Final Radiation Round, Difficult LIves, Exercise

Yesterday marked the last scheduled round of radiation therapy, set to end at the close of six weeks just before the year's end.  Sweet Melissa drove me down there to the Davis Cancer Pavillion at UF Health and we saw two oncologist physicians nearly immediately afterwards.  Then I "rang the bell" to mark this minor milestone.  Before that I wrote a couple of sobering sentences into their guestbook. This is that text:

It is good to complete the six weeks of brain cancer radiation treatments, in spite of the headache side effects. My struggles against GBM continue, and it promises to be difficult and challenging. God bless you all!

The reactions I received to this somber message weren't exactly exuberant, but then again, I never asked or prayed for an easy life for myself.  After all, Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee had a difficult go at it throughout their J.R.R. Tolkien-authored Lord of the Rings saga.  Harry Potter also had to undergo quite a bit of suffering throughout J.K. Rowling's excellent Harry Potter series,too. Yet these characters' experiences strengthened them and provided transformational growth because they showed up for the challenges and followed through.  This is the optimistic message I add to the first somewhat abrupt lines.  I didn't exercise this afternoon or evening, but I have confident hopes that I won' t let myself down and will dutifully perform some C-V exercise while watching virtual runs on TV..  More virtual miles to come.  Now it's eight in the evening and I just finished my daily exercise, closing out at 4.8 total virtual miles...

Cancer Treatment Prospects After Radiation Rounds

 Today was one of those days that for me have been split up into appointments, mainly medical, in which I underwent a few minutes of radiation therapy to hopefully target and zap any glioma blastoma malignancy holding fort there.  Tomorrow should be the final time for my six-week prescribed radiation rounds.  Then I get to ring the bell.  I don't think for a moment that, with this, I will have thoroughly eradicated this extremely aggressive and dangerous pathogen, known to shorten life spans down to as few as a few weeks.  So I'll be entering the year 2026 with a great feeling of uncertainty, doubt and mistrust: do the oncologists there assigned to my case really know what they are doing, and do they practice their ptofessions proactiively to aggressively combat my afflictions?  I guess I'll just have to see about that.  In spite of the gloomy doomsday prognosis laid out before me after brain surgery, I have continued with my cardiovascular exercise, on the rug in our living room.  This evening I covered 5.1 virtual miles while watching a virtual ideo on YouTube of the 2022 NYC Marathon.  Now it's up to me to get myself comfortable on the couch and see whether I get some decent sleep tonight...

Songs of the Month and Year, Exercise and Cancer Treatments

 Today was an open Sunday spent at home, with me largely withdrawing to our living room couch.  I did exeerise a bit, doing a total of 3.1 virtual miles...don't feel like I did anything, though.  I have Steve Miller Band's minor 1968 singles hit Living in the USA as my Song of December.  Also, Garbage's 2025 song There's No Future in Optimism gets my nod for 2025 Song of the Year...more about that one later.  I'm due to get another round of brain cancer radiation treatment at the UF Health Davis Pavillion.  To all of you a very good and blessed day... 

Walked Nearly All of Today's Depot Parkrun 5K

SHOW UP,

FOLLOW THROUGH

Well, after what I thought was a reasonable night's sleep, Melissa drove us down to Gainesville's pretty Depot Park, located just a few blocks south of downtown.  The sky was overcast, the temperature was a tolerable 63 degrees, but the humidity was very muggy at 99%. Before today's "race" started I told Melissa that I was going to try to walk the 4-lap, 3.-mile course as fast as I could.  But once it was ongoing, it didn't take long for most of the Parkrun participants to walk easily ahead of me.  Even the more casual runners seemed much more physically fit than me, so before long I had to reassess my goals for today, which came down to simply crossing the finish line. For a substantial portion of the fourth and final lap, I broke into a casual, light run  That I did, with a personally timed finish of 54:26.  Click HERE to view the posted results, which I think the timers and processors in good faith botched to my disadvantage.  The New Year's Day morning Parkurn 5K will be a combination of Gainesville's two Parkruns.  West End Community Park will host this one, temporarily skipping Depot Park for this special event.  As for me, I am beyond being bound to a competitive spirit that involves me comparing myself to others...I no longer care.  I just want become more fit, and I have the means to achieve much of this in the face of potentially distracting and debilitating complicated medical treatment for my stated bummer of a diagnosis.  But today's Parkrun goes down as a  personal success story because I showed up and followed through. This was my 99th Parkrun finish.  To attain Parkun #100, my intention is to go with Melissa to walk their special New Year's Day Parkrun. For the precious two days I had been skipping exercise sessions, but this afternoon and early eveninI willed myself to "rock-run" up to a day's total of 12.5 virtual miles (added to the Parkrun distance) while following Peter's slow-but amazing exploits during the 2022 New York City Marathon.  And now the living room gym is closed for the night as I allow myself to enter rest/sleep mode.  With more activity anticipated for tomorrow, i quote Morgan Freeman from that recent pharmaceutical commercial,;"Time to get busy living"...

Merry Christmas from Me with a Minimal Appetite

 Merry Christmas, everyone! Today we greeted this holiday and visited our good friends, who live on the western outskirts of Gainesville. The food was wonderful and so was the company.  I had a very small appetite and filled up quickly, wanting to take a nap on their couch.  We went back home and I rested, skipping the exercise routine I had planned.  Later on I watchd, while resting, a couple of NBA games and some Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime channel.  Well, time to get a decent night's sleep. Happy holidays...

Latest Snowy Jigsaw Puzzle, Exercise Plans

 

Well, late yesterday I completed a cute 300-piece jigsaw puzzle of two snowmen with several sweet-looking little animals: a pony, two affectionate pigs, a cat, squirrel, horse and rabbit.  At the end it seemed I lacked a single piece.  Getting its finished photo uploaded to Google Fotos was a little challenging, but there you see it!  Now I've just finished my dinner with Melissa at Nopal...no residual hunger here.  I suffered from some level four headaches this morning, probably in major part stemming from cumulative effects of radiation treatments since Novmber 17rh.  Melissa has brought forth the idea of having my head capped with a special electronically-powered device to help fight the development and./or reproduction of glioblastoma multiforme cancer within my sensitive, sad little brain.  I forgot the name...refreshing with Google should properly inform me.  Yet for someone with such a bummer of a cancer diagnosis, I still feel pretty doggone healthy.  I'm still susceptible to tiredness from late in the day as evening and darkness approach. My plan is to exercise on our living room rug while watching Peter...back in 2022...as he struggles to cover that year's Nw York City Marathon on YouTube.  Should be interesting.  In the previous two or three days each my virtual mile totals haven't risen beyond one and a fraction...let's see if I can't beat that figure tonight. IT's now eight in the evening and I have finished my evening living room exercise session, with 5.0 total virtual miles. Merry Christmas!  By the way, if it's five til midnight and a humungous train with "POLAR EXPRESS" on its side pulls up in front of your house, then seriously consider getting on board, especially if the conductor looks and sounds like Tom Hanks...

Filling in the Blog Gaps to Cover Missing Days

For the most part, I have continued to be faithful in writing and posting daily blog articles.  Sometimes, though, a calendar day will come and go without any posted article from me.  But I have a way to get around that: backpost "yesterday's" article!  Which is exactly what I'm doing this morning.  The trick is for me to search my short-term memory for information I can write about, as if it were ongoing and not just something that happened the previous day.  "Officially", tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the 24th of December.  That's the date I'm posting this blog entry about filling in missing days with blog articles.  I looked up "back-posting" on Google and got answers related to crocheting, for all the good it did me.  Still, I fully intend to make use of this blogging ploy to fill in as many of my blogging gaps as possible.  Merry Christmas!

More Radiation, Headaches, TV Football...and About Sleep

 Today Melissa took me down to the UF Healh Davis Cancer Pavillion for another round of radiation treatment, after which an oncologist assigned to my case consulted with us.  Then, following a weekly lab blood draw, I talked with Amy, the nurse practitioner working under Dr. Rinonos, my chief oncologist.  We discussed the possibility of surviving a limited and pessimistic lifespan prognosis following diagnosis with an aggressive variety of brain cancer, which I just underwent.  I guess I"ll just live as long as I live...hopefully enjoying life as time winds on.  I did little-to-no home exercise, My virtual miles for the day being a little more than one.  The featured televised pro football was uninteresting, and I probably slept through much of it.  My FitBit has recently been very uninformative regarding my length of sleep time and my sleep quality...I don't know when or if it will resume being useful.  I have more radiation scheduled tomorrow.  I'm hoping that my headaches in the morning will be light...

Officials Hand Close Victory to Steelers Over LIons

 On this Sunday in the weekend preceding Christmas week, 2025, there were some NFL games being played, with teams on the outside of the postseason playoffs picture struggling to get themselves better positioned for eligibility.  One of these are the Detroit Lions, who were sensational in 2024 but have declined this season with their offense and defense.  They were 8-6 entering their home contest against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the last one for the 2025 regular season.  Pitt led for most of the game against the Lions, but the latter put on a furious comeback trying to win it in the end.  Then with just a few seconds left, quarterback Jared Goff threw a short toughdown pass in the front corner of the Steeler end zone and for a very short time Detroit had taken a shocking 30-29 lead, causing dejection along the Steeler sideline.  But an offensive pass interference penalty was promptly called, setting Detroit back.  But they held on and apparently scored "again" on a bizarre play...only to have it negated with a penalty: The officiating crew seemed to take pleasure in slapping down Detroit and handing Pittsburgh the victory, which makes the Lions' playoff prospects very doubtful.  I strongly dislike seeing this sort of mischief going on with penalties or non-penalities (or fast whistles) becoming directly responsible for a game's outcome.  It makes me want to turn off the TV in frustration.  In the long run it makes no difference whether "my" team wins a game or not, but the way the so-called authorities enforce their rules on the playing field can completely extinguish within me the feeling that they is any real level of intregity to the sport.  Why follow it any more...

Walked with Melissa in Today's Chilly Depot Parkrun 5K

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I'm writing this from the perspective of a tired guy early in the evening.  For the day, exercise-wise, I did a total o 8.4 virtual miles (v-miles). This morning,  after a lackluster night of fitful sleep, I awoke early and then went back to bed after Melissa administered my daily dose of Zofran. Planning to bundle up in order to withstand the low forties expected at Gainesville's Depot Park at 7:30 this morning, I had my alarm at a short snooze time span set to give me enough time to avoid getting there late.  But even with the clothing that was available, when today's (#317) Depot Parkrun 5K began, I felt very, very uncomfortable.  With no concerns about my energy level, I wondered whether the nasty cold morning conditions might force upon me the decision as to whether I should continue. Nevertheless, the two us stuck it out to the end, even though I thought that it was annoying that, from time to time, there seemed to be a lot of Parkrunners "sharing" the immediate course around me.  Toward the end of our walk I broke out ahead into my own modest version of race-walking.  My finishing time was 1:09:35...you can view the posted results by clicking HERE I've long given up on the hope of achieving fast finishing times at Parkrun events.  For me it's come down to two simple themes: SHOW UP and FOLLOW THROUGH.  This event marks the 98th one i've entered and finished since I began Parkruns in January 2019.  The goal is to do Parkrun #100 on New Year's Day at West End Community Park on January 1st, 2026. Be there or be square...

College Football Playoffs Commence...in the Evening

 Today we paid the UF Health Davis Cancer Pavilion another visit.  There I went through a radiation therapy round.  Later our dear friend Lisa paid us a visit and we had chili for dinner.  In the evening ESPN was overhyping their first broadcast college football playoff game for the 2025 season, with Oklahoma hosting Alabama in Norman.  The Sooner fans pregame seemed pretty smug about their team's superiority over the Crimson Tide, whose reputation for winning was tarnished following legendary coach Nick Saban's retirement.  Knowing that a Depot Parkrun 5K is scheduled for tomorrow morning and that Melissa is planning to walk it with me, I settled comfortably on the living room couch with the TV set on the game.  When I woke up toward midnight, it was late in the fourth quarter and Oklahoma was ten points behind, desperately trying to catch up before the game clock expired.  Twice they stopped their own drives to bring in their own placekicker, who missed both makeable attempts badly.  Then the camera panned out to the crowd of spectators, showing people looking aghast with their mouths open in shocked dismay.  So "Bama came from 17 points down to improbably win and advance. Next, they play Indiana on the road in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day.  Tomorrow a lot of college playoff games are scheduled, and I'll probably be dutifully following them as well.  As for today's exercise, I had 2.4 virtual-equivalent miles...  

LifeSouth's Chronic Ghosting About its "Race Weekend"

 For my daily existence following the big diagnosis, exercise into Zone One is an important activity.  However, in rocking forward and backward simultaneously on my feet, I don't think that in doing so I am making it easier to run stretches of races, such as the Parkrun 5Ks.  Only actually getting out there and taking the steps will help me in this regard.  With winter almost here, I am also keenly aware of the seasonal time pressure to take advantage of the sparse opportunities offered for meaningful long distance races.  Several years ago I had as racing options the January Ocala Marathon/Half Marathon...they're long gone, sadly.  The LifeSouth Five Points of Life long distance events were consistently held from 2006 to 2020...until COVID hit and ruined everything.  When they resumed in 2022 with a half-marathon, the low number of entrants apparently disappointed the organizers and the non-profit blood-donation organization enough for them to stop holding it.  Only they never announced that the races were over, and didn't respond to queries about this decision.  That's called ghosting, and it's a highly disrespectful, deliberate breach in communication.  Earlier this year I had discussed with my cardiologist possibly going back to donating blood to LifeSouth...I'm O+, the "universal donor" designation, with my cardiologist.  But because of the medications he has me on, his answer was squarely "NO".  So when LifeSouth pestered me with another annoying plea for blood donation, I replied with my medical explanation.  No response.  Then I wrote them how I felt about their "race Weekend" cancellation and their refusal to be up-front and candid about it.  No response.  Hey, you bloodies, you can stop holding your running events, and I'll be disappointed but still supportive, if only you just make the expected announcements.  Now I'm seeing stuff on the Internet about how the Five Points marathon.half-marathon has been announced without any sign of detail regarding the February 2026 dates and sign-up information.  My take is that they're (expletive deleted) on us, or ghosting, and that they'll let the anticipated "race weekends" pass by with no communication from them. Yet they will still continue to harass me with accusatory emails and text messages emphasizing that (MY) desperately needed blood donations to them aren't just the most important thing: they're the only thing!  Well, with quickly fading hopes of getting some information about a potential Five Points Gainesville race in February, I went to my YouTube account and searched for information.  The answer directed me to a channel run by ultramarathoner Wes Plate.  Now I like ultramarathon runners like Dean Karanazes who are upbeat about promoting their sport: I like to hear their stories.  Plate's video was 8 minutes long, giving him plenty of time to mention LifeSouth and what their intentions were.  Only he did nothing of the kind, and all I got was a discussion of ultramarathon races to come, including a 300K event (180 miles) in steamy Tennessee.  Plate's video saddened me, and in my own state of medical health I don't see myself training up to being able to cover distances in excess of a marathon (26.2 miles) length.  The Florida Track Club Marathon next month to me is a dud event, and I resent the organizers' half-assed time restriction of six hours beyond which they reserve the right to refuse to time and post for entrants who are on the slower side of that figure.  My idea and estimation of public racing have greatly shrunk over the last two or three years, with LifeSouth going into Ghost Mode (aka giving us the Finger) and Florida Track Club dropping the ball, marginalizing runners and walkers while pampering those they regard as "elite".  And the non-profit side of FTC, along with its president, clearly holds aging people like me, fighting cancer and with diminishing athletic abilities, in contempt.  Well, ghosting can be a two-way street... 

I'm a Sick Billy-Boy, They Say

 Up until the October 21st ct-scan done on my head that determined a presumably cancerous, rapidly growing golfball-size tumor in my brain, my general state of health, medically speaking, was determined to be good.  But after the brain surgery done three days later, it was confirmed that I am afflicted with an aggressive variant of brain cancer called GBM, or Glioblastoma Multiforme.  It's an open question as to whether treatment strategies like chemotherapy or radiation will arrest the GBM development or reduce it, but I've been enthusiastic about going along with the prescribed program.  So far, my adverse reactions to treatment...mainly radiation...have been brain inflammation and headaches, partially remedied by steroid capsules and OTC capsules like extra-strength Tylenol.  But I'm still susceptible to getting tired over the course of a typically long day, and on weekdays I usually spend a substantial amount of time with Melissa meeting doctor and radiation therapy appointments at UF Health.  Doctors like my oncologist and the skillful surgeon who operated on my brain encourage me to be physically active while listening to my body in a cautionary way.  I've already scaled back my running training, avoid gym treadmills and show up consistently to Saturday morning Parkrun 5K events in which walking takes center stage, usually with Melissa and me.  Still, it can be a matter of testing my will power to cover the race's course from start to finish.  At home, I have been using my living room floor...with a lot of rug covering...to exercise while watching TV and dutifully record  my times spent in Zone One movement.  Today I covered (virtually) the equivalent of 4.4 miles before finally calling it a night.

The medical authorities say I'm sick with an aggressive variety of brain cancer and the prognosis for a reasonable number of years ahead to live is limited and subject to how my brain responds to the prescribed treatment regimen.  Yet, by all acounts, I do well with blood tests and vital signs.  I have a good appetite and food gets easily digested and passes though my body without trouble.  I don't know how much time I have remaining on Earth before my body dies...or the Earth around me from my own subjective point of view.  That far-reaching video by the alternative rock band My Chemical Romance titled Welcome to the Black Parade vividly presents this notion, and I recommend it if only to broaden your perspectives.  Just copy and paste the title, once you're on YouTube, into the site's search engine.  It is , in my opinion, that band's crowning achievement and can really bring on the tears for how the singer deeply honors his father.  As for my own life, I'll just carry on, although at this stage it seems like I'm in a decaying orbit, destined to burn up and crash.  Let sustained life and quality of life be my true destination, both short and long term...

Catching Up on Late Blog Articles

 I'm writing this article retroactively, by one calendar day, as I've slipped a little behind in my daily habit of posting blog articles.  With the cancer treatment regimen I'm in the middle of, the radiation therapy, now with 19 sessions behind me, appears to be causing the side effect of brain inflammation.  This can lead to pain, and Melissa has been great at communicating this with my physicians.  Now I have some medicine that should mitigate the symptoms.  The radiation treatments are scheduled to run to the end of 2025, and i'm fervently hoping (and praying) that I'll be able to sustain them without too much trouble on the side.  Tonight they had a college basketball game on TV between Florida State and Dayton.  The Flyers, playing at home, were clearly better shooters and ball handlers: it wasn't even close.  Well, let's see if I can't crank out today's article before midnight rolls around...

Latest Jigsaw Puzzle, Medical Visits, Home Exercise

If you're reading this article after seeing the picture at the top, then you're probably expecting something about the jigsaw puzzle I just finished putting together.  It is a cute picture of five smiling dogs, pretending to be human, outside having a fun picnic, 500 pieces in total.  For days I had the puzzle laid out on a plastic tabletop in the living room, the pieces stubbornly resistant to my eyes and pattern recognition.  I told Melissa of my goal of finishing it this evening, after a discouraging feeling of stagnation in making progress, and she gave me a crucially helpful hint.  So I set about the task and, now you see it!  This happened after coming home from UF Health radiation treatment and a visit with Dr. Koch, my very capable brain surgeon from October 24th.  He encouraged me to be active while listening carefully to my body...very reasonable and wise.  I've also been exercising in the living room, continuing to tally up virtual-equivalent miles, today's total being 9.9 miles.  Today I made use of the YouTube Runner's Digest channel's point-of-view video of the 2024 United Airlines New York City Half-Marathon.  It is inspiring me to check out some more virtual running videos, including some from that young Chinese athlete.  I still want to build up my own running strength and endurance to the point where I feel confident participating in some near-future middle-to long-distance events...   

Unstructured Sunday, Exercise, TV Football

 Today is Sunday, one of those unstructured days that depend on me to stake out a kind of personal schedule.  Still, over this day's span, time seems vast.  Yet it's only inevitable that the afternoon will creep on through, culminating in evening.  I took advantage of the early morning hours to exercise with virtual running in the living room, to a YouTube video of 2024's New York City Half-Marathon.  Later in the day I did a brisk (for me) 3.3-mile walk though my home neighborhood.  My daily mileage total for today came to 9.9 miles.  I followed some NFL football on TV, highlighted by an entertaining contest in Southern California between the Los Angeles Rams and Detroit Lions.  I'd like to see both teams make the postseason playoffs, but I have my doubts about Detroit's prospects this time around in 2025.  Tomorrow it's back to UF Health cancer treatments and doctor consults...with a lab blood draw to top it off...

Covered Today's Chilly Depot Parkrun 5K

This morning when I woke up between three and four I could tell that I had been able to sleep a reasonable number of hours, for which my FitBit gave me due credit.  Then I decided to do rok-running exercises on the living room run while watching the final 1:33 of the NYC Marathon, from the perspective of a friendly and talented young Chinese athlete.  That accomplished, Melissa then awoke and furnished me my daily chemotherapy capsules.  My watch gave the temperature first at around 40 degrees, then jumping to 43 and sticking there thoughout our cold Depot Parkrun 5K experience...it's showing that figure now with the real temperature in the seventiies!  I walked the course with Melissa until the final two laps, when I did have to take a jogging break to the bathroom.  She suggested I finish the event by running some, which I did with a finishing time of 1 hour 4 minutes 58 seconds.  Click HERE to view the posted results.  We enjoyed some Dunkin' Donuts afterwards and I'v just risen from a mid-day nap.  The four-lap walk through the park on this cold morning, which stung my hands, wasn't a very enjoyable physical experience to endure, but I'm happy we did it and entertain hopes of injecting some more running into future possible Depot Parkruns,  I do think that indoor virtual training is helping me. Right now it's close to 7:30 pm and I've just eaten a modest dinner that friends brought over.  No more appetite for a while...maybe a little more living room exercise and it'll be time to close shop for the night...

Bucs Lose, and My Exercises for Today

 Last night it was approaching midnight when I decided to check in about how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were doing against their divisional rival Atlanta Falcons, who were suffering a disappointing season with a 4-9 record.  The Bucs had built up a solid 28-13 lead in the second half, but failed to score again as the Falcons made their fourth quarter comeback.  As the game was winding down toward the final two-minute warning, Tampa Bay had their opportunity to run out the game clock and win by two points by achieving two first downs, but as Atlanta used up their last time out, the Bucs fell short at the 2-minute break and had to punt the ball back.  Backup quarterback Kirk Cousins, for whom erratic sports commentator Stephen A. Smith rarely has a complimentary word regarding his level of play, then led his team to be within field goal range with a small number of downfield pass completions in spite of suffering a significant sack along the way.  Tampa Bay lost 29-28, due to that field goal as time ran out.  They are now 7-7.  For their last three regular season games, Carolina is the opponent in two of them and Miami in the remainder.  All the Bucs have to do is beat the Panthers in both of their games and they would automatically earn for themselves the tiebreaker advantage to enter the NFL postseason playoffs...Atlanta just needs to rebuild for next year. But I'm not so confident that this team has what it takes to advance deeply in the playoffs...winning just one game would be a great chore.  Baker Mayfield is a good franchise quarterback, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers need more talent and cohesion.  Oh, later today I "kept the faith" and did some significant Zone One Exercises while watching a Chinese national's point-of-view video of his 2019 New York City Marathon race experience.  He is really quite the extraordinary athlete, humorous and extroverted, greeting and encouraging several (perceived) Chinese runners in Chinese on the interesting course just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic broke out on in Wuhan before spreading across the world ( and causing more than a million USA deaths).  I followed the YouTube video (on Run Memory Flowers channel) from the start before pausing it at 1hour 53 minutes, planning to complete it tomorrow.  I amassed 12,9 virtual-equivalent miles before stopping for the night just a short time ago.  Tomorrow morning another Parkrun 5K is scheduled at Gainesville's Depot Park.  I'd like to go and cover it, as would Melissa.  I don't have high expectations for my sleep tonight, in terms of its length or quality.  Still, the alarm is set afor 5:45 and I am determined to show up and follow through...

The Weather Channel, Named Winter Storms, and My Day Today

 Sometimes in the morning I watch The Weather Channel, which disusses the ongoing national weather, a long with making forecasts.  This is especially pertinent to our current late fall/early winter season, and I enjoy seeing meterorologists like Paul Goodloe or Molly McCollum reporting from a windy, snowbound location such as Minnesota or the south Chicago beach on Lake Michigan.  I was concerned that the bigshots in the studio were deliberately shunning the channel's own system of naming winter storms...so far we've gone through "Chan", with "Devin" next in line.  I Googled this concern, and their response was that no one's avoiding anything, just applying a more rigorous standard to what constitutes a "winter storm" in their minds.  We'll I guess that before long we'll see some morning show headlines highlighting more named winter storms.  In the meantime temperatures here in Gainesville are slated to dip into cold zones, maybe down into the thirties.  Today I took my chemotherapy dose of capsules and showed up at radiation therapy, happily meeting with three different excellent oncologists.  At home I intentionally did indoor exercises for an equivalent distance of thirteen miles.  It's been a good day, and I'm looking forward to more of them...

Cancer Treatments, Accumulating Virtual Miles

 On this tenth day of December, 2025, I feel that I have easily undergone enough rounds of brain cancer treatments at UF Health to more accurately size up my reactions, especially negative side effects.  The TMZ chemotherapy capsules I daily consume each and every morning have brought with them warnings of nausea and digestive issues.  But so far I fail to feel any of these drawbacks, although things can tend to go pretty slowly "down there".  And neither have my weekly blood draw readings indicated that this treatment method might be dangerous.  No, regarding side effects of the radiation therapy given on non-holiday weekdays, the standouts  have been headaches and lightheadedness.  Hopefully, when that regimen finishes at year's end I'll have a reasonable grace period to recover from any deleterious effects resulting from those rounds of treatments.  Fatigue was also mentioned as a potential side effect from my capsule-form chemotherapy treatments, but I'm just not feeling that way.  No, instead I'd say that sleepiness descends on me earlier in the day although I still retain a good level of energy and cardiovascular fitness.  For the past two days I have gotten serious about accumulating virtual-equivalent miles from exercising with me standing on our living room floor while watching YouTube videos, chief among them of others' recorded experiences in years past (especially 2022).  Yesterday I covered 8.2 virtual miles while today I reached 12 virtual miles.  These are good workouts in that they put me into a Zone One cardiovascular state without putting too much stress on my legs' soft tissue.  Someday I hope the benefits from this "rock-running" will transfer to regular road running.  Still thinking optimistically.  I do know that I recently shared this training method I invented with my chief oncologist and she reacted with enthusiastic approval...

Did Extensive Zone 1 Living Room Exercises Despite Feelings

This morning Melissa drove me down to get another round of radiation treatment for brain cancer.  The procedure itself worked fine, but I seem to be suffering some inflammatory side effects from it.  The doctor prescribed for me steroids to counter possible headaches, and although I don't like headaches or lightheadedness, I'm going along with it with the best hopes possible.  Later I decided to do Zone One exercises while watching a 2022 NYC Marathon virtual run...recorded and posted on The Manor Runs channel...on YouTube.  I credited myself having covered a virtual distance of 7.4 miles.  Add to that the equivalent of .8 miles in FitBit steps, and the total comes to 8.2 miles.  Doing this doesn't make me fatigued, but after just a few minutes I could happily just lean back on our living room couch and let myself slip into unconciousness.  Tomorrow I'd like to continue the activity and cover more miles.  My hope is that this will better prepare me to more effectively run during Saturday morning Parkrun 5Ks.  

Today's Treatments and Doctor Visit

 After receiving my radiation treatment for today at the UF Health Davis Cancer Pavillion, Melissa and I went on a long walk to the Neuromedicine building, where we met with my neurologist/oncologist physician Dr. Rinonos.  Always upbeat, positive and engaging, that appointment went quite well as my treatments continue unabated.  Afterwards, the day slogged on after I ate my main meal from an Arby's drive-through line, not sleeping very much overnight.  Dr. Rinonos was very enthusiastic and supportive of the exercise routine that I created, making the whole experience one of never leaving the ground (no contact).  I just need to regularly show up and follow through with it.  Later on there was Monday Night Football on ABC/ESPN when the Philadelphia Eagles went to Los Angeles to play the Chargers...Philly has been slumping a bit lately.  Well, we'll see what tomorrow brings...

On This Anniverary of the Pearl Harbor Attack

Right now it's morning in Gainesville.  I'm sheltered in place within my house and it's raining quite a bit, predicted to do so for hours.  I think I did sleep some last night, although I'm not counting on my FitBit to bear that out.  It is also December 7th, the 84th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that ushered in the United States' entry into World War II.  I thought of the family scene at the close of the movie The Godfather Part II in which Santino (Sonny) rants about "what do you think of the Japs bombing Pearl Harbor on Pop's birthday".  Fredo replies, "They didn't know it was Pop's birthday", bringing a round of laughter.  Later Michael, played by Al Pacino, reveals that he had just enlisted in the Marines, greatly angering his volatile older brother.  This flashback scene comes right after the end of a planned murder spree in which Michael has not only disgraced his own family but has effectively destroyed it.  The scene to me is one of the best in the Godfather series, not just this movie.  Well, Pearl Harbor has NOT just been attacked, and today is before me although I plan to stay at home for most of it.  Blessings to all...

MIxed Walking and Running in Today's Depot Parkrun 5K

I don't like fog, but I can get through it.  What concerned me about this morning's race offerings was the forecast rain possibility around the 7:30 race time for Gainesville's Depot Parkrun 5K.  My phone weather app reassured me that I would (probably) be dry for much of today, so Melissa...although she was going to sit out this particular event...drove me down there in time for the race.  At its start, it was very, very foggy, 71 degrees and 100% humidity.  I had openly intended to lightly jog the distance, but soon after the start I felt compelled to settle into a brisk walk.  After doing this for much (if not most) of the first of four laps, I developed a strategy of alternating running with fast (for me) walking.  It worked, but it certainly was NOT comfortable.  I picked out different stretches of the race to walk and then resumed some light running.  Thankfully, all went well and by the event's final stretch I was running at a nice, moderate pace.  I finished at 42:55 and Melissa helped me with the post-race recovery before we headed down to Dunkin' Donuts for some treats.  That was fun, and it was also Parkrun #96 for me...four more to go before the next tee-shirt!  You can view the results by clicking HERE.  Last night I didn't get much sleep, which is nowadays pretty much "par for the course" preceding running race events I'm entering. I was disappointed in being largely stymied from sustaining any level of light running early on, but was encouraged by how well I had recovered by the final two laps, finishing relatively strong.  Let's see what happens in the races to come...

Thinking Good Thoughts at End of Week

Today marked the third full week of cancer chemotherapy and radiation treatments, all prescribed by the good physicians at UF Health.  Besides going to them with my sweet Melissa driving, my days and nights are more or less unstructured...unless it's me doing the structuring.  Tomorrow morning they're "forecazzing" heavy fog for Gainesville, with a chance of some rain later on.  Sunday's supposed to be much heavier with the local precipitation, but since I'm planning to stay at home all day that'll be okay for me.  I'm tired of the TV news, be it local or national in scope.  America has become grim (not great) again, and I guess it's all a part of the "master" plan.  TV-20 today devoted much time and effort celebrating their chief meteorologist Mike Potter's retirement...he'll be missed.  I still exercise some, spending time in front of the TV moving to foreign language podcasts and virtual running race videos (I'm going through the 2022 Hartford Half Marathon on Runner's Digest channel.  Still plodding on ahead thinking good thoughts...

A Day in My Life Undergoing Treatment

The time this evening has been steadily creeping onward...now it's more than a quarter past nine.  This article is more or less a personal journal entry about my voyage through this day in my life.  I'm currently about halfway through my regimen of chemotherapy and radiation therapy rounds to treat my diagnosed brain cancer.  Once that's though, probably at the end of 2025, there will be a short waiting period before medical testing to determine the treatment plan's effectiveness at stymieing the advancement of this aggressive variety.  After my radiation session this afternoon, we sat with two oncology physicians, who to me seemed more concerned about my reactions, especially to the radiation treatments.  Before the onset of pill-form chemotherapy and radiation appointments on November 17th, I was rather concerned about being able to sustain them all, seeing how adversely Melissa reacted the previous year...especially with her toxic two doses of chemotherapy.  Nevertheless, I used the remaining, somewhat effective brain mechanism I still have that provides will power to discipline myself into rock-running an effectively eleven-mile home living room virtual run while watching Alex's NYC Marathon conclusion filmed in 2022...it worked.  I feel that I have no other real choice than to follow this prescribed program for recovery and health quality and extension.  And doing it with a positive attitude goes hand in hand with that. Worst case scenarios have me leaving this world after a considerably shortened future...or this world leaving me, but I think I have some significantly better outcomes to entertain as realistic possibilities as long as I stay true to the prescribed program.  And that includes regaining the lost endurance I had the previous year when I finished a marathon to my liking and ran several other long-distance races, along with a slew of Parkrun 5Ks.  Why not just see if things don't improve in 2026.  My energy is fine...why not work to enhance it...

Instead of Regrets, Instill New System and "Show Up"

Regrets are aspects of my memory that don't really do me a whole lot of good in the present times.  I can easily get myself into a pattern of regret about wasting my school year evenings avoiding doing assigned homework. Then I can devise a system that might have retroactively worked to show that I at least showed up with the homework, producing a product that by no means needed to remotely approach excellence.  But examining the state of mind I was usually in after a grueling-long day at school puts me into a different attitude toward homework avoidance, and it has almost nothing to do with regret.  Nowadays at age 69 I can see the coming evening and I am quite comfortable recognizing that it is natural for me to feel tired, both mentally and physically, as nighttime descends and I want to eventually begin to enjoy a hopefully good night's sleep. I suppose that, alternatively, I could have intentionally gone to bed (sleep) early in the evening and gotten up early in the (school) morning around five, opening up my books around then with coffee on the dining room table.  As Andrew Huberman has repeatedly pointed out, sometimes the transformational moment for someone like myself can be simply showing up and making a nominal effort, placing a strict time limit on how long and how hard I go at whatever happens to be my project.  I suppose that at this stage in my earthly existence, since I am still ambulatory and can think for myself, this strategy of instilling a new system that emphasizes early morning activity is feasible and relevant.  Let's see how this goes... 

Weather and Personal Endurance Level Cast Shadows in this Saturday's Races

As I am writing this, the six o'clock local Gainesville news is about halfway through with weather announcer Bradley Benoit delivering his own version of the local weather, along with the "forecazz" as he likes to pronounce it.  It looks as if this weekend we're in for some stormy, rainy weather.  So regarding the upcoming Tyler's Season of Hope races on the Hawthorne Trail, 15K (9.3 miles) and 5K (3.1 miles) in length, the prospects for a dry race seem pretty dim.  This is a recurring theme for the end of the calendar year when bad weather often comes along to increase my misery index with scheduled races.  Back in Janauary 2025, the Florida Track Club organizers finally delayed by a day holding their touted Mary Andrews Marathon/half marathon race on the eastern end of the Hawthorne Trail.  So once the storms finally abated, I had to deal with very, very cold weather for this unimaginative and undifferentiated, boring there-and-back course.  I'm already dealing with my own problems sustaining running endurance for middle distances with this weight gain and brain cancer ordeal, but I frankly don't want to have to deal with race infrastructure screw-ups like not providing adequate parking...Tyler's Hope is guilty of that in the past years on a couple of counts when they marginalized us in favor of side interests like the 5K kids and "Girls on the Run".  They did mention on their website that during their races the course will remain open until the last finisher crosses the line, but my trust level on this is low...the charity running this, I'm afraid, is into the philosophy of "take the money and run". I still would like a little cooperation...please don't marginalize the Season of Hope entrants!  But I think that Melissa and I are of one mind on this...we're bypassing their event.  Instead, we'll get up early this Saturday and check out the weather and the most likely "forecazz" to come true.  Should all bode well, maybe we'll then pay another visit to Depot Park...

Staying Active Through the Fatigue

 I wrote yesterday about my experience of putting together a late Sunday afternoon 4.8-mile neighborhood walk at a brisk (for me) pace.  But since I wasn't keeping up a four-mph pace throughout it, I wouldn't have come anywhere near surviving the established, required pace in Stephen King's (pseudonym Richard Bachman) 1979 early dystopian novel The Long Walk.  In spite of being a bit slower, I was feeling some fatigue as I went through the course.  I don't want to feel that my level of physical fitness is set in a state of decline, so this morning I did some "rock-running" exercise while listening in on foreign language podcasts...that went well.  Now it's past four in the afternoon and I'm back from radiation therapy, having just eaten "for dinner" an Arby's cheddar and beef classic sandwich along with an apple turnover.  I still feel a lot of energy and could do with some more exercise.  Maybe I'll try the rest of the foreign languages and watch a YouTube Rob Dial episode with Russian subtitles.  We're probably expecting some rainfall in our moderately-drought-stricken area in the coming hours, but that's all right since I'm home for the night.  All thanks and gratitude to the Lord, in whose hands I am always and who carries me each and every day.  And my deep love for my wonderful, dear Melissa...