February: A New Month

 

So…retina specialist yesterday. My ophthalmologist initially diagnosed my blurry vision as posterior vitreous detachment (PVD), creating large floaters. As it turned out that much is true - but likely the result of, not the source of, the problem. Long story as short as I can make it: one of the immuno-therapies I was using (Keytruda), while doing a good job of keeping the cancer at bay, began to attack healthy tissue: my eyes

My sight grew worse week by week so I kept returning, at the behest of my oncology team, to return to the ophthalmologist. When I could no longer read anything on the eye chart further checking ensued. It revealed rather severe uveitis – general eye inflammation - and the Doc put me on steroid drops multiple times a day and consulted with my oncologist as he now suspected Keytruda was the culprit. Next visit still inflamed so he did a retinal scan and found they too were significantly inflamed and added a NSAID drop along with the steroid. At this point Raj, who had been consulting with an ophthalmologist friend (whom some of you may know) for weeks, insisted on a referral to a retina specialist, who I saw on yesterday.

She found I still have uveitis, retina inflammation and also blood vessel inflammation but saw significantly improvement since my first scan and she was optimistic about reversing the situation . I ith the continuation of steroid treatment. I was expecting to need steroid shots in the eye but she feels I was responding well to the topicals and recommended staying the course for another month and see if the situation continues to improve.

My vision has improved a bit, but as both docs told me it will take awhile as it didn’t happen overnight. Yes, I know. I’ve been complaining of blurry vision since early September when the initial diagnosis of  PVD was made.  In a perfect world it would have been diagnosed then, the Keytruda link made and the infusions stopped earlier to avoid more damage. But who knows, maybe the drug did more good than bad in the intervening months and continuing it was best in the long run. I realize I’m putting my rose colored glasses on but like I said, who knows?

Besides, I have bigger fish to fry.

No news on the cancer front just now but I have another round of tests: echocardiogram, brain MRI and body scans, scheduled in a couple of weeks and we’ll take it from there. I still have balance issues and very low energy but am working on that. I thank God that my sight is beginning to improve a bit even though I have a long way to go. It had gotten to the point that I could no longer read even headline sized text  and the rest of the world was just a blur. So I’m grateful for every little improvement, which feels momentous .

I am  most grateful to everyone who has said a prayer and/or sent good thoughts and positive energy my way. You’re keeping me afloat and I’m sorry I can do so little in return other than to say thank you.

You don’t appreciate your sight until it’s no longer there

 

Gerard

Another great  man with talent on loan from God has passed:

Gerard Van der Leun: December 26, 1945 – January 27, 2023

A writer of wonderful insight and talent, a poet of penetrating and reverberating verses, story teller of innumerable ‘walking around’ stories and lover of ephemera, the arcane and kinky. How one man found the time to do so much internet cruising, digging, writing and posting I’ve never been able to understand but admired greatly.  

Many of you probably have already heard about Gerard’s death by now, the rest of you have a treasure trove of archival materials to go through as Gerard had been manning his blog for 20 plus years, starting around 9/11, I believe. Many of his pieces are priceless, timeless gems that he just freely cast out there for our enjoyment. I suspect many of us will continue to enjoy them time and time again.

Gerard was a writer’s writer, a poet’s poet, a yarn weaver’s woof and warp: and a very fine man. His integrity stands out so obviously in an age that  seems to put little value on it any more, especially in the public space.

I’ve had Raj help me collect and assemble a few of our fond memories of Gerard. It’s all I know to do. He will be so missed by so many.

Gerard was something of an unofficial mentor to me. He found my little blog in 2009 and awarded me his “Bestest New Blog of the Week”  causing a yuge boost in daily visitors. Of course I didn’t have  many at the time so quadrupling it was pretty easy but it gave me the encouragement to continue. I of course thanked him profusely and explained I was most appreciative as I was but a very small blog with a dream. He assured me “it’s not the size of your quiver, but what you’ve got it it.”

In the summer of 2010, Gerard was named Editor In Chief of the then new and exciting RIGHTNETWORK. Soon after, I received an email from Gerard asking “What sort of traffic are you seeing these days?” Curious, I responded that we're pretty tiny and we have no marketing skill in our joint portfolio. His response was “I am working on a fiendish plan. Details later. Thanks for the numbers. And remember "It's not the size of the wand. It's the magic that's in it." I imagine he had a slew of these encouraging adages that he used to lift sagging spirits. It was quite effective.

Of course RIGHTNETWORK was short lived as some of the financial backers (like Kelsey Grammer) got cold feet in the increasingly bifurcated political environment. Unfortunately my Sundance movie reviews that were to run there never came to fruition other than on my blog. But I remember when Gerard and I were discussing them I wanted to make sure he understood that I didn’t actually screen all of the movies I planned to provide reviews for. His response was classic Gerard: “What kind of a journalist would you be if you actually had to see the work you were critiquing?”

I will miss Gerard terribly.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned. - Edna St. Vincent Millay

Side Note: My eyes are no better so I thank Raj for actually compiling this post for me. I do however finally have a diagnosis and an appointment with a retina specialist a week from tomorrow. Will provide further health updates  next week.

Open Thread 1/23/23

Alas, I currently cannot see much of anything at all so carry on in my stead.

Open Thread Bouquet

 

The day after my infusion someone rang my door bell and hander Raj this unbelievable, lovely flower arrangement.

It made me smile!

I can’t thank you enough for everything you have done for me; prayers, cards, letters, emails and flowers. My vision has gotten so bad that the spider web of floaters blocks even my yuge 27” monitor, so Raj has to read and type for me.

Stay prayerful and carry on…

ps: I think the purple-blue flowers are anemones if anyone is curious.

Sunday Open Thread

Open Thread:

Have at it.

Happy New Year 2023

Given the state of my eyes I can’t really post anything new but I have assembled a few excerpts from previous New Years’ posts which are mostly still relevant.

From revelry:

To those who made it to midnight on purpose to usher in the  new year I salute you. To those who were forced to make it till midnight by merrymakers in your neighborhood ushering in the new year, I sympathize. And to those who were awakened from a sound sleep by neighborhood merrymakers ushering in the new year, I empathize.

to predictions, 

I’m not making any more predictions because I just realized they’d be mostly pessimistic which somehow doesn’t seem appropriate for a New Year post. I’m still optimistic about some things but at my age it takes infinitely more effort to convince myself that logic and circumstance warrant such irrational exuberance. So I tend to conserve my optimism these days for really important stuff, like saving the world. [Relevant current article]

and resolutions:

Happy New Year everyone! We’ve made it through one Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Year.

I don’t know what year that last excerpt was from but I must say, it  applies to 2022 as well.

When my eyesight improves I might just muster enough energy to make a couple of casual promises to myself.

Until then I wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year.

Christmas Eve, 2022

A version of this was originally posted December 24, 2021

My Christmas Eve posts of the past have been some of my favorites, starting with the very first one in 2009. You remember - the year the Obamas decided they simply must continue their family tradition (est. 2008) of spending 2 weeks over Christmas at a luxury resort in Hawaii on somebody else’s (ours) dime. Raj did a short video of that trip that I think I’ve used every Christmas Eve hence so tradition demands I use it again. Mele Kalek-Obama: (I, Motus make several cameos in this short musical so watch for me!)

Amazingly the opening sentence in that 2009 post is still mostly true, only the dates have changed:  

Santa and his elves are hanging around D.C. just long enough this morning to vote on how much they’re going to charge for processing and handling on this year’s free gifts.

Then there was the year that the seeds of the BLM movement were sown and it became clear that there was no winning the Left’s race war.

I can’t keep up with the ever shifting sands of racism and political correctness. One day Santa is okay, but(t) his sidekick, Black Pete is unacceptable. The next day it’s Santa himself who;s unacceptable: too white, too fat, too cis, too privileged:

In the twinkle of an eye, only black Santas matter:

Some years we did mostly recipes and cute stuff to eat and drink:

instructions here

I’ve tried to keep Christmas Eve as politics-free as possible, but that grew more difficult as the country’s deep divide grew ever deeper. People began to dread even seeing certain people/relatives over the holidays:

Things have only grown worse since then so let’s hope families either abstain from discussing politics or simply refuse to engage in bait-setting scenarios with warring members of their tribe. A truce for Mom’s sake would be nice…

And I see the country is as divided over Hallmark Christmas movies as politics. It’s like asking people whether to put rum or bourbon in their eggnog or Tom and Jerry punch bowl. Feelings run high.

With the assistance of this helpful Hallmark plot generator anyone could write a Christmas movie.

And that brief look back brings us to Christmas Eve Present where Progressives everywhere are celebrating Festivus, although they’ve expanded the Day of Grievances to include all 365 days (366 in Leap Year).

Raj and I will be spending a quiet Christmas Eve at home this year. We would both like to thank all of you for your prayers, good wishes and cheer through this rather difficult year. I am so appreciative to the MOTI for brightening our days throughout these sometimes dark months. I am happy to report that I am beginning to feel a bit stronger, far from “normal” whatever that is now, but definitely better. My current course of treatment will continue at least through June and possibly longer so it’s still a long haul but one I’m grateful to be able to make. I will see what can be done about my eyes (and jaw) issue after the first of the year.

Meanwhile, behold this wonderful Christmassy floral arrangements which arrived yesterday from the MOTI.–

My eyes prevent me from taking photos that do this arrangement justice  but it’s breathtaking and very Christmassy with evergreens, ever-reds, a dozen and a half of huge pinkish roses, burgundy peonies and even 4 rosy cheeked PEARS! The only thing missing is the partridge and as luck would have it, I have one of those hanging on my Christmas tree.

So again, all I can say is thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’ve gotten this far through your love, prayers and the mad skills of modern medicine, all of which I am most grateful for.

 

So I wish you all good health, good travels, good friends and good cheer and a very Merry Christmas Eve, wherever your sleigh may take you. 

 

It’s Still A Marshmallow World

This is a repost from 2018, one of my favorite Christmas posts and a good way to kick off Christmas week:

Marshmallows scream “Christmas!”

They needn’t come from bags, apparently you can make them yourself. And if you are truly OCD you can even make them into marshmallow snowflakes.

What a great gift for all the, um, snowflakes in your life.

They come in multiple flavors of the season:

chocolate caramel, peppermint, gingerbread

as well as multiple species:

But is there any marshmallow as cute and fun as the snowmen?

When I saw these little guys I immediately recognized them as a modern adaptation of the puffy little Christmas decorations I made one year when I was in high school. I tracked their provenance back to the pages of the December 1960 Better Homes and Gardens magazine. I found me an archial magazine website that has every issue, ever published, of dozens of iconic magazines.  And there they were, on page 58, in an article titled:

In my house the December issues of the “ladies” magazines were never disposed of, they were stashed away after Christmas to emerge again every year as inspiration for the upcoming holiday season. What didn’t get baked or made one year might just make it into the rotation in a subsequent cycle. And so it was in 1966, a sad year for my whole family as my dad had died late that summer, I finally set about to make the marshmallow men that made their debut 6 years prior.  While Gingerbread Snowflakes’ updated version uses colored markers to make eyes, nose and buttons, the original BH&G specs are far less benign. Check out the materials listed for the construction of the original snowmen:

Glass-head pins!!!! In cute little marshmallow men that look like confections?! Can you imagine what the publication’s lawyers would say about that today? In 1966 however I headed off to the fabric store to procure my glass headed pins and non-digestible green sequins without batting an eye. And what? - white resin glue! That’s awfully toxic isn’t it? Pretty sure I used Elmer’s because that’s what we had, not because you can eat it.

I remember my creations being adorable, if not quite perfectly constructed. In fact they were probably more than a bit rough around the edges because crafting has never really been my forte. But I remember them making me happy for the first time in what seemed a lifetime. They were a tiny part of learning that life goes on, that pain never goes away but it does abate. Although oblivious to it at the time I was beginning to discover, as Deborah’s Palm has reminded us time and time again, that we choose life and blessings, not the other way around. Choose wisely.

I wish each and every one of you a wonderful Christmas Eve…and a marshmallow world.

Oh, the world is your snowball, see how it grows
That's how it goes, whenever it snows
The world is your snowball just for a song
Get out and roll it along

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