Modern Medicine is a Miracle.

If this is what malignant brain cancer is like, modern medicine is a miracle. I've come a long way since the day of the wreck and I know it.

Stan, Tom and families, I hope you guys are having as much success with yours as I am having with mine. Just keep hangin in there and doing exactly as the doc says and if he's anything like my guys in radiation and oncology, you'll get the best advice and treatment in the world.

Joey comes by every day and we go through this ritual before radiation. We do lunch at any number of places to make sure my stomach is full and I don't do any nausea stuff during radiation. So far we're batting 1,000.

Lately, since I've gotten my support drugs adjusted to near perfection, we try to get in an errand right after lunch but before radiation. Yesterday we dropped by Sears and bought a (3 gallon tank) air compressor to fill up the air reservoir in the motorhome and aid in the installation of the new compressor that supplies air for the air ride suspension.

We also dropped by the Onan generator store to buy two spark plugs, a set of points and a condenser for the 6.5 KW gen set that's onboard the bus. If we lose electricity and the temperature is hot outside, I'd be ruined. There's a sign on the excel spread sheet that says: "If temperature is 100.4 degrees go to the emergency room".

No air conditioner is a hospital trip for me on a hot day. Glad summer is gone, glad Tim and Kristin's house has a good unit that stays at 73 degrees. Was almost too cold in the beginning.

In any event, Joey keeps twistin wrenches on the motorhome and I keep buyin' lunch. Oddly enough, I've gained weight on my doctor's "bulk up diet" but Joey is losing. Poor thing lost 7 pounds in two days. It's been hot and he's been sweatin' like a pig in a cement parkin' lot. He's leaving for a 3 1/2 week long work trip to New Mexico in a few weeks but Leland and Elaine are sittin on standby and Kristin is coming to Shreveport so I'm not freaking about that.

In addition to that, Steve Dupuy lives 4 blocks down Pennsylvania and two blocks down Finley so he's real, real close. Stanley has been by. Colquitt came over as have a number of other friends who I rely on to fill in the gaps should I need some extra help. In laws live near by, too.

Tanya is Kristin's cousin. So is Shelia.

Ben, Tanya's husband, is Tim Jr's buddy from high school and the guy we lovingly refer to as "Tim's cousin in law". All I have to do is send Tanya an email and anything I need is attended to. Jim B. and Sondra, another cousin, live in a riverside condo on Clyde Fant Parkway which is real close to Pennsylvania Avenue. I haven't had to lean on them for anything but have Jim B's phone number in my wallet and all I have to do is call if I can't get in touch with anybody else.

So far I've been fortunate with Joey leading the support group and I haven't had to do anything on an emergency basis so all of these connections are working like a charm. Kristin is getting close to having everything organized in Virginia and she's comin' back pretty soon. Not sure which date but I think two weeks will find her here. With all due respect to Tim Jr, Kristin isn't nick named the "XO" for nothing, if you know what I mean. She's one organized woman.

I'm at T minus 8 treatments at radiation. Unless I get some really bad news out of MRI or Cat Scan, Friday week marks my last day of radiation and I'm done. The following Monday I start a double dosage increase in chemo and begin a 5 day on chemo and then a 25 day off chemo regimen. Doc says don't freak about the double dose as he predicts, that with the elimination of radiation, I'll be able to handle it.

All in all, I'm looking at a completely different world starting sometime around the 23rd. Complete freedom isn't going to happen but it appears that between now and February, 75% freedom is.

Already talked to Jay and Woody about that and they're tickled to get the old man back in the saddle to advise about the kinds of things that I've spent a lifetime doing. Best employers on the planet, good friends and totally dedicated supporters who have stood by me long before the wreck ever occurred and continue to stand by me like family.

Couldn't have made this the comfortable and financially secure trip it has been without them. Even with the VA benefits I've had, it's cost me a ton of money. I spent over 20 grand of my own cash the first six weeks of this episode.

Even Vic, Chance, Justin and Mark from Texas, my former employers, have helped out. Must have done something right to have so many people stand up to the plate and go that far above and beyond the call of duty. Thanks for all that, ya'll have really been life savers.

It takes roughly two months to overcome the head trauma from brain surgery. It takes a few weeks to get the support drugs adjusted to a point where you don't have to take the pain pills for the head aches that come from the swelling in the brain. That in turn, allows you to stop taking the sleeping pills.

When you get all that done, something that goes beyond the two month time frame to overcome the trauma from the brain surgery, you actually start feeling like a human again and begin to have visions of normalcy.

It actually allows you to start having conversations that go way beyond: "How many times have you been sick today or how many times have you fallen?".

Intellectually, I've been taking part in a political awareness thing that provides all kinds of statistical information about the policies we've had since the end of the second world war.

There's been so much "emotion" recently, emotions that make it very difficult to see things from a reality based position, that getting out of thoughts from the heart and moving over to realities that come from statistics, has been great.

Thanks to Bill Sheehan for the help / guidance he's provided in "letting go some of the emotions from the past and start thinking with your head instead of your heart".

It's been very enlightening especially as it relates to being able to read the dates and the individuals who were responsible for getting various pieces of legislation passed in Congress. Once you do that and you actually view the times, dates and building blocks that find us where we are today, it's pretty easy to see the "why" we are where we are instead of thinking "how in the hell did all this happen"?

There's nothing like getting the facts before you have a conversation with somebody who just likes the way something looks instead of how it works.

All in all, I can say that despite the worst of times I've had since the wreck on Father's Day, the resulting emergecy brain surgery, all the pain from that, the brief but somewhat horrible periods of nausea from the chemo and the fatigue from the radiation, I feel good physically, emotionally and financially. That's a pretty good result if you ask me.

I only need to round up the numbers that start when my 5 day on and 25 day off chemo period starts. When that happens, Daddy gonna be o tay!

Enjoy your day!

Sr.