Thursday, February 7, 2019

Treatment Round 2 Day 6:
Today I'm gonna write about my walks with the dogs. Living out here in rural Florida can be treacherous. We literally live in the woods. All the roads are dirt except the highway.
If we walk all the way down the road we live on it bends around and comes back. There is a large dirt trail that goes over the top of the neighborhood. If we take that the total trip is two miles. The trail is mostly dirt, too thick for a car to go through it. This makes it popular with local trucks and atv's. There is one house on the trail. The road holds up until you get to it.
In that house there is a brown pit bull. I think it means harm. These peoples fence is wide open so it can get out. I think it means harm, but that dog is scared of me.
The first time I saw it it was just a puppy. He had a little brother living with him which was grey. The brown one came walking toward us, just calm like he wasn't gonna do anything. I looked back to see his little grey brother sneaking up behind us in an attack formation. So I waited for the brown one to get close enough and I kicked it square in the nose.
He flew back to the side of the road, his brother went over to check on him, and we just kept walking. He is still scared to come close enough to me. Since that incident I have bought pepper spray. I have only used it once.
You see the grey brother, he doesn't live there anymore. He lives wild, out in the woods. When I see him he always comes out of the woods somewhere. He'll follow us down the street. When he gets close enough Docker will start snapping at him. Docker wants to play with almost every dog he sees. Even if the dog is acting like it's gonna kill him.
The first time I used the pepper spray I only got him on the nose. I was hoping it would burn and he would just back off. But he kept coming at us, so I had to get him in the eye. He wiped his eye with his paw for a minute, looked at us and tried to decide if it was worth it, then turned around. I was glad the pepper spray didn't hurt him that bad.
Anyway there is a road that connects us back to the road that we live on. If we take that it's a mile and three quarters, and that is the way we normally go.
If I don't feel like going the whole way there is a path that goes back to a clearing. This clearing I like to call the neighborhood dump. People dump stuff all over around here. People are pretty poor around here and the dump cost seventy-five cents a bag. There is no garbage pick up. Anyway most of the stuff gets dumped in this clearing.
Two days ago on my walk I saw some guy dumping a bunch of chopped up trees back there. If I had brought my phone with me I would have called the cops. As we walked around and back I saw him going back with another load.
There is one more road that cuts through the middle, but I try to avoid that road. There is just one house on it. Gator is some kind of hound mix, the dogs love her. When we walk by she comes out, goes right for the hole in the fence and follows us. The little girls that live there come out. You can understand about half of what they say. Some southern English dialect.
Anyway they say they don't want her to go. She might not come back. So they physically tackle her, and roll around on the ground with her trying to hold on to her. I just keep walking. Eventually she gets loose and I'll hear her coming up behind us. It goes on with this cycle as long as it does. I caught her for the girls a couple of times. It's just best to avoid that.
There are more dangerous things than other dogs around here. There are coyotes which are only big dogs, but they are nocturnal and only come out at night. Even if I let Docker out in the fence at night I usually go out with him to make sure he doesn't get snatched through the fence.
Anyway I'm trying to blog more, which means write more. Just a look at where we live now. I'll be back in a day or two.  

Monday, February 4, 2019

Round 2 Day 3: The treatment is worse this round. I feel weaker. The first round was a wash. I have pills that I am supposed to be taking after day 10, and I'm supposed to take anti-nausea pills with them which I did, and I still threw up about an hour after taking the second pill for the first time. The pills have to be taken with food and I could not eat after that.
My doctor suggested that he find a new dosage that I can take, and we start over with the second round. Those pills are supposed to be taken all together four at a time so the doctor suggest that I take them like the others half at a time, and maybe start taking the anti-nausea stuff the day before.
The scans show there is new cancer growing and I can feel it. I can feel it as I get tired, I can feel it as my legs get heavier. I can feel it taking more out of me and I need to finish this treatment to fight it before there is nothing left of me. I don't even write much anymore. I can't read that much.
So with the updates all out of the way, I want to talk about family. There's an old saying that says blood is thicker than water. This is bullshit as far as I'm concerned.
Two Christmas's ago came down to Florida to see my family. Honestly I felt like I was dying and feared it may be the last time. So it's Christmas day and I'm too weak to get off my mothers couch. Too weak to pick up my cell phone really. My Aunt calls. My father is very disappointed that I haven't called him yet. She even says that she does not believe that I am too weak to do it.
So I call my father which of course by now is not a pleasant conversation. Why could my father not pick up his phone and call me instead of getting all mad? In fact I was in the next town over. He could have gotten up and come to see me. He could not make that effort yet he is mad at me?
Honestly I am disgusted  about the way I have been treated here. I have a lot of family in Florida and I can say one person has made the effort to come see me. That was my uncle's wife.
I've called my dad. He's never called me. The last time I called him I had just had my last surgery. That would be August two years ago. He just sighed loudly when I called like he was annoyed or something. Wasn't much of a conversation. At that point I decided that he was gonna call me next time, and I would wait and see how long it takes him to do that. I am still waiting. I am his son, so I know I can be just as stubborn as he can be. I don't owe him respect, I don't owe him anything.
On a side note my friends from Toledo did pack my stuff and my dog into a truck and moved it all down here. Plus they came down to visit me.