More Updates

I have some stuff to share about new and interestiung developments in cancer and lymphoma research, but they'll have to wait until next week. A few updates first.


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Peter's basketball team won their league championship last night. They finished the season 33 and 1, and made it to the state semifinals. The league championship was pretty satisfying, because last year they lost the championship game by 40 about points (Peter wasn't on the team then), so the coach and some of the returning players felt a little bit vindicated. Peter played for about a third of the game, and did his usual great job on defense, fighting for loose balls and rebounds, and coming out of it all with an sore wrist and an elbow to the eye. But he thinks it was all worth it.


Peter played Junior Varsity this year (5th and 6th graders), and has been anxious about whether hell make the varsity team next year. But after the game, when he went to thank the coach for all he'd done, the coach told Peter that he hopes to get the team into an informal rec-type league this summer. "I want to keep my returning guys sharp. I'll let you know more soon." So we took that as saying Peter is expected to come back next year for varsity. That's a relief to Peter.


The biggest news of the night, though: Lady Luck continues to try to make ammends. I won the 50-50 raffle. These raffles are very popular at school basketball games around here. You buy a ticket for a dollar, and the winning ticket wins half the money collected, with the other half usually going to the school. BUT -- the winner can take a shot from half court (or ask someone else to do it), and if it goes in, the winner keeps ALL the money. This being a championship game, there was a big crowd, and they sold an unusually large number of tickets. So I won $100. Peter took my half-court shot for me, and while the shot was on target, it fell a little short. So I got my money and the host school got theirs. Good deal all around.


Still, Lady Luck still hasn't totally made it up to me for this whole cancer thing....


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As for my health: I've been battling a strange ear thing for the last three weeks. I was on antobiotics for ten days, and the middle ear infection cleared up, but the kind of popping/pressure in my ears, with slight dizziness, has remained. I had my ears irrigated, and still nothing changed. I went to an Ears-Nose-Throat guy a couple of days ago, and my ears are physically fine (except for a slight loss of high frequency range hearing, probably due to too much Black Sabbath through loud Radio Shack headphones during the early 1980's). His guess is that the other problem is being caused by stress -- tight jaw muscles messing with my Eustacian tubes. He suggested I stop chewing so much gum and avoid foods that make me work my jaw too much. He knows of my health situation (some progression lately with the lymphoma) and said, "I can't imagine anything more frickin' stressful." So I'll go with his "stress" diagnosis for now.


I see Dr. R a week from today.


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Finally, I want to share a personal problem I've been having. The Dial Corporation no longer makes Coast (Original Blue) Soap.


I've been using Coast for years, and about six months ago, our grocery store stopped carrying it. Isabel found a bunch of Coast really cheap at the discount grocery we also go to, and she bought me about 20 bars. Now that's just about run out. I looked everywhere and couldn't find any.


I went to the Dial home page yesterday, and found a link for Coast Pacific Rage, or something like that, with a link for finding a retailer who carries it. Well, even this new stuff is unavailable within 100 miles of my zip code.


I was curious if there was anything online about Dial limiting their selling area for this new version of Coast, and I found a video from a woman named Missy Ward, lamenting the loss of Coast Original Soap. As you can see from her video, she too is a long-time user, she hates the new stuff, and she has scoured retailers and the internet for Coast Original to supplement her stash of 250 bars of the stuff.


I've come to grips with the fact that I to give up on Coast, particularly if people like her are working that hard to find it. Which saddens me somewhat.


So if any of you have some old Coast Original Blue soap in the back of a closet, let me know. I can't promise I'll buy it from you, but I'll pay for postage. And if you accept Missy Ward's offer of $7.00 a bar instead, I totally understand.


But I'm also now looking for Coast alternatives. Send me your suggestions. Soon.