In March 2010, I was diagnosed with Stage IIIB Liver Cancer and given six months to live…

Hi everyone, just to let you know that I'm gone this afternoon, Mmmkay! Hunt - July 6, 2011 @ 2:55 p.m.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

#28 No Worries? My Brooklyn Behind!

The last week has been good in many ways. On Tuesday I got to spend time with Mumsy, which I hadn’t done in a while, and it was real nice. The only drawback was that we were at the VA clinic in SF, hurrying up and waiting, and waiting some more, but everything turned out OK.

The first appt. was with Radiology because it felt like the docs had left a part of a tube from the port I used to have in my neck! Turns out it was just some scar tissue that had developed around a bend in the tube. No metal, no plastic...still if I run my fingers across it I can feel it.
The second appt. was with Hepatology, a very long wait, and no new news. But just sitting around and waiting gave my mom and I some good time. We both have a lot of stuff on our plates right now and just hanging out together seems to have a positive effect on our attitudes. 

Passover is this coming week and Ha and I are hosting a very low key Seder on Saturday, (I know, a few days early) with mom, Marvin, and us. Mom will bring the main meat dish, and I’ll do the sides and apps. Dessert? Who knows?

On the home front just about everything is good. Ha and I are a little bit up in the air about her job. A couple of weeks ago, the city powers that be decided they had to cut 40% off labor costs across the board. So it’s not just her department, everyone is affected. They will make the cuts known at the beginning of May. Needles and pins, but she is not taking this sitting down, she’s worked too hard not to insure that her future is secure. So there!

I would have to say one of the best things that happened this week is Lisa, our social worker, wangled and finagled a very nice portable air-conditioner for us. Ever since the chemo treatments the Sun and any room over seventy degrees makes me ill, like my skin is burning, I run a fever and have zero energy. I was dreading the Summer so Kudos Lisa!! The way we’re going to be reimbursed is with a $350.00 Safeway gift card. That’s a good thing because ever since Safeway started in with their O organics line we’ve shopped there quite a bit. So, it will be used. We usually stop there on Saturday, acupuncture, then lunch, then shopping. My acupuncturist is in Oakland, so we can start with Whole Foods, then Tokyo Fish Market, Trader Joe’s and/or Safeway, then home.

Whole Foods Oakland had a little surprise for me this last time. Every time we go there we usually hear “No worries” three or four times as an answer to something that no one in their right mind would worry about. And besides “no worries” is an implied cop-out. But whatever (that’s my word...WHATever) this time it’s besides the point, except for the fact that the “no worries” people are usually strung taught like a new violin and ready to pop unwound at the drop of any real worry.

So, at the Whole Foods Oakland I got a chance to get in touch with my inner Brooklyn. We’re done shopping and headed for the ten items or less cashier when this tall, blonde, wiry, looking, maybe twenty-eight or so guy carrying a rotisserie chicken and looking the in the opposite direction in which he is walking steps out in front of our cart. I was about a foot away so I did this sound that my wife and I use when we can’t find each other in a store, and we also use it with our cats if they are being bad boys. It’s kind of a snaky noise that sounds like IT’S without the I first. So this unaware, no worries looking kind of guy got a loud double TS, TS. He looks down at me and as smug as only someone from England can sound asks, “Is that how you communicate man?” I said “ Yeah it is.” And tried to keep going, then louder and chest puffier he mistakenly tells me, “You need to learn some manners.” So I motion to him with curling the four fingers on my outstretched right hand to come here and I say, “Why don’t you teach me some.” At that point he just smirks and turns to walk away...so I let him. It felt good. My wife wasn’t thrilled but she could see how much I liked it. What a woman, huh? Albeit, that situation never would have culminated in such a manner in Bensonhurst, but Whole Foods Oakland; No worries!

The rest of the week was all right. The pain is still a problem especially when I eat even a few ounces too much food. I’ve really slowed down and have been trying to eat slowly and realize when I’m just full and stop there. It doesn’t take a lot and I can spread my meals over the entire day.
 
This coming Tuesday I have an appointment with a cardiologist at the VA and Cousin Craig is driving. It will be fun.

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