I'm out the door for a decent mountain bicycle recovery ride though my entire organism is very tired for the last five kilometers. At home I chop up another metal fencepost with a hacksaw and then get a nice warming shower. I work on websites and then ride the motorcycle down to see my primary care physician and get my first yelling for losing so much weight. Except that he sees I'm traveling, cycling, running, and removing fencposts and he just says that you still have strength. We'd be worried if you were emaciated. So no yelling. But I get a referral for a colonoscopy which is overdue by two years due to the bicycle accident and cancer.
I get in a 66 minute run/walk on Tuesday morning and then relax for a bit. In the afternoon I see the dental hygenist and the prosthodontist and I point out the redness of my lips and chin. The doctors looks at my xrays and says that all of your natural teeth are in great shape. And they take picturs of the redness of lips and chin and forward them to the maxillo-facial surgeon for discussion. And then I eat a bit of extra dinner and relax.
Wednesday morning is incredibly productive! I have a good mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home and push because I will give the legs tomorrow off. At home I mow and edge the front and backyards after not having to do this since Noveember. I trim aroud the backyard and then use some extra dirt layign around to start filling in the holes where the cement fencepost stands were dug out of. I need more dirt. With some difficulty and ingenuity, I can lever a second cement fencepost into the trash bin for disposal next Monday. I've started with the smallest ones and the last one will be a bear. But its progress and I have to decide what to do with the backyard. After a shower I start errands. I go to Home Depot to buy dirt and to the grocery store for supplies. I drop these off at home, then get gasoline for the World Rally Car, pick up my only prescription for thyroid medicine, and get to the library to drop off three read books and pick up four new ones. I unload everthing and change into shorts and a t-shirt with no hoodie since today is bright and sunny. I open up the windows to the house to try and get warmth into the house and I irregularly go stand out in the sun to warm up. I take a rest by pre-filling out my registration form for tomorrow's PET-CT scan, working on a website, doing one load of laundry, and downloading the software to do my taxes for calendar year 2024. I start work on the taxes and since I know exactly what forms I need, the software runs me through the analysis very quickly. I don't trust it - as usual - so I will sit on it for a few days and review. But inititially it indicates that both the IRS and CA FTB owe me a totalof $16000. This can't be right. I was expecting more like $9k. So I'll take my time for a few days before I actually file the return.
Thursday is very eventfull. I'm awake at 6:05am to dense fog. I leave very early on the motorcycle to get to the imaging center to have a PET-CT scan. Traffic is very heavy and, of coure, there is a train that is stopped and blocking the road until it starts moving. But it's a long train! And despite leaving VERY early for my appointment, I get there two minutes before for preparation. The technician can't get any blood from my finger in order to detect the glucose levl (which has to be in a certain range for the PET-CT scan). I tell him that my hand's are still cold from the motorcycle ride in (with roadracing gloves rather than bulky winter riding gloves). Finally he gives up and says he'll take a blood draw when he jabs me to inject the radioactive dye. Then I relax and meditate for the thirty minutes that I need to wait for the radioactive dye to get throughout the body. The PET-CT scan goes smoothly and then I rush on home on the motorcycle. At home there are messages from the retired schoolteacher and other neighbors that she is going to the hospital again because she's dizzy, having a hard time breathing, and feels like she's going to faint. The same symptoms where we had to dial 911 for her - once she went to the hospital and they did nothing and released her the same day at midnight. And last time she refused to go to the hospital. So this is the third time and at elast she went to the hospital. There's nothing for me to do except to try and metabolize the sh$& of this radioactive dye out of my system (because I'm supposed to stay six feet away from everybody for six hours.) I get in a good session with the weights, trim the roses, fill in the concrete fencepost holes nd water them to solidify them, fix my brand new recycling bin where one of the plastic cover axles is missing. (I use a wooden dowl and stop so it should work.) The I try a prefit of the natural gas chamber door that I built and it needs to be planed down on the side. But I'm tired so I take a shower, start the laundry, and finally receive voice mails regarding which hospital the retired schoolteacher has gone to. Except that I call the number with four different phones and the number is inactive or gives the rapid buzzing tone. It is the correct number becuse I googled the number and it gave Memorial Hospital as the result. So there isn't anything I can at this point until the retired schoolteacher calls again or the neighbors can get through. Later I call the retired schoolteacher's home phone numbe rand she's back home and wants to telll me about every little detail about an Uber ride, nice peple, tall people, ec. I keep saying, "That's irrelevant to what Memorial Hospital did for you" and she starts getting mad at me. I ask, "What did Memorial Hospital do for you that will prevent this from happening on Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday?" And she admits there was nothing that they did for me and then wants to tell me about the Uber ride and the tall people and the nice people. A ten minute conversation, if you stay on topic, turns into a forty minute conversation of irrelevant little details and crap. I definitely need to get out of the country again.
Friday is a good day! Despite not being able to sleep after 4 am, working on wiping a computer, and reading - all before the sun comes up - Friday is a good day. I skip the intended long road bicycle ride for a long run instead. With the legs having Thursday off, I get in a super 17 kilometer run/walk where I feel strong throughout. After a shower I pick up supplies at the grocery store and donate two old laptops (one from 2010 and one from 2018) to Goodwill. I've wiped the 2018 laptop myself, but a phone call to Goodwill said that they wipe every laptop that comes in. I hope they do though I won't panic if they don't. At home I clean about a third of the hardwood floors and as they dry I go talk with the retired schoolteacher who is back from a 911 ride and the hospital. She can't seem to get the idea that it's her health and she must insist on help and not except "No" for an answer. I saw this with my parents, so I vowed to be different and I'd say my recovery from the bicycle accident and cancer suggest that it is the right path. I go back home and clean another third of the hardwood floors along with the kitchen and bathroom flors and take a break to read the news and markets. And finally after noon I finish up cleaning te hardwood floors. Since my weight has dropped two pounds and I've accomplished my "listed" Friday tasks, I ponder how to carboload for (hopefully) a long road bicycle ride on Saturday morning. I go back and do a second review of my taxes and despite one questionable deductions, which I took the last two years, I think the rules are vague enough that I should take it again. The worst that happens is I get audited and point out the vagueness of the rules and beg for forgiveness and mercy.
Saturday morning looms very foggy. I take the road bicycle out and go up the San Gabriel river trail to a convenient turn-around point and then head south towards the ocean. A weird southbound ride as I go through periods of dense fog and clear sunshine and back and forth. I turn towards Long Beach when I get to the ocean and then have a good ride back to home. It's not the traditional long ride of 100 kilometers, but its a bit more than 70 kilometers and it will have to do. After a shower I get on the mountain bicycle and ride to the grocery store for some Doritos chips and a bottle of wine. I started craving the Doritos chips halfway through the road bicycle ride. It's a big bag and will last two days and I don't feel guilty at all because all of my vital signs are super good. And it will probably be a couple of months before I buy another bag. At home I've grabbed a shower and picked up my "cheating supplies" at the grocery store, so I go re-measure the natural gas opening and trim back the new natural gas gate that I built since the rain had swelled the wood (which I had not accounted for when I first built the gate about a month ago). I re-adjust my main gate from the recent rains and try to kill some weeds witha weed killer and then go read the news. Throughout the day I'll mix up working on websites, stretching various body parts, watching television, enjoying the Doritos without guilt, and just relaxing.
I sleep extremely well on Saturday night into Sunday morning. I'm out the door for a mountain bicycle recovery ride to the old yacht club and back to home before 7am. I've removed my facial masks for recent rides because I think they were causing the redness of my lips and chin that I discussed with my primary care physician, the dentist, and the prosthodontist. The redness seems to be going away. I trim the roses and grab a nice warming shower to continue an expected slow Sunday. I work on a website to get ready to launch it and I rotate between this web work, some television viewing, and an hourly abdominal workout (set on a timer on my phone).
I cannot answer the Monday morning alarm and reset it for an extra thirty minutes of sleep. I get out for a short run/walk of about 12 kilometers and hope for a long bicycle ride on Tuesday. After a shower I ride the bicycle to the post office to mail information to the City of Long Beach for the fourth time about my ambulance ride back in October 2024. At home I check out some websites, clear up some issues with the retired schoolteacher, and manage to get two cement fence blocks into the trash - one at a time. The trash people pick up my first load with one cement block, then I put another cement block into the trash bin and move it to the other side of the street. Just trying to clean up the backyard of debris as quickly as possible. Later I work on some websites, watch some Netflix, and check out part of the Los Angeles Kings' game against the Vancouver Canucks who the Kings are trying to stay ahead of.
On Tuesday and Wednesday I get out for good road bicycle and mountain bicycle rides, respectively. At home I take care of a bit of gardening and get cleaned up. And then deal with the retired schoolteacher across the street who is getting worse by the day. On the phone one day, she cannot recall her zipcode even though she has lived there for fifity years. And on another day she thought that her tax account and I were driving up to Sacramento to deal with a slight tax msunderstanding. It's a 14 hour drive. Why would someone make that drive (including an expensive CPA) when there is a telephone and a postal system? So she's really confused when I am not on my way to Sacramento even though we never discussed it. She's filed out checks and bills without signing the checks or bills. I let the two neighbors know what is going on and I'm at my wit's end because the retired schoolteacher will not A) Call her primary care physician and ask for an immdediate appointment, B) Will not call her healthcare provider and ask for some sort of home healthcare or at least a home healthcare checkup, and C) Cannot remember what day it is or or how to write out the date on a document. I try my best to straighten things out but I also insist that she go shopping and to the bank on her own to maintain some sort of independence right now because that independence is under a big threat right now. On both days I set my alarm for one hour and do eights sets of bicep curls (once per hour) on Tuesday and eight sets of abdominal/core exercises (once per hour) on Wednesday. I take the time to chop up a ton of vegetabes and prepare a spicy Thai curry (which I don't eat today and rather let it set in the refrigerator for 24 hours to let the full flavor seep into all of the vegetables). And in between this mayhem I gather information on F1 testing from Bahrain and future news for the pening race of the MotoGP season.
This once-per-hour set of exercises that I am trying is done for a few good reasons. First I select an upper bodypart that is not worked during cycling and running and try to maintain strength in those muscles. Second it prevents me from getting too involved in whatever I am working on to get the blood flow pumping a bit and perhaps make me more producitve. Third it is not good t be stationary for long periods of time. And there are other benefits that are probably associated with this concept. This concept goes with some recent results that I have embraced for cancer (and other diseases) that one can live longer, ward off dementia, and be healthier if one "metabolizes the SH&$" out of the bad cells.
I start Thursday very early with an 80 minute run/walk before grabbing a shower and ride the motorcycle to see my radiation doctor. We have a good discussion and he says that last week's PET-CT scan came out very clean. In fact, the nodules in my upper right lung that we were watching for months are gone. He postulates that it was probably a flu or lung infection that I was not aware of. But we are both happy that A) The nodules are gone, and B) My immune system was able to fight whatever it was off. He asks me how they can disappear.
Nine months ago or so the doctors saw unknown fatty modules in my upper lungs. They don't know what is it. Six months later they do a CT scan and confirm and still see the nodules but they are the same size and have not grown, so they believe that it is is not cancer.
On 20 February I have a radioactive PET-CT scan - the gold standard for cancer - and they find nothing. The upper lung nodules had disappeared.
The radiologist does not completely understand this but both he and and I are happy.
And then I let the cat out of the bag. "I metabolized the sh^# out of them".
What?
"I metabolized the sh^# out of them". He doesn't quite understand and I tell him that I've had one day off of working out in the last six months and these are hard workouts - including digging up the cement posts of the chain link fenceposts. He's skeptical and he says, "Do you really think that eliminated the nodules"?. And I emphatically say "YES" and refer him to articles about metabolizing the sh%# out of cancer and other diseases. Nonetheless, we are both happy that the lung nodules are gone. I ride home on the Yamaha YZF-R3 like a madman. This motorcycle being 50 pounds lighter than the Yamaha YZF-R1 and me being 50 pounds lighter, means that I can brake as late as I dare and still get stopped and can maneuver on a knife edge. I hope that I do not get over confident. I spend the rest of the day doing the one shoulder press exercise set per hour, eating Thai food that I cooked, and checking out F1 practice from Bahrain with the 2025 cars. And later I start updating websites (a day early) for the new month of March that starts on Saturday.
I initially expected to ride the road bicycle long today, but just do a secondary recovery mountain bicycle ride to the old yacht club and back to home. After a warm shower I pick up a couple of supplies at the grocery store (via bicycle, of course) and read the news and markets and pay some bills and answer another request from the retired schoolteacher. Back at home I have tears of joy running down my cheeks as this is the opening weekend of MotoGP racing and F1 practice sessions. The MotoGP season starts, for the very first time in Thailand, and despite it being 36C, I'm going to plan my schedule to be there next year and return to home just afterwards. I do another one of my _once-per-hour workouts for the abdominals as I watch the MotoGP/2 and F1 practice sessions. I've purchased a brand new 1/2 inch thick yoga mat and it feels better than the 1/4 inch mat that I inherited (and is now in the trash bin).
I'm again not up for a long road bicycle ride. I drive to the grocery store to pick up the heavy supplies and then come home and have a good session lifting weights. Afterwards I bring the road bicycle out and clean it up and lubricate the steering head because I've been hearing a slight noise coming from somewhere and I start with the steering head and rearranging items in my saddlebag in case they are banging into each other. I grab a warming shower and put on warm clothes because I am cold today. Maybe I'm coming down with something - feeling cold and skipping road bicycle rides the last two days. I watch MotoGP/2/3 qualifying and then some of the practice session for F1 from Bahrain. And then have a slow day. Late on Friday I check the jury duty website and am pleased to note that I do not have to report for jury duty on Monday.
There is a threat of rain today, so I go out for a 105 minute rub/walk instead of cycling. It turns out there is a lot of wind also and that would have made cycling less fun. At home I go back and readjust the road bicycle steering head bearings because I read that I tightehend two sets of bolts in the wrong order. Now I am confident of riding it on Monday when it will be clear and less windy. After a shower I start work on the scaled optimizatipon that I worked on a while ago, I work on this on and off throughout the day and finally get it running well. I wanted to scale all of the design paramaters to be about the same order of magnitude so that it doesn't bias the Jacobian calculations in the optimizer. And I watch a decent Tissot spring race from Thailand and some Netflix.
I start Monday with a road bicycle in very windy conditions. I have to pay attention because the deep carbon fibre wheels can really pick up a crosswind and point you twards the river or towards a fence. I crank along nicely and battle the wind and surge when feeling good. At home I grab a very quick warming shower, get on the mountain bicycle and buy a bottle of wine, come home and watch the jury duty orientation (and quiz) today even though it was supposed to be done yesterday. I start in on my "one set of exercises per hour" on my abdominals and core muscles, continue to tweak tweak the scaled optimization where I want to add in new functions at specific times within a time history. Such as when a war breaks out in a certain month - what does it's effect do to the economy or stock market or whatever indicator you are following. Thus I'm giving my model to change architecture in the middle of a time history. I watch a wild and fun Moto3 race from Thailand and some Netflix and continue to play with and think about the "adaptive architecture" model that I'm building. Late at night I go to the jury duty website and find XXXXX.