Thursday, and I passed my lung test! This is really weird. If I had failed they would have stopped giving me chemo and I would begin to feel better! I passed the test, even better than last time, so they will continue the chemo and I will feel worse! What king of medicine is this? I have to keep telling myself the worse I feel the worse the cancer feels. This must be all pretty good then becase I feel pretty bad! HaHaHa! I have decided to plant another tomato permanently in the greenhouse. My volunteer is doing very well and maybe she would like some company. It must have rained 2" last night and the tomatoes outside are not looking good... Unless the weather changes soon there will be no dried tomatoes for anyone! In all my misery I will be fine and I might go on an art huntng expedition tomorrow! I will wear warm clothes, armed with my trusty camera, I will go on a shooting spree and shoot straight and well because I know that wounded art can be very dangerous!

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Wednesday today. I have every intention of getting over this, getting well, getting rid of the cancer and returning to me. I know this chemo-cure is working, I am just not enjoying the process. My fingers are sore and my fingernails feel like they want to fall off. They look horrible. I am a welder and work without gloves. I am used to the burns, the cuts, and sometimes the black and blue results from a piece of steel bashing me. That would all be pretty normal and look pretty good to me. Now, the skin is receeding, the nails are flat and curved down and they hurt for some unexplained reason. Steel bashing is pretty easy. This is harder. Thank you all for the personal e-mails, the jokes, advice and sharing your concerns! It is not all my fault that I am not posting on ArtWanted. The weather is horrible and my garden is frozen. I have an Angel Nurse!!!

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Monday morning. I slept from 5:30 til 4am!!! I am no longer "after the good fight", I am after the "good sleep"! This is an experience that sleeping through is a blessing. I do feel a little better today but that is only a directional thing not a leap in space. I am wondering why this is all necessary? I know there are "upper" and "downer" pills and there must be a pharmecutical grade of meth that could give us some energy? There probably is no gain without a cost. If I feel better then maybe the cancer feels better? Knowing I feel like crap is knowing the cancer is also feeling that way! I get a lung test next Thursday! I am a little worried about it. I have smoked for 47 years and although my cancer is not smoking related, my lungs are not perfect and after eight chemos they are a little worse! If they are too bad the voodoo doctors will stop or alter the chemo and that won't be a good thing. This chemo "cure" is all a numbers game. They constantly test you and make decisions based on statistics. Through this whole experience no one has really looked at me. The nurses are an exception to this. They know me far better than any doctor! Two have been to my house, seen my shop and garden. I "paid" them with tomato plants!

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Sunday Morning! The temperature outside is 20 degrees colder than normal! I should have planted more cauliflower and crops that like cold weather! I am having a bad time with my appetite. Yesterday I ate a little rice, one Ensure, one milkshake and some juice. Nothing sounds good to me. My hands and feet are numb and in pain. I am not enjoying this at all. I still have two garden beds to prepare for planting, maybe next week. "Maybe next week" has become my motto.

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Saturday Morning! I slept from 6pm until 3:30am - 10 and 1/2 hours! I got up to pee 3 times! My prostate is perfect and I never used to do this previous to chemo. I drink a lot of juices now and my body is trying to get rid of this chemo and the old and dead cancer cells. In this cold and very wet Spring we are having I look at my tomato plants and wonder what must be going on with them? They too are a bit beaten down, how do they try to protect themselves? I know warm weather will arrive and they will recover, but at the moment they appear a bit like me, waiting for better times. I am not posting much on Artwanted these days and am missing that connection. I like the gentle banter between cultures and talking about art. I am not creating any now and can barely hold my camera. My welding project will be finished today but my apprentice has done 95% of it. Time to turn over the reins? I know my tomatoes will survive and thrive and so will I.

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Friday morning, early. I sleep a lot and there is not much I can do about it. Yesterday, after a milkshake lunch, I slept from 1pm until 4pm, and then at 6pm I went to bed! My dog woke me up at 1am and I have been up since! It is only 3am now so I am considering going back to bed! That is the good fight and I sleep through it! Not a lot more to say, things will not get better until I am done with the chemo. My hands ache and are numb and I am dropping a lot of things, especially coffee cups. My tiredness might be the equivalent of staying up three nights in a row. This is difficult to explain to someone not familiar with chemo. Enough to know it gets rid of the cancer but indiscriminately kills along the way! Think of an elephant gun to kill a mouse! I know I am winning but getting beat up along the way. Four to go. Only four more.

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Thursday morning, and, of course, I am tired! I think I am getting used to this so I don't fear it so much and I have decided that I can work through it. I don't get as much done but resting doesn't really solve the problem, so I just keep working but at a slower pace. I don't know about this weather! It is very cold and wet and windy and my tomatoes are not liking it one bit! I should have kept them in the greenhouse. Cloudy and overcast is the best time to plant them as it gives them a slow introduction to the full sun, but this cold is a bit too much! It would be difficult to be a farmer and bet the whole future on a crop! I expect to be beaten up today with the chemo. I am thinking I will just let it happen then get up, dust myself off and carry on as if all this is normal! After over four months of this, it is becoming routine. I'll be OK.

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Wednesday morning. Today I will bore you with the weather! Cool, huh? Just a normal conversation. This is a cold and wet May. My tomatoes are in the ground and suffering the shock of being out of their warm greenhouse and into the cold ground. In years past I have been in my little pool as early as May 16th, that means it was over 90 degrees, not the 60 degrees and mid 40's at night we are having now. I plant mostly heirloom tomatoes, liking a long hot summer to bear fruit. I do this on a gamble that will be the case. When I am right I have the best tomatoe crop around and when I am wrong I make a lot of green tomato relish! But I never get in the pool unless it is very hot! I am on a roll on my welding job! With a lot of help from my apprentice, the steel is in the shop, mostly cut to size and today we will weld up a storm! no time for cancer today, far too much to do!

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Tuesday Morning, early! I am on my steroid high, it is no wonder sports people take this drug! It really makes everything better and me stronger! This will last for today and tomorrow so I can get a lot done! Too much of a good thing is too much and as steroids cause their own damage I only get them to lesson the effects of the chemo. The math? 8 down and 4 to go!!! I have had eight chemo-cocktails and the voodoo doctor is thinking four more and that is it!!! So, June 1st and 15th and 29 and July 13th and tests again! He thinks it will be gone! I have yet to ask him what keeps it gone? Hodgkin's Lymphoma is a cancer without a known cause, or at least an admitted cause. Pesticides? the various preservatives in food? fire retardents? The air we breath? The human body is pretty amazing at dealing with all this crap. I will get tested again three months after the chemo is over, and if clear, then six months later, and if clear a year later. I think that is how it works. In reading my past blogs I seem to have been doing a lot of complaining but I want to assure you that I really do not feel that way. This is all really a piece of cake. I would rather be where I am and have what I have than a million other things. There are far worse deseases to have, far worse accidents to have, far worse evils of war, and accidents of nature to endure. On my worst day I drink $8.00 milkshakes!!! That is a pretty luxurious way to be ill. In attempting to offer a balance to my treatment, my care and my feelings I may have put things in the extreme when a nap would have put things in a better balance! I am sure there are worse cancer treatments, I am lucky mine is pretty mild.

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