cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And on Sunday I cleaned out my closet. It looks great. My mother probably has colon cancer. She got a colonoscopy on Friday and they found a tumor about the size of a golf ball. They said that it has probably been growing there for about 5 years. She was supposed to get a colonoscopy when she turned 50 but just didn't want to. Now she's 55. If she'd gone when she was supposed to, they would have found a little polyp, removed it before it became cancerous, and that would have been that. The plan is pretty simple. Radiation and chemo to shrink the tumor as much as possible before surgery. They did some blood tests to see if it has spread to her liver and the results should be back today. Supposedly the first 2 places that this type of cancer will spread to are the liver and the lymph nodes. I strongly doubt that it's in her lymph nodes because she's been totally asymptomatic. No colds or flu or random illnesses. My uncle fought cancer in his lymph nodes for something like 18 years and I have a pretty good idea of what that looks like, even very early. Basically she's going to have a rough year. Other things happened this weekend. I got a gift card for the lumber store from my brother and his wife and I used it to get sheathing and wood for the fascia yesterday morning. Trish's dad came with me and we managed to get everything into the truck. I got the fasica on one side installed and half the sheathing on that side as well. It is very hard work sheathing a 10 in 12 roof single-handed. Hauling each sheet of plywood up the ladder without falling, etc. I had taken about 6 weeks off from serious construction (for lack of wood) so I was a bit out of shape and I am very sore today. By the end of the week I'll be back in top condition. My body responds very, very quickly to exercise. The soreness is compounded by the fact that my new barrel for the shotgun arrived on Saturday. The slug barrel to use for the boar hunt. I installed it and then took it out back with a pocket full of rifled slugs to see how accurate it is. I fired one shot, which blasted an enormous hole through the center of the stump I was aiming at. Holy shit, that was enough. My shoulder felt like it had been run over by a small car. I've long prided myself on not being a recoil wuss at all. I can shoot powerful battle rifles all day long without complaint. 30-'06, 8 mm Mauser, hundreds of rounds of 12 gauge shot shells during an afternoon of busting clays. None of it bothers me. However, the sensation of approximately 1.25 ounces of solid lead leaving the barrel all at once is one that I was not prepared for. Every action does indeed have an equal and opposite reaction. I have been bludgeoned by physics. Clearly something has got to be done or I'm going to develop an awful flinch that will ruin my shooting skills with any weapon. I need to get some kind of fancy-pants recoil pad to install in place of the hard rubber thing that's on the butt of the shotgun at present. Also, I should figure out what shirt I'm going to wear on the day of the hunt and stitch some kind of shock absorbing pad into the right shoulder of it. I made fantastic barbecue for my birthday party at my parents house. I made the sauce myself and aged, split and charred oak to make my own charcoal for it. But nobody really noticed, on account of the big cancer announcement about 10 minutes before the food was ready. [No, I didn't actually clean out my closet. I don't even have closets.] 9:12 a.m. - 2008-07-28 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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