Category: Cancer Treatments

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You’re Only As Young As You Look


My granny, a Cherokee woman from another century, used to tell me, and anyone else that would listen, ” you’re only as old as you feel.” She had a good point. She lived into her 90s and seemed to feel good most of her life, even though every meal she cooked was in bacon grease and hog fat. She would take-back those wise words if she could see her oldest grandson now.

I stared at the reflection in my bathroom mirror this morning and said, “Dad, is that you?” Who is this old guy? My grandmothers’ words came back to me, but in this case, she is dead damn wrong.

I guess 73 years old is a milestone of sorts. I have already outlived my father, that passed at 72, so I got a year up on him. The odd thing is that I, or so folks tell me, don’t look 73. “Oh, look at yeeew, I swear yeeew could pass for 55 if not a day older; bless your heart.” Words like that make an old guy feel proud for a few minutes, nothing more.

My grandfather, my dad’s pop, passed on when I was ten years old. Born in 1891, he looked as old when I was a wee-one as he did when he left us. Early pictures from the 1930s showed him with white hair and wrinkly skin. The man was born old but never aged after that. Maybe that’s the gene I inherited. He came out of the womb with whiskers, white hair, and a Daniel Boone pocket knife used for whittling and sharpening pencils. Strange things like this happen in the south, especially in Texas. Our state is shrouded in mystery and could be a part of the Twilight Zone.

My wife, a few years younger than me, is of good German and Irish stock from the hills of Pennsylvania. She wasn’t born in Texas but got here as quick as she could via her wandering parents. She has but a little gray hair and very few wrinkles, and her eyes are bright, and her nose is cold. We’ve both had our medical maladies lately, each suffering through major back operations, cleaned-out knee joints, and other minor nuisances.

Speaking for myself, I may hold the family record if one exists; my sister is checking the family bible just to be sure. A case of prostate cancer back in 2019, and I thought it was clear sailing after that. No such luck. Now, the good stuff; three ear surgeries on both ears, a cute little prostate operation, as if the cancer didn’t do enough damage, major back surgery that included a lot of stainless steel parts, and next week major nerve and leg surgery to correct drop foot caused by the back surgery with all the parts. All of this is within a twelve-month period. Now, I will kiss your hiney and buy you a Whataburger if that ain’t a record of some kind; and I’m still ambulating, but with a fancy cane from the Walmart.

Sympathy or donations via the mail is not the goal of this story but letting other readers know what the future holds if you’re a young whipper snapper. Better start saving your cash, suck it up and get ready for the big show. The good news is; I still have all my luxurious white hair, which makes me look like a TV preacher. Amen, brother.

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Itchy Spots and Hillary Clinton’s Demonic Shingles


Style my Coonskin Cap with “Dippity Do” and call me Davey Crockett. 2022 isn’t half over, and I get slapped with another surprise.

6 months ago, I had a growing itchy spot on my back. It looked like a spider bite or an irritated mole. My wife, being a senior nurse, said we should keep an eye on it. It grew larger and became a source of irritation. I begged her to cut it off with my razor-sharp Chef Ramsey Ginzu knife, but she is no surgeon and wouldn’t perform the deed.

Do you know how a bear or a Badger scratches against a tree when he has an itchy back? Well, that would be my mode of rubbing the pesky spot.

Door jambs, cedar trees, fence posts, metal displays at Home Depot, anything with a good edge would do. Then, of course, people would stare at me as if I was Autistic, but at 73 years old, who cares?

Yesterday, while working in the yard during a balmy 102 degrees, I had an itching attack and rubbed up against a fence post to relieve the pain. Seems I caused enough damage to form a significant bloody spot on the back of my tee-shirt. When my wife came home from H.E.B., where she attends a 12-step grocery shopping program, she almost fainted when she saw the growing blood spot, figuring I had been hit by a stray bullet being fired at a feral cat or an errant shot from a kid with a new 22 rifle. But, of course, we live in the country, so it’s expected out here. Cats don’t live too long, and kids shoot at anything.

She checked the spot and immediately got on the phone with a local Dermatologist.

Nurses are a secret society, much like the Free Masons. They use secretive trigger words, tattoos, unique jewelry, and intricate handshakes when needed. She got me in to see the Doctor this morning, no questions asked. The sisterhood is strong.

My Dermatologist was a young lady. Pretty as a town dog and full of piss and sterilized vinegar. She raised my shirt and exhaled a slight gasp. I heard it and caught the look between her and my wife; it was not good. I started sweating and palpating.

Her prognosis was a huge-ass mole or alien-induced object that had grown from my back and is now a thing of ugliness and probable impending death. What I didn’t expect was her diagnosis of a severe case of “Shingles” on my back.

“How can that be? I asked; I never had the Chicken Pox or the Monkey Pox.” She replied you don’t have to; it’s a communicable disease that can spread as quickly as Covid 25 or the Kardashians.”

She gave me a few deadening shots in the back with a syringe that looked like the ones we used to vaccinate cattle and cut off the offending growth for a trip to the lab. I almost passed out from the pain. She then took her iPad and dialed Father Frank, our local priest, at “Our Lady of Perpetual Repentance.” He looked at my shingles via the iPad camera and said I may need an immediate exorcism or a good hot bath in Holy Water scrubbed by Nuns using blessed holy soap direct from Italy. My shingles outbreak was an exact artist replica of a laughing “Hillary Clinton.” This Demonic force has a deranged sense of humor.

I told the doc that I was having spine surgery in two weeks, and she said no surgeon in their right mind would touch me because of the infection and the possible demonic possession that could infect the entire surgery staff. She said a prayer, crossed herself and left the room. I should hear back in a few days if I have more cancer or if the Hillary Shingles have taken possession of my deteriorating body. Avoid getting old if you can. At least no limbs or digits have fallen off yet. But there is always tomorrow.

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Deep Diving With Lloyd Bridges


That’s not me in the tube!

I resumed Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy today; not by choice, mind you, but of necessity. The necessity part of it is; do it, get healed, or lose my bladder and pee in a zip lock bag until I check out.

Well, no-shit, that’s a hell of a choice. So I allow myself to be encapsulated in a large Iron Lung looking diving bell, taken down to 3 atmospheres while breathing pure oxygen for two hours. If I had to pee during that time, the tech gave me a little plastic urinal; not much help.

Just to be a smart ass, I ask the nurse if this machine is approved by Lloyd Bridges. She gives me a puzzled look. “You know, Sea Hunt, the television show about the diver?” I say. No laughing, she’s all business; and much too young.

This will be my life for two months, five days a week, two hours a day. I tell the nurses that I am so excited to be back. I have already been through six weeks of this a few months back.

In 2019, I was diagnosed with a whopping case of prostate cancer. Ok, if any old man lives long enough, they are likely to develop a case of it. Mine was terrible, but the good doctors at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas said they could save the sickly gland and me with a radically new form of treatment. SBRT High Dose Radiation, the latest thing out there, and only they had the machine and the know-how. I was in like Flint.

For a month before the zapping, I was stuck with large needles, drained of my blood, prodded, poked, had things inserted into my body that was far too large for the opening, and radiated via MRI and other expensive machines of which my insurance would pay for. I was begging like a hound to get it over with.

After all of that, I had no modesty left. A cute 25-year-old nurse tells me she wants to stick this evil-looking object in my what? Yeah, go ahead, what the hell. Of course, she is smiling the entire time. The little sadist in scrubs. I whine to my wife about my brutal treatment. She’s a nurse, one of them, so no pity from her.

The big day arrives. Five treatments of intense radiation over 5 weeks. The specialized nurses tell me this is the “good stuff,” the same type of secret Plutonium 54 that Oppenheimer used to develop the bomb. I am impressed but also scared shitless. I remember what happened to Nagasaki.

Strapped onto a padded bed similar to Frankenstein’s laboratory, heavy metal bars hold me down, and my head is immobilized. More needles and tubes inserted, and then, the giant machine is whirling around me like an H.G. Wells time machine. I see the nurses standing behind a radiation-proof glass booth smiling and waving. They seem to be drinking coffee and eating Crispy Creme Doughnuts. Damn. I feel a burning sensation through my body. I’m humming like a top and see colored lights before my eyes. The radiation is doing its thing. Country music is playing from somewhere in the room. I see the ghost of Hank Williams standing at the end of the machine. He’s eating a doughnut and washing it down with Jack Daniels.

Four more treatments, and I am done. My Oncologist says I am healed; a miracle it is. The nurses give me a certificate and a hug, then I am out the door. See you in a year, they say.

Less than two years later, I am pissing blood like a vampire and am a hurting unit. My urologist says, ” didn’t they tell you that that SBRT sometimes fries your innards?” Well, hell no, they didn’t tell me that! Doc Finger tells me that It did a number on my bladder, the surviving prostate gland, and my Urethra Franklin, all as crispy as Waffle House bacon.

So, I am back for more Hyperbaric treatments, and I am praying that these next two months will fix the problem. More later.

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