October 24. Lying in bed the evening after my third treatment, I suddenly notice something. My God! For the first time in months my shoulder doesn’t hurt. Ecstatic for a moment. Then I realize there’s a disaster I’m currently unaware of that will announce itself with a thunderclap.

October 25. Boy, I sure hope I don’t get bird flu.

October 26. Shoulder a lot better. Nothing to report except a hangnail on my anvil-crushed thumb. By and by it begins to feel like a cobra bite.

October 27. Slept until four P.M. Thumb still bad. Why are we here? Just to suffer?

October 29. Elsa calls and says she saw the wolf again, hunkered down behind her woodshed. “It’s an evil beast. Thom, I am so afraid. Why won’t he leave me alone?”

October 30. Prostate trouble and a searing pain in my urethra. I take an OxyContin and soak in a hot bath to relax.

November 1. Elsa tells me the five A.M. puker is still at it.

November 2. Took some Advil for my thumb. The Advil ignites a nuclear fireball in my stomach. Heartburn. The Channel 7 weatherman said there would be a meteor shower tonight. Outside for an hour and all I see are fizzlers. As a result, I get a sore neck and have to dig through the garage to find my cervical collar.

November 5. Elsa caught the dawn puker. Her immediate neighbor “just couldn’t take it anymore.”

November 9. I spring out of bed at noon, determined to accomplish great deeds. I tackle a raft of dishes, and through the kitchen window I see the farmer who lives behind me chucking fallen branches from his side of the fence over to mine. With him is the gray Norwegian elkhound Elsa has mistaken for a wolf. It is medium-size, about fifty pounds, and wagging its tail to beat the band. I thank the farmer for the logs and tell him that with all that lumber I can finally build a meth lab. He looks at me and says, “You can kiss my ass!”

November 12. My diabetic toenails have evolved into hooves. Square them away with a rat-tail file.

November 15. Decide to use the business-class plane tickets I bought to Africa during my insomnia phase. They cost a small fortune; best I use them. All day packing. Wide-eyed and fearful. Another ghastly trip. What was I thinking?

November 16. Dawn limo to Sea-Tac, five hours to New York, two-hour layover, then an all-night flight to Heathrow, nine hours to Nairobi, drinking shooters. Arrive drunk. A pickpocket lifted my dummy wallet with my old driver’s license, an expired library card, and two bucks. Thank God for money belts, though mine was purchased during the Jimi Hendrix era. The psychedelic colors will be a big hit in Zambia.