Chemotherapy

So to continue on with my experiences, which I promise will be wrapping up very shortly, the oncologist decided that something had to be done after nearly dying a couple of times due to my low hemoglobin. My excessively high bilirubin levels in my liver was scary as well. With my spleen gone there was a load on my liver more than before. The hope was that whatever was killing my good blood cells could be extinguished by some chemotherapy.

Every third week starting off first in Kitchener for about 3 hours I would get 4 different IVs injecting the chemo. Intermittently  I would still have the blood transfusions while all this was going on. The doctors gave me pills to take if I was beginning to feel sick. The first night I took one but I realized I just needed to go to the bathroom. I never took one after that night. In fact I would be going to the local hospital after the first treatment. Then just drive home myself and continue on with my day.

One of the doses did cause me to have awful constipation so after that one time I made sure to take the suggested tablet so that I could do my business in comfort. Once I did that it was no problem. The other side effect was I lost my hair but it soon grew back once it was over.

The chemotherapy sessions ended and I can remember the day I stopped getting blood transfusions. It was March 7th of 2019. Each week I went for bloodwork the hemoglobin was holding steady. My white blood cells were low but other than that having no transfusions was great.

Another reason they were low was I was taking an immunosuppressant called cyclosporine which suppresses your immune system which was giving out these rogue Killer T-cells that was attacking my good cells as well as bad cells. So even though it may have been helping hemoglobin I was prone to getting sick. Lo and behold that September I caught pneumonia. My hemoglobin dropped shortly thereafter and I was back to getting blood transfusions again. So rather than continue on the cyclosporine I backed off and just concentrated on taking the iron chelation dissolvable tablets to try to get my iron down.

After the pneumonia bout I stayed away from blood transfusions. My hemoglobin high water mark was 110. My family doctor gave me some optimism by saying sometimes it takes a while for everything to work properly but give it some time. It appears whatever you had the chemo got it all.

My oncologist was less optimistic as she stated that she would not be surprised if there was still some T-cells that were still hanging around. Naturally I felt pretty optimistic as things seemed to be heading in the right direction.

I  passed an incident free winter but noticed my hemoglobin started slipping slowly as the months turned into Spring. Then the end of April arrived and the transfusions started again. I check my blood weekly but when I get the transfusion I check it again the following week. Well here we go again I thought. My family doctor now was less optimistic saying instead of heading in the right direction now she was just hoping that my hemoglobin would just hold steady in the 70's. That would mean transfusions all the time.

Tomorrow I will finish up this saga and then we can talk about something else. Enjoy the heat and Happy 4th of July to our neighbours down South.

The Old Nickel Hotel

When I was 18 years old I left school and got a job at Humpty Dumpty Potato Chip Factory as a shipper receiver. The reason why I did not continue with my schooling was my stepfather worked for Air Canada and because he did I had these air passes I wanted to use soon before they would expire when I was 21 years of age.

My friend Robert across the street also wanted to go to Europe so we decided that in June of that year which was 1977 off we would go to Europe. It turned out to be a pretty wild trip for 45 days. We rented a car in Paris and starting from there we toured France, Belgium, the Netherlands, West Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy before flying back from Paris.

Whenever we arrived to a city that we were planning to stop a while we always wanted to make sure that we located the Hauptbanhof commonly referred to as the train station. There we would pick up maps and learn of local events going on and places to see.

On this one occasion we left from Belgium and headed for the Netherlands. We drove to Amsterdam and found the train station where we parked the Renault 5 we had. Obtaining some maps and finding our way around was our goal.

When we got back outside and looked  around we thought maybe if we just parked the car and walked in this direction there would be some cheap places to stay for a night or two. So off we went not really knowing where we were heading. Seeing a street that looked like it had some places to stay in the near distance we saw a sign saying the Old Nickel Hotel.

Okay we thought let's check it out. We entered and it was pretty clean. Greeted warmly and told of the price we grabbed the room. Pretty simple with a breakfast included. Returning back with the luggage we struggled up the stairs, as it had no elevator, and put our backpacks in the room and hurried back downstairs.

Now if anyone has heard of Amsterdam they have heard of the Red Light District. So the first question we had to ask is, "Where is the Red Light District?'

The receptionist looked at us in surprise then she answered, 'You're in it!' Then as soon as she said that we looked across the lane and there was a hooker waving at us through her window in broad daylight!

Now of course coming from Canada going to Amsterdam is a huge culture shock because everything is so liberal there. In Amsterdam everyone likes to have a good time and they all keep in shape by riding their bicycles in huge bike lanes to handle the volume. Taking in an art museum and seeing Anne Frank's house was unbelievable too.

I had the opportunity to see Amsterdam and stay with a friend in 1988. I flew in through Schiphol and stayed the night before heading to my job in Switzerland a couple of times and saw it again when I worked on the ships.

Yes I think that would be a great city to live and grow up in. The country is one of my favourites as well out of all that I have seen so far.

Below is a couple of pictures of the hotel we stayed at which by the way is still there and I will underneath that include a video of the Amsterdam nightlife where anything goes.

                                      Okay before you watch this pretend you are 18 again

Makassar now but formerly Ujung Pandang

To take a break from my lengthy 3 year recounting of what exactly where I was till now I have decided every other day to post a place where I have been.

As you may have noticed on the right hand side of the page there is a book in which I recount some of the experiences over my youthful years. All these places I saw were not all expense paid vacations but simply a reward for doing something I loved. I never thought I would be able to see such places at any time and certainly not now as I approach the golden years. Having a family kind of puts an end to thinking about going to places like Ujung Pandang now called Makassar.

It was 1995 on New Year's Day I landed in Singapore to work with Renaissance Cruises as a Captain in the dining room. It was my fifth contract with them and I was having a good time. We were scheduled to do 10 day cruises between Singapore and Bali. Usually the stops were all the same but on this contract rather than see the well known places I got the opportunity to catch a glimpse of some others that I never heard of like this one.

Indonesia was pretty cool but some of these out of the way places really gave the tourist a different prospective. There was less commercial spots around where tourists would go to buy souvenirs. Even though this was a port city the locals couldn't care less about the tourists which made it all the better. Although right now I see there are close to two million people who live there and has a bit of tourism going but 25 years ago on that day anyway it seemed pretty quiet. It is a big city in the south of the island of Sulawesi.

In fact all the passengers went on a tour taking them to somewhere else so it was free time for us during lunch. This gave us a chance to check it out.

I never took photos which I sort of regret but a lot of our travels and memories we saved on CD Rom downloaded from our video camera thanks mainly to my wife. She was never with me at this place though to take a photo.

What I can tell you are two things. One is I had my first and only ride in a rickshaw. A bunch of us did that. The second was when we were walking around we saw an outdoor classroom with primary age school students in it. When they saw us walking by they started laughing and pointing their finger at me. The teacher waved me over and explained they thought I looked like a giant. Now it's pretty rare you see a tall Indonesian from what I noticed. I think I looked like a basketball player to them.

Anyway I played the part and signed a few autographs for the kids who were holding out a pen and paper. I think I said make sure you listen to the teacher and do good in school!

That was February 7th of that year. My 36th birthday!