And I thought I knew who was in charge.

Thursday started off great, feeling really good. Worked out in the barn for four or five hours, then met my lovely personal, home physician wife out for early dinner & little shopping, and then later that night ended up in the hospital for about fours hours.

Well I guess I did skipped over some of the details for that day. After coming home from shopping, I started to have some discomfort in the center of my chest. It kept hurting, but I didn’t think much of it. But when I went to bed, I laid there and it kept hurting more. Being an old EMT (and thinking I know everything), I kept telling myself that it wasn’t my heart, but something else. But it hurts in my center of my chest and it was getting worst. Now my chest is hurting and so is my lower back area. But it doesn’t meet all the criteria of a heart attack, so I don’t want to worry about it. But it still hurts in the center of my chest and it was still getting worst. I was running through all the symptoms of a heart attack and I wasn’t meeting them. But it was hurting in the center of my chest and it was getting worst. Until finally I thought of one of the first thing I learned during my vast medical training. If in doubt when dealing with something medical, CALL 911. They are generally smarter, have more and better equipment, and they can get you to someone who is a lot smarter with heck of a lot more better equipment.

So after about two hours of laying there hurting and the pain getting worst, I woke up Debi. Her first thought was that I woke her up because she was snoring. She immediately called my nephew John, who is member of the Roxana Fire Department and was a paramedic. He called the fire department and had them roll out the truck quietly. John then came to the house and we went over what was happening. The EMT from fire department came and we went over the same stuff and then I finally agreed that they could call an ambulance. They gave me three baby aspirin and a shot of Nitro. Sure enough, I think my chest pain reached it's peak during the ambulance ride. Once I was at the hospital, with pain in my chest going away and the pain staying in my lower back, I was checked out, and they found nothing. The ER doctor couldn’t explain why I had the pain in my chest area or lower back, but at least it wasn’t my heart. So we left with just my lower back area hurting and getting home about 5:00 AM.

So we got about four hours sleep and got up with the pain still going on in my lower back area. Debi called our doctor’s office and kinda intimidated the lady taking the call into getting me in to see the doctor that afternoon. We talked with the doctor for good long time and our doctor couldn’t really say why, but her explanation or thoughts was that the reason I was hurting in lower back because of my kidneys being over worked. The chemo is killing off the cancer cells and a lot of other cells and the kidney are working harder to filter out all this stuff. I may have been a little dehydrated and had to drink more. I said that I drink at least a gallon a day, she said drink more. One more good thing came out of the office visit, she wanted to give me some pain medication and started naming off a bunch of drugs who names I recognized that are some of the good stuff and are sellable on the street.

My lower back area hurt the rest of Friday night, but on Saturday morning I got up pretty well pain free. But I promised the home physician wife that I would stay quiet all day no matter how good I felt. My daughter Tally and her two girls came down Friday and stayed the night. We had breakfast and Debi took them out to get our oldest grand daughter a dress for her eight grade graduation. My mother and all of us when out to dinner and so I had a really good day both physically and with my family. The roughest part of all day was having to sit inside, feeling good, and not getting to go out and play.

So in summary, when I think I got a handle on this and start feeling good. The Chemo drugs raise their ugly heads and slap me back down. Reminding me never to think I truly know what’s happening and they are still controlling the show.