83. *Talking to Dragons, Wrede, Patricia (re-re-reread) 82. *Calling on Dragons, Wrede, Patricia (re-re-reread) 81. *Searching For Dragons, Wrede, Patricia (re-re-reread) 80. *Dealing With Dragons, Wrede, Patricia (re-re-reread) 79. *Drowned Country, Tesh, Emily 78. *Deliberation, Cherry, C. J. (short story) (xreread) 77. *Invitation, Cherryh, C. J. (short story) (xreread) 76. *A Case of Possession, Charles, K. J. (re-re-reread) 75. *The Magpie Lord, Charles, K. J. (re-re-reread) 74. *Touch Not The Cat, Stewart, Mary 73. *Realm of Ash, Suri Tasha 72. *Empire of Sand, Suri Tasha 71. *Dreams of Distant Shores, McKillip, Patricia 70. *Heart Stone, White, Elle Katharine 69. *Meat Cute, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 68. *Ambush or Adore, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 67. *The Missing Page, Sebastian, Cat 66. *Hither, Page, Sebastian, Cat (reread) 65. *How to Marry a Werewolf, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 64. *Defy or Defend, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 63. *Poison or Protect, , Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 62. *Manners and Mutiny, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 61. *Waistcoats and Weaponry, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 60. *Curtsies and Conspiracies, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 59. *Ettiquette and Espionage, Carriger, Gail (re-re-reread) 58. *The Botanist’s Apprentice, Powell, Arden 57. *Of Books, Earth, and Courtship, de Bodard, Aliette 56. *The Tea Master and the Detective, de Bodard, Aliette (re-read) 55. *Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances, de Bodard, Aliette 54. *The House of Binding Thorns, de Bodard, Aliette 53. *The House of Sundering Flames, de Bodard, Aliette 52. *The House of Shattered Wings, de Bodard, Aliette 51. *Of Dragons, Feasts and Murder, de Bodard, Aliette 50. *The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, de Bodard, Aliette 49. *The Memory Theater, Tidbeck, Karin 48. *Little Wolf, Cooper, R. 47. *Lore and Lust, Nikoll, Karla 46. *Snowspelled, Burgis, Stephanie 45. *A Psalm for the Wild Built, Chambers, Becky 44. *Song For The Basilisk, McKillip, Patricia 43. *First Blood, Grayson, Eliot 42. *Quiet House, Morton, Lily 41. Cloud’s Rider, Cherryh, C. J. (re-re-read) 40. Rider at the Gate, Cherryh, C. J. (re-re-read) 39. *Lost and Found, Grayson, Eliot 38. *The Witch’s Familiar, Nichol, T. J. 37. *The Alpha Contract, Grayson, Eliot 36 Whiskey and Water, Bear, Elizabeth (re-read) 35. Blood and Iron, Bear, Elizabeth (re-read) 34. When Blood Lies, Harris, C. S. 33. The Book of Atrix Wolfe, McKillip, Patricia (reread) 32. *Captive Mate, Greyson, Eliot 31. *A Very Armitage Christmas, Greyson, Eliot 30. *Alpha’s Warlock, Greyson, Eliot 29. *Lost Touch, Greyson, Eliot 28. The Faded Sun: Kutath, Cherryh, C. J. 27. The Faded Sun: Shon’Jir, Cherryh, C. J. 26. The Faded Sun: Kesrith, Cherryh, C. J. 25. *The Long and Winding Road, Klune, T. J. 24. *The Art of Breathing, Klune, T. J. 23. *Who We Are, Klune, T. J. 22. *Bear, Otter, and the Kid, Klune, T. J. 21 *Under the Whispering Door, Klune, T. J. 20. *The House in the Cerulean Sea, Klune, T. J. 19. *A Shadow in Summer, Abraham, Daniel 18. *Fluke and the Faithless Father, Burns, Sam 17. *The Fantastic Fluke, Burns, Sam 16. *The Tale of Two Seers, Cooper, R. 15. *A Boy and His Dragon, Cooper, R. 14. *Time’s Convert, Harkness, Deborah 13. *Killashadra, McCaffrey, Anne 12. *Crystal Singer, McCaffrey, Anne 11. *Clay White, Cooper, R. 10. *Ravenous, Cooper, R. 9. *Change State, Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve 8. *Bread Alone, Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve 7. *Od Magic, McKillip, Patricia (reread) 6. *Spells and Sensibility, Noone, K. L. and Murphy, K. S. 5. *Revelry, Noone, K. L. 4. *Fire and Ink, Noone, K. L. 3. *Some Kind of Magic, Cooper, R. 2. *Wyrd and Wild , English, Charlotte E. 1. *The Book of Life, Harkness, Deborah (reread) * Ebook (xreread) – reread more than four times.
Month: August 2022
Sticker Shock
My heart must not be in too bad a shape because I didn’t keel over after I looked at the Medicare paperwork I just got. The day after I take my chemo regimen, I receive an injection of Pegfilgastrim-cbqv to kick start my body to make more white blood cells after chemo has trashed my immune system, so I don’t get an opportunistic infection. The hospital billed Medicare $26,065.40 for one (1) injection of it. Yep. Medicare did not pay (anywhere near) the full amount and I can’t figure from the paperwork I’ve got how much my VA insurance paid, but I’ve just gotten a bill from the hospital for $752 bucks for March.
I’m not blaming the hospital. The hospital has to pay what BigPharma charges them. Like $7,780.22 a pop for the newer one of my chemo drugs. And my kind of cancer is relatively cheap to treat (around $84K a month), so you can imagine the financial reality those poor “burn pile” vets are facing who ended up with more rare forms of cancer from inhaling those toxic fumes from the burn piles in Afghanistan.
UPDATE: After trying since I got home from my hydration this morning (and holding for over an hour) to get through to the hospital’s billing office (I was 49th in the queue at one point), I left a call-back and they just called me back. Turns out the reason I got such a bill from them was because they only billed Medicare for that “round” and didn’t bill the VA insurance. The nice lady said they would submit to the VA and hopefully, that will sort things out. It also explains why I couldn’t find any VA paperwork for that period of time.
What We Have Here Is A Failure to Communicate . . .
This is a first: The first time I’ve posted from the little reconditioned HP laptop I got. Frustrating. I’m used to a large gamer keyboard and this jicky little keyboard is a PITA. If I situate it in my lap, where I can reach the keyboard, I can barely read the screen. I already knew from using my BFF’s laptop that I hate touch pads, so I got an “el cheapo” wireless mouse and a mousepad, but there’s hardly any room for it on the little lap desk. Yeah. I know. First world problems.
Anyway, the failure to communicate mentioned above reared its ugly head yesterday after I’d gotten my labs drawn and my port accessed and was in my oncologist’s office. Turns out this is my fourth session of Rituxan (he counted) and not my fifth (I miscounted; chemo brain strikes again), which means I still have two chemo sessions to go, which means I’ll be having my last chemo session in September right around the time of mom’s 98th birthday (the 23rd). The degree of bummer-tude of this development will depend upon how far into September that last session falls, as my white blood cell count needs at least a week to recover from the preceding chemo session before I’ll even risk removing my mask, never mind be among a group of people of unknown COVID status. My sessions are three weeks apart. My penultimate session is 29 August and three weeks from that is 19 September. I can ask my oncologist if I can have an extra week between the last two sessions so I will be four weeks out from my last chemo instead of four days. He’s done it before. I bet I can sweet talk him into doing it again.
The best development out of this very mixed bag is that I have a chin again. The lymphomas in my neck had gotten so large you could barely tell where the bottom of my jaw was. But they have all shrunk drastically and those lymph nodes are back to normal size, which means I’m showing a good response to the chemo regimen. It will take a CT scan to check the response of the rest of the lymphomas in my chest and abdomen which he will probably order when I’ve completed all six of my treatments in September.
My chemo infusion went OK and I got the Udenyca shot this afternoon to boost white blood cell production and get my white count back up to normal. I gained seven pounds between Sunday night and Monday night, all of it from the chemo regimen. I get the decadron and anti-nausea medication in 0.25 liter of IV fluid, followed by the Rituxan diluted in a full liter of IV fluid, followed by 0.25 liter of IV fluid to flush the line, followed by the cyclophosphamide diluted in a full liter of fluid, followed by 0.25 liter of line flushing, which is 2.75 liters of fluid over the course of about four hours, plus the 32-ounce stainless steel bottle full of Crystal Light I sucked down between yesterday and today. A liter bottle of soda weighs 2.2 pounds, so imagine having three of them strapped to you. I lost 2 pounds between last night and tonight, but my poor little kidneys are having a hard time keeping up. I don’t have to go anywhere tomorrow so tomorrow morning, I’m going to take a Lasix (“water pill”) and see if I can’t get my legs emptied out. (I should have spent yesterday evening and the rest of this afternoon and evening in bed with my feet elevated instead of sitting at my desk puttering on the computer.
I saw my cardiologist this morning and he said my oncologist was concerned about me, so the cardiologist wants to do a stress test — not the treadmill thing, but what they call a chemical stress test. His office is used to dealing with the VA, and they will set it all up and let me know when. I’ll have to get a ride because I can’t drive myself home after it, but Carillon provides rides to and from doctor’s appointments at no charge. I just have to give them 24 hours notice.
Saturday, I spent the afternoon downloading the requisite drivers (software) for my little Epson printer from Epson’s website onto the new computer so it could talk to my printer and I could scan financial and bank statements to the computer that has working email and email them to Mom to keep her up to speed. (Gmail won’t run right on my old computer since Google stopped supporting Windows 7 — Google is the “G” in “Gmail — which is why I got the new computer in the first place. The setting up of the software was a fairly straightforward process, but getting the computer and printer to talk to each other was tricky and expletives (and more than a few pejoratives) were not deleted!.
Among the groceries I got Monday was one of Market Street’s fruit bowls — the one I got had chunks of cantaloupe and honey dew melons, chunks of pineapple, a handful of raspberries, a couple blackberries, a handful of blueberries and a couple grapes. It’s a big enough bowl that you can get two servings out of it. I supplemented that with some cherry tomatoes cut in half and some whole black olives. I had the second serving tonight likewise supplemented, and as a side to a brisket sandwich on a big ciabatta roll which I’d already inhaled half of before I could get the camera app on my iPhone limbered up. Copious nums.
I had been using a gamer chair with a foot rest, a birthday present in 2020, as my computer chair. The desk I was using at the time was on casters, so it didn’t matter that the gamer chair wasn’t. I could just sit down and pull the desk up as close as it needed to be.
After I moved to Carillon, I had to get a longer desk so I would have a place to put my printer. I was putting it on my filing cabinet, but when I moved to the smaller apartment, there was no way I could get the filing cabinet close enough to a plug to continue doing that. This new longer desk doesn’t have castors and it was very difficult to get in or out of the gamer chair if it was too close to the desk. Unfortunately, “too close” was not close enough. So I got a desk chair with casters. It is also higher than the gamer chair, which puts my shoulders and forearms at a more comfortable angle when I’m keyboarding and mousing.
I’d gotten in the habit of just swiveling the chair around to the side to get in or out of it. I’m having to learn to roll the new one back back from the desk before trying to get out of it. I’m going to list the old chair on Craig’s List and see if I can’t sell it to offset the cost of the new chair (which wasn’t all that much, really).
In the knitting news, my dive into my button stash proved bootless, so I swung by a local fabric store on the way home from JACC and picked up what I needed. I’ve finished the little baby top. I just need to weave in ends and sew on buttons and it’s done. I’m at the heel increases on the second matching bootie and the crown decreases on the little sun hat. I’d like to get this stuff in the mail by the end of the week and get it out of my hair. I’ve got until Thanksgiving to finish the little red dress(es). I’m thinking I’ll have enough yarn for a little matching red headband with two crocheted holly leaves in the green yarn, and some red shanked buttons for berries to decorate the headband. or else I could just do the holly leaves and button berries as a kind of removable corsage that could be safety pinned to the front of the dress for Christmas, and removed later.
However, in the several matters mentioned above, the plan is that bridges will be crossed when come to.
The first season of Neil Gaiman’s dramatization of his “Sandman” graphic novels dropped on 5 August on Netflix (early reviews are that it sticks very close to the novels, has a brilliant cast and is visually fabulous) and I still haven’t watched season 2 of The Witcher (Henry Cavill!). I may be crossing The Bridge over the River BingeWatch after a certain package gets posted. Not to mention the Bridge of TV Knitting . . .
Here We Go Again
Important news first. Mom’s second COVID test was negative.
The fifth of six sessions of Rituxan starts tomorrow bright and early at 8 AM. With any luck I’ll be out before six, but not much before. I get the WBC booster shot Tuesday and then three sessions of hydration. Then I’ll have only one more to go.
I’ve got a load of sheets and towels in the wash, and after them will be a load of clothes. I need to get something to eat, too.
Friday I did all my running around. I got my refill of prednisone. I got my hair trimmed, which means I had about an inch whacked off the back along the back of my neck, and the rest of it just trimmed to even it out. I’m working toward getting it all one length. Until it’s long enough to go into a ponytail, it’s going to be a PITA. And, I got some groceries. Since they stopped making my favorite flavor of BodyArmor, I’ve quit drinking it. (So there!) I did get some peach flavor frozen things on a stick, though, which helps with the heat.
We’ve been having raisin weather again (still, actually) — high 90’s F/35+ C at around 30-40% humidity. The heat just sucks you dry. (You’re a grape til you walk out the door . . .)
They were supposed to get the AC fixed downstairs last week. It’s still not back up. Hopefully, they’ll get it up soon. Of course, the time to get the AC fixed is in winter; now that we’re in the dog days of summer, everybody and his cousin wants their AC worked on. Don’t know if that’s the delay or what. All the business offices have relocated to vacant apartments for the duration and are scattered all over the building. You can tell the moment you get into the hallway by the mail room. The temperature goes up about 10 degrees. Like walking into an oven.
In the knitting news, I have a bootie and a fourth done, and about ten more rows on the little top they match. I’ll likely finish the top while I’m infusing tomorrow, and the bootie won’t take that much time. That and finishing a hat will complete the haul for the new little 1st cousin 2x removed and I’ll get it in the mail. Finally. The baby was born 22 July. I really need to get it in the mail.
The yarn I’m using for this is cotton, and it is the split-y-est yarn I’ve ever worked with. It’s spun as a single ply from what is essentially cotton thread. Glad I’ve almost used it up. Gotta hit the button stash to see if I have the right buttons. I need three.
I’ve got the last load in the washer and it just has to go through the dryer and get hung up/folded and it’s beddy-boo for yrs trly.
Books Read in 2022
67. *The Missing Page, Sebastian, Cat 66. *Hither, Page, Sebastian, Cat (reread) 65. *How to Marry a Werewolf, Carriger, Gail (reread) 64. *Defy or Defend, Carriger, Gail (reread) 63. *Poison or Protect, , Carriger, Gail (reread) 62. *Manners and Mutiny, Carriger, Gail (reread) 61. *Waistcoats and Weaponry, Carriger, Gail (reread) 60. *Curtsies and Conspiracies, Carriger, Gail (reread) 59. *Ettiquette and Espionage, Carriger, Gail (reread) 58. *The Botanist’s Apprentice, Powell, Arden 57. *Of Books, Earth, and Courtship, de Bodard, Aliette 56. *The Tea Master and the Detective, de Bodard, Aliette (re-read) 55. *Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances, de Bodard, Aliette 54. *The House of Binding Thorns, de Bodard, Aliette 53. *The House of Sundering Flames, de Bodard, Aliette 52. *The House of Shattered Wings, de Bodard, Aliette 51. *Of Dragons, Feasts and Murder, de Bodard, Aliette 50. *The Citadel of Weeping Pearls, de Bodard, Aliette 49. *The Memory Theater, Tidbeck, Karin 48. *Little Wolf, Cooper, R. 47. *Lore and Lust, Nikoll, Karla 46. *Snowspelled, Burgis, Stephanie 45. *A Psalm for the Wild Built, Chambers, Becky 44. *Song For The Basilisk, McKillip, Patricia 43. *First Blood, Grayson, Eliot 42. *Quiet House, Morton, Lily 41. Cloud’s Rider, Cherryh, C. J. (re-re-read) 40. Rider at the Gate, Cherryh, C. J. (re-re-read) 39. *Lost and Found, Grayson, Eliot 38. *The Witch’s Familiar, Nichol, T. J. 37. *The Alpha Contract, Grayson, Eliot 36 Whiskey and Water, Bear, Elizabeth (re-read) 35. Blood and Iron, Bear, Elizabeth (re-read) 34. When Blood Lies, Harris, C. S. 33. The Book of Atrix Wolfe, McKillip, Patricia (reread) 32. *Captive Mate, Greyson, Eliot 31. *A Very Armitage Christmas, Greyson, Eliot 30. *Alpha’s Warlock, Greyson, Eliot 29. *Lost Touch, Greyson, Eliot 28. The Faded Sun: Kutath, Cherryh, C. J. 27. The Faded Sun: Shon’Jir, Cherryh, C. J. 26. The Faded Sun: Kesrith, Cherryh, C. J. 25. *The Long and Winding Road, Klune, T. J. 24. *The Art of Breathing, Klune, T. J. 23. *Who We Are, Klune, T. J. 22. *Bear, Otter, and the Kid, Klune, T. J. 21 *Under the Whispering Door, Klune, T. J. 20. *The House in the Cerulean Sea, Klune, T. J. 19. *A Shadow in Summer, Abraham, Daniel 18. *Fluke and the Faithless Father, Burns, Sam 17. *The Fantastic Fluke, Burns, Sam 16. *The Tale of Two Seers, Cooper, R. 15. *A Boy and His Dragon, Cooper, R. 14. *Time’s Convert, Harkness, Deborah 13. *Killashadra, McCaffrey, Anne 12. *Crystal Singer, McCaffrey, Anne 11. *Clay White, Cooper, R. 10. *Ravenous, Cooper, R. 9. *Change State, Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve 8. *Bread Alone, Lee, Sharon and Miller, Steve 7. *Od Magic, McKillip, Patricia (reread) 6. *Spells and Sensibility, Noone, K. L. and Murphy, K. S. 5. *Revelry, Noone, K. L. 4. *Fire and Ink, Noone, K. L. 3. *Some Kind of Magic, Cooper, R. 2. *Wyrd and Wild , English, Charlotte E. 1. *The Book of Life, Harkness, Deborah (reread) * Ebook
The Owl Underground 