Ending the Year with a Bang - No Mo' Chemo!

Friday, December 28, 2012 (two days ago) was downright surreal.  Although Stacey has handled most of the medical transport these last three and a half years, Friday I joined her and Bradley for his VERY LAST intravenous chemotherapy treatment.  We now know all about vincristine, PEG-L-asparaginase, daunorubicin, mercaptopurine,  methotrexate, Bactrim, cytarabine and a host of other medicines I hope you will never hear of again.  We know all about treatment for lung failure, kidney failure, neural failure, vascular failure, gastro/intestinal failure, liver failure, bedsores and most anything else you can imagine.  We know all about blood transfusions (over fifty pints), chemo/dialysis port surgeries (five) and intrathecal lumbar delivery of chemo.  Although Brad technically has five more days of oral chemo to complete, for all intents and purposes he is through with treatment for his leukemia and the host of complications from the initial staph-induced septic shock that should have taken his life.  This day had been so long in coming, it has been hard for us to realize it is actually here.

Nov. 24, 2009 - Leaving Kosair Hospital after 3 Months

Messin' with Sasquatch?

If you know me well, you knew it had to come.  Some will wonder, “But why so quickly, Mark?  Do you really want to concern the world about your mental state this soon on your blog?”  I guess the answer is yes, I’m willing to risk it.  What am I talking about?  In a word -- Bigfoot.   Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Yowie, Skunk Ape, Woods Ape, Abominable Snowman – it doesn’t matter what you call him, Bigfoot is still a big stinking deal.

When I was a young boy in the late sixties and early seventies, Bigfoot was everywhere.  I can remember watching with wide-eyed awe the Patterson-Gimlin recording from 1967, filmed just a few days from when I turned three years old.  It has been played and analyzed again and again, all the way down to today actually.  For a young boy, the thought of a real-life nine-foot-tall, five-hundred-pound monster roaming the woods was more than spell-binding.  I’ll never forget going with my dad and brother to see Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot.  It was a poorly done docudrama, but it scared the daylights out of me, and it intrigued me as well.