More Good News

Posted on September 6, 2022 by Rich

It has been a long time since I’ve posted here (that seems to be a recurring theme). In fact, I just noticed today that my website SSL certificate has been out-of-date since January. I renewed the certificate, but I neglected to install it, so visitors to this site have been seeing warnings telling them, since January, that this site cannot be trusted. And I didn’t know because I have not been posting, or even looking at this site. My apologies.

So today, I came to the site, planning to post an update and found to my surprise that the cert was bad. I thought I had taken care of it in January, but I had only renewed the certificate. You actually have to install it for the website to be marked “secure.” I knew that, but I guess I had other things on my mind in January. So I tried following the steps that my hosting provider has documented, but the steps were unnecessarily confusing. In my day job, I have managed production websites and I have installed certs before, but this was beyond my ability. Finally, I bit the bullet and called tech support. It took a while (about 2 hours), but the tech support person in Bulgaria, or wherever she was, was able to help me, but now I have it working. So now, if you click on the padlock icon to the left of this website in your browser (at least in Google Chrome), you will see that your connection is secure. tothemoonandback.net is who it says it is. Rest assured. You’re safe here.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, what have I been doing since January? Well, I’ve had two sets of clear scans. The scans in February and the latest on September 1st show no change, which means No Evidence of Active Disease. Never say cured in this game, but I’m feeling pretty good. I meet with my doctor in a couple of weeks to go over the results, but I’m feeling very good. My expectation is that I will not need another scan for a year, which will be a relief. Scans are a pain in many ways. not the least of which is the nervousness before the scans and the waiting for the results. The time between getting the scans and getting the report from the radiologist is sometimes only a day, but that is a very stressful day. Even though I feel good, you never know what’s going on under the skin, you know? So yeah, I’m in no hurry to stick my body in another MRI or CT tube thing. Thanks, but no thanks.

Lynn and I have been kind of busy this summer. I’ll write more on that later, but I’d thought I’d lead with the good news on the melanoma front and then talk about the Good News on another day.

Peace and love to all!

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I’m Baaaaaa-ck!

Posted on September 24, 2021 by Rich

Whenever I spend some time between posts, it’s often because I don’t have not much to write about, melanoma-wise. And that’s kind of the way things are now. My last scans in August were clean of active cancer and I feel pretty good. My scans are now scheduled every six months, so everything should be great, and they are, melanoma-wise.

I never forget about all the people who have not been as fortunate as I, melanoma-wise. I consider myself a lucky SOB for having such positive response to treatment and I can’t help feeling guilty whenever I feel sorry for myself or get down because of something in my life that isn’t so great. Survivor’s guilt, I guess they call it. I feel as if I owe it to all the people who are fighting against melanoma, and all those who lost the battle, to have a positive attitude overflowing with gratitude for my good fortune. I’ve been practicing gratitude. Every day when I wake up, I put my feet on the floor and thank the universe for another wonderful day (or at least the potential for another wonderful day). In all honesty, I cannot say that I carry that spirit of gratitude throughout the day. I frequently get down, or angry, or frustrated with things in my life or things in the world.

My life is pretty good. I have a new job which pays well and is challenging enough so I won’t get bored. My health, as I said is great. I’m married to a wonderful woman. What’s more to ask for?

Well, for starters, I wouldn’t mind if this whole pandemic thing just went away. Eighteen months and counting and it doesn’t seem to be letting up at all. People are still getting sick, people are still dying and people are still having to mask and social distance and treat their neighbors as if they are potential bio-weapons. Meanwhile, Lynn and I have curtailed a lot of activities. We see people less often, we haven’t eaten in a restaurant for the duration, nor have we sat in movie theater, gone to a museum, or done much of anything besides the basic necessary activities such as shopping and (for me) going to medical visits. My new job is mostly remote, but the few times I do go into the office I mask up and distance. It’s strange but I’ve only seen co-workers’ faces from the bridge of the nose up. Strange times.

We never had a lot of social contacts, but now we have almost none, at least in person. I recently got together with my brother, my sister-in-law, and my sister, but those get togethers are very rare. Mostly I feel very isolated. Part of that is because we have chosen to keep our interactions limited, but a lot of it is political.

I’m not going to go into all the reasons here, but Lynn and I have chosen not to get any of the Covid-19 vaccines at this time. Possibly never. This puts us at odds with most the political establishment, as well as with most of the members of our families. This saddens me because, at a time when we all should come together and support one another, we are divided and pointing fingers at each other. Many of the pr0-vaxers are calling the vaccine-hesitant irresponsible, anti-social, selfish, and inconsiderate. I don’t consider myself any of those things. I have doubts about the vaccines on offer, I’m not convinced that the protection offered by the vaccines is better than that offered by my own immune system. I’m not anti-vax, I’m just not ready to try my luck with these vaccines. That’s my judgment and I understand that, if I’m wrong, I could pay with my life, but it’s my life. As I said, we don’t go out much, and when we go out in public we mask up and distance. I don’t think that any vaccinated person is at a greater risk from me than another vaccinated person.

Anyway, I didn’t start this blog intending to write about the pros and cons of vaccination. Everyone should make their own decision on that. What I wanted to write about was the effect that the divisiveness in society has had on me. When I hear the President of the United States call this a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” that hurts me. When I fear that I may lose my livelihood if I continue to refuse the vaccine, that worries me. When I read about people assaulting each other over masking choices, that frightens me. I fear that we are heading down a path where people who make unpopular choices will be demonized and marginalized. I fear that too many people are not questioning things, not just the science around the vaccines, but the public discourse around how we live with each other in these challenging times.

Don’t blindly follow. Think, question, and above all, let’s be human with each other. Sheep are boring.

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Feeling grateful

Posted on June 15, 2021 by Rich

Note: the following post was originally written in June of 2021. For some reason, I never clicked the publish button. Here it is now.

Wow, I can’t believe that it has been almost six months since I have posted an update. The last time I wrote (in January) I had scans coming up in February. Well, those were clean and my next scans are in August. At this point, my doctor feels safe moving my scans back to every six months. I think that is something for which to feel grateful. When I think back to where I was almost three years ago to day when I heard those words “stage 4 melanoma,” when it felt like an impending death sentence, and then I then I think about where I am today, it’s hard to believe. Not that my life has been smooth sailing since then, but at least I have life, which is something many melanomies have lost. Again, Thank You, Universe!

Speaking of thanking the Universe, Lynn and I had an interesting discussion about whether it makes sense to thank (or curse) the Universe for one’s blessings (or lack thereof). I think she was making the case that by putting the focus on something outside on our self, we are denying our own power to create our own story. My point was that the Universe and I are co-creators, and for whatever reason, we (my BFF the Universe and I) have co-created the story of my healing, which is beyond cool. So, thanks!

If that last part sounds a little woo-woo, sometimes we have to embrace the unknown. I’m not a religious person, not in any traditional, organized way, but I do believe that there are things I don’t know, things I may never know, but there are also things that I just have to trust because they resonate with my experience and also with the story I want to create. Maybe call that faith. A cynic could call that wishful thinking. I just know/trust (I wish there were a word in the English language for “knowing” in my gut as opposed to the “knowing” in my brain) that faith was as much responsible for my recovery as the medicine. Thanks!

Have there been bumps in the road? Yep. This is real life, not a fairy tale. I have had diabetes and colitis as a side effect of treatment, I’ve lost two jobs in the last year and a half and both Lynn and I are unemployed, I chose to shelter in place due to Covid for over a year and am just now starting to get out, but we’re both feeling stir-crazy and have periods where we are so flipping angry at our leaders about how this crisis has been handled and angry at ourselves for believing everything we’ve been told, even when we knew they didn’t all make sense at an intellectual or visceral level.

Yeah, bumps. Bumps in the road like lumps in oatmeal. If oatmeal didn’t have lumps it would be oatmeal, it would be mush, right? I guess life is like that. Maybe. So thank you, Universe, for the lumps. I’m not sure just yet what they’re all meant to teach me, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to learn. Thank you!

Speaking of smooth sailing, Lynn and I have signed up for sailing lessons. We’ve both wanted to sail, and I found a weekend course locally, so that’s something to look forward to. Lot’s of sunscreen, of course!

And, thank you, dear reader, for indulging me today.

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A New Year

Posted on January 1, 2021 by Rich

All right, the picture here is of me and our new family member, Jayden. Jayden is a Serama chicken. Lynn raised her from an egg and she follows Lynn around constantly. I think that Jayden sees Lynn as her mother hen because she wasn’t raised with any other chickens, just us.

While Lynn is the mother hen in Jayden’s eyes, Jayden has also accepted me as part of her flock. When Lynn is busy elsewhere, Jayden follows me around. This picture was my attempt to take a photo of her with my iPhone. As I was framing the shot, she jumped on top 0f the phone so I quickly switched to selfie mode. Jayden was fascinated with her own image on the phone display and was pecking at it when I took this photo.

That’s the big news for us. The newest member of our family is a house-chicken. I would have thought that was crazy a year ago, but after a year of craziness, crazy is the new normal. While 2020 was mostly forgettable (at least we’d like to forget it), we’re looking forward to creating memories that we want to remember in 2021. Part of that means getting out of the house and finding safe activities to do so we don’t get any stir-crazier than we already are. I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve been able to work from home and Lynn is also at home now, but the downside is that we never go out in public unless it’s to places where we’re sure of not running into any other people. We get our groceries and other necessities delivered. I get my prescriptions filled online and pick them up at the drive-through. We only interact with friends and family via phone or video-chat.

In other words, we live like shut-ins. What are we afraid of? Yes, there is the COVID-19 thing that is going stronger than ever, but what is our true risk? It’s hard to say because we don’t know what information to trust, but there’s always some risk somewhere. As Lynn and I were discussing today, there were no sure answers when I got my melanoma diagnosis. I wasn’t sure what the best treatment option was but I made a choice. As it turns out, the treatment worked for the melanoma but I ended up with Type 1 Diabetes.

Life is like that. You gather as much information as you can, you weigh the pros and cons, and you make a decision based on the information that is available to you at the time. Or maybe you just trust your gut. Either way, your decision could be right or it could be wrong. There are no guarantees. Living in fear, however; living in the in-between is not really living at all. To truly embrace life is to embrace risk — the risk of getting hurt or the risk of getting sick. In regard to the virus, we will be careful. Social distance, mask up, and keep exposure to a minimum. We certainly do not want to spread anything to each other or to anyone else as unlikely as that would be considering how careful we have been and will be.

I’m not a big believer in New Year’s resolutions. On the few occasions that I’ve made them, I’ve done a poor job of keeping them. This year, my resolution is simple. Stay alive and live a life worth living.

Melanoma update: No news, my health is good and my next scans are a month away. Happy New Year!

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Checking in

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Rich

First, I can’t believe that I haven’t posted an update since June! No, excuses really. at least nothing medical. My health has continued to be great. My most recent scans were on October 7th, and were again clear of active melanoma. Yay! I have a another scan scheduled for next February and if those are clear I will go to having scans every six months. Because of Covid-19, I had my visit with my oncologist virtually via video. I did the lab work the day before, so he had access to the lab results as well as the radiologists’ readings of my scan by the time of my visit. The only thing missing was the physical examination, which mostly consists of him palpating my body in search of swollen lymph nodes. I think that I now know enough what to look for. so that I can kind of check those out myself. I haven’t found anything swollen or unusual.

Anyway, as I said, the news was all good on the melanoma front. Things are pretty good on other fronts as well. When last I posted here, I was still unemployed. Well, in early September I started a new job. It’s a cut in pay from my old job, but a step up from unemployment. Plus, it comes with health insurance. While the health insurance is also a step down from what I had in my old job, it’s cheaper than paying COBRA, maybe. Right now I’m having an issue because my new insurance doesn’t cover my CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) supplies as a pharmacy benefit, but as DME (Durable Medical Equipment). This means that instead of being treated as a prescription benefit like insulin, it’s treated like a wheelchair. It also means that instead of paying a reasonable copay, I have to pay 50% after my deductible is met. I’m not happy about that because these supplies are not cheap (about $1800 for a 90-day supply), but I rely on them for the management of the Type 1 Diabetes that I acquired as a side effect of immunotherapy. There are cheaper alternatives for taking blood glucose measurements. but the GGM I have been using is the only one that gives me continuous real-time readings. It can even alert me if my blood sugar drops low while I’m sleeping, a potentially deadly event. I plan to call the them again tomorrow, but I’m not optimistic. I hate insurance companies.

Enough whining about that. I’m very happy to have a job, any job. Luckily, it’s a work-from-home job for now, although I will have to go into the office at some point, which I’m not thrilled about given the current situation. When I interviewed for the job, I was told that it would be entirely remote until the COVID-19 thing had settled down. Of course, it’s nowhere near being settled down. In fact. there’s currently a travel ban between my state (Connecticut) and the state where my company is located (Massachusetts), so I don’t think I’m even allowed to travel if I wanted to, which I don’t.

Lynn and I continue to hunker down. We don’t go out and we have our food and other essentials delivered. Tonight, we treated ourselves to pizza, but that involved a lot of jumping around, putting on masks, gloves, washing hands and being careful. Our town has a high positivity rate (over 20%) and we weren’t keen on getting close to a delivery guy who goes from house to house in this town, even if was just to sign for the pizzas and bring them into the house.

I was going to write something about the U.S. Presidential election that we had (are having) this week, but I’m feeling kind of burned out on all of that. I’m guessing you are, too.

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My new normal

Posted on June 27, 2020 by Rich

One of the phrases that gets under my skin during this pandemic is “the new normal.” I won’t go into why that phrase irks me right now, but I’ve found that it can also apply to living with melanoma. At least it does after you’ve beaten it back and have a few clean scans under your belt. Or at least it does after I’ve beaten it back and have a few clean scans under my belt. I’m only speaking for myself here.

On Tuesday, Lynn and I received the news that my latest scans again showed no evidence of active disease. Today, I received emails letting me know that the radiologists’ reports for those scans had been posted to my online account. Normally (there’s that word again), I would have logged right in and scoured the reports for any hint of the smallest area of concern. Radiologists are paid to look for stuff and report every little thing that they see. That’s their job. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad that they do that and I hope that they do it well and don’t miss anything. It’s just that, I’m not eager to look for something wrong when I’ve already been told by my doctor that nothing is wrong. I’m putting my trust in him and letting him handle the medical details. So, I guess that represents a new normal for me.

When I was first diagnosed, we tried to find out everything that we could about my melanoma. We sought second and third opinions, and we scoured the internet trying to figure out what to do and what to expect. When I got diabetes and colitis as side effects of immunotherapy, we researched the hell out of those things, too. That was far from normal, and it consumed a lot of our time and mental energy. At first we didn’t know if the therapy would work, and then we weren’t sure if the therapy wouldn’t kill me. There was a lot we didn’t know and we were fumbling in the dark looking for the light switch.

Now, after 16 months of clean scans, neither of us feels the need to question everything or to follow the latest research. I know that would change if I got a not-so-good scan, but for now we’re kind of putting melanoma in the back of our minds and focusing on other things. That’s the new normal around here.

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Something to celebrate

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Rich

The bottle of beer on the left had been tucked away in the back of the refrigerator for a few months. Duvel is probably my favorite beer in the world (and I love beer), but I was saving it for when I got a job offer. Well, I am still available for offers of employment, but I did have something else to celebrate.

Lynn and I met with my oncologist via video call on Tuesday to receive the good news. My scans are still clean. There were a couple of small things with my blood work (LDH at around 400 and liver enzymes just barely out of the standard range), but nothing he seem concerned about. I know I’m not concerned about it. He wished us both a great summer and I’m to schedule my next scans for four months from now. So Prost! to that.

In other news, today is our 16th wedding anniversary, so that is something else to celebrate. Today we stopped at a local ice cream stand for ice cream. It was our first “dining out” experience since COVID-19 up-ended all of our lives. We only stopped in because the place didn’t look busy. It wasn’t busy when we stopped, but by the time we placed our orders, paid, collected our ice creams and took them back to our car to eat them, the place got much busier. We saw several people not wearing masks, or not wearing them correctly. Is wearing a mask covering your mouth but not your nose a thing now? Anyway, we were both glad that we arrived when we did and we both enjoyed the hell out of our ice creams. Who knows, it may be a long time before we get another one.

As Warren Zevon saod, “Enjoy every sandwich.” Or ice cream. Or beer. Or moment.

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Random thoughts, part 2

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Rich

I’m going to finish my post from yesterday, discussing some non-melanoma things that are on my mind. First, though, I should mention again that Lynn and I are meeting with my oncologist via telehealth (video) call this afternoon to learn the results of my latest scans. I’m not too nervous because I feel good and my blood work was pretty good. I can’t say, however, that I am not a little anxious. I think that’s mostly because my luck has not been really great lately. I would welcome some good news this afternoon.

As for my luck, well I share the bad luck with everyone who has been affected by this COVID-19 pandemic. In our case, we are still sheltering in place as much as possible, our recent visits to two hospitals not withstanding. We feel isolated and alone. We can converse with loved ones over the phone and via the internet, but it’s not the same as being together with them physically and being able to give them a hug or even hold their hand. These days, when we do venture out, we see people wearing masks and you can only see their eyes to judge the expression on their faces. We also see a lot of people not wearing masks, which I’ll get to. When I see people wearing masks, I’m reminded of the John Prine song, “Hello in There.”

So if you’re walking down the street sometime

And see some hollow ancient eyes,

Please don’t just pass ’em by and stare

As if you didn’t care,

Say “Hello in there, hello.”

John Prine — “Hello in There”

People in masks look trapped to me, and I feel trapped, physically, socially and emotionally. Trapped in my house, trapped behind a mask, and trapped inside my body. I think I would have ventured out by now (I would kill for an ice cream cone) if I weren’t high risk because of my asthma and diabetes. I’ve made a promise to Lynn that I would limit my exposure when I go out and don’t do anything that isn’t absolutely necessary in order to reduce the risk of catching this damn virus. I would feel bad if I caught it, mostly because I wouldn’t want to give it to Lynn. As far as my own health goes, I’m willing to adopt a Que Sera, Sera attitude.

Speaking of isolation, my hearing has been going out on me. I’ve had so-called age-related hearing loss for years now, but lately it has gotten much worse. I think it’s just earwax buildup, but I can’t seem to clear it out, although I’ve tried multiple things with no success. If it weren’t for this pandemic, I would have gone to the doctor and at least gotten my ears cleaned by now. What this hearing loss means is that I have trouble hearing Lynn when she speaks. Sometime she speaks and I have to ask her two or three times to repeat herself; sometimes she speaks and I don’t hear her at all. This is frustrating as hell for Lynn as it increases her sense of isolation. The only person she has to talk to most of the time can’t even hear her. She says that it’s worse than being alone, because if she were alone she wouldn’t try to speak to the walls, which is what she equates speaking to me with most of the time. It’s frustrating to me, too, because I want to hear her and I can’t. I used to blame her for not speaking loudly enough, but now I know the problem is definitely on my end. I feel like I’m losing contact with the every part of the world and retracting into my own body. This inability to communicate is putting a lot of strain on our relationship.

What else is there? Oh yeah, I’m still unemployed. I’ve recently passed the five-month mark and my prospects for employment do not look good. I thought I was really close to landing something a couple of weeks ago. I made it to the fourth round of interviews. It was a job that I was very qualified for, almost identical to my previous job, and one that I was very excited about. Well, I didn’t get it, and since then crickets. I still apply for random jobs to satisfy the unemployment people, but my heart isn’t in it. I think after you’ve been out of work for this long, employers look at you as tainted goods. I now feel like someone who is thrashing in the water, trying to stay afloat until help arrives. After wearing yourself out, you kind of accept your fate, relax, and embrace the water. I feel that way about a lot of things these days. I can keep treading water, but at a certain point I’m going to have to accept that this is it.

Anyway, if I haven’t depressed the crap out of you by now, come back later, or maybe tomorrow for results of my scans, and further musings.

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Random thoughts, part 1

Posted on June 23, 2020 by Rich

I usually try to think of a theme for my posts here, but I have so many thoughts running around my head these days that it’s hard to focus on one. I also try to think of something positive to add so that someone who comes to this site searching for hopeful information about melanoma doesn’t get too disheartened by what they read here just because I might be having a bad day. As far as the melanoma goes, the good days far outnumber the bad. I have to keep reminding myself of that, even when I get down because of the other things going on in the world and in my life.

First the melanoma report. I have been NED since at least February of last year. I feel good. On Saturday, I went to Yale to have my 4-month scans (delayed slightly because of COVID-19) and to have blood work. I have a telemedicine video call with my doctor tomorrow afternoon to discuss the results of the scans. I have already received the results of the blood work and everything looks pretty good. I even had some tests done for my endocrinologist to follow up on my diabetes management and even those look good. My thyroid levels are normal and my cholesterol is back in the normal range. Yay! No statins for me. While I’m still a little nervous about the results of the scans, not overly so, because I feel good and the blood work is good, so why shouldn’t the scans be good?

Saturday’s visit to Yale was my first visit to a hospital or any other type of medical facility since the coronavirus hit the fan. I was much more nervous about that than about the scans themselves. I was was originally scheduled to have my blood work, CT scan and MRI done on the same day, but at three different facilities within the Yale system. I was nervous enough about going to one facility, let alone three. so I rescheduled my scans to all happen at Yale’s Saint Raphael campus. It was my first time there, and I hope my last. I’m willing to cut them some slack because they’re dealing with operating during a pandemic, but I thought some of the staff members lacked the professionalism that I’ve come to expect from Yale. The good news is that this was Saturday and the place was not very busy at all. As for the bad news, I interacted with two staff members (Radiology receptionist and MRI tech) whose idea of wearing a face mask was to cover their mouth, but not their nose. No one is allowed to enter without a face mask. Lynn gave me an N95 mask which I wore in but had to swap out for a hospital supplied mask because the N95 mask had metal around the nose portion of the mask. I wore that mask for the rest of my visit. I’m not sure how the hospital staff gets away with only partially covering their face.

Then, there was a mix-up between my MRI and CT scans. After the MRI, I was parked in the waiting area and told someone would come and get me to bring me for my CT scan. Apparently, the MRI people thought the CT people were going to do that and the CT people thought the MRI people were going to do that. I waited there for 45 minutes before that was straightened out. Then, when I did get to the CT scan, the tech almost blew out a vein injecting the contrast fluid (or saline, I’m not sure which) too fast. I let out a loud OW! and he slowed down. I’ve never had that experience before and I don’t know if the guy was in a hurry or just not very good at his job but it hurt like hell and that area was sore and swollen for some time after that. After all this I was able to take off that darn mask and drive myself home. Lynn did not accompany me there because patients are not allowed to have anyone with them in the hospital for these visits.

And guess what? The next day we end up going to another hospital. Without going into details and violating HIPAA regulations, Lynn had been dealing with an issue that she hoped would clear up on its own. Sunday morning she had intense pain that scared us both enough to make a trip to the local ER. It turned out to be not serious but there I was again in another hospital, this time with Lynn. She was just as anxious in the hospital as I was the day before, probably more so. It wasn’t too bad, the ER was not busy at all. This pandemic seems to be cutting down on the number of people who go to the hospital voluntarily. The staff were professional, we didn’t have to come within 6 feet of too many people, and we were out of there in a couple of hours. Still, we’ll both feel better after 14 days or so and we know that we didn’t catch anything this weekend. I’m also glad that my doctor’s appointment tomorrow is a video call.

There are a few more things that I wanted to write about in this post. That’s why I titled it “Random thoughts.” I think this post is long enough for now and I cover the other things tomorrow. Take care and stay safe.

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Ineligible

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Rich

I just received a phone call from someone doing a survey for melanoma research. I apologize if the name of the research study escapes me, it was short phone call. The woman on the phone asked me if I had active melanoma and I replied that, as of my most recent scans, I showed no evidence of active disease. She said that that was good for me but bad for her because that status made me ineligible for her study. I told her that I was glad to be ineligible and wished her luck and good day. Nothing like being ineligible for a cancer study to put one in a generous mood.

So yes, I still have no active disease, at least according to my most recent scans. I feel great so I have every reason to expect that my melanoma status has not changed. I have more scans scheduled for next month (my last were in late January). At first I thought I would postpone them due to the current COVID-19 crisis. I mean, healthy people should probably avoid hospitals now, right? That is, unless one is a health-care worker (hats off to them). But then I figured that things could be even worse later this summer or early fall. I don’t want to stop getting scans entirely, no matter how good I feel. So I guess I’ll go and have them done.

The doctor’s office did notify me that there has been a change of venue. Instead of having the scans at the main hospital where I usually have them done, they’ve been moved to a satellite campus nearby. I’m still nervous. In addition to entering a medical facility (hell, I don’t feel comfortable enough now to go to a grocery store) during a pandemic, I’ll be placed in tubes that I can only trust have been sanitized properly before I get in them. Lynn usually accompanies me to my scans, but she has wisely decided to stay home this time. There’s no point both of us risking exposure. I’m not even sure if she’d be allowed to wait in the waiting room or what the situation will be. Right now, we both see the virus as a bigger threat than the cancer.

There is also the matter of my consult with the doctor. Usually what happens is I have the blood-work and scans one day and then I meet with my oncologist a day or two after so he can examine me (basically he just palpates a few lymph nodes) and give me the results of the scans (not in that order). I’m going to see if he can forego the palpating and just read me the results over the phone or via a video meeting. I don’t see the need for the added risk and I’m not making a second trip to the hospital regardless. I think he’ll understand. These are crazy times.

As for the current crisis, we’ve both been sheltering in place. We make one trip out per month to pick up medicine (mainly insulin) at the pharmacy and we also run other errands the same day. That way, even though we’ve risked exposure, we’ll both know 14 days later that we’re probably safe, haven’t contracted the virus, and can’t pass it on to others. We get most groceries from doing online ordering and delivery, and we order other supplies from Amazon or other online retailers. Our recycling bin is stuffed to the brim with cardboard boxes every week. We now have about a three month supply of food, in addition to the fresh eggs that our hens supply. Our shopping now is just to replace what we use out of that stockpile.

As the various states start to reopen, we are both adamant that we’re not ready to go out there. We don’t think the state or federal government is telling us the truth and that the situation is worse than they’re letting on. I’m not sure how long we can sustain this. At some point our unemployment benefits will run out. I’m hoping to find work before that happens but I can’t count on it. I’m only looking at jobs were I could work from home 100% of the time, and while those jobs are out there, the competition is fierce. I had a phone screen for one such job yesterday. I know I was beyond qualified and I thought the interview went great, but I haven’t heard back yet, so I’m not counting my chickens. As the governor of this state is fond of saying, “hope for the best, and plan for the worst.”

I hope everyone out there is doing well. I’ll probably not post again until after my next scans. Wish us all luck and please be safe out there, or better yet, in there. And for all the melanoma warriors out there, I hope that you are ineligible, too!

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