Weekend Summary

On Friday after chemo I came home, checked for messages and then took a nap so I would be well rested. Yoko and I went to a farewell party for the departing Rotary GSE Team at Mike Riley's house arriving about 8:30PM. We stayed for a few hours and said goodbye to Gwen. I had two cranberry and vodka's and finger food for dinner and we were home and in bed by 11 PM Friday night. I stayed up for a little while, but I was decidedly not as hyper this time from the steroids.

I was up at around 8 AM on Saturday morning. The plan was to drive up to Sarasota to check out "Instride" which is a camp for disabled children where they take them riding on horses for therapy. There was an article in the local paper saying that they need volunteers who know horses to help. I would love to get back in the saddle and am thinking about helping out. Unfortunately, we did not get instructions on how to ge to the camp in time to make it up and back in the morning. So instead I blogged until I left to play golf with my usual golfing buddies, Chris Mahr and Kirby Rowe, at 11:00 AM.

We played in Rotonda at Whitemarsh and the weather was absolutely perfect -- sunny blue skies and 79 degrees. I just played terrible... I think I shot 93 -- 43 on the front and 50 on the back. Kirby and Chris clobbered me -- Kirby shot 81 and Chris shot 89. I am usually more competitive so they must think I am loosing my touch. They don't know about the chemo and I definitely have lost strength in driving the ball, which is screwing up my game...

After golf we decided to take the wives out to dinner. We each went home to get cleaned up and joined up again for drinks at Kirby's house. Kirby was the designated driver and all six of us piled into his van for the drive to Carrabba's. After dinner we came back to our house for coffee and desert. I found a new Italian bakery near our house and we had fresh brewed coffee and Italian pastries. In fact, as I am writing this I am having the leftover sfogliatelle...yum!

After they left, I felt a little funny. Food is not getting to my stomach quickly It feels like it is stuck in the middle of my chest. This is a side effect from the radiation. So after eating a meal, I am still hungry. If I keep eating, I eventually loose some, which is what happened last night. After our guests left, I promptly went to the bathroom and gave up the desert and coffee.

This morning I was up at 6:45 AM to play golf again in my normal Sunday league. There are maybe 30 guys in our league and we play together every Sunday morning; the first tee time is normally around 7:30 AM and we are usually done by noon. Yoko, as always, made me a full breakfast before I left. My foursome on Sunday includes Chris, Kirby and usually Doug Bowers.

Maybe it was the coffee or the steriods, but I could not sleep after dinner Saturday night. I stayed up writing to various people until3 AM. I decided to widen the circle of people who know what is happening with us, so I e-mailed Linda Oppe, Eric Madsen, Tom Witt, and Luther Liggett. Until today, Yoko had not told any of her friends here; today she decided to tell her best friend, Kazue Andersen. That's good because Yoko really needs someone to talk to about this. This whole thing is going to be harder on Yoko than me because she is going to have to live with the aftermath. She needs to have some strong support and it is good that she has a local friend she can count on to do help her through this.

Despite only having about 3 or 4 hours of sleep, today I shot my normal 86 at Bobcat Trail. (This is the course where we are having our Rotary Club fundraiser next Saturday.) I shoot 86 nearly every Sunday and I am always saying to Kirby and Chris that I don't know why I even bother getting out of bed. They should just mark me down for an 86 and let me sleep in the morning. Kirby must have shot the wad yesterday because today he shot 95 and Chris shot 91. My good buddy Doug shot 104...ouch. I was the big winner and took back the money I lost to these guys yesterday.

I met Yoko at the mall after golf to do a little shopping. She then went shopping for food for Thanksgiving while I took my car to the car wash, so it is clean when I go to work on Monday. (This too is part of my normal routine -- cleaning the car on Sunday.) I got home by 3PM and promptly took a nap until dinner tonight at six. (It is Sunday night, so we had our normal macaroni and meatballs, salad and bread for dinner.) After dinner we will be watching Sunday night football.

Last night when I was talking with Mom, she reminded me that my cousin, Mary (Donovan) Li, is married to Ben Li, who is a very well known and respected surgical oncologist working at LSU. Mom got me Mary's number and I called her tonight to say hello and see what Ben might say about my treatment. Mary explained that Ben is not a thoracic surgeon, that he was out of town and that his parents had just flown in from Hawaii. (I don't think I caught them at the best time.) Whatever the case, I gave Mary this website address and I am hoping Ben may have some suggestions as to who else I could consult with about my condition. I am going to try to get the cat-scans of me on this website. I have a disk, but I don't know how to load the file to show.

The coming week should be interesting. Ryan has his fiance in town and will not be coming to work. (Can't say I blame him.) We have a short week. Just Monday and Tuesday for me. I am planning to take off on Wednesday, since the market is closed in the afternoon. Our sales month ends on Wednesday, so any business I am going to do has to be completed by Tuesday at 4 PM. Jessie is coming home from college for Thanksgiving on Tuesday and maybe we can play golf on Wednesday. Thursday we are having Ryan, Megumi (his fiance) and Ryan's parents (Terry and Debra) to our house for Thanksgiving Dinner. (Only Ryan knows about the cancer at this point. I am thinking about telling his parents, who are clients and about the same age as Yoko and I. It might be good to get their perspective. We'll see.) On Friday I have chemo; Friday evening I'll be helping stuffing "goodie bags" for the Bogies and Stogies Charity Golf Tournament being run by Chris Mahr. The golf tournament is a shot-gun start, four man scramble Saturday morning. Sunday will be my league golf again... and so life goes on. I'll be blogging in the meantime and will look forward to hearing from you all.