SteveE's Stories - steveeswenson's Blog - Bakersfield.com

Didn't catch any fish and Lopez Lake, but lots of fun anyway

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:10:00 PDT

If a fishing trip is defined by whether you catch fish, we failed at Lopez Lake over the weekend.

My wife, Mary, and I tried several spots. Our fish findeer beeped like crazy at one of them. But not a single bite.

So how come we felt we had a great time?

It was the sunsets at the lake and the Highway 166 going over to it, a trillion stars on Friday night (you get out of Bakersfield and you can actually see what's up there), Kahlua by the campfire, a ribeye medium rare on the grill and the abundance of wildlife.

There were deer that ate chips out of Mary's hands (yes, I know shame on her); wild tkurkeys we had to stop on the road for, about 30 quail that wandered near our campsite, fawns that pranced through the same area and a bird fest all over the lake.

There were blue herons, white egrets, cormorants, ducks of all shapes and sizes, turkey vultures and golden eagles. A few fish would have been nice, but we were satisfied with the rest.

I feel oppressed, and out $33

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:42:54 PDT

I am a law abiding citizen. Not like some of you out there.

When I got my vehicle registration form in the mail, I sent in the money, got my 2010 sticker tag and slapped in on my car.

I am, if nothing else, a model citizen.

But I park in the downtown parking garage. Last week, someone broke into the cars of two Californian employees. But what is worse (at least to me personally), someone took my 2010 sticker on my license plate..

So on Sunday after leaving church, I was speeding down Ming Avenue on my way to play golf.

I stopped at Ashe Road next to a motorcycle Bakersfield police officer. The light turned green as we headed east and all of a sudden, the officer turned on his emergency lights.

I got myself all prepared to tell him that he in no way had a chance to catch me speeding. But to my surprise, Officer J. Paglia tells me I don't have my license tag.

I pulled out my registration. It is up to date. Just as you would expect from a model citizen.

Officer Paglia let me go. He advised me how to go to the DMV to correct this.

On Monday, I parked in the same parking garage. I was too busy that day to go to the DMV. I went out to my car at night and another Bakersfield police officer had written me a ticket for not having a registration sticker.

It says the bail is $100.

Wow. This lawlessness can get expensive.

And what's with those cops? Don't they talk to each other? Paglia already let me go.

The ticket also says I can get fix it by getting a new tag and taking it to the police who will sign off on it.

So today I went to the DMV expecting the wait of a lifetime. The room is packed. I got a form to fill out. I found a seat in the corner away from the video screens where you can actually see what number is being called.

The lady next to me says she's been there more than an hour. I half listen to the numbers being called. Mine is C 040. I hear lots of B's and some G's, but no C's.

Then I hear C 041. I've only been there 20 minutes. I am shocked. How can the DMV possibly be that efficient?

Nonetheless, I proceeded to a window. A nice lady waited on me even though I have missed my turn. She gave me a sticker. She said it will cost me $18.

I gave her a $20 and didn't leave a tip. But I smiled and was friendly to her.

I drove over to the police department where a desk officer signed the back of my ticket, affirming that I am back in the ranks of model citizens.

The officer, however,told me that when I send the corrected ticket to the authorities in Santa Ana, they will charge me a $15 processing fee. This raised my out of pocket expense for being a crime victim to $33.

I sent a note to Santa Ana asking them to waive the fee because I am a crime victim. I am pretty sure the clerk who opens the envelope will get a chuckle out of that and toss the request.

I, of course, don't want to go through this whole ordeal again. So I asked the desk officer if there is a correct way to put the sticker on.

Turns out there is. And it isn't the way I had been doing it. (Even model citizens goof up)

What I did was put my sticker on top of the old ones. That actually makes it easier for the thief to slip a knife under it and peel it off.

But if you peel off the old one and put the sticker on the metal plate, it is harder for the thief to get off in one usuable piece. The officer said it gives him personal comfort to know that if his sticker is stolen, at least the crook can't use it..

My boss, the esteemed Breaking News Team leader Davin McHenry, said he puts his sticker on top of the others, but he slices it in half with a razor blade. That makes it harder for the crooks to peel it off and use it intact, he says.

So what we've learned here is you can be a victim of a crime and it will cost you money. It cost my co-workers about $150 each to repair the damage to their car windows.

I know some victims pay hundreds or thousands of dollars. So what's a measly $33?

It's an injustice.

Eating a burger in the shadow of Michelle Obama

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 10:14:58 PDT

I visited Washington DC last week and felt it important to go with my sister and grand niece to Five Guys Burgers and Fries because Michelle Obama took her staff there in February.

The First Lady got a lot more press than I did.

But I mention this here because it was about as good a hamburger and fries as I've had in a burger joint. I had a cheeseburger ($5.59) which has two patties and a choice of 15 toppings you can put on it.

(mayo, relish, onions, lettuce, pickles, tomatoes, grilled onions, grilled mushrooms, ketchup, mustard, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, A-1 sauce, bar-b-q sauce, and hot sauce)

I put relish, grilled onions, tomatoes, grilled mushrooms, ketchup and mayo on mine. The clerk at the Georgetown Five Guys, a nice man by the name of Steve, explained all this too me. Plus he kind of insisted I try their fries. Glad he did. They were about the best fries I've had anywhere.

Five Guys is expanding in the country, including two within 120 miles from Bakersfield -- Carson and Cerritos. So if you go there or one of them comes here, you might want to check it out.

Michelle Obama has pretty good taste.

A must watch and pass on

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:59:20 PDT

A friend asked me to post this:

An excellent song and video. One of the best I have seen in a long time! I had to watch it three times to just begin to see what it took to put it together. A masterpiece! It's a song written by Keith Carradine and performed by artists from all over the country. It will be performed Sunday night at a Gala at Washington 's Renaissance Hotel. It has a powerful message, just listen to (and read) the words. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

www.bornagainamerican.org <http://www.bornagainamerican.org>

Lovey dovey on my patio

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:13:40 PDT

This isn't an R-rated admission on what I do on my patio. This is about doves and baby doves who have parked in a nest above a speaker box on my patio.

During the first week in May, my wife and I went on a cruise (booked for Mexico, but diverted to California because of a flu that didn't come within 400 miles of our destinations). We boarded three dogs during that week.

When we returned, we found a dove nest and a momma dove perched there keeping the eggs warm. Papa dove would fly to our fence to check in on his brood. I'm told papa also sits on the nest to give mom a break, but I can't say I've seen that.

Late last week, we saw something new. Momma dove feeding two baby doves. This is kind of a disgusting process. Momma has this milk-like substance in her throat that she shares with the babies.

Later, she goes out and swallows some seeds, brings them back up to her throat and spills the barf into the eager young mouths. Well, who knows, maybe they think us eating chicken is pretty disgusting too.

My wife is two things. She loves animals and she's a worrier. Right now, she's worried the baby doves will learn how to fly by bouncing around in our backyard within reach of the dogs.

Two of our dogs have already proven they can fight over an adult bullfrog that thought our pool was better for him than the sump behind our house. After my wife alerted me to this lunch brawl with a blood-curdling scream worthy of any horror movie, we were able to save the frog.

We don't want the baby doves to be munchies for the dogs. So over the next few days we will be limiting their outdoor activities.

We also have limited our own mornings of reading the newspaper on the patio so the birds can eat in piece without the sounds of a birdcage liner.

I'll let you know if the birds are able to successfully fly away. We just ask that come Sept. 1, you spare our little buddies from the shotgun perils of dove season.

Mexico trip rerouted to California -- oh yippee, skippy

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:46:12 PDT

Princess Cruises won't take me to Mexico. Instead, they're taking me to California.

I'm not happy about this. I've been to California.

But instead of the warm beaches of Puerto Vallarta, Matzalan and Cabo San Lucas, we'll be going to San Diego, Santa Barbara and San Francisco where the high temperatures are predicted to be in the 60s.

And I've been to the zoo, the mission and the wharf.

If I seem upset, I am.

I had no problem going to Mexico, notwithstanding the swine flu scare. The scare didn't scare me because there is zero evidence that it was any where near the Mexican Riviera.

Yes, Mexico City and yes, Cancun, had reported outbreaks, but they are 450 and 1,300 miles away from where we were going. No one can sneeze that far.

Put another way, I don't get all worked up when someone gets a runny nose in Phoenix.

I was willing to sign a waiver, promising not to sue Princess if I got a fever — something besides looking at bikini clad senoritas on the beach — as a swine flu symptom.

Besides, I wasn't worried about getting sick. I used to eat dirt as a child and my immune system is terrific. Notwithstanding that little cancer thing I had, but that was a woman's fault, not some little germ thing floating in the air.

My wife doesn't agree with me on this. She thinks the cruise ship companies know more than they are telling. And what they are not telling us is scary and dangerous.

I don't give cruise ship companies credit for squelching a deadly disease if it broke out in the Mexican Riviera.

What my wife and I do agree on is this is an insurance company thing. Some chicken little insurance company not wanting to take a risk regular folks like me would take in a heart beat.

So now were going to California where the ocean breezes will make us shiver. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a cold.

I won't bother suing though. Princess is going to give us half off on our next cruise. We're going to Mexico next year.

Met up today with an old cancer buddy

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 20:31:49 PST

Fire and evacuation of Plaza Towers on Wilson Road was the assignment.

I went out there with photographer Casey Christie and the first person we run into is Stuart Darling, a Bakersfield firefighter.

It was a reunion. In the fall of 2007, I met Darling during my first session of chemotherapy for throat cancer. He's a very funny guy and he made the not so funny chemotherapy kind of fun.

Stuart had the same cancer I had. Operative word is had. The cancer is all gone for both of us.

Our throats were ravaged by radiation and my saliva glands are not like they used to be. I asked Stuart about his -- he raised a water bottle. That means he needs a little help with swallowing too.

But we're both very healthy. He returned to his firefighting job a few weeks ago. I have a lightweight newspaper reporter job so I've been working full-time for about a year.

Stuart's brother had throat cancer too. He showed me his stomach tube, a little something Stuart and I both got in order to eat. Ours have been removed, but his brother's is still in.

Advances in cancer treatment have helped those who got their cancer later to avoid some of the not so pleasant after effects, such as the need to keep a stomach tube for years.

For that we are thankful. It was great to catch up.

The governator wants to tax golf????????

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 07:11:16 PST

We reported on our front page, where it belongs by the way, that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to tax a round of golf.

And auto repairs, veterinary care, amusement park and sporting event admissions, and appliance and furniture repair. In other words services, not things.

Get real, Arnie. My sand wedge upside of your head is the real terminator.

Sort of kidding there, Big Guy. I really don't want to ding my sand wedge.

But let's just say you stop dinging us. We don't tax services, Dude.

Took my love to Red Rock Canyon

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 14:44:32 PST

Sunday was a beautiful day to visit Red Rock Canyon, about 20 minutes north of Mojave on Highway 14.

Didn't matter that the visitor center there was closed -- the rest of the park was open for walking around great scenery.

My wife and I walked hand-in-hand, except once when it got a little too sweaty, and marveled at the changing landscape every couple hundred feet or so.

We even got a little excited at the bear tracks in one of the damp creekbeds. They're nocturnal, I reminded my wife.

I've been passing Red Rock each year for 23 years on my way up to Bishop/Mammoth for fishing trips. Never stopped in.

But it seems someone in my two-party household thinks I play too much golf. I can assure you it's not me.

"I want to go someplace warm and be with you," the other party said.

Red Rock fit the bill perfectly although we welcomed the cool breeze on our hikes. I estimated we walked about 5 miles (about the length of an 18-hole golf course, incidentally) and had a nice picnic lunch.

We walked up Hagen Canyon on the west side of Highway 14 and Iron Canyon on the east side of the Highway.

I thought it would be boring with the same scenery. But it wasn't because the scenery kept changing.

There wasn't much wildlife -- a few lizards and a few birds. No bears.

But we were alone much of the time, enabling us to talk about all manner of personal things. That itself was worth the trip.

As we were coming back from the Iron Canyon trail, we passed a couple and the man joked, "Everywhere we go, there's a crowd."

More information is available here.

It was a very nice trip. Sand but no bunkers. Not that I missed the bunkers. I was with the love of my life.

Ending fish plants in the Kern River????

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 07:21:22 PST

This is just so wrong.

Because of a lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity (what the heck is that anyway?), the state Fish and Game Department will stop planting rainbow trout in the Kern River above Kernville until 2010.

The purported reason is that the plants threaten endangered species such as the Golden Trout.

Sometimes you just need to back up and look at the big picture. Let me help you do that.

I'm not sure there's been a Golden Trout in that stretch of the Kern River in decades, maybe centuries for all I know.

That stretch is a popular fishing spot for families and fisher people of all sorts. Many businesses rely on that to keep afloat.

Does this mean the Golden Trout be dammed? No. There are plenty of Golden Trout in, of all places, the Golden Trout Wilderness further up in the Eastern Sierra.

I'm one of those fishermen who happily trek up to the higher elevations to catch the little cuties. And I put them right back because it's the right thing to do and they're too small to eat anyway.

But I also go camping at Rivernook just outside of Kernville and I love to catch rainbow trout there. And I'm suggesting people and the Kernville economy is more important in that area that trying to entice some Golden Trout back to that area.

That's a win-win situation. There is no need to have Golden Trout everywhere.

For any further discussion, I would refer you to George Carlin's Saving the Planet speech.

Have you been on a federal jury in Fresno?

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 13:58:09 PDT

Hi everyone. I'm looking for people who have served on a federal jury in Fresno.

I'd like to do a feature story about the experience. I don't care about the case you served on; only what it was like to drive up to Fresno or stay there, and what it was like to be on jury duty for a month. How did it compare with local jury service.

Please e-mail me at sswenson@bakersfield.com or call at 395-7367.

My DUI checkpoint experience

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:00:33 PDT

So I was having a very pleasant Saturday evening. And then all of a sudden I found myself at a DUI checkpoint. It turns out I had been drinking that night.

I was hosting an event at the Four Points Sheraton for newspaper union leaders in the western United States. We decided to go to Wool Growers for dinner.

My wife joined us, so after the dinner I decided to take her home before I went back to Four Points. I turned south on Union Avenue and noticed that a car just behind me braked suddenly and turned left.

I then look down the road and saw a DUI checkpoint. I drove straight into it.

Chances are they direct you through without having to stop. Well, it was my turn to stop.

An officer asked for my driver's license, which I gave him and noted that the picture was ugly cuz I was in cancer treatment at the time.

He then asked if I had anything alcoholic to drink that night. I knew enough not to lie because it's easy for them to smell anyway.

I said I had two glasses of wine at the restaurant and a beer much earlier in the evening.

That wasn't exactly true. I only had one glass of wine at the restaurant. But I did have a glass of wine and a beer in the union hospitality room before dinner. So the numbers came out the same.

I'm glad my wife didn't pipe up and say, "But honey you had only one glass at the restaurant." That would have made it seem I didn't know what I was talking about.

Having that much to drink qualified me to go through an initial screening. The officer asked me to hold my head still and follow his finger, which me moved across my face, with my eyes.

I apparently did okay on that because he sent me on my merry way. But I will tell you I used all of my powers of concentration to do what he asked. And I realized if I blew this, it would be a big problem.

First thing is my wife can't drive at night and she can't drive my stick shift car at all. Second is it would be embarassing for a crime reporter to be commiting crimes. Third, there might be some rejoicing at the police department about catching a reporter.

But I did have some confidence going into this. I started drinking at 5 p.m. and it was 9:30 p.m. when I stopped. I figured the highest my blood-alcohol level would be is .03 but more likely .02 or less.

Each drink for a person my size is .02, but you burn off .01 per hour.

So I did go off on my merry way. The police had other fish to fry — that checkpoint that night resulted in eight dui arrests, 22 citations for driving on a suspended or revoked license, 87 citations for various vehicle code violations, and 112 vehicles were impounded.

The only statistic I made that night was being one of 1,321 vehicles that were screened. That's not such a bad statistic to be in.

This is the only recovery that matters

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:16:11 PDT

So remember when I had cancer?

It's been gone since January, but I am still in recovery mode. My beard is still too scraggly and my saliva glands haven't totally come back (though in the last few weeks, I've been able to eat sandwiches and pizza that I couldn't eat before).

But none of that matters. What matters is that cancer ruined my golf game. Instead of shooting in the 70s and hitting 250 yard drives, I was shooting in the high 80s and low 90s with drives that fell short of 200 yards.

It was like a preview of what my game will be like when I'm in my 80s.

Well, in the last month I've made a recovery where it really mattered. I am shooting in the 70s again, including a 74 yesterday from the blue (back) tees at Sundale. My drives are where they used to be.

My short game, which I had lost, has returned. I know that because when I made some recovery shots yesterday, my opponent got mad at me. That's a wonderful feeling.

The point of this blog is that it took about eight months for my strength and game to return. Chemo and radiation can't knock you down forever.

My beard and spit can wait a little more if they want to. Playing good golf overshadows those pesky maladies.

Fairways and greens forever. And Stand up to Cancer (what a great ad).

My newspaper messed up again

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:07:55 PDT

I long for the days when we made sanctimonious decisions and did what we in the newspaper business felt was right and good for you.

Now we listen to you and we make bad decisions.

One of them is getting rid of the comic strip Sherman's Lagoon. This ranks up there, although not quite as egregious, as when we got rid of Doonsebury.

We relied on the public input for that too. The deal with Doonsebury is even if most of the public didn't want it, it was far too important for the people who did.

My problem with public input is it is so far away from getting a representative cross sample. I'm tempted to say that when we do a comic poll, what you get is whiners.

Sherman's Lagoon is a delightful strip about sharks, turtles and crabs who make fun of people.

One strip had the friendly shark solve a dictator problem by eating him. Another recent one was when the crab learned that his mail-order ministry license came with a record club membership.

If anyone here had done the correct thing, which is to ask me what comic strip should go, I would have gladly suggested Get Fuzzy whose humor, if any, is so obscure, I shake my head every time I read it.

I just couldn't let this latest travesty go without a comment.

Video rental pricing, good for Blockbuster

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 07:48:07 PDT

I'm not a customer of Blockbuster videos, but I may soon be.

I've long thought that videos should be priced by the number of days you have them, not the $4-plus charge for four days. I typically watch a movie the night I rent it and am ready to take it back the next day.

So Blockbuster is trying a plan for $2 per day on new releases and $1 a day for old releases. Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery should take note.

George Carlin is dead, irreverance takes a hit

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 07:00:23 PDT

George Carlin, one of the all time funny comedians, died yesterday of a heart attack.

What I liked about his humor is that he made the truth funny.

In his planet earth routine, he talked about all the people who worry about endangered species, noting that more than 90 per cent of all species ever created are extinct. "We didn't kill'em all," he said.

In the above linked story, he asks, "Why do they lock gas station bathrooms? Are they afraid someone will clean them?"

His legacy lives on on You Tube. I recommend you take a peek. Don't worry about the seven dirty words -- they're all in there, living on happily ever after.

My cancer flew the coop

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 15:35:14 PDT

My throat cancer was zapped and drugged to smithereens, and it is all gone.
That’s the result of a PET scan which was run this week at the Truxtun Radiology Medical Group.
This crowning glory came after four of the most miserable months I have ever spent, and about $80,000 in medical costs.
Some may ask whether I’m worth it.
Well, if I colored my hair, I’d use Clairol because Heather Locklear and I are worth it.
And now I’m an official cancer survivor.
To briefly recap, here’s what I survived:
A cancer lump that went from my right tonsil halfway up my neck. It’s called squamous cell carcinoma of the right tonsil. We found it in late August.
Three chemotherapy sessions at Dr. Anthony Ciarolla’s office knocked me flat on my back.
I got sick a lot. I had near zero energy. And you don’t want to know about my potty habits.
I had eight weeks (five days a week) of radiation from Dr. Dean Davis at the Florence Wheeler Cancer Center.
That turned my throat into a war zone. At times I could barely talk. Everytime I swallowed it hurt. Turns out you swallow fairly often during the day.
A tube was surgically inserted in my stomach because I couldn’t swallow food. So my wife fed me six cans of Ensure a day for about two months.
After the treatment it was yanked out. Ouch.
I lost my tastebuds and my saliva glands. I got the tastebuds back but the saliva glands are expected to be gone for a year.
Thus, I can’t eat thick bread or pizza.
During the worst of it, a slight arm movement while I was in bed might be enough to toss a few cookies in the porcelain bowl.
I was on a regimen of expensive drugs that didn’t always work. And they plugged me up.
You just have to endure suffering because you don’t have a choice.
I’m not recommending this disease to anyone.
What kept me going was my wife, Mary, who literally kept me alive.
And the support from my family, friends and church.
Plus, Dr. Ciarolla got giddy when the tumor shrunk a lot. And Dr. Davis reported in January he couldn’t detect any more cancer.
The PET scan, which came about three months after my last treatment, was to determine if it all worked.
PET doesn’t mean I’m a cute little puppy. It stands for Positron Emission Tomography, and it is a form of nuclear medicine.
There’s this stainless steel cylindrical container that’s packaged in a much larger container, all for the protection of radioactive material. (Thus the name nuclear medicine)
After an hour, the injection sends out gamma rays in my body, which are read by this big doughnut hole machine I go through.
And all that told the doctors I was cancer free.
Well, how much did that cost — that process to keep me alive.
Dr. Davis and a couple scans at Mercy cost $31,300.
The chemo cost about $22,600.
The drugs cost $6,300.
An emergency room visit and the stomach tube procedure cost about $9,000.
The doctors on the stomach tube cost about $1,000.
That adds up to $70,200. There were a few other costs that I couldn’t get — a bunch of blood work, cartons of Ensure and the removal of the tube — but I’m guessing they were no more than $10,000.
Is my life worth $80,000? At a bare minimum, I say.
Any other opinion ain’t worth a dime.

I can't spit on anyone for a year

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:35:49 PDT

Major news in my post-cancer recovery saga — my saliva glands won't work for a year and my stomach tube was popped out the other day.

So, just when I was able to eat again following my throat cancer radiation treatment — which left my throat like a raw open sore zone — I get the news that my saliva glands won't work for about a year.

This means I can't spit on people even if I want to. And it means big sluggish food like sour dough rolls and pizza won't be on the menu cuz I got no internal lubricants to wash them down the throat.

But I can eat anything that I can cut up into small bites, including as I did the other day, a medium-rare rib eye steak. I mention the steak because the last taste buds to come back after the radiation are the glutamic acid which makes steak taste good. And boy did it taste good.

So with this restoration of eating through my mouth, instead of those six cans of Ensure a day through my stomach tube (as I did for nearly two months), I was anxious to get my stomach tube out.

It wasn't good for my golf swing; it leaked red mucus that hardened on my upper tummy, and it was a low-grade hurt as the tube tugged on me.

I called the office which put it in (I'm not going to name the office because I'm mad at them). A woman said I had to take a swallow test first. I suggested that was silly because I had been eating for two weeks and my swallowing seemed just fine.

I even tried to get out of the test, which had to be performed at Memorial Hospital, but I couldn't.

It seemed less silly when speech pathologist, Charles Ellis, explained that what they look for is trace amounts which get diverted to the lungs. So I might not even feel that for awhile.

He had these swallow substances — a thin milky sort of drink, what appeared to be Gerber's apple sauce, pudding on a graham cracker and a thicker pudding. All of it went down the right hatch.

A couple days later, I went back to Memorial Hospital where I put a hospital gown on and relaxed on a bed until the doctor came in to yank my tube out.

Now, I have to tell you, that I was apprehensive about this process. Stuff from my stomach leaked into the tube on a regular basis. I presume I have this quarter-inch hole in my stomach and therefore, pulling something out, might bring a squirt with it.

I shared this with my golfing buddies. They offered for free to yank it out — either in my back swing or as I was putting.

But it turns out a doctor is needed for this and he's ready with big bandages to sop up any spillage.

As I write this, I have a 4x4 bandage with no apparent stain tapped generously to my stomach hair. The doctor explained that I would feel some pressure. I did, but it only was uncomfortable for a few seconds.

The part of the tube that was in my tummy was like a little funnel. It was squeezable and like a little mouse that scrunches up to get through a small hole, it came right out without a big mess.

I am very happy it is gone. I don't particularly like man-made appendages on my body. After a few days of changing these big bandages on my stomach, I presume I will have a regular looking abdomen.

I myself won't be regular looking until my beard grows back. I had to shave it off because it was scraggly and made me look like a cancer patient.

This is a big deal to me because I've had the beard since 1974. It hid one of my less desirable features, a weak chin.

And now as a result of my cancer treatment, I have this loose fitting wattle on my throat. That too will hang around for about six months.

All this makes me look funny. Well, I would rather be funny than look funny. But I have no choice. There's no instant gratification in cancer recovery.

Hon, your chicken casserole tastes great

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 13:52:40 PST

Two momentous things happened yesterday in my post-cancer recovery.

Despite a fair amount of fear and apprehension, I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned and it wasn't so bad.

My oral hygienist, Nancye, who in late November appropriately postponed my cleaning due to chemotherapy issues, used a sonic cleaner with warm water that made the whole experience much easier.

I swallowed the warm water with no problem at all, which gave me the inspiration to try to eat food last night. I have been unable — due to a ravaged throat — to eat food through my mouth since Dec. 8.

So for the last two months and five days I've been eating Ensure, a liquid protein milkshake about six times a day through my stomach tube. My wife pumps it in me and I only taste it when I burp.

I don't particularly get hungry and this tube thing isn't very satisfying. But I continue to breathe and do other regular bodily functions.

Speaking of which, I was a little curious how having nothing but a liquid diet could result in what the medical profession calls bowel movements. The less educated call them poop or tinkies.

So I asked my chiropractor friend and golfing buddy, Stuart Sultze. He essentially didn't know. So I told him I would ask a real doctor. (I've been waiting for years to use that line on him).

I asked my nurse, Doris, at the cancer center. She said that Ensure has a lot of fiber and that my body naturally sucks out the liquid, leaving a solid substance. The medical profession calls those bowel movements.

I've long wondered why they don't call them intestine movements. Well it turns out that's what a bowel is. (I just looked this up in a dictionary for the first time in my life).

Moving right along, I decided last night that if warm water went down well, maybe food would. My wife was cutting up one of these cooked chickens we get from Vons and I tried eating a few bites.

They were little bites but they went down pretty well. No searing pain.

She put these previously cooked chicken pieces in this mixture of noodles, cheese, corn and black beans. And then cooked all that together.

When it was done, I put a little of it in a bowl and cut up everything into baby bites and put it in the left side of my mouth. The right side of my tongue was hurting.

So I chewed up this delicious mix and down the hatch it went. And it didn't hurt. Cool.

With my tongue hurting and all, and my throat still a little raw, I'm not piling food into my hatch at any significant clip. In fact, I've had 4 cans of Ensure today.

But I will eat more and I am absolutely delighted that I'm able to taste it and it tastes good. (Previous columns have noted that eight weeks of radiation to my throat was not only transforming my throat into a war zone, but killing taste buds.)

Obviously, my little taste buds are fighting back with new growth. Just like some of my hair is coming back on both my head and other places I'll spare you from describing. (Not sure why; I was pretty open about those bowel things.)

My beard and mustache growth is still way behind. I've exposed a lot of my chin which I tried to hide since 1974 with my beard. Radiation made me look like a cancer patient.

I won't be completely cured until my beard rivals George Clooney's. Then, I presume, I will be fully loved like he is.

I'm not instantly healed, what's with that?

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 14:44:21 PST

It's been two weeks since I had my last zapping or radiation for my throat cancer. When I went to the doctor, he looked down my mouth and said, "It's still red in there."

Dr. Dean Davis also explained that radiation continues to work its magic (or destruction) for four days after each treatment. So it's really been just over a week that the healing began.

Funny, after eight weeks of radiation, I'm not healing with the speed of light.

In fact, for the first week my throat was as raw as, literally, an open wound, and every time I swallowed (which as it turns out you do quite a bit during the day), it hurt.

I am still eating through my stomach tube (6 cans of vanilla milkshake Ensure a day).

I mentioned to the doctor that when I burp, I can taste the vanilla.

He was a little surprised at that. Not that I can burp. But that I can taste the vanilla.

Radiation generally wipes out your taste buds. You have five kinds — sweet, sour, bitter, salty and glutamic acid. The latter one is what makes steaks taste good.

You start out with 10,000 taste buds. By the time you're an older adult, you're left with about 5,000.

After eight weeks of radiation around your tongue, you pretty much don't have any. They have to grow back.

Sweet is one of the last to grow back so that's why the good doctor was surprised when I said I could taste the vanilla.

I don't know if that's a good sign or not. It may be a couple weeks before my throat is well enough to let food pass by without igniting a firestorm in my mouth.

But I will let you know as soon as I do whether some of my favorite foods have any taste at all.

Of course, one of those foods is pizza. But it turns out the dough expands as it goes over the throat and that just might not be a good idea for awhile.

The doctor suggested I start with milk and work my way up to ice cream. I know I won't be having Doritos during the Super Bowl.

My tongue, by the way, still hurts. And this has prevented me from talking a lot. Many see that as a good thing.

I also can't cackle. Before, I could cackle with the best of them. But the newsroom has been eerily silent of my cackling for about four months now. Some have missed that.

The rest of my body is doing reasonably well. My head is relatively clear — not fatigued fuzzy as it has been. This has allowed me to return to work for five to seven hours a day.

I have just begun to wake up as early as 8 a.m. That's an hour or two improvement over recent weeks. My work day used to begin at 6 a.m. but that's still down the road.

I have enough energy to play 18 holes of golf with an electric cart. My game has gone to pot. I haven't broken 80 since September and I've been shooting in the 80s or 90 or 91.

Last Saturday, I had a $3 bet with my alleged buddy, Stuart Sultze. In the previous week, I shot an 86 and he had an 85. Well I shot another 86 but he shot a 72. I felt violated.

I'm going to lay off betting for awhile. I want my throat and my irons to be up to par.