Good News!

Before I dive back into food and politics and flowers and birds, perhaps some personal housekeeping is in order, for those of you that follow from home.

I had a bladder biopsy Wednesday at Scripps Hospital in Hillcrest. As you know I have dealt with one cancer or another since 1985 and have been stage four in the wall twice in the last five years. Wouldn't have given you a nickel for my chances but here I still am.

I had some irregular bleeding a while back and I have learned that I have to confront these potential problems when they are small and before they get big. I learned the hard way back in 2019.

In any case, the post surgery tsoris was a bitch, horrific actually, as it always is, but yesterday was a little better and today is even more so. In a few days I might be feeling normal again.

This treatment was different because rather than get the immunotherapy treatment I have been receiving through the last thirty nine years, I got switched to a chemotherapy dose this time. First time for me, if you can believe it.

Had to hold it for an extra hour of catheterization. It is called Gemzar, short for Gemcitabane. Don't know anything about it, hope it works.

Scripps sent me my results last night and it looks really good, no malignancies detected this time. Some irregular cells but nothing too serious. My doctor just called and said that rather than undergo the BCG treatment again, which laid me up last August and September, I am good to go for another four months, at which time I will receive another cystoscopy and look around.

Awesome news for me. Four more months, I will take it.

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This is usually the time I thank my doctor and loved ones for their care and concern and I do so once again. I appreciate all your support. 

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I have got to know the nurses pretty well down there. I saw Curtis who I have known for a really long time. One of my nurses was sporting a large cross and wanted to talk to me about my faith, something I am less than comfortable doing publicly. 

I skirted the subject as best I could. She has a daughter who is a rock climber who recently suffered a three hundred foot fall in Colorado, messed her up pretty good. She has gotten better and if her mother wants to believe in a divine superpower, who the hell am I to argue with her?

She did explain to me that Scripps was a Catholic Hospital, something I am not sure I ever knew. And she told me something rather startling; they are getting a lot of border jumpers in there and have to fix them.

We can argue the probity of entering our country in an illegal fashion later, these poor doctors and nurses have to pick up the pieces.

She says there are innumerable broken ankles, legs and collarbones as well as fractured pelvises.  Coming in on a daily basis. They are on the front lines of the border problem. She says the fence is thirty foot tall and there is concrete on our side, the immigrants jump anyway, not knowing, some destined to bear the intense pain for the rest of our lives.

It is easy to conceptualize the problem and I am a strong border proponent. Still I feel sad for the people with the broken bones. Wasn't in the itinerary they had planned I am sure. Real human beings to be sure, not just statistics.

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I came into town to pay a bill and buy some herbs. Going to go back home and crawl back into bed.

Peace.