First off: sorry.
I think it's a good indicator of how long it has been since my last post that I almost couldn't remember the password to get in here and write this one.
I have heard from at least three people that an absence this long, while they hope it means all is well, is also worrisome.
Ah yes, the whole he-might-be-dead thing. Valid. Very valid.
So, sorry.
To quote Gary Gnu:
"No Gnus is good Gnus."
Not sure how many of you remember The Great Space Coaster, a likely very derivative kid's show that must have aired in the opening moments of the 80s. I am going Google-less here, so any facts I get wrong are my own. I think that one of Ray Charles' sons was on it. The intro ended with the human stars of the show sliding into the main set on what, even to an eight-year-old, was obviously only about six feet of roller-coaster track. They were seated in an only-barely-reworked roller-coaster car that was, I assume, the Space Coaster in question. And--again even as an eight-year-old--I remember very clearly thinking that a few guys must have just pushed that damn thing backwards up the six feet of track and then leaped out of the way before the camera rolled to capture the cast's 're-entry.'
This harmless confection also had at least two puppets, and possibly more. One was a female bird of some kind that lived in a tree. For some reason I actually get sort of uncomfortable thinking about, I have a vivid, vivid, and almost total recollection of this pink bird-puppet interviewing Marvin Hamlisch, and I think he sang 'One Singular Sensation' to her, or with her, or something.
[Editor's Note: There was an 'I'm gay, no I'm not' joke here, but I just took it out. I couldn't find a way to leave it in without it being at least a little mean-spirited, and that wasn't the point. It never is.]
The other puppet was Gary Gnu, who was...wait for it...a Gnu.
He was the host of "Gary Gnu and the Gnu Zoo Review," I am pretty sure (remember, all you iPhone zealots and Google junkies, I am accessing solely my head for all this). And "No Gnus is good Gnus" was his catchphrase.
Of course, he reported new--sorry, Gnus stories, so he sort of screwed his own mantra, but never mind.
And I just this second also remembered Speed Reader (whose theme song was, literally, a few people probably corralled from the bagel pile at the craft-services table right before the first episode was shot, singing 'Speed Reader! Speed Reader!' over and over.
Speed Reader, possibly as a segment in the Gnus, would run in in super-high shorts with an eighth-inch inseam and a terry-cloth headband. He would 'warm up' his eyes by doing 'push-ups' which consisted of watching his finger as he moved it back and forth really fast in front of his face. Then he would grab a book, whip through it making 'oh' and 'well whaddaya know!?' ejaculations, and then set it aside and review it for us, the gawping public.
What the hell am I talking about?
OK, sorry. Long story short: I did not post mainly because things were pretty OK. Or, if not OK, not traumatic or of enough value to pop in and tell you all. At least in my opinion.
So, a short recap. Hold on tight:
The last Vincristine left a parting gift of constipation. Four days.
I spent four days playing a lovely and reflexive game of will-he-or-won't he? He didn't.
Then we met N's dad for dinner and I ate spicy Papdi Chaat.
Then N and I went to see Cracker. Camper van Beethoven opened, which is odd if you know the bands. It was a great show...
...and I had a steak. Dum da dum dum.
Not blaming dead cows or Indian food--as we have seen, this is all about ME EATING WHAT OR WHEN I SHOULD NOT.
So will-he-or-won't-he became oh-good-christ-please-can-he-stop?
That was three days or so, with a thirty-six hour stretch there in the middle that had everything one could ask for: calls to the Drs, calls to the hospital, the looming possibility of a trip to the ER (with the attendant quiet contemplation of what corner of a cab would be the best place to shit), bouts of weeping, sips of Gatorade, sports bottles of water spiked with Pedialyte, entire meals composed of three Saltines, and the popping of Immodium like they were Pez.
Wee!
Then, as abrupt as the Death Star's immolation of Alderon, it stoppped.
And stayed stopped for three or four more days. Then, as far as I know right now, things got back to normal...I think. I hope.
You think you're getting tired of this? It's my gut.
Since then it has been intensely bland food with mild increases in flavor and normalcy each day. As of right now, all is quiet on the rectal front (sorry; I had to).
But c'mon, really; this is my eighty-first post and pretty much the first time I've really talked about the, um, exit, if you will. So count yourselves lucky.
Oh, and the Ravens lost their playoff game to the Steelers. By enacting a genius game-plan lovingly referred to as "The Offense will completely fucking forget how to play football for the second half, and suck with such a colossal magnitude that four beavers with Down's Syndrome and a half-melted thermos could have beat them."
Luckily, the Jets were even worse the following week, so our utter and humiliating collapse has been forgotten by the rest of the country.
Go Packers.
OK, now to the present. Today was the Big Day. Bone Marrow Biopsy and the Start of Maintenance chemo. Whoo-hoo! Sort of.
My port is getting yanked in six days, by the same lovely Dr who put it in. He did not, however, like my suggestion that he make a vertical incision across the horizontal one he made when installing it, so that I would have an X, which I thought would be more interesting. He just kind of looked at me. For a long time.
So N and I thought today's access for bloodwork would be the last poke to the port, as it were.
Well, that was stupid.
The bloodwork turned up that I am anemic, which just means that the chemo has slowed the return of my hemoglobin to healthy levels. It will eventually get there--I have been slow to re-blood most months, according to N's records--but since Maintenance is also Chemo, just with a fun new name with an extra syllable, they are having me back tomorrow for two bags of blood as a bonus. Annoying, but not earth-shattering.
Hey, guess what? When your bone marrow is recovering and not cancer-addled and weak, biopsies hurt more!
Guess when you find that out?
Right after you groan like a bum some commuter has stepped on as the core-sample needle yanks a piece of your soul out.
Seriously, it hurt a lot more, and I wasn't ready for that. The deadening needle and the prep were all the same--though the Dr pulled my pants down further this time so I was mildly preoccupied with how much plumber-furrow his assistant was having to not look at. Then he went in with the gouge needle, or whatever it's called, and burrowed down into the meat, and it just goddamn hurt. Not the long, slow, sad, tormenting unease of the last one. No no: this was stabs of jesus-and-the-mary-chain-what-the-hell-are-you-doing!? This was "Hey, I have an idea: let's snip off my third toe with rusty garden shears: that would be more fun."
But just three stabs of that, and then it was over. I had to lie on my back for a while, and when the Novocaine wore off it was a lot worse than last time as well. I was limping coming off the subway, limp-hopping to get up the subway stairs, grinding my teeth at the pharmacy to pick up the Maintenance drugs, and when we got home it felt like I had one of those colored plastic Easter eggs in my left butt cheek, but instead of jelly beans or Cadbury Cream eggs it was filled with ouch. It's a little better now, but I must be really healthy, because this is a LOT less fun.
Cancer care: the worse you feel, the better its working.
We get preliminary info on the marrow tomorrow, but the real facts from the molecular microscopic deep-doctoring stuff will be in ten days or so. I'll keep you posted.
I started on daily 100 mgs of Mercatopurine today, which is the same dosage I had to abandon months ago during the first, pediatric protocol when my liver started to not work so well and my pee turned red. I take that every day for two and a half years.
So that's fun.
The thinking is that I am on so much less of everything else, and I am so much further from the brutality of Induction, and I will be getting stronger and stronger, that it won't be an issue.
And they check your liver function with the monthly bloodwork and change the dosage if need be.
Once a week I take fifteen tiny pills, 2.5mgs each, of Methotrexate--the same stuff that was in the syringe during most of the forays into my spinal column.
But a lower dose, and only once a week. We've chosen Mondays, because they suck anyway.
Once a month I get to go back to the clinic for (from Feb 2 on out non-port-inserted) 2mgs of Vincristine dripped to the vein, followed by four days of Prednisone.
The pred, the pred! Will I never be free?
I stay on the Dapsone and the Valtrex throughout as well.
I have weaned off the Ativan, hopefully never to return. I just smiled typing that: it is like finally shrugging off a backpack full of bricks that whisper 'weakling.'
I will stop the Remeron in a week. I still take the super-Lipitor morning and evening, but hope to ditch that as well once I see the cardiologist.
In about three months they'll tear out some more marrow. In about six months they'll throw me back to the wolves of HYPER CVAD for one pass, and then again about five months after that.
I have a list of races, tris, and relays spread out over the next eight months or so. Not too many, and not to be sprinted or attacked, but rather survived. But there they are. Stones across a torrent. Brass rings going round and round.
N is seeing some strength, some regular me, return. Some safety, some calm, a lowering of the threat level from Orange, or Red, or whatever was highest. It's a different kind of strain; watching the decay and regrowth, the fear and the progress. But in its own way just as caustic, and I'm glad she can look and see it lessening.
By the way, the government announced today that they will abandon the stupid-ass color-coded threat level thing pretty soon, since it's been stuck on whatever is worst since 9/11 anyway. Meanwhile, the Republicans running the House have already wasted our time and money with a theater-of-the-absurd Health-care repeal vote they knew was DOA, and are now complaining about the deficit while actively offering a huge steaming pile of fuck-all as an alternative. So nothing's changed out in the real world while we've been in Cancertown.
Something is ending. I will be on chemo until I am forty-one; I just have to get used to that. But the first assault, the Omaha and Utah beachheads, the Induction and torture of the last 8 months, starts to shrink in the rear-view mirror. A line is in the process of being crossed over, a long calendar entry marked 'chemo' is in the process of being crossed out. We're not out of the woods, but the undergrowth is thinning, and maybe, maybe I can see a path misting out of the deadfall and leaves.
But I still don't have any goddamn eyebrows.
