Week 5, Day 2

Where will chemo brain strike today?  Given this slightly fuzzy, occasionally woozy head,  it should follow the template from the first week. 

But it doesn't do abysmal things at bridge like it did before. With my regular Thursday partner unavailable at the last minute, Dotty May is called in as a substitute and we sail to one of my best scores of the year so far -- an even 60% -- first among the North-South pairs. 

Dotty also brought me a get-well gift, a red shawl from the Resurrection Prayer Shawl Ministry at her church, a prayer in every stitch and a blessing upon the whole garment from the priest. With the coldest weekend in 30-plus years ahead of us, including a totally subzero Sunday in the forecast, it should get a lot of wear real soon.

First stop en route home -- Target out by the Walden Galleria, to pick up more Poland Spring water and a few other supplies, like shaving cream. The electric razor I acquired a month ago just isn't cutting it like the blade does. Then the M&T bank branch on Elmwood Avenue to convert my paycheck into a home equity loan payment. 

But no wallet when I get to the bank. OMG! It's at Target. Back out in the 'burbs in Cheektowaga. A call to their service desk confirms it. That sweet little cashier in the hijab had turned it in. So back through thickening rush-hour traffic, accident snarls in both directions on the Kensington Expressway, to retrieve it. The bank is closed well before I get back. The window of opportunity for a nap also is closed. Same for getting to work anywhere close to on time, once again fulfilling first part of the quote I put in Monday's Reporter's Notebook column: 

OLAF FUB SEZ:  Words to live by from eloquent English essayist  Charles Lamb , born on this date in 1775, “I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.”

Despite an initial inclination to fulfill the second part of the quote too, I wind up following that first-week template again and put in a full evening with only a couple sleepy moments. The stomach, however, does not want to follow the template. It's uneasy. 

Is it the hummus I snacked on in lieu of a real dinner? Or could it be due to the change in taking the steroids (one set of two pills that morning -- the second day stipulated on the label -- instead of one set of pills the previous night, which should be considered "the second day," and the first of two "third day" sets in the morning -- which is the instruction I recall getting the first time and which my health care proxies strenuously maintain is mistaken). For good measure, the stomach gives an acidic gurgle whenever I wake up overnight. OK, proxies, next month we get this straightened out.

P.S.: Thanks to attorney Mickey Osterreicher, who's general counsel to the National Press Photographers Association and whom I've known since he was a Channel 7 cameraman in the 1970s, for insight into Wednesday's invocation of HIPPA rules by the folks at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. In a word, bullshit.