After my last entry (an unconscionably long time ago), a thoughtful reader suggested that my listing Votrient and luck as what's kept me going was incomplete: Mohamed should definitely have been included.  And who can argue with that?  His first task every morning for literally more than a thousand times is to give me an injection in the stomach.  Three times a day I disappear into a deep sleep--not exactly a fun person to be around.  When it's time to eat, I just sit like a lump on the couch, waiting to be served.  When I wake from my third crash (6-7 p.m.), I often think we should go out for dinner, but it's cold and dark and windy, and it's just so much easier to send Mohamed for take-out.  Without Mohamed I have no idea what these last 3½ years would have been like. 

Last Thursday we drove to Kansas City for Mohamed's electronic fingerprinting at the Department of Homeland Security.  The drive both ways was horrible--winds gusting to 48 mph with a cold, hard rain on the way in.  By the time we drove back, the rain had changed to sleet, hail, and then driving snow.  The workers at the Department, even those who ran the security screening, were almost theatrically friendly.  The waiting room looked like a miniature UN with people speaking Slavic, African, and East Asian languages, many in their native dress.  The fingerprinting itself took about ten minutes, a long drive for such a short transaction.  The next step is the interview, which will take place at the same facility.  Everything should be in order; we've been together for seven years, two of them long distance.  All the financial documents are complete, and we have wonderful letters of support.  But it's hard not to worry that the differences in age, culture, and religion might make us the object of extra scrutiny.  We can check the progress of the application online, but until the interview, nothing changes there.

It's 7º here at the moment with new snow on the ground and more on the way.  Other than the endless winter as a downer, Kimber hasn't been herself.  She has a problem with her left rear leg and yelps when she has to stand or climb stairs.  She's generally lethargic and doesn't have much appetite, though since she'd gained eight pounds since her last visit to the vet, she's going a diet.  She has what we had assumed was a fatty tumor, but before we took her to the vet, I  had begun to imagine that it was cancerous and that because of my tardiness in having her examined it had spread to the leg.  But the vet seemed unconcerned.  The fatty tumor is just that.  He thinks her discomfort is just a matter of age and being overweight.  He gave her an anti-inflammatory.  If I were convinced, I'd be relieved.  But she's still lying upstairs, unable or unwilling to come down.  She hasn't gone out, and her breakfast remains uneaten.  Once outside, she runs around as usual and goes up and down the stairs to the balcony where she can keep an eye on the neighborhood without any seeming problems.  Maybe it's time to see if I can entice her to venture out.

Monday and Friday were spent at the KU cancer center.  Both days were uncharacteristically long, tiring, and frustrating.  But all was worth it once we got the results of all the testing--nothing but good news.  The primary kidney tumor hasn't increased in size, and no new tumors have developed in the rest of the body. 

Monday I had full skeletal x-rays and CT scans.  Just as we pulled into the parking garage, the phone rang.  The CT scanner was down.  Either I could reschedule or be sent to another facility for the scans.  Since I was already there and the x-ray machine was working, there was no point in rescheduling.  While I waited for the x-rays, I drank the two large glasses of "water" (they always assure me that the liquid is nothing but water, but I remain suspicious) that are necessary for a CT scan and had the IV port put in my arm.  There were 19 x-rays from my head (the first time) to my ankles. 

Then we were sent about a mile away to a new, but rather strange imaging center.  The small parking lot was made even smaller by the piles of snow from our 13" the week before, none of which had melted since we hadn't gotten above freezing in February.  Mohamed dropped me off and went in search of somewhere to park.  The clinic was overwhelmed by their own patients and everyone who had been sent from the cancer center.  We waited and waited.  The IV port bled a little when I'd bend my arm, and I worried that the liquid I'd drunk would wear off and I'd have to drink more--and then wait even longer.  But after a couple of hours in the very crowded waiting room, I finally got in, and the tests went ahead with no problems.  Neither of us had eaten (I couldn't eat before the scans, Mohamed because he'd been at school before we left).  Mohamed was worried about me, so we stopped at the McDonald's (I hadn't eaten there for years), and I scarfed down a quarter-pounder with cheese, fries, and a shake.  Mohamed ate nothing.  Once home, I crashed for a couple of hours, while Mohamed had to go back to school and then stop at a grocery store so that we (and in my view especially he, as an ex-English teacher would say) finally had something for dinner.

Friday, the technological problem was with the computer system with only a few of the computers at the Center working.  Blood was drawn, and then once again we waited and waited.  A couple of hours after the scheduled appointment we finally got in--and got all the good news.  The only anomaly was that the CT scan, but not the x-ray, showed a fractured rib--right side, rear, midway down.  Since I've never felt any pain and haven't fallen or stumbled backwards into a piece of furniture and since even if it was fractured, the doctors wouldn't treat it, it seems safe to ignore this one detail.  Otherwise, the good news was, of course, a relief.  I seem to be some sort of outlier among kidney cancer patients.  I can't attribute my status to clean living or to faith and prayer.  But whatever the cause--I'll attribute it to a combination of Votrient and luck--I'm not complaining.

The big news here, as in so many parts of the country, is the weather.  Tuesday we had exactly 13" of new snow.  Every university, school, government office, and church was closed--except Washburn.  Mohamed has an 8 o'clock class, so he, along with a few other hardy students and professors, braved the roads to go to school.  It wasn't long before Washburn realized the foolishness of staying open with ten more hours of snow on the way, so the university finally closed at midday, and those who had attended were sent back onto the roads.  Wednesday the school was more prudent and like every other NE Kansas institution canceled classes.  The wind chill was -18º yesterday morning.  Today we may hit the double digits above zero.  On the plus side, when I looked out the window Wednesday morning, our driveway had been plowed.  Neither of us had heard anything, but it was a pleasant surprise.  (I assume it was the guy who mows the lawn, since he also does snow removal, but he's never done it before, and there was no phone call.)

Three of the complaints about the Sochi Olympics sound familiar to someone who has lived two years in Eastern European countries (Skopje, Macedonia; Sofia, Bulgaria).  First are the missing manhole covers.  In both Skopje and Sofia, I had constantly to watch the ground when I walked, since manhole covers were routinely missing, and the danger of suddenly plunging into the sewer system was always present.  (In Skopje, people were constantly spitting, so I also had to watch out for flying sputum.)  People would steal the covers and sell them for scrap metal.  Once I was visiting a couple who were Fulbrighters in Sarajevo.  They said they had to take a couple of hours out on Saturday morning to attend a funeral of one of their colleagues, who, not watching where he was going, had fallen through a manhole.

Sofia, like Sochi, was also full of packs of wild dogs.  There was little point in putting garbage in the dumpster, since between the gypsies who rummaged through the trash and the wild dogs, all of it was going to end on the ground anyway.  The locals used to mourn the good old days when, because of the Communist ties, there were lots of Vietnamese students who, I was assured, ate the dogs, thus solving the problem.

And then there was the fact that in most places, including the university, you couldn't flush toilet paper and had to put it in a waste basket.  I taught at the major state university in a building which had once been very beautiful, but which was in sorry shape by the time I taught in Sofia.  There were perhaps a couple of thousand students in the building every day.  In the main part of the building, there was a unisex restroom with two stalls (and no urinals) on each floor.  The doors on the stalls had no closures on them, so you had to brace the door shut.  There was a waste basket for used toilet paper.  By the end of the day, the smell was not pleasant.  There was a sink in the restroom on my floor, but the pipes underneath weren't connected, so if you did turn on the water, it just ran out onto the floor.

Skopje, Sofia, Sochi--it all sounds familiar.

When I log into my BlogSpot account to write a new entry, I can also follow statistics on pageviews.  Mysteriously to me, the entry which has been viewed by far the most times is one I wrote on Frost's "Oven Bird" some time ago.  I don't even know exactly where it is in the 220+ entries, and I have no idea how or why other people find it.  There were nine pageviews of that entry yesterday alone. 

Monday we go to the Cancer Center in KC for full skeletal x-rays (it's been a while since they've been done) and CT scans.  We go back on Friday for blood work and the results of the tests.  Usually we can work them all in in one visit, but since Mohamed has morning classes, the consultation with Dr. Van has to wait till Friday.  If I don't post before, I'll certainly add an entry once the results are in.