Merry Christmas.

Short and sweet.

My family has always, on Christmas Eve, served everyone rice pudding.

Hidden in one of the bowsl of rice pudding is an almond.

The person getting the almond will have good luck for the coming year.

I GOT THE ALMOND THIS YEAR.

talk to you later.

It's More Than A Cane

A few months ago I found myself in Atlanta walking across a fairly nice hotel lobby.   

Hotel?  Motel?  

As a young lad I recall my parents trying to explain to me the difference between the two. 

I still don’t get it. 

  I think it had something to do with if you drove to it and stayed less than an hour…. no that wasn’t my parent’s explanation.

But a few months ago in Atlanta, my Cane clicking on the faux travertine lobby floor I made my way past paintings produced by the masters.  I fleetingly examined each and my untrained eye told me that these paintings, hanging in the lobby of a chain hotel motel were obviously originals.

Halfway across my fine art tour from A to B I hear, “Excuse me sir.  Excuse me sir.”

In the past, even knowing the beckoning was directed to me I would continue walking intent on my trip to  A and B.  In the past, I would wonder why someone was saying “excuse me sir” and think it meant ill.  In the past I was a different man.

I turned to where I thought the “excuse me sir” was coming from and saw a woman behind the hotel/motel reg…OK, OK it will be a hotel from here on out…registration desk.

I walked back across the lobby all the while, my eye realizing “hey these are motel paintings not masterpieces” and feeling temporarily chagrined.

I smiled at the seemingly nervous lady in control of registration and said “yes.”

She asked odd things about my cane.  She asked a lot of questions about my cane and was tremendously serious.  I really didn’t understand her intensity but due to my new life I’ve become more tolerant and inquisitive.

She asked if the cane was for the mobile impaired, seeing impaired, was it ADA approved, could I take it on commercial flights.  Finally she asked the big time question.  Why do I have a cane?

I explained that I have Cancer and it has made it difficult for me to keep my balance.

Tears, streamed and streamed and she thanked me for my time.  She explained that she was asking because her husband… well he had suddenly had become a hell of a lot sicker then I at the time including that very day.  One hell of a lot sicker.   

I felt so bad for her though.  She was so afraid that she would buy the wrong cane for her husband even though she is bright enough to run a desk for a major hotel/motel in a major city of the U.S. 

She didn’t know what cane to buy for her very very ill husband.

It makes me cry that someone can be so afraid they can’t think.

It makes me cry that I got to help and she has since gotten a cane. 

KARMA

Karma.  Is that word even in today’s vocabulary?  Perhaps I’m dating myself using the word but I was and am a firm believer in Karma or whatever word you want to use for what goes around comes around.

Karma swings both ways.  Karma can leave you standing in the middle of the dirt road crushed and bewildered wondering what just happened.  Karma can make you silently scream in the middle of the night "why?"  Karma can make you introspective and wonder what did I do to deserve insert word here? Hell, Karma can be bad mouthing your dishwasher and the next day all your appliances decide to rebel.  Karma is also the five dollar bill you find in the parking lot because earlier you held the door open for the lady who didn’t even say thank you.  Karma is the grocery store checker running after you to give you your change because months ago you told a different checker that she had given you too much change.  Karma is the balance of the universe.  Somebody even wrote a song about Karma that was instant and going to get you.

I have experienced both the reward and penalty of Karma.  In fact I believe that a facet of my illness can be directly attributed to Karma. 

As a young man I would hear women complain, both in real life and on television, about hot flashes.  On T.V. women like Betty White would even make jokes about hot flashes.  I always thought “hot flashes seriously?  You need to get over it.”  Not a whole lot of sympathy from me when it came to the mystical hot flash.  Hot flashes seemed like an excuse to me to not do something; drama to get attention; affliction of the mind certainly not a physical discomfort.  My less than sympathetic attitude years down the road would gain me Karmanic retribution.

Prostate cancer loves testosterone.  Testosterone is the high octane fertilizer of prostate cancer.  One of the treatments for the disease is to get rid of the testosterone.  In the old days they, doctors, would do this the same way you would your dog only in a hospital and not a veterinarian.  As you can well imagine this technique didn’t and doesn’t really sit well with the patient and marketing the procedure was  brutally tough. 

Today, they do it chemically but still call it basically by the same name.  In fact Prostate Cancer can and generally does eventually become what the medical profession terms Castrate Resistant.   

The particular drug they give me is called Zolodex [depending on your insurance there are others that are administered differently].  Every three months I go in to one of my oncologists for check up, infusion and implant.  The very kind nurse gives me some Lidocaine in the insertion area and once comfortably numb she takes a needle about the size of a railroad spike and implants a pencil lead diameter piece of Zolodex in the fatty tissue of my belly.  Scary the first time, but no biggy thereafter. 

This drug removes the ability to produce testosterone.  Removing a man’s testosterone has a number of predictable “manly” side effects.  You can guess what those side effects may be or look them up.  I suspect your guess will be correct but if you’re a man going through this there are non obvious side effects you may want to know about.

One of the side effects that varies from man to man is hot flashes.  In my case I have hot flashes that drench the bedding to the point my wife offers to change the bedding sometimes twice a night.  I have some sort of hot flash every night and can only recall since treatment started one night where I did not have a hot flash. 

I’ve had shirt drenching hot flashes during business meetings causing everyone to scream “Oh my god he’s got Ebola” as they run out of the conference room while I shout “no no I’m not contagious”.   

I have discovered that hot flashes are very real.  Hot flashes are miserable.  Hot flashes are neither of the mind nor a ploy to get out of something.  I own multiple zip up hoodies because you go from melting to minutes later freezing thanks to hot flashes.  Zipper up zipper down.  Zipper up zipper down.

I know there are men with this disease that suffer minimal hot flashes due to the hormonal treatment.  I know there are men whose days are seemingly a continuous hot flash.  I know I’ll never again begrudge a woman having a hot flash.  Instead I’ll ask her if I can do anything to help. 

In my case I’m pretty sure Karma is serving its just and wet retribution.  Betty, if you can hear me, I take it all back.  Joke all you want.

Talk to you later.