A Day In The Life: Bill & The Space Aliens
Siobhan and Bill, driving around the rural boondocks of Marion County:
Siobhan: Boy, this is a remote road. I don’t remember being on this one before.
Bill: Me neither. All in all, a good road to pull over on so I can take a leak.
Siobhan: Oh, just wait a couple of minutes ‘til we get to that Port-A-Potty on Route 40.
Bill: WHAT?! You don’t expect me to use one of those things, do you? Don’t you realize that port-a-potties are put out there by space aliens? Once you go in there and sit down, POOF! They suck you up to the mother ship and you’re gone forever.
Siobhan: That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard. Where do you come up with this stuff? Look—there’s a port-a-potty over there. Go use that one.
Bill: Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Bill enters, closes door, sits down. POOF!
Bill (somewhere in the ethers): I wonder what she thinks NOW!
A Day In The Life: Bill Contracts A Deadly Disease. Maybe.
So I go in the bathroom the other day—that seems to be the theme of the day—and a curious phenomenon occurs; there’s blood in my urine. Oh, not a lot of blood—just enough to make the water a little pink. Since this has never happened to me before, I am a little taken aback.
“Siobhan, I’m dying from some horrible disease—I have blood in my urine.”
“It’s probably just a broken blood vessel. It’ll stop.”
“Broken blood vessel from what? Have I reached the age when all my blood vessels begin breaking for no apparent reason?"
“Maybe it’s residual from one of those silent kidney stones you have.”
“Well, I never had any bleeding before—even from the bad kidney stones.”
“It will just stop, you’ll see.”
It didn’t, though. It got worse. I made an appointment to see Dr. Su in the Urology Department at UF. Dr. Su is the nice fellow who performed my prostatectomy a few years ago. He knows more than Jesus about urinary tract problems. I started feeling a little guilty about taking up his time, however, when the bleeding seemed to taper off.
“Maybe you were right, Siobhan. It seems to be stopping.”
“Of course. I’m always right about these things.”
She’s not, though. A little while later, it started up again. I went to the internet and discovered that 23% of the time blood in the urine indicates a bladder infection. And a gigantic 17% of the time it points to bladder cancer, although the internet was nice enough to say this almost always occurred in smokers or people who worked at dubious trades like the asbestos business.
“Seventeen chances in 100 it’s The Big One, Siobhan. Bladder Cancer. It could be all over for Bill.”
“You don’t have bladder cancer, you have no other indications. It’s probably related to the kidney stones.”
“I don’t know. Seventeen percent. That’s big. I could be going under the knife.”
“Oh, for God’s sake—you’re such a worry wart!”
“Easy for the NON-bleeder to say…”
“Hey, I’ve had blood in my urine before!”
“You have? How come you never mentioned it?”
“Well, I just didn’t think it was worth talking about.”
“Yeah, that’s because far more men get bladder cancer than women.”
Since I was going to Gainesville anyway, I went to see Barbara Chiarell to get my hair—what there is of it—cut. I figured I might as well look nice at my impending wake. Barb, a closet Democrat in a salon full of Republicans, always has a lot of funny stories about her reactionary colleagues. Not to mention her exciting dating career. I looked at it as sort of a last humorous meal before the dreaded bladder cancer diagnosis. Then I went to see Dr. Su.
Greetings all around. Dr. Su always likes to visit with his surgery cases who are still alive. He said I looked great, as if that was possible for a bladder cancer victim. He deducted from my urine specimen that I didn’t have any kind of infection, kidney, bladder or other. Oh great, I thought. We could easily have cured an infection with antibiotics. That leaves bladder cancer still on the table.
“Do you smoke,” Dr. Su asked.
“Never. Not a single cigarette. My grandfather died of lung cancer.”
“Great. When we see blood in the urine of a smoker, bladder cancer is a worry.”
“Or an asbestos worker,” I added.
“You’ve been on the internet again,” he chuckled. “But that’s good.”
“But what if it IS bladder cancer?”
“Then we’ll snip it out,” he said with the ease of a man considering flicking a bug off his lapel. I particularly appreciated his use of the word “snip,” indicating the most trifling of efforts. I remembered the dreary days after prostate surgery, though, and was not excited about further snipping.
“I’m optimistic about this,” Dr. Su advised. “Your history with the kidney stones suggests that’s the likeliest cause of the bleeding. So we’ll order a CAT scan and a cystography and get to the bottom of the matter. Blood in the urine is not to be taken lightly.”
“That’s what I was telling Siobhan, the scoffer.”
My appointments are set for both procedures on March 30 because Dr. Su will be out of town for awhile. I guess he’s not worried about a couple of weeks, more or less. So be sure to read The Flying Pie on March 29, the day before The Ultimate Analysis. I mean, you never know, I might not feel like writing any more after that. This could be The Big One.
The Bachelor
I know there are probably dumber programs on TV than The Bachelor, I just don’t know what they might be. I have only seen small shreds of these programs, mostly when ex-Gator Jesse Palmer was on there, but I am forced to watch the interminable ads for this atrocity between my regular programs. The current guy with the terrible haircut is one of the worst ones yet. And where do they get these horrible bimbos who are the prospective brides? Does it say anything to us when not one of these debacles has produced a single marriage. Bachelor indeed.
If they wanted to have a GOOD bachelor program, they would have one with somebody like our friend Norm on it. Norm is 93 years old and, unlike the current crop of dopes/bachelors, Norm really needs a bride. I mean, he’s the oldest guy at the singles club and the nice ladies there probably don’t see a big future with Norm. Personally, I can see Norm actually outliving half of them and probably even me, encumbered as I am with the bladder cancer and all.
Think what a unique program they could have with Norm and all the old broads on a Caribbean cruise, the women poking each other’s eyes out with their umbrella stems or loosening the screws on their opponents’ walkers so they would tumble to their respective dooms. I will admit, however, it might be best to keep the love scenes short. Everybody would watch. But, alas, the TV guys never see the potential in these things. Nobody has any imagination any more.
The Puck Report
He is doing nicely in his backyard residence with gal-pal Mary Margaret. He is fed grain—though not much—four times a day. He eats a lot of hay. Puck has been a good recuperator, tolerates his limited surroundings well and doesn’t abuse his mule friend although the same cannot necessarily be said about Mary Margaret. Puck will be back there for a few weeks before returning to the big field with Hannah and company. We thought Hannah might be distraught over the absence of her old pal, but she just moved on to Shamu, the old gelding nanny. Hannah is not a slut, just pragmatic. She is not at all happy, however, that Shamu has little interest in jumping around and tearing through the paddock at breakneck speeds. “Been there, done that,” says Shamu.
Both the mares, Dot and Wanda, have been bred, so we’ll see how that goes. It’s rare to get both of them pregnant on the first cover but we can hope. Pogo, who will probably be officially named Cosmic Flight, is training forwardly for an anticipated sendoff to Calder by the end of next month.
Requiem For A Heavyweight
Google Analytics allows us to follow our readership city by city, so we can tell who is watching out there to some degree. Most of you read the column every week, which we appreciate, and some catch up when they can by reading two or three at a time. We noticed awhile back that Austin, Texas, had dropped off the board and that meant that our Great Friend, Pat Brown, an avid reader, was either incapacitated or gone. We spoke with Pat around Christmas and she discussed her worsening cancer. The following week, she was to visit yet another hospital in search of a miracle drug that might allow her to go on. As usual, she was sparkly and optimistic. “Call me either way,” I asked her, knowing this was her last shot, and she promised she would. I never heard from her again. Pat never did like troubling her friends with bad news.
Since Pat was the person who prodded me to start writing this column, I would like the rest of my friends to know a little more about her. What follows is from the Austin Statesman:
Patricia Ann Brown was born November 14, 1944 in Austin, Texas.
She earned scholarships to study art at the University of Texas and became the first woman editor of the campus humor magazine, the Ranger.
While at UT, she obtained scholarships to the Cleveland Institute of Art and earned two of that school’s most prestigious awards in the same year: the George Gund Award for Drawing and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. These enabled her to travel to see much of the United States and Europe. Unable to enter Greece because of political turmoil there, she went to Turkey instead. She lived in Istanbul for a time, taught art in Lahore, Pakistan and explored Afghanistan, India and Kashmir.
After an earlier marriage failed, she met Austin photographer David Stark and began what would be a thirty-two year partnership in art, travel and the collection of antiques. Pat may well have been the first faux finisher in Austin, and she was certainly one of the country’s most accomplished. She opened Beau Faux Studio and taught a number of today’s successful faux painters, including artisans with Small Bone of Devizes, a UK firm with clients worldwide. Pat’s work graces many prominent Austin homes, as well as the historic Austin Women’s Club and the State Capitol Building.
Pat’s reigning passion was being with and entertaining her many friends. She had hundreds and was making new ones up until the day she died. When she returned home from the hospital weakened with cancer, her friends gathered as they had so many times before. Even desperately ill, Pat was able to communicate her joy in having them with her. Pat will be remembered for her unerring taste and her ability to transform the mundane into art. She was a perfectionist and spent the time and effort required to make whatever she did remarkable.
Back again to Bill
There are innumerable bad aspects to getting old. The body begins to fail and, sometimes, so does the mind. But one of the very worst things about it is having to give up magnificent friends like Pat Brown, a rare gem, with whom every moment spent—even in long-distance telephone conversation—was a true gift. The void is great. It can never be filled.
That’s all, folks….
