Day 022 -- "Clean Fill Wanted?"

Today on my walk---YIKES!

A man with cancer walks! What’s my world coming to?! I’d better be careful; this could lead to harder stuff. Before you know it, I’ll be laughing without cues, burping my wine, parallel parking, and ending sentences with prepositions before I know what I’m getting into.

I’ve been trying to do (most of) what the Docs have advised me to do in my ADL’s – Activities of Daily Living. Lenny Bruce called it eat, sleep and crap. A bit oversimplified, but we do all start from there.

But, when cancer drops into the mix, it sends those activities haywire, writes new rules, changes the game, moves the sidelines, deflates and overinflates the balls, bribes the players AND the referees, shortens the season, makes the impossible plays commonplace and the improbable penalties damned likely.

I know, my metaphor abuse slip is showing, but I’ve always been a sucker for a good juiced-up storyline. And sure enough, because poetic justice often wills out on its own, here I am.

Yes, I do continue with my ADL’s as do we all, but now with all the cancer caveats: I sit when I pee (especially on post-chemo days), stand when I scratch (you’ll just have to accept that one), eat and swallow like it’s a dress rehearsal, and just generally do everything I did before Rad Chemo came calling, but now with a red-penciled script.

Yes, I still ride the Harley, kayak the Connecticut, swim in the lake and eat what I want, but now the rides are shorter, the river is wider, I jump in the lake with an extra and bigger noodle, and the pursuit of sweet, sour & savory is a science project.

And, today, walking these country roads: Two miles instead of five, two walking sticks instead of one, and because I’m finding profundity in everything lately, I can turn every turn into my own rough drafts of wit and wisdom, including dirt.

Clean Fill Wanted?

Yes, yes, yes. I sure could use some of that.

More as we go, El

DAY 021 -- "Partners In Crime And Accessories"

I missed a day with you.

I’m keeping this numbered chronology intact, but a day and a night slipped by in there unrecorded.

It’s happened before in my professional life (for reasons better left in the vaults), where I found myself sunny side out. I remember a facility where I was working 12-hour nursing night shifts, and I showed up for work, as usual, about 6:30 p.m.

No problem … except it was 6:30 a.m.

After I was properly chided by my co-workers for turning my day on its head, they asked if I could stay. Another nurse had just called in sick, and I was caught standing there, inside-out of time, with no good reason why I couldn’t work, and any excuse would’ve been lame.

** Nurse’s Note: If you were a patient there on that day-for-night and I missed your bathroom call, or I was late with your meds, or I called you by another name, or I dropped your pudding on you, or you suffered in any way because of my temporal topsy-turvy, if you had a bumpy admission or discharge due to my diurnal daftness, I apologize.

Where does that leave us now?  Not so bad.

Not everything is notable. I know, that’s not where this self-absorbed technopop culture is heading, if it’s not already there, but not every picture is worth a thousand words; some aren’t worth half a bad limerick.

Can’t we leave bad enough alone?

Are you going to insist that I retrieve the day? Must I make everything reportage between us? Can’t we have a secret or two? A blank space not filled in? Why can’t you and I have an empty shelf, and instead of filling it up with kitschy knick-knacks, just step back and admire its openness, it’s purity, its promise?

Nah. That’s enough of that.

I took the time off from the muse because it was neutralized by the new rash, the nagging new developments going in, the missing ones coming out, the wax and wane of pain, the ebb and flow of relief, and the inability to sometimes make a getaway from this damned cancer’s partners in crime and accessories during the fact.

No further need for specifics; you get the idea:

It only hurts when I am, Doc.

I need this narrative for me, but I hope it helps you, too. Even if cancer is not a part of your life, it will almost certainly affect you somewhere along your journey, either remotely or center stage. I hope this accounting will be a resource for camaraderie, a work (and play) template for all our common community of illness and health.

As seen here, it is a thousand-word picture. I’m only trying to grab a few of them, for both of us, as they go by. And, now that I’ve mentioned it, might’s well give you that half a bad limerick (if you’d care to fill it in, have at it.)

There once was a man who got sick

A cancer became his new shtick

He was a bit peeved

But----

More as we go, El

DAY 020 -- "Potato Pancakes And Rose Tarts"

“Life is like a---”

Since getting cancer, I find myself beginning too many thoughts or conversations with that prelude, then stopping short of the answer. I’m also blaming (or crediting) my cancer for everything from my head to my heart to my herebefore and thereafter (I may have that backwards, but it works for me either way).

“Life is---”

 

Well, right now it’s a rose and a potato. On the porch at home, we have both, growing in pots.

I was thinking today about that botanical odd couple of tubers and flowers just as the rotating wings of the radiation machine begin their targeted circumferencing of me and my shadow. I had to. The Radionettes were playing some numbing background elevator music, and I was trying to move that evil audible into good imagery.

Surprising, because as you’ve seen thus far if you’ve been following along, they’re usually my spot-on DJ’s. I asked them about it.

“Why those saccharine tunes? Have I been a bad patient?”

“Frankly, yes. You don’t realize it, but you’re squirming, singing, breathing abnormally during the treatment, and it upsets things. We thought this would help calm you down.”

“Well, I’ll have to think about which is worse: cancer or canned music.”

So, I turned to the profundity of disparate potted plants in my mind, and that helped neutralize those soulless strains in the air.

Why is life like potted roses and potatoes? Maybe I should ask why MY life is like compacted buds and spuds. Your life may be like soybeans and palm trees.

Yes, it’s unusual to grow a potato in a pot, but it will still flower briefly just before harvest.

And, though it’s not common to use roses as a food source, we do have rose wine. They may not be a nutritional mainstay as a whole plant, but their petals will partially dress up a salad, or a smoothie, a jam, a fish garnish, even a rosy cupcake.

So, here we are halfway through my treatment regimen, with a food that flowers, and a flower that feeds. Somewhere in there is why my life and my cancer may not resolve, but they will reconcile.

Oh, and when my treatments end, you’re all invited over for potato pancakes and rose tarts.

More as we go, El

DAY 019 -- "It's Nothin' But A Lateral Climb"

Not sure why the emphasis the last two days on critters: yesterday the Broad-winged Hawk, and today in the radiation waiting room with aquarium fish and a stuffed Blue Heron.

Maybe I’m now more in touch with my animal impulses dealing with this brutal invader in my body. It feels that way sometimes, like there’s a backroom cockfight going on in my lung, or crawdad stampedes that come and go in unexpected places, or I’m a whale feeding on anti-plankton, whatever I mean by that. I think I know, but I’m too tired to be sure.

Or, maybe it’s because I often relate better to animals than humans. Note the Blue Heron looking askance but keeping me within beak’s length. Very wise bird, even if it is stuffed. I’ve known stuffed people who’ve been less attentive.

Or, the captive fish swimming in the illusion of vastness. That’s maybe too close to where I go when I let my mind play out worst case scenarios, but I am a sucker for the poetic, light or dark. In this photo, I’m pining for some fins and a way to breathe underwater, if all else fails.

Lastly, the Radionettes nailed it again with a guitar blues feed as I stretched out on the terrible table (I’ve now dubbed this my lateral good iron maiden), and they piped in Robben Ford’s “Lateral Climb.”

What once was a dollar
Is lookin' more like a dime
Heads up people
It's nothin' but a lateral climb

 More as we go, El

DAY 018 -- "If You Can Get Through The Twilight"

Before leaving to accompany me to chemo today, Diane snapped this photo of an immature Broad-winged Hawk perched in the dead pine. (We're pretty sure of the bird, after checking our home bird book library).

The “dead pine” is an inside joke here. It is so dead (how…dead… IS IT?) Thanks for asking. It’s SO dead, that its needleless branches have become a modern art masterpiece, but it also sports ideal branches for lots of our other fly-in friends. All-size perches, with unlimited views into it and out of it. Good for preys. Good for predators.

For the hawks, it’s a prime overlook/launchpad for swoop-downs and keeping their role in the food chain intact: nesting birds, chipmunks, snakes, mice, insects, frogs, and other hawk fodder – all of which abound hereabouts.

-----

**Warning! Liberal Blogger’s Political Privilege, Confidential To Everyone**:  Am I digressing? You betcha, but nobody digresses better than I do. Everyone will tell you that I digress longer and better and smarter than anyone anywhere in the world, that I can tell you. When I digress, no other digression even comes close in all of mankind! No, in all of history!

(See how stupid that sounds, Donald?)

-----

Okay, entering the infusion room for chemo today, and the nurse smiles, points to the corner of the room, and says: “All ready with your usual chair.”

“Nooooo! Not that!” I said, with all the mocking fun I could muster: “Please, can’t you move things and give me an unusual chair? I just don’t feel usual today, and I hate being a usual anything.”

Good laughs had by all, then we got to the usuals: Insert IV port, blood draw, lab report reviews, twenty question weekly update, weight (gained 2 lbs!), pre-treatment nausea meds, then the big chemo guns, and later the best and most unusual hospital cheeseburger I’ve ever had. Food eaten during infusion, for some reason, is particularly satiating.

Later, on to my irradiation. New development (not permanent and not unexpected) as an itchy diffuse rash has appeared on my upper chest where the treatment is focused. I’m given moisturizers, anti-itchers, additional pain meds as needed. This is temporary, so I’ll quote directly from my favorite humorist, no frills: “If you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.”

Both treatments otherwise uneventful today. Visit with oncologists: “We’re still going for a curative.” Yippee (I’ll hold the exclamation point for now. Wouldn’t want to provoke the cancer gods. They’re fidgety enough already).

Meanwhile, there’ll be a few more weeks of cancer treatment fallouts through these courses, all influencing appetite, bowels, skin, thinking, sleeping, effects, side effects, and yes, because medicine and our bodies are such capricious lovers, side effects of the side effects. Egads.

This sign in the bathroom, one we're all now accustomed to, just hit me as deeply funny and ironic and profound today as a metaphor for life, death, love, all in one sentence. I'll let you figure it out.

Oh, and the hawk that Diane spotted up there? She now informs me (her research biologist history slip is showing) of the marked variance between the sexes. She’s just played a recording of their respective voices for me. “Ah! Listen, El! The male voice is an octave higher than the female! What does that tell you?”

Hmm … I don’t know where she's going with that, but I’ll bet it’s great. I do know what I'll try to do with it tonight, however. Maybe, when she’s on her oboe and I’m at the piano, we’ll play an octave apart.

Counterpoints.

Thanks again, Ma Nature.

More as we go, El