cigarettes | cigarettes
Apr.22.2013
Today marked my fifth day of whole brain radiation, leaving me 10 to go before I'm done with cancer treatment.
Fatigue is supposed to be one of the primary side effects of whole brain radiation, but I can't distinguish it from the fatigue I felt before this phase of treatment began. Add it all...
|
Apr.09.2013
Tomorrow marks my third month as an ex-smoker. Cancer was good for something, I guess.
But I remain hopelessly addicted to nicotine. There are multiple times each day when I lust for a cigarette.
Habits die hard. When I leave the house, a lighter and a pack of cigarettes are invariably on...
|
|
Feb.28.2013
Kay's call this morning shook me. Her brother-in-law, Dick, had been diagnosed with some kind of interstitial lung disease and will need a transplant in the next few years. Dick, who I've played some golf with in Bowling Green, didn't smoke.
I had never heard of interstitial and Goggled it....
|
Feb.13.2013
Giving yourself cancer does not do much for your self-image. I don't even have the will to call one of those 1-800 lines to see if I can join their class-action suit.
Should the bill come due, I will have to pay.
During those first days of chemo, with my mind racing at its manic pace, I became...
|
|
Feb.11.2013
Trouble loomed as I walked upstairs to get dressed for the third and final day of my first round of chemo.
My mind and body had begun to betray me after another sleepless night fed by nausea and insomnia. I needed help in a big way. Mary Lou agreed to take me to Parma.
Killing myself...
|
Feb.05.2013
The fact that I could get cancer or some other dreadful disease from cigarettes did not completely elude me. Hey, I'm pretty sure I read the warning printed on the side of each pack at least once.
But smokers have an amazing ability to ignore the consequences of their actions. Being addicted...
|
Jan.06.2013
My new piece on guns. The Good Life
|
Dec.18.2012
I love learning something new. There's a lot of new things every day so I'm always behind.
Today's new thing comes from Australia. I'm just catching up on it. I don't live there so I wasn't paying close attention, so it's new to me.
That happens often as part of my...
|
Nov.18.2012
This Thursday is that day of the year when we gather together with family or friends and say a prayer of thanks that my mother took her recipe for Broccoli Mold to her grave. This year, however, is one of those Novembers when Thanksgiving should mean more to us than the start of a four-day weekend...
|
Aug.22.2012
My novel, DRINKING CLOSER TO HOME, is based on events that happened to my family over the course of years. The novel starts when the three grown children return home to their mother who has just suffered a severe heart attack. While they’re waiting for her to live or die, the novel...
|