And Soup Runs Out My Nose

 Written sometime last year.  Today there was a good report from my fave Ear Nose and Throat doctor.   It was a good report nothing new, nothing strange, nothing unusual; they did the nose scope, and saw no nasty looking little bumps or lumps.   Nose scopes are not the funnest thing, as this entails tube being fed up my nose and then down my throat.   The win is I can see it all in real-time, and ENT discusses what he sees, explains it, and describes why it looks good.   I like my ENT.   This doctor trip always necessitates a little stop into Mi Tienda on the way home.   For those of you who do not live in Texas, this is a grocery store of the most fantastic foreign exotic, Hispanic, Mexican, Spanish, Central American food proportions.   Mi Tienda is reasonably new to us here in Houston.     The first time I ever stopped there I thought I had time traveled into a Mexico City food market.     It is much more than just an ...

  January, 9 th , 2019   Down a musical rabbit hole this afternoon, not sure how it happened.   Feeling fractured, and perhaps a little distant from humanity as   reality, truth, integrity all seem so very separate, like that Tupperware gizmo that separates the white from the yolk of the egg. Always got to be the white, why?   All this border wall, immigrant caravan, and all that talkety talk is making such a clatter in my head.       It started with playing African Footprint on You Tube for number four grandchild.   She is still a wee one, so I try very hard to give her a great musical variety.   Having seen the marvelously foot stomping, heart twanging (the   African part of my heart) show twice, once in Houston at Miller Outdoor Theatre, and once at Monte Casino in Johannesburg, that seemed like a good place to start.   Then it was natural to segue to Johnny Clegg (God Bless you and keep you with us please,) and ...

Regardless of how much food or drink is in front of a dysphagiac the only question is,  “am I able to swallow it?” A quick definition: DYSPHAGIA is a swallowing dysfunction.   Each swallow is a co-ordination of voluntary and involuntary muscle actions, motor functions, reflexes, messages shooting around from your cerebral cortex and medulla, to over twenty muscles, and six sets of cranial nerves; these are just some of the processes that control each swallow. Opening your esophagus, closing your air hole, and all the muscle coordination required to make food and drink go from lip into stomach sounds so simple. Sadly, there are more than enough opportunities for malfunction to occur. Throw in a tumor, distended blood vessels, nerve damage, radiation damage, a stroke, and normal swallowing becomes a thing of the past.  Welcome to a ‘new normal’ where swallowing and often speaking too is no longer a natural process, eating becomes an obstacle course, and words spoken are h...

   April 30, 2007                               RADIATION MASK FITTING Psalm 23 while getting fitted for the radiation mask, the second time, because the first time it did not work; which is code for someone messed up!  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall lack nothing.   Not even oxygen, as my  nose, mouth, and larynx and upper respiratory regions are pressed and compressed with this goopy mask thing, creating the most horrendous panic.  I can neither move nor speak, and I know what to expect, as yesterday's  mask did not work, so this is the second time.   I know I must do this. Wet weight enshrouds me.  My breasts are open to the room, first they were covered with a cloth, and then it is removed.  In medicine there is little modesty left.  Right now this heavy gelatinous fiber is pressed and smoothed onto my...

November 15, 2019  Cold, cold and really cold, but if you are a northerner you are probably laughing very hard at how we South Texans get   dramatic at a few days of an   arctic blast.   That is why we live here, so we can sweat and live in aircon in summer and pretend that there are four seasons, while in reality in Houston we only have two, summer and not summer – for the rest that is the stuff of pretty postcards of  fall in   New England. I love our little freezie days, because the few good winter pieces in my closet don’t get much use.   It is fun to dress for wicked cold freezing temperatures barely dipping below the freezing mark.     Of course bringing the plants in under shelter is a back breaking labor of love and is a small price to pay for wearing my snow boots one day in November. Pretty grey and teal snow boots with faux are from our Iceland trip earlier this year.  They are gently used, as in less than a ...

One of my Mother’s favorite replies to a question that required some debate was a quote from the poem by Lewis Carroll in his book   Through the Looking-Glass .               "The time has come," the Walrus said, “To talk of many things;   Of shoes- and ships-and sealing-wax Of cabbages - and kings- And why the sea is boiling hot - And whether pigs have wings," As it is April the first, thank you Mom and Lewis Carroll,   for these words that have endured for almost a century and a half that just seemed so right   for the beginning of my blog.     Yes, it does, soup runs out my nose, coffee, wine spritzer,   club soda and wine, fizzy IPA beers,   not every time, but just often enough to be irritating and socially not cool. My blog   is not all about cancer, it is about life, living with the beast and leaving no room for it to overreach like the   bloods...