Humidity

It’s been a while, dear Reader.

But I now have some pertinent SNUC-related news and views.

It appears that I will not  be living in an area, ever, that is dry. We took a week-long trip to The Sierras last week. Beautiful, high, and dry. Most all places we stayed overnight were under 20% humidity. By the second night I was having trouble breathing through my nose. A few days later I became a mouth-breather. I even drooled a few times, always out of the right end of my mouth. Charming.

And so now I’m back in L.A. (right now it’s 79% humidity and 69º in Mar Vista), where I never knew I had it so good. I went to Dr. Finerman (super ENT that got this whole SNUC ball rolling) and he ‘cleaned up’ the mess as best as he could. Mess, you say? Propriety and my wife prevent me from showing you all the glorious blood and phlegm that I now produce. Just imagine a radiation-damaged and dryness-parched nostril putting out a big RED drop of blood at a rate of 1/second. Fortunately, we have wood and tile floors. Sinks too. Actually, notice that black spot on my nose; that’s dry blood. And the reddish tone to my right nostril ………….. you get it.

And I will henceforth be The Man in  the Big Hat whenever I go outside on a sunny day. Often w/ a collared shirt. B/c my neck and jaw have received 100% of allotted radiation for life. I have other hats, but I’m partial to  this Stetson Cattleman that was left by my Dad last year after he checked out (at age 92 -1  day).

To let Brigitte sleep just a little, I will be sleeping in ChuckSNUC HQ (aka office) for the next few nights. On Sat. I will remove that large chunk of cottonball that Dr. Finerman inserted into the right nostril, and maybe then I can return to a quiet nose-breather. So all you SNUC’ers out there may want to think about moving to Hawaii (good) or Houston (bad), but avoid Palm Springs and Sacramento. At least that is MY experience w/ head radiation. If you fellow SNUC ‘ers have a much different reaction, let me know.

And here’s a photo of a 54-year old SNUC’er almost 3 years after going through the meat grinder.

160 lbs. (the new normal – see pages on my eating habits) and not one who lays out in the sun. Arms are 100% Farmer’s Tan, but the head and neck less so. If I was more diligent the only tan would be the arms. FYI, that brown dot between my belly button and left nipple is the divot left from the gastrointestinal feeding tube back in the good ol’ days.

Chuck