The Jose Family Trust Closed on a House today in Ronald, Washington!

Behind the scenes, we’ve been working this deal for several weeks now, and today we finally closed on it! We’ve bought a one-bedroom rental property two hours east of Seattle:

Brian and Angela will be renting it from us, and living there on the weekends. Brian wanted to buy the house himself, but was unable to obtain a mortgage due to the poor condition of the exterior (no one would have given anyone a mortgage on it). So, we worked the financing another way, but it is essentially their house to fix up and remodel. Brian believes that he can easily open-up the attic and put in two loft bedrooms, making it a three-bedroom house. The house is heated by wood-burning stove, and wood is plentiful and cheap out there.

Once I recover from surgery, Jen and I plan to haul our Casita travel trailer out there for a few weeks to help them set up their new home.

Once I’m strong enough to sea kayak, hiking, or maybe even backpack, we’ll be inviting our buddies out there to share in the fun!

Health Update: We’re trying lots of things to help me get stronger:

Starting two nights ago, I’m getting 12 hours of nutritional IV though my Power Port every night.

On Friday, I will get a Jejunal Tube surgically implanted. Once that is done, I’ll be able to get serious amounts of nutrition fed directly into my small intestine! The procedure will also allow for a good examination of the tumor area.

On Monday, I will get CT Scans of the esophagus and stomach.

On Tuesday, I will get another PET Scan of the liver and lungs (to tell if there is any cancer detected there).

On Wednesday, we will meet with both surgeons for the first time, and discuss surgical options and timing.

 

 

 

Here’s the latest: Chemo Brain, Virgin Islands, Meds up the Wazoo and Cake

People have been asking about Doug and why they haven’t seen any new entries in his blog. So I will tell you. He is very sick.

It’s been 13 days since his last treatment and he continues to eat poorly and lose weight. I have heard about “chemo brain” but have never witnessed it until recently. In addition to the chemo, malnutrition and inadequate sleep have caused huge mental and personality changes. I don’t recognize my husband of 43 years. He also has bad headaches and together with the other changes, my concern was that the cancer had somehow spread to his brain. I asked that they do a CT of the head. Thankfully, it was negative.

More and more medications are prescribed, some are liquid but most are tablets which I douse in olive oil so they slide down past the narrow opening to the stomach. The small counter in the kitchen which we use as our bar, is now a miniature pharmacy where I pour, lubricate and crush large pills.

Fortunately for me, I have had wonderful support from family, friends and neighbors. Our son, Brian was here for a week. He arrived while I was at the hospital so my niece picked him up at the airport. Doug’s brother, Bill and his wife Jane came from Maine to help. Neighbors have walked the dog, cut the grass, made soup, and taken me to the hospital on a moments notice when Doug couldn’t drive himself home. My sister runs errands, buys groceries and helps with Alfie.

Jane and Bill have spent long taxing days at the hospital so Doug can get needed IV fluids. Today we met with the members of Team Doug to figure out a plan of care.  We talked about various options for nutrition: IV fluids with amino acids, minerals and vitamins through his port, a PEG tube in his stomach or small intestine. The doctor decided on the enhanced IV fluids over the weekend. We will meet with his surgeon on Monday to discuss feeding tube options. Yesterday Doug said, “I want a 2-layer yellow cake with caramel icing. Will someone go to the store and get me one?” Today, my sister delivered a 2-layer yellow cake with chocolate icing and Doug said that was great! He ate a small piece, so I guess you can have your cake and eat it too.

As you may know, Doug bought a refundable ticket to the Virgin Islands for Friday April 7th. Then it was changed to the 10th, then to the 14th and tomorrow he will cancel his trip for the foreseeable future. He is very disappointed, but at last he realizes that he is not in shape to travel.

Follow up scans will be April 24th and 25th. Then it will be time for the big decision: To have an esophagectomy or not. Stay tuned in, Doug will be back.

Nurse Jenny

 

 

Another Up & Down Day

Today, my radiation oncologist was blown-away after I went from talking with her normally to being completely out of control in the span of 15 minutes! At last my doctors seem to understand that I need some serious pain meds to avoid being in agony 75% of the time!

I need to postpone my flight to St. Thomas, since I am not yet well-enough to travel tomorrow as originally hoped. I waited 90 minutes for an American Airlines agent to call me back. Then, as she was making the booking, I was disconnected! I’m still waiting for the call-back.

My son Brian arrived from Seattle yesterday. I’m going to have him take care of the rebookiing so I can go to sleep now, since its 10 PM here. More tomorrow, hopefully.

It’s 4 a.m.; I just played the only card I’m holding on change.org: The Cancer Card!

My Petition to Ivanka: My readers will recall that early on, I made frequent reference to my change.org petition to Ivanka Trump, asking her to persuade her father to change his position on Climate Change: https://www.change.org/p/please-save-the-planet

During treatments, I’ve taken my eye off the ball, and the petition has flat-lined. Today, I’m kicking-it up again, with the goal of having it go viral, getting as many signatures as possible by Earth Day 2017, which is Saturday, April 22nd. I will close the petition that day, and change.org will deliver our signatures to her then. Take a look at my latest post.

With Jaime, my terrific social worker, just before leaving the hospital.

Getting back to Friday: I felt fine until I started the 20-minute drive home (I was driving alone). Suddenly, my esophagus flared-up like it was on fire. My head started to explode. I used Qi Gong to maintain my focus until I got home. I was a basket case. I downed a big slug of my prescription Magic Mouthwash, and before long felt like a human being again.

The rest of Friday and Saturday I ping-ponged between near-normalcy and the “darkness at the edge of town”. Under-nourished; dehydrated; loopy at times. Trying like crazy to get any kind of food or drink to go down.

I did finally get some sleep last night, but that was over by 3:30. I had some things to do on change.org and this blog! It’s 4:30 now.

Getting back to Dangerous Dan McGrew: This is a wonderful poem. I made mention of something special about it in a comment last week, but most of you probably missed it. So, here I go again; it concerns this passage:

Then on a sudden the music changed, so soft that you scarce could hear;

But you felt that your life had been looted clean of all that it once held dear;

That someone had stolen the woman you loved; that her love was a devil’s lie;

That your guts were gone, and the best for you was to crawl away and die.

‘Twas the crowning cry of a heart’s despair, and it thrilled you through and through – 

“I guess I’ll make it a spread misère“, said Dangerous Dan McGrew.

Dan was a card player, but this wasn’t about playing cards. In cards, a spread misère is a hand so bad that you believe you cannot possibly take a trick. But: It can still be a winning hand if you bid a spread misère: If you lose every trick, you win the pot!

Dangerous Dan knew from the moment he laid eyes on the miner that he would shortly be a dead man. His way of going-out in a blaze of glory was to bid that spread misère regarding the real-life hand he had just been dealt!! He was shot dead moments later, winning his final bet, but of course unable to collect! C’est la vie; c’est la mort!

Meanwhile, the Lady that’s Known as Lou gets the final line:
   The woman that kissed him and, pinched his poke, was the lady that’s known as Lou.

She’s kissing her old lover (the miner) tenderly as she relieves him of his “poke” (sack of gold dust), which she presumes he has no further need of! C’est la vie in Alaska!

One more synergistic thing: I received a book in the mail from my brother Bill yesterday (see photo below). The cover insert begins with this quote from the author:

We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.

I need your prayers and/or best intentions for me now!

I have been terribly sick the last few days, with today being the worst. I have lost nine pounds in nine days because I am unable to get much food or drink into my stomach. I have constant headaches; I am a wreck!

Just now I had a breakthrough: I was able to get some egg and milk to go down without making me sick. I believe in Qi energy, that our bio-electric energy fields are entangled with each other, and that you can help me through this from afar.

Tomorrow is my last radiation treatment (#28). The effects will linger for some time. Please help me to get healthy enough to make that trip to St. Thomas to see Natalie!

On the beach

Rick’s Sloop

I’ll likely get to stay here one night!

The Life of Brian, Episode IV: The Pre-Sailboat Years

Author’s note to readers: If you’re not writing Comments, or at least reading the comments posted by others, you are missing-out on part of the action. In particular, I’d like to call your attention to this comment from my wonderful friend Mariann, who was on my fantastic (if I do say so myself) sea kayaking trip to Maine and Nova Scotia last year:

Mariann between me and my wife Jennifer on Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park

One of my favorite Tedx videos is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXDMoiEkyuQ … I want to share it with you…the imagery is beautiful; the message, inspirational…Maybe you can find time to view it.

It’s a 10-minute Ted Talk. View it when you have time to relax and enjoy it!

Click here to see Mariann’s Flickr album from that trip. Click here to see the photo presentation that Jen and I made to the Hoosier Canoe & Kayak Club last fall.

It time to tack: The only things I know about sailing are what I learned from my son, who is self-taught. In sailing terms, my niece chastised me today for getting way off course on the Natalie thing. Well, I’m a single-tasker, and she’s right. So, HOLD ON TIGHT: I’m spinning the wheel! DUCK! The boom just zipped over our heads, headed for the other side of the boat! Brian has cleated the line, and is trimming the sail! Now he’s adjusting the jib. We’ve “come about” and are heading for Brianville! Note: There’s plenty more to say about my Mom and Dad, but that’s going to have to wait.

About Brian: It’s no accident that the title of this post is from a Monty Python movie (a parody of the life of Christ)! Brian loved all that Monty Python stuff, and so did I!

Here’s the prime difference between Natalie and Brian:

Natalie played-along with with society’s expectations of what she should do (at least during the day): Go to college, get her degree, work a boring job that paid fairly-well and had good benefits. It took her 14 years to realize it was killing her before she took her job and shoved it.

Brian, on the other hand, knew himself better. He waited-out one semester, and then gave it a half-hearted try for one semester at Southern Illinois University (home of the mighty Salukis). That was plenty! He had (almost) no further interest in “higher education”.

My memory isn’t what it once was, and much of this story may be a bit jumbled. But believe me, the things I’m about to tell you about my son are true, and I have plenty of tangible evidence to back me up. Here’s what I remember of his first 15 years after high school:

We gave him our old Dodge minivan as a high-school graduation gift. He tricked it out as his “purple pimpmobile” or some such thing, and after leaving SIU, headed out west. He spent a few months in a wonderful area near Boulder, Colorado, before heading to California.

He got an idea into his head: Why not get a work permit to work in New Zealand for a year? Indeed, why not? So he did! 

When he got to the South Island, he got an idea: He could take photos of tourists taking day cruises, jump into a speedboat, and develop and print the pictures by the time the boat returned! He could make a killing (this was just before digital cameras became affordable.) But….he needed a way-good camera. He told me he needed a medium-format camera that used film much larger than 35mm. I found one on eBay, won the bid for it, and had it shipped off to Queensland! Woo-hoo!

He decided to see some of the world on his way back. In New Guinea, he ran across some native folks butchering a whale they’d just caught. Packaging-up the blubber and such. Via sign language, he figured out what they were trying to tell him: “Hey, dude, we’re headed back out in our nifty dugout canoe (with side-rigger and sail) to get us another whale! You want to come along? You never forget it”! Brian knew where to draw the line, and politely said thanks, but no thanks.

In Bali, he suffered a potentially life-threatening gastroenteritis attack. We got a phone call. They needed us to buy him a plane ticket to Bangkok, the nearest place he could get proper treatment. Of course we did. He was hospitalized for several days. I believe he still suffers occasional latent symptoms.

Did he fly home then? No way! He had to see Cambodia and Vietnam first. He took some great pictures!

After that, Brian drifted up to Port Townsend, Washington. His Uncle Larry had been a cook on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska, and had even outfitted a galley one time. Brian had heard that good money could be made fishing in Alaska, and he’s always loved fishing. So, what the hey? He asked around and got picked-up as a deck-hand. He spent several seasons in Alaska, mostly safe “seining” in hatcheries close to shore. He worked the squid season near San Francisco at least twice. While back in Port Townsend, he learned to sail. He was saving-up for a sailboat of his own!

Author’s Notes, 6 a.m. the following morning: I’ve decided to take a cue from George Lukas and call this Episode IV. Hopefully, I’ll get back to episodes I-III faster than he did.  I also realize that I’ve not revealed what I think about Brian’s adult life, so here it is: There was nothing in Brian’s childhood that foreshadowed the astounding and remarkable adult life he was to lead! Brian has worked exceptionally hard to earn the adventurous life he has led. He has already led a more full and complete life than most people can conceive of (myself included). He has had glorious triumphs, and bitter, humiliating defeats. He has lost all his worldly possessions – twice! He has persevered in manly fashion, rising from the ashes (hint: His second boat was rechristened as Phoenix). In short, I have nothing but love and admiration for Brian’s conduct of his adult life. It’s a slow-motion movie, playing in real-time!

P.S.: A quick thank-you to Jen and Tony R., our near neighbors from all 16-1/2 years we have lived here in the BNE (Best Neighborhood Ever). Jen dropped a wonderful note in our mailbox yesterday. Jen is also a writer; she is finding inspiration in my blog. I am growing closer to many special people!

My Family: Each of us at a Turning Point

Jen, Doug & Natalie

The Jose Brothers: Doug, Bill & Bob

Zeke takes Brian & me hiking in Arizona

My friends, you cannot believe how wonderfully freeing this blog has become, and how many caring people I have re-engaged with so far. My life of outdoor adventure is turning into a life of inner adventure!

I need to step away from my musings on the past to bring you up to date on recent developments. But before reading on, please view this 2-minute video that my daughter sent me last week: The Secret of Life. If you like that one, Alan Watts has a series of ’em that elaborate on the theme. Please comment on how that video resonated with you!

Wow! Serious food for thought. My daughter questions why I never listen to music anymore. My reason has been that it keeps dragging my thoughts into the past. Combined with worries about the future, I felt myself not living much in the “present”, the “eternal now”, the only “time” we actually live in, moment-to-moment.

I’m the type of person who has repressed my emotions for most of my adult life. I’ve started listening to the Moody Blues a lot since I received that video. Emotions from my formative years are flooding-back. I’m becoming a more complete human being.

Health Update: I am still doing amazingly well. I’ve had 22 radiation treatments and five chemo treatments. The only time I feel weak and light-headed is when I overdo it in tennis. I am still playing twice a week, but not serving anymore (so I don’t get into extended rallies point-after-point-after point). It cuts the effort required in half. I am still playing the best tennis of my life. I got my fifth rolfing treatment Monday.

Prognosis: It’s not as rosy as I first thought. In fact it’s pretty grim.If I had waited much longer before getting diagnosed, the recommended treatment protocol would have been “palliative care”, which is basically Hasta la Vista, Baby, here’s your morphine.

The Surgery: My protocol calls for surgery 5-10 weeks following completion of the radiation and chemo treatments. There are two basic approaches: Open-up my chest so they can see what they’re doing, or do it orthoscopically using tiny cameras to try to see what they are doing. Here’s the plan of action:
1. Cut-out the lower 2/3’s of my esophagus, and the top part of my stomach
2. Staple-off 1/3 of my stomach, and throw away the other 2/3’s.
3. Reshape my stomach into an esophagus and punch a hole in the bottom of it.
4. Sew my new esophagus onto the old one skillfully enough that it doesn’t leak.
5. Oh, and install three tubes: One for feeding, and two other for God knows what.
6. And don’t forget: Complications are likely; some can be life-threatening. Some could drag on for years. Don’t plan on buying non-refundable vacation trips or plane tickets.

I’ll be fed through the feeding tube while healing takes place. Basic recovery will take six months to a year.For the rest of my life, all food and drink will fall directly into my small intestine (my stomach is gone). And lying-down flat will be a thing of the past, since whatever is in my small intestine would flow back into my throat!

I’ll be on the operating table 10-12 hours. 5% of the time, the patient dies on the table. On average, less than half live five years; most of those die in year one or two. They of course put what they took out under a microscope to see how much cancer they took out. About 25% of the time, they don’t find any! Zero! Zilch! Nada! What?! Are you kidding me? I really didn’t need this operation? Their answer: Well, of course you did: Your cancer isn’t going to come back where it was, because it’s not there anymore! It’s not clear how much the surgery would extend my life; it’s far more likely to extend my death!

Here’s MY plan: I’ll be getting more CT scans and a PET scan. If they don’t detect any cancer, they’re not operating on me. I plan to do “watchful waiting”: Check periodically whether any cancer is detectable or not. If/when they detect something, reassess. Until we find something, live my life to the fullest: Carpe Diem!

Natalie

The Weepin’ Willows

My daughter Natalie: Natalie was named after Natalie Wood, a film-star favorite of ours that died in a boating “accident” a few weeks before Natalie was born. We were living in South Bend, Indiana at the time (her latest moniker: Indiana Jose). I had just gone hi-tech with my music: A dual-cassette deck. Woo-hoo! I taped dozens of kids’ record albums, and we played them before and after she was born: Big Bird, Bert & Ernie (“Rubber Ducky”), and of course the Star Wars Christmas album! Our favorite: “What do you get a Wookie for Christmas, when he already owns a comb?“.

Natalie was singing and dancing and making-up plays by the time she was two. After we moved to Sewickley, PA she’d entertain her neighbors and friends on the back patio. She joined a choir in Sewickley, and the Young Naperville Singers after we moved to Illinois. She was in the play “Bye-Bye Birdie” in Junior High (but did not get the starring role). She did a little acting and singing in high school. She did some singing while attending Ohio University (a “top-10 party school”). She formed a Patsy Cline cover band (The Weepin’ Willows) after she moved to Chicago.

She worked a boring day job for an insurance company for eight years. She almost got hooked on the pay, benefits, security, etc. At night she learned “improv”, but hated it when someone stole the show from her. She switched to stand-up comedy, burning the candle at both ends for a couple years. Four years ago she made the leap: She quit her day job to pursue her passion for stand-up!

Note: I intended to add more here, but did not get back to it in time. I’ve corrected some typos and added some photos and links, so give it a second look!

 

Thanks to my Dad

A lot has happened in the past few days. I may not get to cover all of it the way I’d like to right away. Check back to to see what I might have added.

Today’s Thanks are to my Dad, for:

Teaching me strong ethical values
Teaching me to play baseball and tennis
Bringing me back a 3″ clay Indian figure every time he made a trip to Chicago. The collection is still my my attic. I will get my collection out soon, display it on my mantle, and take a picture of it. Brought brought different special gifts to my brothers.
Becoming an Assistant Scoutmaster in Boys Scouts during the years I was Scouts. I made Eagle Scout, as did both of my brothers.
Being the only one that ever gave me a nickname: Pal. He really did try to be my pal.
Teaching me by his example (and cryptic sayings, like “experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”) I eventually figured out what that meant.

Dad also carried a lot of baggage from his childhood experiences during the depression. He was the son of an alcoholic, and the oldest of four brothers. Here are some vignettes from his life:

In the mornings before going to school, he would somehow take one egg and turn it into four egg sandwiches, one for each boy.

Growing up, he learned to enjoy “sops” for breakfast. He would have it occasionally has an adult. Sops was essentially boiled bread with a tiny amount of sugar on it. As an adult he was able to have more sugar than he could as a kid.

His house was adjacent to the railyard and rail line. Like many of the folks at that time they used to walk the rails picking up coal that had fallen off the coal-cars. That was illegal! The train companies owned the land; that was their coal. They got one caught one time. The police asked him if his dad had put him up to it and of course he said yes. I think his dad spent the night in the hoosegow over that one.

Dad always did everything by the book. The only exception I ever heard was when they were shipping out of Shemya after the war. His buddy Gordon was very sick and unable to travel. But Dad and his buddy Wally snuck him out of the infirmary and onto the ship for the trip home with them.

More later……

Happy 43rd Wedding Anniversary to Us!

In the fall of 1973, I started a Masters Degree program in Systems Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. I shared a room in Clark Tower, a graduate-student co-ed dorm, with Jim, a Music Major. I liked Jim (“The King”) a lot, but felt I needed a room to myself. I requested one and got it set up for second semester.

I arrived after the Christmas break, in early 1974. I took the elevator to the second floor and stepped off the elevator. I turned left toward my room and stopped in my tracks! There in the corner of the lobby TV room was very pretty girl with long curly blonde hair, slouched in her chair, watching the Cleveland Browns embarrass themselves. I was sure she’d have those blue eyes, too!

It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but I felt certain that I was going to like living on the second floor a whole lot more than on six! So….

Thank-you Jen for these things, and all the other things you’ve been for me:

Being a loving and caring lifetime companion

Being the social glue bonding us with others

Being willing to resolve differences through discussion and compromise

Being a wonderful Mother to our children

Being a great cook and baker (even bread!)

Making houses into homes

Knitting very cool sweaters

Sewing clothes, costumes, etc.

Painting and plastering as required

Cutting my hair these last 20 years

Being a skilled whitewater kayaker, with multiple “combat rolls” to your credit, including two wild rides around “Snaggletooth Rock” on the Lower Yough River in Pennsylvania

Becoming a skilled adventure sea kayaker, cannoeist, and backpacker

Insisting we buy our Casita travel trailer, our home away from home

Being a talented and energetic tennis player; we play often with each other during the summer, and with others year-round.

Note that we bought our first (lake) kayaks in 2006, when I was 55. We bought whitewater boats in 2007; backpacking kicked-in around 2008, expedition canoeing about 2010, and expedition sea kayaking in 2013. Jen always was a tomboy! We’ve hauled a camper out West three times, and to Florida three times. We’ve done almost all of this as a couple, but sometimes one had to stay back to care for Winnie as she got older. Note: Winnie contracted Lime Disease, on her only backpacking trip. She was diagnosed a few months later, but was never quite the same again.

Health Update: I’m feeling fine, but am having increasing problems getting food to go down. I’d don’t have the time or energy tonight to talk about our meeting yesterday with the surgeon, nor do I have time to post some photos. Check back later for those.

The Thank-You’s Begin

I didn’t sleep much last night after getting the anonymous comment that many in Wyandotte were praying for me. Holy cow!

Today, I begin my thank-you’s.

Thank you, Mom: For everything; for so many things. Here are some:

Being a loving, protective Mother; our bond was very strong in the pre-school years.
Teaching me to read, and the value of a good education.
Helping me with my homework.
Baking all the delicious goodies.
Learning from Grandma Jose how to bake real Cornish pasties and saffron buns.
Starting-up a Cub Scout Troop, so I could participate in Scouts.
Encouraging me to pursue music; buying me that Baby Gibson guitar – I still have it.
Travelling to Cleveland for a week to type-up my master’s thesis.
Coming to Toulouse, France to take care of baby Brian while Jen was in the hospital with pneumonia.
Taking that spin around the block with me in my first convertible, a Mercury Capri. As you got out, I had the feeling I might never see you again. You died suddenly a week later. I could not find any tears for you then – I don’t know why. I guess maybe I was too accustomed to holding my feelings inside.

Thank you, Eda and Penny: I’ve just come to realize how many one-and-dones there were in my life. Watch for them in my stories. I always felt socially awkward. I’d initiate something, but not have the confidence to follow through.

In sixth grade, I began to notice that there was more to life than baseball and tennis: Girls. I admired Eda because she was the smartest one in the class. But I kept my gaze on Penny, who became the first incarnation of the blond-haired, blue-eyed beauty I wanted to marry some day.

Eda S.: Thanks for being the first girl to take an interest in me; it gave me hope for the future! I was oblivious to your interest until your birthday party, when your Dad offered me a bribe: A transistor radio if I would kiss you! I don’t remember if I kissed you or not, but I went home with the radio! I’d listen late in bed to Gordie Howe leading the Redwings to victory. There were only six teams in the NHL back then.

Penny B.: Thanks giving me that first vision of who I was to eventually marry. Thanks for letting me walk you home that one time (little more than a short block). I was on Cloud 9. Why didn’t I follow up? Too young, too shy.

I was in a tiny mid-semester class of six because I was born in December; we were always in a full class of kids in a different grade. I can’t remember how that ever worked. In Junior-High and High School, that would make it difficult to take the good college-prep courses. So, Mom had a great idea: Why not skip-ahead a half-grade? So that’s what I did. I didn’t see much of Eda or Penny after that. I became the youngest kid in my class; that was not a blessing.

Terry C.: Thanks for introducing me to barbecue-flavored potato chips, and for letting me play on your basketball team! Here’s a memory: Mr. Oshinski seemed to be calling a lot of fouls on us that I didn’t think we deserved, so I said something to him to that effect. He immediately blew his whistle and gave me a Technical Foul! He was a good man.

Don G.: Thanks for being my schoolyard nemesis; every guy should have one of those growing up. You taught me to stand up to bullies (like you). Note: A few years after graduating, we had a reconciliation due to a mutual interest in music. Incredibly, Don somehow married a beautiful, talented singer who worked for a record company in LA! I don’t think it lasted long; LA was not Don’s kind of town. Like Bob Seger said: He knew right then he was too far from home.

Natalie Update: I highly recommend my daughter’s 38-minute video tirade to Beyoncé.

Health Update: I’m having a lot more trouble swallowing. Stuff keeps getting stuck trying to get to my stomach. Other than that, it’s all good. I’m planning to play tennis tonight.

Susan from the Rad Team

Drew & Gary from the Chemo Team