Sunday's Post A Day Late

Ooops. Forgot to do the Sunday update. But somewhere in the world, it's still Sunday, isn't it? No? It's already TUESDAY IN JAPAN? Oh, dear. Ummmmm, is it still Sunday on, like, the moon?

Okay, then, I'm just plain late...

Bill is doing so wonderfully well that you wouldn't believe it. He has played golf and gotten the best score of the group on some holes, even, and he says his drive (is that the word he said?) is getting really good.

He remembers, he says, lying in his hospital bed thinking that he'd never golf again. Oh, I think I told you that already.

Also, he has begun spending hours researching bladder cancer issues, and joining several groups of other folks who have had their bladders out for cancer--they're called Ostomy mates. MATES? Isn't that cute?

But some of their stories are horrible. He read me one post about a very good-looking 34-year-old man whose bladder cancer has returned to his bones and liver, and his young girlfriend caregiver writes that it's just NOT FAIR. No. Fairness isn't the thing going on there.

Oh, the "whew" of not being in such a situation...and the wish that someone would fix it for that poor man...

Anyway...

Bill is doing two things that I think are going to really have an impact on his cancer staying away.

First, he has completely given up all forms of tobacco and even nicotine patches. Tobacco is the number one cause of bladder cancer, as one of its chemicals sits in the bladder working its evil between trips to the bathroom. So, after 40-some years of being SEVERELY addicted to chewing tobacco, he is done. It ended during his hospital stay, and he never felt a thing from stopping it. Now, seriously, THAT is a miracle.

Secondly, he is taking green tea extract. Now, you might think I got that idea from some aging barefoot patchouli-drenched hippy in a groovy health food cooperative. But no. My dear friend and young intellectual, Ale, sent me an article with the highest medical research supporting it, major medical magazines and studies, showing that green tea extract completely kills bladder cancer tumors. This is considered a dramatic discovery, and is very recent, and Ale may have saved Bill's life. Ale, I love you!

Now, as for Bill's BAD habits, he still has a few.

Such as a COMPLETE AND TOTAL aversion to vegetables and fruit.

Okay, Bill, I know you'll say, "But I like green beans and apple sauce!" There you go. He likes green beans and applesauce. But everything else is meat, cheese, and gravy.

And he's terrible for getting him to exercise or lift weights. I have recently forced him at gunpoint to meet me on top of a hill (at the Cone mansion) and walk downhill in the woods to the lake for a mile or so. That he will do. If you have a gun. Otherwise, good luck.

In my next post (if I remember) I plan to share a tip with you, in case, God forbid, you ever have to go through a complicated medical treatment situation. It's called the Medical Binder. My beloved Sandy Roney told me about this at the very beginning of Bill's illness, and it has turned out to be the single best advice I've gotten from anyone anywhere about how to manage a complex illness.

Till then...hoping everyone has cooler days in July than we had in June. Bill is giving me a Russian Lit course this summer, so it has helped with the heat, reading about the blizzards in Siberia and the shivering political prisoners carrying buckets of water which freeze solid between buildings. Next books up: Sholzenhitsyn's (yeah, like I know how to spell THAT) Warning to the West and Gulag Archipelago Vols I, II, and III--although, you're correct, those aren't novels, but they're still literature, aren't they? (Shhhh...I also just ordered two children's books about Andy Warhol, written by his brother...Uncle Andy's and Uncle Andy's Cats. Well, wait, Andy Warhol (Andrew Warhola) was Slovakian. Does that count as Russian Lit?

Love to all...the CowDrennans