"see them 'roiding along..."

This post's title should be sung to the tune of Tumblin' Tumbleweeds. I am flying high this morning. Third cup of tea, totally unnecessary. Up since 4:30 a.m., totally unnecessary. Reading a complete book every other day, totally unnecessary. 48 hours into steroid, epidural injections in the L5-S1 disk spaces, totally necessary. (This was the same disk space injected last year.) Since my crippling up due to overuse, in travel earlier this summer, I have stayed off my feet and mostly recovered a kind of stasis in which I don't hurt too much, I am fairly flexible, and my leg weakness is tolerable for most of my daily functions. That is, I can pretty much do what I want to do. I don't weed, I don't cut grass, I don't climb ladders, or walk long distances and so on, but I can look after myself, drive, get out for lunch, go fishing, read, play my horn, be with my family, and socialize. In sum, life is pretty darn good.

The steroid epidurals confirm my experience with the prednisone during chemo.  A distinct upper for me. Shortening of sleep cycle is prominent among side effects. I can see, I think, why the sports guys could be into steroids, big time. I got some pain down my left sciatic nerve to the knee during the procedure on this round, while on the right side--my major weakness: I cannot push off on that leg--it just felt warm. But the effects on leg strengthening and pain reduction, particularly sciatica, were pretty immediate. I am much more comfortable walking now.

My doc gave me two take aways from this session. 1. I got 11 months effect from the first round which is quite good. He thought the length was at least in part due to my continuing attempts at core strengthening and flexibility. 2. The sort of overuse crash I had on the Vancouver trip will resolve about 3/4 of the time on its own with rest, that is, for me, getting off my feet. Mine certainly did. 3. He did qualify that there may be diminishing returns on the repeated use of these injections. Point taken.

Got my final port flush yesterday before my next series of maintenance chemo in Sept. At the same time I pushed the start of that series back one week so it would not interfere with the Celebrate America gig the week before. That gig will be 5 nights, preceded by a couple days of rehearsal. I have been prepping all summer, practicing nearly daily and have to be a little careful of overusing my chops. But we had a big band gig last week or so--two hours--and I sailed through it with some left at the end.

So I end where I started, flyin' high. Today, I've got a haircut, lunch with my regular guys, some shopping, a wine-and-cheese gathering late afternoon, and a jam session this evening. Not bad for an old fart approaching his 75th...