When fighting clowns, go for the juggler.

Someone on the cc forums posted to ask what had made any of us smaile a little bigger lately and that was a pun that made me laugh. ;)

It had been a few days of no laughing though. Round one of the chemo was last week and by evening on Thursday, I was hurting. The nausea pill I'd popped clearly wasn't made to last 24 hours in a guy my size even if I have lost a lot of weight. Lo and behold one of the side effects of the 5FU may be an aggravation of acid reflux. I thought I'd nipped that a decade ago which was why it felt so alien to me... I just felt like barfing really good would help but it never actually came to pass. So, I'll be rooting out a good antacid again (Tagamet and Prilosec come to mind) to get onto a prophylactic regimen.

Greg linked me to a study about glutamine reducing neuropathy in colon cancer patients getting oxiliplatin. Sounded interesting to me considering the monstrous goodie bag the manufacturer gave me as one of the patients. Inside was a pair of gloves, socks with warming gel inserts, a blanket, and a daytimer for keeping tabs on chemo. They clearly know what their drug does to most people... brrrr... I'm not looking forward to those side effects, but Dr. Lee said she'd read the study and consider signing me up for something if she thought it might help reduce the possibilities.

Speaking of Greg, he is probably getting his first drip even as I type this. I went to bed and woke up praying for him to have it a little easier than my first week. We'll be a week out of phase so at least one of us ought to be feeling okay, just in case you guys need one of us. :P

I hope round two next week goes a little easier with the extra protections on my tummy. Some of it may have been in my head, but there was no denying what I was feeling in my stomach. bleagh...

In other news, vwvortex had a front page article this morning about a college kid from NYC who went on walkabout with his car across our great country. I've been halfheartedly planning my own drive away and reading his story has me fired up again to continue my planning. I want to be able to camp and hotel my way along like he did and see some of the great sights. It's on my 'bucket list' so to speak (though I'd never call it that, I'm just using the recent movie title). In an ideal world, I'd manage to get the GTI across the country to Laguna Seca and be able to drive the track when I got there. Dad tells me I got to see racing there before my sister was born so maybe my car habit really is his fault.

AND OH YEAH...

Holly, please call me. I was feeling tres crappe' over the weekend. I couldn't email you back through the blog nor did I have your number in my phone. I have TWO gold bricks left to earn and I could use Alex's help to get them both.