Thirty-Five, I think

   Okay, I'm running behind. I don't spend as much time hooked up to machinery getting fluids. I don't have as much time waiting to have radiation or to see the doctor or to have chemotherapy. 

BUT

   If you look at the little picture up there of my lovely face, you might notice some things. One side of my beard, well, sideburns is longer than the other. One side of my mustache is longer than the other. Heck, even half of my Lawrence is pretty much gone.

   I haven't shaved anything off, I haven't trimmed anything back, other than cutting off my braid a couple months ago. 

  I don't know if it's going to be like this the rest of my life or if it will start growing back at some point. I may trim it up a little bit to kinda even things up. 

   My next door neighbor, the one married to the guy who put up a Confederate Battle Flag that had:

 It Ain't Comin Down

 Printed on it saw me yesterday and commented that I looked different.  I said well, I've lost 50 pounds and most of my beard. Chemo and Radiation will do that to you. She didn't know I had cancer. 

   Maybe I should make more of an effort to talk to my neighbors. But see the comment about the Confederate Battle Flag. Yeah, No.

   I did get one bit of disappointing news last week. Besides not winning the lottery. But I guess you have to buy tickets to win.

   I was asked by the Dr. when I was having my PET scan. (The scan they will do to decide whether I am cancer free or not.) I told them I didn't know but I was pretty sure it was going to be before December 11 since that was the day they had scheduled for me to get my results. The nurse says are you sure? 

Well that's what the paper with my appointment printed on it said.

  The nurse goes to look........... and disappointment. I get my results

December 27. So 2 weeks after when I thought I was getting them.

And I go for my PET scan in December 26.

   So I'm planning on having a GREAT Christmas present 2 days late.

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The Lottery

   Today, I'm going to go back to the Random Thoughts that I originally named this blog after.
   Since the biggest topic in the country right now seems to be the Lottery. The Mega Millions to be precise. 1.6 billion. That's 1,600 millions. Or 904.9 million of if ychose the cash value option. The Powerball is 620 with a cash value of 354.3 million. You'd have 212.5 million after taxes. 
    I'm going to cover some things you might not know. If a married person filing jointly wins and they live in a state with no income tax on lottery winnings I'm going to assume they have income so I'm going to assume they already owe some taxes but this is what a one ticket winner choosing the cash value option would owe. 

Social Security 15921.60 ( on the first $128400)
Income tax 161379 (on the first $600000)
Medicare 2624210.00 (2.9% on the whole amount)
Income tax 334591000 (37% of the amount over $600000)
337392510.60 in taxes due

So you'd take home 687724000 and still be looking at having to pay about 120 million more in taxes.
   Now for the random thought part of it. Once when the PowerBall was around 500 million, I was in line at a convenience store and I was getting a drink and somebody said something about the PowerBall and winning the 500 million. I said I'd rather get the cash value option and take home 180 million. They said that's all? If that's all you get, I'm not buying a ticket. And they didn't get one then.
WHAT?
   I personally would be happy with breaking even. I would prefer to win more than I spend, winning more than I spend is better. I wouldn't have to win the jackpot, getting the 5 numbers right without the bonus ball is worth a million dollars. That would be cool. I don't know about you, but 180 million is 180 million I didn't have. And if spending $2 would get it, then I'd buy the ticket. 
    I don't know why people won't buy tickets right after the jackpot resets. Your odds of winning are the same whether it's 40 million or 400 million. 
   When I had a job and some money, I'd buy tickets for every drawing. Always the same numbers, but when the jackpots hit 500 million, I'd buy an extra $10 ticket, 5 sets of numbers. 
    Just thought I'd share that. Buy a ticket, or don't. Good luck either way. 

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19 - 25

   It's been a week. Wow. 7 days. 
   What's been going on. Well, I've been eating. I'm doing better. Really, I am. I'm not sure how much I have to eat a day to start gaining weight. I'm not sure I want to start gaining weight. Holding steady would probably be good enough. In fact it'd probably be great. I've been overweight for years. 
   As a a matter of fact, at my lowest adult weight, the doctor said I was still 15 pounds overweight. I'm still alive, he's been dead for years.

      I finished this keychain in the past week and I finished those hamburgers yesterday. Well sliders, mini- hamburgers. But good stuff.
   I worked on the ramp in front of the house. I put strips of shingles so we don't slip when it's wet. 
   Last night, I saved $209,237,689.50 in taxes by not winning the Mega Millions. So, wow, I guess that's great. Since I didn't win, I guess I'll have to go to my doctors appointment Monday. No, I'd still be going to my doctors appointment on Monday even if I did win. But I guess first you have to buy a ticket. 
  
Anyway, 
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Day 19, I think?

   I'm doing better every day, I think.
   I had a doctor's appointment Wednesday. He doesn't want to see me back for a month. Then another month after that I go get the results of my scan. So December 11 hopefully I'll find out I'm cancer free. That's what I want you Praying for, so get on that, thanks!
   I've discovered one problem, I think. I believe I have a volume control problem. The almost non-existent amounts of food/fluid/nutrition I took in during the week before and 2 weeks after my last chemo treatment evidently my stomach shrank. I can only swallow small amounts at a time. 

   That's just over the amount of food I can swallow at one time. I managed to eat about half of what I had dished up for that meal. Wednesday night I ate a Wendy's cheeseburger. Not the bun, just the burger and it was good. Then I was eating some ice cream. And that was too much. Well the ice cream came back. It didn't hurt, it didn't burn, it just came back. 

   It could have been worse, it could have all come up.

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Why Don't They Leave?

 I saw it on Facebook and Twitter during  and after Florence. Heck, basically after every hurricane since I've had Facebook and Twitter.
   You want to know why they don't leave?
   I can give you a few reasons:
They live paycheck to paycheck and can't afford to go anywhere. If they do leave, they can't afford to go back.
   Their car won't get them out of town, and if it does, it might not make it back.
   They're not worried about the hurricane. Really, the first time I had to deal with an oncoming tropical thing, I looked around. Nobody else seemed worried, the neighbours weren't boarding everything up. The news was talking about the system falling apart before it hit land. I got up and went to work in the morning, we went out and started and about an hour and a half into our day, they called us in. 
   The wind was picking up, and instead of falling apart, Claudette was picking up strength and headed for us. They held us hostage for 2 hours before they sent us home with instructions that we were going to get called back in after the storm went through.
   I get home to find a child having an allergy attack, so now I have to go to the store in ever increasing winds to get some Benadryl. I did get to see a shopping cart that hadn't been corralled go speeding across the HEB parking lot, hit the concrete at the edge of the parking lot, flip into the air and land in the middle of the street. Then I made it home, and we prayed. After the worst of the storm passed, I went outside and got to look up and see the most beautiful blue sky, surrounded by clouds in every direction.
   After Katrina devastated New Orleans 2 years later, another hurricane was brewing and they had projected it to come towards us. How serious were the projections? We got paid early, they said non essential personnel could leave town. 
   We were lucky. We had someone in Arlington, Texas that said, we've got room.
   We packed up the essentials, and headed out. 6 hour drive took us about 8 hours. Traffic was horrendous. (Katrina HAD made some believers)
   We didn't get hit, but it still took us a month to recover from the damage it did to our money. A friend of mine had started north, and made it 30 miles before his car broke down. That's after spending $200+ on a hotel room in San Antonio that he now couldn't get to. 
   Why don't they leave?
   Sometimes, they just can't.

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Twelve, Thirteen

    That was Saturday. Yeah, not much. But a lot more than I've eaten in the past few days (weeks). Macaroni and cheese. Relatively soft, relatively mild. But I managed to get it down and keep it down.
     I tried this for lunch Sunday. I messed up trying to eat the pork chop first. It was a little too spicy and kinds burned my throat.

   I did manage to eat most of the corn and the potatoes. I ate a piece of bacon at church Sunday morning.

   It's little things. But they add up.

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Eleven

   Day Eleven:
It took me about an hour. And  LOT of TINY bites. 
But.
Well. 
A Picture is worth A Thousand Words!

Also, I ate this. 

   Today was the first day of the Reelfoot Arts & Crafts Festival. It's also the first night of Bootfest in Victoria, Texas.

   Yesterday, The DCHS Volleyball team wn their District Tournament!

   

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Ten

   Today I went and got fluids again. With magnesium and potassium added.  I'm trying to get fluids in me, really, I am. But it still hurts to swallow.
   But.
   BUT.
   Yesterday, after I got my fluids, Yvette wanted to get something to eat. She had 2 requests. She didn't want something she could get at home (Dyersburg) and she didn't want burgers.
   So I took her to Outback. 
   She didn't want to go in because she said she would feel guilty eating, when I couldn't. I said surely that have something on the menu I can try. I found something.

   Baked sweet potato and broccoli with cheese. I didn't finish either one, but I did get a few bites in me.
   We did have to reorder the broccoli with cheese. The first one had a sauce (cheese?) That was spicy. That's a nope.
They remade it with the cheese from mac and cheese. That was better.

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Six Seven Eight Nine

 

 Had a doctor's appointment with my radiation oncologist yesterday. That was 8 days past radiation. I was glad I had Yvette with me. 
   The bad. I lost 44 pounds from the time I started treatment.
  The good. Everything else. I had basically maintained my weight from last Monday. The day I had my last radiation. Maybe lost 2 pounds. He said my throat looked great. That it should start healing more within the next couple of weeks.
   That I will start to get more taste back. That it won't hurt as bad to swallow. I really look forward to that. 
   But he wanted me to come over there and get fluids today and tomorrow. Urggh okay. But not 2 liters, just one. I wanted to strangle him. When they access my port, they have to flush it with an anti coagulant.
   If you've ever donated platelets, you know that weird taste you get when they do the first return? The one that makes your gums hurt? Yeah, that taste. That's what it tastes like. 
    I asked the nurse one day, why, I couldn't taste anything else, but I could taste that s#!t. She couldn't explain it. I can taste some things a little bit now. Not much, and not well, but I can taste the grape in the crangrape. It sort of reminds me of communion. 
   Today I went and got a liter of fluids. 
   Where you go into the Kirkland Cancer Center, there is a shop called Inspirations. When I started going there for my treatment, they had a bunch of pink flamingos in the display. When we had to take Brayden with us a couple of times, Brayden would yell that he LIKES PINK FLAMINGOS.
   Yesterday when we went in, the flamingos were gone. I think I've figured out where they went.

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