Half Way!

Today I passed the half-way point of my chemotherapy program. This was infusion number six out of a planned twelve. Because I had to skip my scheduled infusion two weeks ago due to a low platelet level, I was eager this morning to see the results from the blood tests that are always done first thing each time. Two weeks ago, the level was 66, but this week the measure was 112—good enough to proceed. My oncologist has decided to reduce the dosage level of the oxilaplatin, which is the drug I receive at the Infusion Center at the hospital. The intention is to give my platelets a better chance to recover prior to each of the next infusions. Her goal is still to take me off this drug entirely after maybe the eighth treatment (might have been seven if the dosage was not reduced), but I'll still need to finish all twelve of the fluorouracil infusions, which are the ones I complete at home over a 46 hour period using a pump. I'm still doing well overall and generally am able to do almost anything I want.

But enough of that boring stuff! What else has been going on with us? Well, after a rather cold, wet April—spring has arrived slowly—the weather has been exceedingly/unseasonably warm as of late. There are three home improvement projects we have had queued up since at least March, and the workers were actually able to get to a couple of them this week. One was replacement of the sidewalk between our driveway and front porch.

We're very pleased with the results, which corrected a problem with the old steps, which had settled and created a very high 11" step up onto the porch from the walk. Now we have a 5" step—much safer for us old folks.

A second project, also completed today, was the elimination of a garden spot we no longer wanted with sod being installed to restore the lawn. Kathie had relocated a number of peony plants into one section of that area as well. We think it looks great and really dresses up the appearance and size of the lawn.

The third project, expected to be started in a day or so, is cleaning and staining of our back deck and screened-in porch, as well as installation of new screens.

A few days ago, we borrowed a log splitter from our kind neighbor and split most of the logs from a dead tree we had taken down about two months ago. It was threatening to fall on our new fence. I got an entire pickup load of firewood which I donated to my son, Rob, and a friend of his.

Finally, last week we had a long awaited visit from my sister, Paula, and brother-in-law, Ron. We spent most of one day on a "visit down memory lane" driving around old home towns, visiting cemeteries, and seeing the farms, schools, and main streets of our youth. This resulted in lots of reminiscing and recalling of stories and events. Fun! The next day, my cousin, Rex, and his wife, Chris, came for an afternoon visit. More reminiscing and stories! Chris is also a cancer patient, and I must say with considerable gratitude, that we have, I think, been good, mutually supportive resources for each other. Having all this family around me last week was nourishing.

That's it for now. We are thinking of a short trip to the cabin this next week, so my next posting may be from northern Wisconsin and sans anything about cancer or cancer treatments. (We'll have to return home just prior to the next scheduled infusion.)

Not Half Way (Darn!)

(Some of my readers have indicated that they would like to be notified each time I post something new here. I've looked into various ways to automate this, but I haven't found a good "opt in" method for you to use, although I know a few of you use RSS feeds for this purpose. RSS feeds will work, but not all of you may want to go that route. So, I've decided that I'll simply send out an email myself to a list of those of you who wish to be notified. I'll start today with what I consider to be a default list, but if you do not receive that email and would like to be included, please send me an email, and I'll add you to the list. Or, if you wish to be removed from my initial list, let me know that as well--I won't be offended. Thanks for your interest and support!)

Today (Thursday, May 5th) was to have been my sixth chemo infusion, which would have represented my being half done with chemo. Alas, my platelet level was too low, and so my oncologist said we had to skip this infusion and proceed with the next scheduled one on May 18th. This is a bad news/good news situation for me. Bad in the sense that I'm eager to get all of these chemo infusions over with. Good in the sense that I now have a couple of weeks more to enjoy without any down period due to the infusion. The oncologist said that I just needed more time to recover after the last infusion, and that with me now taking a daily dose of blood thinner medication, this was not all that surprising. She did not seem to be concerned but suggested that this might happen again in the future, making it unclear just when the twelfth and final infusion might occur. Prior to today, that would have been on July 27th--now it looks like it will be August 10th.

But let's move on to more interesting things. I have been feeling good enough to be able to spend quite a bit of time in my shop recently! Yay! Last fall, my good friend, Richard, allowed me to salvage three logs from a derecho-damaged cherry tree in a timber near his home. I had it sawn and kiln dried and thus obtained about 60 board feet of lumber from it. After planing, I used a portion of this wood to make a bench for Kathie and me to use at the foot of our bed.

I have yet to stain and finish it. I'll put a dark stain called Cabernet on it and then a semi-gloss topcoat. It is a simple design, but the cherry wood has a pretty color that I think the stain will enhance (and better match our other bedroom furniture) and very nice grain.

Another project I just completed was to make a shallow bowl or plate for Kathie to use as a napkin holder. I have always found it difficult to discard potentially useful scraps of wood from other projects. So, I keep a box around to hold these odds and ends. As you might imagine, the box fills up with all kinds of pieces of usually small sizes and of various wood species. I took the request from Kathie as an opportunity to pull out a number of different woods, glue them together into a block about 10" square and maybe 3" thick to be turned on my lathe. I was really pleased with the end result. There are eight woods altogether in the finished bowl: walnut, poplar, padauk, bocote, cherry, maple, leopardwood, and purpleheart. Here is the finished product:

I also have one "Oops!" story to share. When we moved to our new home, I decided to invest in a new table saw. I had been aware for some time of a new saw manufactured by a company called SawStop. They came up with a technology that detects when conductive material meets the spinning saw blade, most importantly the skin on your fingers and hands. When this happens, a special mechanism in the saw almost instantaneously (i.e., within milliseconds) jams a brake into the saw blade and drops the blade out of sight below the table, thus keeping the saw from taking off a finger or otherwise badly damaging a hand. You can see a video of this by clicking here. My old saw, which was a very good Powermatic table saw, could not do this! I rationalized that moving my old saw could be avoided by selling it to someone else. Then I could simply buy a new SawStop table saw and have it delivered to my our new home. Clever, eh?

While working on some pen-making projects recently, I had a need to cut some lengths of thin brass tubing. I had always done this before on my table saw--cutting aluminum or lightweight brass pieces is usually OK if done carefully and slowly. But remember how I used the word conductive in the prior paragraph? While I had read the SawStop owner's manual thoroughly when I got my new saw, on this occasion, I simply forgot that the saw was fine cutting nonconductive material like wood, but that fingers and metal, which are conductive, would trigger the special safety technology in the saw. So, as I slowly but ignorantly pushed the tubing into the blade, BAM! The brake jammed and dropped the spinning blade out of sight. Here are the parts retrieved from my saw after the fact.

What did I learn from this mistake? First of all, it was rather shocking when it occurred, and my first impulse was to check my fingers. But I soon realized what had happened. I also learned that my saw actually works as advertised--good to know for the future. Lastly, I learned that while this safety feature is much to be desired, it does come at a cost. I had to replace the brake cartridge at about $60, and I am having the blade tested and sharpened to make sure that it is safe to continue to use it. That will maybe cost $100. Oh well!