Archive for cancer
Chemo-rama
Posted by: | CommentsFor those of you who have been paying attention, you know I got breast cancer for Christmas. I had my first chemo treatment on Monday, 2/11
(in keeping with that holiday theme – Happy Valentine’s Day, early!), and so far the after-effects have been weird,
but manageable. I keep thinking of cartoons where some character starts
quivering, and then his head explodes into a Dali-esque fright mask with, oh, a
foot springing out of his forehead.
That hasn’t happened. Yet.
What is happening is that instead of my usual
eat-like-a-garbage-truck self, I’ve become someone who has to think hard about
what might be edible. The data sheet on my chemo cocktail lists this side
effect as “anorexia” – which makes me laugh so hard I can barely breathe. My
name and anorexia in the same sentence? Get outta town.
The closest analog I can come up with for the current
eating sitch is this: back inna day, when I did offshore sailing, there were
more than a few times that the rest of the crew was crawling around on the
deck, beggin’ to die. At those times, my experience was usually, “well, I don’t
feel GREAT, but how about I make some soup?”
The most memorable version of this was twenty years ago,
delivering the schooner ORIANDA from Lauderdale to Tortola.
The skipper decided to leave Lauderdale literally on the tail of a hurricane
(luckily only a weakening Cat 1), just before midnight.
No, it didn’t seem like a great idea to me, either, but a
ship is not a democracy.
Another woman on the crew and I had drawn 12-4 watch,
meaning we were first up, and would be fighting the Gulfstream by 2am. When we did hit the Stream, we had 15 foot
cross-seas and were shipping green water over both bows. Both my watch-partner
and I were literally tied to the boat (as one always should be offshore),
taking turns steering, which was like trying to wrestle an anaconda. At about
3am, the engine started to sputter (we were under engine and sail power – we
needed everything we could get to keep the ship stable!) – the skipper and the
mechanic headed into the engine room to see whassup. Diagnosis: busted fuel
hose.
The engine room was off the pilot house, which was
directly in front of the steering station. In order to work on the engine, the
pilot house light needed to be on. In order to see the compass and steer a
course, the helmsman needed to have the pilot house light OFF. We struck a
compromise – I would hold the pilot house hatch doors closed and shield them
with my body, preventing the light from hitting the helmsman in the face and
thereby risking a course change for Havana.
Or Maine.
So, there I was, holding the doors closed as heavy diesel
fumes rolled past, and the boat tossed around like we were driving through a
washing machine on full agitate. Right about then, the 4-8 crew staggered up on
deck. The first mate, who had asked me every five minutes before we left port
if we had enough Dramamine on board “because sometimes people get seasick on
these deliveries”, took over the helm – which was right behind me, remember? –
asked the skipper for his course, was told zero-nine-zero, responded “aye, aye,
steering zero-nine-….” The rest of his reply was literally drowned out as he
started hacking up everything he’d eaten since the Carter Administration.
He continued this until dawn. My watch-mate had to
re-take the helm, since first-mate-dude was pretty useless. Really hard to
steer while barfing – you tend to drag the wheel over with you as you heave.
I’m still holding the pilot house doors closed. So: diesel fumes, a violently
ill crewmate less than two feet behind me (at this point, he was like a sodden
mass of rags at the bottom of the cockpit…yep, beggin’ to die), and motion so
violent that we’re all literally hanging on for dear life.
What I wanted most right then – other than for things to
settle down, just a bit, or for blessed dawn to break – was some coffee. And
some soup. Which I got, a few hours later, once the dawn did break and I could
get down to the galley (I was ship’s cook), clear away the debris from the
rough passage, and get things going.
So, chemo “anorexia” for me is more like eating like a
10-year-old. PB&J sandwiches, mac-n-cheese with grilled chicken, chicken
noodle soup. My usual chili, garlic, and stinky cheese palate has vanished.
It’s only until June, though – who knows, maybe I’ll feel better about bathing
suit season after this!
That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Dispatch from Cancer Camp
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s been a while, so let’s catch up: got cancer for Christmas (whoopee!), and then a New Year lumpectomy, followed by Valentine’s Day chemo. Coming up later this year – Fourth of July radiation, in which I’ll get beamed up by the mother-ship.
Enough of that. Back to another story already in progress.
I’m sure you’ve wondered why I haven’t weighed in on all the twisted tales being told daily – even hourly – by all sides of the current political race. All sides in that sense including the candidates, the flacks, the mainstream press, and "new media", a/k/a the blogosphere.
The answer there? Exhaustion, pure and simple.
Back inna day, when political noise emanated from just the campaigns and the mainstream press, I thought there were way too many words being used to describe way too little real thought or policy. Adding the chorus of new media voices to that dissonant opera has done…what, exactly? At best, it gives every possible view the opportunity to have its champion, particularly on the media side. At worst, it confuses the hell out of everybody.
This reflects the scattered political landscape this country – and any democracy – has, whatever tidy little bundles history books try to make out of the American past. For every issue: fetal rights, fetal pig rights, gay rights, "sanctity of marriage" rights (that’s got to be a joke, considering the divorce rate in the U.S.?), education, dedicated ignorance (a/k/a "teaching creationism"), there is a candidate that will meet your needs.
Once you pick one…is he, or she, electable? That’s what this long, muddy slog toward the first Tuesday in November is purportedly about. I have to admit, though, that as I watch this horse race, I’m thinking less Lincoln, "To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary", more Barnum, "There’s a sucker born every minute."
What I Got for Christmas
Posted by: | CommentsRemember that old song, “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth”? A sincere cry, albeit with a lack-of-dentition lisp, for a physical transformation. Just in time for Christmas.
I’ve had occasion to recall that song in the last few days, as well as one of my favorite Jules Pfeiffer cartoons. In the cartoon, a guy is bemoaning all the things in his life that have been discovered to cause cancer, the most recent being scotch whiskey. In the last panel of the cartoon, he lifts a glass (scotch, of course) and says, “Whoopee! Cancer!”
This year, I got cancer for Christmas. Whoopee! Cancer!
Yeah, yeah, I can hear you screaming. Trust me, it was a gift, and here’s why. I’ve gone for a mammogram every year since I turned 40. That’s fifteen of the suckers. This year, instead of hearing what I’d heard every year before – “see you next year” – I heard this from my radiologist as we looked at my films: ”Hmmm…” There was a “thing”, and he wanted to take a look at it.
Magnification mammography. Stereotactic core biopsy (for this procedure, I highly recommend an IPod
with volume set to “Stun” playing something like the Clash or Pearl Jam). A diagnosis where he actually said, “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news.” You can guess the bad news, right? The good
news is that it’s so small that the only thing that makes it Stage 1 vs. Stage 0 is that it’s an invasive carcinoma.
Why am I telling you about this? I think you probably have an inkling already. Girls, get your mammograms. Get a baseline by 40, and then get one every year after 40. Guys, encourage the girl
you love to get her mammograms. And help her get through what might come after, because it will be infinitely preferable to planning her funeral.
Girls, I know that mammography is a classic example of a medical device made by a man. I know that you feel like you go in a 38C and come out a 42 Long. I know that if guys got screened this way for testicular cancer, there’d be some big changes quick. As much of a pain in the boobs
that mammograms can be, this one saved my life. There was no lump. Who knows when
a lump would have been palpable, and how far this thing would have spread by then? I’m glad I don’t have to learn the answer to that question.
I’m taking this as a gift. I’m also choosing to look at what’s going to get yanked out of me this way – it will be a complete encapsulation of all the anger, resentment, self-doubt, all the crap collected on a 55 year journey. It’s coming out, and I’m moving on.
Since I’m more of a Druid than anything else at this point, I’m marking the Winter Solstice this year as my Yuletide celebration. The end of the darkness, and the return of the sun. An appropriate image for a time in my life where that has, literally, happened.
Happy New Year.
