The Chemo Chronicles: A lost Sunday

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Sunday—the second full day after Friday’s chemo and immunotherapy session—was, quite simply, a lost day.

Air Infusion—my attempt to reframe a five-to-six-hour chemo session as an imaginary flight between Hawaii and the West Coast—hit a patch of severe turbulence that dominated the entire day.

Dizzy. Dazed. Lightheaded. Foggy. Unsteady. Spacey. Distracted. I’m not sure how to capture all the elements, but you get the idea. It was my first experience with a more serious level of side effects, which didn’t make for a pleasant Sunday.

Through most of the day, my head was spinning and I felt unsteady, unable to trust my balance and feeling vulnerable to a fall. Seeking refuge, I eased myself into a nearby chair, expecting the sensation to pass. It didn’t. Even sitting, I didn’t feel grounded.

I’ve grown accustomed to a persistent 15% fog, but this was the first time it took over completely—no longer just a thin layer, but a deep pool I was floating in all day.

I was still able to function to some extent, getting around the house by being extra cautious in keeping feet and head going in the same direction, accessing my digital world, managing basic tasks like getting snacks and keeping fluids flowing for basic hydration, even seeing moments of good light and grabbing a camera for a few cat pics.

I knew it would be unsafe to drive, so we spent the day at home. I had at least a couple of short naps, rested while checking email, did some light background research for future blog posts. I cooked dinner, fed the cats. But no heavy lifting, mental or physical.

It’s now Monday morning. I made a pot of coffee, fed the cats, have one of the cat wter fountains recharging on the kitchen counter, and I’ve finished a bowl of cereal with a glass of low-sodium V8.

Hopefully we’ll be able to venture out today for a drive to our vet in Hawaii Kai to replenish the cat food reserves, with a stop at Safeway for cat litter. I’m hoping that doesn’t prove overly ambitious.

Before Climate Change Made A/C Essential, Hawaii Made It Modern

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Illustration by ChatGPT

I was reading an article in the Economist Magazine on Saturday describing the growing class tensions and street battles over access to air conditioning across the globe (“The geopolitics of air-conditioning“). Yes, I subscribe to The Econonist online and find it a source of good reporting.

As extreme heat breaks tempers and electricity grids, fights over ac—or the energy that powers cooling tech—are threatening to break politics. It is a decidedly modern problem: ac hardly existed even in America before 1960; now climate change has made it a near-absolute must in much of the world. In November the cop30 climate summit, held in Belém, Brazil, declared cooling technologies like air-conditioning to be “essential infrastructure” like water, energy and sanitation.

That got me wondering about A/C’s history in Hawaii. I found the answer in the Hawaii Modernism Context Study done for the Historic Hawaii Foundation

This sction on air conditioning appears as Chapter 4.2.1 in this Historic Hawaii study that provides a broad review of 20th Century architecture in Honolulu.

The idea of circulating cool air through a building has existed at least since the beginning of the first millennium. To keep their houses cool during the summer months, affluent Romans piped aqueduct water behind their interior walls. Circulating cold air through a structure wasthe cooling method utilized by Chinese during the Han dynasty at least by the third century.

Willis Haviland Carrier is credited with inventing the modern electric air conditioner. In 1902, a year after Carrier graduated as an engineer from Cornell University, he designed and built a commercial air-conditioning unit for the Sackett-Wilhelms Lithographing and Publishing Company in New York. The system was intended to be used to actively cool machinery involved in the printing process, but Carrier discovered that not only could his design cool the air, but regulate humidity as well. Reduced humidity and temperature helped printing presses calibrate ink and paper alignment. This development paved the way for industrial and commercial use of air conditioning as Carrier and six other engineers formed the Carrier Engineering Corporation in 1915, and opened a factory in Syracuse, New York. In 1921, Carrier patented the centrifugal refrigeration machine, a centrifugal-compressor similar to the centrifugal turning-blades of a water pump. The ‘centrifugal chiller’ was the first practical method of air conditioning large spaces. Cooling for human comfort rather than industrial need began in 1924, when the J.L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit installed three Carrier centrifugal chillers. In Hawaii, the McInerny Store on Fort Street (no longer extant) was air conditioned in 1926, which would make it a very early example in the nation of air conditioning used for the comfort of people. The boom in human cooling spread from department stores to movie theaters with the Rivoli Theater in New York being an early example. In 1928, Carrier developed the first residential ‘Weathermaker’, an air conditioner for private home use, and in 1932 the Carrier Engineering Corporation used the recently invented refrigerant Freon to make the world’s first self-contained home air conditioning unit, called an “Atmospheric Cabinet.” The Great Depression and World War II slowed the non-industrial use of air conditioning. After the war, consumer sales started to grow and by 1953 over a million window units were sold.

W. A. Ramsay Ltd. became the Hawaii agent for Carrier Corporation in 1935, and in a September 1935 half page newspaper advertisement proclaimed itself the only air conditioned offices in Hawaii. Later that year the Hawaii Theater installed air conditioning as part of its remodeling; in 1936, the Cooke Trust Company Offices, Waikiki Theater, and Queens Hospital asthma ward all became air conditioned. In 1938, Von Hamm Young, who was the distributor for Frigidaire air conditioners, installed this equipment in the offices in the Campbell Estate Building on Fort Street. The first fully air conditioned house in Hawaii was the Topping residence (1938) designed by Dahl & Conrad. Another early appearance of air conditioning in Hawaii was at Shangri-La (1939) where Doris Duke had air conditioning installed in three rooms: her wine cellar, kitchen storage room, and the room which contained the master phonograph. The young millionairess explained to the press that Hawaii’s climate was one of the things that induced her to build a home in the islands, and she had no intention to manufacture her own climate in which to live.

The use of air conditioning in Hawaii gradually expanded during the 1950s and 1960s, especially in new commercial buildings, and was associated with a sense of being modern and up-to-date. The Honolulu Advertiser concisely summed up this implicit relationship in one sentence when it reported, “The Pacific Development Co. is constructing a modern building to house six air conditioned offices and shops” at 1202 Waimana Street between Pensacola and Piikoi Streets (July 2, 1954, page B6). The coffee shop in the no longer extant Edgewater Hotel (1951) was the earliest known air conditioned eating place in Waikiki. The hotel also presented Hawaii with the islands’ first automated elevator and also the first hotel swimming pool. Times Supermarket claims to be the first super market to install air conditioning, and St. Elizabeth’s Episcopal Church in Kalihi (1952) was the first air conditioned place of worship. Very few home owners or builders chose to install climate control in modern dwelling units, and in June 1968 Hawaiian Electric Company estimated that no more than sixty five homes in Hawaii were fully air conditioned. Cost was a large consideration because the $2,000 to $4,000 expense increased the cost of a dwelling by at least ten percent.

Air conditioner dealers and installers were cautiously optimistic that their sales in Hawaii would accelerate during the 1970s, reflecting the dramatic growth in sales that took place on the mainland during the last half of the 1960s. They optimistically looked toward the growing condominium market as a major consumer for air conditioners, as witnessed by the construction in 1968 of both the Princess Leilani condominium apartment (1561 Kanunu Street) and the Wailana (1860 Ala Moana Boulevard), whose apartments came fully air conditioned. The number of residential units completely air conditioned in Hawaii increased by 322 units by the end of 1968. By 1969 six fully air conditioned condominium projects were under construction, including three developed by Bruce Stark. This developer considered air conditioning a given for all future condominium construction as high-rise dwellers desired air conditioning not only for keeping cool, but in order to reduce noise, air pollution, wind, and sun glare. As the 1970s turned into the 1980s, the growing popularity of air conditioned environments resulted in architects designing less open buildings, as they no longer felt a need to rely on the natural ventilation of buildings by the trade winds.

The Chemo Chronicles:
Round Two, Week #1

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[I asked Google’s Gemini AI to create a color cross-hatch drawing from a selfie taken yesterday at the beginning of my chemo session. ChatGPT did not produce a successful result given the same instructions.]

I intend to update this post throughout Saturday, my first day follwing Friday’s chemo treatment.

The most recent update will appear at the top. Read down to toward the bottom to get the whole story, if you’re interested.

Saturday, July 25, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Well, the day passed and I experienced no new side effects. There could still be more ahead as the drugs continue towards their maximum bodily impact, but for now it’s been more of the same.

I managed to make it through a $115 trip through the aisles of Times Supermarket in Kahala. I was masked up through as we traipsed through the aisles picking up items for the next week. Their supply of Taro Brand poi was gone, although as I recall the delivery day is Friday. I’m still several days away from eating through my supply, but I prefer to have some backup as I finish the bowl I’m working on

That was our only out of the house activity of the day. I worked on o couple of planned future posts that required additional background research, although haven’t finished anything yet scheduled to appear tomorrow (Sunday). Worked hard on hydration, and downed a mid-afternoon protein shake as well. We had leftover Costco ribs for dinner, with fresh grilled corn. I grilled a few baby red potatoes for Meda, while I had a bowl of poi. After dinner, a small bowl of ice cream that was part of the Times run.

I did end the day with the impression that the layer of lightheadedness (or dizziness) increases for a time after good meal. If I’m able to confirm that impression, I wonder what that means in the scheme of things?

Unless I start feeling worse overnight, we were planning an early breakfast at the Elks Club at the foot of Diamond Head Sunday morning. But the I got word that the Elks will be closed this morningn because Kalakaua Avenue is closed for a triathalon finish. So I’ll cook breakfast, and sometime later we will take a drive to get backup cat food. Otherwise, it’s another stay-at-home day primirily resting.

And I’ll be hoping to continue sidestepping any substantial side effects. But only time will tell.

After completing the post, I went scurrying to find the origin of that last phrase, and found this online at Phrase Finder.

The precise age of the proverb ‘Time will tell’ or ‘Only time will tell’ is difficult to determine because the written evidence of it is rather thin on the ground. However, it does appear to date back many centuries, possibly to the 1500s.

Both phrases are used to say that it is hard to predict the future or how a plan or strategy might pan out, and that sometimes, when there is an element of uncertainty about how things will go or how things will play out, we will have to wait ,and as time passes, the circumstances or situation will become more clear.

It’s often useful to employ this line of thinking when you are carrying out a ‘Trial and error’ strategy. Or in other words, when you try one strategy first and see how that affects things, before reacting accordingly, and tweaking the strategy as needs arise.

It is a universal sentiment, and it crops up in several cultures and languages all over the world.

Saturday, July 25, 3-8 a.m.

I awoke a few minutes before 3 a.m. with what felt like the creeping start of a dehydration headache. So I sat up, waited, then got to my feet and came out to the kitchen for a glass of Gatorade.

I opened my laptop as I sipped my way through the Gatorade. The cloying flavor of artificial flavoring makes imbibing a chore. But not unpleasant enough to forgo altogher. An hour later, I had done the first pass through email, deleting the 90% that required no more than a glance at the title/sender to know it wasn’t something I needed to see. Started on a post for the day, including coaxing Google’s Gemini to create the drawing featured in this post. Then I turned off the lights and went back to bed. It was just a few minutes after 4.

And I slept soundly until about 5:45, when I had to get up in order to take out any trash to guarantee I wouldn’t miss an early city pickup, which might come anytime between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m.

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The Chemo Chronicles: Dreamworld

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I start Round 2 of chemotherapy/immunotherapy this morning. I don’t feel overly stressed about the prospect of continuing it over at keast the next several months. The infusion experience has not been unpleasant, and I haven’t experienced the kind of severe side effects that you hear so much about.

I’ve previously noted disrupted sleep since starting chemo almost a month ago. I wake up from a dream that weighs on me, so I get out of bed and spend a little time awake reading mail or news or whatever. That continues.

But it’s taken me this long to realize how many stressful dreams involve chemotherapy in one way or the other.

Some of these are kind of obsessive. I’m looking at some kind of printout of chemo results. And I’m unsuccessfully trying to make sense of what it shows, repeatedly going through the same futile attemps. Yes, I know, that doesn’t happen. But it creaps into my dreamworld.

I another dream, repeated a couple of times, I’m looking at what appear to be three small, fancy pastries. But I’m told these are part of the chemo regimen, and I’m supposed to choose which one I want. In the dream, I’m visualizing taking these apart, layer by layer, to see what’s in them in an attempt to inform my choice. It doesn’t go well. The dream always ends in frustration.

I have to start paying closer attention and writing down those fleeting memories immediately after escaping from one of these dreams.

Interestingly, none of these dreams includes realities as I’ve experienced them, few of which have been bad. I guess that means its the unknown that is nagging at me.

Getting out the other side of these frustrating dreams will make it easier to get more rest, which is sorely needed.