, which includes shoulder press, rowing, tricep extension, and bicep curls. When I go down for my nap between 4 and 5 PM, I will do my glute and quadricep exercises which are done in bed that involves arching my back so only my shoulders and feet are touching the bed and sqeezing my cheeks together. And then that is followed up by usually an hour to an hour and a half nap which is all dependent on my bladder. After that it's dinner time, and then the evening is dedicated to TV whether it's catching shows that we DVR or movies.
I do have some standing activities on certain days during the week. Every Tuesday morning, I have three people come over for playing board games. On Monday and Wednesday afternoon when I go over to innovative fitness where i do at least a half hour on a sitting step climber with the resistance of 6 out of 10, and that is followed up with about 30 to 40 minutes of aqua therapy. Then I get to hit the showers which is the highlight of the week, since that is my only ccess to shower facilities. The second and fourth Tuesday of the month from 1 PM to 2:30 PM is our cancer support group at St. Luke's Hospital.
Occasionally, I will have friends stop by and play games or just talk. But pretty much during the winter months, i stay inside. Usually once or twice a week, our grandson comes over and I get to watch him cruise around the house. I also play online chess with a friend and so far I am up two games with no losses.
On weekends, Saturday and most of Sunday is usually a combination of play, exercise, and possibly office work. Sunday during the football season, I would have people come over to watch the games.
It is rare for me to have Dr. appointments. Every three months I have an MRI done and blood tests and then see the doctor for the results.
How is that for excitement. Just a little different than my previous lifestyle.
Until next week, if anybody is still awake out there.
POGO
Monday, February 1, 2010
one-year anniversary
Well it's been 365 days since I hit the wall, so to speak. February 2 is the official anniversary date of when this all started. And surprisingly enough, this year went by pretty fast. My goal in life right now is to prove to Dr. doom that he doesn't know what he is talking about when it comes to life expectancy. Since he gave me 12-18 months, so far I've proved him wrong on the short end. And considering I feel great and have no symptoms, just the paralysis, I expect to be around for quite a long time. I am debating whether to send him an anniversary card every six months.
This will be a shorter blog today. When I thank friends I usually do not mention their names only because I don't know if I need their signed permission or they don't want to see their name in lights.
I had one friend that just happen to stop over. I asked him if he knew anything about electricity, because when my daughter tried to rewire the family room things stopped working. He said he would take a look but wasn't overly confident. Well I'm glad to say that he fixed the problem and the house is still standing.
I also want to thank another friend who took me to see,' whose line is it anyway', at the Pabst Theater on Saturday. It was also nice of him to pay for everything. It was a great show and was being taped so we may be on TV or be on a DVD. I know that laughter is the best medicine and i also know that gut belly laughter will kill cancer cells, so i wouldn't be surprised if I am now cancer free. We plan on making this an annual event and maybe get a big group together next January for this.
pogo
This will be a shorter blog today. When I thank friends I usually do not mention their names only because I don't know if I need their signed permission or they don't want to see their name in lights.
I had one friend that just happen to stop over. I asked him if he knew anything about electricity, because when my daughter tried to rewire the family room things stopped working. He said he would take a look but wasn't overly confident. Well I'm glad to say that he fixed the problem and the house is still standing.
I also want to thank another friend who took me to see,' whose line is it anyway', at the Pabst Theater on Saturday. It was also nice of him to pay for everything. It was a great show and was being taped so we may be on TV or be on a DVD. I know that laughter is the best medicine and i also know that gut belly laughter will kill cancer cells, so i wouldn't be surprised if I am now cancer free. We plan on making this an annual event and maybe get a big group together next January for this.
pogo
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
POGO VS THE WORLD OF ELECTRONICS
This was really not much of a contest. In fact, I'm lucky to be able to get this blog done, because when I went to my dictating system, it said recognition aborted, so it took some time to get that fixed.
On Friday, my brother-in-law came over to play some chess, and cribbage. He also brought over a Lewis Black DVD for us to watch after the games. If you ever want to meet two people who knew nothing about how to play the DVD, we were definitely in a class by ourself and the word remedial comes to mind, and we were flunking that. We spent over a half hour trying to get this thing to work between the five clickers and who knows how many buttons. We were able to find out which was the DVD player and actually inserted the DVD. After a while we were able to get the audio but no picture. I think I pushed every button there was on all five clickers with no results. About a half-hour later my son Brad came through the door, and pushed one button and lo and behold there was a picture and sound. I swear I pushed that same button that he did at least 20 times. So by that time our wives got back from their lunch, so we never got to see the DVD.
The next day, I was on the computer and was going to clean outall the e-mails that I had sent over the last few years which was well over 1000. There were some important e-mails that I needed to save and they were hard to find because there was so many. So I had to individually check the boxes of the sent e-mails that I didn't want and delete them individually. However, when I hit the delete button, it deleted everything and not just the items that I had checked. This was important data for my accountant and attorney who both checked to see if we could recover the data through the computer, but unfortunately it was not possible. I also could not use the computer, until we were sure that we could not retrieve the data through this computer. I guess that stuff we watch TV is not always true. I've seen shows where the DVD gets blown up and they still seem to be able to get data out of it.
Hey I'm just getting started, on Sunday we had a total of 13 people here to watch the New Orleans and Minnesota playoff game only to find out that our AT&T U Verse decided to freeze up and or get a pixelated picture which was so bad that you could not make out anything. Considering everything was fine up to game time since I had no problem watching the earlier game before people came over. After being on the phone with them we finally saw a little bit of the fourth quarter and the overtime. Thank goodness we had a fun bunch of people because we certainly didn't see much of the game. I planned on having a Super Bowl party here to but after last weekend it may be tough to get people to show up.
And let's add one more thing, when I woke up this morning, if it's still dark out I always turn on the TV and guess what didn't work this morning. So I guess it's safe to say that the electronics easily won over me.
As far as what else is happening, I'm halfway through my second jigsaw puzzle, I won my first game of chess playing online against a friend. I think he took me a little too lightly for our first match, And I'm sure that this will be a tougher match which we just started on Monday.
Also, my son-in-law Jack will be going down to Miami to do a video on the Super Bowl. This will be the fourth of the high five series of videos that he does for the website Funny or Die, which he will have finished by the Friday before the Super Bowl. So if you wish to see this one, or any of the previous ones go to the website and see them, just don't ask me how to do it based on the above information.
POGO
On Friday, my brother-in-law came over to play some chess, and cribbage. He also brought over a Lewis Black DVD for us to watch after the games. If you ever want to meet two people who knew nothing about how to play the DVD, we were definitely in a class by ourself and the word remedial comes to mind, and we were flunking that. We spent over a half hour trying to get this thing to work between the five clickers and who knows how many buttons. We were able to find out which was the DVD player and actually inserted the DVD. After a while we were able to get the audio but no picture. I think I pushed every button there was on all five clickers with no results. About a half-hour later my son Brad came through the door, and pushed one button and lo and behold there was a picture and sound. I swear I pushed that same button that he did at least 20 times. So by that time our wives got back from their lunch, so we never got to see the DVD.
The next day, I was on the computer and was going to clean outall the e-mails that I had sent over the last few years which was well over 1000. There were some important e-mails that I needed to save and they were hard to find because there was so many. So I had to individually check the boxes of the sent e-mails that I didn't want and delete them individually. However, when I hit the delete button, it deleted everything and not just the items that I had checked. This was important data for my accountant and attorney who both checked to see if we could recover the data through the computer, but unfortunately it was not possible. I also could not use the computer, until we were sure that we could not retrieve the data through this computer. I guess that stuff we watch TV is not always true. I've seen shows where the DVD gets blown up and they still seem to be able to get data out of it.
Hey I'm just getting started, on Sunday we had a total of 13 people here to watch the New Orleans and Minnesota playoff game only to find out that our AT&T U Verse decided to freeze up and or get a pixelated picture which was so bad that you could not make out anything. Considering everything was fine up to game time since I had no problem watching the earlier game before people came over. After being on the phone with them we finally saw a little bit of the fourth quarter and the overtime. Thank goodness we had a fun bunch of people because we certainly didn't see much of the game. I planned on having a Super Bowl party here to but after last weekend it may be tough to get people to show up.
And let's add one more thing, when I woke up this morning, if it's still dark out I always turn on the TV and guess what didn't work this morning. So I guess it's safe to say that the electronics easily won over me.
As far as what else is happening, I'm halfway through my second jigsaw puzzle, I won my first game of chess playing online against a friend. I think he took me a little too lightly for our first match, And I'm sure that this will be a tougher match which we just started on Monday.
Also, my son-in-law Jack will be going down to Miami to do a video on the Super Bowl. This will be the fourth of the high five series of videos that he does for the website Funny or Die, which he will have finished by the Friday before the Super Bowl. So if you wish to see this one, or any of the previous ones go to the website and see them, just don't ask me how to do it based on the above information.
POGO
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
bummer medical news
Sue and I went to the hospital on Monday morning to evaluate my nerves and muscles. Contrary to what I was told by the surgeon who's surgery caused the paralysis, they don't see anything which would make it any better than it presently is now. They basically gave no chance for the left arm, and not much chance for being able to walk without my quad cane. They were impressed with my strength and they still recommend that I just keep doing what I'm doing to stay strong, but no other treatment is recommended. But I am supposed to let them know if anything changes for the better or worse. My legs have been feeling lighter, which they say is a good sign. So my days of being the ultimate athlete are now over, and now I will become the ultimate supporter( I guess I will have to change my nickname to Jock). we both kind of expected this answer since it's been 8 months with not that much progress, but just learning the truth was like a quick kick in the nuts and was very emotional. So now it is just a matter of changing my lifestyle and interests which I'm sure I can handle, it'll just be different.
And always looking on the bright side, they told me a lot of people in my condition have a lot of pain and don't move around as well as I do, plus the cancer's been staying stable, and I'm still here, so I'm still better off than a lot of people out there. I will still be working hard, to strengthen my legs and my right arm, plus I still got my personality and sense of humor and as usual I will not let this get me down. And another good thing, the wheelchair is a very comfy chair.
So Sue and I will be looking for any outlets of different activity that gets us away from the dull routine and out into the public for some fun. If anybody has something fun going on, or ideas for fun things to do, please let us know. When summer rolls around, I'll be looking forward to watching the baseball and tennis teams and you can bet that there'll be some sharp tongued criticism and jabs at the participants. I am hoping that my son Brad will be able to play on the state tennis team this year if his schedule permits, that way I can live vicariously through him.
As far as my big accomplishment for the month, I finished my 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle and will shellac it so it can be saved.
So don't be a stranger out there, I am always up for company.
pogo
And always looking on the bright side, they told me a lot of people in my condition have a lot of pain and don't move around as well as I do, plus the cancer's been staying stable, and I'm still here, so I'm still better off than a lot of people out there. I will still be working hard, to strengthen my legs and my right arm, plus I still got my personality and sense of humor and as usual I will not let this get me down. And another good thing, the wheelchair is a very comfy chair.
So Sue and I will be looking for any outlets of different activity that gets us away from the dull routine and out into the public for some fun. If anybody has something fun going on, or ideas for fun things to do, please let us know. When summer rolls around, I'll be looking forward to watching the baseball and tennis teams and you can bet that there'll be some sharp tongued criticism and jabs at the participants. I am hoping that my son Brad will be able to play on the state tennis team this year if his schedule permits, that way I can live vicariously through him.
As far as my big accomplishment for the month, I finished my 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle and will shellac it so it can be saved.
So don't be a stranger out there, I am always up for company.
pogo
Monday, January 11, 2010
social life for the past month
Last week I updated you on my medical condition, this week is all about the exciting life of Pogo.
As far as the holidays went, like I mentioned in a previous blog, on Christmas Eve, my younger sister was in from out of town and her and my mom came over along with Lisa's family, and we played games that evening. Christmas morning we had our traditional Christmas which included all our kids and their families. Being the holidays, I got away from the diet for breakfast so I could have pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. It was goooooooooood. After that we opened gifts. I got a few games, a couple decks of cards, and one of those card shufflers. In the afternoon, we went to Sue's brother's house in Richfield who have a beautiful home, and very roomy, so it didn't feel crowded with the 35 people and two dogs. We also did something different this year over there, instead of drawing names and exchanging gifts, we did a white elephant gift exchange. This was definitely a lot more fun and everybody did a pretty good job of picking out gifts. The general rules for this was everybody drew a number, whoever had number one got to pick any wrapped gift and then whoever was next in line got the choice to open up a wrapped gift, or steal any gift that was already opened. You could only steal twice as far as a gift went and not two times in a row. So there is an advantage to having a higher number, but as we found out you never know sometimes. I was number eight and ended up with this 50 pound crockpot which for some reason nobody wanted to steal, however the weight of the crockpot in the trunk helped on the way home because the roads were slippery.
Thank goodness for football season, I love professional football and fantasy football, unfortunately neither was a good year. Most of you out there probably know that I'm a Bear fan and have been one since 1963. I've seen every game this year and probably only miss one or two games a year. You got to support your team whether they are good or bad. I see a lot of potential for next year but that's been said before. I have a group of Bear fans that come over and watch the game with me, and when not televised locally, I go to Romines on 27 Street and the manager actually sets up my own private room which is close to the bathroom and the front door, plus I'm away from all the smoking. It's nice of him to do this for me since I really can't order any food from their or drinks.
As far as fantasy football goes, I ended up 7-7 and missed the playoffs. For the second year in a row I lost to the same guy twice because of the head coaches, which both years took me out to the playoffs. I do all that research and it came down to the head coaches. So much for superior drafting. I suppose drafting a head coach in the first-round would be an act of desperation.
Just because the Bears did not make the playoffs doesn't mean that we didn't get together to watch a playoff game. So Sunday, we got together for an anti-Packer party, so we had a moral victory and it turned out to be a pretty exciting game. I'm sure most of you out there are mourning due to that overtime loss, but remember a little bit of joy in my life may be worth all the suffering you guys are going through right now. Talk about a cheap shot. Since the Packers are out of the playoffs, we had to go to plan B. for a theme to get together, so we are having an anti-Favre party instead.
I tested out the new handicapped rails leading upstairs. No problem getting up-and-down, in fact the getting up stairs, I haven't been that high since my college days. Just a joke, never did the evil weed, besides my nickname in Dental School was 'PABST", which is probably a better clue of my college life.
After getting up stairs, I tried to use the bowflex, but that ended up being too difficult a procedure, so I am going to plan B., which is getting some dumbbells, and I am talking about weights, not people.
I have also been working on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle for the past month which is really challenging when you're colorblind plus limited on access to the puzzle, but all I have left is the sky. My next decision will be what I would do with it when I'm done. I hate to go through a months worth of work and then take everything apart which would seem like a waste of a month and a half. Perhaps it can be framed or stored somehow. I've also had a lot of help working on the puzzle with the cats. For while there I spent the first half hour refixing the puzzle and searching for pieces under this server, the stove, and the refrigerator. They are a lot better now.
I am also playing chess online with one of the guys on my softball team, so it's been five days in and only five moves, but we have 30 days to finish the game and he seems to only do it when at work. Boy I must've picked the wrong profession, because this guy has the time to play chess and my son-in-law had time to watch movies and read books while at work, while I was lucky if I got a minute during a nine hour day.
This next part is not really social but it is a necessary and enjoyable part of my day, which is nap time. Now for those of you who don't want to hear about potty talk, you may want to close your eyes when your reading this. As some of you may know, especially the people I have golfed with, that I was blessed with a very strong pump, but a small storage tank, because I don't think there's a single golf course out there, or golf hole that I have not watered. So I have to take my nap just after my last pee, which may give me an hour and a half of a nap. This is what I call rush hour, or flush hour. Everyone knows to get out of the way when I get wheeling towards the little boys room. And if you consider that the only liquid I drink is at the beginning of the day when I drink my 18 to 24 ounces of peroxide and water, I must have one of those hidden springs in my body somewhere. So unlike Cinderella who was awakened by a kiss, I am the one who is awakened by a piss.
Another good thing that is happening is that I am making my diet more flexible and my wife has been finding all these food items that have between zero and 2 g of sugar, so it takes the pressure off of her of making these special diets. In fact yesterday she got back from the store and picked up special organic soups, frozen pizza, a type of noodle, Alfredo sauce, peanut butter, among other things. So it's more like eating normal food without the sugar. Every once in a while I will treat myself. A few days ago we ordered out pizza and had 2 slices, along with the six jalapenos, that came with the pizza.
I also want to give you an update on my kids. Presently, Jesse and Brad are both on semester break from MATC. Jesse is going back to school to become a nurse. Last semester she got straight A's and that was taking anatomy and physiology which are tough courses, but she's always been a hard studier. She had also lost her job at the end of the year, because they needed someone full-time. They liked her a lot there and in fact working part time there was an experiment while she was going to school . She just recently got another job working at Carabas on 76 Street, across the street from The Olive Garden as a waitress, which will give her the flexibility with her school schedule. So if you like good Italian food and are a good tipper then go there and ask for Jesse, if you are lousy tipper and like average Italian food, then go across the street.
Lisa and her family recently got back from their annual family trip to the Bahamas however this year Parker was not in the mood for a vacation. He cried bloody murder on the flights both ways, plus he cried at bedtime, he cried when they tried to go to the beach, he cried when they tried to go to the pool and he basically cried if Lisa wasn't with him. Otherwise, he had a good time. And talk about ironic, they had the same people in front of them both ways on the flight. That had to be one long flight. In fact the first thing that Lisa said when she got back from her trip, was that she needed a vacation.
Brad has been doing very well in school, he is into TV production. in fact, he's been working on his student ops project, which involves him doing a short feature film which will be televised in the springtime. He is the producer, the director, the writer, and the editor, plus he'll be screening numerous actors from the Milwaukee and Chicago area that have shown interest in wanting to be in his film. Considering this course doesn't start till next semester, he is already ahead of the game. He wrote the script over the semester break and today is getting together with the people in charge of the music. So there will be a musical background plus an original score for the show. The kid is really good at this and hopefully someday he'll be famous, and then I can say That's my boy.
POGO
As far as the holidays went, like I mentioned in a previous blog, on Christmas Eve, my younger sister was in from out of town and her and my mom came over along with Lisa's family, and we played games that evening. Christmas morning we had our traditional Christmas which included all our kids and their families. Being the holidays, I got away from the diet for breakfast so I could have pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon. It was goooooooooood. After that we opened gifts. I got a few games, a couple decks of cards, and one of those card shufflers. In the afternoon, we went to Sue's brother's house in Richfield who have a beautiful home, and very roomy, so it didn't feel crowded with the 35 people and two dogs. We also did something different this year over there, instead of drawing names and exchanging gifts, we did a white elephant gift exchange. This was definitely a lot more fun and everybody did a pretty good job of picking out gifts. The general rules for this was everybody drew a number, whoever had number one got to pick any wrapped gift and then whoever was next in line got the choice to open up a wrapped gift, or steal any gift that was already opened. You could only steal twice as far as a gift went and not two times in a row. So there is an advantage to having a higher number, but as we found out you never know sometimes. I was number eight and ended up with this 50 pound crockpot which for some reason nobody wanted to steal, however the weight of the crockpot in the trunk helped on the way home because the roads were slippery.
Thank goodness for football season, I love professional football and fantasy football, unfortunately neither was a good year. Most of you out there probably know that I'm a Bear fan and have been one since 1963. I've seen every game this year and probably only miss one or two games a year. You got to support your team whether they are good or bad. I see a lot of potential for next year but that's been said before. I have a group of Bear fans that come over and watch the game with me, and when not televised locally, I go to Romines on 27 Street and the manager actually sets up my own private room which is close to the bathroom and the front door, plus I'm away from all the smoking. It's nice of him to do this for me since I really can't order any food from their or drinks.
As far as fantasy football goes, I ended up 7-7 and missed the playoffs. For the second year in a row I lost to the same guy twice because of the head coaches, which both years took me out to the playoffs. I do all that research and it came down to the head coaches. So much for superior drafting. I suppose drafting a head coach in the first-round would be an act of desperation.
Just because the Bears did not make the playoffs doesn't mean that we didn't get together to watch a playoff game. So Sunday, we got together for an anti-Packer party, so we had a moral victory and it turned out to be a pretty exciting game. I'm sure most of you out there are mourning due to that overtime loss, but remember a little bit of joy in my life may be worth all the suffering you guys are going through right now. Talk about a cheap shot. Since the Packers are out of the playoffs, we had to go to plan B. for a theme to get together, so we are having an anti-Favre party instead.
I tested out the new handicapped rails leading upstairs. No problem getting up-and-down, in fact the getting up stairs, I haven't been that high since my college days. Just a joke, never did the evil weed, besides my nickname in Dental School was 'PABST", which is probably a better clue of my college life.
After getting up stairs, I tried to use the bowflex, but that ended up being too difficult a procedure, so I am going to plan B., which is getting some dumbbells, and I am talking about weights, not people.
I have also been working on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle for the past month which is really challenging when you're colorblind plus limited on access to the puzzle, but all I have left is the sky. My next decision will be what I would do with it when I'm done. I hate to go through a months worth of work and then take everything apart which would seem like a waste of a month and a half. Perhaps it can be framed or stored somehow. I've also had a lot of help working on the puzzle with the cats. For while there I spent the first half hour refixing the puzzle and searching for pieces under this server, the stove, and the refrigerator. They are a lot better now.
I am also playing chess online with one of the guys on my softball team, so it's been five days in and only five moves, but we have 30 days to finish the game and he seems to only do it when at work. Boy I must've picked the wrong profession, because this guy has the time to play chess and my son-in-law had time to watch movies and read books while at work, while I was lucky if I got a minute during a nine hour day.
This next part is not really social but it is a necessary and enjoyable part of my day, which is nap time. Now for those of you who don't want to hear about potty talk, you may want to close your eyes when your reading this. As some of you may know, especially the people I have golfed with, that I was blessed with a very strong pump, but a small storage tank, because I don't think there's a single golf course out there, or golf hole that I have not watered. So I have to take my nap just after my last pee, which may give me an hour and a half of a nap. This is what I call rush hour, or flush hour. Everyone knows to get out of the way when I get wheeling towards the little boys room. And if you consider that the only liquid I drink is at the beginning of the day when I drink my 18 to 24 ounces of peroxide and water, I must have one of those hidden springs in my body somewhere. So unlike Cinderella who was awakened by a kiss, I am the one who is awakened by a piss.
Another good thing that is happening is that I am making my diet more flexible and my wife has been finding all these food items that have between zero and 2 g of sugar, so it takes the pressure off of her of making these special diets. In fact yesterday she got back from the store and picked up special organic soups, frozen pizza, a type of noodle, Alfredo sauce, peanut butter, among other things. So it's more like eating normal food without the sugar. Every once in a while I will treat myself. A few days ago we ordered out pizza and had 2 slices, along with the six jalapenos, that came with the pizza.
I also want to give you an update on my kids. Presently, Jesse and Brad are both on semester break from MATC. Jesse is going back to school to become a nurse. Last semester she got straight A's and that was taking anatomy and physiology which are tough courses, but she's always been a hard studier. She had also lost her job at the end of the year, because they needed someone full-time. They liked her a lot there and in fact working part time there was an experiment while she was going to school . She just recently got another job working at Carabas on 76 Street, across the street from The Olive Garden as a waitress, which will give her the flexibility with her school schedule. So if you like good Italian food and are a good tipper then go there and ask for Jesse, if you are lousy tipper and like average Italian food, then go across the street.
Lisa and her family recently got back from their annual family trip to the Bahamas however this year Parker was not in the mood for a vacation. He cried bloody murder on the flights both ways, plus he cried at bedtime, he cried when they tried to go to the beach, he cried when they tried to go to the pool and he basically cried if Lisa wasn't with him. Otherwise, he had a good time. And talk about ironic, they had the same people in front of them both ways on the flight. That had to be one long flight. In fact the first thing that Lisa said when she got back from her trip, was that she needed a vacation.
Brad has been doing very well in school, he is into TV production. in fact, he's been working on his student ops project, which involves him doing a short feature film which will be televised in the springtime. He is the producer, the director, the writer, and the editor, plus he'll be screening numerous actors from the Milwaukee and Chicago area that have shown interest in wanting to be in his film. Considering this course doesn't start till next semester, he is already ahead of the game. He wrote the script over the semester break and today is getting together with the people in charge of the music. So there will be a musical background plus an original score for the show. The kid is really good at this and hopefully someday he'll be famous, and then I can say That's my boy.
POGO
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