Stupid is as Stupid does......

I have done some really stupid things in my life.

Like try to butcher a fifty pound FFA turkey because I didn't want to lose the feed money put into it because of a broken leg.  As I have noted previously, those turkey heads are a little bit more firmly attached than one is led to believe.  My son had hit him squarely in the head with his 22 rifle shot, and the bird just kept walking around.  For like a long time.  With a broken leg.  It acted like if it ignored the fact that it had a hole in its head, we would just call it a day and walk away.  It walked in front of us with somewhat perfect balance.  It walked behind us, clucking.  We did kind of wonder if God Himself had touched that head and healed it.  Except for the noticeable holes and blood and all.

It was puzzling. 

Then we thought of old tales of "chopping off chickens heads behind the wood shed" and we thought perhaps we should chop the head off to finish the job.  My son ran to get the long handled ax and we promptly got into a fearful discussion that went something like this:  he eyeballed me and had watched me play wiffle ball enough to know my limited talent with swinging a light air-filled bat and said "I'm not holding it down while you swing the ax that close to me";  I looked at him and kind of thought of Lizzie Borden a bit, and said "I'm not holding it while you swing the ax that close to me"...... It was kind of a stalemate.

We did eventually get the job done and butcher it.  All that expensive turkey feed investment made real good dog meat. 

I have vowed to never try my hand at that job again.  Ever. 

And there was the time I brought home a recovering vet-clinic-reject two year old beagle over Christmas, only to find he was not house trained.  And we kept him.

Guydog and I were not friends.  On the other hand, my son and Guydog were the closest of allies.  I daily stood out in 20 inches of snow to 'train' him, because I had read all of the books and that's kind of what you talk about a lot to clients at a vet clinic - I knew what to do - I could do it; and finally figured out he was not a reward driven dog.  With him it was going to be the last man standing or who could outlast the brittle cold that winter before whimpering to go back inside.  And when it came to peeing, that heater-vent-hogging dog would stand outside there looking at me all the while knowing what we were there waiting to do, developing icicles on his nose, and yet refuse to pee.

I usually whimpered first.  Guydog and I were working hard on Psyop-ing each other long before his master left to do that in the Army.  He was oppositional-defiant before the term became popular. 

When we had a house fire and the firemen asked me if there was anyone in the house - looking back, I marvel at the words spilling out of my mouth - "a dog, in my son's room".......They bravely rescued him and we learned first hand what PTSD looks like in a dog - he ran frantically in erratic patterns in ten inches of snow for hours.

Although curiously, one of the firemen commented to me the same thing I had been thinking, "it kind of looks like he is crazy happy being loose and is laughing at you", and I knew he was.  When I finally caught him and put him into a cage, he promptly peed.  And I think he looked at me and sneered. 

That's just the opening paragraph for a thesis that could be titled "all things stupid in my life" 

Fourteen years ago, I dropped off of our new driveway into bottomless-clay-mud-without-sod up to the axels in a little S10 pickup truck and had to be pushed, pulled and just generally lifted out.  Not to mention what my ears had to endure.  I'm not pointing fingers, but there was some pretty open wonderment and even verbal curses on mud, back-wheel-drive-light-trucks, and their drivers (meaning me) that cannot back up in a straight line.  After we finally got the truck out, Scott actually got in the driver seat and "showed" me how to back up in a straight line.  He showed me to look at the garage door and look at where I wanted to be and put it in "R" and push on the gas.  Thus, totally jinxing it all.

In the spirit of true confessions, it happened more than once before we got our yard put in.  It was kind of a wet spring that year.....and I was the first one to leave in the morning, meaning I was kind of maneuvering around 4 other vehicles and a deep culvert.  It wasn't necessarily my choice to turn the wheel and end up in "off-the-gravel-path-sinking-mud-Haedes".....

In my defense, who knew how much sod makes a difference in keeping our terra-firma, well, firmer.....  Otherwise, pure clay mud is nothing but a big suction cup, and there was one time I was afraid I might not be able to open up my door by the time I had unsuccessfully tried to hide the fact that I had done it yet once again; and using the old "back-and-forth-get-out-of-the-snow-drift-trick", which by the way if you wonder, does nothing to help in mud.... I was in pretty deep.

For three months I was reminded of that maybe 1,462 times by male house mates. I suggest if you do try the "rocking" method in deep mud, only do it once. Fifty more 'back-and-forths' does not help.

I ordered a truckload of stone to make our driveway two feet wider.  

And then there's the biggie:

I jump into a medical study that is titled "Finding the Highest Dose Tolerable" for a new test drug....... You might hear my fingers drumming again as I contemplate the whole situation.

One would think the title alone would give one pause, but not me.   "Finding" might have jumped out at some people and made them think a little.  'Highest Dose' might have made one read the 60 page material-info-sheets entirely before signing it.

And if neither one of those words stopped you in your tracks, the word 'Tolerable' found after 'Highest Dose' certainly should have brought to mind some ancient Shawnee tortures and encouraged you to hand back the papers and kindly shake your head no.  Not even the "three chemo-dose days each week" encouraged my brain to consider other options. 

I eagerly signed the papers and the tortures commenced:  No coffee.  None.  Long days with long blood draws.

I'm ok.  I'm in.  It's going to be fine.  I can do this.

Then the bloat and the painful band all across  the bottom of my rib cage that makes all things body think twice before moving or sitting or eating or drinking.  My chemo recovery increased by 2 - 3 days.

I'm in.  It's going to be fine.  I can do this.

Then as my blood continues to tank, I miss four upfront very important treatments.  And get transfused and spend hours thinking on the blood that is now flowing through my veins.  (I am close to believing it was an allergy-prone male.)  I consider stepping out of the study 53 times a week.  I sit and look at that last pill on Friday for a long time, because I know what it is going to do to my insides for 3 days.

All that, and then because of my poor blood work week after week, they decide to halve the experimental drug dose, still using it with the Taxal and Carbo.  Last week was the easiest chemo step-down I have ever had.  I talked to the Nurse Manager Julie and told her I had to keep pinching myself to believe it was really this much better.

I told them I wanted to "up" the dose a little - could it be too low??  And get this - on page 61 in the drug protocol, it states:  "After a drug has been lowered, it cannot be increased again."  I told them I thought this was a really very, silly rule, and they looked at me kindly and said "Karen, you've not had your carbo yet - let's see where you are two weeks out again after getting that today".  They didn't even schedule my Ultra Sound because they "didn't want to jinx my blood", when everyone in that room knew what they meant was "wait and see if her blood can take this".....

So unlike butchering poor poultry, or driveway mishaps; or obstinate, calculating dogs, the latest of my "stupid is as stupid does" choices may be the best thing I ever ended up doing or the worst, but after the last three months, it has a lot to prove that it was worth it.