Very good news

 A lot has been happening in the last few days.  Kathie is home recovering from her knee replacement surgery.  Jamie and I are doing our best to help her when she needs help.  Otherwise, she insists on doing it all herself... which is typical of Kathie.  Our daughter, Jessica, is possibly coming to help on Monday and Tuesday.  That will be a huge help.  We went to Physical Therapy yesterday, and learned all kinds of new stretching and strengthening exercises for her to do at home.  The PT said that she is doing well with her range of motion, and is right on track for recovery.

As for me, my health insurance company has given the green light to go to  Northwestern Chicago Proton Center, in Warrenville, IL.  That is very good news!  From the moment I contacted them, Northwestern has been right on top of everything, beginning with assigning me a Nurse Navigator - Jennifer - to keep everything organized and moving forward.

I will be traveling there for one appointment on Monday, and three on Tuesday.  

Monday's appointment is at 2:00pm for another MRI of my head and neck.  The last one I had was in November, so they need to see how much it has progressed since then.  

Tuesday, I will meet the Medical Oncology team, at 9:00am.  Medical Oncology handles the Chemo side of treatment.  We will review the new MRI, and talk about treatment.  

At 11:00am, I will meet with the Radiation Oncology team.  I'm sure that it will be more of the same - telling me more about the process, and talking about treatment.

Lastly, at 2:00pm, I will have my CT Simulation.  From what I know so far, I will be fitted with a custom mask, then laid on a table where the CT machine maps out the cancer.

I am very curious about the mask.  My understanding is that it looks like a net, that when warmed, becomes pliable.  They shape this mask around my head, neck, and shoulders, then it is "bolted" to the table.  It is meant to keep me absolutely still while the protons are shot into my head.  

I am not the least bit claustrophobic, so the thought of having this mask restraining me doesn't bother me a bit.  I've made a living, over the last few years, of crawling around in crawl spaces.  There is one in particular that I will never forget.  

When we moved to Southern Illinois, I established my business, "Reliable Handyman Services".  I made flyers and hung them up in all of the local restaurants and shops around town.  My first customer was an old farmer named Clarence.  Clarence lived in the family farm house that his great-grandfather had built in 1901.  He sat on nearly 100 acres, that he leased to a huge co-op farmer.  Anyhow, Clarence complained that he wasn't getting any heat in his house, and the furnace was running constantly.  As it turned out, all of the duct work under the house had rusted and fallen apart.

He called a couple of local HVAC guys that came out, took one look at the 16" x 16" crawl space opening and high tailed it out of there.

Desperate to get my business going, I took the job.  Now, getting through the crawl space opening was the easy part, having to shovel a trench throughout his crawl space was a different story.  I could see where water had been running off of his fields, for decades, right under the house.  The silt had built up to the bottom of the heat ducts, causing them to rust.  There were places that I had to exhale in order to get under the floor joist.  This is where I was introduced to "camel crickets" (Otherwise referred to as "cave crickets" or "sprickets"... definitely worth Googling)

Camel crickets are small humpback crickets that are completely harmless to humans.  Creepy looking for sure, they like to hang out in caves or crawl spaces all around the south.

The interesting thing about these little critters is that their automatic defense is to turn and look you straight in the eyes, and jump at your face.

Just imagine me, crawling in a crawl space, unable to turn around, much less get a hand up to my face, and having these unknown critters jumping on me.  I'll have you know that I showed great restraint in not re-living the black widow incident, but got out of the crawl space as fast as I could.  Clarence was standing near the opening when I came flying out.  "What are those creepy little bugs that keep jumping on me?" I asked.  "Oh, those are camel crickets," Clarence said.  "There perfectly harmless, just remember to keep your mouth shut... they don't taste very good."  I got the feeling that his insight was from personal experience.

Clarence became one of my greatest promoters, which also meant that everyone in town heard about my camel cricket introduction.  I never lived it down.

Dr. Akthar said that the CT Simulation could take up to an hour and a half.  That is a long time to be laying there, bolted to a table.  As long as there are no camel crickets, I'll be fine.