DAY 011 -- "Once Upon A Toke"

Once upon a disease, “weekends off” meant time to clean the gutters, edge the lawn, burn the burgers, head to Lowe’s to buy that broken weedwhacker replacement whirligig thingie-dingie, or to pretend I’m a new breed of visio-chemist who finds artsy-fartsy photo profundity in my stacked medicine bottle skyline … or … forget all that and instead search for brave new ways to make play and leisure the driving albeit short-lived forces and payoffs for the week’s labors.

Yes, now, thanks to rascal Rad Chemo, I must work hard at play. I must catch-up on all those domestic fall-behinds we tend to leave for the weekend, then force myself to relax above all else and to stop thinking of weekends as more than just “two days without treatments.”

One bit of culture commentary, then I’m off with Diane to jump in the lake. Today in a not so random observation:

Smoking has changed, as we all know.  Now forbidden in restaurants, bars, public buildings, hospitals and in many places the great outdoors.

I’m not saying that my adult lifetime of smoking gave me this lung cancer, but if that link in my life was a court case, I’d be a witness for the prosecution. True enough, people do succumb from cancers with no apparent cause, but that’s where the defense falls flat. Look at the numbers.

“Hypocrite! Bluenose!” you might level at me, and I might deserve it, but my point is not to point the finger at anyone else. I’ve always thought that the answer to litter is not to pick up everyone’s trash, but rather to not throw any yourself.

Play that logic out to the end, and you’ll see it solves the problem for all of us.

But, I do have a new not-so-random sensitivity or two, post-lung cancer onset:

--- Once upon a toke, I couldn’t sit at a computer (typewriter in the early days) without a butt going. Now, I can’t imagine it.

--- I see groups of people huddled here & there at some employs, usually now gathering beside a dumpster or a “designated smoking” area, but even those are becoming rare. I never noticed them before, even when I was in them.

--- I’m remembering ashtrays at the nurse’s station in the hospitals (that’s how long I’ve been in the trenches, and I mean the latter kindly).

--- I remember as a boy, sneaking a pack of Camels from my mother’s purse, climbing out my window on the roof and lighting up. First thing she said when I came back downstairs: “Did you enjoy your smoke?” I thought she was a genius.

When I spot a pride of puffers these days, I’m sad. First because I’m now hyper-tuned into the odor, and it’s what hits my senses first. I’m coming up on four years out quitting smoking, and I can now smell a smoker across the street. And, when any smoker who passes by me isn’t smoking, I smell it on them.

Egads. That’s how I smelled all those years? Ugh. Ughier. Ughiest. And, I’m sad because I now know (yes, even though I KNEW all those years) the tolls of tobacco. But, if I can come to the end of it, anyone can.

Great weekend, everyone. Good luck fixing your whackers!

More as we go, El

DAY 010 -- "All The World's A Triple Word Score"

The question today is: Where do I go as a daily diarist after spending almost all of yesterday’s entry dealing with my innards going outwards? Admittedly, not a pleasant subject, but a very real one as I head into the cruxes of my cancer. I did try to make it entertaining, even OMG funny (see Day 009), but today I’ll go easy on both of us. I took my meds as ordered, so let's move past my GI heave-hos.

Diane has been reminding me of this tendency of mine, whenever I get a little too puffed up over my illness and forget the rest of my brain and bones, that meanwhile, there’s a life going on that has roots and branches and bark and fruit reaching far beyond this damned disease. “Everything is not always all about the cancer, you know.”

One slice of humble pie, coming up. She loves me; she is unconditionally there for me, but she’s also determined to help me focus on and embrace all that I have, all that we have --- all the goods and goodies in our lives that have nothing to do with my affected lung and lymph.

I can also forget way too often that all suffering is relative, and all attending relatives suffer right along with the one afflicted. She is hurting, too. She is worried. She is scared. She is angry at the illness. And, when I falter, she is the braver one and helps me to help myself through it.

She also knows that I need to come away from and get outside of what seems like an encircling incredible shrinking man mist, but easy to say is not easy to do. Yes, I do need to go there. Yes, this cancer is always running in the background, sometimes taking center stage, and some days it IS the stage, but it is not the only play in a season … ever.

Time out today to simultaneously cinch it up, let it go, and get out on the Harley between treatments. In general, I should always keep their Live To Ride, Ride To Live credo in plain sight.

Today I visited a dear disabled friend for a fun photo op with the bike. And, later, I asked for Classical music while humming in the chamber. Something about Ludwig’s “Ode To Joy” that had me, my radiating rotating armatures and Beethoven jamming in smooth synchronicity.

I also had a beard trimming ritual with Diane, and when I wrap this up, we’re leaving cancer on the back burner and settling in for a spirited and benign game of Malbec, wheat crackers, cheese and Scrabble.

Tonight, all the world’s a triple word score.

More as we go, El

DAY 009 -- "Yelling At The Ants"

Today, life was like a long, edgy, grayscale walk in a hospital high-rise parking garage.

I wish I could always grace these entries with sweetness and light, all gushy and yippie, but some days and nights won’t have it. Today was a rough one, with the first big curtain (or wave, or swoop, or a moniker I haven’t settled on yet) of nausea and vomiting making its debut into this treatment mix milieu early this morning.

Ugh-ugh. We should acknowledge up front, now that I’ve dragged you into my reality, that I intentionally forgot to take my prophylactic anti-nausea meds after chemo. I was supposed to do this in the evening and morning after treatment, to ward off the queasy that was anticipated to be coming ‘round right about now. But, I wasn’t feeling sick, so I made it slip my mind.

Ugha-ugha.  I won’t mind-slip like that again.

There are lots of slang ways of saying nausea/vomiting (sorry, but if you’re eating, you should put your utensils down right about here, just for a paragraph or two.). And, because there’s no end to purveyors of the muse, some of them are quite creative. We have the usuals:

Hurl, puke, spew, upchuck, barf, ralph and toss your cookies. Not very clever, but good enough to make the point, and without much ambiguity. We get it right away.

We also find some funny, even witty retching reportage when we’re searching for how to describe our (notice how I’m dragging you into this) GI upsets. Here are a few of my new discoveries. Hey, bear with me, this took a little research, and it did take my mind off my body for a bit. We have:

--- “peristaltic pyrotechnics”: A sure favorite for the nursey-scientists and lovers of alliteration among us.

--- “greet your guts”: Also for the alliterati, but more appealing to the no-frills crowd.

--- “technicolor yawn”: Reaching a bit, but one that lands nicely when you work for the visual and it becomes clear.

--- “paint the town red … and orange and green and pink”: This evokes a real ba-da-barf, ba-da-boom kind of feeling. Cute.

The list is almost endless, and honorable mentions go to “multi-colored organic fountain” and “time to get out the ol’ sawdust bucket” and “looking for aardvarks,” and “doing the hoakey croakey,” but I’ll leave you with my new favorite:

“Yelling at the ants.”

That one is just in time for the summer season, but try not to think of it at your next picnic.

That past me, the rest of the day just drifted by. I must’ve mostly slept through the radiation. I remember the background music, now a welcome staple when I’m in the mold, but whatever it was didn’t get through the fatigue. It was better than silence, but I heard it as Muzak filler, which was just what I needed today, anyway.

My new day’s resolution? Take my medications as ordered. I don’t know why I need to tell myself that, but sometimes, when I think I know better than me what’s best for me, I just don’t listen. I’ll try to shape up ... and keep it down.

More as we go, El 

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