A few of you have seen how overgrown the grapevines have become on part of my property. With loppers and a pruning saw in hand, I have been aggressive in my grapevine attacks, now that I can reach the roots.
No, there aren’t any grapes, just the vines and leaves.
Considering how the chemotherapy turned my facial hair thin and gray in a few weeks, now that it’s been two months since the treatments ended I wondered if the change was permanent. After keeping myself clean-shaven, I’ve been letting my beard grow back in and, so far, it pretty much looks and feels like it did before the chemo. I don’t really care one way or the other, except that it’s significant as a possible indicator of my recovery.
And now, this other bearded man has something to say. He’s wearing Audio-Technica ATH-M20x headphones. I have a pair, and I can tell from Jon’s headband that my cranium is a lot bigger than his.
I was going to post this picture yesterday, but I was busy undergoing a nuclear stress test of my heart, before taking advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to get some outdoor work done.
Thanks to the new families in the area, we had the best ever Halloween turnout on Thursday. Besides my usual front porch decorations, I projected a familiar movie onto the garage door. It’s the original 1977 version, not the 1978 “Part Four: A new Hope” re-release or — ugh! — any of the “special editions.”
A little boy, probably five or six years old, exclaimed, “Obi Wan!” He ran up to the garage door, patted the image of Alec Guinness and proudly explained to the group he was with, “That’s Obi Wan!” He’ll make a fine Jedi Knight.
Regarding my stress test, the results showed a healthy heart with no indication of coronary artery disease, let alone scarring from a heart attack. Yay. I had been told that my many years of long distance running was the probable cause of my a-fib, but yesterday’s results showed there are also definite benefits to running.
I’m glad that Dave didn’t post this video until after I’d completed 28 years of radiation therapy on a Varian system. Did I say years? I meant days, that felt like years.
What I have doesn’t feel like a virus. It’s more like I’ve been poisoned by one of Putin’s agents. With my immune system suppressed by chemo, I’ve been wearing Powecom KN95 masks in public places, and I don’t have Covid.
What I have is radiation sickness, and it’s unlike any other illness I’ve ever had. I’ve been assured that, by the end of this coming week, I should be feeling significantly better. I’m hanging onto that hope.
The last time I weighed 165 lbs., I was training to run the Boston Marathon. That’s my weight now, after six weeks of cancer treatments.
One effect of the chemotherapy is that it cured my psoriasis, although I have been told the flaky patches will probably return. There is also the effect that chemo had on my facial hair.
Before chemo:
After chemo:
Update: Once again, I am now clean-shaven.
