MDS Mitch Golfs Stowe

I suddenly realized that several days have passed since my last blog entry. No worries—traveled to Stowe, Vermont doing on-site golf research.

Well, someone's gotta do it.

The trip was delightful, although playing Stowe's new golf course, Stowe Mountain Golf Club, was as much like hiking as golfing.

Seems they built the thing directly into the Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak hillsides. You actually must sign a waiver to drive a golf cart because some of the cart path's switchback descents are so winding and steep.

Maybe they should offer an adventure golf cart driving school?

And, the foliage, approaching peak color, was spectacular, even if it did keep distracting me from the golf shot at hand.

Be that as it may, I seem to have survived playing two consecutive days, first climbing up and down the mountain course, and then in 47-degree weather at the lower-elevation Stowe Country Club followed by the six-hour drive home.

Today I'm feeling a bit bushed, and I seem to have cultivated a headache whilst sleeping last night, but I'm not as tired as I expected to be.

And, the best news is: I played pretty well for 27 or those 36 holes. (I shot horribly on the second-day front nine, but miraculously recovered on the back nine. Go figure.)

The only slightly consternating moment, health-wise, came when I knocked my head against the golf cart roof as I was climbing aboard. With my last platelet counts being below the magic "you can do anything you want" 100,000 mark, I immediately decided I would develop a brain hemorrhage from this bang on the noggin.

So far, however, my head knocking seems to have had no effect.

I guess it was just the Shklear genes—my maternal side—leaking through. My grandma Sarah, who swore she was deathly ill all the years I knew her, ranked among the world's great hypochondriacs. She only lived to 100.

But, she passed along a dominant hypochondriacal gene to both her grandsons named Bernard, and a recessive version to most of the rest of us.

Who knows? If I bang my head harder next time, it might knock some sense into me.

MDS: A Good Day

Just a quick follow-up on yesterday.

The day was passed with

• great productivity
• a healthy nap
• a nice workout.

So, what can we conclude from this?

• That consecutive, napless, golf-filled days can be tolerated when it's been nearly three full weeks since the last Vidaza shots.
• That being home alone (spouse still on the West Coast; due home today) induces enough boredom to brook such a schedule.
• That having meaningless work chores to do in bounty (much data entry is going on), affords sufficient compulsive "must get to the end of this crap" behavior to keep going.

Call it a lifestyle. Temporarily, anyway.

MDS: Gone Golfing & Napless

Can an MDS sufferer survive two consecutive days of golf while going napless?

Will today require two or even three naps?

More importantly, will playing golf two days in a row improve the golfing skills?

These are the questions that move men's souls. Or soles.

For the record, as of 6 a.m. this (Friday) morning:

• energy level—normal
• previous night's sleep—decent
• alertness—fair, with moderate yawning
• enthusiasm for the day's work ahead—middling
• state of golf game—improving with inexplicable signs of actual progress (i.e., many more bogey holes per round than there's any right to expect, with the undoubtedly odd par tossed in).

So, does extra golf induce exhaustion in an MDS world?

Apparently not.

Can it bring happiness to an MDS world?

Nah.

But, it's a healthy distraction. And, on a beautiful day like these last two have been, it's a hell of a lot better than staring at the computer screen all day, no matter how much energy is at hand.

Fore! (five, six, seven . . . oh, just pick up the ball and move on . . .)

MDS: Ready? Vidaza—Round 4

All good things come to an end, the cliche has it, and so, too, do our Maine vacation and, come Monday, the current Vidaza shot-free MDS period.

Too bad.

As nice as this vacation has been—

and it has been fine, finishing yesterday with a round of golf in the rain that was about as good a round as this duffer can play (perhaps I should always play in the rain)

—this three-week Vidaza hiatus has been better.

• no sore arms
• no itching shot sites
• no fatigue (good energy, as a matter of fact)
• no feeling bad
• feeling much better, actually, thank-you-very-much.

But, it's a new month and that means a new shot series that, understandably, I'm not looking forward to.

Perhaps being on the road has exaggerated a liberated, shot-free feeling; made the last series seem longer ago than the past series have seemed at the end of the break.

Or, perhaps just feeling more lively has made the MDS seem less real, more removed.

Whatever is causing me to sense distance between myself and the required shots, this time a false sense of security has crept in.

• I feel fine.
• So, why undergo these shots?
• Maybe I'm not so sick after all.

It rather reminds me of having to return to school at summer's end. Last year's teachers, homework, exams, etc., always seemed so long ago. Did we really have to start all that again?

This fourth Vidaza series is supposed to be telling. After it, Dr. O reevaluates the bone marrow and, if I understand all this correctly, she decides if (that?) the drug is effective and should be continued.

No pressure?

MDS Man Shoots Excellent Round of Golf

MDS Man Shoots Excellent Round of Golf

Yes, I can see the newspaper headlines now. And, the story...

"Yesterday a precedent-setting round of golf was played on the Orchard Hills golf course in Paramus, N.J., when an MDS man shot a completely ScoreWorthy 9-hole round of golf in a persistent rainfall."

(ScoreWorthy golf, strictly my own invention, involves making double-bogey or better on any given hole. A completely ScoreWorthy round means all holes were double-bogey or better.)

Okay, it's a bit of a stretch. But, this MDS and golf seem to have much in common.

• MDS: blood counts go up-and-down.
• Golf: scores go up-and-down.
• MDS: energy levels up-and-down.
• MDS: golf shots go up-and-down (when they don't dribble on the ground).
• MDS: causes profound psychological ups-and-downs.
• Golf: causes annoying psychological ups-and-downs.
• With MDS: some days you're up, some days you're down.
• In golf: chipping onto the green and putting once is called an "up-and-down."
• MDS: was characterized by my GP physician as "uncharted territory."
• Golf: the way I play it, is surely uncharted territory.

So, yesterday, nearly two full weeks after the last Vidaza shot cycle, oddly, my energy was down, the rain was coming down and, even more oddly, my golf game was up.

Searching for logic in these two realms?

I am. Can't say as I've found it in either. Yet.

MDS: Lead Legs

An ad that airs during TV golf coverage states that "you'll walk five miles in a typical round of golf."

Seems a lot, but right now I'm believing it.

After walking 18 on Tuesday, I'm suffering a case of "lead legs." I don't think you'll find this syndrome in the medical lexicon, but baseball pitchers refer to it when they tire late in games.

The name says it all—legs that feel like they're filled with lead. It makes climbing the stairs something of a challenge.

So, for you skeptics out there who contend that golf provides no exercise, I present myself as proof that it does. If you'd like to try it yourselves, simply

• cut off two of your chromosomes at the "X" to effectively screw up your bone marrow's red blood cell production
• allow MDS to set in
• watch your cell count drop precipitously
• lodge in hospital for five days, enjoying IV meds in abundance
• once home, indulge in chemo-style drugs-by-injection for a few months
• go walk five miles in a mildly hilly landscape.

Well, the legs might be feeling like lead right now, but it's a happy leadeness. Or, should that be a leaden happiness?

Nine holes more tomorrow and another bike ride on Sunday.

Chromosomes be damned.

Blood Counts Down—Golf Game Up

Funny thing. On Monday, en route to the Albany area to play golf on Tuesday, I "stopped in" to see Dr. O for my weekly blood letting.

Never thought I'd be visiting any doctor because I was "going to be in the neighborhood." But, there you have it.

Call it a lifestyle.

Okay, the little critic's voice in my head is saying, get off the philosophizing and get to the results. This week's score:

• Hemoglobin - 11.7
• Platelets - 89,000
• White Cells holding strong

Now, really. I do find this confusing. Why? Because my energy is better than ever. I'm feeling downright good.

Seems like every time I'm feeling good, the counts are lower.

I do understand that the red cell counts will go down during and immediately after the shots cycle. I get that part. Really I do.

And, I also grasp that the counts didn't dip as much as last time.

But, what I don't get is this: if the counts have gone down, why am I feeling so good?

"Shut up and play golf," my daughter said to me as we chatted on the cell phone as I drove north on the NY Thruway (yes, hands-free) . Well, not literally. But that was the gist of her comment.

So, I did. Played 18 with my friend Phil, walking a full round for the first time this summer and (get this) set a personal record.

Three pars in one round.

Wow. Maybe my golf score goes down as the blood counts go down? No, that can't be it. It's gotta be skill.

Yeah, right.

Little Victories

Once upon a long time ago, a friend told me that she'd written her college application essay on "finally learning to drive" after resisting for several years.

"The theme," she told me, "was A Victory Over the Mundane."

It's a phrase that's stuck with me for more than 40 years. And what I accomplished yesterday and today may indicate such a victory:

• Yesterday—1.5-hours on the treadmill and doing strength work
• Today—35 minutes cycling

To actually put in some semi-serious exercise time is to have made it over a hurdle that seemed somehow huge.

But, having done it, and not being exhausted to the point of uselessness by it, it turns out maybe that hurdle wasn't so big.

Add to that, 9 holes of golf on Thursday without tiring, and perhaps we're seeing a trend. Perhaps I'm not destined to be a basket case for the foreseeable future. Perhaps the daily nap quotient will be reduced. Perhaps I'll be able to stay awake past 8 p.m.

Perhaps.

After all—none of this exercise raised my heart rate to competitive levels; and it took me almost as long to bike the route I took as it once did to run it. (Wouldn't want to be overly positive. My old man wouldn't approve.)

Another blood count tomorrow may give us more good news. In the meantime, golfing, treadmilling, working out, cycling—I'm chalking it all up to Another Victory Over the Mundane!

MDS: Golf Therapy

I admit it. I've been leaning toward the morose in these blogs recently. Blame it on fatigue and lack of work deadlines.

(Hint, hint—anyone out there who has an assignment or two (or 12) is welcome to send it along...)

In other words, as my old Mom used to say, "You don't have enough to do."

So, yesterday I dragged my sorry butt out for some golf therapy. Thunderstorms were in the forecast. No deterrent. This outing was as necessary as a baby's diaper change.

Indeed, no sooner had we started, than a drizzle began to fall. By the second hole, it was real rain. We sludged on, draped in slickers.

After a 15-minute suspension of play, we resumed on Number 3. Parts of the course were a quagmire. No matter. Because by then a funny thing was happening—I was playing about as well as I can.

• Twice I found myself putting for par (an unusual event for me).
• Suddenly my drives off the tee were not only traveling in the air (I'm famous for my ground-ball shots), but they were going straight.
• On Two and Five I accurately hit the green from 120 yards out.
• Putts were going where they were aimed.

Move over Tiger.

Sick? Who's sick? We were walking the course, slogging through puddles six inches deep ("standing water" in the golfer's jargon), and I'd totally forgotten I was afflicted. I wasn't even bothered by the upper arm irritation that inevitably comes with Dr. O's shoot-him-up routine.

We played to just off the green on Eight. Then the lightning appeared.

"Get me my one iron!" I called, as we cleared the course and headed for the clubhouse.

It's an old golfer's joke: Ho do you make sure you're not hit by lightning on the golf course? You hold your 1-iron to the sky. Not even God can hit a 1-iron.

Five minutes after we took refuge on the clubhouse veranda, the skies opened up. Rain in torrents. End of round.

We'd played eight holes; I'd been ScoreWorthy (double bogey or better) on six of them.

More importantly, I'd totally forgotten to be weary, in pain, depressed, grumpy, grouchy, crabby or ill-tempered.

Amazing what a little green grass, good company and physical activity will do. Clearly I've gotta do this more often.