Kevin Pirkle on the 'Net

Check out this taco wagon! I saw this the other day at the confluence of Mineral Wells Hwy/Ranger Hwy/Palo Pinto St/Bowie St on the west side of Weatherford. For the directionally-handicapped (Myra), the GPS coordinates are 32.757779, -97.814793, or you can check it out on Google Maps by clicking here if you are really, really interested and need a more visual representation of the exact location. I mean, I know what that “Thing” is, I’m just not sure what that “thing” is. In that first photo he’s apparently casing the Valero. They can’t sell beer in that store cause it’s 100 feet from a church so he’s obviously planning a robbery to fund some nefarious activity. Judging from the looks of the feller he is probably some animal-flesh-eating, far-far-right-wing extremist and this is his urban assault vehicle/mobile water-boarding chamber. I’m positive he’s into torture as that poor “thing” has no flesh left on it. I think he’s the same guy I saw at Walmart last week tearing John McCain bumper stickers off cars. That’s definitely a threatening gesture he’s making toward me in the second photo. It’s probably a secret code wave for “I’m going to kill you and strip your flesh and mount your head on my UAV!”. And the really, really scary part? There are literally millions of these types running loose in the US and around the world! But don’t take my word for it, just look around, they’re out there!

That’s right folks, save those big bad funky NaNa’s. It truly is a truly modern world we live in boys and girls. All you gotta do is clip this little chingaso on your NaNa and she’s good to go. She’s safe! And the really cool part? They sell them right here in the land of the big Walmart! How convenient is that? What’ll they think of next? (Love you, miss you Na.)

Ok, since I obviously stumped everyone last time, let’s play this game again. I actually made it really easy this time. The object is to name the 3 people in the picture and you have several options available when doing so. You can send me an email, call me on the phone or send me a telegram with the answers or any other way you can think of. The picture was taken at the old dairy at the corner of 121 and 114. Nana was the only one that even came close to naming everyone last time. In fact, I think she was the only one that even tried. I did hear from my Aunt Gayle too which was really cool. Sorry Gayle, I promise I’ll get back to you soon!

I was going through some of my pics and I came across this and I thought everyone might enjoy it. Grandmother gave it to me about 5 years ago and I thought I had lost it. So boys and girls, first one to name everyone correctly gets a great big atta-girl or an atta-boy. I know them all so I don’t count. Click it and it’ll open larger. No cheating! If you’d like a hi-res version just let me know and I will get it to you.

I thought I might give you a Dr. Milam update since I haven’t in a while. I went a couple of weeks ago and my platelets were 210,000 up from a low of 105,000, in other words double. My hemoglobin was 10.8, pretty much as high as it’s been since all this started. Dr. Milam’s exact words were that _whatever_ was bothering me must not be bothering me any more. Like it’s a miracle! So thank you all for thinking about me and praying for me. I know you were and I know who you are. I love you all!

Here’s an interesting story on Slashdot relating walking in an area with plenty of trees with a boost in your immune system. Check it out!

Like the bird? I thought it was pretty cool! It’s out in front of the storage facility on the right headed east out of Mineral Wells on 180, just before you get to the Chevrolet house. Click on it to see the large version and you can see the detail a lot mo’ betta.

Hey everybody! I finally got around to creating a picture upload page so you don’t have to do one at a time. I know that was a pain but hey, I’m busy. Just click on the Uploads link at the top of the page and you are good to go with up to 10 pics at a time! Now you have _zero_ excuses for not uploading new pictures. Get busy, especially you Na! I think you are at least a month behind your schedule now. Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about embarassing you publicly!

FYI, I have no idea who those people fishing are. They just happened by when Myra and I were investigating a new dock on the lake. Cool pic though, huh? I thought so.

I love you all!

Rea had to get a cavity filled Wednesday so I took some pictures with my Blackberry and told here I was going to post them here and tell all her friends so they could get some laughs and here they are! That one pic with the hose kind of reminds me of the alien in Predator, that 80′s movie with the Governator! Rea started talking really loud when the laughing gas took effect. It was funny, like she was all excited about something. I don’t recall ever being excited about being at the dentist but Reagan was all smiles the entire time. Dr. Wright wouldn’t give me any gas but I’ll get some Monday. It’s root canal time for me! Doctor M. says no Warfarin for 5 days in case they cut me. Heavy sigh.

Went to see Dr. Milam today and had my blood checked, as usual. The PT was up to 1.7, up 0.2 from last week and still not therapeutic so we are now at 3 days of 15mg and 4 days of 7.5 of Warfarin. My hemoglobin was at 9.5 and that’s much better than it was last week. She seems to feel that at least has stablized, even though I’m still anemic. I really don’t know what to make of that. I don’t feel as tired as I used to but I don’t know how that relates to anemia. I’m driving Myra completely insane because I’m so wired. I moved my office upstairs to the gameroom so I would have more legroom. The built-in downstairs just wasn’t conducive to good circulation and that may have been part of the problem. I have a bad habit of pulling my legs up under my chair. I’ve been taking walks every few hours too, just to keep things moving.

This sure doesn’t seem like spring in Texas. Everything was just gray today. This is another reason to move upstairs, so I can look at the lake while I work. There used to be a really big old tree tree right in front of this one along the fence line but the City of Weatherford murdered it when they put in the new sewer lines for Lakeway Estates just around the corner. I met Ray Sparks the other day while the girls were swimming down at the lake. He was cleaning up trash along his section of the “beach”. He’s an environmentalist that lives around the corner on Stagecoach. You can’t see his house from the road as they have left it in its natural state. The deer around here have babies in his yard. The fine folks down at city hall call him the “letter writing environmentalist” which pretty much elevates him to “enemy of the state” status around these parts. He and others are entertaining the idea of forming Friends Of Weatherford Lake aka FOWL. What an excellent acronym! Bye guys!

Hey boys and girls! Here’s a bunch of pics I took Easter at Mel’s new place. Some are good and some are bad. That old digital camera of mine has just got to go. It used to take really good pics. All of those old pics you see from mom’s were taken with it and they looked OK, but that’s been 10 years ago! I realize most of the pics seem like repeats but I just take a bunch hoping for a few good ones Hope you enjoy them! Love ya all!

Hey everybody, sorry I haven’t written in a while. I’ve just been really busy with getting my other website off the ground. It’s a lot of work. Check it out here and get yerself some of that fine Weatherford TX real estate!. We are up to around 60 visitors a day and climbing in less than a month and that is huge from a real estate lead perspective.

Anyway, went to Dr. Milam on the 8th and my blood PT was down to 1.5, which is not therapeutic,  so the doc has me back to two days of 15mg of Warfarin and 5 days of 7.5. We just can’t seem to get it stable. I also missed my daily wheat grass fix 3 times, have to drive all the way to Jamba Juice in FW to get any,  Weatherford being trapped in the equivalent of the horse-and-buggy days, and my hemaglobin count has dropped to 9.0 from a high of 10.6. Still don’t know if doing the grass is the reason but we shall see. Not that I could do anything like a scientific study anyway. Hehe!

All in all, we still have no answer as to why this all happened. We’re all just as dumbfounded as Quincy!

I love you all!

OK, OK, allright, OK, I’m going to throw some more pix up tonight since I have been hounding you all to do the same! As we all know, Cherise uploaded some yesterday and there was one titled ‘Charlie on top of a mountain in Maine” and I’m sorry, it just looks phony to me, an excellent example of trick photography. I have one here I’ve decided to call “Charlie with his back against a wall in Texas” and I know it’s not an illusion cause I took it myself, back in ’00 I do believe it was. I guess I really should title it “Charlie Holmes with his back against the wall inTexas”, since it is from that era when Caleb always called him that.

I also changed to a different version of lightbox so the slide show starts automagically, the navigation controls aren’t as hard to get to and the huge pix are auto-scaled (automagically too!) to fit your screen a little better.

So get busy with the picture uploads boys and girls! Ciao for now!

(Really, the mountain pic is very cool, I’m just messing with you (whoever took it) and you know this, right?)

Went to see Dr. Milam today and we really don’t know anymore than we did yesterday or the day before for that matter. She had the final results of my bone marrow biopsy and the good news is there is nothing wrong with me other than exactly what she told us in the hospital, dyserythropoiesis, which is defined as defective red cell formation. All the right ingredients are there, I’m just not making red blood cells like I should. The report also had a highlighted phrase that says “Overall the findings are most suggestive of a low grade myelodysplastic syndrome which could be best classified according to the WHO classification scheme as a refractory cytopenia with multilineage dysplasia”, whatever that means. I learned everything I know about medicine from Quincy back in the ’70′s. If she told me I had a subdural hemotoma as the result of an acute myocardial infarction then I would know exactly what she was talking about cause I saw that episode and the rerun several times! See, just look at that pic. It’s obvious he knows what he’s doing and has the answer right there!

As for the Warfarin, last week we were told that my blood needed to stay between 2.0 and 3.0. Today it was a whopping 5.7! Doc says no Warfarin for 3 days and then starting Saturday to take 7.5 a day rather than 15 and come back next Thursday so we can get it checked again. I told them last week that I was drinking 2 ounces of wheat grass everyday and they said that is fine as long as I stay consistent and they would adjust my medicine accordingly.

Now for the interesting part. They also tested me for anemia today, which they didn’t do last week, and the last blood test at the hospital showed me to be at 9.7. I’m assuming that means hemoglobin content or red blood cell count or something similar. (I must have fallen asleep during that episode!) So anyway, today I was at 10.6 which is still considered anemic but at least it is rising! They have given me nothing to treat anemia, I’m not taking iron supplements or any kind of vitamins but I am drinking two ounces of wheat grass juice almost everyday. If I miss I just drink 4 the next day. I don’t know if that is the reason for the higher count or not but everything I’ve read about it seems to suggest that. Chlorophyll and hemoglobin are very similar in molecular structure and chlorophyll supposedly aids in hemoglobin production. Who knows? I don’t. The doctor didn’t have an explanation either.

Other than all that, I no longer feel out of breath when walking to the mailbox and back like I did before all of this happened so I’m assuming the clots in my lungs are dissolving. And that’s about it for now folks!

I love you all!

Thanks Cherise! Now if the rest of us will follow your good example then we will have lots of photos to share! By the way, I’m not buying the one titled “Charlie on top of a mountain in Maine”. I’ve seen stuff like that before, like when people put their arm out and it looks like they are holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa when they really aren’t. It’s just an illusion!

I have an appointment tomorrow with Dr. Milam. Maybe we will find out something. I’ll keep you all posted.

Thanks again for the pixs Cherise. They are great!

Hey everybody! Just thought I would give you an update. I haven’t written anything since I got home and Cynthia called me the other day and said “Well, I checked kevinpirkle.com and there was nothing new since you said you were going home”. So here you go.

Went to see Dr. Milam today. Her office is on the corner of 8th of Magnolia in the Medical Arts building. It’s one of those funky old office buildings that has huge sections in the front made of those little glass squares that are really thick that are basically opaque but allow light in. You know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, have a look at this. Since it is a medical building, I wonder if that’s beer or body parts in that Igloo! The building itself is on the list of “Ugliest Buildings in FW” and you can easily see why so check that out here. You’ll have to scroll down a bit but it’s worth checking out because it has a link to a picture of the beautiful “original” Medical Arts building downtown that was imploded in ’73 to make way for a parking garage or a Starbucks or something. (Actually I later read it was imploded to make way for Burnett Plaza, also on the “list”.)  To top it all off, here’s a link where some fool actually says that the building “offers a commanding presence to the intersection of 8th and Magnolia” and that “one of the more notable features on the roof are the round aluminum clad mechanical screens.” Say what? Wait. He’s talking about one of the more notable features on the “roof”. Now I get it! Yes indeed, those round aluminumn clad mechanical screens probably are the most notable feature on the roof.

What’s all this got to do with my blood? Nothing!

Anyway, they took some blood and said it was a 3.0 now and that was good because Dr. Milam wants me to be somewhere between 2.0 and 3.0 at all times. They adjusted my Warfarin (Coumadin in generic form I guess) to one day of 7.5mg and 6 days of 15mg. I have to go back and see Dr. Milam again next Thursday, 04/01. We didn’t even talk to her today, just did the lab work. She really has nothing to tell us until she gets the final results back from the bone marrow biopsy they did while I was in the hospital. And even then I’m wondering if she will have anything to tell us. But it was kind of strange because she told Myra in the hallway that she would be with us in a few minutes. Of course Mom was worried that maybe the lab tech didn’t know Dr. Milam wanted to talk to us and had sent us off unknowingly. I assured her that certainly they would have called by now to notify me of such a glaring omission. Hehe. You crack me up Ma!

On a lighter note, I don’t see anyone uploading pictures, ‘cept for Na. Come on! I wanna see pictures of everybody I haven’t seen before. I’ll put a few more up tomorrow.

Love ya!

I’m going home!