OK now, all you guys out there let’s all admit it…sooner or later we all hear that familiar voice in the car say “Honey (or insert...”significant other”, hey you…etc!) I think the sign back there said turn right up ahead”. Come on now, real men don’t need signs! “Take a right for Topeka”, sounds to us like “hea… how about a beer and can I buy you a new speaker”! Men are just born with that natural innate sense of direction, a GPS system build right into our brains. That is, until the battery dies when we are about 17yrs old!
After that, we all fall back to our other god given brain tracking system; you know it’s the “I know how to get there” instinct. We all possess this instinct, we are like a Cherokee Indian tracking a buffalo across the mountains, we don’t need no stinkin maps, we don’t care what the GPS say’s, forget what that sign back there said, detour ahead bridge out, sounds like “Don’t detour me, don’t you think I know where I’m going”? “You know, that’s an old looking sign and besides I’ve been this way before”! “That’s right I never told you, it was when I was a kid, I was with my parents”. It’s like men just always know which way to go and exactly where to turn. ” You can make a u-turn up there”, is just a phrase not in our vocabulary and just cannot be fathomed by our brains.
So, that brings us to this past weekend in Vermont, and to my crusader like quest to find a short cut home through the mountains and streams after a day of swimming with our two soaking wet dogs, a sunburned wife, three empty water bottles, and four soaked towels; as we departed from the secret swimming hole that only the locals can find. Forget the locals, I can find a way to shave 10 or 15 minutes off the way home. That is, I can find a shortcut that you Theresa couldn’t possibly know about, through this dense forest around the many lakes, streams and mountains, and boulders, on this unpaved dirt road with little or no cell service and despite an argumentative cyber voice from my GPS telling me to make a u-turn ahead. “Listen to me honey, that “DEAD END” sign in front of us is old and contradicts the GPS map”, plus “I learned to drive on dirt roads like this”. What could go wrong? I’m turning left here not right”.
So let’s go on to my 1 ½ hour shortcut that took us over a road that I can barely even begin to describe to you, but hey, I’ll try. First we went up a hill steeper than the main face of Mt Everest, actually that was 40 or 50 hills or more in total, then throw in the 10” to 15” boulders, expertly placed by mother nature in the middle of the road, the trees, shrubs and wild unidentifiable growing things that covered the 6 to 7 foot wide so called road we were on, and the tire ruts from army tanks or something very big and heavy. Then there was the mud, pools of water with unknown depths across the road, (held my breath on these), besides, come on now, we have our bathing suits on and the dogs are already wet.
This was basically a road that an army tank would have struggled to make it through; I believe they would have gone to the right. But, so what, my expertly build SUV was born for “off road” four wheeling adventures like this. At least that’s what the car salesman told me at the showroom when I bought my sparkling new Acura MDX, you know the clean shiny SUV you always see at the front of every valet parking lot, but alas, not very often in the off road TV ads! So on with the story, as we passed the last sign of life, which was 25 or so locals having a barbeque and pig roast in front of their “double wide”. I chose to ignore the ten or so 4X4 pickup trucks parked in their driveway, you know the ones you always see with their frames jacked up 2 to 3 feet higher than normal with tires higher than the roof of my SUV and covered with the obligatory mud. We drove by them smiling like a couple of hyenas in the zoo determined to press on into the unknown, they stopped their music, put down their beers and looked at us like an alien space ship had just landed in the road in front of them, their jaws dropped when they saw us and knew where we were heading, they were speechless as they all stared at us with our cute little shinny black city slicker SUV, and of course I gave them a nice big wave as we passed. Looking in my rear view mirror I saw them all texting on their cell phones, I thought they were sending a picture to friends of the new Acura MDX model, It wasn’t until an hour later I realize they were really calling 911 and telling the Sheriff to bring a chopper and search dogs!
Well, let’s just say it was a very treacherous road with about 6 or more miles of treachery ahead before we came to the inevitable “DEAD END”, where a rock slide and avalanche from around 1950 had ended the road forever. It was then that I said, “OK, OK, you’re right, let’s make a u-turn and go back”. Oh my god, go back over the past 6-8 miles that I didn’t think I could make it through coming in, you mean I have to do it twice!!! Alas, on the way back as we passed the locals at the Barbecue, this time they waved and smiled at us as they saw the mud on my truck, they saluted us with their beers raised high. However, we looked back at them this time, and we were the ones shocked and bewildered with blank stares on our faces. Even the dogs had their paws over their eyes at this point; we had to check the filling in our teeth when we got back. Shortly thereafter, I got out of the truck as we came to the 1st paved road we saw, bent down on my knees and kissed the pavement…..The End…
Now on to my health: the past week I was preparing for my stem cell harvest by getting daily shots of Neulasta at home (Thank you to Theresa and Jolene for giving me those shots, I couldn’t give them to myself!). The neulasta was intended to raise the amount of stem cells in my blood until they are overwhelming in numbers. The body doesn’t’ normally have this many stem cells in the blood so I experienced a number of side effects last week, as noted below. I’m here all day today at the Dana-Farber on a dialysis machine. This machine separates all the stem cells from the regular red & white cells and the platelets in my blood. The goal today is to collect as many as 8 to 10 million cells for my stem cell implant next week and freeze enough for an additional transplant if I have a relapse in the future.
Last week, I experienced some side effects from the Neulasta such as, headaches, lower GI discomfort and severe lower back pain. I’m happy to say that all those symptoms are gone today. My stem cell counts were off the charts this morning so everything is a go for my harvest today. I’m told that I will feel noticeably better tomorrow after all the stem cells are all harvested.
That’s all for now, don’t forget to check my main blog for all my updates at: http://chemokenandthereddogs.blogspot.com/
