Infusion 64, auctions and a birthday

Since my last infusion at the end of July, I’ve kept busy with making decisions regarding the building materials in the house I’m planning to build. In the past week, I found out why Weber County has not yet issued the building permit: the fire marshall, who is required to sign off on the plans for each house built in the county, has decided that every house not adjacent to a fire hydrant should have a sprinkler system. This is even though the state legislature has specifically said that residential single family homes under 10,000 sf do not need sprinkler systems. The fire marshall apparently has decided to make my proposed house (under 4,000 sf, including the basement) a test case for his authority. Just my luck to run into an overzealous officious intermeddler.

I also have been shopping for snowplows, since my driveway will be about 300 yards long and I don’t feel like shoveling it by hand. New plows for my truck top $6000, so I’ve been looking for used plows. I came across an auction in Denver that had several plows, and bought one for $1500 that happened to have a 30 year old truck attached to it. There was also a bunch of solar panels for sale at the same auction, so I bought a bunch for less than $20 per panel. I figure I’ll put them on the house. Needing a way to get them all from Denver to Utah, I also bought a used trailer. I took an early morning flight to Denver and was picked up by my daughter’s fiancé who drove me to the auction site where I picked up my purchases. Less than a mile up I-25 from the auction site, I blew a trailer tire. Of course, there was no jack and no spare. I left the trailer on the side of the highway, drove to a Walmart to get a jack and lug wrench, drove back, jacked up the trailer and removed the tire. I eventually found a suitable replacement tire, got it mounted, returned and got it on the trailer. 

The blown trailer tire

I figured out that the load on the trailer was heavier than the old truck was able to comfortably pull, so I decided to leave the trailer in Ft. Collins and send one of my boys back for it later. It was the right call – driving across Wyoming, I had a blowout on the truck. Of course there was no spare. Apparently the truck had been sitting for a while and the tires had dry rot. It took 3 hours to get roadside service. The mobile mechanic brought a used tire of the correct size and mounted it on the side of I-80. He also brought out another wheel and tire for a spare, which was fortuitous because 125 miles farther west I had another blowout. 

Blown tire #2

Blown tire #3

I staggered into Huntsville at midnight, having repented of my foolishness of buying stuff at auction without inspecting it.

Or so I thought. For a while been looking for a farm tractor with a front end loader that I could use around the home site, and my son-in-law could use on his 15 acres. Last week at another auction in California’s Central Valley, a Massey Fergeson 398 was available, and I snapped it up for $5500. The next day Spencer was due to leave for an young person’s AA convention in Las Vegas, so I rented a heavy-duty flatbed trailer, hooked it to the F350, and sent him on his way. After the convention was over, he drove to the auction site about an hour north of Bakersfield, picked up the tractor and headed back to Utah. Just north of Edwards AFB in the Mojave Desert of California, the trailer axle snapped in half. 

Aw snap!

 Apparently it had a stress crack in it from previous renters overloading it, and it just gave way. The rental place in Ogden had no idea what to do – “Can you find someone to fix it?” was their solution – so I worked the phones and finally found another franchise manager who took the initiative to get a replacement trailer delivered, the tractor offloaded and reloaded, and get Spencer back on his way. The delay was only 24 hours, but Spencer learned that there’s nothing to do in Mojave other than sweat. 

I met Spencer in SLC and took over driving the trailer and tractor home. Of course, halfway back to Huntsville the tread separated from one of the tires on the trailer -- but at least it didn't blow out! I still had to change it, however. Changing tires on the side of an interstate highway is not fun. But once I got the trailer home, Josh and I could start having fun with our new toy.

In the past week I celebrated by 57^th birthday by having dinner with Jennifer, Chelsea, Josh, Spencer, Garrett, and my brother and sister-in-law. I reflected on how it’s been nearly 8 years since I was diagnosed. When my mets were discovered in in April 2012, the odds of living even five more years was less than 5%. With the advent of immunotherapy, I and thousands of other patients with metastatic cancer have rewritten the statistical odds by surviving far longer than anyone could have predicted.

Today I’m sitting at the Huntsman Cancer Center’s Farmington satellite location and am getting my 64th infusion of nivolumab. The nurse who did my labs (no blown veins this time!) sang praises of how Opdivo and other checkpoint inhibitors have extended the lives of so many patients. I was struck by the thought of how nice it must be for providers to know that the therapies they are providing have a far greater likelihood of helping their patients without the toxic side effects of chemotherapy.

Dr Maughan and I chatted about updates from this month’s BCAN Think Tank (which I did not attend), and how combination therapies continue to be the most promising next line of treatment if and when my cancer progresses. I look at these data not with any dread of morbidity, but simply as gathering information about eventualities that likely will come to pass. I can look at my cancer with objectivity, knowing that I do not control the course of my prognosis. Maybe my continuing with my immunotherapy treatments will keep the beast at bay, but maybe it won’t. There is not enough data available for informed speculation, so I simply learn what I can and continue to live one day at a time.

I scheduled my visits through the end of the year and smiled at the assumption that things would continue on as they have been. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. It’s part of the mystery of life that makes it worth living.

Another infusion, and other adventures

Last week I had infusion #63. Except for the tech and nurse blowing three veins before finally getting a return, it was another uneventful day. I've got s couple of purple bruises on my arms as reminders, however. At this point I'm inured to minor things like blown veins or longer waits or other things outside of my control. I believe that almost all people doing health care are trying to do their best, but that no one is perfect all the time. So I roll with it.

Speaking of rolling with it, last week I drove Spencer out to the east end of the Uinta Highline trail where he would embark on a 7 or 8 day hike across the east-west spine of that mountain range:

This map is from alltrails.com, which Spencer uses as one of his guides for hiking.

So we loaded my Fatboy into the truck bed and drove about 4 hours to the trailhead a few miles south of Flaming Gorge Dam. After I dropped him off I drove to the west end of the trail head on Mirror Lake Highway and parked the truck at my in-law's camp site. It was pouring rain as I unloaded the Harley. Fortunately I had brought my leathers and gloves, but unfortunately I had brought by half helmet and goggles instead of my 3/4 helmet with a face shield. I was glad I'd put a windshield on my bike, but I still stopped in Evanston and bought a balaclava. Soaking summer rains in Utah are rare -- it is a desert, after all -- and I think it's the only rainy day we've had so far this summer. But even a rainy day on a motorcycle is a good day, as long as you've got the right gear. (Spencer unfortunately got some bad water on his first day, became violently ill, backtracked and hitchhiked to Vernal and spent several days recovering. He's back on the trail now. He'll blog about his hike here.)

Regarding my plans to build a small house, the county finally certified that the water in the well that we'd had drilled was safe to drink. The same day, the engineer finished work on the structural load calculations for the building plans. That meant I could apply for a building permit, which is now pending. Here's the south elevation:

Here's the main floor plan:

I've taken care to design the house so Jennifer may be able to live there, if she is able, with everything on one floor. I've eliminated all entry steps, thresholds, and possible obstacles. All doors and baths on the main floor and basement are wheelchair accessible. The stairs to the basement and second floor can be locked from each floor, and externally accessed.  The exterior doors can be electronically controlled for access and elopement control. I hope that I will be able to enjoy it, along with my descendants. I enjoy the building process -- the conception, design, materials selection, and overseeing the execution -- as long as I'm not the one swinging the hammer.