Celtic Pride

Seth, Lynn, and my mom Kathy all returned to Bellingham safely and it has been nice to see them. I didn't feel well yesterday (Monday) and spent most of the day sleeping. I had class this morning and after class I felt better, enough so that I worked through the afternoon in my office. I find that teaching my class focuses my mind, activates my brain, and distracts me from my problems. It helps that I have a good group of graduate students - smart, engaged, inquisitive. I walked home and got to meet and spend some time with Grace's good friend Lorraine from Penn State (where Grace taught before WWU), who is attending a conference in Seattle and so was able to visit us in Bellingham.

The NBA playoffs start this weekend. The Celtics are setting expectations low lately, losing lopsided games to their chief Eastern Conference rivals Chicago and Miami in the past week. I'm hoping for a resurgence of this:

Celtic Pride! (And mullets too.)

Speaking of the NBA and resurgence, I am not happy about the resurgence of the Bulls for the Celtics' playoffs chances, but I am happy for Bulls first-year coach Tom Thibodeau, the former Celtics assistant coach and defensive mastermind. He should win NBA Coach of the Year (although I wouldn't argue with Spurs coach Gregg Popovich).

Ethan

Short story

Last Thursday evening Troy, Eric, and I were watching NBA basketball at NY Pizza & Bar. During halftime, one of the in-studio commentators was former Celtic star Kevin McHale. I like McHale (he was unstoppable in the low post in the 80s), but his appearance and mannerisms on TV led to this exchange:

Me: "Kevin McHale looks like a gay Frankenstein."
Troy: (to bartender) "Did you hear that?! He just called one of the Celtic greats a gay Frankenstein!"
Eric: "Not that there's anything wrong with that..."
Me: "That's true - some of my best friends are Frankensteins."

new Psychology Today post

I just posted something new on my Psychology Today blog:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/living-while-dying/201104/the-meaning-suffering

This weekend has been OK, not great. I've been tired. I find that I can easily sleep most of the day if I let myself. I worked in the office Saturday afternoon and some at home this (Sunday) morning. This evening was fun - we had some good friends over for a casual potluck dinner and to watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees (always satisfying). To relax lately, in addition to watching sports on TV, I've been doing a lot of crosswords in my NY Times Wednesday crosswords book that Grace got me.

Seth and Lynn return from visiting her sister and her family in Denver tomorrow afternoon and my mom returns from visiting my sister and her family in Rochester late tomorrow night.

Ethan

A couple pics

A couple of pics from Eric's visit:

Miles calls this his "Grandpa train," because Grandpa Chuck got it for him:

Thursday

Today was a good day. Last night was not a good night - the bone pain was excruciating and despite taking a lot of painkillers I didn't sleep much. The bone pain was also awful this morning - I couldn't really talk. But I limped to my class anyway (thanks Grace for dropping me off!) and lo and behold either teaching took my mind off it or the pain just happened to get better then, but by the end of the class I was feeling much better.

I haven't taken any pills for breakthrough pain since then, which is the longest stretch in a long time. I still feel some pain but it is much better. I hope this means that the temporary increase in bone pain due to the strontium has peaked and now I may get some pain relief, and maybe even start to decrease my dose on the fentanyl patch, which would be good because it makes me constipated and mentally loopy. But I would have to decrease the fentanyl gradually due to potential withdrawal symptoms.

I attended my first departmental faculty meeting in almost a year. It was nice to see all my colleagues, although I can't say I've missed the meetings themselves.

After the meeting, Eric picked me up and we had lunch at Busara Thai. Then we went for a nice walk on the North Lake Whatcom Trail - a little over 3 miles, partially sunny, good conversation.

It continued to get warmer and sunnier by the time we got home. I mowed half of the yard.

For dinner we went to New York Pizza & Bar. Grace and Miles ate with Jim, Crispin, and their son Eric in the restaurant area, while Eric and I sat with Troy (and later Scott Miles and Mike Medler) in the bar area and watched the Celtics lose to the Bulls. Despite that, it was fun to be out and I felt pretty good.

There was a table of psychology graduate students in the bar area, including some who were in my class this morning. They said that I made sense during class and did not doze off or drool, which made me feel better (I was worried after all the painkillers I had taken), although maybe they were just being polite. :-)

Eric leaves tomorrow morning, sadly for me. I wish I could clone him temporarily, so I could have him here with me and he could also be with his family (thank you Meredith for lending him to me!). But tomorrow and this weekend I need to do some work anyway, on my syllabus and post tenure review files.

Ethan

Tuesday

Seth and Lynn left this morning for a week in Denver visiting Lynn's sister Leeanne, her husband Todd, and Seth's cousins Josh and Nathan (this week is Seth's school spring break).

I taught my class this morning. I was a little worried about teaching because I have been so tired lately, but I thought the class actually went pretty well, despite my relatively low energy. It is a good group of 15 graduate students.

After class Grace drove me down to the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle, where I got a radiopharmaceutical injection which is supposed to help with bone pain. Unfortunately, although we requested the drug samarium, they gave me strontium instead, and didn't tell us until after the injection (the order from my oncologist Nestor apparently said strontium or samarium). So that was annoying, but it's too late to do anything about it, so I'm not going to worry about it. Strontium and samarium are supposed to have similar efficacy, but samarium is supposed to cause less bone marrow suppression (which affects blood cell production, which affects immune system function, blood clotting, and anemia).

After that, we met with Dr. Whiting at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. After that, we had a surprise: Eric flew back up from San Francisco, so we picked him up at SeaTac airport. Apparently he finished the work he had in San Francisco and decided to spend a few more days up here. We are happy to see him again. Grace drove us all home (thanks Grace for all your driving today!) and Eric immediately made us a nice dinner.

Eric and I watched basketball on the red loveseat and Miles snuck down from his bed and cuddled with me until Grace put the kibosh on that.

Radiopharmaceuticals like strontium and samarium often cause an increase in bone pain for a few days which usually decreases after about a week. I am definitely feeling an increase tonight - my bones really hurt! :-(

Ethan

Sunday

Eric left this afternoon and Jonathan and Toby leave early tomorrow morning. Seth and Toby had fun playing together. Eric cooked for us all. Unfortunately I did not feel well, with very little energy or appetite. I spent a lot of time sleeping even though I wanted to socialize. I did take some pics: http://remmel.shutterfly.com/2433

Ethan