kvetching up

5.16.2026 2014 was the last time I was under 150. I can say with certainty that I was walking 6 miles a day then, and the experience was far more pleasant than using a GLP-1 . That I am taking it to address diabetes is something of a consolation. The fact I was nauseous after eating a meal yesterday and unable and uninterested in eating today given I am at peak nausea makes this milestone less appealing this time. Also, isn't this weight drop dangerous for my heart? After 4.5 months I am down 23 lbs, and still falling. I am so food averse today that the trip to the all holy Costco on samplepalooza Saturday only made me more nauseous. Yuck. OTOH, I am down about 5 pant sizes. 5. I bought a pair of 30w pants today, and they are still too big. I haven't worn a pair of pants less than 30w since I dated Margy back in the mid-1980s. I attribute this to the loss of muscle mass attendant with the use of a GLP-1 . 

In 2012, having been diagnosed some years earlier as diabetic, I went to a check-up at my doctor in Riverside, California. She did not have the best bedside manner. My weight was 147. 147. I am not certain how I pulled that off--but it was the lightest I had been since I was probably 23. I was based, amped, and stoked. I celebrated in front of the doctor. Her response--and I paraphrase: Don't get too excited. Your body is full of fat. If you'd like, we can schedule an MRI and I can show you. She told me that, like Wagyu, my body was marbled, there was fat everywhere interstitially.  MGM Grand, Vegas, 2012 I didn't thank her for raining on my parade nor did I criticize her.  .   . at least not to her face. I told the story to anyone who would listen. I have never ballooned up like I was back in the immediate post-child having years. When I worked as general counsel, I used to eat lunch regularly at the Renton Uwajimaya, which was just across the parking lot from the o...

Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me – The Carriage held but just Ourselves – And Immortality. -from Emily Dickinson's, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." It's chemo day.  This morning I went into my office for the second time in the last year, and then met Jenny at chemo. We are sitting and waiting for the actual administration of the poison. I am sleepy and contemplative. I am also very concerned.  It's hard to tell what the doctor is thinking, given his propensity for avoiding the conversation about prognosis--his utter refusal to discuss disease progression.  But, he came in incredibly subdued and remained uncharacteristically mopey. It is hard to say if he is worried about Jenny or if he has other patients, other things on his mind.  I would need the ability to read minutiae like that of a sovietologist to figure out the reason for Dr. P's mood.  What I can report is that Jenny's CA19-9 is up again, another 400 points, to 3...

Springing Forward Riding shotgun in Abby's car on the I-90 bridge, 3.11.2021. Abby had her first performance of The Complete Works of Shakespeare last night, and she was marvelous.  She was lit up like an 80s FM haunted house at Halloween when she got home. That was great to see, and I love that she finds such joy in something.  Leiney, always clutch, drove Abby over and back so I could have therapy and Jenny could continue to rest while receiving chemo (5 FU) through her take home pump. Therapy was, as it should be, cathartic, and especially affirming.  3rd week of putting issues around the pinche motherfucker in the box, and it's going well.  When I was trying to describe my current relationship with Jenny, I described her as a friend, searching for the right words. My doctor asked me, if you had a friend who was knowingly and intentionally doing something that hurt(s) you, would you remain friends?  Fair point.  So, I don't know how to describe this rela...

Chemotherapy Day VM Chemo Rooms Jenny has been dreading this day, after the awfulness of the last chemotherapy three weeks ago.  Who can blame her? I roused Jenny at 8:50, for a 9:15 departure. Her appt at Short Stay, where she gets her blood drawn first thing, before the appointment with the doctor and before chemotherapy.   I made Jenny her favorite cheesy eggs l, cleaned up afterward, loaded and ran the dishwasher. We seem to have the routine down to a science at this point.  The only variable is the time of the three appointments, which are invariably variable. We left at 9:15, and made the first appt at 9:40. on the nose, after checking in at the oncology front desk and getting necessary paperwork which contains your assigned Short Stay treatment room number on top. Short Stay is interesting.  Unlike other places in the hospital, you don't check in with anyone. Instead, when walking into the clinic, you drop off paperwork and enter the treatment room, and w...