From: Free Fire Zone
21 in Phoenix
I was 21 in Phoenix in November of 66. Stayed in a one-room apartment near downtown, saw the sound of music at the theatre down the road. That night I was alone, walked across the street to the liquor store, bought a small bottle of rum and some Coca Cola, some chips and dips, took it all back to the apartment. My first legal drink in CONUS, having just turned 21, you see. In the liquor store, I'd showed him my driver's license, and he said happy birthday. I was adult now, able to drink. I was a child until that day; because we used children as soldiers in our country, I was enfranchised to kill, but not to drink or vote. I counted this as a sort of irony, but I had no problem with it. American children overseas, you see, can drink liquor. If the children happen also to be soldiers, then in fact it's an activity assumed of them. Most of my soldiering had been done overseas--a year on Okinawa, where I played with the toys according to the customs of the 173d Airborne Brigade, and then 17 months in Vietnam, a different, yet not different theme. Anyhow, it doesn't work quite the same way back home, and in those days in Arizona, you had to be 21 to legally get drunk.
I was only a couple weeks out of the bush, in the middle of my soldiering years, in limbo, before I went to be an ASA troopie back east. I was still thinking I might be a sort of civilian at the time, but it really wasn't working out very well.
Sat down at my kitchen table in the little apartment. I might have invited someone over, that could have happened, but I didn't really want to talk about it. Drank the pint of rum and the soda, listened to the reel to reels I'd made, good, good guitiars. Got pretty drunk, thought about people I didn't wan't to think about, things I didn't want to know about what they were doing at just that minute, my team, you know...what an asshole I was for training Oconner to do my job, because it was my job, not his, and he didn't need to have the team behind him because he just ...might get killed. I had already heard some news, about how Lieb and Jones got fucked up on the extraction the week I left...they...turned out okay, Jones went back to the team and Lieb went home with two broken arms. I wouldn't have put them there. It wasn't Oconner's fault. It was mine. And that was okay. It passed.
Next day, or maybe the day after that, I'd hopped on the back of the TR6 and blasted to work out at Litchfield, the bike singing and humming, asking for more. I was entranced, and didn't notice anything amiss until actually I pulled into the company parking lot, when I noticed the two AHP interceptor Chryslers zooming up on either side of me, and another one veering in from the other end of the parking lot--cops stood, each shielded behind his vehicle, hand on the weapon at his belt, the tactical pause, until they all were in place and ready to proceed--very calm, very good at what they were doing. It took a full ten seconds before I realized I was being captured. I had no idea they even were chasing me. I took great pains to obey them, to show them by body language that they were successful, letting them be as calm as they were willing to be. In the short version, the interviewing officer told me that he thought 135 mph was a bit excessive. I couldn't believe the trumpet was going that fast, and told him so. I know he believe me, and he laughed and shook his head. Cost me most of what I made that month at Litchfield, and I was lucky I didn't have to do more than ten days while we got it ironed out.
Not long after that I was on a plane to Devens, and got there at night, in civilian clothes, put my head down on the bottom bunk in a transient barracks, safe again.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Letter from Seattle
7 November 2004
Nick....
Happy Birthday, son.
It was good to hear your voice. Things are going well here, as I said.
I try to remember how it was when I was about your age, and when I do, I don’t worry so much. Parents always want their kids to be happy and do well. Some parents just have strange ways of thinking about what it takes to be be happy, and they forget how it is to be young. I haven’t forgotten that. Your mom and grandmother worry about you more than I do regarding certain things. They are afraid for you, but I have faith in you. They just don’t want you to be hurt--well, neither do I, but pain comes and goes, and we just keep on keeping on. I know times are going to be hard for you now and then, but you are smart and strong, and if you keep your head you’ll do fine.
You can make some bad decisions that may cost you years of grief to straighten out. If I knew how to help you avoid that I would tell you the magic words, so you wouldn’t have to do any unnecessary struggling to regain ground you might not have lost if you’d made better decisions. But life is for living. That’s your job. All I can tell you that’s wise is this: don’t think like a criminal. That’s a dead end. No matter what, don’t steal and try not to lie very much. As you get experience (and I know you are getting that now) you will see what I mean.
I had great adventures when I was your age. In my case, many of them came to me while I was in the Army. Most of my Army days had not much to do with combat or Vietnam. I spent over 7 years and a soldier, and 17 months of that in Vietnam. I was decorated several times, but I was never a hero, just some dumbshit trying to do his job, so some other dumbshit wouldn’t have to come out there and do it for me.
But I was only a couple years older than you are now when I got out of the Army, and moved to Hawaii to go to school. Talk about a wow experience!
I wish I could compress the stories and squirt them to you in this note, so you could get a taste--just a touch of the flavor--of what it was like to be in my early twenties, and living in Paradise.
I guess this note is just a sort of one-sided conversation, so don’t worry that I’m getting senile. You know I like to write, I just don’t write letters very much, but I will, if you want to read them.
I’d like to tell you some of my stories. I have a lot of them. Not with moral endings, or with any themes for good living, but just stuff that happened to me. I have written a few of them down already, and they are in my computer down in Oregonoia. Might be, now that I have some spare time, I can type up a few more and send them to you from time to time while I’m up here in Seattle.
Maybe sometime I’ll tell you about how I lived on the flank of a volcano and grew million-dollar crops of Narcoweed for the Filipino Teixeira. His sons and I built a real grass hut in the middle of a field of wild orchids, near a small stream that washed down the hill on a gleaming bed of black pahoehoe, which is a kind of lava that’s so smooth that it looks like glass. His daughter, named Lanai, same as the island, came up from Keeau two or three times a month, to bring me food and sing with me while I played my guitar.
I was one of about ten farmers working for the the family--they didn’t like to have us going into town a lot, so they made up food for us, stuff like minced spiced meat and rice, and packed it into these neat bamboo tubes, about four inches across and maybe two feet long...a joint of bamboo, and sealed the ends the old way, by tying it with a ti leaf cover, using bamboo threads. The food would keep for days, and it was always delicious. They treated me and the other guys like family.
Sometimes two of the sons, Bong and John, would come up, and we would hunt the small Hawaiian pigs by running them down with their two little dogs. The boars were not as big as the California boars, and maybe got about three hundred pounds or so. The dogs were nuts, and real good hunters. They would run the pig to ground, and when it was winded, they would be running around it to keep it from regaining it’s strength before we could get there. When we got ready, John or Bong would whistle, and the little dogs would charge. One would catch the boar on the snout, and the other would catch him by the nuts. He’d be totally grossed out for about five seconds with pain and shock, and while he was confused, one of us would slip in and slit his throat with a long butcher knife. We were wild kids. This would confuse him, but it didn’t look like it hurt. When we did it right, he would bleed out in a few seconds, standing there while the dogs held him. Then we would field dress him and take him back to my hut.
We cooked the pig in a pit at my hut. Bury it wrapped in ti leaves, stuffed with seasoned breadfruit or jackfruit...soak this stuff in shoyu and butter and garlic, put in some other stuff in the pig’s ribs. Wrap it up good and cook it all day in the pit. Dig it up that night and pull the meat of with your fingers, it was so tender.
We’d sing music and talk story all night at those times--John, Bong, Lanai, maybe even the old man and some of the other brothers would be there. Life in Paradise.
I also had a great time while living in town...Honolulu and environs...but those are a whole other set of stories....
Ah well.
Enclosed is something you can take to the bank. Take care son.
I hope you have a good birthday
Love...
Nick....
Happy Birthday, son.
It was good to hear your voice. Things are going well here, as I said.
I try to remember how it was when I was about your age, and when I do, I don’t worry so much. Parents always want their kids to be happy and do well. Some parents just have strange ways of thinking about what it takes to be be happy, and they forget how it is to be young. I haven’t forgotten that. Your mom and grandmother worry about you more than I do regarding certain things. They are afraid for you, but I have faith in you. They just don’t want you to be hurt--well, neither do I, but pain comes and goes, and we just keep on keeping on. I know times are going to be hard for you now and then, but you are smart and strong, and if you keep your head you’ll do fine.
You can make some bad decisions that may cost you years of grief to straighten out. If I knew how to help you avoid that I would tell you the magic words, so you wouldn’t have to do any unnecessary struggling to regain ground you might not have lost if you’d made better decisions. But life is for living. That’s your job. All I can tell you that’s wise is this: don’t think like a criminal. That’s a dead end. No matter what, don’t steal and try not to lie very much. As you get experience (and I know you are getting that now) you will see what I mean.
I had great adventures when I was your age. In my case, many of them came to me while I was in the Army. Most of my Army days had not much to do with combat or Vietnam. I spent over 7 years and a soldier, and 17 months of that in Vietnam. I was decorated several times, but I was never a hero, just some dumbshit trying to do his job, so some other dumbshit wouldn’t have to come out there and do it for me.
But I was only a couple years older than you are now when I got out of the Army, and moved to Hawaii to go to school. Talk about a wow experience!
I wish I could compress the stories and squirt them to you in this note, so you could get a taste--just a touch of the flavor--of what it was like to be in my early twenties, and living in Paradise.
I guess this note is just a sort of one-sided conversation, so don’t worry that I’m getting senile. You know I like to write, I just don’t write letters very much, but I will, if you want to read them.
I’d like to tell you some of my stories. I have a lot of them. Not with moral endings, or with any themes for good living, but just stuff that happened to me. I have written a few of them down already, and they are in my computer down in Oregonoia. Might be, now that I have some spare time, I can type up a few more and send them to you from time to time while I’m up here in Seattle.
Maybe sometime I’ll tell you about how I lived on the flank of a volcano and grew million-dollar crops of Narcoweed for the Filipino Teixeira. His sons and I built a real grass hut in the middle of a field of wild orchids, near a small stream that washed down the hill on a gleaming bed of black pahoehoe, which is a kind of lava that’s so smooth that it looks like glass. His daughter, named Lanai, same as the island, came up from Keeau two or three times a month, to bring me food and sing with me while I played my guitar.
I was one of about ten farmers working for the the family--they didn’t like to have us going into town a lot, so they made up food for us, stuff like minced spiced meat and rice, and packed it into these neat bamboo tubes, about four inches across and maybe two feet long...a joint of bamboo, and sealed the ends the old way, by tying it with a ti leaf cover, using bamboo threads. The food would keep for days, and it was always delicious. They treated me and the other guys like family.
Sometimes two of the sons, Bong and John, would come up, and we would hunt the small Hawaiian pigs by running them down with their two little dogs. The boars were not as big as the California boars, and maybe got about three hundred pounds or so. The dogs were nuts, and real good hunters. They would run the pig to ground, and when it was winded, they would be running around it to keep it from regaining it’s strength before we could get there. When we got ready, John or Bong would whistle, and the little dogs would charge. One would catch the boar on the snout, and the other would catch him by the nuts. He’d be totally grossed out for about five seconds with pain and shock, and while he was confused, one of us would slip in and slit his throat with a long butcher knife. We were wild kids. This would confuse him, but it didn’t look like it hurt. When we did it right, he would bleed out in a few seconds, standing there while the dogs held him. Then we would field dress him and take him back to my hut.
We cooked the pig in a pit at my hut. Bury it wrapped in ti leaves, stuffed with seasoned breadfruit or jackfruit...soak this stuff in shoyu and butter and garlic, put in some other stuff in the pig’s ribs. Wrap it up good and cook it all day in the pit. Dig it up that night and pull the meat of with your fingers, it was so tender.
We’d sing music and talk story all night at those times--John, Bong, Lanai, maybe even the old man and some of the other brothers would be there. Life in Paradise.
I also had a great time while living in town...Honolulu and environs...but those are a whole other set of stories....
Ah well.
Enclosed is something you can take to the bank. Take care son.
I hope you have a good birthday
Love...
Monday, November 08, 2004
B&S See
We are folks in a boat, afloat on The Big & Scary Ocean. Can't stay dry, but won't drown while the boat floats. Might starve.
Lifeboat condundrum--who has to get out when the boat gets full? Who gets to drown while we watch? We are wired to help when we can, but always, always, to survive, when we can figure out how. We draw the arbitrary lines. We try to make it work. Malthusian logic comes from somewhere, even though it's sometimes misapplied because, I think, of haste and panic. Do you understand yet?
Then, never mind. I press on.
You throw the net out to help...try to see all the lost souls floating around--they are trying to not drown--and you feel the despair...can't help them all, hell, can't even help all the ones you can see. Noses just above the water line, heads bobbing, always some asshole splashing around making it harder for the marginals. Here and there a hand goes up, a head goes under. Ah, shit, this time it was someone you knew. You wait to see if he’ll come up again. A bunch of guys in a boat, staring at the water. Ah.
Never mind. You are still in the boat, but it wasn't that long ago that you, yourself, were in the water, and you know what it feels like when the water splashes up into your eyes, covers the nose, and you have to hold your breath until you can get steady enough to breath again. Oh jeez, and you can't lose your head. Control. Control yourself.
But then, you help one guy, just because you can, and he turns out to be some lousy asshole that you don't even want around the house, on account of how he's a bad influence on the kids. But at least you know he won't...won't drown in the living room in front of you, with you watching. Ah. There goes my metaphor. Try not to care too much about that. Caring is expensive in the short run.
The one you loved sank out of sight and your heart is never the same again. What's the use? He was better than me. I can't take his place, and I don't know how to help them. I just watch them sink, one by one, or groups at a time.
Throw the net. Save a whale, maybe hug a goddam tree. That all works to keep the memes alive...they drive you, you know. It's not your good heart, it’s just a bunch of electro-chemical chains popping and slurping around in the dark box of the brainpan. Oldfarts impart survival values to the system by virtue of surviving--beyond the passing of the genes, they provide an example for the youngsters who otherwise would prefer to shun them. The genes are just nature's way to have kids around to listen to the goddam stories. But you have to figure out a way to get them to listen to the stories. For you existentialists, that's why the cosmic muffin invented the feeling of lonliness.
"Arrhgh..." sez Og. That means Sabre-toothed cat. Ooog, his son, listens, or not. The lesson is uncomplicated and valuable.
"Oooohh, nooooo...." sez Ramon to his lover, Harold. That means, for example, redvoter iz Aunt Emma, or something like that. The lesson is not so clear.
That was just an illustration.
Do you think this is bullshit?
You have to do what you can, is all it means. The unverse doesn't compute, but then it doesn't have to compute at my level, is what I think.
Does this trip have a purpose? Does it need to have one? Okay, make one up, if that's what you need to do, but try to be careful, because you have to account for all the Mormons, too, if you see what I mean. Your cosmic muffin is as good as my cosmic muffin. I like the idea that the trip is the reason, not the destination. The deal with the 79 virgins okay, and the prospect of sitting at the foot of the lord and playing a harp to accompany the singing of fundamentalist hymns has its attractions. But to me those are just examples of another trip, not a reason for this one, and they don’t get me off the wheel of inquiry. Endless speculation. My metaphor is as good as your metaphor. For me, it all comes back to the trip.
It's a waste to not try, even if you are trying to cast your net so wide that you don't get anything done. You probably won’t save a single whale, for example. Just try to not let me drown before I actually have to.
I'll try to do the same for you.
Lifeboat condundrum--who has to get out when the boat gets full? Who gets to drown while we watch? We are wired to help when we can, but always, always, to survive, when we can figure out how. We draw the arbitrary lines. We try to make it work. Malthusian logic comes from somewhere, even though it's sometimes misapplied because, I think, of haste and panic. Do you understand yet?
Then, never mind. I press on.
You throw the net out to help...try to see all the lost souls floating around--they are trying to not drown--and you feel the despair...can't help them all, hell, can't even help all the ones you can see. Noses just above the water line, heads bobbing, always some asshole splashing around making it harder for the marginals. Here and there a hand goes up, a head goes under. Ah, shit, this time it was someone you knew. You wait to see if he’ll come up again. A bunch of guys in a boat, staring at the water. Ah.
Never mind. You are still in the boat, but it wasn't that long ago that you, yourself, were in the water, and you know what it feels like when the water splashes up into your eyes, covers the nose, and you have to hold your breath until you can get steady enough to breath again. Oh jeez, and you can't lose your head. Control. Control yourself.
But then, you help one guy, just because you can, and he turns out to be some lousy asshole that you don't even want around the house, on account of how he's a bad influence on the kids. But at least you know he won't...won't drown in the living room in front of you, with you watching. Ah. There goes my metaphor. Try not to care too much about that. Caring is expensive in the short run.
The one you loved sank out of sight and your heart is never the same again. What's the use? He was better than me. I can't take his place, and I don't know how to help them. I just watch them sink, one by one, or groups at a time.
Throw the net. Save a whale, maybe hug a goddam tree. That all works to keep the memes alive...they drive you, you know. It's not your good heart, it’s just a bunch of electro-chemical chains popping and slurping around in the dark box of the brainpan. Oldfarts impart survival values to the system by virtue of surviving--beyond the passing of the genes, they provide an example for the youngsters who otherwise would prefer to shun them. The genes are just nature's way to have kids around to listen to the goddam stories. But you have to figure out a way to get them to listen to the stories. For you existentialists, that's why the cosmic muffin invented the feeling of lonliness.
"Arrhgh..." sez Og. That means Sabre-toothed cat. Ooog, his son, listens, or not. The lesson is uncomplicated and valuable.
"Oooohh, nooooo...." sez Ramon to his lover, Harold. That means, for example, redvoter iz Aunt Emma, or something like that. The lesson is not so clear.
That was just an illustration.
Do you think this is bullshit?
You have to do what you can, is all it means. The unverse doesn't compute, but then it doesn't have to compute at my level, is what I think.
Does this trip have a purpose? Does it need to have one? Okay, make one up, if that's what you need to do, but try to be careful, because you have to account for all the Mormons, too, if you see what I mean. Your cosmic muffin is as good as my cosmic muffin. I like the idea that the trip is the reason, not the destination. The deal with the 79 virgins okay, and the prospect of sitting at the foot of the lord and playing a harp to accompany the singing of fundamentalist hymns has its attractions. But to me those are just examples of another trip, not a reason for this one, and they don’t get me off the wheel of inquiry. Endless speculation. My metaphor is as good as your metaphor. For me, it all comes back to the trip.
It's a waste to not try, even if you are trying to cast your net so wide that you don't get anything done. You probably won’t save a single whale, for example. Just try to not let me drown before I actually have to.
I'll try to do the same for you.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Playing With Drugs...
We drove to Seattle from Southern Oregon last week, about 7 and a half hours. This was not a hard drive, and the changing weather made it even more interesting...some rain, some sun, a couple of coffee breaks, and RedBud drove the last 150 miles. We checked into the Puget Sound VA to get our apartment assignment and keys, and directions. That night we ate at a Vietnamese Restaurant around the block from the the Apartment.
Next day was a clear day, didn't have any appointments. We make short tour of the neighborhood, all abuzz, small town folks in the big city. RedBud was glazed over by the time we found a restuarant to eat breakfast--our ritual. It didnt' help that he only place we could find didn't serve breafasts on weekdays, and anyhow it was a Marie Callendars place. The food was good, and after a while RedBud calmned down. No markers, you know. Rituals are important, and we either eat breakfast at home, and play a game of chess before we start our days, or we go out to eat, read the paper and share the puzzles. These are important things.
We got our cable stuff set up, and over the next few days all that came through. Our aparment manager, Sarah, is a 9-year myeloma survivor, and now one of my new heroes. Thursday we went up to our appointments at the VA. We settle into our routines here. Over the weekened we met a couple more folks in the building...a youngish couple, Mormons, with two children. They came by the appartment for trick or treat. We gave the two-year old caveman a banana, and the three-year old ballerina a banana.
This week we toured the SCCA building, and had my veins checked. Tuesday I had the Hickmah catheter installed. This was similar to the PICC line I lived on all summer, but the Borg plugs are two instead of one, and they come out my chest instead of my arm. The operation was like all of them: they wheeled me in on a guerney and gave me drugs, so I floated throught the procedure, aware only of vague tugs and pulls and background conversations. Later on it was over, and some guy wheeled be back up to the room on the MTU ward. I met a couple new nurses and talked to my docs, and they began the chemo. This was not like the last chemo.
The drug came down the line like a train. In a matter of an hour I was in a rush, more or less off my feet and somewhat disoriented. I ate supper. But two hours later the nausea hit. My nightly routine is to urinate every hour or so when I drink lots of fluids, and these guy have me drinking lots of fluids. But every time I returned from the bathroom the nausea would hit. I complained, and the nurse brought me a drug to help me sleep. The night passed. By midnite the last of the chemo drips were done, and I slept better, having to get up only once or twice to use the bathroom. I was in a haze, uncomfortable, and feeble.
By morning the chemo haze was gone, and I felt week but clear. I was skeptical, but my trip to the bathroom didn't bring on any nausea. Breakfast came. I was skeptical, but it went down and stayed down.
They have given me a battery of drugs...six or seven different kinds, including something to lower my blood pressure a little. I am working on keeping this stuff straight.
I napped off and on during the morning. At 0930 the nurse hooked up today's drip. She assured me that it wouldn't be as intense as last night. It wasn't. The drip last four hours. During that time RedBud arrived, and we chatted. She flitted in and out during the drift session, since I was sort of drifting in and ouf of naptime, catching up on my sleep from last night's doings.
Later on Charlie came in and showed us how to maintain the Hickman Line. We came back home, to the apartments.
Thursday night was uneventful, except for learning to sleep with the Hickman device...a two-headed snake, that dangles six inches down from my right upper chest. Nothing to it. Like sleeping with a new baby...you never really forget it, and you won't roll over on it. Friday we had our leisurely breakfast in the apartment before going back to the hospital for the last infusion. Good, but not quite normal. This afternoon we stopped off at Safeway to look the place over and get a discount card, some low-fat ice cream and chocolate milk. I'm told to take stuff with high calcium content, to help with the seeding and fertilizing of the stem cell process. Never mind. I may try to explain that later.
Anyhow, Seattle grows on you. It may grow on me more. I'm hearing talk about a possible follow up transplant after my auto...an allo, taken from the allo data base. That's not for sure, and it's some five or six months down the road. This is tremendously good news, if it comes to pass. Maybe more on that later, too
By the way, this isn't all about the transplant. I have more I want to say in this blog. I don't know how, yet.
Bloggers, blog on!
blog out....
Next day was a clear day, didn't have any appointments. We make short tour of the neighborhood, all abuzz, small town folks in the big city. RedBud was glazed over by the time we found a restuarant to eat breakfast--our ritual. It didnt' help that he only place we could find didn't serve breafasts on weekdays, and anyhow it was a Marie Callendars place. The food was good, and after a while RedBud calmned down. No markers, you know. Rituals are important, and we either eat breakfast at home, and play a game of chess before we start our days, or we go out to eat, read the paper and share the puzzles. These are important things.
We got our cable stuff set up, and over the next few days all that came through. Our aparment manager, Sarah, is a 9-year myeloma survivor, and now one of my new heroes. Thursday we went up to our appointments at the VA. We settle into our routines here. Over the weekened we met a couple more folks in the building...a youngish couple, Mormons, with two children. They came by the appartment for trick or treat. We gave the two-year old caveman a banana, and the three-year old ballerina a banana.
This week we toured the SCCA building, and had my veins checked. Tuesday I had the Hickmah catheter installed. This was similar to the PICC line I lived on all summer, but the Borg plugs are two instead of one, and they come out my chest instead of my arm. The operation was like all of them: they wheeled me in on a guerney and gave me drugs, so I floated throught the procedure, aware only of vague tugs and pulls and background conversations. Later on it was over, and some guy wheeled be back up to the room on the MTU ward. I met a couple new nurses and talked to my docs, and they began the chemo. This was not like the last chemo.
The drug came down the line like a train. In a matter of an hour I was in a rush, more or less off my feet and somewhat disoriented. I ate supper. But two hours later the nausea hit. My nightly routine is to urinate every hour or so when I drink lots of fluids, and these guy have me drinking lots of fluids. But every time I returned from the bathroom the nausea would hit. I complained, and the nurse brought me a drug to help me sleep. The night passed. By midnite the last of the chemo drips were done, and I slept better, having to get up only once or twice to use the bathroom. I was in a haze, uncomfortable, and feeble.
By morning the chemo haze was gone, and I felt week but clear. I was skeptical, but my trip to the bathroom didn't bring on any nausea. Breakfast came. I was skeptical, but it went down and stayed down.
They have given me a battery of drugs...six or seven different kinds, including something to lower my blood pressure a little. I am working on keeping this stuff straight.
I napped off and on during the morning. At 0930 the nurse hooked up today's drip. She assured me that it wouldn't be as intense as last night. It wasn't. The drip last four hours. During that time RedBud arrived, and we chatted. She flitted in and out during the drift session, since I was sort of drifting in and ouf of naptime, catching up on my sleep from last night's doings.
Later on Charlie came in and showed us how to maintain the Hickman Line. We came back home, to the apartments.
Thursday night was uneventful, except for learning to sleep with the Hickman device...a two-headed snake, that dangles six inches down from my right upper chest. Nothing to it. Like sleeping with a new baby...you never really forget it, and you won't roll over on it. Friday we had our leisurely breakfast in the apartment before going back to the hospital for the last infusion. Good, but not quite normal. This afternoon we stopped off at Safeway to look the place over and get a discount card, some low-fat ice cream and chocolate milk. I'm told to take stuff with high calcium content, to help with the seeding and fertilizing of the stem cell process. Never mind. I may try to explain that later.
Anyhow, Seattle grows on you. It may grow on me more. I'm hearing talk about a possible follow up transplant after my auto...an allo, taken from the allo data base. That's not for sure, and it's some five or six months down the road. This is tremendously good news, if it comes to pass. Maybe more on that later, too
By the way, this isn't all about the transplant. I have more I want to say in this blog. I don't know how, yet.
Bloggers, blog on!
blog out....
Monday, November 01, 2004
Short time
If you haven't already done so, don't forget to vote against the candidate of your choice.
Seattle is a huge beautiful city. More some other time. We just got here a couple days ago.
Seattle is a huge beautiful city. More some other time. We just got here a couple days ago.
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