The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

I had a fun thought this morning that I got to go back to work.  I'd go back to be with lots of fun and smart people and work some challenging and hard problems.  Of course, Melody gets to drive me as I can't drive until the middle of April (due to the last seizure) .  I'd get a really fast and nice computer from IT with a really high end CPU and two large monitors. And, I'd get a comfortable office with a door I could actually close when I needed to think about a tricky and hard problem :-) Oh well, I guess it's over now.  I'm too sick, but I was having fun with the idea.

I might as well tell you about my health.  This information is a little old, but there may be a few that only see this blog.

First off, I wanted to sing a song to all of you, but it was too big for www.blogger.com and I put it on Facebook (which I don't really trust because I'm from the old generation before computers).  The song was "The sun will come out tomorrow". It's one of my favorites.  If you missed it, pretend I'm singing it for you right now :-)

The last MRI showed quite a bit of active and visible cancer in my left temporal lobe. This is affecting my ability to read and remember words (plus other physical problems).  I've started Temodar again (which didn't work the last time) but now the dosage is quadrupled.  I am still getting injections of the other chemo agent, Avastin, every other week.  And yes, I am experiencing side effects.

I am feeling almost, sort of OK, as I always view it.  The reality is that this really is bad.  I think it's been a miracle that I have lived for almost two years with the most dangerous and aggressive cancer that exists.  Pretty cool :-)  Somebody gets to be lucky and I guess it's me.

Thanks for everybody in my family and friends that have supported us so much. Melody and I really do need the help and kindness and support and fun.

We love all of you and appreciate all of you.

And I know I need Melody to help fix what I've written down so far :-)  (Melody:  I did..... Extensively.... Had to translate from Don's new English to English most of you might recognize....)

Seize the day

I had a short seizure Saturday night.  I can't remember any of it, but Melody says it lasted about 7 minutes. Afterwards my calves were sore, I bit my tongue, and I was really hot and sweating.  My legs are mostly fine. My tongue needs a week to get better. But those are all minor, insignificant, and unimportant issues.  The biggest problem is the state of Arizona won't let me drive for 90 days after the seizure :-( Who made up that silly rule?  So I may not pay attention for 7 minutes or so.  Is that different from half the drivers on the road now? :-)

My MRI was clear again last Monday. That's eight months without cancer!  There is no additional MRI because of the seizure. My keppra (anti-seizure medication) dose will go to 1000 mg twice a day from 750 mg.

Today I read aloud page 520 of the Book of Mormon.  Moroni is teaching the requirements of baptism and how "easy" repentance works.  "But as oft as they repented and sought forgiveness, with real intent, they were forgiven".

Bliss

Thirty two years of Bliss.

We were married in the Los Angeles temple on 17 December 1983.  That was in the days when young people with poor parents had no money and loans were not easily available. We had maybe $600 total for our honeymoon which mostly came from money people gave us as wedding gifts at the reception. I remember driving down from LA to San Diego and stopping in a tourist booth to get a room for the night of our wedding.  After a reception (there's a fun story about how we were late and Gary and Linda are in all the wedding pictures) we drove to Gilbert, Arizona to stay in my brother Gary's house part of a week while they were in San Diego for Christmas.  It was all a great adventure and lots of fun.

We both had one more semester of school at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. We both got jobs in LA.  For whatever reason, I get restless at work about every five years and quit perfectly good jobs to do something different. After nine years in LA, we moved to Gilbert with our three wonderful children, Josh, Nate, and baby Erin.  It was a wonderful time especially living close to Gary, Linda, and their six fun children.  Eventually, After 11 years in Phoenix, I got restless at work and we moved here to Tucson where I was finally not restless and planned to work for twenty years or so.

It's a wonderful life and Melody's been my sweetheart all these years.

Not much cancer news to tell you about.  I'm doing much better than expected.  Who knew I'd still be here after eighteen months?

Today I read aloud page 488 of 531 of the Book of Mormon. It's the very beginning of the book of Ether.  Jared asked his brother to pray to the Lord for the benefit of his family and friends.  "And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon their friends and their families also, that they not be confounded." Ether 1:37. I really like that they included their friends in the prayer.

It looks like I'll complete the Book of Mormon on 31 January 2016.  Wow!!!

Apparently, Erin and Melody both posted on Facebook about it being our wedding anniversary today. Fun fun fun.

Hat Trick

Though not a hockey fan, we completed our third clear MRI yesterday.  Hurrah.  (A hat trick is 3 goals in one game)

To celebrate, we spent  quality time at the TMC ER.  I've had two problems that my oncologist is concerned about and so he wanted additional testing.  I am a little unsteady on my feet and also experience shortness of breath.  These are symptoms of blood clots which are common side effects of the chemo treatment I am currently undergoing.

We had an x-ray of my lungs, a CT scan with iodine, a Doppler ultrasound of my legs, an EKG, two IVs, and whatever else they could think of.  I was running out of veins for them to poke.  In the end, after 9 hours, no blood clots, anywhere.  We are grateful for all of the good medical staff that helped us.

I gave a talk in church on Sunday.  I talked about experiences in my life that strengthened my testimony of Christ. I also spoke of faith (choice/free agency), repentance (changing who I am), and the atonement (guilt is over rated). I hope I was helpful.

Today I read aloud page 458 of 531 of the Book of Mormon. After Christ's visit in the new world (America) and establishing apostles, Christ teaches the apostles that the the church shall be named after Him.  When the Apostles call upon the Father, for the church, if it be in my name the Father will hear you.

Thanks Melody for helping get all these medical details correct.

67 Squared

There are several ways to square two digit numbers such as 67 in your head.  One way I do it is to split the number into 60 + 7 times 60 + 7.  I multiply the 60*60 and get 3600. Next I multiply the 60*7 and get 420. I can double the 420 to 840 or add it twice.  I'll add it twice to 3600 and get 4020 and then 4440.  Then I add the 7*7=49 and get 4489.  No problem, right.

Well, I couldn't do that a week ago.  I mentioned the short term memory problem I have and how I can't (couldn't) keep more than a few things in my brain at a time.  A week ago I would not have remembered the 3600 after I got the 420.  It would have been gone from my brain.

I sometimes use the squaring numbers trick to fall back asleep when I wake up (which is about every 90 to 180 minutes). It takes my brain off other stupid stuff that's keeping me awake and is boring enough to let me fall asleep.  Of course, last night, I was so excited that I could actually square numbers I didn't fall back to sleep until I'd squared 22, 27, 99, 76, 72, and a large host of others. It was so cool!!!

Yesterday I was writing some software and I noticed I was typing really fast and mostly correctly!  I also noticed I got quite a bit done.  I've also noticed that if I can't spell a word, if I close my eyes and type it, I often get the word.  Weird huh!  I think my brain is coming back after the second cancer.  It was about November of 2014 where I felt like I'd mostly recovered from the first cancer (about 5 months).  It's been about four months since the second cancer.  Maybe in a month or two I'll feel like my brain is back again.  That'd be great to get my brain back :-)

Physically I'm not doing as well.  I find the two week chemo infusions and daily steroid make me tired.  I need a nap or two of 30 to 90 minutes every day.  Usually by 9 pm I am completely exhausted.  If I know I'm staying up late, I take multiple naps during the day to stay awake late. I have trouble with my feet and ankles swelling.  My stomach is swollen most of the time and I have a very restricted diet.

Note that this is not me complaining. This is me giving you data about what cancer treatment is like for me.  I am still very upbeat and happy. I'm grateful for Melody and her love and support as well as all my friends that help and support us.

Today I read aloud page 374 of 531 of the Book of Mormon.  There was peace in the land and the people prospered. Unfortunately, some become very prideful due to their riches and persecuted the poor.  The poor fasted and prayed often and gained humility and became strong in their faith in Christ.

Short Term Memory

Short term memory keeps track of nominally seven plus or minus two items.  Last year (2014) I had radiation therapy and was told by the doctor that it would take about four months to heal what ever would heal after the damage to the brain. I remember well August through November where I recognized a reduced ability to hold and remember multiple items.  One odd behavior is that I would scrub the floor squares in a regular pattern instead of my normal randomly chase spots.  Last week, I scrubbed the floor and noticed I was following the squares again.

To fight that problem, instead of waiting patiently, I wrote "hobby" software of a card game using a Neural Net to manage the AI.  Interesting, I stopped working on it in November of last year which aligned with feeling like my short term memory was back.  I restarted the software fun shortly after the radiation treatment of the second cancer.  Hopefully it will work as well this time.

It's four o'clock in the morning.  I slept from 10 am to about 2 am. I then laid in bed multiplying numbers in my brain. After two hours I got up and am sitting here.

Something odd is going on in this post.  My spelling is very good this morning.  I have not had a single spelling error so far in this post that wasn't a typo that was quickly fixed.  Weird. Weird. Wierd!!!  And Melody is not awake to help me.  It seems ok to me :-)

It's really too early for this, but it's what I do.  Here's me reading the Book of Mormon aloud at 4:44 am :-)

Today I read aloud page 335 of 531 of the Book of Mormon.  Captain Moroni sent Teancum to stop the enemy army led by Morianton from taking occupation of the land northward which would be a danger to the Nephites. Those who survived the battle made a covenant to keep the peace.

How has terminal cancer change my world view?

In the late 1800's and early 1900's when the "Robber Barrons" reigned in the United States, the data shows a peak in income disparity towards the wealthy. The breakdown in income for the top 10%, middle 40% and bottom 50% was 45%, 50% and 5%.  In 1950 the share was 30%, 60% and 10%.  In 2010 the data is the same as in the 1890's.  The current trend is towards wealth continuing to move towards the top 10%.  This data comes from the book Capital in the Twenty-First Century

Recently in Baltimore, an African-American died while in the custody of six police officers.

I've recently expressed opinions and made judgments about these two topics. In the past, I didn't talk very much about political or social topics.  Am I going crazy? :-) Is it brain damage from the cancer? :-)  Am I losing my mind? :-)

Here's some data about many of the books I've read in the last few years.  No real change there. I read the same kinds of books.

Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Thomas Piketty
Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape..
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, 
The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but.. Nate Silver
The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War,.. 
Salt.  Mark Kurlansky
Thinking Statistically.  Uri Bram
Sync: How Order Emerges from Chaos In the Universe, Nature,..  Steven H. Strogatz
Nine Algorithms That Changed the Future: The Ingenious Ideas.. John MacCormick
The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our.. Bryan Sykes
The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller.. Marc Levinson
Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed.. Bill O'Reilly
The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives Leonard Mlodinow
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders.. David W. Anthony
Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. the Supreme Court. Jeff Shesol

I read more news on the internet!  That must be it.  Am I better informed or more confused? Again, not related to the cancer except I have more time to waste on the internet if I choose to.

What about changes to how my brain is working now.  The second cancer, the radiation surgery, the changed chemotherapy, and back to the steroids have had a very noticeable change to my recall of words and my strength level and fatigue and sleep.

Two typical examples of things I can't remember or take minutes instead of seconds to recover. I played a board game Thursday night.  On Friday, when Melody asked what I played it took me a while to come up with "Caylus".  I have soda in my refrigerator (the only non-caffeinated soda (throw back Mountain Dew was therefore excluded from the survey) at Wall Mart with sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup) and it took me awhile to come up with "Sierra Mist".  Sometimes the word never comes. I tend to lose the names of things and people.   Another example of what I struggle with happened while writing this paragraph, I spelled "sugar", "caffeinated", "syrup", and "sierra" wrong and had to figure them out.  This wasn't from typing it wrong. I don't count those.

However, when having a conversation about a variety of topics, I don't feel like I have as much trouble expressing ideas, so long as I don't refer to some names or things. I seem to do well enough with words that represent concepts or ideas. I also am able to play board games and write hobby software with what feels like the same skill I had before.

So, in the end I've give you data and no conclusion.  Sounds just like me!

Warning!!! Melody is not here to edit this and fix my grammar and spelling. Thanks Melody for all you do.

Today I read aloud page 325 of 531 of the Book of Mormon.  Captain Moroni defeats Amalickiah and they have four years of peace in the land.  I like the verse where it talks about the many who died "firmly believing that their souls were redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ; thus they went out of the world rejoicing".