Vermont winters take their toll.
The microfilm coat of paint designed to protect my wooden deck from the ravages of ice and snow has given up the ghost.
Like the pathologist who examines the cause of illness, I couldn't help but notice all the paint blisters. Without any form of intervention, the prognosis for the wood laying beneath this sickly coat of paint would be grim, indeed.
And so it happened that I headed off in the direction of the local hardware store to purchase a scraper, paint remover for those invariable persnickety spots, sandpaper, and some wood sealant.
I shall contemplate about two dozen swatches before I make any decisions regarding the re-coloring question, however. If I can rejuvenate the wood, perhaps a nice clear stain will serve best.
I'm motivated to undertake this scrape/paint project due to the fact I'm currently between treatments for non-hotchkins lymphoma: to put it another way, I'm caught between Doctor Mike in Florida and Doctor Liz in New Hampshire.
For about two years running, down in the state we like to call "The Reddest Of The Red," Mike hammered away at my lymphoma with a substance called Rituxan -- which is synthesized Rat Spleen (I am not making that up) plus a few other chemical "cocktails" that were designed to put the disease into remission.
I have my fingers, eyes, knees, elbows and other parts of my Anatomy crossed -- hoping this has worked.
Problem is, the chemotherapy has crashed my body's ability to manufacture platelets, white blood cells, and a host of other stuff which circulates through the veins -- like the stuff which protects the rest of us from minor infections and your garden-variety viruses that can, like, trigger, like, the Common Cold.
(Pardon the Valley Girl Lapse ...and please understand that I am living on Rebel Mountain now.)
Dr. Mike, as we like to say, "Ran The Table" with me. He was (and is) at his wit's end regarding the Blood Count matter.
Which brings this tale to the doorstep of Dr. Liz, one of the World's Leading Experts in Hemotology and Oncology, whose practice is located right across the Connecticut River from Vermont, the state we like to call "The Bluest Of The Blue."
She has agreed to take me on as a new patient.
Dr. Liz practices out of Dartmouth - Hitchcock Medical Center and she is respected, world-wide, for her abilities and skills in reversing issues such as mine.
I have this recurring fantasy: Liz will hang me upside-down like a bat, drain out all of my blood and lymph fluid, reload my veins and arteries and lymph nodes with Rebel Mountain Spring Water, slap me on the Butt, and profess: You're Good To Go!
If that happens, and if that works, I'm going to open a Shrine that will be the envy of Lourdes.
But I hear the Rationalist that dwells within me scream: Liz' protocols will be quite a bit different than my fantasy. And as The Boss once sang: "That's All Right By Me."
As was the case in my relationship with Dr. Mike, I have implicit faith in her wisened judgment and in her vast medical skill. In fact, although we have yet to meet, I like her already.
Dig it: I called her office the other day regarding an insurance matter (the subject of which shall constitute a lengthy, future blog: believe me!) and she answered her own phone by saying: "Hello!"
You see, at times, she takes her own phone calls! Has that ever happened to you when you called your doctor? I don't think so...
Anyway, and until I have my face-time with Dr. Liz, I shall continue to scrape and sand the deck, in preparation for a new coat of either stain or paint. I have the strength and stamina to get this done: the firewood chores can wait for a few more weeks.
And so, as the wood grain reveals itself upon the stripped decking and railposts, I shall enjoy hearing the upland woodland birds sing in the forest, accompanied by the sound of fresh rainwater running through boulders down the hill, in Corporation Brook.
This is just about all I care to do, for the time being.
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