Cancer Report 04 -- Exercising -- Walking

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"You might want to increase your exercising," the physician said. It was the last thing he said as he left the examining room, a parting shot aimed neatly across my bow. Before I could locate a blunt object with which to belabor him about the head, the door was swinging closed and the glow of adulation was slowly oozing away. "He's sooo nice," she oozed, about the same time I discovered the ophthalmoscope in the top drawer the door was closed, my fate decided as my wife's magic fingers did their curly-whoopty-full-stop-Do, which in short-hand would be translated onto our account of the Visit to The Doctor's Office, every neuance of which was recorded not only by Mr. Gregg's Secret Writing but recorded on a chip the size of my thumbnail, which was good for a year or more of Visits. (Why the double-down & dirty? Because I can't spell Dexamethasone any better than Lisinoprille but my wife could, although I secretly suspect she looks them up in the PDR (Physician's Desk Reference... buy one; it'll change your world).

So there I am, doomed to an increase in my exercising. So... how much? How often? What type? And on and on and in inestimablity that would succumb to the guns of my wife's attack upon the physician's hapless assistant.

Which it does. I am doomed to twenty-five laps around the patio, into which I am wearing a discernible trail. I'm serious! My poor cancer afflicted body is literally wearing a groove into our patio!

...and something terribly wrong with the blogging software.... again. Not only will it NOT turn itself on at certain times, at others it fails to turn itself OFF, leaving you to write in Italics for the remainder of your days.

Ah, well...

See the priddy pitcher at the top of the page? Note the figure '104' on the counter? (Just tap the picture. It will fill the screen and you'll be able to read the numbers.) That is the DISTANCE of one trip around the patio. One hundred and four feet. Thirty-one point two six three Meters. Five trips per day equals 156.313 meters. That's more than a kilometer per week! (1.094 Km). In a month I will have traveled 7.658 kilometers.

That's 520 feet per day. I can already feel my knees starting to crumble. Five hundred and twenty feet per day is 3,640' per week... 2.75 MILES in a month!

Like the man said, it's the side-effects that gets you.

-R.S. Hoover
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I am now spending so much time in my patio that I've decided to give each of its districts a unique name. For example, the concrete portion between the sliding glass doors to the living room and the REAL door into the kitchen has been named Metropolis. It is this section of my patio from which I occasionally see a man removing his clothing in a telephone booth. The man then LEAVES his clothing IN the telephone booth, steps out of the booth, LEAPS INTO THE AIR and vanishes. But that isn't the part which is truly fantastic (and why I know it can't be real.) You see, his pile of clothing, including his wallet and a pair of heavy, horn-rimmed spectacles, REMAINS in the phone booth and is NEVER PILFERED!!!

Having a fellow leap into the air wearing some kind of costume, did not alarm me. After all, this is Southern California. Mexico is little more than a border away. Masked and caped crusaders are a common sight in Mexico. Indeed, they have become virtually a national tradition. Having a few of them leak across the border should come as no surprise, just as having them vanish into the sky brings only a shrug. (Here, I'll put one in ) There. Now you know how to do it when you come to write your next Radio Play. Of course, no one will bother to read them. So send them to more radio stations. Get someone to play the role of your Announcer and record them yourself! Now you can offer them to the SAME radio stations which rejected them. And to Colleges, hospitals, banks and so forth. Just keep in mind that dashing adventure heros in skin-tight costumes are my particular genre!


Stay tuned as our intrepid (but Cancer-prone) Explorer leaves civilization behind as he plunges into the seamy bowels of the City.
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SPEED-TRAP

There is one section of our patio that, quite frankly has me buffaloed. After making a sharp turn around a pile of flag stones, my path -- when traveling west-ward -- takes a sudden downward dip, resulting in an abrupt and completely uncontrollable, increase in my speed. So there I am, plodding along, thinking more about getting there than in how fast I can, when I hit the downgrade and come into a maze of plants, some planted for medicinal reasons such as the bed of aloe vera when this little dork on a hot-rod bike pops out of the bushes, hits the buzzer and goes into the: "May I see your license and registration... please" with everything but an out-right giggle on the please. Busted. Doing 45 in a 35. And in my own backyard, fer crysakes!

So I pass over the documents and he writes me out the ticket and in a month 0r so I'll turn up in court but he won't. And they'll ask for a continuation and I'll say it works both ways, your honor, and if it's one of the non-political judges he/she'll say No way, Jose, slam the hammer down and dismiss the charges, telling me to cool it, even if it is my own backyard, what with the grand-kids and so on, and I'll say, Yessir/Ma'am/Whatever, an' I go back home just knowing that sucker is going to be waiting for me again and all because the Doctor said I might want to get a bit more exercise... MIGHT WANT, as in me having something to do with it, instead of a Fiat from On High that sez I gotta start pumping iron an' hittin' the bricks as if I was going to fall apart next Thursday at three o'clock.

Wanna see some PROOF? Huh? You wanna? Well, THERE'S your proof! Lookit that sucker all tucked up outta sight behind that boulder in all them bushes there, just WAITING for me to come down that grade, brakes a'smoking an' me digging in with both canes an' ain't no WAY I can slow that sucker down before I hit the flats there by the patio gate!

-R.S.Hoover
-Monday 26 Jan 2009

PS -- Doctors! Sheez!
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2 February 2009

I'm walking. It is 0750. My back hurts a little. Not much, just a little bit but it's in a place where bad things have happened. So I decide to not walk as far as I'd planned.

Coffee is good. Steaming slowly in the bright sunlight, bent to the south by a gentle north breeze. Sure enough, when I flex my back the Bad Place starts sending off rockets. It's Science Fiction Time, boys & girls. Bob Heinlein has come to play hockey on my back; down low, where the radiation was focused. I'm all flat down there, the muscles have turned to string. It is difficult to sit down and when I finally make it, I wish I hadn't because it hurts so much I want to stand up again. NEED to stand up again. But that will hurt too. I stand up. Life's little messages.

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Thirteen times around the Patio Course. A quarter of a mile. Now I have other hurts to mask the back pain.

My baby sister has visited. She lives five hundred miles away. It was an expensive visit.

Baby sister. Big smiley there because she is now in her fifties. But she will always be my baby sister.

When I was a Seaman in the Navy -- a lowly E3 earning an amount so small you'd laugh -- I used to buy her little gifts, send them to her, imagining her delight. I was far away. The gifts were a link, or so I hoped. Years later I learned she had not received most of them. Even so, the memories are strong.

On this visit she returns the favor, giving me a Hot-Rod Walker. Brand name: Hugo. Model: Elite. It has brakes that lock the wheels and a padded seat, allowing me to sit down when my legs start doing that jerky-twitchy thing. There are zippered compartments and perhaps a Secret Decoder Ring. And I didn't even have to send in any box tops.

My legs are sore. They will be sorer before the day is done. And my arms, too. Pumping Iron. Joke, because the weights weigh only 5 pounds. FIVE MEASLY POUNDS! I used to press over 300 pounds, run a quick five laps, all that at lunch time; just a quick little work-out to keep myself in shape. And did. Until along comes a Tumor.

Multiple Myeloma. I'd like to exchange messages with other MM patients. Toward that end I've conducted numerous searches of the Internet. Lots of MM information out there, as well as lots of MM Organizations passing out information with one hand whilst asking for money with the other. But no MM patients. Lots of 'care-givers' but so far, nothing from the 'care-receivers.'

Hello? Is anyone there?
veeduber@isp.com
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