May 19, 2007


Mark chases and catches an armadillo,brings it home, and shows it to neighbor Sierra and friend (Click on pictures to enlarge them)

Mark spotted four young armadillos on one of his walks around the block; walks he does to build up strength and endurance for his battle against cancer. After a wild chase and catching one which got away and had to be caught again, Mark brought an armadillo home, put it in a box, and showed it to Sierra and her friend. He wanted a picture of himself and the girls with the armadillo. When he attempted to take the armadillo out of the box, it got away again, which led to a chase down the hill in our yard and through an opening in the pool fence and through the garden and up the deck and down the deck and under the deck and finally another catch and pictures. Quite a show for a sick man. He claimed he was worn out after all this. Mark did take the armadillo back around the block to the hole in the side of the hill; a home he shares with the other three or so armadillos. It is never dull when Mark is around.
Story from the past: When Mark was in junior high school, I was driving him and his sister from town to our home in the country. On the edge of town he spotted a mink running in someone's yard. He yelled for me to stop the car. He jumped out and chased the mink and caught it by hand and put it in a paper sack in the car. Of course it got loose in the car. I was driving somewhat wildly expecting the mink to run across my body any minute and a state police trooper stopped us to see what the problem was. By this time Mark had caught the mink again and the trooper was amazed and let us go on. We put the mink in a cage. Mark caught a frog in our pond and fed it to the mink who ate the frog reducing it bones and all to the consistency of chewing gum. Minks have very sharp teeth. After a few weeks, Mark turned the mink loose in the country.
People from 52 countries have seen the blog - It was 51 for a long time and somehow Stephanie got someone from Panama to log on last night. People have logged on from: Austria, Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Switzerland, Chile, China, Czech republic, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Guam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Ireland, India, Italy, Israel, Japan, So Korea, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Madagascar,Morocco, Myanmar, Northern Marianas Islands, Mexico, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, New Zealand, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Singapore, El Salvador, Thailand, Turkey, USA, Serbia, and So. Africa.
Addendum: May 20, 2007 A friend Dies - just this morning we got an e-mail that Mike Walter died. About two years ago, he went to Bumrungrad Hospital for a heart problem and surgery. which had to be delayed because the doctors routinely run cancer markers and check for cancer at Bumrungrad. They found Mike's cancer which had been overlooked in the states. He was treated in the same Bumrungrad Cancer Center in Bangkok Thailand that Mark was treated in. Mark, Mom. and Stephanie spent time with Mike and his wife Sam. After many treatments Mike and Sam came back to the states. In order for Mike to get affordable treatment in the states, he and Sam had to divorce, but she still took care of him. Mike was blessed with Sam's good care and further blessed with a quiet death at a time he was actually feeling better and visiting his sister. He was greatly loved by family and friends and even those who knew him a short time.
MOM's Column in Austin Family (newsmagazine) Don't forget to read mom's articles in Austin Family. See link on right hand side under links. click on the words Austin Family to go to a picture of the cover of the newsmagazine. Click on Family Matters.You will be asked to sign up as a user or give your e-mail address but there is no cost. Mom has writen a monthly column in this paper for over 15 years. Another way to see Austin Family is to click on this link http://www.austinfamily.com/


Mark's niece Alyssa plays soccer (Alyssa on the right -click on picture to enlarge it)
Soccer has caught on in the USA and lots of young people play soccer these days. Alyssa is 7 years old and plays on the Bearcats team in San Antonio where she lives with brother Nathan and mom Linzey. Mr. Mark did not go to this game, but when he heard from mom that the family went out to a restaurant where you get all the snow crab claws you want, he decided he might go the next time. Mark is very fond of crab meat; not only the snowcrab claws but other kinds of crabs too (and lobsters and oysters too).

Mark stayed home from the game on San Antonio because he does not like to ride in the car that far and because the air conditioner repairman was expected. Mark took care of having our air conditioner repaired. It was not working for 24 hours or so. After not sleeping for a few days, Mark slept nearly the entire 24 hours the air conditioner was out. I thought about the times Mark and I volunteered with MEDICO in Honduras and Nicaragua in the Moskito Coast and slept through heat and rain awakening in sweat or lying in a puddle and bathing in lakes and rivers and even one trip drinking river water with government supplied chlorine drops added. A few days without air conditioning is not so bad when you think of people all over the world living in places as hot as or hotter than Austin Texas and not having air conditioning.

Cancer is a strange thing and so too are the effects of chemotherapy. One or the other of these along with the pain medication and regulating it seems to affect the heat regulating system of the body. Mark is sometimes chilled when it is scorching hot and hot when the house air conditioner is set to frostbite conditions. He sometimes can't sleep for days and then hibernates for days.

Marlin had a birthday. He is now 7 years old like Alyssa in story above. See story of Marlin below.


Mom's "girl friends" and Mark
Mom invited some women friends to come for an evening meal and a trip to the ballet. Mark helped James prepare the food, waited on everyone, and had his picture taken with Mom's friends. After the ballet, some of the women came back to talk to Mark. Quoting Mark: "Mom, I like your girl friends." Mark thrives on being social and having friends over, even mom's friends and their grown children, who are now his friends too.

Mark has taken over the kitchen ensuring that it is sparkling clean at all times. He waters and cares for all the plants. He has fed the squirrels each day and now we have a multitude of squirrels calling on us every day. Our trees and decks are often full of squirrels playing and looking for food. Our neighbor Keith had to have his kitty, Miss Ginger Fluffy, put to sleep. Mark visited Keith and offered his condolences.


Saturday May 12 was very busy. We picked up Marlin age 6 (almost 7) whom we are mentoring and took him to Dan's restaurant for pancakes. He was such a gentleman opening the doors for everyone. We bought toys for his little brother at a church fund raiser, made cookies, and went to a children's play, and went swimming. He showed Mark how good he is at putting puzzles together. Marlin volunteered to help Mark wash the car, water the plants, clean the pool. Mark was impressed with how good a kid Marlin is. "Yes, Marlin we do like you!"

Mark and neighbor on our porch having a wake for Keith''s cat (click on picture to enlarge it)

After we took Marlin home, we had a memorial service (wake) for neighbor Keith's cat. His 15 year old cat stopped eating and nothing the vet did would cause her to rally so Keith's veterinarian gave Keith's cat a transfer to the Eternal Care Unit (Heaven). Several neighbors attended the wake and several people spoke about Miss Ginger Fluffy and how she will be missed. Some neighbors competed in a quest to find Keith a new cat (one or more of their cats) but Keith is still grieving for his Miss Fluffy.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi guys, thought I'd drop a line and catch up with y'all. Glad to hear everything's going well. Glad to hear the doctor thinks Mark can take a vacation from the chemo. Hope it will be able to be a long vacation.

Not much is going on here. For mother's day I bought myself a big tall turquoise-colored ceramic pot from Viet Nam at a water garden store in Katy to make a water feature for my back patio. Rather than buy a larger tray for it, I decided to put it in my old goldfish pond liner. Have multi-colored fancy mollies waiting to go in it giving birth by the dozens in the horse trough pond. Helen is off tomorrow and will help me put it all together.

As soon as I've gotten dad all finished with his aspiration pneumonias, by getting him a PEG-tube, he started passing huge blood clots suddenly the size of perch, so back to the ER we go and he goes through 12 units of whole blood and 2 units of plasma. Seems he had a tumor nearly the size of a football on his ascending colon. And of all things...not malignant. What's the chance of that?? I've had them re-do the pathology on it twice. He's recovering slowly at 82.... it doesn't go much any other way, but doing remarkably well. Go figure. He's like Mark, a feline with nine lives.

That's all the excitement for us around here. My cousin's son is doing great and is on out-patient basis for his physical therapy now at Ft. Sam Houston. He can stay in the Army if he can master the prosthetics (which I see as no problem) and passes his new MOS training for computers, which he wants to do now to get him in to the intelligence monitoring thing so he can go into the FBI when he retires.

You guys keep going and doing. Austin's the place to do it. One day I'll get up there to see y'all. Love Ann.

Anonymous said...

Chasing armadillos? I'm impressed! They are, afterall, coated with teflon. I loved the story of the mink. They are awfully difficult to find, even a million years ago--LOL. 2 million years ago for me, Mark. My most exciting catches were horned toads. I loved watching them eat those big red ants as they came out of the ant beds. As I was cominghome tonight from thehospital, I saw what Ithought was one of our neighborhood rats running like crazy across the street. at the last minute it looked at me and I realized it was one of the juvenile opossums from my back yard. There are 4, so I don't know if it was the runt that's usually last or the big one that's the leader. This brood hasn't learned how to open the doggie door yet. Stephanie, remember the one that got in the doggie door and lived for three days in the Christmas tree?

The surgeon told me that Dad's tumor was so large and embedded in the back of his abdomeanl wall that he didn't get it all out. So now he thinks that it is what is generating the 2L of fluid a day. So a drain has been put in and when Dad is strong enough and when he starts talking again (he's pouting) we can all sit down together and decide our course of action for treatment as the tumor is not colon cancer, but lymphoma from his lymphoma he had 11 years ago. Rare, apparently. I just want him home. I miss him so much. I'd forgotten how much more secure I feel when he's downstairs with me when the rest of the family is gone.

Michael has had hernia repair surgery, so he is useless to help me with the Vietnamese urn. Helen won't help until I find a third person. So it's still sitting on it's side on the back porch :-(. Fish are doing well. The tortoise is well and eating me out of house and home. The stupid dog eats most of his fruit before I can get out there and hand feed him. One day I'll get it all done! Take care all!