Photo TBD
We got here at 11:30am or so in the room (River room, but wall bed.
Sigh.) and settled in. Got checked and prepped but the chemo has to be
hand-made per person and they won't start until you are in the
building.
4pm--Hooked to a saline drip, scheming cross-country union strategy
because most of the National Board is in LA.
6pm--Pre-meds for impending Cytoxan (a chemo that I noted in an email
has 'tox' in the middle and most of the letters from 'cyanide' on
either side. Good stuff). Decadron every day for four
days--roidrageroidrageroidragedoyousmellpopcornhey
lookwhatmythumbsdo!--
One non-nausea Zofran that's supposed to last 24 hours...uh huh.
This stuff called Mesna that has to go in an hour early on a slow drip
to protect your bladder, because--as I had so crudely forgotten, and
why should I because it's a fantastic tidbit--unprotected exposure to
too much Cytoxan and Your Bladder Turns Into Blood! Did y'hear that,
kiddies, YOUR BLADDER TURNS TO BLOOD! That's the name of a fantastic
sequel to to a movie nobody has the balls to make.
7pm--Welcome Cytoxan! Enter my veins and let's get this the fuck over
with. The plan is:
A three-hour drip of Cytoxan once every twelve hours. Six bags gotta go
in, so that's three days planned out.
But! To be efficient, and not keep me here even longer, during the
nine-hour pauses between the Cytoxan main dish, they are getting some
of my other juices handled:
Tonight right after the main bag empties I will get loaded up with a
happy augmented dose of Vincristine. Whee! But the Decadron pushes me
past most of the initial shittiness, and the Remeron will cover any
spare nausea and bring the nighty-night, so it actually makes a lot of
sense: rage past or sleep through as much of the awful as you can. It's
as if they've done this before.
Then tomorrow in the next pause around mid-morning they will hit me
with Rituximab, the 'new kid' to my treatment, added in on
recommendation from the Houston Drs to overcome a certain sub-trait of
my Leukemia. It supposedly doesn't have the bad side effects of the
older-school juice I'm used to, but I have only had it once so we'll
see if the worm turns.
9:10pm-- I almost wet myself every time now in the can because when
you're on a saline drip there's an imbalance in how much fluid you
think you are about to evacuate, and how much is actually in there
awaiting release. So, between the safety hospital door that
cloooooooses reeeeeeaaaaalllly slow, and getting your fly down while
holding your pole (IV pole, you sick infant), every pee is an
almost-dampener. Which is humiliating, even alone in the bathroom.
And you forget before your next pee. Every. Damn. Time.
9:42pm--I want fried chicken with mashed potatoes and brown gravy.
10:36pm--Frantically twitching my fingers to a pattern I memorized at a
neurologist's office in the early 80's. Trying to--hold on, I totally
forgot I was supposed to go to the candy machine and get gorp...ok, got
it, and the Cytoxan ran through so the nurse unhooked me long enough to
take off my shirt on N's reminding ("Look at how that skinny guy still
has a little gut, mommy!" "Shut up, Herman.") because once you are
hooked to the pole and the PICC, you're wearing whatever you were
wearing Period. Imagine threading one leg of your shorts through an
anchor chain. Then anchoring. You follow?
10:49pm--waiting on the vincristine to arrive. Gonna eat that gorp!
I'm still wearing jeans. I'm proud of that. Which is, without really
any debate required, totally stupid. But I avoid the 'patient' garb as
much as I can. I think I have taken a weakness in my vanity and turned
it into a positive because connection to 'street clothes' actually
helped me find strength: the dumb connection to being 'normal' and
being able to go outside if I want and all the regular-ness that comes
from jeans and a t-shirt that would be instantly neutered by a 'this,
fair strangers, is my ass' gown is a good mental and emotional platform
for me. A very, very tiny Archimedes moment. I'll take it.
10:55pm--Like most idiots on drugs, I am certain that this is the best
gorp I have ever eaten, ever. If I can't sleep and I run out of dollars
(taking a strip-club dilemma and putting it in a cancer ward) I may
just go stare at the machine that gave me this gorp.
10:57pm--GORP: Good Old Raisins and Peanuts. Trail mix, people, trail
mix. Sheesh.
11:06pm--Now I'm furious. Fucking furious. A cocked gun with no target.
No idea what to hate or be mad at. But I'm fucking furious. Decadron.
Oh, I can hate those pussy Senators (both sides of the aisle) who
backed off the (admittedly kinda weak but a start) Universal Background
Check amendment yesterday. Cowardice at a titanic level: lobbyist
support. Dead first grader. Sure, no brainer, you fucking hollow ugly
whore. I hope you get a cancer that's old school like mine and chemo
eats you and eats you and you recover but then relapse and it eats you
and eats you and you weep alone in a mechanical bed that doesn't give a
shit about your vote count, and your spouse falls and breaks a femur
visiting you at the best hospital in your district or state, a nice
compound fracture the pierces a bloody bone fragment through the mulch
around the spring forsythia on the grounds of the lovely hospital and
maybe the fracture gets infected and everyone's in the best hospital in
your district or state but cancer meat can't fraternize with civilians
so you're not there when Mersa takes your spouse and you are alone and
then an ex-con who drove a boosted Chevy Cruze to a gun-show in one of
the best parking lots in your district or state to buy the knock-off
Beretta finally decides to blow his fucking girlfriend's head off, but
she's kinda used to when he does crank and so she ducks and the mildly
misshapen bullet goes out the car window, passes cleanly through the
chain link fence, and tears most of your son's cheek off before
severing enough that, after screaming a confused lost peal that people
on the playground say they'll never forget, never, he dies in the arms
of his art teacher. Not you.
I hope that happens to you. I'm living enough pieces of that to know
how awful it will be. I hope that happens to you, you bastard. Coward.
Senator.
Decadron.
Good night.
Holter
