Okay, maybe one more

Good morning all:

Quite a day yesterday. Here goes. For 21 years I was a soldier. I spent my time in infantry, tank, and cavalry units. I was steely-eyed, camouflage wearing, defender of freedom. Very little scared me.

Yesterday I came face-to-face with one of the few things that puts me thru my paces – a building full of middle school kids. That’s right – those little life affirming units of potential that have one speed – fast; and one volume setting – loud.

Having had a dosage of IVIG last week I looked at each one of these little darlings not so much as loving little smookies, but rather as germ bombs. In reality that’s what they are, kid crud carriers.

I had forgotten about their germ content when I said I would help mentor a bunch of them at a Junior Achievement BIZ Town day. Junior Achievement – except for being a breeding ground for medical maladies – is a wonderful program that teaches kids the value of working together, goal setting, and business fundamentals.

So anyway I get there and I am assigned about a dozen of these bio- terrorists in disguise and we start the project (there were 100 kids there).

When I first got there I had to fill out a name label and the lady at the front door said, “Just put what you want kids to cal you on the label. You know like Mr. Bill, Bill, Mr. Potter.”

Anyway I wrote “Superman” on my label and refused to tell the kids my secret identity. Throughout the day my kids needed my help they would yell, “Superman! Superman!”

What a great way to spend a day.

Oh and I probably didn’t get sick’ let’s see if the IVIG holds.

No more posts

No more posts

Play excerpt

(c) 2014 William J. Potter

A ring girl cross the stage with a card saying

"Opening Round." Bill and Kate are sitting

downstage left in two chairs. The rest of the

stage is dark. They are oblique to the

audience. Bill has a small gym bag next to

his chair.

 

Bill

Holy smokes. Can you believe this?

 

Kate

I know. Three weeks ago we thought you had a stomach virus, now it’s cancer.

 

Bill

No not that. Look at this room.

 

Kate

What do you mean?

 

Bill

It’s so beige and soothing.

 

Kate

So what’s wrong with that?

 

Bill

I don’t know. You think there’d be posters or art or something that was … I don’t know … defiant.

 

Kate

What?

 

Bill

You know like a big Sgt. Rock kind of mural with his hands around some cancer cell’s throat. (Bill changes his voice) I’ll kill you, you bastard. (Bill’s voice goes back to normal) You know, something that reeks of commitment and victory … not the good try.

 

Kate

Shut up! They’ll hear you. They’ll think you’re as crazy as you are.

 

Bill

Now, that’s not very nice.

 

Kate

You’re being insane.

 

Bill

I’m just talking… waiting until Dr. Wonderful gets here.

 

Kate

You don’t like him?

 

Bill

He’s fine. I’m just being a jerk.

 

Kate

Good, because he just might save your live.

 

Bill

If he doesn’t and I die, I want you to throw yourself on my casket at the funeral and make a scene. You know, wail about how young I was. .

 

Kate

You’re not that young.

 

Bill

If you don’t I’ll haunt you.

 

Kate

You haunt me already.

 

Bill

Good one.

 

Kate

Just shut up or I’ll cry.

 

ON the mend

Guys:
On the mend. Trying to get to the doc today. Staying home and sucking thumb.

A little PTSD

Guys:
It is my belief that we, patients, survivors and caregivers are the biggest bunch of hypochondriacs around. With that said. I’m better today, so I’m probably not relapsing. PTSD -- what are you gonna do?

Bad day

Hey all:

Had a terrible day that was way too reminiscent of the start of my cancer journey almost three years ago. Woke up this morning with terrible diarrhea and vomiting. That’s exactly the way it started. I had a 100+ temp all day and it finally broke just now.  I am hoping it was some bad bacon or stomach flu. God please be that!! I’m tired and my wife has done a great job taking care of me. My plan is to closely watch it and if it doesn’t get better in a couple o days. I’ll go see my GP.

I guess that’s it,

Bill

LLS and Life

Hey Guys:

Got a lot going on!
I assumed my duties as chairman for the Mission Services Committee of the Delaware Chapter of the Leukemia Lymphoma society and we’ve had our second meeting. Currently writing a plan for the committee. At least an outline anyway.

Kind of got the blues about work. I’m just angsty and and don’t feel like I’m making much ground. I’m doing well, but I find it hard to keep my sarcasm in check (impossible is more like it). Anyway, I sometimes joke too much and I think it is getting the way. Who knows.

I applied for a job at DOE We’ll see. My batting average for interviews sucks these days. Who knows?

My play is coming along.

Been very. very fatigued as of late. I don’t know what is causing that. It’s taking forever to recover from exercise these days. Way more than one would think.

I guess that’s it.

Peace,

Bill

Poems and notes

I got the most beautiful powerful poems and notes from cancer people and nurses the past few days. It’s intimidating as hell. Wow. I hope I do it all justice.

Bill

play excerpt

(c) 2014 William J. Potter

Kate sits. She reaches into her bag and pulls out a pair of drumsticks and begins walking around slowly tapping on things. She will eventually have to move her chair to the middle and front of the stage. She sits

Kate
I just came up from the Operating area. It’s not a room. No not a room. It’s a vast cavernous concourse. It’s down on the first floor – maybe the basement it is hard to tell. There are no windows. It’s not like TV. You know what it’s like? It’s like I imagine an air traffic control tower would look like. There’s a bed in numbered spots and huge monitors telling you where each patient’s bed is and what room the actual operation is happening. It’s all very efficient. There’s people in hospital scrubs walking around with clipboards and computers and the monitors constantly roll names from bed spot to Operating Rooms. It’s all so ...

Kate gets up and wanders about tapping again.

Efficient – that’s a good word. It’s all so efficient as they move each unit of love from one room to another, slice them open and install something, or remove something. Efficient. I guess I’m glad for that. But... That’s what they are you know, each patient, a unit of love. At least to us. Downstairs they’re tasks; they’re the next one. They’re the one before lunch, the thing after coffee, or the last one for the day. They roll them in and roll them out, while families wait in one room with coffee, waiting to be pulled into a small private room when a doctor, you may or may not have met before, tells you if your unit of love is okay, sicker then you thought, or dead.
Bill gave me these drumsticks. I don’t play. He gave then to me so I could tap on things when I was in grad school. Stress release. I use them more now than ever. You know, he thinks I’m beautiful. He really does. He’s funny like that.

Kate starts making her way back to her chair

There’s one drug they’re giving him – Methotrexate I think it is call – that is so bad they have to give him an antidote when it’s done. Can you imagine? I think the toughest thing though is the new language. There is so much to learn and everyday there is something new.

I’m not even sure where to start,

It’s too much. Sometimes. All the time. It’s too much. When I leave here most nights I go home, feed the dogs, call Bill’s sister, and cry. I cry a lot. I don’t tell him. He’d feel bad. But I do, cry that is.
She taps the drumsticks on the bed.

I went to the vet. My stupid dog needed something or other and the vet tech was being impossible. We’ve been going there for years and she was giving me a hard time about – who knows? And I lost it. I just started crying and wailing. Right in the middle of waiting room. It was so bad one of the Malamute’s started howling and a beagle started baying. A vet came out and I told her everything. She hugged me and told me her husband had lymphoma several years ago. He lived. We went into one of the examining rooms and cried together. It’s something.

I’m lost when I come here. I have to work. Bill pushed me because he was afraid that I might need a job if he dies. I can’t make him see that if he dies, I’d rather have spent time with him and not being a librarian in some stupid library nobody goes to. He insisted. Anyway, when I get here they’ve usually started some new drug and I still haven’t figured out what the last one was.

Ever really have that discussion? The one about dying. It’s hard. So hard. It’s what being married is really all about. It is the most intimate of intimate topics. Sex, love – nothing is bigger or more personal than the discussion of what happens when a lover dies. I think hear something. 

Wasssup

Quite a bit to do today.

Got some rewriting to do. Got some recumbent biking to do. Got some thumb sucking to do. Got some napping. Gt some listen to Emerson Lake and Palmer.

BIll

Working on big vets issues. Here is a great story.

http://www.wboc.com/story/24666676/del-vet-unemployment-numbers-improving

Good Morning

Well ---- Things are going pretty well so far today. since it’s 0600 things look good. sitting here with my coffee and trying to figure out the universe.  Oh well. I am reading "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. Never read it before, but probably should have. I love the “Secret Sharer” so we’ll see. As I may have mentioned I’m the new chairman DE LLS patient services committee, but they also submitted my name to be a patient  advocate with the FDA drug approval folks. So we’ll see what happens and what that means.
Buzz -- pictured below -- has become my best bud - animal-wise anyway. He has become so attached to me it is quite remarkable. He’s lost a bunch of weight too. My hero.
I am busy working on some writing stuff and trying to get my girth a bit less girthier. The only problem with getting fat isn’t the health stuff, but it makes my scar hurt. Yikes. That’s it for now I guess. Peace out.
 

24 January update.

Yeehaw!! what  great start. Been work on making my heiney a bit smaller. I’ve worked out every day this week (counting snow shoveling) Two session ion the recumbent bike, a big afternoon walking the stairs at DOL on Friday. I did exercise at each landing. It was crazy. Lots of planks, pushups, and lunges. 30 minutes -- wore me out.
I’ve been behind the power curve this week as I’ve been fiddling with a Samsung Galaxy Note 8. I was going to buy an I-pad, but I bought the Note 8 based on price. Well we’ll see.

Peace bill

Gaol Update

Well started working on my goals today and did 30 minutes on the recumbent bike.

NO kidding goals

They say -- whomever they are -- that you should announce your goals that way social pressure will force you to work toward them. Here goes. I will lose 15 pounds no later than May 30, 2014. I will finish my play no later than 1 March 2014. I will be in the best shape of my life no later than 30 Sep 2014. I will enjoy several hundred cookies no later than 29 Sep 2014 (might as well put a goal in I will actually achieve).

Damn cough keeps hanging around

Feeling pretty dang good. cough hangs around a tad. Otherwise okay, Not a heck of a lot to report at this end.

Just plugging along. Walked the stairs in our yesterday for the first time in more that a month. Calves hurt. I’ve been on a Western novel binge lately. I read the last of the theRobert B. Parker Appaloosa series last night. There were four in all and then he died -- probably from boredom; he wrote the Jess Stone series too. Yech!

I keep staring at this giant book about the crusades I keep meaning to start, but I can’t get around to it. It’s too daunting right now. Still whacking away at work. blah, blah, blah.

I wish I had something more interesting to say today.

I was thinking about putting my 75 cancer tips on you tube. We’ll see.

BTW this month marks two year returning to work Part-time anyway.

Peace to all,

Bill

No new job, but bronchitis is better

Good morning all:

Well it looks I’m gonna survive my first post-chemo real illness. I’ll tell ya, it felt the jury was out for a bit, but I’m just being overly dramatic. Felt incredibly lousy since December 23^rd. Turns out I had a cold that morphed into bronchitis. I was sure kid crud was gonna get me; I made it. Still got a stuffy nose, but that I can handle.

Got the official word that I did not get the job in Oregon. I expected as much. It was as if I had job interviewed induced Tourette’s Syndrome; shit just came out of my mouth and it was like an out-body experience. I can’t explain it. Who knows? It’s like I just said words with no rhyme or reason to their meaning. All-in-all quite embarrassing – especially for a workforce professional.

Probably for the best though it took a lot of courage to even take a shot at a move like that. Still don’t know if I wanted the job, I just hate losing (and losing my mind).

I guess that’s it. Hope springs eternal.

Love to all,

Bill