Day 6: An Early Morning Outing

I woke up at 5 am and felt something...rumbling.  I bolted off the bed and fortunately my mom followed me. She kept Fred and Tomo in the house despite their rather loud protests.

I made it out the door and off the deck in time.  Of course, my mom had to find slippers and grab the pooper scooper before she followed suit.  It's still dark at 5 am in Oregon so no one could see her in her PJ's or what passes for her PJ's and that's a good thing.  I was wondering if anything that came out would glow in the dark but then I realized that's radium/radiation not chemo.  Though glowing poop would make her job much easier, especially on these early morning episodes if they continue, let's hope they don't continue. 

Suffice it to say, I am having some...gastrointestinal distress.  I don't really want to go into details and this IS a family/G rated blog but suffice it to say: Houston, we have a problem.  My mom took my temperature (boy was THAT fun) and it was 100.4 which is normal for me.  I haven't lost or gained any weight so that's a good sign.

I think I'm more embarrassed than anything.  I'm just not feeling my usual self and for a pack animal, that can be deadly.  We may have been domesticated at least 15,000 years ago but that pack thing is hard wired.  It is in our mitochondrial DNA.  When we were out in the backyard last night, the coyotes started howling and I just couldn't help myself. I threw my head back and howled with the best of 'em.  Fred did, too.  Tomo just looked at us.  This howling stuff is just beneath her.  My parents laugh when we feel the call of the wild, saying that we wouldn't know what to do if we ever DID catch up with the wild ones.  We howl and bark to let them know we're listening.  I don't know if the wild ones envy us or pity us.  We have food and shelter but they have unlimited freedom.  Personally, I prefer the food/shelter route with the occasional midnight howl, thank you very much.

But if I showed weakness as a pack animal, I'd be ostracized at the very least.  The weak ones are separated from the herd.  They cull them out and eventually they die off.  When the pack smells weakness, they pounce.  A weak animal endangers the whole pack.  Maybe not so much in northwest Portland or in this little office over the garage but definitely in the backyard at night.  My mom thinks they do the same thing in politics but there they call it "throwing someone under the bus." So for appearances sake, I HAVE to be my normal, chipper, cheerful self.  It's exhausting.  I mean - LOOK at my pack.  How can I keep up with these guys? If Douggie were here, she'd understand.  Pecking order in birds is even harsher than with dogs. They actually attack each other.  My mom saw it with Frigate birds in the Galapagos Islands. Male Frigates actually attacked and punctured the other males big red pouch which is what makes them attractive to females.  Peacocks will pluck a competitor's feathers until he's naked.  (Can't think of an analogy with men in the club or bar scene on a Friday night but I'm sure there is one.) I'm supposed to put on a good face so I will.

It might not be the chemo, though, that is creating this...situation.  I don't usually get steak and eggs and fish oil and vitamin C.  Maybe THAT'S what's wreaking havoc on my system.  BUT the paperwork DOES say chemo kills off fast-growing cells and that includes cancer cells as well as the ones lining the intestinal tract.  So who knows?  Maybe I should lay off the strange foods as long as I'm not losing weight?

My dad comes home tonight from California.  That's always good.  He takes naps.  He says "Let's take a nap," and we all run for the bedroom.  Tomo and I take our positions on the bed and Fred crawls under the bed.  Like I told you, we humor him.  Maybe a good twenty minute nap a day will do the trick.

In the mean time, Friday night is usually steak night and we get to BBQ.  That's also one of my favorite things to do.  Rain, sleet, snow, or hail.  We'll be out on the deck, cooking up some red meat.  It marks the end of an unusually challenging week but at least we ain't got locusts!  Yet.