Before I get into it, Happy New Year.
I see a lot of changes coming. I hope positive ones are among the best ones I’ll remember at this year’s end.
I have to tell you, I’ve been feeling a little mortal and out of sorts lately. Don’t get me wrong, I feel fine, but the climate around me seems… well, less than optimum.
My brother is about three years younger than me. He was diagnosed with ALS and has the dementia that often accompanies it. From what I can estimate, it started becoming noticeable about a year ago, but it’s slow steady progress made it difficult to recognize, since I don’t see him that much. Now, it’s full-blown and causing a lot of anxiety in the family. What’s made it worse is that he has an 11 year-old daughter. I don’t know if she fully grasps what going on with her dad, but she has to feel a little powerless right now. We all do. His speech is so bad I can barely understand him when he talks. All we can do is watch and wait. It’s incredibly painful to see such a strong personality waste away before your eyes. Memories and experiences withering like a dying oak tree. There is so much about this that I don’t understand.
The political and geo-political situations leave me at a loss for words. I’m not very happy with either of them, but I can do little but watch and try to stay abreast of them both. Hiding your head in the sand accomplishes nothing, but that’s what I feel like doing.
The whole presidential candidate thing leaves me at a loss for words. We haven’t had “the right person for the job” in a very long time, and I can tell right now, it’s going to come down to voting against the person I really don’t want instead of for the person I do want.
The rest of the world seems to be tearing itself apart a little at a time. There seems to be so much hatred. People are not looking for solutions. They just want to promote violence for its own sake. There is no talk that will appease them or bring them to a point of discussion. They just look to the next act of violence or adversity as their pointless goal. Our answer to this is escalation and confrontation, with helpless victims caught in the crossfire. So many innocent lives lost.
The weather has cooled off considerably, and you’d think it would inspire me to get busier and do some of the things I’ve been putting off, but it seems to have had the opposite effect. I find I read more, and get quiet and introspective when the time permits, but my honey-do list seems to be suffering as a result. I scold myself for dragging my feet, but it seems to have had little impact.
My only escape from all of this is my twice-weekly game of racquetball with my youngest son, Aaron. It is the one time during the week when I feel free of the everyday bonds, and can pour myself into something that demands my full attention. We both enjoy the time immensely, and if forces me to forget about everything, if for just a short while. It’s a nice friendly game of “try to destroy the other person.” We always have a few laughs, and walk away with a feeling of accomplishment.
I’d like to fire myself up about other things, as much as I do our racquetball game. I guess I need to stop paying attention to the disagreeable things going on around me. There are a lot of good things going on. Maybe it’s time I start finding and enjoying them. Nobody likes a wet blanket.
3 comments:
I am a 19 year old who at age 18 with out any warning was diagnosed with stage iv Gioblastoma. Have you tried anything else? I am coming down to my last treament and they are teling me well were going to wiat to see if it grows. When we know it does. between to surgerys a week apart it grew30% right now it is down a little but who knows
I'm sorry to hear of your GBM. You are so young. I don't know your location, but it's important to have neuro-oncologists that are expert in the field. I went to the Barrows Neurological Institute in Phoenix.
I'm sure you are concerned, and rightfully so. The location of your tumor makes a difference the the way it can be treated, but I think most treatments are similar. Mine was in the cerebellum. This is the optimum location for a lot of reasons, but most of all, it's not in the thinking part of the brain, so different tactics can be used.
After a single surgery, I went through a month of radiation therapy, along an everyday treatment of Temodar. After the month, I was taking Temodar for five consecutive days a month, then I had the rest of the month off. I did this for a year. Other chemo therapies don't work, because of the blood brain barrier.
I had regular MRIs for the first two years, but we have backed off considerably, because there has been no sign of it since the initial treatment. There was no need to consider alternate or additional treatment applications in my case, but there are additional ones that can be applied, such as Gamma Knife radiation. I didn't get this because it was felt that they got it all.
The wait and see part is stressful, but be positive. You can overcome this.
As a side note... my wife is Korean, and because we were willing to not discount anything, or any possibility, I have taken Korean Red Genseng every day since the diagnosis. I also take colostrum, which can help you keep your immunities up. You can get this from Vitasaver.com.
I wish you well, and hope you can lick this thing, so you can get on with being you. Stay positive.
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