Glands and Openings.

It has been so very hot here, ever since Jim left for Florida to do "Zero," I've hardly been out of the house except to get food (both human and cat).

My attentions have been focused on music, mostly. Getting my "Pantheon" score all finalized for delivery to Kathleen, since she's going to be doing the final arrangements around the end of July. I also have been working on some other random songs as well as writing a kind of memoir, which is coming out in short chapters which I should just post here but I haven't yet.

Also, I got a call from my doctor last week, "Dr. Tony wants to know if you can come in today. He wants to look at that swollen lymph gland under your arm."

Geez, I barely recall a swollen lymph gland. Oh, yeah, I remember now. He asked me if it had been hurting me or giving me any other kind of discomfort. "No." "That's good."

So I made my way over the hill last week in the boiling heat and had an extra exam.

"Hmm," he said in that way doctors have which sound vaguely ominous. "I think you should go see this hematologist. It doesn't seem to be going away."

Now, people with HIV tend to get things like swollen glands, so I wasn't remotely worried about this. In fact, I have two swollen lymph nodes just behind my jawline that I've had since I first got diagnosed.

So, I went home and called this doctor and found out I was calling the hematology/oncology department.

Ahhhhh. Now I get it. We have to see if this is cancer. Now I see why he was being so on guard. And that's why I love my doctor. I barely even remembered that he had found a swollen gland, but he had obviously flagged it and didn't want to just wait until my next appt. at the end of July.

Frankly, I can barely feel the damned thing. However, appointments being difficult to come by, they couldn't fit me in until the end of July at this new doc. But then yesterday they called and had an opening. So, I'll be doing today. Just letting you know. I don't want anyone freaking out. I'm not going to freak out.

My friend Michael asked me if I was nervous, and other friend, Ernie, asked if I needed him to go with me. I told them both I wasn't nervous and I didn't need a babysitter, but I appreciated their concern. And Jim is in Florida. He's the one who's nervous.

By the way, he's doing really well. He opened this past weekend to standing ovations and screams and audiences going crazy over him. As well they should.

Bottom line is that I'm sure it's nothing, but I'm glad we're checking it out.

Last night was the first cool night we've had in some time. So, I walked down to Kulak's Woodshed. This is a acoustic club here in the Valley where they broadcast live over the Internet every night despite the fact that some porn star who has his office near there is harassing them constantly for supposedly "illegally" running a club in a business district with no parking (on a street where everything is closed at night and parking is absolutely no problem).

I sang there a long time ago. It was fun to just drop in. I didn't know anyone, and I got there too late to sign up for the open mic, but I just might have to do that some night.

Also, for those of you who enjoy watching or following along with transgender persons, there is a new show called "Gender Blenders" being broadcast over the Net. The trailer is here.