January 2025 – Really Right

PET Scan from Hell

Yesterday (Tuesday Jan 21^st), my wife had another PET Scan. It is the first one in 2025. Her last was back in November. The results were even more dismal than either of us expected.

This PET scan was using a newer machine, and the results were written by a different doctor. The scan report didn’t give the size of tumors but only the SUV intensity. (Only three measurements were given. They will appear later in this post.)

Before proceeding, I will recap what an SUV reading is.

A higher SUV may indicate increased metabolic activity, which could be due to various factors, including inflammation, infection, or cancerous growths. Conversely, a lower SUV could indicate less metabolic activity. Generally speaking, metabolic activity is considered:

• “Low intensity” at <5 SUV

• “Moderate” at 5-10 SUV

• “Intense” at 10-15 SUV

• “Very intense” at >15 SUV

How to Read a PET Scan Report: Decoding Common Terminology

Going into this we knew there were five tumors. The four originals that were on my wife’s neck and upper chest plus the one on her back which had been removed and had promptly grown back in a matter of weeks. If the PET scan had stopped here, I would not be blogging on this today; however…

The physician’s assistant showed us the scan as a whole body, front-to-back, but did not zoom in on any areas. By viewing the new scan, we knew there was at least one new tumor visible, but we were advised to wait for the results.

I will now go through the results of the scan. The report generally goes from head to toe.

Four tumors that already had chemo and radiation:

1 Right supraclavicular nodal SUV 3.8

2 Right superior paraesophageal SUV 4.6

3 Right posterior chest wall/pleural SUV 8.2

4 Focal uptake right lateral seventh and eighth ribs SUV 5.8

Cyst that regrew on her back after removal:

5 Posterior superficial subcutaneous nodule at level of eleventh rib SUV 8.6

(The cyst on her back was measured at 2 cm traverse (horizontal))

Next, the scan found an additional six tumors.

All six tumors were in what I would describe as the pelvic area.

6 Small deep subcutaneous module overlaying right superior gluteal region SUV 8.3

7 Deep aspect right inferior gluteal muscles SUV 12.0

8 Soft tissue just medial to superior left acetabulum SUV 6.6

9 Focal left gluteal muscle SUV 4.2

10 Focal uptake left greater trochanter SUV 5.4

11 Focal uptake proximal right femur just below the less trochanter SUV 11.0

As the infomercial says, “And that’s not all” because, sadly, there was more.

In my wife’s chest the scan found loculated pleural fluid collection in her posterior right chest measuring 7.4 v 5.5 cm

Loculated pleural effusion refers to the accumulation of fluid in the pleural space, the thin space between the lung and the chest wall. Unlike simple pleural effusion, where fluid accumulates uniformly, loculated effusion involves the formation of pockets or compartments within the pleural space.

Loculated Pleural Effusion

The nodule right superior gluteal region was 9 mm.

Anatomy Terms

Superior = above

Inferior = below

Traverse = horizontal

Subcutaneous = deepest skin layer

gluteal region = external (outside) pelvic cavity

nodule = abnormal group of cells (think lump)

In two months, we went from five to eleven tumors. The cancer has spread to skin, muscle, and bone tissues. The fluid in the lungs is likely the result of the cancer being in the lymphatic system of my wife’s neck and chest. A web search seems to indicate that if a certain quantity of fluid accumulates that it will need to be drained. Given her history, the fluid is likely full of bad stuff.

Following the PET scan, we were called in on Friday (Jan 24^th), for a CT scan. This scan was combined with a swallow test to see if fluid was leaking from the esophagus into the chest cavity. Thankfully, this result was negative.

However, the next morning, my wife began to cough up blood. This continued all weekend and on Monday morning, the office of her oncologist was contacted. We were instructed to go to the local emergency room for treatment.

My wife was admitted to the hospital. After poking and prodding her, the doctors decided to put a drain into her chest cavity and remove the pocket of fluid in her chest. They put a hole about 1/8 inch into the right side of her back. The hose went between her ribs. The portion of the hose inside of her was about six inches long. It was covered with a sizable dressing. This hose was connected to a much larger one that emptied into a rectangular box. The holding box had cascading sections which went from right to left. Each section was marked with lines to measure the amount of fluid discharged from the drain. The unit of measurement was cubic centimeters. In addition to the collection device, there was about another 160 CC’s that went to the lab for examination.

Once the fluid was removed, she could breathe easier, and she stopped coughing up blood. After two days, the chest tube was removed, and she was sent home. It was never determined why she was coughing up blood. There is a waiting list to test her for possible reasons. We are waiting to schedule an outpatient exam to learn more.

Meanwhile next week is removal of the cancerous cyst on her back (again) and more chemo.

Sees like the hits just keep coming.

Trump to Implement Israeli Plan—Proof we’re Really Right Again

If you recall, we have been saying that Israel’s solution to the October 7^th war will be to empty Gaza of its citizens by either deporting them to other countries or bombing them into extinction. Well guess what? President Trump is proposing peace in the Gaza war by deporting virtually all the folks in Gaza to other countries.

On Saturday, President Donald Trump, who has previously brokered historic agreements in the region, suggested that Gaza could be cleared out after the devastation of the war started by Hamas on October 7, 2023, with Palestinians resettled in neighboring Arab nations for humanitarian reasons.

In a gaggle with reporters on Air Force One, Trump said:

“I’d like Egypt to take people and I’d like Jordan to take people. You’re talking about probably a million and a half people and we just clean out that whole thing and say, “You know it’s — over the centuries, it’s had many, many conflicts. And … something has to happen.” It’s literally a demolition site … So I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing in a different location, where they can maybe live in peace. … Could be temporary, could be long-term.”

Trump’s ‘Bold’ Plan to Relocate Gazans to Jordan, Egypt Gains Support: ‘Only Real Way to Achieve Peace’

Wanna bet that any money (financial incentives) to Egypt and Jordan to make this a reality will be funds diverted from the Ukraine War?

Trump Calls Out Priestess

President Trump went to the National Cathedral the day after he was inaugurated into office. This has traditionally been a service considered part of the inauguration festivities. Normally prayers are offered for the new President to be guided by God into having a successful time of prosperity and leadership. The Cathedral views itself as an ecumenical clubhouse for people seeking God. Outside of its actual services, it tries to maintain a reputation as a nondenominational place for people to worship.

The Washington National Cathedral has hosted 10 official inaugural prayer services for presidents of both major political parties. The tradition dates back to 1933.

However, yesterday the female “Bishop” went partisan and personal in her attacks of the newly installed President.

Here’s a few quotes from her lecture.

“In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican, and independent families—some who fear for their lives”

The bishop then called on Trump “to have mercy, Mr. President, on those in our communities whose children fear their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.”

As another member of our writing staff says, “Here’s my hot take” on this “Bishop”.

First, please note that I purposely have put the word “Bishop” in quotes. I have Bishop Royal U Grote to thank for this. Bishop Grote made it very clear that in the Bible there is no such thing as a female priest, clergy, or whatever. Women are not allowed to preach period. Never. Any female claiming to be ordained is a priestess. By definition, she cannot be Christian as Christianity does not recognize women as clergy.

**Royal Upton Grote Jr.** (16 August 1946 – 24 November 2016)

Thus, Mariann Edgar Budde is a wolf is sheep’s clothing no matter her intentions, theology, or politics. Biblically, she is a false teacher.

This is confirmed by the content of her lecture. Again, it is not a sermon because she has no right to deliver a sermon. Her presentation in the pulpit is a lecture.

Her attack on Trump is laughable.

Let’s shorten her first quote to what she really means.

“I ask you to have mercy upon the people … gay, lesbian, and transgender children …some who fear for their lives”

This quote is wrong on a number of levels.

Trump has threatened nobody who is gay, lesbian, or transgender with execution, imprisonment, or deprivation of rights.

Trump is upholding God’s revealed Word and natural revelation, and biological fact that there are only two genders. Any other gender is a lie of men or devils. It cannot be allowed in a civilized society.

This babe capping on Trump for requiring men to use the men’s bathroom is just evil. But you know, her real problem isn’t with Trump; no, it’s with God. God’s wrath is on the gay, the lesbian, the transgender, the abortionist, and anyone else that is in rebellion against Him. God’s wrath is not a future threat but a present reality.

Then there’s her dig about immigration. Please note that she and her liberal brethren are not the ones whipping out their checkbooks or that of her very wealthy denomination. No. She expects the taxpayers to give goodies to the illegals, drug dependent, and those refusing to work. This is what’s wrong with liberals, they only want to spend other people’s money, collected under threat of the sword, to redistribute. Please note, they always manage to keep their wealth and expect everyone else to gather at the pig trough of the welfare state to find sustenance.

Hey Mariann, the Bible—which you clearly have never read or don’t comprehend—requires that individuals care for the poor. Oh, the order is families, communities, and government last. Furthermore, government is not required or expected to give from the treasury to the poor, only see that they are treated fairly.

Yet another liberal flaw that she has defended on numerous occasions; justice. The Bible requires that no preference be given to the rich or the poor. Equality before the law is a principle directly from Scripture. Caring for widows, orphans, and the stranger amongst us is a purely local matter, not a mandate from the Great White Father in Washington DC.

The Bible makes it clear that if you don’t work then you don’t eat. If people work and still can’t make it, then people have an opportunity—not an obligation—to help.

President Trump was correct in his response.

After he returned to the White House, Trump said, “I didn’t think it was a good service” and “they could do much better.” But later, in an overnight post on his social media site, he sharply criticized the “so-called Bishop” as a “Radical Left hard line Trump hater.”

“She brought her church into the World of politics in a very ungracious way. She was nasty in tone, and not compelling or smart,” said Trump, a Republican, adding that Budde didn’t mention that some migrants have come to the United States and killed people.

“Apart from her inappropriate statements, the service was a very boring and uninspiring one. She is not very good at her job!” Trump said. “She and her church owe the public an apology!”

The responses on the Internet have been funny.

https://babylonbee.com/news/heroic-woman-proves-once-and-for-all-why-only-men-should-be-pastors

The Episcopal woman smiled ear-to-ear as she strode out of the National Cathedral, knowing that she had proved to the world beyond a shadow of a doubt that only men should be pastors.

“I did it!” exclaimed Budde, proudly hugging supporters. “I finally showed all you morons out there precisely why women should never, ever be allowed to lead a church.”

Christmas Gift of PC Silence

Last fall, I found out that my Dell Alienware computer, purchased in 2020, was long in the tooth. It happened like this.

After being out for over a year, I finally decided to purchase Diablo IV. I bought it just before the first expansion pack, Vessel of Hatred, was released.

I installed the game without any difficulty but once I began playing it on my Alienware PC, wow! The PC’s fan revved-up to full speed and it was so loud that I literally couldn’t hear the dialogue in the game. It was like listening to a jet just prior to take-off.

Alienware PCs look cool, but they are also notorious for having heating issues. Back in the spring, I had already added an additional 120 mm cooling fan into the case and cleaned and reseated the factory liquid cooler. This did not help with heat dissipation.

By today’s standards, Diablo IV should not be stressing the limits of any respectable computer. My wife was even surprised by the noise level generated by the computer. She even said to me that maybe I need a new computer. Thus, I made up my mind to slowly accumulate the parts that I needed to build a new one. This was so I could pay as I go and not risk 12 months same as cash with another Dell purchase.

I decided to make most of my purchases for the computer from Newegg. I do not trust buying computer parts on Amazon. Too many vendors are selling knock-offs, returns of dubious quality, factory rejects, and whatnot.

I bought a case and liquid cooling fan from Newegg. I also bought an M.2 4^th generation hard drive from Best Buy. If you haven’t seen one, they are about the size of two sticks of Wrigley’s Gum stacked on top of each other. Most are 22 mm v 80 mm in size.

With Christmas nearing, I stopped any further purchases hoping to get a few additional computer parts under the tree. Despite reservations, I put the remaining parts that I needed on my Amazon wish list. My wonderful stepson bought me the most expensive part on the list, a new video card. The video card did not arrive in a factory sealed box. It was not shrink-wrapped, and the box lacked any kind of seal on it. The anti-static bag containing the video card did have a seal on it. I knew that I had until January 31^st to return holiday purchases.

This put me in a dilemma, do I trust the Amazon purchase or should I quickly assembly the computer and then test the video card. Due to the timing of events, I opted to complete building the computer. I bought the remaining parts on Newegg. However, the shipment was delayed. In the meantime, I received some more money and decided to purchase a 5^th generation M.2 drive as the boot drive.

Assembling the computer was the most tedious PC build I have ever done. The fans in the case needed to be reversed and the liquid cooler that I bought had many screws and fans as well. It wasn’t hard, just slow going.

My biggest issue was the fifth generation M.2 drive. It came with a factory installed heatsink. As configured, it would not fit on my motherboard. After research, I found out that removing the factory heatsink would void the warranty. Being that the drive costs north of $500, I opted to leave it alone. Instead, I removed a strip of metal underneath the mounting area of the M.2 drive. This was part of a heatsink assembly that was held in place by two Phillips screws. Once that minor, nondestructive modification was made, the M.2 drive fit perfectly.

Once assembled, I installed the operating system. It turns out that Windows 10 was on my flash drive and not 11. I downloaded Windows 11 and then installed it. The only deviation to a normal install that I did was disable the forced log-in to a Microsoft account. By creating a local account, I was able to create a user directory named “William.” An install with a Microsoft account is truncated to a five-character username.

Once booted, I had to add the Wi-Fi driver to the flash drive and install it on the new computer to reach the Internet. At this point I could then log in to a Microsoft account.

Lastly, a note concerning installing Adobe Acrobat. Log into your Adobe account first, and then download and install their software, otherwise the licensing step will fail. I have a stand-alone copy of Acrobat 2020. This is the last release of Acrobat that does not require a monthly or annual subscription. I couldn’t get past the licensing step without logging in first.

Oh, when I run Diablo IV now, the PC doesn’t seem to notice. The PC cooling does not increase, and the temperature seems to be unchanged while running the game.

Here are some specs of the new build.

Processor	AMD Ryzen 9 9950X 16-Core Processor 4.30 GHz
Installed RAM	64.0 GB
System type	64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Video	AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT RAM 20 GB
Drive 1 NVMe M.2 SSD	Crucial T705 4TB PCIe Gen5
Drive 2 NVMe M.2 SSD	WD Black SN850X 4000GB Gen 4

Insurrection Day and Other Thoughts

Insurrection Day was just as entertaining as you would expect with Kamala Harris certifying her own defeat as she declared Donald Trump as the next President of these United States. Oh, what sweet irony.

Trump is not even in office yet, but his influence looms large on the world stage. His comments about possible tariffs on Canada and making it the 51st state caused Justin Trudeau to resign. This guy (Trudeau) is just an evil tyrant presiding over a bunch of feckless politicians with no spine. His unchecked attacks on Canadian citizens that dared to disagree with him, or his policies was terrible to behold. That he lasted in office so long is an indictment of the Canadian political system.

Sadly, such tyranny is becoming all too common in once Christian nations in the West. England, Germany, France and other places are arguably worse than Canada. If you ever needed any evidence that the First Amendment matters then look no farther. Oh, having a Second Amendment to protect the First helps too.

Trump trash talking about annexing Greenland and changing the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America is fun to watch. The reactions are entertaining. However, I still maintain that what he does is more important than what he says. It appears that he understands that getting legislation through Congress is the mark he needs to hit. I think he is deflecting people from seeing what is coming once he takes the oath of office. Finally, I think the Orange will “unleash hell” on January 20th and I can’t wait for the heads of millions of liberals to explode in shock.

Frankly, I think Trump is just depriving Biden of any oxygen in the room so poor Joe will be neglected by the media in the last few weeks of his failed administration. The irony that today is the funeral of Jimmy Carter is fantastic. Now, the biggest Presidential failure of the 21st Century gets to sing the praises of the biggest Presidential failure of the 20th Century. If you needed it, here’s proof that God has a sense of humor.

The wars in Ukraine and Israel will be ended soon after Trump takes office. Putin will get to keep much of eastern Ukraine and Zelensky will leave office with a few billion dollars in offshore accounts. Wanna bet he retires to his home in Palm Beach to live out the rest of his days? I’ll give even odds that he is ended by a bullet to the head or a needle in his arm.

I think the October 7th hostages will be freed on or about Jan 20th sort of like what happened with Reagan and the release of the Iranian hostages. Will some leaders from Gaza quietly immigrate to other nations as a result? Just wondering. The net result is that the Palestinian people will own less land than before the uprising.

I hope that Trump ends DEI (Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion) and the insanity of the transgender movement. Both seem to be falling out of favor already and he hasn’t even taken office yet. (Again, both movements must be ended at the Federal level by legislation and defunding.)

The Long Journey Continues

Sometimes, when your reality and expectations align, it’s not a good thing. Yes, I know that is contrary to what our culture teaches, but do you still believe the Disney lie that following your heart is a good thing? 2025 looks to be the long slow plodding walk thru the valley of the shadow of death.

Let me explain.

The meeting that my wife and I had with her oncologist a few days ago was depressing. She finally asked the “big question;” namely, “What is my prognosis?”

The doctor’s response was that she had a fifty percent chance of living ten … to twelve months. He initially stopped after saying ten and then added the “to twelve months” after a brief pause. I felt that the subtext of his answer was buckle up buttercup, the water is about to get really rough.

This reply was followed by a discussion of chemotherapy, immunotherapy, or doing nothing. I thought these were the three choices, but they managed to decide on a fourth option. My wife will begin to do both chemo and immunotherapies simultaneously starting next Tuesday. The chemo will be a slightly different cocktail of drugs than last time, the major side effect of this round will be diarrhea. Why she thinks that side effect is better than cold sensitivity is a mystery to me. I’m picturing her having to be within line-of-sight of the nearest toilet and potential dehydration as a horrible way to live.

My wife wants to go out swinging, which is a good trait and one I expect from an upbeat and optimistic person. I kind of think the quantity versus quality-of-life question should have been asked but it wasn’t. I can’t help but wonder if the cure is worse than the disease. The die is now cast and our course plotted for the next few months.

Oh, lastly my mom is down to 88 pounds and not doing well. I may be trekking to the once golden state more times than I want is year to say farewell to family members.