Let me explain this pic, even though it throws off the time-line.
The two bottles in front are albumin--pretty much egg-whites.
Behind the bottles there is a bag of fat.
That was, moments before, my blood.
Not NEAR my blood, not LINGERING OUTSIDE THE SAME 7-11 as my blood.
It WAS my blood.
This picture was taken about a third of the way through the process,which is known as plasma-pherisis. I filled that bag. Packed it. Bowel rest, my ass.
One of the Drs we have a good relationship with here said to me a little earlier today "no, you're not the type who complains."
I don't like to throw that around. I am a little embarrassed that I'm as proud of it as I am. But it means something to me to not piss and moan. To not snivel. To not cheapen something by using hyperbole in it's description.
...
This is about as hard as it has been. This is hard.
OK, backstory. And I will admit right now that I may twist a lot of dates and times. N keeps it all nice and bound and in place. I am at least OK at the recall sometimes. But from whenever Friday was to whenever now is...that's just kind of like having an iPhone playing a video of someone being beaten, and throwing in into the dryer. Then watching through the little window, crying.
I have still not eaten solid food. This is day 5. I ate nothing for 2 and a half days: NPO is apparently how a Dr says No Soup For You! I prefer the British version, Nil By Mouth, because it has a sort of nihilist truth to it; a dying music.
It was pancreatitis, brought on by Peg Paspargenase, which also caused 'fatty liver'(I swear that's what the medical people were calling it) and hyperlipidity.
Hyper, from the Latin (or Greek: I am totally faking it) for 'lotsa'
Lipid (ibid) for 'fat
Some people, they get worried when their triglycerides get into the hundreds. Five hundred should worry you.
Mine were 8000. Thousand, like with a 'thou.'
And it is Labor Day weekend, so the crews on the floor, while probably perfectly good at their jobs, were not the honed smooth-working repeat healers of the weekly shift and were not, barring the hilarious French-Canadian we really enjoy, people who know me or any of my story.
Which led to things like the "Liver Fellow" telling N and me with great joy that we were very lucky to be at this hospital because the guy who invented the fat-suckin-pherisis-amahoojit practiced here, and he really REALLY thought I should get it done.
OK, dipshit test: who wants to paint your eyes shut, the nice smart guy, or the fuckface who invented eye-paint? You follow me, right?
We, and I am so sorry we had to do this, called one of our team ON VACATION ON THE CAPE and she told us to do it--8000 triglycerides seems impressive even in Wellfleet.
And the chirpy little Liver Fellow, who's a girl, takes WAY too much pleasure in deciding that all the other holes they have put in my body over the past three days--the count is around 6--are insufficient for the great blood-fat-hoovering, so she buries a pherisis harpoon seven inches long up and inside my thigh in a vein big enough to jump double dutch.
Then I lie there for two hours. And, literally, blood exits my body, goes through some chambers, and the pure, white, thick, sickening lard you see above forces greater and greater folds of itself into that bag.
Good times, good times.
I am by now on 'clears,' a shady euphemism for 'he still can't eat shit, but give him that broth we keep in the 'starving cats won't eat this' locker down the hall."
I am plugged into a liter bag of fluid 24/7, and at night, without a fever, I soak sheets, blankets, pillows, and self just sort of..well...exuding.
And I mistreated my wife, just because I was scared and tired and hungry and fed up. I took it out on the kind face contorting in worry right in front of me.
I was flipping out. I had spiked a fever. I think this was Sunday. I was sitting on the edge of the bed trying to use the hand-held-urinal because I was attached to the pole that was plugged to the wall etc etc etc.
And I just popped. Looked up at the TV, pissed myself and my gown, the floor, whatever. I was furious, lost, a terrified weakling.
I got up to go finish pissing in the actual bathroom, but didn't unplug anything. I just stretched all the different wires from walls and tubes from my chest and kind of leaned towards the bowl and arced a hail mary.
N comes rushing over, worry like I have never seen it on her face. Legs akimbo for balance in case I fall. Arms out and palms up in case I fall. I'm doing a furious and pathetic impression of some cherub fountain, and she's got all four limbs dedicated to whether or not I am to dizzy and might fall down.
I finish, whatever the hell that means, and dribble back toward the bed. She asks what's the matter? I bark out "I'm tired of this, that's all. I'm TIRED!"
She pauses for moment, at a loss. She says "I love you."
You know what I say?
"Great!"
Great. Like 'Great, now I gotta fix the sink. Anything else?'
That's what I do. When I am down, when I am weak, when the woman who loves me stands open and uncaring about anything other than whether or not I am ok, what do I do?
I wet myself, and I complain.
It's been a shitty couple of days.
I've cried a lot, partially because I haven't been on ativan or remeron for days, and partially because this stretch of time has, well, sucked.
I am on the better end of it all. My insane fat numbers have come back down to only mildly alarming. They think they have pretty much figured out how to get me back on track--shocker: more bowel rest--and get me back to the glories of good old chemo.
It seems to be improving. But slowly. I have upgraded to miso soup: no tofu.
The fact that I ache, pine for tofu should tell you a lot.
There's a Cymbalta ad about depressed people, and whenever it comes on, I look up at the "depressed" lady complaining about something and I yell "You know what, Lady?! I wanna fuckin' waffle, so suck it!"
So maybe I am not all that out of the woods yet.
But getting there.
There's a pizza place where I'm from in Baltimore: Alonso's. They don't do it any more, but they used to make their pizza a little different: they'd put the sausage and pepperoni and stuff down first, and then fully hide it in a cheese layer. And then they'd sprinkle a little bit of oregano and spices on top, so the white of the cheese was flecked.
Since maybe 2pm today, every time I close my eyes. Every time. I see an extreme close-up of that landscape of pizza, that glorious expanse of pizza.
That I cannot have. It is now mainly the hunger that is trapping me. Holding me down.
Hunger. Weakness. Low points a-flyin'.
But hey, how many people can bleed Flan, right?
