Hello family and friends at CVOHarley,
I hope you are all out for a nice warm ride on two wheels. I'd like to be also, but, it's only 21 degrees with icey roads here in Sunapee, NH. This is usually the time of year that cabin fever sets in and winter blues follow closely behind. The season that calls for a plan for a great escape of just a little bit of the snow and cold. The plan that will calcuate the 2600 mile round trip to Daytona Beach. The fastest two weeks of the year for a resident of the North East, USA.
This seems to be a year that has started with so many things on my mind that Daytona will be out of my reach on my Things To Do List. Pictures of Daytona Beach bike weeks gone past will remind me of those warm sunny and dry days of yesteryear. It seems that this globlal warming has chilled the sunny coast of the sunshine state to match much of the northern states. And all this time I thought that the Floridians really meant it when they said they didn't care how it was done in the north. lol This year will see cobwebs only for those two weeks. But short daytime rides can start as early as mid to late March. Getting home is a must do because black ice on the roads go unnoticed untill you feel that sudden slipping slide to one side of the road or the other. That upset stomach is only matched when you just as suddly hit the clean dry tar that will whip you in a falsh to where ever you happen to be looking at that moment in time. If at that same moment you listen very close you can hear the sound of Walt Disney music playing a tune in slow motion. The sadest winters we has brought snow fall that is messured in feet rather than inches as late as May.
Well, here's an update on my Friday visit to the Boston (Jamaica Plain) Veterans Hospital for my Radiation/Oncology second opinion appointment. The short story is the VA Doctor wants me to keep my chemo appointment with the Vermont VA hospital and then go back to the Boston VA Hospital on Wednsday the 13th for a very high contrast c-t scan and a PET scan. His goal is to have a computer calculate the dimensions of my body and match to scale the two scans so they can be laid upon each other to create a 3 dimensional picture of my chest cavity. It will be a 3-D picture similar to a hologram. He said that it will give him a better idea of what he's up against. He said that if it is as he thinks, he will be able to start Radiation treatments in 2 to 3 weeks. The plan will be as I have been told by the other Doctors I've seen, % days a week for 8 weeks. Unfortunately it will be done in Boston rather than the Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital that just up the road a bit. If this works out for the treatment, at least it's not Albany, NY. I have many options on how to be there and I may switch my method week to week. But daily travel will be unlikely as the weeks pass and the weather worsens. January and Febuary are the worst winter months for these parts. And these treatments would make a trip to Daytona imposible for this year. But, hey, Spring is just around the corner, although the corner is a big one indeed. lol
Tomorrow, may actually turn out to be my first chemo treatment. That plan of attack seems to be the same as well, one treament every three weeks. It seems that the great risks concerning radiation and chemo treatments that I was warned about at Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital holds less of a threat to my well being according to the VA Doctors. If I end up getting both treatments, radiation will require me to go to the Boston VA Hospital and I will most likely recieve the chemo treatments at the Boston VA Hospital as well, but only until the radiation is over than I'll get the remaining chemo treatments at the Vermont VA.
Because of my nearly 40 years experience with the VA system the one thing that concerns me most is the ability or rather inability to shuffle paperwork back and forth between facilities. The fiasco of lost or late arriving paperwork or lab/scan reports has already reared it's ugly head more than a few times since last September. Heathcare shouldn't need such proactive assistance from the patient, but, I have learned that I trust noone. Nothing personal, It's just that I've been around the block a few times and no matter how many times I've been around it never seizes to amaze me how differently the scenery is with each passing. I have come to enjoy that fact. That's why I enjoy the Skyline Parkway and the Blue Ridge Parkway and roads such as those. I never tire of the ever changing scenes and the same old veiws are brand new every time. This road I'm on now is unfamiliar to me and I'm hoping that one pass will be enough. Although, I am taking notes just in case. lol
I'll write again very soon to let you know how the first chemo visit goes.
Something that I had mentioned in an earlier post, I'm glad that I was able to GIVE my hair to Locks of Love before cancer TOOK it from me. I'm glad somewhere there is a girl wearing a wig made with my hair. Even if she is wishing that whoever gave the hair didn't have so much grey. lol
looking foward to spring
sincerely
Sam Dad chappy friend
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Topic: I might be down, but I'm not out! (Read 259481 times)