Everything Seems to be Working

Posted on by Brian 2 Comments

Except for that stupid ordered list dot on the “Playing:” info. The main thing though, it looks like all of my email is back to normal. At least I sent test messages to and from all of my various accounts and they all seemed to send and arrive like they should’ve. So, if you know one of my email addresses, you can send me email. If you don’t, leave me a comment – I’ll be getting the email links back on the site in a bit. And as cool as the layout of the Hemmingway theme was, I switched back to Kubrick for the readability. Hopefully I’ll be able to get some design time in this weekend so I can ditch the theme. In the meantime, you gets what you gets. Whaddaya want from me? I got cancer.

Speaking of which, I stopped in today to get my weekly bloodwork and the checkout from the nurse. Turns out my platelets are pretty low. The low is around 100 and mine were more like 70. What does this mean? In the words of the nurse: “Don’t get cut.” I guess that means no bar fights this week. Here’s hoping I don’t wake up with another nosebleed. Check that. Here’s hoping that I don’t get another nosebleed, but that if I do, I wake up first. Eeeewwww…

Here Goes Everything

Posted on by Brian

Well, after agonizing over the new design yesterday and Friday, I’ve decided to say the heck with it and just use a default WordPress theme for now. I still have a lot of setting up and coding type stuff to do to get things like I want them, so I’m going to do all of that first, then worry about the design later. Form before function, you know. Best advice at them moment would be to not send me any email just yet – it’ll take a couple of days for the DNS servers to start resolving to all the right locations and I wouldn’t want to miss your email between servers. I’ll post here when I’m relatively certain that email’s back to normal.

If the site’s not purple any longer, then congratulations! You’re looking at my new home! And if you’re looking at my home, that means… you can leave comments! Welcome to the Brave New World…

Since it’ll be your first time to leave a comment, it’ll be held for review to make sure you’re a real person. So don’t be surprised when it doesn’t show up immediately. Once you’ve commented (and been approved) a couple of times, it’ll go right to commenting in the future.

Good Things Brewing

Posted on by Brian

Changes are afoot here in Moondoggieville! I’m set up with a new webhost, which I’m hoping to be switched over to by the end of the weekend. I’m going to be switching CMS systems from MovableType to WordPress, so I’ll be making sure I’m working in the new place before making the switch. What will this mean to you?

  • A new look to the site, since I can’t just start out my new time with the same old website.
  • Possible short site outage as the net’s DNS servers repopulate with my new location.
  • Longer than usual lagtimes in email replies for a bit as I code the new site and make the transition from one mail server to another.
  • COMMENTS! You’re going to be able to comment! Probably!
  • The revealing of my latest URLs, one of which you’ve discovered, if you’re the clicking kind.

So, bear with me and we’ll get through the weekend together.

Now I have to shut down and move my computer to a new desk as well. Everything’s changing! Couldn’t you just wet yourself?

Still Alive

Posted on by Brian

So this morning was fun. I woke up around 2 AM, laid there in bed for a little bit and my nose started running. Now, I’m not sure if it’s just years of experience at work, but within a couple of drips I can tell it’s a nosebleed, even in the dark. I grab a couple of kleenexes and do the nose pinch (leaning forward, not backward, ’cause I know what I’m doing here). A few minutes go by. I’m getting sleepy again, so I go ahead and tilt my head back for a few minutes (I know what I just said before, but I was sleepy – bite me). A few more minutes go by. I get tired of gurgling, so I go back to the correct method. I’m starting to have visions of Modern Problems and wonder what I did to piss Chevy Chase off. Finally, after a good twenty minutes or so, the bleeding comes under control.

Now comes the wondering. You see, the gemzar I had on Monday is supposed to screw around with my RBCs and platelets. What makes you clot? Platelets. This might not be a good thing. So here I am, 2:30 in the morning, wondering if I’m going to bleed out. Barb’s still snoring away, so I make my way over to the computer. I find a couple of sites that mention a few different symptoms, but nothing about nosebleeds in particular. Then I come across someone else’s site. Their daughter had Hodgkin’s. She went through the stem cell transplant process much like I’m going to. The entries are from 2004. Where’s the update? What’s happening?

These are always bad questions to be asking yourself in my situation reading one of these blogs.

Sure enough, I backtrack and she died from pneumonia complications during the transplant. Wonderful.

This is why I don’t look up Hodgkin’s on the net. I have yet to find survivor’s stories. I find survivors of other cancers. I meet people who went through this. I occasionally stumble into a forum with people touting success. Personal stories though? They’re all “In Loving Memory of” or I’ll get sucked in until the last “but he lost the battle” bit.

So now I have even more of an impetus to fix the site up a bit. The new tagline is “Still Alive” and it’s gonna be right there on the front. None of that memorial crap here – you’re reading about a survivor, baby. And as we all already know, what’s cancer?

Cancer is my bitch.

Photo Day

Posted on by Brian

Well, yesterday was primarily spent sleeping. The gemzar doesn’t seem to be as bad as the cisplatin was, and Dr. D thinks that the decadron they gave me as a premed was causing a large part of my stomach distress. Apparently even though it’s given for its anti-nausea properties, it can have kind of a rebound effect when it wears off. I got my Neulasta yesterday, and other than being a little muddleheaded (compared to last week where I was only a little coherent), I’m feeling fine.

Barb has posted her blizzard photos so you can see what she, her brother and nephew had to dig us out of on Sunday. There’s another new photo for you to see as well, but since that’s a surprise, I’m going to make you click the “read more” to see it.
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Almost Back to Normal

Posted on by Brian

Well, it’s been a rough week or so, but things are almost back to normal here in Moondoggieville. Great thanks goes out to my good friend and former boss Rob for tracking down my December and January posts in the Yahoo cache – you ROCK! It still took a little bit of finagling and a lot of waiting on Nexpoint support, but we’re finally all back up and going. I don’t recall if I made any posts in February, so I’m waiting to hear back from my parents to see if they have any printouts for me.
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Web Site Weirdness

Posted on by Brian

You might have noticed some weirdness going on here at Moondoggie Productions. My web host had a bad weekend, which means I had a really bad weekend. The server my site was on went down “for unscheduled maintenance” for over two days, then when it did come back online, my site was only current up through December 5th of last year. My web host (Nexpoint, who you should stay far away from in my current opinion) claims that the 12/5 backup was the most recent “usuable” backup of the site that they could find and apologized for the inconvenience. According to their own company’s site, one of their “Protective Features” is a daily backup. So apparently, sixty of these daily backups were unusable. Either that, or their web site lies and the backups are more along the lines of bimonthly or worse. I have asked the support people which of these options is the case and they have yet to get back to me with an answer.

In addition, whatever they did and however they did it managed to corrupt by blog’s database so that it no longer recognizes my username/password combination. Hence, the nonstandard looking post here. This means that not only do I have to re-enter all of my entries in the ensuing time, I’ll probably have to re-enter all of the old ones into a new database.

Did I mention that I’m in chemotherapy this week?

So, if you know of any good, honest web hosts who don’t charge through the nose, feel free to click the contact link and send me an email, because I will certainly be looking to go elsewhere.
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Okay, So This Is Weird…

Posted on by Brian

So Barb and I are getting dinner ready tonight (well, she’s getting it ready and I’m getting it from her) when the doorbell rings. I open it up to discover one of Hartford’s Finest standing outside. Apparently, one of the sons/grandsons of the former occupants of our house has a warrant out for his arrest and our house is still listed as his current address. As if it weren’t bad enough we’re still getting the family’s mail, now we’re getting their arresting officers as well.

I explain the situation as best I can, owing to my increasingly poor memory and recollection of names. Plus, I get the thought in my head that maybe this guy’s not a real cop. Maybe he’s some kind of scam artist in a cop suit trying to pull something on us. I don’t even see a cop car in the immediate area. Is that supposed to be a police issue Geo across the street? Wouldn’t his uniform fit better than that? And it’s raining out – shouldn’t he have his hat on with one of those little shower cap things?

It’s hard to think about conspiracies and cons and talk about another subject at the same time, at least for me. The conversation runs around in circles for a couple of minutes before we get back on track and I remember that one of the owner’s daughters works at a place still in the area, so I give them that info. He thanks me and turns away from the door. As he’s walking down our porch steps, I suddenly realize there had been another officer just off to one side of the door who I hadn’t even noticed. Gotta start paying more attention, but hey – I’m tired and weak.

I lock the door and turn around to go back to the kitchen and tell Barb what just happened (she was on the phone when the doorbell rang) when I hear the name of the person they’re looking for again. In a voice much deeper than Barb’s. I get back to the kitchen to find that there were even more than my two cops – the others had gone to the back door to watch for runners and question Barb, who took them pretty much down the same path I did, just with less stumbling and wandering about. Turns out I didn’t see the cruisers ’cause they were in our driveway, cutting off the escape.

What a night.

Oy Vey

Posted on by Brian

Well, it’s back to the 3AM wakeup call for scratching. The itch had gone away during last week’s treatment, but I think I recall the nurse mentioning that they were giving me a steroid as one of my pre-meds. Probably so I’d be looking forward to the next treatment. You know what? I’m still not.

I came to the realization the night before last that I’ve been taking this cancer thing extremely lightly. I mean, yeah we joke about it and I don’t let it get me down and we have a good attitude and all of that. But I realized that night that in my mind, I’ve been thinking about this as I would a cold or the flu. Think about when you get a cold. Assuming you’re not one of the whiny types, you think to yourself that you’re only going to have it for a limited period of time. That you can still work and function like a normal person, you’re just a normal person who talks a little funny and looks like hell.
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