DAY 008 -- "There Is Still A Light That Shines On Me"

Wooha! Today is the first day I’ve gotten up in the morning with zero pain. I’ve been living constantly with a two on the ten scale, even with my breakthrough meds, which I take when I hit eight. But, today, a zero!  (See Day 007 blog entry) The Doc today said these pain-free times will increase as the tumor shrinks. Ahoow! (I love palindromes.)

My total respite only lasted a few hours, but it was nice to get out of my own constricting circle for a while and be able to fully focus on something else without applying the constant body English. You know the kind; it’s the twist and contortion you perform to help keep that fly ball fair, or your bowling ball out of the gutter.

It works, too, and it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. It works, and that’s real enough for me.  But, I do have to be mindful of my compensating shrugs and lifts when the pain is suddenly sharp, and I also emit those little blurting exhales in public that I can’t control, easing the stab and alarming anyone close by.

But, as I’ve been discovering and relating here, I find myself feeling increasingly liberated from what have long been customary social niceties and decorum. I’m only sorry it took a cancer to show me that I’ve spent (we all have) WAY too much time fussing over the inconsequential, laboring over trivialities, caught up in crap.

That’s not saying that I’m now not respecting the space and sensitivities of others, but if I now inadvertently encroach on them, I’m not going to lose sleep over it. The cancer deprives me enough of that.

Now, if I notice that my socks have holes and/or don’t match, if I fart in an elevator, or if I trip and fall headlong into the produce section, I’m fine with it. I wear my holey hosiery with pride, take credit for my flatulence (apologetic but unrepentant), and brush the lettuce off my nose, announcing to the bystanding herbivores that I meant to do that; it’s my face plunge freshness test. 

Usually, laughs ensue all ‘round. When they don't, I can’t and won't fret over the small stuff. If we’re all honest with each other, and as it's oft been said: most of life is the small stuff.

One of my wife Diane’s frequent lines to me now is “Let it go. Just let it go.” She says this when she hears me fuming out loud over a moronic president, when I hit the wrong notes on the piano, or when my homespun trellis falls apart. She’s right there with a “Let it go,” and seals it with a hand on my shoulder or pulling me in for a soft kiss. She’s right, of course, and her moderating defuser is getting righter every day.

Just maybe not so coincidentally, my radiation chamber soundtrack today, soon as I stretched out in my mold and the whirring began, was “Let It Be.”  Hmmm … yes:

And when the night is cloudy

 there is still a light that shines on me.
Shine until tomorrow, let it be.

From here on out, I’ll welcome the zeroes, take the twos and fix the eights.

Let it go. Let it be.

More as we go, more as we are, El

DAY 007 -- "I Closed My Eyes And I Slipped Away"

Back into the cooked meat grinder today with both chemo and radiation, starting the day with a five on the ten pain scale. Funny, I used to get out of bed every day with a name. Now it’s a number.

Some minor snafus; let’s just call them my dose of logistical falling pianos: not really preventable or even foreseeable; I just happened to there when they dropped. For example:

--- when the cabinet containing the chemo drugs wouldn’t unlock due to a malfunctioning code reader,

--- when the chemo treatment was delayed due to an unexpected high volume use and depletion of protective gowns,

--- when the computers stopped talking to each other long enough to delay blood draws for me and my fellow infus-ees.

--- and, worst of all, when there was no milk in the unit fridge for my Rice Krispies. Egads! I was stuck for a while there in snap, crackle, stop mode.

But, I was also a difficult venipuncture “stick” today, partly due to my history of being a good nurse but a bad patient.” This prompted what I’ll call “The Big Wet One” speech from my very good chemo nurse, whom I’ll dub “Florence Fightingale.” Thirty-seven years’ experience, and when push came to insertion, that experience got it done. She helped me despite me and with no help from me.

“You’ve got to drink more; you know that.” This was the second time she’d given me the Big Wet One hydration speech while leveling what my mother used to call “The Hairy Eyeball.” I had it coming.

The result for not adequately hydrating prior to the procedure was my considerable site discomfort and her frustration (my fault, and I won’t put her through that again.)  Next time, I’ll chug a couple of Big Gulps before arriving. But, yes, before my nursing readers begin throwing bedpans at me, I’ll moderate my liquid overcompensation. We don’t need no steenkin’ hyponatremia as an added attraction.

As an irrelevant but fun aside, we all remember the lab phlebotomists telling us pre-needle: “Okay, now you’ll feel a little prick.” The jokes have all been written on that one, but suffice to say that now, when you get a blood draw, you’ll hear that you're going to "feel a little stick.”

Sigh.

I loathe this new and worsening sanitation of the language, thanks to the bullying mandate of political correctness. I’ll get off that soapbox by saying I worry a lot less about being held offensive these days (for reasons I know you now appreciate).  I’ve always tried to write one-size-fits-all humor (wit is better, but often more elusive), but if I don’t, and someone comes up offended, fuck it, and thank you for your kind attention up to here.

Later, I went to the next facility for my radiation, and after another techno-pop glitch that delayed my zapfest for an hour, I entered the chamber, slid into my mold and the Radionettes continued their ace musical background targeting. Up came Boston’s “More Than A Feeling.” Perfection, again:

I looked out this morning and the sun was gone
Turned on some music to start my day
I lost myself in a familiar song
I closed my eyes and I slipped away.

Making some big smalltalk, I asked what had happened to foul up my personal anti-Iron Maiden, and a repairing techie told me: “Well, first the reverse confluxulator short-circuited due to a super-electromotive induction, causing a long-circuited termination reduction of the multiplexing loop comparators.”

That’s what he said. Trouble is, it came out sounding like: “The thingamabog sucked out the whozamadingy.” After the treatment, I just had to pose with my body cast. After every treatment, they hang it in back on a rack like an old pair of beaten up wings. I like that.

One last sticky note from today: Ms. Fightingale, after struggling with my self-flattened blood vessels, did dump IV fluids into me. Before day’s end, I was peeing oodles of colorless urine.

What a pisser, but I’m feeling a little less like a little stick tonight.

More as we go, El

DAY 006 -- "It Was A Trick Question"

So ... what does a man with cancer do on a Saturday?

Grab his honey, his Harley, and ride off on this glorious day to Tuttle's Family Diner in Wells River, Vermont, for the world's best blueberry pancakes, then recapture it later as an artsy-fartsy photo.

(It was a trick question.)

But, don't relax too much; we'll be back at it next week with the return of Rad Chemo, the Radionettes, and always the risk of a revelation along the way. 

Thanks for ridin' alongside. 

More as we go, El

DAY 005 -- "I Don't Look Different, But I Have Changed"

TGIF! (Tomorrow Gets In Free!)

I’m not sure I know what I mean by that, but TA-DA! now if I want to flounder on occasion, I’m going to. I’ve spent close to a lifetime of feeling like I had to have all the right answers, to know everything about everything, to berate myself when I was wrong or came up short or missed my cues or dropped the ball, misjudged a distance, overshot a runway, complicated a simplicity or stepped on a crack.

But, now comes a cancer, and it has a way of leveling playing fields that I didn’t even know were hosting sporting events. We all win, we all lose, and we damn sure all play. But, we also all buy season tickets.

Uh oh … I see that I’m drifting into metaphor mixing and abuse (a favorite refuge), but it is my way of chasing wisdom, exercising my new prerogative license and changing the water spots under a horse of a different color.

See? Sorry. I can't --- and now I won't --- stop.

A long, long time ago (last month) in a galaxy far, far away (the tilted windmills of my mind) I thought I had to know everything about everything. After all, I’m a man, I’ve passed middle age, and I DID inhale.  

Now, I'm determined to let go of any urge to repent, regret or fear, and neener-neener-neener to anyone who objects. Today, my mind and bodyscape comfort was more tolerable, more like a three on the scale, and the breakthrough pain I did have was well-managed with my own better living through organic chemistry formulae.

On to the terrible table for my daily kill n’ shrink zapfest, and again the rockin’ Radionettes did not disappoint. Today, they set up some memorable flashbacks (I’ll keep the shady particulars to myself, not wanting to expose any extant cohorts in crime).

It was still nice to go there in my music memory as I was lit up, courtesy of The Beatles. Maybe my pushy paraphrase is not what John and Paul intended, but what's art for if not to reinvent ourselves, and it’s what I’m taking from it today in my dark transparency:

I'm looking through me, where did I go 

I thought I knew me, what did I know
I don't look different, but I have changed
I'm looking through me, I’m not the same.

Oh, and a neat little postscript:

One of the Radionettes told me that I really should try to not sing as I’m being irradiated. If I don’t breathe normally (impossible to do, once you’re asked to) it can throw things off.

Okay, then it’s silent karaoke from here on.

But, now I must work on my motionless lie-down dancing.

More as we go, El

DAY 004 -- "Goes Far, Flies Near"

Resumed radiation following Independence Day yesterday, a day off from treatment. Oh, and I’m now adopting “Independence Day” for my own use (my apologies, Uncle Sam; it’s only temporary and I’ll return it when I’m finished.)

Independence.  To be free of tubes, wires, lights meant to heat, heat meant to illuminate, and free of any machine that rotates, flashes and hums around my body, somehow mapping my innards which now present with new detours and (dare I say it) dead ends.

Some stubborn chest pain today, getting up to 8 on the scale. Same place, same sensation, just amplified: something resembling striking my chest with a ball-peen hammer through a bowling ball. And, it migrates to the back. So, today it only hurt when I stood, sat, laid down, breathed, talked, walked or slept.

I think I tried everything except running it off.  And chocolate. Next time, I’m going jogging with a Hershey bar.

I do use my cannabidiol (CBD) for these breakthroughs, but it’s efficacy has become unpredictable: some days a drop or two sublingually does the trick, others I have to reach for the fast-release oxycodone --- always effective, but I’d rather be ingesting, shooting, swallowing, rubbing or inserting an organic reliever versus popping a semisynthetic opioid.

I’m reaching into the Sherman archives, where my grandma’s formula for good living was simple: “Whatever flips your skirt.”

For now, the docs agree with this approach and encourage me to use and do whatever works best.

Entering the treatment room, the attending Radionettes again hit my high musical mark. Soon as I climbed up on the terrible table and stretched out in my mold, they cued up Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride.”

On a cloud of sound I drift in the night
Any place it goes is right
Goes far, flies near
To the stars away from here

Hmmm … today that may have worked better than running with chocolate.

More as we go, El