I’m large

Well gang it looks as though I’m back at least weight-wise. I have blossomed to a robust 245. That’s 20 pounds since last year. Yikes!

I am choosing to not call it fat, but rather prepositioned medical weight loss protective material.  I am also choosing to delude myself into thinking that most of this preposition weight loss material is actually muscle from this summer weightlifting regimen.

Anyway, things are still plugging along. I am off today and Kate and I will probably go food shopping, I plan to hit the recumbent bike for an hour, and I’ll have to hit a nap somewhere in there.

Well that’s it I’ll see you guys.

Tri Care

I am concerned that eviscerating Tri-Care for retirees will have a profoundly devastating impact on our military quality. I understand that this is a time where everyone must shoulder the burden of bidet woes. And the pentagon is no exception. However, since less than 1 % of our population has any active duty experience and far less are retired after 20+ years of active service it seems unconscionable that senate, congressional and white house budget talks are considering any down grade to Tri-Care.

Moreover the argument that TRI-Rates have not been adjusted in some time doesn’t hold water. Especially when I consider that I was promised free health care for life for my wife and me. Even thought the Supreme Court said (in the late 80’s or early 90’s) the service secretaries didn’t have the authority to make that deal, the court – in the same decision -- also admonished the congress and senate to do the right thing and fulfill the obligation they made to veterans.

Please do the “right thing” and protect Tri-Care, decouple it from Medicare, and make it easier to use for doctors and patients. 

I understand medical costs are rising. But I don’t see a whole lot of discussions about why, just a lot of discussion about how do we curtail benefits.

While I do have an interest in this topic, it is a readiness issue too. Making career service less attractive puts us at risk because good people won’t join and stay.

Other solutions than eviscerating Tri-Care could include:

Don’t buy big items we don’t need

Put people programs before equipment programs

Don’t start wars without revenue sources in place to fund them

Closing the military academies – ROTC and OCS can do the same job for much less. Given the philandering going on from West Point grads we might even get a better product

Be thoughtful in the application of military power and remember war has hidden costs such as wounded care

Reduce the size of the force and realign some missions

More tomorrow

jerks on facebook

It has come to my attention that there are a handful of assholes on facebook who –in some perverted sense of humor – have established Cancer is Funny Because People Die group pages. I am all for irreverence and such, but these morons seemed to have decided hurting people is funny.

Well I just want to say that there is a special place in hell for those kinds of people. I’m astonished.

On to recovery stuff. The thing that seems to be recovering most is my waistline. Yikes. I gonna have to cut a few pounds this year. Check this out.  And this isn’t a joke. I don’t want to drop too much in case there is ever a relapse of this stuff I want to have a little weight to give

I didn’t do much yesterday for a workout. I was bushed.

Kae and I were talking yesterday and for the most part the cancer and all the treatments seem like a dream now. As I get further and further away things become hazier and the trials a bit less terrifying. It was terrible as I went through it, but I’m starting to forget little things like the nightly self-injections at the kitchen table and flushing the lumens from my PICC or Hickman.

Maybe it’s better that way. 

Anniversary

Well today is my 29th wedding anniversary. We don’t have a lot planned; some dinner, a movie, and some smooching.
It’s great to be alive.
I used to love work, but now that I’ve survived this cancer thing it all seems kind of blah -- like there should be something more to life than this hmmm.
I am within a couple of weeks from finishing the book from the other blog.  You’d think it would be easier, but it isn’t with the formatting and captioning and such. But I am on the tail end. It’s a good read.

I guess that’s it for today.

Bill

Hey Gang

Well:
To be honest I’m feeling pretty well today. I was doing really well until autumn when I threw my back out aka muscle spasms, and then I tore a muscle in my abdomen that I thought was a hernia and PCM did too, but my surgeon told me to go away and that I needed to exercise in an age appropriate manner. So what if I was benching 250 and I’m 44? Okay I’m 55, but that shouldn’t matter.

Last week I started a new routine.  I got to the landing on the stairwell of third floor of my office building do ten pushups (they’re tough to do right now), walk through the myriad of hallways  to the back stairs, walk to the landing on the first floor, do some kind twist and bounce exercise, disrupt that floors working by wandering through their hallways, go the front stairwell, and back up to the third floor and do another set of pushups. I do that ten times.

That is a real butt kicker too.

Went up to the cancer ward last week it was kind of weird, but I’m glad I did it, One has to face anxiety some time. I love those folks. I’m going to sneak up early one morning -- before 0500 and share some bad pastries and coffee with them.  I’m going before 0500 because the shift change is at 0700 and it can get hectic for them. Anyway, I ma told they love to see the results of their work up and walking about as opposed to ...

Starting Again

For a lot of reasons I’ve been slow about getting back to this blog. Firstly I wasn’t sure I had a whole lot to say anymore, but I think I do. I also think I was afraid to become too cancer focused. I’m not sure what exactly that means, but it was a worry.
I have made a lot of progress and I think it might be valuable to la it out there in case people are curious. I recently had somebody comment on my old blog about something I had written and how it helped then.
So I think I’ll start this up again.

Sniper Moose From Bennington Vt. 

Peace.