update on operation ice cream scoop from a new grandpa

The writing muses abandoned me and procrastination set in causing massive writers block. New news and rapidly approaching 100 day mark compel me to comment about the little pricks that bedevil each of us daily. I have my first followup brain MRI on Wednesday and then a series of MD visits where they collectively scratch their heads, stroke their beards and say in three part harmony, hmmmm. I'm hoping they will look at my brain and say, you know, there is nothing there, which may go a way to explaining why you're such a nut case. I have to start chemotherapy again next week for five days out of every 28 and do this for a year if everything seems to get better. If this doesn't work then back to San Francisco to review other options. I will get bimonthly brain MRIs to moniter the noggin.

Fatigue and nausea are still the main symptoms. I try to exercise with walks, hikes, short bike rides, and work on the rowing machine, which feels good at the time, but the next day overwhelming fatigue sets in which I don't understand and this takes a day or two to resolve then I try the exercise again. Someday I'll break free and resume normalcy.
I traveled to Montana to see my brothers Paul and Casey in Missoula. It was fun to see Montana decked out in fall colors after a 40 year absence. Paul took me down the rivers of our childhood and we memorialized the great childhood we experienced by trying to outwit cold blooded animals with brains the size of a lentil into biting a small concoction of colored fur and feathers on a small hook. It was fun and sometimes we were triumphant and we felt good. Nowadays it is strictly catch and release but in the 1950s is was very much catch and cook; in fact much of Montana obtained its daily protein from wild game when we were growing up and after a while the term "fished out" became common.

Fishing is still lots of fun which is weird. Why would educated, literate, theater-going, proponents of liberal education and travel find pleasure in fooling a primitive cold blooded animal? It must be something in our genes- nature not nurture- because I have taken non- fishing adults and got them seriously hooked on the sport- long past any hope for nurturing to play a part.

About forty years ago I met a wonderful woman from Montana and after chasing her about I got the nerve up to ask her if she would swim upstream with me. We nosed into the current, found a comfortable niche and not to get too graphic, we spawned. One always wonders if their offspring will return to their home waters and be successful, too. This last Saturday we learned that we were first time grandparents. He arrived about seven weeks early though, about a five pounder I'd say, and a definite keeper. We will go introduce ourselves later this week so I can measure him for his fly rod.

Fond regards to all, Eric