Wednesday Morning. Peripheral Neuropathy. Google it. NOW they tell me that I may have permanent nerve damage to my hands! Maybe within a year they could be 50% better but that is an optomistic guess! Not great news for an artist who expresses himself with his hands!!! I am thinking I can get accustomed to it though. It is not pleasent and it really does feel like a frieght train is running back and forth over them but when I look at them there is no blood so I keep going! I really think that after one last chemo when they quit poisoning me I will heal. Heal or get used to it. Today I am going to make dump runs and clean up my garden!

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Tuesday today, Chemo day! and I am looking forward to it!!! This is almost the end, there will be only one more left! Soon I will be able to look back on this experience and think to myself "that wasn't so bad!" and I would be right! It is not really like torture, more like a prolonged period of inconvenience where life is uncomfortable and you can't control the focus. I have really been so very lucky about this whole thing! The timing couldn't have been better, I am mostly retired and receive a Sicial Security check every month! I have a terrific Health Insurance plan, probably the best! This $130,000 cure cost me $1,000. I miss my garden but this has been the coldest wettest "summer" on record, a nice gardening season to miss! I got Hodgkin's Lymphoma, one of the easiest cancers to cure and according to my regular doctor, the best one to get! I had no bad symptoms from the chemo for the first six sessions! I still had my hair!!! For most of this time I have continued welding and "playing" in my shop/studio. I have discovered lots of friends and receive their support and encouragement from all corners of the world! I picked a wet Spring and cold Summer to begin this ad now that it is ending I will have a warm Summer couple of months to enjoy. I am learning the art of puttering, just walking about. And I am so looking forward to tasting every bite of a good meal!!! Yeah, really, I am pretty lucky, and this wasn't really so bad! ONE TO GO! and that's pretty lucky too!

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Monday morning, early. I am in my shop/office and it is 4 AM. I went to bed early so I have had 10 hours of sleep. I like this quiet time, darkest before dawn, and to watch the sun come up. We assume that will happen of course. It always has. We wouldn't know if it didn't. It takes eight minutes for the sun light to get here, that is the speed of light. I am OK this morning but I have no agenda, no list of things to do! I pretty much cross off anything that would require my hands; they feel as if they are on fire. I can't taste anything so food is low on the list and if I sit and do nothing or watch television I will fall asleep. I know what it is like to be old. I think I will wander about my garden and make plans for next year! Tomorrow I will get my chemo and then only one left!!!

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Sunday today and I didn't blog yesterday! I have an excuse! No, not the cancer, that is not an excuse for anything, the sun was out!!! I went running around my garden with my camera and did my "last" installation until August. Yesterday was a great day! I out "last" installation in quotations because I don't really believe it. This one was fun and the client liked it so much it is difficult to believe that I would turn down another! The kind of metal art that I do can't be bought in a store, so you get it from me or you don't get it. That comes with a lot of responsibility! Always I am thinking the next piece I make has to be better and stronger and more appropriate than the last. I barely get the one done and I am thinking about the next one! We shall see what happens. My hands are screaming. They feel as if they were rubbed with sandpaper and then put under truck tires all night long! But in my heart I want to make something bigger, better and more! The "month off in July" may become a battle of wills. We have only had 4 days of sunny weather and still haven't seen 80 degrees but my garden is becoming an explosion of flowers!

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Friday today! and I am enjoying my morning coffee, that is three days in a row!!! I do not know what is happening? I gave up on the marijuana, both the expensive pills and the inexpensive real stuff. They seemed to quit working and the smoking kind made me cough a lot! I ate a huge omelette yesterday! I did do my installation yesterday and it went well. One more to do, maybe tomorrow and I will take this last month "off"! Well, we will see how that goes? I have never done that before. My hands were throbbing all night long. I am assuming my remaining cancer was throbbing even worse! Ha!

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Thursday Morning! Today is garbage day when they come to take my garbage away. I have to write this down or I will forget to take the garbage container to the street. Some of this is because I am retired and Thursday has no more significance to me than a Monday or a Saturday! That is one of the benefits of being retired! The other reason is "chemo brain" and how these voodoo drugs affect you. If I don't write it down I will most likely forget it. I have a lot of "post-it notes"! I am enjoying my coffee again this morning!!! That is two days in a row! Funny how that is so significant to me and hardly noticeable to you! I have probably had a million cups of coffee that I don't even remember but my new goal as this comes to an end and I begin to recuperate is to enjoy and appreciate every single taste that I can! It is the very simple things in life that when lost we miss the most! I ate a little yesterday and slept well and today I will do that installation and it will be a great day! I have forgotten the countdown, how many days to go! Two more chemos!

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Wednesday Morning! The steroids are working and I am enjoying a cup of coffee! If you want to know what this is like try putting a teaspoon of soap in your morning coffee for ten days in a row and then leave it out! It is nice when I can drink it, maybe I will eat today! I did do the installation on Monday but skipped the Tuesday installation. I will do that tomorrow. Soon enough. and then I will have a Holiday until August! I won't go anywhere, I am pretty famous for not going anywhere. I did a lot of travelling and exploring the world in my youth and keep those memories close. My "Holidays" then were for six months at a time and I always threw my watch away when I did this! I have been to Europe several times, back in the day when one could do it for Three Dollars a Day!!! I have never been on a tour, never had a destination or a place to be. I mostly hitch-hiked and went to where the ride took me. and it always took me to wonderful adventures, meeting interesting people who went way out of their way to be nice and generous to me. Those were great times and in this modern world, not easily findable now. Nice to talk about something other than cancer!!!!

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Tuesday Afternoon! On the Tuesday that I don't get chemo I still go to the cancer clinic to have the tube that is attached to me cleaned out. Today they gave me more steroids (no professional sports events for me this year!) and rehydrated my with a litre of saline solution. I am looking old! Do you ever wonder what you will look like 20 years from now? Well, I know! The lady in the chair next to mine died. Not while she was in the chair, they do not allow that. I think she died yesterday. The obituaries always say "died from complications of cancer". I have never read, "died from complications of chemo-therapy" but you know that happens. Today she was replaced with a guy about my age, and a stronge guy with hair at that. I didn't tell him that in 3 months he will look like me! 21 days and counting. My next chemo is next Tuesday and then I will have only one left!

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Monday Morning. I threw up last night, pretty much everything I ate yesterday. One Ensure and some ice cream. I am trying some apple juice this morning. Can't drink coffee! I suspect the fun is out of this adventure by now. Today is the first Day of Summer! My garden certainly doesn't show it. I am going to attempt an installation today. I have three to do and then I will officially quit until this frieght train passes: 22 more days! 2 more chemos! and three installations!

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