An Insect Jihad

Summer has arrived and with the heat comes a Mongol horde of Musca domestica. Common houseflies intent on making contact with human skin as many times as they can during their pitifully short lifespan. I could be wearing long pants, a long sleeved shirt, gloves, and a Luchador mask that only exposed the tip of my nose and a pester fly would still try to land on my nose at least twice within 30 seconds of being released in the room. In a house with 4 adults and 2 grandkids, keeping the outside doors closed all the time does not appear to be a viable option to stem the tide. The only things I’ve found that makes them disappear reliably are flypaper strips and fly swatters. They won’t go within a 2 foot radius of a flypaper strip. Put a fly swatter in your hand and they head for the hills until you lay it down again. Then they’re back like insane little Kamikaze flying raisins trying to martyr themselves in the belief that they will be met at heaven’s pearly screen door by 72 nubile maggots eager to do unspeakably disgusting things to their proboscis. Is it obvious that I don’t like flies?

On my health issues, I visited Dr. Poirot, my local pulmonologist last week and had another 1.7 liters of fluid drawn off my right lung. I’ve decided to call him Dr. Poirot due to his uncanny resemblance to David Suchet, best known for portraying Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The thoracentesis (lung fluid draining) helped for a few days, but I already seem to be clogging up again and having difficulty breathing. I see Dr. Whoosh, my oncologist in Gotham City, this coming Wednesday and am scheduled to resume the chemotherapy treatments. I keep telling people its immunotherapy, not chemotherapy, but everyone continues to say “chemo,” so I’ve decided to just give up and go along with it. This will be my first treatment since mid-April. The infusion is supposed to be done every two weeks, so it’s been a long dry spell akin to starting from scratch. I’m hoping this time we’ll be able to stay on schedule and it will slow down the cancer growth the way it’s supposed to.

Several kids from church and a few of the deacons showed up a week ago and did a bunch of yard work and completed building the patio that my wife has been diligently working on for about four years. They all deserve a pat on the back, great job! We have no big plans to celebrate on Independence Day since everyone is busy with other things on the 4^th. On Friday we grilled some pork chops on the new patio, I think that’s going to be the extent of the festivities.

That’s it until later.