As I think I’ve mentioned before, we often turn BBC World Service on in the middle of the night. It’s far more effective than most sleep aids and normally has no side effects. Early this week though we were shocked awake when the BBC announced that Geiger had died. This was a shock for a couple of reasons. First Geiger was sleeping on the bed with us at the time and you don’t want to wake up to a dead cat. Secondly we were surprised that the BBC would think the passing of our cat was newsworthy. Fortunately, for us at least, it turned out that it was the surreal artist H.R. Giger, not our T. C.* Geiger that passed away.
(*T.C. = The Cat)

This Giger:


Not this Geiger:


The Giger that created this:


Not the Geiger that created this (I've included a quarter for scale):


Though I will admit that some of Geiger’s fur-balls are almost surrealistically huge, our Geiger is safe.

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We’ve had several consultations with doctors in the last few weeks. On Monday I had a CT scan and then Wednesday a conference call with the surgeon. He was planning on removing a suspicious lump from my lung. However after seeing the scan he decided to put it off. There were no new lumps, and the large lump that they were concerned about had shrunk by 75% since last August. He thinks that either: A) It wasn’t cancerous in the first place, only a local infection that the body is dealing with. Or B) It was cancerous but the chemo killed it and what remains is slowly being dissolved. Or C) It was cancer though chemo set it back a lot we will need to take care of it later. He decided that rather than doing surgery now that might not be necessary, the prudent course was to schedule me for another CT scan in September to see if the spot has changed. Until then I have the summer off. Woo Hoo. Then on Thursday we met with my local oncologist. He concurred with the surgeon. He thought it was a very good plan to wait three months and see what it looks like. Then on Friday Marsha saw our regular Doctor. He asked how I was feeling and then mentioned that he’d been following my case (our medical records are computerized Providence wide so all of my doctors can see them). He also thought the surgeon was taking the wisest course.

Now compare this to the meeting we had a couple of weeks ago with our lead Oncologist in Victoria. Even though the scan had not been done yet, and without asking me how I was feeling or anything like that he said that A) you can never ‘cure’ cancer, B) the lump was undoubtedly aggressively growing, C) it had almost certainly metastasized everywhere, D) based on the pathology report after surgery we’d decide whether more chemo, or surgery, or radiation would be the best plan. He them mentioned something called SABR a new technique which was much less damaging than regular radiation therapy, but then he added that it was an experimental technique, so I couldn’t have it. After he left Marsha and I looked at each other and I said  “Well isn’t he Dr. Mary f@!&*!! Sunshine”. Don’t get me wrong he’s undoubtedly a top notch clinician, superbly talented in what he does. He wouldn’t be in his position if that weren’t the case. It’s just that I don’t think he should ever meet patients face to face.He’s so pessimistic, so dire, so bleak in his outlook that he just sucks all energy out of the room. Have any of you run into a doctor like this? Someone you secretly call “The Prince of Darkness” when they’re not around? I’m just curious.

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So overall this week has gone well. In addition to the good news from (most of) my doctors there were several noteworthy moments. Late in the week one of the engineers and the head of sales were discussing a custom product. I was part of the discussion as a representative of quality control. We all were deeply engrossed in the details when the following exchange occurred:

Engineer: The problem is routing all of the cables, there’s just not enough space.
Sales: We could eliminate the secondary lights.
Engineer: Yes and if we also put this part over here.
Sales: Then the wiring would be a piece of cake.
Me: But isn’t cake an insulator?

There was dead silence and they all looked at me for a long time before continuing. I love to drop things like that into a conversation. It keeps people from getting too serious. On the other hand maybe that’s why they don’t invite me to many meetings.

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So, Friday evening I was on the web. You know how it is, you look up something, that leads to something else, and soon it’s three in the morning and you’re looking up the derivation of the word poppycock.

We’ve all been there.

Anyway, poppycock, as in “What a bunch of poppycock” or “That story is just pure poppycock” means rubbish, falsehood, and/or outright lies. Nowadays most people would use BS for this sort of thing. Interestingly enough, poppycock comes from an old Dutch word pappekak, which literally means soft, squishy, um…dung.

Somehow I suspect that this was not what the makers of Original Poppycock had in mind.


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And finally we have a long weekend here. Monday is Victoria Day. I would tell you why we celebrate Victoria Day, but it’s a Secret.
Happy Victoria Day!