Whole milk . . .

4:57 am. This might be a long one ya’ll . . .

I fell a sleep on the couch until about 2:30 am and then could not go back to sleep once in the bed. It’s my mother’s fault – she brought some supper, my favorite, crème chicken and rice with green beans. Wow. I ate my fill, but it’s difficult for me to go to bed full, so I have to ‘sit up’ on the couch like a potatoe and digest. Since all this chemo stuff, I get ‘agitated’ sometimes and I cannot figure out why. Have you ever had that happen? I just have to get up and do something. So my attempted remedy this time was a 3:30 am warm/hot shower for about 30 minutes on low. Then I shaved and everything else like I was getting ready to go to work. It felt kind of strange, but such is my life. Then I decided to get my blogface on . . . gotta' get my blogo-rhythm back. . .get back into the blogo-groove . . . .

We had a big treat Thursday afternoon - my parents and Aunt Eva came to visit overnight. My mother starts her 6 weeks of radiation treatments next Wednesday so they figured they better get one more visit in since the treatments will be daily 5 days a week. From what I understand this part is not nearly as tough as chemotherapy. We pray it will pass quickly and smoothly with no bad side effects.
After my trip around the world (emotionally) all day Wednesday, I did not – or should I say could not - go to sleep. Then I remembered one of the drugs given to me was IV Decadron. Do ya’ll remember that one from months back. It is like cocaine – to me anyway – the nurse told me some people have very bad emotional reactions to this particular drug, but in my case I happen to get more mental and physical energy than I need or even want. I was like, “Lord, could we turn off the engine till 7 am tomorrow and then let this stuff kick in”? It didn’t happen that way, so I got out of the bed and headed for the kitchen, cleaned for about an hour and then got everything ready for breakfast. For those of you who love to eat bacon, Robin found some nitrate (chemical preservative) free bacon that is thick and delicious. I believe the name brand is Hormel.

[A quick dietary side bar – you can skip this if you want: I would recommend a move away from any meats with nitrates, nitrites or sodium erythorbates (this one is used in metal cleaning and other industrial applications – its used in meat preservation to help slow or prevent unsaturated fat breakdown – and here we are eating it in just about every piece of processed meat from deli to bacon).
I do not recall sharing this, but a research doctor from M.D. Anderson was interviewing me for a DNA study researching possible causal relationships between diet and pancreatic cancer. He told me that there is absolutely, unquestionably, more oxidants (bad stuff) in the meat of animals fed what I call the “penned up, fatten them up” diet – i.e. more animals penned up in a confined space and fed a un-natural amount of food they would otherwise in the wild not eat. Remember the cows who were being fed cows? The result was the mad cow disease outbreak. He countered that a pig, chicken or cow allowed to feed“free range” – grasses, bugs, roots, etc. have a significantly lower amount of the bad stuff and much higher and more balanced levels of the good omega fatty acids we are now hearing so much about. So, there is a measurable difference I asked? I thought protein was protein”. He said a definite difference. Oh, and did I tell you he was Hindu? He said his mother does not like the fact that he is not a vegetarian, but he told me “if it tastes good, I am going to eat it, meat or not”.]

After breakfast I kind of turned into a zombie on the couch. Everbody had something to do, so I sat down for a bit to rest and really didn’t move until 11 am, then went to the bed a few more hours. That is when I found out mom and dad were coming. I am glad something was happening, because I just could not shake that mindless mindset I was in. I guess the ‘no sleep’ caught up with me. We had a good evening together. Dad and I tried to sight in his little 22 rifle. Bryan’s pellet gun is louder than the 22. That’s the thing about living in the ‘country’ – you can even sight in your rifle out in the front yard if you want to – but I have absolutely outlawed peeing off of the porch!
Right around dark we all headed to the garden and I planted some ‘Mammoth’ Sunflower seedlings. I still have other things to get in the ground, hopefully before the rain starts this weekend.
For those of you who live in the new City of Central, the Save-a-Center grocery at the corner of Greenwellsprings Rd. and Sullivan will be closing as of April 21st. I think there was a change in the lease agreement or something, WalMart is not why they are closing.
I have something to confess, I am eating cereal right now with whole milk! That’s right, not 2% or skim(blue milk), but whole. It’s like eating cream. They didn’t have the usual kind we buy, so I figured I would live large this one time.
On a more serious note, I am so glad that when ‘we are faithless, He is faithful, for He cannot deny Himself’, as Paul so eloquently put it concerning the faithfulness of God towards us who believe. I have not been ‘feeling’ very spiritual the past several days. I have not cracked the Bible in four days, had a dedicated prayer time to speak of – even though I have been doing the ‘fly by the seat of your pants prayer’ thing. I have not been to church in two Sundays or Wednesdays. Thanks to all who continue to faithfully uphold pray for the Waites family. This has been a hard week. Today I do feel more like myself – the self I am used to I should say – so maybe we have turned a corner. Today is Friday and thank God it is so. His mercy is new every morning.
“This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it”.
Have a great day and continue to be a blessing to those you meet, cause you may turn their day around, too.
George