Saturday, Oct 25 @ 4:45 am

I'm afraid this thing is getting away from me.  I haven't slept all night and I've taken all the pain pills, morphine, and Keppra they are allowed to give me.  I 'm sipping a Diet a Coke, which tastes great.  Cancer in the nerves or nerve intensity or whatever?  All I know is everything hurts: neck, shoulders, back, down the arms, down left leg, more numbness in right hand, and weakness.  The MRI of left leg got pushed till Saturday.  This MRI, along with the other two, and the EMG should tell docs where to do the nerve biopsy.  The pain started maybe three weeks ago.  Much of the norothopy began Sunday afternoon, during the Cowboys game and is now getting worse.  As I understand things, no one will perform the biopsy over the weekend, which is a drag.  However, I got to talk to docs about adjusting the pain meds. It's just hard to fill up the time.  My hands are to weak to hold the I-pad and leaning forward to read a book on the bed is hard on my back. I'd like to project an heroic effort in the face of uncertainty, but the truth is it's getting pathetic.

Once they find cancer hiding in nerve cells, I guess there is something they can do, such as chemo.  I assume this would certainly upset my neat and clean path to a cure.  But as we know, God doesn't need the odds on his side to make things happen.  If they biopsy and find no cancer, then they got to reach another conclusion as to what set off my current problems.  It could be HVGD, which is bad news and could lead to rejection of the transplant.  Or not.  Maybe they can devise the right mix of drugs to manage the symptoms, like they have done with my GI tract and skin rash, which faded away.  Who knows?  The only thing consistent with my case so far is,  "It's very rare."

Answers aren't always obvious.  During WWII, a cruise ship was used to ferry soilders to France and a magician was hired to entertain the troops.  He did a series of illusions and tricks only to have the Captain's parrot yell out, "Squawk!  It's up his sleeve!", or "Squawk, he put it behind his back!"  The magacian hated the parrot.  Then, a torpedo sank the ship and the magacian and the parrot found themselves in the same life boat.  They stared at each other for three days.  Finally, the parrot couldn't stand it anymore.   "Sqauwk!  I give up.  Where's the ship?"


I hit the Daily Double- at 5:00 I was able to take both my Norco pain pill and the morphine at the same time.  I think I am now sufficiently tired and drugged to sleep.

I slept till 8:00.
Weight:  172
Blood Pressure:  140/87