It's been a while since I checked in. I just wanted to let you know I'm still breathing.

The platelet count is creeping back up.

Sunday, was a fantastic day. I actually got some horticulture done-- transplanting freshly rooted black willow cuttings. It's for a long-term project I've got cooking to make my own black powder.

The only dark cloud has been the aftermath of my trip to the potting bench. I grabbed a spade and dug up about half a 5-gallon bucket's worth of soil from the yard to do the potting. This was the first spadework I'd done since fall, and I started to stiffen up afterwards.

Yikes. I was a bit jockey for 40 years and spent a good part of that time hunched over a keyboard. The result is that my shoulders tend to get really painful. Normally, I come back from a trip to the farm all seized up. However, normally a dose of Ibuprofen at bedtime has me feeling great by morning.

Ibuprofen is a definite nogo with blood thinners. Mixing the two causes stomach hemorrhaging.

Tylenol doesn't begin to cut it, and I'm banned from that right now as well-- can't take anything that could mask a fever.


Now, trying to just ask the question of my fabulous crack cancer team was a challenge. As I said to one nurse, "Look, if I tell you I hurt so bad, I can't take a deep breath, the siren is going to go off, lights are going to flash and the duck is going to come down from the ceiling with $50. I don't need all that hoohaw. I just need to know what I can take for a stiff back."

The net of all this is I ended up with a script for Tramadol. That's like trying to hang a picture with a sledgehammer, but it does the job.


Outside of that, this is the best I've felt in a long time. I'm convinced whatever crap I had growing near my kidney is probably dead; the chemo is doing its job.


Genesis 9:2-4 Ministries Lighthearted Confessions of a Cervid Serial Killer