Every Rose Has It's Thorn, Just Like Every Night Has It's Dawn

Just like every cowboy sings a sad, sad song.

Every rose has it's thorn.

'Every Rose Has It's Thorn' - Poison

That lyric really only works because Portland is the Rose City, but whatever works. So this week has been interesting. I arrived Saturday night, though all I did was quickly get to the hotel, set up shop, and go to bed. Figured some rest might do me good before the adventure ahead. Sunday started with my first Filgrastim injection. The purpose of this drug is to induce bone marrow to drastically increase production of white blood cells, and more importantly, stem cells. This is what makes possible these donations without the use of the giant needle into the hip, which as it turns out is barely used anymore. After about an hour for observation to make sure I wasn't going to have an allergic reaction, I was given some Vicodin, which I expected not to need, and was let loose upon the city. As I enjoyed the beautiful weather, I realized that I have an insufficient amount of summer clothing. Figuring there was no better time than the present, I hopped a bus for Clackamas Town Center. While there I bought a handful of new stuff, as well as a brief stop at Best Buy (of course, right?) to pick up some accessories for my new laptop. Upon returning to the hotel I decided to make use of the gym and swimming pool, and then retired for the night, mostly out of boredom (it had started raining, so more adventures on foot were out for now).

Monday was tremendously up and down. The trip for my injection was much shorter as they no longer needed to observe me for reactions. They asked me some questions regarding side-effects of which I'd had none, and sent me off. I decided that since the weather was going to be questionable, it was a good day to throw my nose into some books. Of course that means the next stop was Powell's. Oh what a beautiful place. I wandered aimlessly for a while before deciding on a rather unusual purchase (we'll come back to this), and left for a much more exciting pursuit. Turns out there was a Portland Beavers game going on just down the road at PGE Park, and the sun looked like it was going to come out. It is nice walking up to a stadium, asking for the best available seat, and getting in the front row for $15. Okay, I guess there were a couple rows in front of me, but those are season tickets only, so I considered it a win. The only downside was that on my way to the game, I found that apparently I was not going to be immune to the side-effects as I'd hoped. Well I worked my way through those with the help of the aforementioned prescription, which for sake of comparison, I only took 4 or 5 of them during the great knee injury last summer, starting 36 hours after it happened. It had only been 90 minutes since the injection. Probably not a great sign. To take my mind off the pain, and get through a particularly boring part of the game, I decided to make use of my purchase from Powell's. A few weeks ago I was asked if I have any artistic ability, in context I believe this meant mostly drawing and the like. Not exactly my specialty, but just as I answered, it may not be that I don't have the ability, simply that I haven't learned yet. So I took out my new sketchbook and pencils and starting drawing things I saw. My hope is to do a bit more of it around the city, but we'll see. Anyway, the game was fantastic, ending with a 4-3 Beavers win. There was also an interesting bit of drama toward the end. Some complete psycho went crazy on the security guards just about eight rows behind me. It took six of them to restrain the guy (of course the security guards weren't exactly the most imposing folk I've ever seen), but they managed to handcuff him to a seat until the police arrived. Nothing like some excitement in the stands to make the game that much better. So with the game over, I headed back to Powell's for a bit as I still wanted to look at the rare book room. After that I decided to get back to the hotel, because honestly things were starting to degrade quickly. Pretty much laid low and went back and forth between watching TV and going down to the hot tub for the rest of the night.

Which brings us to this morning. I'm about to go in for injection #3, which if the predictions are as accurate as they've been this far, is going to be very unpleasant. I can tell you that I'm already looking very forward to being back with my friends. Hope to see you back here in another couple days when I write about the last half of the trip. Miss you all, see you soon.