Jill and I slept in this morning after a ridiculously early evening dinner with sons, Michael and Adam at Cafe di’ Sol in Atlanta’s Poncey Highlands area near their neighborhoods. All I could think about was the Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s parents often went to dinner in time to get the early bird special. Last night, we got it. The special was looking stupid enough to be the only diners in a great little place, only that was special for everyone else. We looked like idiots. But I really don’t care. I’m the guy who bared his fat stomach for all to see on a video last night. Why should showing up early for dinner with my Seinfeld tip calculator in my pocket cause me even a moment of alarm. It didn’t.
We had breakfast at a great old Atlanta breakfast place near our hotel, The Silver Skillet. I love diners. I just love them, especially ones like this one that obviously has a ton of history to tell. I reached in my jacket pockets and populated a clean napkin with a pile of pills that I needed to take before my procedure that would take place today noon.
Dr. Stapleford gave me a steroid, decadron, to control potential swelling at the site of the tumor, Zofran for nausea, and Zantac for heartburn. I popped them all at breakfast and another 1.5 mg of Xanax. We finished our meal and by the time we got over to Emory Midtown, I was reaching the point that my give a damn was not quite busted but was in serious repair.
We had about 15 minute wait for my “stargate” as some of you have described the machine that we used to do battle with my spine tumor. My sweet Jill tuned the radio into something other than Christmas music — Mexican Christmas music. It was different enough so that I didn’t realize that Rudolph is something like “Rodolfo.” I didn’t really care and that she would take the time to try to appease my listening media was just another reason why I love her so much.
The best news about this day is that the machinery and circumstances involved in bombarding your body with a whopping 16 grays of radiation is really not much trouble. Once I got dosed up enough with the Xanax, I laid there in complete comfort while this massive gantry rotated around me spewing cat scan images and radiation. Absolutely no pain and zero discomfort. I have to have another MRI within the next 30 days and another office visit with Dr. Pippas and with Dr. Stapleford within 6 weeks.
The scariest part of the day occurred on our way back to the hotel, when Jill says I make an attempt to jump out of the car to head out across 2 moving lanes of traffic to get a cupcake at a renowned local bakery. She managed to shut me down, only to have me give her the ugly stare that I reserve only for those people who get between me and some particular food that I want.
I can’t really tell any difference in the chronic back pain I’ve experienced over the past few months. I’m hopeful it will go away. Thank you to you all who have posted on the blog, facebook, my journal and the cool T-shirt that I took with me to Emory yesterday.
Love to you all. I’ll be home tomorrow with my eye on NED mountain.