October was a month that went by with nothing much medically relevant other than the routine and boring Port Flush and B12 shots. That port is only there "just in case", but it's been a year and 10 months since my last chemo treatment. I stick with the blood work regimen: every three months I visit the Cancer Centre where they draw blood and check my CEA numbers. I've been lucky, no sign of anything worrisome.
October was fairly boring, I was lazy mostly and if it wasn't for raking leaves I could probably say I did nothing at all. I do have a mature maple in my back yard. My neighbor has a mature Oak in his front yard. Guess where they like to mix it up?
My trusty mower ("Mr. Mulchy") and I spent a pleasant afternoon enjoying the October sunshine.
I would feel that pride of homeownership after doing 'all the yard work' -even cleaning the gutters. November would see all that undone of course, but there are days where it doesn't matter what you do outside, you just enjoy it because you can! This sunny October day made me tired and happy and glad to be alive.
Leaves were not the only thing I did in October. Nope, this is the month that marked a return to my electronics hobby, specifically making Binary Clocks.
Binary Clocks (or in my case Binary Coded Decimal, or BCD clocks) embody all that is geeky with me and my hobby. For one thing it's a clock, and we all know there can never be enough clocks (nor time...). For another, it's got LEDS! My original "chemo clocks" were based around a single numitron tube and four LEDs that displayed the time in a sequential fashion. BCD clocks show the entire time, but in Binary Code, which is great if you grew up counting only in two's.
The BCD clock thing is something I've wanted to do for a while, indeed almost the day my last chemo finished in January of 2011 I started working on this idea. But I wasn't quite there yet, and it sat unfinished for over a year and a half. With my return to work, projects and things I used to divert myself from reality faded into the background. I had a lot to catch up on apparently. So I didn't do much with my electronics hobby, till October.
I made up for lost time. In one two-week period I think I made something like eight PCB's (some still waiting to be soldered up!). I experimented with some different designs, and while these were all adapted from the internet, they had my own particular (or peculiar) stamp about their construction.
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| Whole lotta BCD PCB's |
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| 12 hour BCD clock on a Tim Horton's Card |
The GREEN led clock shows 10:00,
the YELLOW led clock shows 10:01.
People do this concept all the time. They do it better, cheaper, faster, slicker and much more artistically. But this one is special, because I did it all -my code, my design, my artwork (pcb) my time and efforts. Good or bad, it's all me.
Finally I completed my last chemo-inspired project. There's only one more thing that ties me yet to my cancer journey and that's my Port. When that is removed I'll be more than an arms length away from Cancer. I'll have the memories and not the reminder every time that I put on a shirt.
October would remain the idyllic Fall it was always meant to be. Before Halloween's chilly arrival however I would receive a phone call from my Oncologist. My six-month follow-up was scheduled for November 5th. The same day as my monthly Port flush. Be it an interesting coincidence, or fortunate timing, my Port would be the focus of my discussions that day.
