Zach with tattoos, me with Spanish and Monica, BeReal and Poké with papa

November 21, 2023

Ok it’s been an interesting day and I spent most of it at Mayo Clinic for an eye exam for the doctor who first identified symptoms of my cancer back in 2020 or so. I have interesting photos for today, aka no clear winner of “best photo.” The first one I’ve got was in the waiting room at Mayo, when I saw a guy with interesting tattoos and talked to him. He said he liked the style “American traditional,” and was in favor of my idea to get one in Spanish since Spanish is so important to me. When I first approached him I only saw some on his arm, but then it turned out he was totally covered in them, so not a bad person to randomly approach. His name was Zach, and I didn’t decide to give him a business card or anything, even though I gave one to a different patient who I met later, who talked about his kidney that he received from his brother.

Had my meds at 7am with two biscuit rollup things, and then Papa drove over so I could drive him to Mayo Clinic. Lemme just try to write this without notes lol. Looking at the photos, my next photo is a sheet of paper I purposely printed out with a list of my important thoughts. I double spaced it at home so I’d have space to translate it into Spanish at Mayo. Good I did that, because my computer was dead from photo editing and I hadn’t brought a charger, unfortunately. So I had Papa take a photo of me holding the sheet with translations on it when I was done with a draft. Maybe I’ll type them all up later and submit them to Lang-8, a site I’ve used for years to get Spanish corrections.

Anyways, next I just wanted to add that I changed my home screen to a photo of me and Monica that other day at her company’s “gear exchange” event. Anyways, the next photo is a screenshot of my BeReal I got nice and on time today, in the waiting room. It’s of Papa, and before that we'd met up with Dr. Chen, the doctor who saw me when I first came to Mayo back in 2020 when I just had headaches with no explanation. Alright, I suppose I should look at my notes now, though I haven’t done that so far. We had a really good meeting with Dr. Chen, and the result is that my increase in the cancer drug is probably working, though I still need more CTs and MRIs to monitor it. He said I could come in to see him any time, and he’ll always be free for me.

Ok, I learned that Dr. Beebe, who got me in to see Dr. Chen for the first time, was a year below him in residency training. I told him that I’d like to see her again some time, since she literally was the first step in finding my cancer. Afterwards, Papa and I got Poké bowls at Yum Poke in Rochester. My bowl, the tuna lover, was their “hottest,” and I didn’t find it hot at all. We also talked a bit about how things are going for me, and I decided that in 2021 before the crash I was just living a "cancer coping mechanism," which was Fogo for me. After the TBI, I “wanted to get back there,” without realizing it was NOT a good place to be. So THAT’S kind of my conclusion now. Peace out.

Now I'll peek at the notes again, and add a couple things:

1. Today, I started to sort out how the version of Chrome I'd downloaded was refusing to access Mayo Clinic. I'll use Safari for Mayo for now.

2. Learned I’d last seen ophthalmology in March 2020, and the cancer treatment began around April 2020.

3. We generally decided it seems like the shunt replacement is working. since no throwing up or other symptoms.

4. Talked to Papa about trying to not include so many “insignificant details” in my photos of the day, which is now my public blog.