Update

Hope Eternal

/ cigarman501 / 11 Comments

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
― Tom Bodett

Just a few days ago I was mired in depression. I was exhausted from lack of sleep, felt I was being assailed from all sides while trying to minister to my bride, Linda. There was a leak in the upstairs bathroom, home therapies and doctor’s appointments galore. And, AND…she wanted me to apply fingernail polish to her nails. Oh, the pressure. I was having a real pity party.

My wife had some issues, setbacks in her recovery from a stroke and chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. I was just a step away from despondency when “BAM!”, said by the John Madden voice in my head, hope reared its beautiful head. We are still on the defensive end of our field, but we are moving the ball forward.

Her stroke has caused changes in personality along with vision and balance issues. There is a slight weakness in her right side, but her balance issues are as much a vision issue as it is a weakness issue. I mean, with my steadying influence, she gets around okay…maybe too okay.

One personality trait, aside for her needing purple fingernail polish applied, that has not changed is her bull headedness. She is and always has been a type A personality. Linda is going to do what Linda wants to do when she wants to do it. She has always been the poster child for self-reliance.

She is not to get up and move around without assistance. Right? Wrong. How many times must I ask you not to get up without help? Bull-headed self-reliance.

“Now baby, I’m going to the bathroom. Stay where you are until I get back.”

She nods her head and smiles sweetly while saying, “I won’t move” but has rearranged the furniture before I can get back from a thirty second piss. The rearrangement is due to her falling onto the couch sending the puppies in two different directions. Thankfully, it was on the couch.

I sleep on the same couch next to the recliner she sleeps in. “Don’t you have a bed?” Why yes, we do and a bedroom that houses it. We have found it is too far from the bathroom. The bedroom with a close by bathroom is up fifteen steps which are not navigable currently. I sleep on the couch so I can assist should she need to get up…if she takes the time to wake me up.

Two nights ago, I awoke to find she had taken herself to the bathroom, cleaned up, changed her clothes and was standing in the kitchen making toast and jelly. Bad news, it was three in the morning, the witching hour. Good news, there were no new bruises because she hadn’t fallen. Remember, I said I was exhausted from lack of sleep and as good a reason as I can produce for not waking up on my own. The puppies were no help either. I must believe her guardian witch was looking out for her.

Part of me, the logical side, was mortified.  The hopeful side was celebrating.

I reminded myself, there was a time when I mentioned how bad the brakes were on her ’73 VW Bug. She commented, casually, “I don’t need them, I have a horn.” That is not a lie. “Damn the torpedoes, Linda is on her way.”

On a safer note, this morning as we returned from the bathroom, Linda stopped, bent from the waist, and without bending her knees, picked up a dime I had missed when sweeping the floor. I’d say her vision and balance have improved. My cleaning skills have not.

Life is full of mysteries and mine is full of little hopes to hang my hat on. Her vision has holes in it that will never improve, but she is learning to navigate around them. Her balance is better, and she is physically strong. The best is that she is hopeful, and her hope sustains me.

Don Miller writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?fbclid=IwAR3vLExkIeP5kMTh-isZEUoByY0dey7OFK_G1WGQZF5QokB_dWBC5Wihzcc&ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Check back, he will be releasing a new book, “Food for Thought”, soon.

“Plumb Tuckered Out”

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“Rest is not a luxury; it is a necessity. Take the time off to replenish your energy and recharge your soul.
In the midst of life’s chaos, find solace in the stillness of rest that is where true rejuvenation resides.”
― Dr. Lucas D. Shallua

I am at the point where I must recharge and to do that I’m stepping away from my blog until the beginning of the new year…maybe.

To quote my grandfather after an eight-hour shift in the cotton mill followed by four or more hours behind a plow, “I’m plumb tuckered out.” To quote Jimmy Buffett, (I’m) “down to rock bottom again” although I don’t think he meant it the way I do in his song “A Pirate Looks at Forty.”

The tank that contained what little creative appeal or energy I might have had is making sucking sounds. Overall, my energy tank is making sucking sounds, too.

Thanksgiving is behind me, and Christmas is ahead. My holiday spirit is as elusive as one of our coastal “haints.” My “git up and go has got up and went.”

I am normally affected by SAD, seasonal affective disorder, but this year it is as oppressive as I have ever felt it…but then this year I actually have reasons to be depressed.

I’m tired but I don’t want to whine too much. I don’t get enough sleep or rest, but my bride has been fighting a deadly disease and my frustrations seem to be quite selfish at best. Also, she has, to this point, fought the cancer to a standstill. There is reason for Thanksgiving, but I can’t seem to smile.

Chemo treatment number six comes this next week followed by a PET scan at some juncture afterwards. The PET scan will tell the tale. I will withhold my smile until after the final diagnosis. I am hopeful it will show full remission.

So…to everyone who takes the time to read my ramblings, I hope your Thanksgiving was truly thankful and that all your holiday wishes come true. I’ll touch base again in the New Year. Hopefully I will have good news to share and a revitalized spirit to go with them.

An early Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all.

Don Miller’s authors page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Of Dung Beetles and Other Seriousness

/ cigarman501 / 9 Comments

“Quit complaining about life’s burdens, a dung beetle carries up 1000 times its own body weight.”
― Anoir Ou-Chad

The things you think about while embraced by the silence….

She has finally gone to sleep…sitting in her infusion chair. Neither of us sleep well the night before her infusions. Her infusion chair looks comfortable, my chair is anything but. No nap for me. There are many of us sitting in uncomfortable chairs supporting friends and family, all hooked up to infusions of “hope.” All of us are uncomfortable in our chairs and our thoughts.

This is Linda’s chemo treatment number three of six. I understand why she has a difficult night but wonder why I’m having a sympathetic reaction. I will usually sleep through almost anything. All night I dealt with intrusive dreams. Minor dealings compared to hers but major to me.

I sit with her as she gets her five hours of liquid “hope”. She picks a room with a view instead of a room with a TV. I sit with my back to the wide windows watching her watch the wind move tree limbs until she falls asleep. Linda can’t tolerate the chatter of TV or radio for some reason, and I am having a problem dealing with the silence.

I do have a computer to provide a bit of noise over my pods and just watched a YouTube video of a dung beetle hard at work. It was an accident. I didn’t just Google or YouTube “Dung Beetle” but once I saw the preview I was hooked and watched several videos. They are hypnotic.

The video was of a dung beetle hard at work. What kind of work does a dung beetle do? They roll small balls of poop into large balls of poop and then feed off them or use them as a breeding chamber. Breeding chamber? Barry White croons in a deep baritone, “I can’t get enough of your love baby.” I think in a high screech, “Hey baby, want to come check out my big ole ball of poop?”

There must be some kind of lesson here, I’m just too groggy to figure out what it might be. “A water buffalo’s poop is a dung beetles cabana?” That wasn’t even funny in my head, I don’t know why I decided to go ahead and add it.

Amazing fact. There are three types of dung beetles, mine is called a “roller” for obvious reasons. “Rollers” can roll up over 250 times their mass in one night and bury it to be feasted upon later. Amazingly, all this demanding work is done with their rear legs while standing on their head. I wonder if female dung beetles are impressed by the size of their paramour’s balls? Of poop. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Obviously, watching videos about dung beetles is not about dung beetles. It’s about not thinking about my sleeping bride who is battling cancer. I clutch every time I think or say the word. It is as if I don’t say it, it might not be true. But then, I see her softened face as she sleeps through her infusion, liquid hope running into her veins.

I wonder what kind of devils run through her mind. I’m sure she has her intrusive thoughts. When we talk, our focus tends to be more about the “hope.” The blood panels have come back good. Cancer antigens have gone down after every infusion but in the back of my mind I worry that the cosmic Big Guy is going to snatch the rug out from under us.

Dung beetles don’t seem to worry. They are perfectly happy to roll up poop balls all day long. I don’t want to trade my life for that of a dung beetle but there is something to be said about a lack of worry.

Historical

Ancient Egyptians held dung beetles in high regard. The “sacred scarab” was in fact a dung beetle.

Update

As I said before, we are halfway, completing chemo treatment number three. She is wired on the steroids that are included in chemo and I can’t help but wonder when the energizer bunny will wind down. She slept not a wink last night and I feel guilty that I did.

Her cancer antigens have continued to drop but her side effects have continued to escalate. There is a tradeoff there, I’m sure. Despite the pain she is optimistic.

Again, thanks for your prayers and comments of encouragement.

Don Miller doesn’t just write about dung beetles. He has published several books, fiction, and nonfiction. They can be purchased or downloaded at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

With a Little Bit of Love and Luck

/ cigarman501 / 11 Comments

“Everybody needs a little good luck charm
A little gris-gris keeps you safe from harm
Rub yours on me and I’ll rub mine on you
Luckiest couple on the avenue” Jimmy Buffett, Love and Luck

I’m trying not to focus on bad luck. I’m waiting on Linda to ready herself for an unexpected trip to the hospital for an ultrasound. Her foot and leg are swollen and while swelling can be a byproduct of chemotherapy, the oncologist is sending us just in case. Don’t need a nasty blood clot…sometimes you get what you don’t need.

It would be easy to wallow in self-pity and rue the hand Linda and I have been dealt. It is hard to go with the flow when you worry the flow might be circling the toilet. As I question the direction of my flow a lyric from a Jimmy Buffett tune plays from my earbuds, “Mysteries, don’t ever try to solve them. We’re just players in this game and no one’s keepin’ score.“

Life is mysterious and not only is no one keeping score, no one knows the rules of the game.

Buffett left for “one particular harbor” Friday, luckily his music is still around to provide soothing anodynes when needed. He wasn’t the best singer or guitar player but there always seemed to be a message that rang loudly…even if it was a party tune. When not singing sea stories, or party songs, he shared his poetic philosophy set to his music. I felt profoundly uplifted when Love and Luck came up on my play list and it has been playing in my head for the last few days.

The first time that I heard of Buffett was from the juke box in a “ne’er-do-well”, hole in the wall bar in the mid-Seventies. It was a perfect Buffett venue. Low lights, a small bandstand, and the smell of beer and cigarettes…maybe “funny” cigarettes hung in the air. We were loud, at best tipsy, and laughed at Let’s Get Drunk and Screw.

Still, he didn’t speak to me until I was walking past a now closed record store in a now closed shopping mall. I had no intention of purchasing an album but after standing and listening to A Woman Gone Crazy on Caroline Street followed by My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, and I Don’t Love Jesus being piped through the speakers, I was hooked and walked out with the album Havana Daydreaming. Several more albums followed.

“Better days are in the cards I feel, I feel it in the changing winds, I feel it when I fly. So, talk to me, I’ll listen to your story, I’ve been around enough to know there’s more than meets the eye.”

Linda has had a hard week and I’m trying to believe there will be better days. I really am. I’m trying to believe we’ll get to act like the crazy teenagers we never got to be once we get this craziness under control. Even if it is just in our heads. Boat Drinks and Gumbo in New Orleans again…but my knees won’t let me chase the street cars or fast dance to Freeway of Love. Walks along Fort Walton Beach…any beach. Any little seacoast town will do, the seedier the better.

So many sweet memories embrace me…am I retreating into the past too much with the ghost of Buffett riding as my navigator? We’ve had a good life. Am I wrong to want more?

“So have your fun, go ahead and tell your story. Find yourself a lover who will glue you to the floor.”

Life is a mystery and the near future even more so. There must be time for a story or two and a little bit of fun, a little bit of luck, a little bit of love.

I’ve found my lover but at my age, I’m not sure I could get up off the floor, glued or not.

Update

Monday’s ultrasound found a “nonoccluded” blood clot. Nonoccluded means that it is not obstructing blood flow but is still concerning. Linda received a shot of anticoagulant and we both received instructions on how to give the shot which must be administered daily, in the stomach, for a yet to be determined period. So far, I have administered two of them.

Tuesday, we had a surgical biopsy that we probably won’t know the outcome of until Wednesday.

Another battery of labs is scheduled for Thursday. We began the week with only the biopsy scheduled but that fell apart quickly.

Next week we have our second round of chemo.

My bride is still in good spirits through it all…well most of the time. I must remind myself that my fear is only surpassed by hers and sometimes frustrations get the best of us both. I’ll do my best to remember:

“With a little love and luck, you will get by
With a little love and luck, we’ll take the sky
In this megalo-modern world, you’ve got to try
Try a little love and luck and you’ll get by”

This post was written before the news of Jimmy Buffett’s passing on Friday September 1. It had to undergo some verb changes. I feel I have lost an old and dear friend. Jimmy has accompanied me on many long runs and walks, on trips, during backyard cookouts, and a party or five. His “drunken Caribbean rock and roll” coming to me through earbuds or speakers. So glad I got to see him in concert. His spirit and philosophy will continue to live on. “But there’s one particular harbor/ So far yet so near/ Where I see the days as they fade away/ And finally disappear.”

Image of Buffett from the New York Post September 14, 2018. https://nypost.com/2018/09/14/jimmy-buffett-went-surfing-just-before-hurricane-florence/

Love and Luck by Jimmy Buffett
Track eleven on Boats Beaches Bars & Ballads produced by Michael Utley & Russ Kunkel

Don Miller writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Walk of Life

/ cigarman501 / 7 Comments

“If you seek creative ideas go walking.
Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” ― Raymond I. OD Myers

I am sitting here, coffee in hand, waiting for the angels to whisper and watching the glow of the impending dawn.  I am up for no reason other than I woke up, but my creativity is still asleep.  My alarm is set for 6:00 but it never goes off. It is set because there are medications to be dispensed but I wake up ahead of it.

Every day at 5:00 plus or minus fifteen minutes I meet the day.  “Bright eyed and bushy tailed” or as a coaching friend used to yell to his charges “Another day in which to excel.” The puppies, now awake, look up at me as if to say, “Another day, already? Can you at least feed us?”

During better days, I would be off and running or walking in the dark, my headlamp bouncing and holding back the monsters I might encounter along the road. My own form of “the walk of life.” I was creative during those runs. I don’t know if it was angels whispering or trying to think about anything other than the hill I was about to climb.

My bride, Linda Gail, and I greet the day differently.  I am up and ready to go. “Hit the decks a runnin’ boys and turn those barrels around.” (From an old Johnny Horton tune) She on the other hand is “sorta” awake and pissed off about it.  Linda Gail likes to ease into the day…over an extended period.  “Bring me my coffee and then shut up!  Do not talk to me!”  Thirty minutes later I check on her…with another cup of coffee to replace the one now cold on her bed side table.  Thirty minutes later, she is ready to talk about everything she has been thinking about the last hour. 

When we retired, I decided to use her “ease into the daytime” time as my exercise time.  As you might surmise, I am ready to go to bed about the time Linda Gail is hitting her second wind and fighting sleep like the child that she is.  Sometimes I don’t understand how we have survived each other.

I once used my running and walking to declutter and silence the voices in my head. I also used it for creativity, going over plots in my head or waiting for divine enlightenment from my angels of creativity…until Linda Gail got involved. The way we meet the day really wasn’t as big an issue when we both worked…well it was when we decided to do our exercise walk…together…before we went to work…in the dark…while she was pissed off.    

At first it was due to her fear. I had a heart attack and for six months she was fearful about letting me walk and run alone. During the summer it was not a problem but when the school year began our schedules had to change. I would ease out of bed at four-thirty. I would then wake Linda at five-thirty, bring her coffee and a banana and take off for a thirty-minute run with a plan to meet her for a thirty-minute walk at six. A shower at 6:30 and plenty of time to get to school by 8:00.

That was the plan…which, like well-made plans sometimes do, went asunder.  Usually, I would continue to walk or jog back and forth over the short Airline Road until she showed up…fifteen to thirty minutes late, coffee in hand…and I did not dare make a comment.  The one time I commented did not go well.  On those mornings she showed up early I knew I better be quiet and just walk.  It didn’t matter, any day I should just be quiet and walk until she began to initiate the conversation.  “Why are we whispering?  Are we afraid we might wake up the bears?”

Linda Gail and I didn’t exactly walk for the same reasons.  She walked totally for her head to battle depression…with a cup of coffee in her hand and with frequent stops to point out plants, animals, or reptiles.  In other words, a stroll to “elevate her mind.”  I did it for my head too, but I also walked for exercise.

We haven’t been walking together lately…despite being “yoked” together for thirty-seven years. The brutality of life has intervened along with the brutal heat; our walks have slowed almost to a stop. We finally ventured out to the path around the lake at Look Up Lodge.  A nice slow, reasonably flat stroll on one side of the lake.  A short walk to build up her strength. It proved what I knew, “I have missed our walks.”  I have also missed our talks although I did ask if I had her permission to chatter…old habits, I guess.  Comfortable old habits.

Update on our Walk of Life

Linda is much stronger but battling her neuropathy and foot and leg swelling that sometimes accompanies chemotherapy. We saw a cancer surgeon who muddied the waters a bit. He feels she has been misdiagnosed as to the type of cancer and has scheduled a new and different type of biopsy next week before her next chemo treatment the following week. I’m unsure as to what this means if anything. The plan is the same, continue the “walk of life” as long as possible and as long as it is a quality walk. To all who sent their support and cards of encouragement, thank you. They mean a lot.  

Obviously, this has nothing to do with Dire Strait’s “Walk of Life” but why should I let that bother me? Thank you, YouTube. Besides, I’m not even sure what Dire Strait’s song is about. Enjoy.

Some neat 80’s sports bloopers as a bonus.

Don writes at https://www.amazon.com/stores/Don-Miller/author/B018IT38GM?ref=ap_rdr&store_ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true

Update: The Luck of the Draw

/ cigarman501 / 20 Comments

“Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, ’cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.”
― Jim Beaver, Life’s That Way

Three and a half weeks ago we failed to draw two to an inside straight. An update on Linda Porter-Miller.

The oncologist confirmed that the biopsy verified our worst fears. Rather than let us sit in stunned silence the doctor prattled along telling us that it was his belief that we could get Linda’s disease into remission. There would be chemo, but surgery might not be in our future because of the way the disease has progressed.

Linda, my better half for nearly forty years, refuses to use the word that describes the disease, but oncologist and chemo are give aways to what we are facing. The disease has focused on her female parts, south of the border, and I will leave it there.

Those who played for or coached against Coach Porter-Miller know what a competitive little girl she is and will have no doubt in the belief of Jim Beaver’s quote, “And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, ’cause it’s gonna have a long day doing it.”

Everyone who knows her knows too, she is a complicated individual who is not satisfied to battle just one disease. The Monday before we were to have a PET scan and begin chemotherapy, she decided to have a TAI stroke. Two days in the hospital and a battery of tests proved she had had more than one and we went into battling a two-front war, putting off the chemo for a week.

In typical Miss PE fashion, (Miss PE is what her elementary students called her) she has decided it was the best thing that could have happened. Better to know now than to find out in the middle of a war that your rifle was going to misfire. (I apologize for mixing metaphors from gambling to warfare)

She has recovered from the stroke nicely. She stumbles over the occasional word, especially when texting but still talks ninety miles a minute. She makes as much sense now as she always did.

So, we began chemo two days ago, three by the time this is posted. Linda has done well. The big challenge has been keeping up with and when to take the myriads of drugs we are forced to take or in my case administer. We also found out that Linda can’t tolerate the Claritin she was prescribed to counter bone pain. I am reminded of a college student hopped up on “Black Beauties” cramming for an exam.

She is hyper and restless, unable to sleep. I know this is temporary and she needs to rest. I expect her to go “bust” at any moment and wind down like a child’s toy. She needs to rest. This is the first of six treatments. I expect a hard fight and hope for a long fight.

Friends, family, former players, and coaching peers, Linda doesn’t “do” Facebook but if you want to drop a note, I’ll pass it along or if you want to send a card, our address is Linda Porter-Miller 3300 Highway 11, Travelers Rest, SC, 29690.