Gregory M. Ledet

To those of you that know my chosen career path: this should need no explanation.

To those of you that don’t know my chosen career path: I’m a Cisco engineer. ’nuff said.

Now that I’m finished with my treatment, I wanted to get a new tattoo.  I’ve been thinking about getting this for a while, and I finally pulled the trigger and did it.

I knew from a young age that I was going to likely end up with polycystic kidneys.  My father, my grandfather, and my grandfather’s father all died of PCK, as well as a bunch of uncles in the family and it goes back as far as I can remember.  I took the 3 hearts from Legend of Zelda and got them tattooed on my wrist, leaving one of the hearts half empty to signify the fact that I never started my game with full life.

This is my first real geeky tattoo, if you don’t count the serotonin tattoo on my leg.  I’ve got some ideas for my next one, and I’m thinking that I may get the Cisco logo tattooed on my right wrist (this one is on my left).  Seeing as I do Cicso work for a living and I plan on doing that for the rest of my career, it would be cool to signify that.

-Greg

That’s right! I’m starting a new contract tonight at 8pm that I’ll be on until the end of June, then after a couple weeks off it’ll be on the road doing the funny again! I’ll post tour dates and everything else soon, I just wanted to give you guys a heads up!

That’s right!  If my math is correct, I only have one injection left to go.  I have taken 23 injections now.  I can’t believe it’s been that long already.  To think that I have gone through 22 weeks of living hell to get here and I only have 2 weeks to go is simply weird.  I’ve been feeling worse and worse lately, but I think that’s because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I know that it’s not going to be all daisies and rainbows when I stop treatment though.  I’ve got a lot of drugs I’m going to need to come off of and I know that my body isn’t going to be enjoying that.  Between the pain killers, the mood stabilizers, the antidepressants, and the interferon and ribavirin, my body is going to be in complete shock.  I’ve already started to try to wean myself off of the painkillers, but that’s easier said than done.  Like I was explaining to a friend of mine the other day, it’s just like smoking.  I don’t get high of the shit, but my body doesn’t like it very much when I don’t do it. It’ll be hard, but nowhere near as hard as the treatment itself.

Why the hell is my cholesterol high?  It’s 247!  Then again, with all the good cajun food I used to eat (and still do, thanks to be being an excellent cook), I don’t know why I expected it to be normal.  So I had some blood drawn the other day to do a lipid panel and the T₃ and T₄ tests that I talked about in my last post.  The T₃ came back a little high, and the T₄ was within normal range.

My lipid panel was just a sea of red ink.  Click the image for a larger version.

As you can see, the only thing that is within the normal range is my Triglycerides.  Cholesterol is High, HDL is low, LDL is high, and both ratios are high.  Looks like I’m going to have to bone up and start eating a little healthier.  It’s going to be hard, but it’s something I really need to do.  I’m going through this treatment for a reason; I want to live longer.  If I fix the liver and ignore the kidneys (which I have polycystic kidneys, for those of you that didn’t know) and the heart (high blood pressure and tachycardic too), I’ll have wasted my time and effort and this whole 6 months of hell will have been for not.

I plan on starting an exercise regiment soon, and I’ve tried to start walking, but it’s very hard to do while on treatment. Only 2 more shots to go, though!!!  Once this chemo crap is over, it’s going to be on like Donkey Kong.  I’m going to do my best to get into shape and get healthy.  I’m tired of being the fat guy.  Hell, during “3 Drunk Guys and a Hurricane” I was referred to time and time again as “the fat guy”.  I’m really tired of that and it’s going to change soon.

On another note, I lost what I thought was a good friend today.  He didn’t die or anything, but I won’t be speaking to him any longer.  This person claimed he was a friend, yet time and time again he lied to me or did things behind my back to hurt me.  I forgave him numerous times for things that a normal person would deem unforgivable.  Even after my wife and my best friend told me to quit talking to him, I didn’t listen and continued.  This week he did something that I just can’t forgive, and that was doing something that directly hurt my wife.  He didn’t hurt her physically, but he promised to pay out an invoice for some work that I performed for him this week and he didn’t.  The invoice was supposed to go to her so she could go to a conference next week in Vancouver.  With him not paying the invoice, avoiding me and not returning my calls or emails so he wouldn’t have to tell me he’s not paying it, and then lying to me about the reason why he’s not paying it, I have decided that he’s no longer worth the effort as a client or as a friend.

Here lately I’ve noticed a change in myself.  I’ve noticed that I really don’t like people playing childish games with others.  I hate it when people refuse to pick up the phone or reply to an email because they don’t have the backbone to face you and tell you that they are breaking a promise.  I also hate it when people take very small things and blow them completely out of proportion.  I hate when people can’t take constructive criticism and reply to you with the whole “Oh, I’m sorry… I’m nothing and you are God” crap.  In the past year and a half since I’ve moved to Ohio, I have done a lot to weed out those types of people from my real life friends list.  I don’t need people do stuff like that in my life.  I don’t need people that lie and break promises over and over again in my life.  I only want friends that are going to be true friends to me.  If I wouldn’t call you to come help me move because I know you wouldn’t show up, I don’t need you.  I don’t know if it’s the treatment that has done this to me, or just the change of scenery, but I guess I’ll find out in a few weeks after I’m done with treatment.  If I miss them, I guess I have some apologies to make, but if I don’t, those bridges can stay burnt for all I care.

-Greg

Yesterday was my appointment with the GI PA, but I just couldn’t make it.  The car was acting up, and so was my stomach.  She ended up calling me and we went over my latest blood tests, so I guess I’ll go over them with you guys now!

Everything looks par for the course with this treatment.  White count and red count are both low, as is hematocrit.  Albumin is high as well.  My AST is 67 and my ALT is 58 (slightly higher than last time, but I’ll chalk that up to changing my pain meds from Vicoprofen to Percocet and the APAP in it).  The AST is high, but not bad.  The one that stuck out was my TSH.

The normal range for TSH is 0.47 to 4.68 and mine came in at 5.85.  It’s not terribly high, but my hep doc wanted me to talk with my family doc about it, so I went in to talk with her today.  Let me explain this TSH thing to you guys.

The thyroid gland produces thyroid hormone. When it functions properly, the thyroid is part of a feedback loop with your pituitary gland. First, the pituitary senses the level of thyroid hormone that the thyroid has released into the bloodstream. The pituitary then releases a special messenger hormone, known as “Thyroid Stimulating Hormone” (abbreviated as TSH). TSH stimulates the thyroid to release more thyroid hormone.

When the thyroid, for whatever reason — illness, stress, surgery, obstruction, or, in this case, peginterferon therapy — does not produce enough thyroid hormone, the pituitary detects this reduction in thyroid hormone, and it moves into action. The pituitary then makes MORE TSH, to help trigger the thyroid to produce more thyroid hormone. This is the pituitary’s effort to return the system to “normal” and normalize thyroid function. There, a TSH that is higher than normal suggests a thyroid that is underactive and not doing its job of producing thyroid hormone.

Thyroid dysfunction is normal for people to experience during interferon therapy.  Because of this, my family doc isn’t too concerned at this point, but she wants to run some more tests.  I’m going to have T₃ and T₄ test done tomorrow morning to see exactly what the thyroid hormone levels look like.  I’m also having a lipid panel done, so I need to be fasting to have it done, hence the reason for tomorrow morning.

Hopefully everything works out OK and I don’t have to spend the rest of my life taking Synthroid.  My wife had her thyroid removed years back, and I’m not looking forward to that.  So, that’s about it for now.  Other than that stuff, and a change from Zoloft to Wellbutrin, it’s been pretty normal.  I have been a bit edgier than normal, and more prone to anger, but I’m trying to keep that under control.  I know that I just over a month left to go on this, so I can’t wait for it to be over.  Once this treatment is over, you can bet that there’s going to be a party somewhere!

I figured, what the hell. I did a new video.

One thing that I hate on this Earth is when people get all bent out of shape over something and they have absolutely no idea what the hell they are talking about.  I’ll give you an example…

Back in 1999 a white gentleman by the name of David Howard used the word “niggardly” in reference to the budget in Washington, DC.  Niggardly is an adjective meaning “stingy” or “miserly” and Mr. Howard used the term correctly, but that didn’t stop some uneducated idiot from filing a complaint because he thought that it was a racial slur.  Does it matter that there’s no way to really use the word “niggardly” and the word “nigger” interchangeably in the same sentence?  Nope!  It only matters that the words sound similar and that’s enough to have caused this man to be forced to resign his position.

Today there’s a very similar situation going on.  According to a story from ABC News, there’s a controversy brewing because a Walmart put a “black” Barbie doll on clearance and left the “white” Barbie doll at full price.  According to Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, “The implication of the lowering of the price is that’s devaluing the black doll”.  Besides the fact that this woman is a complete idiot, that’s not the best part of this whole story.  The doll in question, Ballerina Teresa, ISN’T EVEN THE “BLACK” DOLL!  Ballerina Christie is the “black” doll and Teresa is the “latino” doll.  These people are raising a stink over shit and they have NO idea what the fuck they are talking about.

A wise man once said “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than speak out and remove all doubt”.  Maybe these people should follow that little bit of advise, because they are really making themselves to look like fools.  In my opinion, there’s nothing more racist than people that claim they are for equality when actually they are the most racist people of all.  In this case, that doll wasn’t selling as well as the other one.  They put it on clearance to sell them and make room for inventory that was going to sell.  Walmart wasn’t implying that any ethnicity is any less valuable that any other, they were simply trying to move merchandise.  Get over it people, I mean, really…

Last night I sat down and wrote a letter to the members of the House Science Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics and the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science and Space.  I’ll share that letter with you today.  Please take your time and edit this letter to fit you or write one of your own.  It’s very important that we continue to fund the Constellation Project and all of NASA’s projects so we can continue to send men into space.  The members of the House can be found here, and the members of the Senate can be found here.  You may have to find their contact pages, but it’s not hard to do.

Here’s the letter:

Dear Senator / Congressman,

I’m writing you today concerning the future of manned space flight in the United States.  As a member of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space and Science / House Science Subcommittee on Space and Aeronautics, I’m sure you are well aware that the Obama administration has decided to pull funding for the Constellation program from his recommended budget for FY 2011. I know I’m not the only one that thinks that it would be a major mistake to cancel funding for this program and I hope that you feel the same way.

When I was coming to age during the 1980’s, it was right during the start of the Shuttle program.  I dreamed of one day flying on that Space Shuttle and going to space.  I cried on January 28, 1986 as the Challenger disaster occurred, not only because of the death of those 7 astronauts, but also because I thought that my dreams of going to space would now never come to fruition.  I even went to Space Camp in the summer of 1988 as an 11 year old kid with visions of the magnificent desolation that is space in my eyes and an undying love of science and technology in my heart.  Later in life I would have the honor of working for a short time as a contractor at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, LA and at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi as a network engineer.  As you can see, NASA and the US space program have been a part of my life since a very young age.  Years ago I came to terms with the fact that I would never have the opportunity to go to space as an astronaut, but at the same time I always held a small nugget of hope that one day NASA would start handing out medical waivers and I’d have my chance.

With the launch of STS-133 in September, the Space Shuttle program is slated to come to an end.  The Shuttle Program is the only thing my generation has ever experienced when it comes to manned space flight.  The last Apollo mission launched 16 months before I was born and for nearly 6 years there were no manned space flights until the launch of STS-1 in April of 1981.  Constellation is supposed to continue that tradition of sending man into space, but without your help, that program may be in jeopardy.

Constellation is also going to be man’s return to the Moon.  My generation never got to experience man landing on the moon.  We haven’t been there since 1972, and when we went there we did it with a computer (the Apollo Guidance Computer) that had the same computing power of a digital watch.  With today’s technology, just imagine what we could achieve.  Man needs to return to the moon.  It will provide a challenging, shared and peaceful activity to unite nations in pursuit of common objectives, extend human colonization, and expand the economic sphere while conducting research activities that benefit our home planet, not to mention engage the public and students to help develop the high-tech workforce that will be required to address the challenges of tomorrow.

While I can respect the President’s plan to pay private companies to shuttle astronauts to and from the ISS, there are currently no vehicles to do such a thing in the private arena.  While we are talking about ending our manned space program, India is well on their way to starting theirs.  By 2015 a third world country will be putting a man in Low Earth Orbit along with two second world countries and the greatest country on Earth, the United States of America, will be sitting back and watching.

That is why I am writing you and asking that you do whatever is within your power to assure that this program continues.  There has been a 20% drop in NASA spending since 1993 under Presidents Clinton and Bush, and it doesn’t look like President Obama will stray from the path his predecessors have laid.  I don’t think I need to tell you that the President’s budget is just a proposal and it’s up to Congress to approve it.  It is imperative that we continue to fund these programs, not only for the advancement of mankind, but also for the advancement of United States.  I don’t understand why the President wants to change policy that we have established by law not once, but twice.  Please do your part in assuring that Constellation and all future NASA programs receive the funding they deserve.

Sincerely,

Gregory M. Ledet

Here’s a Word Doc format if you want it. NASA letter