Update

 I should have written another entry but after finally getting past the first round of radio-Iodine treatment it honestly took me some time to regain my energy to get on top of work, let alone a hobby. Then, I've had to put all my energy in digging out of the hole my project at work fell into during my recovery time. I'm still nowhere out of the woods there (yet) but at least I'm somewhat back to my old strength, at least until the next round. My endocrinologist was concerned a certain cancer marker remains elevated in my bloodwork, and in consulting with the nuclear medicine physician they both want to re-scan me next month.

I've got some other screening tests coming up in a week or so but should at least be able to enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday, before having to go on the infamous low-iodine diet starting December 1st. The week of December 13th I start the whole daily shuffle to the hospital for injections of Thyrogen, a lower-level dose of radioactive Iodine-131, IVs with contrast dye, and lots of radiology scans to see if any errant, assumed-malignant thyroid cells "light up" on the scans. Hopefully nothing will show, and I won't have to go through the high-dose treatment again, which would be early next year.

I'm honestly "sick-of-being-sick" at this point, and want to get my old life back. Besides a challenging project with a difficult client the added headwinds of illness and treatment is something I can ill-afford as a project manager in this business. Add to that repeated turnover in resources (read: the Great Resignation) and a customer whose expectations are far from aligning to reality I'm sort of living the perfect storm of misery when it comes to life outside the hobby. I know the hobby will always be there but I find myself sometimes - between Zoom calls - looking wistfully into the layout room, where literally nothing has moved or progressed since last report. Frustrating, to say the least, and burned-out at worst.

So, here I am on a Sunday evening getting ready to start the workweek with approving my team's timesheets and expense reports from the week prior, and scheduling meetings into the next week - before my hyper-active client starts sending out nasty-grams about our "poor communication" and "lack of engagement." Maddening... the politics of this client, but albeit, typical of large, corporate behemoths too heavy on bureaucracy. If I had a time machine I think I'd pick a different profession, but at age 51 with a professional certification it's a bit late to start over. Just make it to retirement, I keep telling myself.

At least the trains will still be there should I make it to that magic date. That is what keeps me going some days.

Derailed

 

I sort of saw this coming, and - operating under Restricted Speed rules and all - pretty much got my train stopped in time. Either way the track ahead is temporarily blocked for a bit, and it's not COVID-19. Late last year I was at an annual check-up with my primary physician, and she noticed a small bump on my right thyroid. It wasn't bothering me, and my labs were normal but we had it checked out regardless. Three ultrasounds, two biopsies and a genetic marker test later and I'm diagnosed with Stage III thyroid cancer, and a total thyroidectomy scheduled.

I'm now two weeks post-op and the results from pathology just came in. Besides a 6.7 cm malignant mass on the right side several of my lymph nodes were compromised on both the left and right side of my neck. I'm scheduled for radioactive iodine-131 therapy in a couple of weeks, and will be starting a (rather tough) low-iodine diet after this coming weekend. The good news is this type of cancer is highly treatable with this sort of radiation so my prognosis is positive. Still, never, ever ignore a bump that doesn't belong there historically, even if you think maybe I just pulled a muscle or strained something. If it doesn't go away in a couple of weeks see someone.

What has been derailed is the first half of my summer plans while I attend to this temporary health setback, and my active modeling has been largely put on the back burner until I get through the treatments, and on thyroid medicine. Losing a thyroid causes all sorts of issues with your metabolism, energy level and ability to concentrate and focus. As the hormones fade the more days past my surgery I'm told it's going to be a bit of a slog until my radiation is complete and I can go on the synthroid drug. I'll just keep plugging along the best I can in the meantime.

Since I'm largely stuck at home - especially during the week-plus of radiation therapy - I plan on continuing to organize the layout room and get things prepared for modeling again. I still have those light bars to hang and wire into the ceiling, and perhaps paint and seal the Homasote subroadbed should I have enough energy. I still have my day job as a project manager with a fairly intense and rather complex warehouse implementation project to lead. However, I have a good team and a strong co-lead helping me so the goal here is to pace myself better on this one. Keeping the inevitable stress managed is key to restoring (and keeping) my health.

Thank goodness we have a hobby that helps during tough times like these.

Roadmaps and Restricted Speed

It's been almost a year now since my last post and COVID is still with us and raging eleven months later. I've thankfully been off the road since that time, which one would think might allow for more time in the basement working on the railroad. Alas... the bold, new, highly-connected post-pandemic world of 24/7 video Zoom meetings seem to keep one's behind firmly planted in his home office desk chair. This especially became the case after management figured out that since us (formerly road-warrior) consultants are no longer wedded physically to a client site we can theoretically juggle multiple customers (e.g. 5+) and their associated projects simultaneously, or so the bosses believe. While I don't miss the weekly o'dark-thirty drive to the airport, then the 'fly-change planes-fly again-rent car-hotel check-in shuffle' I do miss only have one or maybe two client projects to oversee at any one time. Sometimes "being careful what you wish for" is a truism, especially when one longed for home while on the umpteenth business trip that year.

So needless to say, despite being grounded due to the pandemic I really didn't make much progress on the layout, other than solving a vexing engineering problem with the overhead LED light bars that had been bedeviling me for a long while. I still have to solve the rear and low-profile front backdrop design - will likely go the aluminum trim coil route there - so it may be some additional period of time until tracklaying begins in earnest. Meanwhile, I try to make some incremental progress on the basement empire while operating at the current restricted speed as dictated by workload and my boss by fait accompli,  as in "No hobby time for you... TWO YEARS!" (with apologies to Seinfeld's Yev Kassem character). Not sure if I'm going to rebrand myself as "the Resistance" but perhaps a little leisure-time insurgency is indeed warranted in these odd times.

Performing the delicate balance of freelancing while maintaining reasonable plausibility takes a lot of homework, often historical in nature. While I have my favorite prototype roads from the upper midwest like the Soo Line, Milwaukee and the North Western I've always wanted to be the captain of my own ship - my own James J. Hill, albeit in miniature form. This is where developing your own road and alternate history comes into play, sort of the model railroad equivalent of fantasy football where - armed with your modeler's license - you can do what is necessary to bend history to serve your own purpose. It is a good thing I'm a bit of an amature cartagrapher and student of industrial history and archeology, which can become a hobby in and of itself at times. It was in the course of another round of 'desk-bound' research that I came across a trove of old Penn Central ZTS maps for the Saginaw Sub.

ZTS, or 'zone-track-spot' maps are the railroad Operating Department equivalent of the aforementioned Engineering Dept. station maps. However, where the focus on the latter is turnout size, track curvature and other civil engineering minutiae the operating folks are more concerned with the car capacities of each track, industry names, spotting locations and the like. Railroad crews are usually issued ZTS maps for their territory and use them to learn where certain tracks are that may be identified on their switchlist, and how exactly to spot them at a customer for loading or unloading of cargo. This new tranche of information has provided a lot of answers on old industries that used to be customers on the old Michigan Central, especially on those tracks that have long ceased to exist.

 In the map above you see the ZTS drawing for the Carrollton-Zilwaukee area just north of Saginaw Yard, which is figured prominently on the top part of my layout drawing featured in the previous post. While I had planned on modeling the large Saginaw Grain terminal and adjacent Huron Cement facility I hadn't yet identified what industry would be featured on the far, upper left-hand side of this switching district. The newly discovered ZTS for the "snake track" (my name for this extended industrial spur) shows a couple possibilities - either Schaefer Chemical or Kretschmer Wheat Germ. Both companies are surprisingly still in operation at new locations, and you can find the latter product on your local grocery store shelves as a so-called "super-food." I still need to find out what types of rail cars served both businesses, however for the time being this riddle has been solved.

I also have ZTS maps for the Midland branch and the Wenona terminal area in N. Bay City so analysis of these wonderful maps are ongoing to firm up the industries and supporting trackage in those respective areas. While not much has been accomplished this year in physical form the design refinements supported by the newly uncovered documents ensures the layout will be both accurate and engaging for visiting operating crews and spectators alike. As the general manager of this proto-freelanced road I'll also have the satisfaction in "owning" the fictitious company - something not available to pure prototype modelers that are copying a section of actual railroad from its 1:1 scale reality, warts and all. Creating a fact-ional alternate history can combine the best of both worlds, but it takes diligence and work to pull it off in a convincing manner. I hope the DM&M will measure up well to roads like Allen McClelland's V&O and Eric Brooman's Utah Belt. Achieving that milestone down the line is what keeps me focused and on-task, albeit apparently from my desktop for the time being.