Bear Thoughts

Last Post

2007-12-15T12:17:00.000-05:00

Phil can't be with us to post this last entry. As you know he has been courageously fighting for his life, but the battle ended early Thursday morning. He was a bad ass until the very end and we know that he was thinking to himself "fuck you cancer." He also was likely thinking, "what the hell? why does this shit always happen to me?"

During his first cancer he called himself "cancer boy"--apparently the first sign that he was a full fledged member of the cancer boy club was his lack of eyebrows, making it very hard to tell whether he was joking or serious (but Phil was hardly ever serious). When Phil's cancer came back, we didn't have any clever nicknames--we were mostly just pissed off. Cancer, in case you didn't know, is a bitch. Hopefully someday it's a bitch that we can beat so people never have to go through the same shit Phil did.

Visiting the Lombardi Cancer Center was always a little bit nerve-wracking for Phil--sometimes there was good news (high neutrophil count) and sometimes the news sucked (no chemo allowed because the prior chemo had made him too sick). But Phil always handled these appointments with laughter--he liked to play with medical instruments in the exam room, often belting out some lounge singer tunes. And the nurses always knew when he was around because they could hear us laughing (mine was always the more nervous laugh, but Phil's was genuine amusement). We always said that we just came to the hospital for the cable TV and the fine cuisine.

Phil will be missed by those who hiked, drank, joked, fought, smoked, caroused, helped, laughed, cried, and loved. He is the love of my life and I will be forever grateful that I had the chance to know him and love him.

Love,
Mrs. Bearmagnet (Dani)

Cycle 5, Day 1

2007-11-21T16:22:00.000-05:00

Monday, 11/12

I'm alone today. It's Dani's first day at her new job. My onco comes in, I tell her about some "low grade" fevers (under 101) I had over the weekend, she examines me, SOSO. But not quite. She hears something in my respiration. Gives me another 'script for Augmentin (2x/day). That should take care of the lungs and any low grade fevers.

She esplains my clot is 1cm x 2cm now. Wow. It was 1cm x 3cm. Down a whole cm. Glad I went through all that for.........? I'm thinking Doctor 50:50 didn't give me enough tPA. Fuckhead

Anyway, she also gives me a 'script for Coumadin (Warfarin) - anti-coagulant and prophylactic for embolism/thrombosis. I start that after I'm done with the antibiotic and then I can wean off the 2x/day Lovenox injections. Injections that need to be at least 12hrs apart. Frikken pain in the ass.

Note - if I haven't esplained. I have a 30 days of lovenox injections into the side abdominal wall 2x/day. So I "rotate" left and right. Don't do it perfect and you get bruising. I'm bruised. Neupogen can be injected into the thighs, stomach, lower back, back of upper arms. I can only hit thighs and stomach. Don't want to ask Dani to inject me if I can avoid it. It's neither easy or pleasant to inject someone you care about.

So on chemo Days 3-6, and 10-15, I get to deliver 3 injections into my body. Right now I'm alternating thighs only for the Neupogen. If the sites don't hold up then Dani will need to stick me. Ugh.

Off to chemo I go. Its pretty uneventful and kind of lonely without The Dan. I feel sorry for people that do it alone on a regular basis. Dani does show up just as I'm finishing up. How sweet is that?

CT Scan and Another Scare: Par For The Fucking Course

2007-11-21T14:49:00.000-05:00

Friday 11/9

Simple chest CT. How exciting is that? It's like a vacation! I go in and find out I don't even need to get nekkid and change into a gown! Sweet! I jump up on the table and the dude misses my vein, of course. He gets someone slse to do it. I think that makes 9 sticks this week. Oh well. They take two scans and I'm down. tech comes in:

Tech: all done.
Me: Great
Tech: You seeing your doctor today?
Me: nope. Will see her on Monday
Tech: OK. Hold on a minute.
Me: OK.

Goddamit! Not again! Why can't I just get a fucking scan that says Okee Dokee? And the techs did their best to keep me unaware, but they were stuck when they thought I was going straight home. He comes back

Tech: we're gonna need you to wait her until a doctor takes a look at the scan just to make sure
Me: OK. I'm gonna go get my wife from the waiting room. I'll be right back.

Fuck, Fuck, Fuck. Now I need to pull Dani out of the waiting room without causing her to panic right away.

Me: All done
Dani: That was quick
Me: I know. Lets go out this way
Her: OK.

As soon as I get her down the hallway, towards CT, I tell her the story. Her reaction is the same as mine. "Fuck, Fuck, Fuck. Why can't it just be a simple scan? Why can't we ever relax?"

Why indeed.

And so we wait. And wait. We try and relax. Soon a tech comes out and gives the all clear. They wanted to make sure the clot was smaller, not a new one, whatever. Thanks.

Fucking assholes.

Another Appt. When will it end?

2007-11-21T14:12:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, 11/7

My Onco wants to see me the day after. She wants blood drawn to make sure I have enough coagulation factors. Or, I think the test is to make sure I don't have too much anti-coagulant (tPA) in me. The IR doc wanted me to schedule a CT for next week but my Onco overrides that and says I should go Friday so they can have results before chemo. At least it will just be a chest CT. No Barium drink or enema, just an IV. So, recap:

Mon - full body CT
Tue - tPA Infusion
Wed - bloods, doc visit
Fri - Chest CT scan

Fucking A, eh?

I go down to CT and they are booked for Friday but can fit me in 3 weeks. I really don't know why we need to do this dance? I call the Research Nurse and she gets me in for Friday, 8AM.

Cluster Fuck

2007-11-18T12:18:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, 11/6

We wake at the crack-o-dawn and head over to Georgetown, getting there around 0830 AM. They don't seem to have a room for me so they send us to the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, 2 Bles. We "sign in" and go to the waiting room. G'town is packed and only certain units can do heart telemetry. I need a room b/c the drug to break up my clot (tPA) is quite potent and they'll need to monitor me overnight and make sure I don't have any internal bleeding issues. They often use it for stroke victims. So we wait. And wait. After an hour or so a Hematology/Oncology Fellow shows up and apologizes. They can't get secure a room. He sends us to ER.

Isn't that nice? Going to ER for a major, not-yet-medical-emergency procedure. Nothing more comfortable and disease free than an ER. Well, except perhaps a Gulag. Thank You. This is the first place on my list for where I want a procedure done. Off to ER we go......................

.............and ER seems confused. No one told them we were coming. They're also worried that since its not an emergency and I will be needing a room, then my insurance might pay for one or the other but not both. They send us to where I got my port, Intervention Radiology (IR). We "sign in" and hang out in the waiting room. It will be an IR Doc who will perform the procedure. Seems logical, no?

No. At least not "hospital logic"

Two Nurses come out and explain that they can't do it there and try and send us back to ER. We refuse. On Insurance grounds and Nasty grounds. It's nearing Noon. I'm near the point of telling them "obviously my condition isn't important to you. I think I'll go home and wait for your call when you have a room for me." I mean, for anyone who knows me, I'm on the edge of being so "done". We were told to get to the hospital early in the morning so they could secure a bed. With telemetry. A fancy machine that monitors hearts. Seems like a hospital might have an extra hanging around for these unscheduled events. Even though, God knows, unscheduled events, like additional patients, never do the "pop in" at hospitals. Yes?

They go back inside. They come out and put me in a room. A consultation room. My IR doc and one of his underling docs comes in and apologizes. He's very nice, actually. States the hospital is no longer big enough for the demand. I appreciate his honesty. A nurse comes in and tries to call the person in charge of securing beds. A few ER people pop in saying they're ready to do the procedure. My Oncologist and her fellow show up. basicall, my Onco is their to say "What The Fuck?" and "Don't mess with me or my patients". She's super protective of her patients and I love that. And currently acting Director of Lombardi Cancer Center. She's a force to be reckoned with.

Can you picture this? There's not enough room for all these professionals in the room, half are in the hallway.

So, in the end, IR agrees to do my procedure in there patient prep area. It's much like the in-patient infusion unit. A bed and a curtain to go around it. And, oh yeah, apparently a fucking telemetry machine!!! Where'd that come from????? I knew there must be one lying around the Hospital somewhere. IR is an interesting sub-field(?). If anyone's interested:

IR

Now, I must get prepped before infusion. They roll me into an OR. and onto the table. Above me is an x-ray machine. The doc will pump a fluorescent through the mediport and see how the clot interferes with it. As they expose my chest an excitement builds. Most have never seen a dual port before. And never a port set up one on top of the other. Usually it's side by side. I soon have 6 people surrounding me and touching my chest. Thanks freaks. I ask for extra alcohol as they swab me down. An Infusion Nurse will access my ports since they are experienced. First she hits the top one, then the bottom port. She can't get blood back but maybe its b/c of the clot. She leaves stating a 99% confidence that the ports are accessed. A technician turns on the x-ray and it is clear the infusion nurse accessed the top port twice. Nice going. They have to go find another "expert". She removes the "lower" needle and hits the bottom port. Three sticks. I also have two sticks from them trying to access a vein for a drip. You'd think I'd stop feeling it. You'd be wrong. And know they can get blood back.

I can see the x-ray perfectly. And it's pretty cool. I see the needles in my two ports. I see the ports. The catheter runs up to my neck then makes a U turn and ends at the entrance of the Superior Vena Cava, right above the heart. I can't see my heart and I think I'm thankful for that. The doc starts flushing the fluorescent compound through. And sees........not much. he keeps flushing. I see it go through the vena cava. He can't seem to find the clot. He expresses this. stating nothing is interfering with the flow. "Oh Goody" I think. Maybe it detached and is in my Lung where it "shouldn't" cause Pulmonary embolism. Or he's an idiot. My confidence level is low. I give 50:50 odds on either.

Why not pull up the CT scan from yesterday?

He leaves the room and consults my Doctor. I think he paged him. My doctor, BTW, took me as a patient on his day off. Guess that was the only option. Guess this is a serious condition. Anyway, Doctor 50:50 comes back and says they won't need to give as much tPA as they had anticipated and it should take about two hours, instead of four, to infuse. I'm only confident now b/c my Doc showed up for the consultation. Back to the waiting area I go for infusion.

Infusion starts at 2:30. Woo Hoo. The Nurse who starts it won't be finishing it so she labels both lines, starts the two pumps, and leaves. Soon after another Nurse comes over. Apparently I need close monitoring. I make her aware of the fact that the Heart Telemetry Machine is not on. Yes, the machine they needed to make sure I could have this procedure, the machine needed in case the compound really does a number on me. She turns it on. And long, dull story short, I'm done. It's about 5-5:30. They're gonna release me. They say its b/c I didn't need a lot of tPA. I think it's b/c they don't have a bed for me. The Nurse stresses the importance of me not falling or bumping anything too hard for the next 24hrs. And to call 911 if anything doesn't feel right.

I don't think I could sleep without my 1mg Lorazepam. I wish Dani would take some.

Who Love's Irony?

2007-11-05T19:00:00.000-05:00

Monday, 11/5 (1030AM - 2PM)
I go get my scan, then my weekly blood draw and decide to meet my wife for coffee. We get a call from the nurse as I'm driving her back to her office. I have to pull over.

I have a blood clot. At the end of the mediport catheter attached to a major artery in my chest. It should be noted that my platelet's skyrocket after chemo.....it's a recovery thang.

I even once joked with an Infusion Nurse about having a heart attack during chemo.

She sent us right to our pharmacy to pick up Lovenox (Enoxaparin). Twice daily abdominal injections for one month (that's on top of my 14-20 Neupogen Injections/month - luckily they can be in other areas).

Of course any shortness of breath and I call 911.

And the port must come out ASAP. The port that was put in a month(?) ago because the chemo was wreaking havoc on my veins.

I've come to despise scans.

Breaking News.........
Hi. This is Anchorman Phil. Coming to you live in an attempt to keep you updated on this fast breaking story:

5:30PM.......

Just got a Call from my Onco and then the Interventional Radiology (The Port People) Doc. I go in tomorrow for an injection of a strong thrombolytic drug. They want to try and break up the clot (3cm x 1cm) instead of taking out the port. I also have to wake up at 4am to take my fuckinging lovenox. I'll probably be admitted for overnight observation.

Tomorrow is Dani's last day at work. There was gonna be a huge party at work and afterwards. Dani has a week off between jobs. We were gonna relax all week, drink, take in a few movies

I really am awesome at timing shit. Sorry, my beloved.

Losing The War On Cancer.

2007-11-05T17:01:00.000-05:00

This draft was written before the next post (Who Loves Irony). I have made no Changes.

Sunday, November 4th.

2 years ago today, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's IV. Tomorrow I have another full body CT to see how well I'm doing. Here's a great article on "The War". Dani got her book, "The Secret History of the War on Cancer", at a talk she gave recently. The author included a very sweet little personal note to me. Dani rocks. Enjoy. I've got to get back to the bottle. Cheers.

In related news - This weekend was the 2year anniversary of my diagnosis. I have a CT scan today. My 2yr radiation exposure total is:

1 MUGA (Multiple Gated Acquisition Scan) = 8mSv
4 PET scans = 28 mSv
10 full body CT scans = 120 mSv
Total = 156mSv

That's the radiation equivalent of 7800 chest x-rays. This, of course, is on top of the cancer causing agents administered intravenously to me to fight my cancer. Lung, Non-Hodgkin's, & Leukemia are some of my future worries.

And I'm assuming the scan will show what the scan 2 months ago showed. Yippee. Article

Off Target in the War on Cancer

By Devra Davis
Sunday, November 4, 2007; B01

We've been fighting the war on cancer for almost four decades now, since President Richard M. Nixon officially launched it in 1971. It's time to admit that our efforts have often targeted the wrong enemies and used the wrong weapons.

Throughout the industrial world, the war on cancer remains focused on commercially fueled efforts to develop drugs and technologies that can find and treat the disease -- to the tune of more than $100 billion a year in the United States alone. Meanwhile, the struggle basically ignores most of the things known to cause cancer, such as tobacco, radiation, sunlight, benzene, asbestos, solvents, and some drugs and hormones. Even now, modern cancer-causing agents such as gasoline exhaust, pesticides and other air pollutants are simply deemed the inevitable price of progress.

More:

Washington Post

Joy Division Fans?

2007-11-05T16:58:00.000-05:00

Go see Control. It's a limited release and it's amazing. They nailed it and the actors play their instruments and the actor playing ian curtis sings the songs himself. Its unbelievable as to how much he looks, dances, sounds like ian. And even though the ending is as surprising as the ending of the Titanic, it's still crushing.

Two Thumbs Way Up!

Catching Up - Lots of Fun!

2007-11-05T16:51:00.000-05:00

Sorry. So I go see my Onco on Monday, the 22nd of October. She feels my symptoms have subsided enough to stamp them "resolved". It's kind of late but my doc doesn't want my chemo delayed at all so we head up to treatment. I thank her excitedly and the onco fellow is "shocked" that I'm excited to get chemo. She's a dumbass. Why wouldn't I be excited? The sooner I get chemo the sooner I'm done. Duh. Aren't fellows the brightest of their class??????

So now I have chemo on Mondays. I complete cycle 4 the next Monday, the 29th. The Port isn't so bad. I think the first time it hurt b/c it was so soon after surgery.

Grading Toxicity

2007-10-16T11:47:00.000-04:00

Grade 1: Referring to a mild adverse event (sign, abnormal lab finding, symptom, or disease) or toxicity resulting from a medical therapy. The event is commonly asymptomatic or causes minimal symptoms and typically requires no medical intervention. The exact criteria for grading toxicity and required interventions are dependent on the organ system involved.
Grade 2: Referring to a moderate adverse event (sign, abnormal lab finding, symptom, or disease) or toxicity resulting from a medical therapy. The event may or may not be symptomatic and may or may not require some type of non-urgent medical intervention. The exact criteria for grading toxicity and required interventions are dependent on the organ system involved.
Grade 3: Referring to a severe adverse event (sign, abnormal lab finding, symptom, or disease) or toxicity resulting from a medical therapy. The event may interfere with functioning and often requires medical intervention. The exact criteria for grading toxicity and required interventions are dependent on the organ system involved.
Grade 4: Referring to a life-threatening or disabling adverse event (sign, abnormal lab finding, symptom, or disease) or toxicity resulting from a medical therapy. The event requires some type of immediate medical intervention. The exact criteria for grading toxicity and required interventions are dependent on the organ system involved.

I don't feel like a Grade 3. Oh well. On another front - my hair is thinning. Mostly on my legs (calves), somewhat on my hands/knuckles, and on my face and head. I would really hate to lose my eyelashes and eyebrows again. Makes me look like a freak.

My doctor said this treatment was less toxic than my first treatment. Wonder if she's changed her mind?

So What?

2007-10-15T16:57:00.000-04:00

What could go wrong? It was my pre-treatment Onco visit today. Twelve days since my last chemo and two days to go for the next. No new scans, neupogen keeping my cell counts up. I thought it would be routine. I had a few symptoms to describe. So What?

My hands were drying and calloused, red & hot, making a fist or lifting a grocery bag was painful. Opening jars and prescription bottles was impossible. So What?

My feet and toes blistered after a 3mi walk in the city. So What?

The rashes in my armpits were a crimson color and going deep. So What?

My mouth sores were keeping me from eating most solid foods for the last 6 days and I've lost a bit of weight. So What?

Everyone knows the chemo schedule is the most important. I really thought it wasn't a big deal.

As usual, I was wrong. And nothing is routine.

My symptoms are "Grade 3" (?) and chemo's on hold. Again. Back on more drugs.

Yippee. If I can't drink with these drugs I may have to say Fuck It.

I think all I want for xmas is to be done with this.”

In the meantime, here's something old school. You might not recognize they way Al looks, but you should recognize the voice. It's a long video but he first makes his appearance in the first 1-1.5min. So What?

We Are Retard.

2007-10-15T15:54:00.000-04:00

Wednesday, 10/3/07

Dani tried to warn me the night before. And I got a little worried but I thought she was talking crazy. I didn't see the point in her explanation. Then, sitting in the chair I asked the infusion nurse and she confirmed what Dani said. Fuck. What the Hell? I looked away and she plunged the needle into my chest. I lurched from the unexpected pain. The Nurse shouted "don't move! it makes it worst!".

Thanks.

So to correct my naive post from before, the upper incision is to thread the tube, the lower incision has the port. They take, according to what Dani saw, a large thumbtack like needle and stick it through my chest into the port. Instant access to my artery. It is on the surface but I wasn't expecting it. I've had countless needle sticks, from tiny to harpoon, and never lurched.

Supposedly the port is "beneficial" in the long run. IMHO, that stick hurt like a motherfucker. But I guess it's impossible(?) to miss and they're not fucking up my veins anymore. Yay.

I would've taken a photo of it but I forgot my camera. Maybe next time?

We Are Borg

2007-10-02T11:35:00.000-04:00

Thursday, 9/27/07

Resistance was futile. Our veins are not doing well. We needed a port.

I told the doc I have a high tolerance for Novocaine and most locals. I take 5-7 shots at the dentist. And yet, through the whole 45min procedure of implanting a dual lumen (news to me) port in me I remained lucid. The anesthesiologist continued to inject me throughout the procedure. Noting my wincing, hand raising, curling toes.....shocked that I wasn't out or at least in a "twilight state".

In the end, I had to wait an hour before going home, SOP. The anesthesiologist showed me her injection record - about 15. And I could've fucken driven home.

That kind of sucked.

We hate local anesthesia.

It is just under the skin. The upper area is the access point. The lower is the main device. And we know you are curious about what is underneath...............

You can see the tube up top but not all the way. Lets take a picture without the flash...

It is an efficient method for receiving compounds. We have been assimilated.

Trying To Catch Up. Busy Month

2007-09-28T09:05:00.000-04:00

What a fun and annoying month. I feel the need to recap:

Wed 9/5 - Chemo
Fri 9/7 - Dentist
Tue 9/11 - Labs
Wed 9/12 - Chemo
Thur 9/13 - Labs
Fri 9/14 - Dentist
Mon 9/17 - CT Scan
Tue 9/18 - Onco Appt/Labs
Wed 9/19 - ENT Appt
Thur 9/20 - Dentist
Monday 9/24 - Onco Appt/Labs. Barium Swallo appt.
Tue 9/25 - Dentist
Wed 9/26 - Chemo
Thur 9/27 - Port Surgery

Free to comment

2007-09-21T13:31:00.000-04:00

Just made aware that my comment section was only open to "registered users". I have remedied that and its wide open now.

Total Radiation Exposure

2007-09-18T16:44:00.000-04:00

For 11/05-9/17:

1mSv = 100mrem

PET = 7mSv
CT = 10-12mSv (whole Body scan)
MUGA = 8mSv

Background radiation exposure in the US is ~3mSv/year.

A chest X-ray = 0.02mSv

1 CT = 500 x-rays
1 PET = 350 x-rays
1 MUGA = 400 x-rays

My Exposure Totals:
1 MUGA = 8mSv
4 PET scans = 28 mSv
9 CT scans = 90-108 mSv
Total = 126-144 mSv

Comparisons:
6300-7200 x-rays
42-48 years of background radiation

And counting.....

Lighting up Like a Christmas Tree/No Progression

2007-09-18T16:06:00.000-04:00

Monday, 9/17
The day of my post 2 cycle CT scan. This will tell us if the chemo's working. The "thing" in my throat is worse. I have difficulty swallowing and the urge to vomit the "thing" up after every swallow. Once at the hospital, I chug the first half of my Barium Shake. I excuse myself and walk with fist in front of mouth, concentrating, to the bathroom. I'm trying not to vomit. Never happened before. It's the "thing". In the bathroom I run the water and do that pre-vomit cough. Thankfully though, I don't vomit. back with Dani, I take a sipping approach to the rest of my "shake". It goes down slightly better. In the room I get the always fun Barium enema and a barium IV. For the first time ever, a CT tech misses my vein. Twice. She's done me many times before. Are my veins going to shit? She gets another tech in. Two is the "ethical" limit. New guy gets me first try. They do the scans, then my abdomen a second time. That should have set off an alarm but I missed it somehow.

Once home we get a call from the research RN. "Informing" me that I have Diverticulitis. Somedays a situation calls for the mental cliche statement of "No Shit, Sherlock." doubly so since it's diverticulitis. I had been experiencing a flare up. It happens on occasion. But it must've made my abdomen glow like a christmas tree for the CT scan. Techs were thinking Cancer and saw my abdomen just exploding with activity. Must've freaked them out enough to call my doc ASAP. LOL! :D

Tuesday, 9/18
In to see my doc and discuss the scan. I'm given a copy and we go over it together. To a laymen there is conflicting data on my report. Then I focus on the summary:

NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE PROGRESSION.

Just then my doctor summarizes it in human terms:

NO EVIDENCE OF DISEASE

Dani and I do the "what? Huh? what do we....what does this mean? Huh?

It means we continue treatment. CT sees no disease but PET might. But this is good news. Really good news. We both were thinking the worst. It was hard not to. The worst part about it was the thought of leaving Dani alone, a widow. I would do anything to not have that happen. She doesn't deserve that. And now I might have another reprieve. Another real lease on Life.

And after i drop Dani off, I smiled. I don't remember the last time I smiled out of the blue. Probably not since before June. But I couldn't stop. And to be truly honest, I couldn't stop the tears. Not that I want to.

peace.

Home Invasion!

2007-09-18T15:23:00.000-04:00

Scene: Our Second floor apartment, back bedroom. 8PMish, just after sunset. Dani & Phil decide to take a nap. Both a little inebriated. We turn off all the lights. She is on the bed, stage Left. I'm to the right. Both of us are on our backs. Iggy is on the open windowsill. Shade up, There's a nice breeze. The door security gate is open.

We weren't asleep for long when all of a sudden Iggy jumps off the windowsill onto Dani, waking us both up before he hits the floor hard. We both think "how odd." I look at Dani thinking "I should close the gate."

Dani turns to me and whispers "There's someone out there." I get a vibe that sends a chill down my spine and adrenalin starts pumping through me.

In a single bound I'm over her and land in front of the door. And there, crouched down on all fours is a figure, looking like he was trying to jimmy the lock. I realize instantly that a hard kick to the door and he's in. I lunge at the door and start screaming obscenities while dialing 911 on my phone. The dude takes off down the stairs and over the 7ft fence where another was waiting.

Cops arrive within a few minutes but I assume they got away.

Needless to say, we're a little freaked out.

Fever Central

2007-09-18T09:06:00.000-04:00

Sunday, 9/9
All Morning my temp hovers around 100. I still feel a little like ass. My head throbs with any change in elevation. A temperature is, again, indicative of a potential serious infection for cancer patients. Especially if one is potentially Neutropenic. Doesn't mean I'm not hesitant to go to the ER. Whys this shit always happen on the weekend? I wait until Dani gets home from Market to break the news. I take my temp two more times and call the oncall onco. My last hope of what I'm sure will be a trip to the ER. To my surprise, the oncall thinks since its low level then it's no bigee - 1000mg Tylenol every 4-6hrs. Whoo Hoo!

Monday, 9/10
My Onco is pissed the oncall didn't rush me into the ER. Ooops. :D She wants me in for blood work.

WBC=12.7
ANC=11,600

Healthy as the proverbial horse. Well, my immune system anyway. Well, all of the cell lines of my immune system except for the one motherfucker that's trying to kill me right now. I seem to have developed a thing in the back of my throat. Somethings there that won't go away. I'm at the clinic but can't get anyone to look at it. How infuriating is that? My doc isn't around and her nurse is a case manager? All those fucking Medical Students walking around are suddenly to busy???????? I leave more than a little pissed off.

Wednesday, 9/12
Chemo Day. Yay! We have to share a room again. I'm there all day, why can't I get a private room? I see 2-3 people drudge through with 15-60 minute procedures. Kind of pisses me off. But we have always had control of the TV. That's what counts. Today the Research Nurse Pops in. I complain about "the thing". She says she'll call an ENT and make an appt for this week.

Phil The Asshole - The chemo, especially 2nd treatment, really does a number on me. Wednesday & Thursday are the worst. I get an overall feeling of ickiness, coupled with irritation, moodiness, no appetite, and nausea. And poor Dani has to deal with me. I'm a monster. Thank God she loves me. I have a hard time putting up with me.

Thursday, 9/13
Go in for bloods. I have a dentist appt. on Friday and my Onco wants to be sure my counts are OK.

WBC=6.2
ANC=4,800
Platelets=142,000

Isn't that interesting? A Twofold decrease (or halving) in my WBC and an almost 2.5 times decrease in my ANC. One day after chemo. Interesting in that chemo sucks ass in targeting specific cells, perhaps? The counts get progressively worst, bottoming out 7-10 days after chemo. Hence the Neupogen. But I'm good to go for dental work.

Friday, 9/14
My dentist doesn't appear to be in. She's always so careful............and cute. Damn. I get the head douchbag. He doesn't like how long I take to go under so he pumps some stuff they use for surgery right into the canal. Hurts like a motherfucker. Fucking asshole. My Dentist pumps me full of novocaine until I numb out. Quite painless after 3-4 sticks. Then douchbag decides he can't see much so he takes the rest of the crown off. He was hoping to finish but the infection is still too big. So I wait another week, putting new cotton on my open canal 3-4 times/day.

Was It The Drugs?

2007-09-13T14:47:00.000-04:00

Friday, 9/7
Call the dentist at 8AM. I tell 'em whats going on and they tell me to come in ASAP. Didn't sleep more than 2-3 hrs. I call my Nurse and leave a message. The pain is excruciating. I get in ~9 and she takes me immediately - shoots me with 3 shots of Novocaine. What a beautiful drug. The take an x-ray. Frikken infection looks the same. She cleans it and leaves it open. It needs to drain and heal before they can cap it. She gives me a script for Percocet and Augmentin. After treatment the nurse calls. While I'm still in the chair.

Me: Hello
Nurse: I talked with the doc, she told you no treatment until after chemo.

Oy Vey. I had to spell it out that this wasn't elective, but a fucking emergency. What part of no sleep and me slicing my own tooth out did they not understand. Finally, with the graphic explanation, they got it. Any more work and I would have to have blood drawn to make sure my counts were good. Fine. if it's not another emergency. Chemo seems to do a number on my teeth.

I get home after picking up my scripts and waiting too long for the bus. In hindsight, I must have been delirious from all the Percocet, alcohol, then Novocaine. It's about 1230. I do my Augmentin, anti-viral, Inject neupogen, and then pop a Percocet just in case. I'm feeling really High strung and anxious. I have a whiskey. I have no food in my stomach.

The following description doesn't do my trip justice but I really don't know how to better describe it. Bad Trip, might be best:

All of a sudden, I'm feeling like I've never felt before. I lay down and sleep. It's a restless sleep. I'm aware that I'm moaning, a lot. I feel like ass in these fleeting moments of semi-consciousness. Dani comes home at some point. I get up to pee. And go back to bed. It's a horrible, indescribable experience. At some point she wakes me and tries to get me to eat some homemade chicken noodle soup. I struggle with a few bites and then tell her to take it away before I vomit. I plop back down and continue my not-sleep sleep. I spike a few fevers, sweat, moan, mumble, toss and turn. I sense delirium. At one point I feel something blocking my head whenever I try to sit up. Feels like a warm steel block against my head. But there's nothing there. It's part of the headache from hell I've got. And Time has no meaning. Sometime at night I reluctantly take my anti-microbials. And some tylenol.

And thats what I do. From about 2:30PM until 9AM the next day. And the next day I feel like never before. A headache worst than any I've ever encountered. Worn out like I fought all those hours. I veg on the sofa. I spike a few 101 fevers. I try not to panic. I should go to the ER with temps like that but the drop quickly. And I'm hoping it's all the drugs and dental work that is causing it. Not sure we're being rational about it but we really don't want to go to the ER. I decide if it continues on Sunday I'll call in and see. I just wish the headache would go away.

For some reason I hate liquids now. Have an aversion to them all. Doesn't that suck?

Pain

2007-09-07T04:10:00.000-04:00

THURSDAY EVENING
My root canal tooth is acting up again. Why? I call my Onco Nurse at 3PM. I need clearance to get my dental work completed. My doctors out of town until Friday. I pop some Tylenol. At 7PM I pop 2 Percocets and start drinking. I think maybe the pain is from using it - it's become increasingly difficult to not. But what if its infected?

The percocet don't help much. Dani makes me an ice pack. We go to bed at 1030. I'm up at 1130. I pop 2 more percocet and drink some more. Back to bed at 1230. Up at 330. Pop my last percocet. I'll be done with my whiskey soon. It's 415. And yet I can't stop the pain. I fight the tears. I'm ready to slice into my gum again. I'd kill for relief.

Fuck my Onco. I'm calling my dentist first thing in the morning.

I don't fucking deserve this. Who does?

Heaven & Hell

2007-09-06T14:02:00.000-04:00

Monday, 9/3/07. 3 Days delay

I notice all my tongue sores, chemo & herpes, seem to be all better. Do I dare? I pop a cherry tomato in my mouth. Nuthin! No burning and I can use my tongue fully I squeal with delight. I still can't use my left side due to my temp root canal but I ask Dani to add a Brandywine to my plate. Sausage, steak fries, sliced brandywine with salt. I gleefully take a bite and do a little jig in my chair. Tomatoe. Salt. Gifts of the Gods. I'm so happy. I do my little jig each time I bite into my tomato. I'm almost me again. But not quite. Tomorrow's labs will determine that.

Tuesday, 9/4/07. 4th day

I go into Lombardi around 2PM. I was stalling. Afraid of the outcome. For some reason the phlebotomist can no longer hit my veins. Takes him two sticks near my knuckles. Again, like I'm some frikken Junkie. I go home and wait. I call at 4. One to the Research RN then One to my Docs RN.

WBC 4.9
ANC 3100

Back to normal. Can you believe that? ANC almost quadrupled in 4 days after struggling so long. I "get" chemo on Wednesday.

back home and I'm ecstatic. I have a drink or two. Happier than I can remember. Dani comes home and is quite shocked at my disposition. For dinner I have a porter house, corn on the cob, and another brandywine. So beautiful to be able to eat again. I do my little jig for every bite of corn and tomato I take. Dani's a little saddened by this. She got an almost completely happy Phil yesterday and a 100% happy Phil today.

Tomorrow, I will go away. Breaks Her heart. Makes me sad. So I say lets drink. Toast today. Tomorrow is not here. And drink we do.

Wednesday, 9/5/07. 5 days late

In for chemo at 0930. Out at 4PM. It goes off mostly without a hitch. And unpleasant Phil is back. Irritated Phil is back. Irritated while driving. Irritated at Whole Foods. Nauseated Phil is back. No appetite and I struggle to keep my food going the right way. Fucking meds don't do much but keep me from vomiting. yay. Irritated, sick, fatigued. Oh well. Such is life, eh?

Give Dani a hug. She needs it more than I.

Peace.

What The Fuck Do They Know?

2007-09-06T11:55:00.000-04:00

Saturday we go back to pick up my Magic Mouthwash and were unsuccessful. The pharmacist didn't understand one of the ingredients so they called my Doc. My Doc never returned the call so they didn't make my mouthwash. Thanks. Dani gave 'em hell and we go on our way. I call the hospital to page the on-call Onco. 3hrs pass and nothing. Guess everyone's too busy on labor day weekend, eh? I call again, explaining I've been waiting 3hrs and get a quick response.

The on-call calls CVS then me back. Seems my Doc wanted Nystatin in my mix but didn't say how much. The on-call thought it wasn't necessay so told them to nix the Nystatin. It's an antifungal. Who the fuck is he? Some fucking resident that doesn't know shit about me. I tell him I'm on an antibiotic and an anti-viral for mouth issues. So either

A. Maybe my doc saw something in my mouth?
2. Maybe my doc is worried about fungal infection since everything else is being wiped out?

resident dumbfuck: :No. I don't think you need it.
Me: Thanks (asshole). click.

I call the research RN and ask her to please get this clarified with Asatiani. She pages her and emails her. I never here back.

Fuck it. Seems like there are too many cooks in the Kitchen, no?

I pick up my mouthwash on Sunday. Have I told you it's not covered by insurance? $35 bucks. Works for the two weeks I need it. Couldn't eat without it. There's a new circle in hell for insurance company employees.

Priceless II

2007-09-03T23:36:00.000-04:00

1 Half-smoke*: $5.50
2 Harp Draft Beers: $13.00
4 Primo National seats at RFK Stadium. Donated to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society: Priceless.

The St. Louis hat is for Mother-in-Law. :D

Wednesday I received an email from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) about some donated tickets to the Friday Nats game against the Giants - first come, first serve. I shot an email back immediately and scored. They were shipped overnight. Four tickets, section 222, row 8, seats 5-8. Right behind 3rd base. $50 dollar tickets. Each. I'm not big into baseball but what is more American than a baseball game in the Capital? It's a cliche like none other.

I hadn't seen a game since Little League. Cleveland Stadium. Bored out of my mind. Likewise, Dani hadn't seen a game since childhood and felt the same way. But I really wanted to see a game. I wanted to see one in RFK before they move to the new stadium next year. I was worried it was a chemo day but I really wanted to go. After my chemo cancellation, My onco said enjoy. Wash your hands a lot and don't eat uncooked from from any source but home. So Why not? Our friend Erin is big on baseball so we invited him along with a date. I was shocked at our view even though I looked up the seats before we got there:

Of course, once we found our seats I had to go get food. Gotta have a dog at a baseball game and I wasn't gonna wait for a vendor. Not for my first. And since it was DC, I opted for a half-smoke*. I was in Cliche heaven when I got back to my seat. Erin and his date had shown up by then and there we sat. He brought some crap to share and we had beer. And, surprisingly, we really enjoyed ourselves. Being that close, we felt connected to the game. It was an awesome time.

Of course, the beer helps. And from that point on we ordered from vendors. But it wasn't boring at all. And what would a Nats game be without the Presidential Race? I fergit who won:

followed by the Presidential-Dance-on-the-Dugout, of course (???)

And a lot of the fun was hoping for foul balls from lefties. They hit all around us, one very close, but no luck

And one action shot from the pitcher:

We were bummed Berry Bonds didn't play that night. We were all hoping to boo him like everyone else. How fun would that be? Oh well. The Nats lost 3-2. It was a tight game and people were leaving before the final inning. If I had seats like that, I would never leave until it was over. And we didn't. And we waited until the stadium cleared out. Why Fight? As we walked to metro we noticed a huge line. And cops holding everyone back from the metro escalators. Crowd control into metro. I thought we were fucked. But Erin, being RFK savvy, suggested we walk to the North Entrance of the same Metro stop. Sure enough, no lines. Beautiful.

All in all a beautiful night. Dani and I had an awesome time. And we were able to forget all our troubles. And that was truly priceless. Thank you, LLS.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-smoke

What The Fuck Do I Know?

2007-09-01T09:35:00.000-04:00

Friday. Chemo Day. Yay! Dani & I arrive at 7 West at 0815 for blood draw. It's a beautiful stick. Near perfect. The Nurse draws 3 tubes, tapes the port to my arm, and we head over to Lombardi to see my Doc.

BP 138/98. Fuck-an-A.

I tell my Doc about my tongue/mouth woes and she takes a look. "Herpes" she says. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. And a big Fuckin' hindsight "DOH"! Two of my tongue sores seemed to be getting worse the last few days. They couldn't be due to chemo. DOH! DOH! DOH! She writes me a script for Famvir (Famciclovir: anti-viral specific for herpesviridae family) and more "magic mouthwash". We go back to the waiting room. Labs aren't in yet. And no, it 'taint HSV-2, smart asses. Had an outbreak of HSV-1 once, back in Highschool. Fucker was just waiting.

We sit and wait. I'm not sure which way it's gonna go. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of hoping. I wanna just go with the flow. The Nurse comes out:

WBC - 2.5
ANC - 900.

Chemo delayed until Wednesday. Doc says to enjoy the weekend. Probably nothing more detrimental to chemo therapy than delaying treatment once its started. But they can't risk treatment. WTF? I go back to have my port removed and we leave. Dani's quite upset. I don't know if I care anymore.

Fuck it.

Neutropenia

2007-08-30T19:35:00.000-04:00

Mild Neutropenia (1000 < style="font-weight: bold;">Moderate Neutropenia (500 < style="font-weight: bold;">Severe Neutropenia (ANC < 500) — severe risk of infection.

As you may recall Thursday, my counts were 1.4 and 460. That's 1400WBC/microliter and an Absolute Neutrophil Count (ANC or "Absolute") of 460. I need an ANC of 1200 before I can get chemo.

A normal healthy human has 5,000-10,000 WBC. 50-70% are Neutrophils.

I went in for labs on Monday. My counts were 1.8 and 700. Cell growth isn't linear so I was hoping for the best. In the meantime, the RN had to get my info so she could do battle with Insurance and get me Neupogen. I was on it last time. It's a recombinant colony growth stimulator. I inject it subcutaneously and it helps my WBCs rejuvenate. Its big bucks.

Monday night the Nurse calls, says I got the Neupogen but it will be delivered by Icorps health (cheaper?) to my door. They canceled my Tuesday appt with my Doc and rescheduled my chemo from Thursday to Friday, hoping my counts will be fine by then. In the meantime, my doc also convinced the PI that I should have chemo on Fridays only. Day 22 instead of 21. This way I get to see my doc the day of chemo. Makes me and I think my doc much more comfortable.

And My mouth sores suck ass and are getting worst. But it is the night before chemo. So I raise my glass of usige beatha and toast.

Cheers.

Why I Love Mornings Now.

2007-08-25T08:13:00.000-04:00

I was never a morning person. Night, late night was my prime time. But now, when I wake up, I feel no pain. My mouth hasn't done anything for hours. No talking, eating, laughing, nothing. The sores aren't irritated. It's so pleasant, such a nice absence. And here I sit, drinking luke-warm coffee, sensing all the spots in my mouth waking up again.

1 cycle down, 5 to go
2 infusions down, 10 to go
2 weeks down, ?

Back To Hell [C,L]

2007-08-24T14:16:00.000-04:00

THURSDAY, 8/23/07

I wake up in horrible pain. A toothache. It had been bothering me before so I made an appointment for Monday. It was a crowned/root canaled tooth. Or "dead". I thought maybe the gum was being bothered by the chemo. The pain on Thursday had me believing in Hell again. I called my dentist and they squeezed me in at 230PM. By the time I left I was screaming bloody murder and punching our bathroom/tiled wall. I was ready to cut into my Gum and relieve the pressure/pain.

An excruciating X-ray revealed a massive infection under the "dead" tooth and in one of the canals. The root canal was done the winter of '99-00. Nice job, fuck heads. The X-ray was excruciating because of all the crap they put in your mouth and bite on feels really horrible when you have mouth sores.

We go with a "retry". Redo the root canal instead of pulling/implant or doing a bridge. at 1300 it's also the cheapest method. they calculate insurance will pay about 550. Yay. Glad we're made of money and have no other expenses.

The doc gives me a few shots of novocaine and asks if I want Nitrous. I decline. they aren't trained anesthesiologists. That's why sometimes, on a rare occasion, someone dies at the dentist. And as I've "dabbled" in anesthesia......lets say I know how precarious the patients position is. So I decline but I'm nervous. I can still feel the tooth. My doc loads me up. I think I got 8-12 shots total and then they go to work. For a change, its pain free. The procedure might have been an hour. The relief I feel is indescribable I went from a "10" to a "0" on the pain scale. I almost hugged her. She gives me a script for amoxicillan and I'm out the door. The infection was so large that she left it open so it could drain. Yummy. I did smell it once the drill reached the little buggers. Yummy x 1000.

Wonder why the infection exploded then? Dani also wondered. This happened last time I went through chemo.....

I get the script and it calls for 4 pills right away then 1 every 6 hours. So at 6PM I chug 2000mg of Amoxicillan. Or does 2grams sound larger?

~8PM I'm feeling a toothache. She didn't give me any pain killers. I pop an Oxycodone (Percocet) left over from Surgery.

~15min later I feel a rush of warmth and start sweating.

Fuck.

I grab a thermometer. 101.2. Dani gets off the phone with her mom. I take my temp again. 101.4 FUCK!

during chemo a fever sends you to the doc or the ER if its after hours. I call the on-call anyway. She sends me to the ER. For some reason we drive. stupid. We're kind of in a state of panic. once there they take my vitals. I'm down to ~99.5. So we wait. I hate waiting. I'm so tired of waiting. I tell Dani I'm thirsty and feeling dizzy. She goes up and tells the registrar. I get the next room. It's pediatrics but I get the next room (shhhhhhh. don't ever do that at home, kids). And it's pretty. Unfortunately it's also a big diaper/formula supply room. Oh well. I was tired and wanted a bed.

I won't go through the details of a teaching ER again. Or the fact that its still summer so it's chock full of inexperienced fucks. Or that the student missed my vein twice. That would all be redundant.

The fever disappeared. Several things could have caused it, including taking a massive dose of antibiotics.

however, my WBC (White Blood Cell) and Absolute (Absolute Neutrophil Count) counts are 1.4 and 460, respectively. I'm in the basement. After only 1 cycle. I'm at a High Risk rate for infection. This is my week off from chemo. My weekend off from chemo. Now I have to avoid people.

Into the ER at 8:30PM. Out at 1:30AM.

And my week destroyed.

Peace.

Wow.

2007-08-22T23:31:00.000-04:00

Fading fast. Gonna take my magic mouthwash soon and pray for no drug hangover. That's a lie. Gonna pray for 8hrs of uninterrupted sleep. I'd pray for more if I thought it were possible. Hangover be damned. Main active ingredients of mouthwash: Lidocaine & diphenhydramine. Yum.

In the meantime I can think of nothing funnier than having a rug shaped like a "D".

Cancer Shmanzer [C]

2007-08-22T22:50:00.000-04:00

Fuck Cancer - Chemo sucks ass!

Wouldn't it be nice if they could comatize you through chemo? I wanna eat but it hurts. I wanna drink but can't. I wanna crap but its painful. I wanna sleep but it escapes me. My tongue hurts, my teeth hurt, my arm hurts, my kidneys hurt, my intestines hurt.

The pain will spike and I wince. Dani wants to help, needs to help. But there is no relief. I just have to ride it out, a wave of pain. I sit in silence, wincing, sometimes biting my tongue near the sore....somehow it helps. Sometimes I can't remain silent and I cry out. Then it's gone. For the moment.

Comfort escapes me

It's not the bullet but the fall.

Gonna go pop lorazepam, compazine, ibuprofen, and I think some sominex.

Fuck it all.

I'd kill to be wasted right now. I'd kill to wake up in a hospital room, Dani looking down on me, and it be December....Cancer Free...

I'm a selfish fuck.

Those Silly Romans [C]

2007-08-21T14:54:00.000-04:00

Lead Pipes. Did they really do that? Did they poison themselves? We like to use that cautionary tale for all kinds of reasons. Here's some more:

2006 new cancer cases in the US: 1,399,790
2006 estimated cancer deaths US: 564,830

How silly will we look in the future?

pain's back [C]

2007-08-21T14:45:00.001-04:00

With a passion. Oh well. Maybe a Tylenol & some baking soda will do it's trick?

No Pain [C]

2007-08-21T14:13:00.000-04:00

My Tongue doesn't hurt. I wish I could convey how wonderful that feels. I hope it lasts for a little bit.

Chemo with a Celebrity/Less Toxic My Ass [C]

2007-08-19T22:38:00.000-04:00

1030 PM. Sunday. I just popped 0.5mg Lorazepam and washed it down with whiskey. It's my first drink since chemo. So hoping to sleep. So sure I won't. Soon I get a Compazine. Valley of the Guys...

No Corn
No Scones
No Toast
No Tomatoes
No Spice

Insomnia
Irritability
Gas
Anger
Nausea
Inner tremor, right foot
No Appetite
Anxiety
Constipation
High Blood Pressure
Chemo Brain
Fatigue
Mouth Sores

FRIDAY, 8/17/07
We Get to the Clinic and they put us in a room with another dude. He will be the first of two we share the room with. Both have it "easier" then me, in terms of time spent. I will be there from 0930-1600. Takes about 2hrs to make my drugs then 4 to deliver.

Phil's Cocktail (In Order, Based On Weight):

Anti-Nausea/Steroid
55ml Anzemet
55ml Dexemethasone

Test Article
358ml SGN-30 Antibody/Placebo (Saline)

GVD Chemo
4ml Vinorlbine
209ml Gemcitabine
265ml Pegylated Liposomal Doxorubicin

Total = 946ml

We ignore the dude for a while but feel bad and start talking. He seems familiar. Being DC, he is compelled by law to ask us what we do. "OH", he says, "you're Danielle from World Watch. I have all the reports and go to all the briefings." I just roll my eyes. Meanwhile, the nurse misses the vein everyone misses. I so hate that vein. Everyone wants to try it. NO MORE. She gets me in the wrist. I listen to Dani and our new friend talk. So happy I get to sit back. She gives him a card and he's gone. Then some Hoosier (Missouri slang) takes his place a couple hours later. We leave the TV on loud. He calls someone regarding his gun warranty. I think he has a Skullete but I don't really want to look at him.

....................BREAK..........................

How does one pee during treatment, you ask? Like everything else, very carefully. Sort of.

Near The end of treatment I ask the nurse if they can give me something for my mouth sore. I'm having trouble eating. After some wrangling ( some asshole wanted me to suffer more apparently) she gets the OK from a RNP on the study team for "magic mouthwash". We thank her profusely. Magic Mouthwash is a catch all. Mine has diphenhydramine and Lidocaine. Yum.

We go to the CVS Pharmacy and pick it up. Insurance won't cover it. assholes. It's $35 for a month(?) supply. Get home, open the box, and there it is: a big bottle of stuff with two tiny powder filled bottles. On the box are instructions:

TO THE PHARMACIST: MIX BEFORE DISPENSING.

What a Fuck. It's not the first time he's been a slack ass motherfucker to us. He's like a disgruntled cashier with a Pharmacy degree. Love CVS (On P st. Next to Whole Foods, the middle eastern pharmacist. ;) ). So Tired of him, I shot off an email to corporate before going back and letting Dani yell at him.

I mix the diphenhydramine and lidocaine in and swirl. Then swig. Hmmmmmm, chalky strawberryish numbing goodness. Drrrrrrooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

I take 5ml/4x/day. I also swish my mouth with baking soda/water every chance I get. I have two Major sores on the right underside of my tongue. After chemo I notice one on the roof of my Mouth. Sunday, there's one on the left of my tongue and both sides of my inner cheeks. It's the tongue sores that suck. I can't stretch my tongue at all. I can't use it to help chewing. Try to conciously not use your tongue while eating. I have to gurgle with liquid after chewing to clear all the food bits out my tongue can no longer help with. It fucking SUCKS!

I can handle the near constant nausea and most of the other symptoms. You might even think everything's peachy when you see me. Mouth sores are hell and I can't feign an Okee Dokee face when they're bothering me.

Sunday, Dani's making dinner. The brandywine tomatoes smell phenomenal. I beg her for a taste. Maybe I'll be OK. I pop a bit into my mouth. Pure succulent heaven. Then I feel it. Like acid on an open wound. I chug ginger ale to neutralize it.

Why'd this have to happen in Summer?

Priceless. [C,L]

2007-08-16T23:21:00.000-04:00

Pre-haircut shampoo: $5 Tip
Haircut: $55
Haircut Tip: $15

Old Friend making a sick boy look fabulous and feel wonderful in her chair: Priceless.

Breaking Down [C]

2007-08-16T11:58:00.001-04:00

Wednesday, 8/15. Left Forearm. Underside:

See The diagonal red line, middle right? That's my vein. Just upstream, diagonally left and center is a bruise/rash. And maybe just above that and touching (below the mole) you can see the injection site. It hurts on and off. The vein discoloration is most likely chemo but I have to be vigilant for septicemia. Five days post treatment. I may need a port. I'll only get it if they say my veins are being obliterated. I don't need a constant physical/visual reminder of this shit.

I cut back on my anti-nausea meds on Tuesday. Cut off anzemet after 2 days, replaced it with compazine, fearing I wasn't getting anymore for the month. The low level nausea isn't going away. My appetite is non-existent, my mouth has sores, maybe a clot (black spot), I feel dizzy sometimes. I was constipated for the first few days, passing the occasional brick. My first chemo wasn't this bad. Not right away. I didn't expect the second time to be worse. It started to get to me.

Sometimes I get this throbbing in my neck, like my pulse has shot up and all the blood can't get through. Sometimes it causes a headache, sometimes that travels to the base of my neck. This one started before chemo and after surgery.

Dinnertime. Hamburger with cheddar, tomato, sauteed onion. Shoestring FF, black bean and tomato salad. Some of my favorite comfort food. ALL Organic, all local ('cept the fries?). The burger was wonderful. All of it wonderful. I was having a hard time "clearing my mouth" due to the major sore under the back of my tongue. Then I started to fell a surge of nausea after each bite. Nothing big. Just a slight increase. I struggled a bit to take each bite. How much of a struggle? Don't now. Perception is key here. Went from really enjoying my meal to having to focus on taking a bite and keeping it down. the degree in change might miniscule. But the perception is huge. From enjoyment to non-enjoyment. Is there a degree of difference in between?

All within the first week of chemo. It was too much.

I finished up, cleaned my plates and stole to the bedroom. Laid down and broke down. As quietly as I could. Hoping to not upset Dani. Fat chance I had. She came back wondering if I was in pain. Don't think I've ever just imploded like that. I could barely speak, asked her to hold me. And there we lay. Then she got up and gave me what I needed most. A Mental rallying. A talking to, a talking with, battle cry after battle cry. I can not do it justice. We will fight the good fight and we will win. Fuck you cancer.

Thank you, my beloved.

Symptoms worse & better? Q&A [C]

2007-08-12T10:36:00.000-04:00

i had low level nausea all day yesterday. My headache seemed to dissipate after my 2nd Tylenol @3PM. Popped an anzemet and 2 compazines 6hrs apart. Lorazepam at bedtime. Kind of felt like ass....low level ass. Slept @6hrs straight. Had some alcohol for incentive. Might be warm. Might be a little short of breath. Might be anxiety.

Warmth & shortness of breath continue into Sunday. Didn't feel nauseas really. Afraid to pop an Anzemet due to potential supply issues. Afraid not to. So, after some coaxing by Dani, I popped it. Vein doesn't look so good at entry point. Skin Red/rash. May have been obliterated. Mediport may be an most unfortunate neccesity.

I've had no appetite since chemo. I eat to keep my strength up.

Q&A:
There still seems to be some confusion. let me clarify:

Q: New Cancer?
A: This is the same cell line that tried to kill me before. A PET scan early after treatment picked up rapid cell growth. Which is not unusual after chemo - the bodies trying to rejuvenate. Remember - I presented with late Stage IV Hodgkin's. It had traveled throughout my lymphatic system, attached to Organs, growing on them as well. My body was wracked with B-Cell Tumors. The CT scans probably couldn't penetrate the residual scar tissue left behind by the larger dead(ish) tumors. Some cells survived and proliferated like cancer cells do. I hate this fucker

Q: How about alternative Therapies?
A: You wanna take that gamble with your life. Have at it. Tell me how many people you know that have done it. And does insurance cover that shit? Are you sure you would do it? I didn't think twice.

Q: Sugar feeds cancer. You should stop eating sugar
A: Cancer feeds Cancer. I can't stop it or slow it in any measurable way by cutting out what sugar I consume

Q: You should see a Nutritionist
A: I married a Nutritionist.

Thank You.

Symptoms - First Night, Morning [C]

2007-08-11T08:07:00.000-04:00

Note - I added a good bit into the beginning (right under the pic) of "sixty days". Go back if you've read it already. Because I'm so damn witty and would hate for y'all to miss it. :D

I'll label these as such so y'all know they'll be the daily minutiae of how I feel and can thus ignore them. I feel compelled to keep better track. Lats night popped a Lorazepam at 1030 and a compazine at 1100. Then to bed. Woke at 0345. Wide awake. Not really upset by it. Not really shocked. Had a slight headache. Dani would be up soon for the Farmers Market. Hung out. and decided I could try and go back to sleep. Slept from 0430-0800 with a few waking moments. Felt a little nauseas. Slight headache. Might be dehydration...might need to flush toxins still.

No appetite. I really didn't expect the symptoms of chemo to hit this fast. last time I recall it as an accumulation throughout. Having a hard time drinking Coffee. Popped a Precious Anzemet at 0800. My Precious, need my precious........where's my precious? Precious? Hopefully it'll restore my appetite. My vein is almost completely healed. Hope they can take it. I so don't want a port.

I should mention last night that before popping a Tylenol I paged the on-call onco. You really need to be careful about which OTC's you take. I was chastised for taking the wrong one during Hodgkin's 1 (H1). The on-call was unfamiliar with my regimen but thought either should be OK at 600mg/6 hours only. [sarc]I feel relieved[/sarc]. At least she was absolutely honest. I believe Tylenol was what I was allowed last time so I stick with it.

Also last night my anger was hard to controll. I was going near ballistic at all the fucks in Whole Foods. It didn't help Dani that the drive there was a bit of an adventure. I forgot we were going and the I almost turned down a one way. My mind was a haze.

At home, after dinner, she tried to entertain me. But I didn't want any of that. She went through our movies, our games. I lacked the ability to make any decisions. Then I got really angry when I couldn't find my H1 folder for the on-call number.

I feel like my mind is going to mush.

I feel so sorry for putting Dani through all this again. She hates when I apologize for It. Her Mom called last night and I talked to her for a bit. I apologized to her for what I was putting them through again. I know what everyone's thinking but it doesn't change how I feel and it was weighing heavily on me.

Love You all.

Cancer sucks.

Sixty Days In The Making [C]

2007-08-10T21:15:00.001-04:00

June 11th - PET Scan

June 26th - PET scan results (atypical cells in neck) discussed with Oncology Doctor. Doctor discovers swollen Lymph Nodes in Left armpit through palpitation.

June 28th - MRI Scan for pinpointing lymph nodes.

July 1st - Consultation appointment with Surgeon

July 6th - Surgery - Lymph Node Biopsy

July 13th - Oncology appointment - Pathology confirms Cancer Relapse

July 16th - Stitch removed from neck. Surgeon relieved I'm aware of the results.

July 20th - Bone Marrow Biopsy

July 31st - Sperm Donation. Diagnosed Fertile

August 1st - Bone Marrow Negative

August 3rd - Second Sperm Donation

August 2nd - Heart Sonogram. Signed Consent

August 6th - Full Body CT Scan

August 10th - Chemo.

Sixty days since my abnormal PET. 4 weeks since confirmation.

I get there at 9AM. And head to The Clinical Research wing. Used to be inpatient. Private room with restroom, Bed & Cable! Blood draw and wait for results, drug mix. I think I started around 1130.

Pre-meds; Anzemet (cancer ant-nausea) and Dexemethesone (Steroid). Yay. All infused.

What Exactly, do I have?
A Research RN popped in to my room while I was getting my pre-meds. I asked her for a copy of my CT, standing order for blood draw, what not. She comes back with that, plus my MRI report. How nice. I look through them. I notice the ICD-9's. CT has 202.8. MRI 201.9. I pull yesterdays physical from my folder (always have your folder): 201.9. Typo? Or are we all not in agreement of what we've seen and what I have? I try to maintain my cool. Dani's in the room reading. And asks if everything's OK. "Sure". I'm plotting. I need this frikken clarified before they start filling me with toxic shit that might do nothing for me. I wait for the RN to come back. Hopefully she'll understand without me needing to spell it out and needlessly panicking Dani also.

me: I'm sorry. My ct has a 202.8 diagnosis and my doc says 201.9. I think I need that clarified. For peace of mind
Numbnutz: I'm not sure of the difference?

I stare at her, hoping she'll understand and just go get it clarified. She doesn't. that's just wishfull thinking. Course no. Post-doc. Brain full of everything but patient sensitivities.

Me: Well one is Hodgkin's. One is Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Dani turns white. I turn to her and say "I'm sorry." Then to the nurse: "I'd like that clarified, please." She leaves and we wait. What if? What if? She returns a short while later and says "typo". Some fucking typo, numbnutz.

Infusion
Infused with anibody or placebo. 1ml/min for 30 minutes. Caution. Then given the rest faster. I start to feel symptoms from the Anzemet.

The Nurse then does a slow bolus of the first drug (V), then I get infused with "G" & "D".

Done at 4:30. Fatigued, tired, dizzy, unfocused, annoyed, vein is slightly bruised, above and below entry point. We leave. Kind of laughing. I believe we are both surprising our feelings. It's all so fucking surreal.

Popped a compazine at 530. preventative nausea.

Popped a Tylenol at 8ish.

Starting to feel some muscle pain in thighs around 9. Sore throat around 10. They said this was less toxic than ABVD. Doesn't mean less side effects, eh?

1 done, 11 to go. If Insurance doesn't authorize more anzemet I'll need to look for alternattive anti-nausea medication. I Love Brownies....

Drink. For Tomorrow We May Die. [C]

2007-08-09T21:35:00.000-04:00

Thursday, 8-9-07

I start tomorrow.

Gemcitabine (G), Vinorelbine(V), & Doxorubicin(D). And the anti-cd3o antibody SGN-30 or the placebo. Yay.

GVD is not FDA approved for Hodgkins and only "D" has been used. I took "D" for Round I. It was the "A" in ABVD (using generic vs non-generic names depending on regimen is the source of confusion).

Saw the Research Coordinator (RC) Nurse, then my doc today. I signed a HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) ,so they can look at any future records, and the Protocol. Technically, I have had tests and appts while on study. So I back dated the documents per the RC's request. "Back dating". Brings back memories for some, eh? Makes me think of Ben. LOL!

My doctor was quite displeased with the RC RN. Her calender was fundamentally wrong. My chemo is 21 days including a week break. So chemo on Day 1 and Day 8. The next round starts on Day 22. She was starting me on day 21 which was staggering my chemo day. She was also not scheduling me for labs on my off week. My Doc called her as I left the exam room. I love it when she gets pissed.

Also Filled my scripts this week. Sort of. Got my compazine & Lorazepam but insurance only "covered" four Anzemet's. "Too" expensive - cost them ~240 for the 4, 35 for me.

But the bottle says "99 refills"? The drug may just be for pre-chemo. Meaning I'll only need 12 total. I'll have to straighten that out tomorrow.

I need a Lorazepam.

Not sure what tomorrow is gonna be like. But I'm thinking it won't be pleasant. Emotionally. I remember walking out of the Hospital, arm in arm with Dani, after my last treatment. April, 2006. If I could guess, I would say it was 4/27 at 4:29 PM. I'll check it later. I can't describe the feeling. We were done. We won. It had been such a long fight. It was such a satisfying victory. Quite and so dignified. We walked quietly, letter our minds absorb the moment and all the battles. How sure we were that I was done. How good that felt.

I'm not looking forward to the walk out tomorrow and I know Dani is not, either. But I don't regret my feelings. And will think the same thing in November. When we take that final walk out of chemo. We will celebrate our victory in silence again.

Peace.

Drugs Rock! [C,L]

2007-08-08T23:14:00.000-04:00

Times have been tough, too say the least. My onco has suggested I take a relaxant. I've been reluctant. I've been drinking like a fish, my BP has been ~120/110, and I've been getting only 5hrs of sleep. It's not good. But I was avoiding drugs b/c of my alcohol consumpyion. But I can't take the stress anymore. So I popped a 0.5mg Lorazepam ~30 min. ago. I've been drinking whiskey for a few hours.

To be honest, I feel fucking fabulous!!!!! I have no cares right now. I feel stoned outta my mind and all is wonderful. It's a beautiful world we live in......a sweet romantic place..........LOL! This euphoria is indescriable, and so needede.

For weeks I've been tweaking. And now i feel fine. Everything else can go fuck its self.

Y'all are beautiful. Life is beautiful

Peace.

More Tests: Just say no! [C]

2007-08-06T14:28:00.000-04:00

Thursday, 8/2/07

Went in to sign consent form for study participation. Then I was sent up to have a echocardiogram (sonogram) of the heart. Blood drawn. Vitals taken. I'm 120/110 (stress). Vetoed, with the help of my Dr., my appointment for a Mediport on Tuesday. Today, Monday, I had a full body CT scan and the research nurse asked me to "think about" getting a mediport, under the advice of the Head Infusion Nurse . Mediport is surgically implanted delivery port. They never need to search for a vein after that. You have to be knocked out for implant procedure.

They wanted me to have one the first time around and I refused. The nurses were OK. We are suspicious that they want to do it b/c it makes their lives way easier. The chemo can damage veins and they warned me about a specific one but I'm gonna do some research. Just don't fully trust them. I believe the Infusion nurses relaxed once they saw my veins on the first go around. Hopefully I'll be OK. There's something very demoralizing about having a port attached to me the whole time I go through chemo. It's a constant reminder that we don't need.

Update radioactivity 11/05-8/07:

1mSv = 100mrem

PET = 7mSv
CT = 10-12mSv (whole Body scan)
MUGA = 8mSv

1 MUGA = 8mSv
4 PET scans = 28 mSv
8 CT scans = 80-96 mSv
Total = 116-132 mSv

Background radiation exposure in the US is ~3mSv/year.

A chest X-ray = 0.02mSv

1 CT = 500 x-rays
1 PET = 350 x-rays
1 MUGA = 400 x-rays

5800 x-rays and counting

Now I have to go and see what GVD is as opposed to ABVD

A Deposit for Posterity [C]

2007-08-02T07:58:00.000-04:00

Tuesday July 31. 11AM

Another Doctors appointment. Only this time Dani would not be with me. Although it was at 25th & M, NW and close to her office, she felt she couldn't go. And was adamant about it. No biggee. I walked to the bus stop and waited. A few minutes passed and a Bus approaches. It's big digital destination sign is flashing "EMERGENCEY!" Followed by "CALL POLICE!" What to do? It stopped for me so I got on. With a little trepidation, I'll admit. The few people on where very relaxed, one on a cell phone. So I relaxed. The sign was obviously broken. Post 9/11 World is much more fun, eh? Except this bus was getting stopped nearly every block by concerned citizens and by buses going the opposite route, twice. That was just damn annoying.

Off the bus at Dupont Circle. I have to hoof it ~.5mi. I arrive and am the only patient. I wondered if they do that on purpose? I fill out the requisite forms and wait. I notice they had awesome Magazines! A Traveler with an article about restoring the US Plains ecosystem ("Buffalo Commons") and a National Geographic with a great article about the Finger Lakes (NY). I wanted to take 'em. I vote it Best Doctor's office for reading material and recommend everyone go there.

Soon, the doctor comes out and looks at the forms. He tosses one that we don't need and hands me a consent form the Admin Assistant forgot. She must be new. He takes me back and shows me the room. All I can think is "no way. It's too small. Too sterile. I knew I should have had a drink or two before I came." he shows me the specimen cups and the magazine rack, asks me how long I've been deprived and leaves. there I am in the tiny room:

Oh well. I spread the surgical cloth on the chair, grab a cup, label it, grab some magazines, and take a seat.

Forward View from my Bank Chair:

And to the right:

And on the door, out of view, are hooks for clothes.

Playboy, Penthouse, and Stuff. I laugh and think "Pictures of Nekkid and not so Nekkid women? I'm not 18. Next time I'll bring my own material. The pages are quite tattered (LOL) and I put that observation right out of my head. Luckily, I have been Master of my Domain since Friday and I am, if i can admit, a bit of a horndog. And I think being in that room, at a doctors office, for the purpose at hand (pun soooooo intended), was a bit of a turn on. At least I was wearing shorts. I'll spare you the rest of the details. Unless I get comments asking for more. ;) :D

I should add it's not as fun as one might think. The room isn't sound proof and the cup is small so you have to kind of stop and make sure you don't miss. Especially if you're worried about the outcome (they just kind of...come..to me as I type. I swear!) And it's not exactly my first choice for location. So, while I can't say I rushed myself, I certainly didn't take all the time I wanted. Still, if there is no stimulation going on during the point of no return then it's kind of a disappointment. It's sort of an anti-climatic climax. But I'm a guy (and maybe an unusually horny guy) so I can't say I wasn't enjoying my time there either. If I can steal and modify a movie line: "It's kind of like pizza. Even when it's bad it's still kind of good."

And certainly it's the best type of Doctors appointment imaginable, no?

So I finish up, go out and ring the buzzer to the lab. the doc comes out, puts gloves on and takes the sample. He wants me to wait. I haven't had an analysis ever. Chemo might have left me sterile/in-fertile. He can have a decent analysis in 20 minutes and refund me.

I go back to the room. There's a couple waiting. I smile (my wide kind of creepy/psycho smile) and nod at them, thinking they must know. They must know that I was, as Dani's friend Miyun put it; "jerking off into a petri dish." I was oddly amused by the whole thing. It's a complete fertility clinic. I sit and call Dani. She says "Your done? It's only been 30min??? Yes. I'm stroking (again, I really can't help it) my ego. i thank her and explain I'm waiting. I pick up the mag and start reading about Buffalo commons again. having difficulty with it. Sterility scares the crap out of me. What if I'm sterile and I need a Bone Marrow biopsy? I might as well not exist. I try not to think about it. After an agonizing wait he comes out.

"Your sperm is fine and there's plenty of it. See you Friday" I thanked him and the receptionist and walk out, chest puffed, Cock of the Walk (just so frikken easy).
No, I didn't shake my Doc's hand before I left. And for some reason he didn't offer. Wish I had a good cigar. Or at least a cigarette. I felt a little tired ;) but so alive. Humor aside, this weighed on me heavily. It was a huge psychological boost for me. Did I dare dream my Bone Marrow was OK? I tried not to think about it. For fear of jinxing myself.

I need a drink.....

I get to do it again on Friday after I'm all charged up again. This time I'll walk in and out like Cock of the Walk. kind of like when I used to buy condoms. Trying to not so subtly let everyone know "Yes. I'm having sex." This time it'll be "Yes. I'm fertile as hell. I can do anything. Can I help you?". Men can be such guys, no?

BTW - while insurance will pay for Viagra, it does not pay for freezing Sperm. Draw your own conclusions. They want at least 2 samples. $250/sample plus $30/month storage. We don't really have that kind of money. So a very special thank you to my Mother-in-law for helping out (Make your own jokes).

Honestly, though, it was a huge moral booster and psychological victory.

Friday came and went. Unfortunately I got the same room with the same reading material. I was feeling kind of bored so I didn't spend as much quality time with myself. But overall I would say I had a hard day at the office.

;)

Relief Turns To Depression [C]

2007-08-01T15:43:00.000-04:00

Almost 2yrs since my Cancer roller coaster started and I've spent only a few nights in the backcountry. Now, with chemo starting up next week, I'll be lucky to get back out there before the Summer of '08. Three years wasted. Stressing these past 7 weeks, waiting for results/diagnosis/action, might have been my biggest mistake ever. And there was absolutely no reason to do it. I needed to get out there more than anything and I blew it. I hate myself for it.

Cancer Patients, Lost in a Maze of Uneven Care/No Confidence [C][

2007-08-01T11:54:00.000-04:00

July 29, 2007

Six Killers | Cancer

Cancer Patients, Lost in a Maze of Uneven Care

By DENISE GRADY

The first doctor gave her six months to live. The second and third said chemotherapy would buy more time, but surgery would not. A fourth offered to operate.

Karen Pasqualetto had just given birth to her first child last July when doctors discovered she had colon cancer. She was only 35, and the disease had already spread to her liver. The months she had hoped to spend getting to know her new daughter were hijacked by illness, fear and a desperate quest to survive. For the past year, she and her relatives have felt lost, fending for themselves in a daunting medical landscape in which they struggle to make sense of conflicting advice as they race against time in hopes of saving her life.

“It’s patchwork, and frustrating that there’s not one person taking care of me who I can look to as my champion,” Ms. Pasqualetto said recently in a telephone interview from her home near Seattle. “I don’t feel I have a doctor who is looking out for my care. My oncologist is terrific, but he’s an oncologist. The surgeon seems terrific, but I found him through my own diligence. I have no confidence in the system.”

It was a sudden immersion in the scalding realities of life with cancer. This year, there will be more than 1.4 million new cases of cancer in the United States, and 559,650 deaths. Only heart disease kills more people.

Cancer, more than almost any other disease, can be overwhelmingly complicated to treat. Patients are often stunned to learn that they will need not just one doctor, but at least three: a surgeon and specialists in radiation and chemotherapy. Diagnosis and treatment require a seemingly endless stream of appointments. Doctors do not always agree, and patients may find that at the worst time in their lives, when they are ill, frightened and most vulnerable, they also have to seek second opinions on biopsies and therapy, fight with insurers and sort out complex treatment options.

The decisions can be agonizing, in part because the quality of cancer care varies among doctors and hospitals, and it is difficult for even the most educated patients to be sure they are receiving the best treatment. “Let the buyer beware” is harsh advice to give a cancer patient, but it often applies. Excellent care is out there, but people are often on their own to find it. Patients are told they must be their own advocates, but few know where to begin."

No confidence sums it up well

More:

Cancer

Like Pulling Teeth [C]

2007-08-01T10:54:00.000-04:00

51 days since the Positive PET Scan
19 days since Confirmation
12 days since Bone Marrow Biopsy

Yesterday, to mark the 50th day since my PET scan, I call the RN case manager (the doc's goto Nurse) and the research RN and ask the usual question: WTF? They didn't call back.

This morning Dani asks if I'm gonna call. I say "Fuck it. Fuck it all." Tension rises. Fucking Cancer.

She calls the Case Manager and asks "WTF?" I'm at the computer, my back to Dani and there's a long silence. All I can think is "Fuck. Maybe I'm being paranoid? Fuck"

I turn to look at Dani. She says "There's some unanswered questions. They may have to do another biopsy."

"Fuck!!!! What does that mean? Is there another cancer present? Is it Leukemia? Did they Fuck it up? I would have killed to have my bone marrow clean. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

The RN is reading the report to Dani. The look on her face is not good.

Just then my Doc calls. She starts to tell me I'm going on study. i ask about my Bone Marrow. She asks, confused, if her RN called.

I say "My wife is on the phone with her and there seems to be some "unanswered questions" regarding my bone marrow. My doc says "I think every thing's OK. let me pull up the results."

Dani is off the phone, staring at me.

"Yes. Your negative. They had to perform some extra stains but every thing's OK. We'll get you in her tomorrow and you'll start treatment next week."

I get off the phone and tell her my bone marrow is fine. She slides to the floor, cursing the RN, crying a little. I pour a drink. The last of my Makers. Fuck it.

Did you know Case Managers often know dick about Medicine?

Fucking Assholes. Fucking Cancer.”

The research RN called. I go in tomorrow for a MUGA, hopefully. Told her Friday is out due to another engagement (more about that fun later). get a CT scan on Monday and start chemo next week.

I feel so relieved. I really wanted to keep my bone marrow. It's a huge psychological win. It is me, after all. And I still really like me.

Anticipation [C]

2007-07-30T20:25:00.000-04:00

This is nice. I'm worried I'm dying and we sit here and wait. Wondering if I was forgotten again. So many departments and no one really talking. Our cat, Iggy, seems concerned. Either i'm giving off serious stress scent or he smells the Cancer? He's always been very affectionate but now he's all over us like never before. I had to go down to Lombardi and pick up an "order". They asked if they could fax it to me but I declined. I don't trust them. Didn't bother to ask about my results.

49 days since the Positive PET Scan
17 days since Confirmation

Fucking ass Fucks! [C]

2007-07-27T18:12:00.000-04:00

My Biopsy was last Friday. Was it too much to ask to get results back by today? Fighting Cancer is no bigee. Might as well fight every day to get results. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it all. Sometimes i just wanna say "I'm done."

I wonder how many people die by leaving everything up to their doctors?

46 days since the Positive PET Scan
14 days since Confirmation

Tick Tock, Tick Tock..... [C]

2007-07-26T18:10:00.000-04:00

45 days since the Positive PET Scan
13 days since Confirmation

The suspense is killing me...

5:45 [C]

2007-07-25T17:55:00.000-04:00

Got a call. No results.

This fucking sucks. Thank God for whiskey

The Waiting Game [C]

2007-07-25T17:28:00.001-04:00

Not hearing from my doc, I called & left a message with her nurse coordinator around 3. Just got a call from the RN. She wasn't aware my doc hasn't called me yet. My doc is currently in NY. The nurse said she would call her in NY and have her contact me.

I can't compare this anxiety to anything....”

Is it still Early? [C]

2007-07-25T09:44:00.000-04:00

My doctor said she would call "early in the week" and let me know about my Bone Marrow. Thinking about it drives me nuts and I try to block it out. The anxiety in the air is palpable. We don't talk about it. Anger, depression, resignation seem to dominate my personality right now. It's so hard to combat as we wait for treatment, for results. And every time my left hand tingles I think of the tumors growing.......unchecked.

44 days since the Positive PET Scan
12 days since Confirmation

Countdown [C]

2007-07-24T17:52:00.000-04:00

32 days for diagnosis + 11 days since confirmation.

No Such Thing As Bad Publicity??? [L]

2007-07-24T15:01:00.000-04:00

Here's some nice footage from PETA. I worked at this company, in this building, the small mammal teratology dept. from'99-03. I knew the monkey techs well.

I felt most like a lab animal during my MRI and my last Surgery. More like a restrained Monkey than a Human.

Fun with Monkey's

And remember - if you take it, touch it, slab it on, or it touches your food, it's been tested. No matter what that label tries to imply. "Final product has not been tested..." is a good one that comes to mind. Think about it next time you consider buying the next "new & improved" headache pill, or a pill so you can eat crap all day.

1000's died so you could eat that chili burger.

Crushed By Morning [C]

2007-07-24T10:06:00.000-04:00

I had a pleasant dream last night. My Onco called and my Bone Marrow was clean. I woke shortly after. I was at peace in my dream. And it was crushed by Morning.

Reminded me of Mornings pass - the Morning after we put The Kitty to sleep. The MorningS after I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's. You wake up feeling good for a split second before you're Crushed. I have a vivid recollection of dreaming, as a very young child, that my father was still alive. Found unharmed. And then waking up. Crushed. I think my last pleasant dream was of The Kitty. I remember too few pleasant dreams.

I guess that often makes Morning one's worst enemy.

Countdown to Treatment [C]

2007-07-23T18:37:00.000-04:00

32 days for diagnosis + 10 days since confirmation.

Radiation Exposure Re-calculation [C]

2007-07-23T18:32:00.000-04:00

I forgot my MUGA in my initial calculation here:

fun-with-radiation

A MUGA scan (Multiple Gated Acquisition Scan) is a nuclear medicine test to evaluate the function of the heart ventricles. It provides a movie-like image of the beating heart, and allows the doctor to determine the health of the heart’s major pumping chambers. The advantages of MUGA is that it is more accurate than an echocardiogram and it is non-invasive.

Some chemo is harsh on the heart. They need to know how your ticker is. I had 1 before my first battle. it gives you a dose of ~8mSv.

That gives me 106mSv-120mSv

Going with the minimum 106mSv from 11/05-6/07 is:

35.33 years of background radiation - or -
5300 chest x-rays.

...and counting”

Hodgkins Relapse: Timeline [C]

2007-07-22T23:33:00.000-04:00

I've Added Dani's Good Eating/Sustainability Blog [F]

2007-07-18T16:28:00.000-04:00

It's Her work blog regarding all issues of sustainability. Look in my Link Section.

Are You Fucking Kidding Me? [C]

2007-07-17T23:26:00.000-04:00

God, we are so pissed. And drunk. Not sure where to start. Don't know what to say. How about y'all? You don't know what to say? That's OK. We don't know what to say. Which is worst: the first time you're told you have \Cancer or to be told it's "back"? I'm leaning towards the latter.

BTW - stop with the sympathy. I ain't dead. Thanks.

Yes. This is me. Raw, uncensored, and pissed off. Pissed like I've never been pissed. I have no way to release my anger and that sucks. I need violence. I want to take out my aggression and I can't in a city. I'm in Hell. I'm so fucking pissed off. I can't describe it. Dani can't describe how she's feeling.

And you will never see me like this.

Let's clarify some things - I was never cured and my Cancer isn't "back". It never left. We didn't get it all the first time. Some survived. It's the same motherfucking cell line that tried to kill me before. It only takes one cell.

Fucking assholes didn't kill it all the first time. Six months of aggressive chemo-therapy. Six months of filling my body with toxins. And all they did was batter it when They thought they exterminated it. Assholes.

Just so pissed off. So angry. We should be done with this. I should have been cured. It's not fair. I'ts not right.

I'd put my fist through the wall if Dani weren't here. I'd follow it with my head.. I really want to flip out in the most violent manner. But I can't.

It's not right. Fuck it. Fuck it all.

FUCK EVERYTHING

We decided this sums it up. Almost:

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME

At Least It's Curable [C]

2007-07-13T14:38:00.000-04:00

Pathology Report: Lymph Node (Right Cervical), Excisional Biopsy (Specimens "A" and "B")

"The Nodal architecture is partially effaced by mixed infiltrate of small Lymphocytes, Eosiniphils and prominent sinus histiocytes forming ill-defined granulomata. Scattered large atypical Reed-Sternberg cells and variants (including Lucunar cells) are observed. Rare sclerotic bands are seen penetrating from the capsule into the superficial cortex. The Lack of prominent nodularity and mixed composition of the cellular infiltrate favors mixed cellularity subtype. Comfirmatory Immunohistochemistry will be performed and an addendum will be issued."

I delayed publication on this to build suspense. Did it work? Atypical cells could mean anything, no?

Friday 7/13/07

Get to Lombardi at 1130. Get my blood work and they take my vitals. The Med Assistant is a bit shocked - my heart is doing 130/120. She says we got to get that down or I'll be going to the ER. I think pleasant thoughts. I get 120/100. I tell her I'm stressed and that I Wanted a drink before I went in but Dani wouldn't let me. :D

we get to a waiting room and soon Dr. Fucktard walks in. This is the Resident DouchBag that informed me my PET was "positive" by going through the Hodgkins symptom list and asking if I had any of them. Then seemed shocked no one had called me about my PET. There's really not much worse of a feeling then discovering your cancer may be back b/c a douchbag is asking "those" questions. I told Dani if he started off like that again I was gonna Bitch slap him.

So Dr. DB Fucktard starts asking me questions about my surgery. Like "When did you have the surgery?" What the Fuck? Do I need to walk down the hall to the ENT clinic and get my chart? Does he not have it? So I answer and give him my world renowned "are you fucking kidding me?" look when he blurts out, as my real Doctor walks in, that they can't locate the pathology report. My Dr. gets him out and they leave.

1215 Friday. My Surgery was 0730 last Friday. My PET scan was June 11th. And they don't know anything yet. At least conclusively.

Five weeks in Diagnostic Purgatory

Nice.

About 15 minutes later they come back with the news. My Hodgkins is back. Nice. Thanks. Always so proud of my fucking immune system now this little indestructible motherfucking cell line is doing its best to take me out. Fuck Fuck Fuck.

My Dr. was prepared for the worst. She wants me to partake in a clinical trial. Same chemo with an added antibody. I need to read over the protocol this weekend, sign consent, and start all the pre-treatment testing.

Yay.

It's just fucking bullshit. And I guess it's life. For weeks Dani and I had been stressed. Not talking about it. Not needing to. We were thinking the same thing: What if it's back? What if it's Leukemia or non-hodgkins? Today our thoughts were deafening. I guess that parts over.

I'd say "small consolation" but it really isn't.

[sarcasm]Oh well. At least it's just Hodgkins, eh?[/sarcasm]

Saturday, 7/14

Up at 0630. Dani's gone. She started working The Old Town Alexandria (VA) Farmers Market for/with our Friends Lori & Toni. They pick her up at or around 0500. I'm up because I started drinking right after we got back from the hospital. 2-4ish? until Midnightish. Tired all yesterday but restless. I supposse I'm up b/c of that other reason also.

For weeks my concentration level had been bothering me. I noticed it mostly while playing Spider Solitaire. A card game that can involve quite a bit of strategy and a lot less luck than standard solitaire. I would go to long without winning. It started to bother me. Stress/anxiety can take such a toll on a body.

I'm tired. Not sure if its Hodgkin or the stress. I think it's moving fast. I have swollen nodes in my left armpit that didn't show up in my PET in June. Sometimes I get a diffuse tingling sensation in my left hand and elbow. Might be the nodes pressing against nerves.

I just wish Dani didn't have to go through this again.

One Year Anniversary [L]

2007-07-13T10:38:00.000-04:00

Sunday July 8th, 2007

Sunday Started out like most. Dani went to work the Dupont Farmer's Market. We had decided to celebrate our one year in a very low key way: we'd just hang and drink. Celebrate Us. Everything else would be the same. OK. Maybe we do that most Sundays but this was different, dammit!

At the end of Market Eric gave us a too generous gift and we headed home. We did have a plan: drinks at El Tamarindo. A low key, kind of homey Mexican/El Salvadoran restaurant at 18th & U st. NW. It's one of our favorites. The food servings are ginormous and the Margs rock. And its a nearly straight walk from where we live. But mostly we have many fond memories of the place.

So there we were drinking margs and Dos Equis, eating a papusa. We toasted our marriage, each other, The Kitty, Life, and many more years together. It was a nice, low key, all around wonderful experience. I find nothing more enjoyable than spending time with Dani. we talk, laugh, make fun of everything, and enjoy being.

We went home and had a wonderful dinner. reminisced about the Wedding and looked at photos of that day.

It was one of many beautiful days. There's nothing better than contentment, eh?

Picking Blueberries Under The Influence [C,L,F]

2007-07-13T08:53:00.000-04:00

Saturday, July 7th
We have a blueberry picking party planned at The Farm of Eric & Lori at 11AM. First I need the drain in my neck removed and a quick looksie by a doc. The surgeon made "small" incision for such a deep extraction. The drain is a little tube to allow drainage and prevent swelling. Which is bad. Dani was told if I swell up to get me right back to the Hospital.

i wake up feeling 100% better than the day before. we hope into the car and out out to G'town. It's Saturday so we have to wait outside of the Closed ENT clinic for the surgical resident to stop by while on rounds. Doogie Howser and pals stop by. For Surgical Residents they are very nice. Kind of like your average joe. They were complete opposites of every post-doc/resident MD I've dealt with...including the pricks I worked with. The dude removing my drain was talkative, friendly, and a little nervous. It was very refreshing.

It almost matches the surgical scar on the other side of my neck.

Off To The Farm
We head out of DC after a stop off to CVS. Having a hard time keeping the bandage on my neck. I leave behind the Percocet and replace it with extra strength Tylenol. Fuck that crap. It's exactly 24 hours since I came out of surgery. While driving I notice something not quite right. I'm feeling kind of fuzzy. I stare at cars on the interstate. I lose focus a little bit. "Fuck! I'm still fucked up from the surgery!" I look at Dani. She's sleeping. I start thinking:

"Should I turn around? I hate this. It seems like everything gets fucked up by me. We had to cancel a camping trip this past weekend b/c of me. I was so looking forward to getting back out. We're half way there. Fuck it. I just need to focus."

I tightened my grip on the steering wheel, and concentrated. we would continue on. Honestly it wasn't that bad. I never drive after a few drinks but that's what it felt like. Impaired, not drunk.

But apparently feeling 100% better didn't bring me up to 100%. Ugh. Relativity sucks sometimes.

We get to the Farm. First ones there besides Loris friends. The others would show soon. Full party:

Eric & Lori + 2 friends
Lauren
Asa
Laurens bro Jordon & GF (little help?)
Tina & roomie
Sarah
Zoe &amp;amp;amp; Cate
Dan & Friend

Sorry for the incomplete list, my "editor" isn't being very helpful right now. Seems anxious for some reason and I suck with names.

Pickers

we start picking. It's Hot. the sun is beating down on us. I have a bandana wrapped around my neck to keep the bandage in place. I notice I'm not so.........coherent. I'm acting tipsy. I get confused over a conversation at one point. At least once. I can't pick for long. I wonder if anyone can tell? Man they fucking dosed me for surgery. We break for Lunch. Lori had prepared a few lasagnas and a vegan pasta dish. It was quite the impressive spread.
More Pickers

Afterwards I still feel loopy. It's suggested I stay behind. I try and fight but I'm really enjoying the chair on the porch. Their cat Lucy is hanging out next to me, purring. this is nice. I go inside and find a bed. This is really nice. Sleep comes not so easily but comes non the less. At some point Dani wakes me. people take their cut of the blueberry loot and say there goodbyes.

We hang out, have a beer (antibiotics be damned) and leave. I feel better than my earlier "100%". No way was I gonna drive back if i felt like I did driving in. I wasn't looking so good maybe, but my cognitive abilities seemed to be completely back. Over all it was a beautiful day. Spending the day before our One year Anniversary on the Farm we got married on was very pleasant.

1000AM Friday, July 13th
Gotta go

Surgery/Diagnostic Purgatory [C]

2007-07-12T23:50:00.000-04:00

Friday, 7/6/07

Scheduled for 0730(AM). They want me ther by 0530. No food or liquids after midnight. I' m stressed. That's my excuse to drink until midnight. we arrive at the hospital by cab at 0500ish. Can never tell when I cab is gonna arrive. We fill out some forms, register and wait. Soon we're taken back to a pr-op area. I strip down and put on a gown. Georgetown is a teaching hospital. We fall asleep. Around 0715 the residents and post-docs come in. Post docs are eagerly asking med history questions while the anesthesiologist resident proceeds to miss my vein. Twice. I warned him about it and tried to make him relax. I hate students. At some point the Surgeon came in. He was of my least concern

The anesthesiologist comes in, all grumpy that I'm not ready and orders us to surgery. She 's about as unpleasant as can be. Kind of funny that she makes me nervous. The anesthesiologist makes me nervous. That's Funny in that Dark twisted Terry Gilliam black comedy funny way.

I seem to fear things too much lately. It makes me nervous. Mortality sucks.

I kiss Dani goodbye and head of to surgery. Walking. I'm more than a little comforted that her friend, Miyun, will be keeping her company while I'm in surgery. I always worry about Dani worrying about me. She's waited through all my CT scans, PET scans, MRI's, and this will be the 2nd surgery of mine she's waited. and worried. I've never waited for a loved one in surgery. I can't imagine how horrible that is. And I often go into scans thinking how horrible it would be for Dani if something went wrong and she was left alone.

So going into surgery knowing someone was taking care of her was a huge relief to me. And I needed it almost as much as she.

For if this is how out patient surgery is, then it's a cold, comfort-less place. I walked past people shooting the shit. Into the surgery room and onto the table. Each worker had there job. And once again I felt like a specimen. Another resident got the IV into me. Got it on the first try, smaller needle, wrist of my other arm. I hate wrist sticks.

fucking amateurs.

I was nervous still and they could tell. I warned them earlier that I seem to be resistant to local anesthetic - that i needed 3 shots at the dentist and I came out during a colonoscopy. I would be getting gas and locals through the IV.

I new the lymph node was deep. I knew the doc would be using the MRI images to locate it. I knew he seemed worried about its depth/location. I know he'll take a slice and send it to pathology then remove the whole node if pathology thinks it "might be a good idea." I knew I really didn't want Cancer again. It was gonna be at least 2hrs of surgery. Half of it waiting? I was concerned about that.

The anesthesiologist put the mask over my mouth and asked me to take a few deep breaths, saying it was just oxygen and to relax. I was stressed. I knew it wasn't just Oxygen........why do they say that, I thought to myself..........................................................................................I knew Dani was being taken care of...................................................................................................I need to relax..............................................................................................................................everything will be OK......................................................................................................................

...............................someones shoving a pill in my mouth. Did she say "Percocet"? I believe I mentioned a serious headache and nausea. I'm having a hard time opening my eyes. Dani tries to get me to drink some liquid. I feel sick afterwards. She gives me a cracker. I feel sick. It's 1030. I've been out of surgery for an hour and I'm still a vegetable. I'm fucked. Guess they took my warning to heart.

I saw my doc. The cells were atypical so they removed the whole node. Fuck. I had a drain in that would need to be removed the next day. "Atypical". Not a worry to someone who has never had cancer. But a worry to me. Still, the diagnosis is inconclusive.

I don't remember much. I was coming in and out of unconsciousness. we were basically kicked out of post-op because I could just as well "sleep at home". Kicked out by wheel chair. Sat in the waiting room while Dani worked to get a cab. I was faintly aware of people all around me. As my head bobbed. At the cab door the hospital worker warned me to "use the door". And so I did. I clung to the cab door to get up from the wheelchair and into the cab.

Beautiful patient care.

In the cab I continued to fight unconsciousness and nausea. i would wake up and wonder why we were "still" wherever we were. The ride seemed to last forever. Dani confirmed the cabbie was driving slow as fuck and might have been on something himself.

I've been under anesthesia a few times. It was never this bad. In retrospect I wonder if I had a hard time making it back from the "brink"?

Once home I headed to the bedroom and crashed. Next thing I knew it was 4:30PM. I hurt and was sick. I popped another Percocet or two before going to bed that night. Don't really remember much else. Had the worst dreams of my Life. Very restless night. Ten times worse than when I was taking that Valium derivative during chemo. I dunno how anyone gets hooked on this shit. I would have much preferred Vicodin.

Fucking amateurs.

Pet Scan
MRI
Surgery

PET scan showed "unusual" activity. MRI confirmed it. Surgery finds "atypical cells". It's been a Month now and all they can say is "atypical". Which is everything but inactive immune cells. This shit has been given a name by someone else fighting cancer:

DIAGNOSTIC PURGATORY

And still, I hope to God I don't have Cancer again. I think I'll know in 12 hours. Hopefully.

Independence Day [L]

2007-07-12T20:35:00.000-04:00

View Of The Capitol From North Capitol at The End of our Street (Looking South)

Everyone Should do Independence Day on The Mall Once. We have. We decided to drink, go to our favorite fountain, drink, and see what fireworks we could see from our apt.

I'm gonna reveal this fountain but don't be telling everyone about it. Not many people go, it's not on any online mapping service but it's huge. We found it when we first started dating, summer of '05. We were in eastern Market and decided to walk to The Mall. It was Hot as Hell. During our Journey We played in the sprinklers at the Library of Congress to cool off. Then we ran into it. A huge fountain with nobody around. We jumped in and frolicked. Uninterrupted. No people, dogs, pigeons. Nobody. Fucking unbelievable. I remember that day like it was yesterday.

We're pretty sure no one hordes this fountain because they're aren't any Starbucks near by or chain restaurants. Sort of. It's right next to Union Station but that seems too far for the tourists and most locals. Again, keep your mouths shut. Please. just North of the Capitol. At North Capitol Street Southern terminus. A fountain almost completely isolated from throngs of tourist and dumbass locals looking cool (in their mind) with their starbucks/xando half-calf vanilla mocha strawberry lattes and playing with their dogs. It's a Jewel in the rough. best Park in DC. And about 12 blocks due South of our current place-o-residence. Paradise in Summer. An Oasis in a concrete hell hole. Our Park. Our Fountain. And just outside the 4th-o-july- security parimeter. A Match made in heaven.

So their we played for a while. In our fountain. We ran into a dude Dani knows. He was there with his dogs. We see him almost everytime we go there. Secret might be getting out, eh?

View Of The Capitol From In The Fountain

After that we went back home. Hung out on our back porch and watch Fireworks. Couldn't see the Main event but there was half a dozen little shows all around us. Right in our neighborhood. Two of them would have put small town shows to shame. Or very tiny villages. The fireworks went of through the night and into the early morning hours. In the front birds were fleeing fireworks from tree to tree. The smoke and flashes reminding me of Apocalypse Now. It was kind of dangerous and exciting.

It was a good day. I love spending a full day with my wife.

Honey Collection [L,F]

2007-07-12T19:37:00.000-04:00

July 3rd.

Damn That was cool! For a brief recap: Dani and her friend Lori started to keep Bee's in '05. They started with 2 hives. The main source of pollen in that area is Tulip trees - which bloom May-June. It takes at least a year before you can harvest honey. If all goes well. Bee Keeping ain't so easy. They've lost hives to "swarming" and winter warm ups.

Swarming - The hive, for a few reasons, to leave. A winter warm up - the hive uses up resources. temps drop again and the hive starves.

This summer was the first time they've been able to collect honey. You can only collect honey from a healthy, robust, 1+yr old hive. And so they had one. I didn't have my camera with me. Dammit. Got some later photos with Lori's camera. But basically they remove a frame from the hive, brush the bees off and move it to a secure location. We took six frames and moved them indoors. They were heavy but it didn't seem like much. While inside a bee had discovered a way in. The bee had to be "taken care of". Otherwise it would have gone back to the hive and we would have been swarmed. We also noticed bees congregating by an open, screened, window so we had to close it an suffer through the heat.

They are an amazing animal.

First you have to cut the wax sealant of the honeycomb with an electrically heated knife:

Then We put the frames in an Extractor and crank an arm - the honey comes out through centrifugal force.. I looked in the extractor after we cranked. didn't seem like much honey. The frames were incredibly light compared to when we put them in but it still didn't seem like much. Then we opened the valve and let all the liquid gold pour out:

Four frikken gallons from 6 frames! It was one of the neatest things I've ever been a part of. I wonder if maybe I could do it for a living. Or a partial living. Maybe. Full Bee album:

Bees

Diagnosis. [C]

2007-07-06T17:34:00.001-04:00

hi all. Surgery did a number on me.

Diagnosis is "atypical cells". If you can call that a diagnosis.

What an Exciting Week! [C,L,F]

2007-07-05T22:58:00.000-04:00

Saw my (new) Surgeon on Monday. Seemed a little concerned about where the Lymph nodes were. Gonna try and take a bit out and see what pathology has to say.

Tuesday we extracted Honey for the first time from the hives. That was awesome and I'll try and post a full report later.

Wednesday......we drank

Thursday I had an Interview with one of them there soulless contract agencies. Who knows where that will go

Friday I have surgery at 0730

Saturday we pick blueberries.

I can drink for 38 more minutes...

Skinny Puppy: Now Is The Only Thing That's Real [L]

2007-07-01T10:13:00.000-04:00

June 11th, 2007

We got tickets minutes after they went on sale. And immediately we were worried.

Probably not until we're dead. Or they're dead.

And there we were last night at the 9:30 Club with The seminal Industrial/electronic band Skinny Puppy.

If you need some "mainstream references" - Nine Inch Nails & Marylin Manson are there kinder, gentler offspring.

We went to the show with some trepidation. and mucho liquid courage. Were we too old? Were we, in other words, gonna get our arses kicked?

My worries melted away as soon as we got there. It seemed like maybe a fourth of the not-sold-out-show crowd were old enough to remember. the rest weren't born yet. And mucho posers. I'm a snobby purist and I hate seeing people wearing other band concert T's to shows. As if it's the only black they own and they're convinced they need to wear black.

We sat through an obnoxious opening band (white mice) before the real show started.

DC crowds are often criticized for being wimpy and this was a perfect example. As soon as Skinny Puppy came on I easily slid over to front and center. Dani, not feeling the same compulsion, stayed behind at front stage right. It wasn't violent and that wasn't such a bad thing. I stayed for my fix then went back over to where Dani was.

It was an amazing show and difficult to describe. They played newer stuff exclusively. More techno-Industrial than there harder, earlier recordings. Nothing older than Warlock. But that's OK. They've been around for 20 some years. Who wants a band that continues to put out the same old stuff? people complain a band doesn't sound like it's "classic old stuff" are the same ones that complain "it all sounds the same." Fuck 'em. And the more we listen to their latest CD "Mythmaker" the more we like it. And bands must get bored to death. Become robots on stage. This was anything but. Ogre was enjoying himself. He even smiled, which Dani will tell you is most unlike Ogre.

And the show went on, with most tracks from there newest album. "Ambiantz, Ugli, Magnifishit, etc. We were in our element and it was amazing.

As we were experiencing the sensory overload that is Skinny Puppy it hit me - this is just like backpacking. The thought was strengthened with the song "Worlock" in which a recorded Charles Manson states (several times):

"Now is the only thing that's real". I leaned into Dani at this point, hugging here from behind and telling her "I Love You." I was in Heaven. And Dani was there with me.

And now its over. But I know it was real.

Skinny Puppy and Iggy Pop. Two of the best shows of my life within Months of each other. All we need is for Ministry to show up and the Trifecta will be complete.

"The Police used to watch over the people. Now they're watching the people."

MRI: Chamber of Horrors. [C]

2007-06-28T09:16:00.000-04:00

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain."

Frank Herbert, Dune

What?

What sick fuck invented this device? Jesus Frikken Christ that sucked ass. I'm thinking the blueprints probably came from something Josef Mengele was devising. "Coffin"? hardly. I wish it was that nice. I wonder if anyones seen a coffin that describes this device as such. A coffin is comfy, roomy, with a God damn lid that you can open and get the fuck out if you want to! And you don't have a fucking horrendous torture mask on your face (think football helmet style full face mask - but thicker and bolted to the table). It's not a coffin. Its a god damn rifle bore and you're the fucking bullet. "The pulses sound like hammers pounding on the machine"? Bullshit. That would be somewhat pleasant. I can't describe it. I could say the decible level would have to be in the 80-90 range. And it pulsed, dammit! And It changed up! Different types of sound! And duration changed! Fucking torture! The disposable (i.e. crap) earplugs helped some. Kind of like a band aid helps a bullet hole.

My writing is masking my trauma. Maybe?

Why?
Am I claustrophobic? No. But I've never been shoved into a fucking rifle bore that I could not extract myself from. And then there is the mind set. It had been about 26hrs since I learned my cancer might be back. I'm in a state of panic. Worried, again, about mortality. Fearing Death once more. Was I in the absolute wrong state of mind for an MRI? Is the Pope a Nazi? hmmmmmm. maybe I should write and ask him about my Josef-MRI hypothesis?

So we get to the MRI center at Georgetown. Early. And we wait. We laugh and screw around like always then they take me back. At this point I'm unsure if I've ever had an MRI. Mind you, when I was first diagnosed I had 3-5 scans at several locations. In hindsight, if I had one, it was an open one. An extremely nice open one. Anyway, the tech sets up an IV for the contrast. I would love one fucking scan without contrast. It's not radioactive Iodine contrast. It's not radioactive at all. Nothing is for an MRI. This is seen as one of the big benees of an MRI. Whoopdy Fucking Doo! I'd take a full body CT scan once a month indefinitely instead of one MRI.

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain."

While waiting for my turn I hear a machine. "Wow. That's loud" i say. The tech responds "don't worry, yours will not be that loud". "That" being so fucking relative as to be pointless. Onward to my room. I see the machine. I realize I've never been in one like this. Still think no biggee. I lay down, face up. They set up the IV. He bolts the head restraint torture device on me. "I think - maybe I can sleep in this like I do with PET scans?"

I'm loaded into the rifle. "Fuck the top of the machine is right in my face!" I shut my eyes. My foot hits the entrance as I go in. Unfortunate reference point. I stop moving. I open my eyes. "Bad idea!". I close them. I start to relax. There's a knocking sound. The magnets shifting. Maybe that's the hammer sound people describe? If only that was all that happened. The radio waves start up, constant and pulsing. Weird, loud sounds. Damn. I can't sleep. "45 minutes and I'm out"........the sound continues. My mind wanders......................"what if I'm dead and this is hell?............"Jesus fucking Christ! Don't go there! 45 minutes. Still.......what if? What if my hell is in this machine for eternity? Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Deep breath. Relax. Find a Happy place........Dani and I. hanging out and laughing........ [OBLITERATED]"

The Change in pattern of the noise & level is making it near impossible for me to find a happy place. Plus they run several "tests" requiring shifting of magnets. So no noise. Relax. The the torture started again. Think "Chinese water torture from hell".

"That sucked. need to get more intense. Dani and I having sex........" a smile crosses my face.......[OBLITERATED]

It progressively got worse. Think of being on a Mountain with Dani. Gone. Play a game. Pretend I'm being tortured and I'll never give up the secrets. "Bad Game". I struggled with the alphabet. I counted backwards for 10-20 counts. I started to think it sounded like a very loud techno-club. I smiled for a little bit on that one. Then I was back in the rifle. Panic would rise and lower. I wasn't sure anyone could hear me while I was being scanned. I was fighting my darker thoughts. Hell. Figuring out when I died. "Was it on the way to the hospital?" My irrational mind was trying to rationalize how I couldn't be dead. Of course, in hell, that would be one of the "tricks". Yes. I'm losing. I tried to recite Herbert's Mantra:

"I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little.........[OBLITERATED]"

"Yup. I must be in Hell." Back and forth my mind went. Fighting itself. I thought of lab animals. I thought of karma. I thought I might not ever be able to work in a lab again. Worried i would have a panic attack. Worried I wouldn't be able to breath. Worried I would never see Dani again. During the short silent parts the tech would ask how I was doing. First time she asked my voice cracked. She had been doing MRI's for 7 years. Probably knew I was fighting the whole time. Regardless of the crack. Time lost all meaning during the first round. "how would they get me out if there was a power loss?. FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! Focus. I need to focus. Happy thought. Why can't I keep happy thoughts."

My eyes opened once more during this whole time. And closed immediately.

And then the tech announced "last test". Helped me keep my shit together a little bit. Sort of. Still fighting my demons. At the end of it I could hear them near the machine. I waited an "eternity" and asked "am I done?" Yes came the reply. Then I was moving.

I cracked. I would have done anything to get out of there. It's sensory overload and deprivation. All at the same time. It is an insidious, evil device. I conversed with the tech afterwards. She said power of suggestion is too strong and one never knows how one will react. So they don't say a word as to what you will experience because they have no idea.

Am I claustrophobic? It's all relative. Everyone has a degree of it. And again, my state of mind going in was horrible.

When I saw Dani I couldn't speak. I would have lost my shit if I tried. I signaled mostly. While walking she asked me questions out of concern. I had to put my finger to my lips. She understood.

On the way home I took several wrong turns. Driving 7 years in this city and I couldn't figure out how to get home.

Traumatized by the most advanced imaging diagnostic tool we have. Now I have to call and see if I need surgery ASAP.

Peace.

False Positive? [C]

2007-06-27T14:53:00.000-04:00

It just occurred to me. Nothing like being told your cancer might be back to throw you in a complete state of panic.

I think either way the doc is gonna have those nodes removed. And it is on the opposite side of my neck from my first biopsy so maybe I'll get a matching scar? How cool would that be? I could tell people its from the upper & lower canine of a Griz........Just barely scraped me whilst I plunged my swiss army knife into it's heart!

my MRI is scheduled for 6:15 tonight. I have a July 13th appointment with an otolaryngology surgeon. It will be bumped if the nodes look suspicious.

Everyone start thinking "False Positive"

Thanks.

201.9 [C]

2007-06-27T00:04:00.000-04:00

Thats Lombardi Cancer Center diagnostic code. That's what they gave me. 201.9 - "Hodgkin's Lymphoma -unspecified."

Edit: That is ICD9 code (International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems), not unique to Lombardi.

ICD9

Why do Dr's suck? [C]

2007-06-26T16:58:00.000-04:00

Why do Post-Doc Docs fuckining suck ass? I knew something was wrong. My wife knew something was wrong. And all he could do was give the facts.

Our favorite line was "No one called you about the PET scan results?"

2 neck lymph nodes were positive for PET. Then my Onco came in and discovered another swollen node in my armpit that wasn't there during the PET in early June. It may be Hodgkins. It may be infection/left over mono issues. But she doesn't want to take any chances.

I scheduled an MRI. July 7th. 1AM. If they can visualize them then they come out.

So I'm gonna wallow in self pity a bit before my wife gets home......good excuse too have a whiskey no?

If it's Hodgkins I'm fucked. And just this week I decided to stop being honest about why I've been out of work. Figuring it's no big deal. The shit is curable and I have my own health coverage. No need to discriminate against me. I can't possibly estimate how many jobs I've applied for........7-10 yesterday. I do know how many responses - 3 calls, 1 interview.

I'm damaged goods. I had the opportunity to tell Mr. Moore my story and maybe have a bit in his current movie. I chose discretion. I think I chose wrong.
Fuck it. Fuck it all.

That felt good.

Cheers.”

Fun With Radiation [C]

2007-06-13T13:09:00.000-04:00

From 11/05-6/11/07 I've had

7 CT Scans and 4 PET Scans.

But how much radiation is that? radiation is measured in sieverts. REM/RAD is being discontinued. The sievert (symbol: Sv. millisievert = mSv) is the SI derived unit of dose. It attempts to reflect the biological effects of radiation as opposed to the physical aspects, which are characterised by the absorbed dose measured in grays. It is named after Rolf Sievert, a Swedish medical physicist famous for work on radiation dosage measurement and research into the biological effects of radiation.

1mSv = 100mrem

PET = 7mSv
CT = 10-12mSv (whole Body scan)

4 PET scans = 28 mSv
7 CT scans = 70-84 mSv
Total = 98-112 mSv

We'll go with the "low" number and say I've had 98mSv since 11/05.

Or.................................

Background radiation exposure in the US is ~3mSv/year.

A chest X-ray = 0.02mSv

1 CT = 500 x-rays
1 PET = 350 x-rays

So my 98mSv is 32.7years of background radiation or 4900 chest x-rays

Do you need a CT scan? Article on the abuse of CT scans for "proactive (absence of disease) diagnosis":

http://www.alternet.org/story/44786”

And of course if my previous insurance had let me get the more accurate/costly PET scans I would have had a total of 77 mSv. That's a significant reduction, 12 mSv, no? At least 600 less chest x- rays/4 years less background radiation seems significant to me.

Peace.

Always Trust Yourself [C]

2007-06-12T20:44:00.000-04:00

6/5/07

Hi. I went in for what I thought would be my quarterly CT scan and ran into a "comedy" of errors, lack-o-communications, and professional condescension/you're the confused patient attitude. All at the beautiful Lombardi Cancer Center.

I made an appointment a month ago for a CT scan. Then made an Onco appointment and asked for the Dr. CT order. They never send it but I ask for it anyway. Today I go in to Lombardi and ask for my Order. I'm handed an Order form I've never seen before. Maybe they updated it but it calls for a scan and doesn't clarify with or without contrast. I always get contrast.

I tell the secretary and she tracks down the Dr. The secretary comes out with the form marked "No IV Contrast." i say this is wrong and she goes back. She comes out and says "that's what your Dr. wants". I explain I've always had contrast and she goes back in. Out she comes saying no contrast required.

We give up and head down to radiology. Reluctantly. As we were walking, I told Dani I should have left it alone or marked "with contrast" myself.

Once down there we talk to radiology. asking them if they can just give me "my usual (LOL)". They look at the Order and say they have to follow procedure as Ordered. I start to fill out the radiology forms. Reluctantly. Dani and I don't like this. Why change procedure? especially without informing the patient? And what good is a CT scan without contrast for blood cancers????? Might as well palpate me for tumors

We head back over to Lombardi. I tell my Dr.s secretary that I'm really uncomfortable with this. Back she goes.

A Nurse comes out and starts off the wrong way. Just very condescending. We start arguing. She insists I'm here for a PET not a CT. We go back and forth with Dani getting more and more agitated. The Nurse decides to get the Dr. (she is in clinic so very busy with patients)

Yay!

Out comes my Dr. We start arguing. She thinks I've confused scans. That I've been having PET scans all along. I don't back down. I insist otherwise. Then it hits her.

Although PET scans are the preferred method to track my type of issue, my old insurance refused to pay for them. So SOP is to fall back on CT scans. She forgot. Nice. So I canceled my CT scan, had to go to Nuclear Medicine and schedule a PET scan and reschedule my post-scan Dr. check up.

I wanted to do the "You were wrong/I was right" dance on all their faces!

So my Dr. Ordered me a PET scan, forgetting I was still getting CT scans. I schedule a CT scan because that's what I was told to do after my last one.. Radiology was going to accept a PET scan Order and give me a CT scan without contrast. Is it deadly? No. But a CT scan without contrast doesn't find much in the way of Lymphoma/Leukemia.

Never back down until things are spelled out. No matter how many higher degrees you're fighting.

Goodbye/My "Life"/Welcome Iggy. [L]

2007-05-29T16:09:00.000-04:00

Gonna be without internet for a bit.

Recap: landlord wants us out.

I love packing on Holiday weekends.

We really didn’t need this right now. Of the One Million things we need, this isn’t one of them.

We found this place through a mutual friend of the parties involved. They understood we don’t like to move, we understood they don’t like to look for tenants. We thought this was gonna be for the long haul. They treated us like good friends from the beginning when we moved in “way back” in October. So this felt like a kick in the teeth from a good friend followed by a few kidney punches. Dani felt particularly betrayed. It was, in her opinion, worst than our last battle with eviction notices, attempts to change locks, verbal battles, police, lawyers, etc. This was done by people who wanted to be friends but somehow didn’t see they would need the space in the immediate future. She’s probably right but all I could muster was “Fucking Assholess” and “Time to go”. I can re-categorize and write off people in a blink off an eye. Dani, not so much.

There was no way we could stay. They did us a favor by offering an early out but it is not altruistic. It’s obvious they need space now and wouldn’t be sorry if we left ASAP. So we sent out word and hit Craigs List. It becomes 2 full time jobs, of course. What a difference 8mos makes. The condo glut/gentrification has pushed rentals to the insane price range. Frikken 1300/mo for crappy 1br basements. We check out everything between 1000-1400 with no luck. Finally, one place looks promising. They want us to stop by Saturday, May 26.

Crap.

If you ask me for my top One Million places I would want to be on Memorial day weekend…..I would ask you to expand it so I could list DC. So we cancel the appointment, cash in two United Airline vouchers and head out for a backpacking trip to Glacier National Park!!!!!!!

No. Wait. That was a dream. Sigh.

Back To reality:

So we check it out. We are pleasantly surprised that it is above ground. Really happy it's second floor with Bay windows. There is no 3rd floor. How awesome is that? It doesn't have the amazing ultra-modern kitchen our current apartment has but, in our opinion, the price for that Kitchen was a little too high. Being in a basement sucks, even if just half the apartment is subterranean. it's the half we use for 90-95% of our waking hours. The over-indulged Children lacking boundaries was really starting to get to me. The pressing their faces against our back windows looking for our Cat being one example. Constant running and crashing being another. It's as if their parents indulge their every whim and expected us to do the same. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but we're pissed and I think we deserve a little leeway. After all, no matter how you look at it, we are being evicted. Evicted by "friends." The new apartment seems to be in a rougher neighborhood but I always think that when I move in DC. It's probably just a question of familiarity.

So we slap down a check for first month and deposit. And then we have to wait for “approval”.

In the meantime, we pack. And sweat, for some reason. Today we get final approval. We are moving into Truxton Circle neighborhood. A little South and East of us now. Deeper into the Cities mean streets. We are ahead of the curve. We are pioneers again. Not so much as a single Rainbow Flag on any building/apt anywhere in our new ‘hood. We are part of 4% of the ethnic makeup but I think maybe that was a typo and we are more like .4%.

And did I tell you it's not a basement?

This all goes in with my difficulties in getting my life back. I’ve never sent out so many resumes. The only responses I get aren’t so nice. Not sure if it’s the 1.5yr “medical leave” or, after 6 years, my willful inability to work in Big Pharma/Animal Research anymore. Probably a combo. Just a little while ago I was in no condition to take on a server type position but that may have changed.

Such is Life, eh?

For now, I work on our friends Organic Farm. Yes, I kid you not, Farming. I work at my pace. My hours. I like the work. It's.........Zen like. Maybe I found a new Life?

Basil & Tomato:

Hay keeps the weeds at bay and attracts earthworms

"My" tools:

Future Vineyard:

Now meet the newest member to our family:

Iggy. A 2yr old we rescued from the Humane Society. He’s friendly, playful as hell, never uses his claws on us. He’s ugly, spastic, smart and not so smart.

I’ve got some packing and job hunting to do. I will soon be without Internet. Abuse me while you can…….

Peace

Party of the Millenium: A.V Ristoranti Italiano - March 3rd, 2007 [L]

2007-05-21T21:04:00.000-04:00

Going back in time to catch up. Maybe two more posts in this "series". The pictures I uploaded today have loss some definition. For some reason. Sorry. We haven't lost teeth just pixels, I swear! The ones I linked yesterday and saved in the draft are fine. I'd wait for a response from blogger but then I'd never get this posted.....

The Amazing Dani
March 3rd, 2007

Dinner with Kyle & Courtney at A.V. Ristorante Italiano

From a review:

A.V. is short for the original owners, husband and wife Augusto and Assunta Vasaio -- Gus and Sue -- and the restaurant is still in the family two Augustos further on.

It has been a Washington institution for nearly 60 years, and a sort of Rorschach test for at least 10, but after several reprieves, the end of A.V. Ristorante Italiano may be near...The place itself is a "Sopranos" stage set: a series of smallish, dark rooms painted bordello red and crowded with photos and kitsch....The jukebox is still stocked only with opera, many tracks of which are touchingly worn, and the huge 18th-century fireplace dwarfs its own andirons. There is still a folding-door public phone booth near the kitchen. And the "piazza" -- for concrete or not, you can't possibly refer to something with a fountain of Poseidon as a patio -- remains, though the jungle of plastic greenery and Christmas lights I remember are gone. (There is one brighter party room in the back, with an impressive marble bar, but somehow that's not where the action is.)...

Piazza (just left of entrance):

Entrance:

Right & North of entrance - 7th st side (Place is huge):

I often passed by it thinking “What a dive. Must be great I-talian”. It opened in 1949 and is one of the oldest Italian restaurants in DC. I despise high-end Italian Restaurants. And will confess I’ve never really eaten at one. I look at the menu and think “How’s this Italian?” I expect the standard fare, plastic red & white checkered table clothes with cigarette burns, kitche, tacky decorations, and old Italians. IN DC, it seems to be a difficult thing to find. So when I heard AV was closing, I was determined to eat there. Dani set up a dinner date; us along with Courtney & Kyle. 7PM, Saturday.

The Stove

Dani & I started pre-dinner festivities with a drink or two. While getting ready and cleaning up, Dani dropped a sponge behind the stove. No problem, I thought, especially with our ultramodern kitchen. I go to the stove and figure I can probably pull it out from the wall. I lift it, using the oven handle and……………….BAM! I pull the stove door off and it slams into my right shin! Again, this is an ultra-mod, stainless steel stove. The top is several layers of components that come apart, no hinges, for easy cleaning. The door has these hook like hinges and is heavy as fuck. Man my shin kills. Thank God for the booze. It appears the door is supposed to be removable (that’s what the hooky-hinge things are for). It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to get it back on. It shouldn’t be any trouble for two people with a few degrees between them to figure out how to get the door back on. Drinks or no drinks. At least in theory. And y’all might think it only takes common sense. For those that do I invite you over. Get the door back on in under an hour and drinks are on me. Scott might be able to do it, Mr Logic Mechanic. But we couldn’t. And Man was I getting frustrated. And I hurt. And we had Dinner Reservations. What I could do is Jerry-rig it with bungee cords. I do rock at Jerry-rigging. So, with the door closed, we left.

The Walk

A.V. Ristoranti Italiano is at 607 New York Avenue NW, 1.2mi from our Apt. Reservations were for 7. Dani thought we should head out by 6:30. it’s an easy walk down Rhode Island then South down 6th St. Shouldn’t take more than 15min. As we get within sight something happens. Dani isn’t well. She’s feeling faint. I suggest we walk the block and a half to the restaurant. She declines, saying she needs to sit now. We go to the steps of a police station, on the opposite corner of 7th & New York. I can see the restaurant. Oh well. Don’t want her to pass out. While we sit she text’s Courtney (a few times) to tell her will be there shortly.

An Arrival Like No Other.

This is difficult to describe. It was slo-mo. My brain was assaulted with images that didn’t fit.

Dani starts to feel better and we arrive at A.V. She gives our reservation name to a Host and he tells us our party is in the back. At least I think it was a host. He left us to fend for ourselves. AV is cavernous – multiple rooms and bars. Dani casually request I take the lead. As I weave my way to the back room and enter, I see Courtney. I see Courtney sitting with a bunch of people. How strange, I think. Guess she ran into people she knows. What a co-ink-e-dink. As I get closer I notice it’s a huge party of people that Courtney’s hanging out with. As I get closer Still I notice I know all these people………………..also. People from everywhere in my life…………….I stop in my tracks. Yes, my jaw hits the floor. Not literally. Actually. I turn to Dani. I’m stunned. Flabbergasted. Speechless. She sits me down in the middle of a table containing ~30 friends of Mine. I am dumbfounded. In a state of semi shock. To my right is a sea of friends from DC. To my left are former co-workers, from the ex-burbs of Virginia. Also are some fantastic backpacking friends. Our farmer are further down. And sitting across from me would be my Best friend Andy. From Fredonia, NY. Our hometown.

I think they shouted happy birthday to me. A lifetime after I arrived. Somewhere after it dawned on me that I knew everyone and before I sat. “Birthday? My Birthday isn’t for 5 days………………..”

Forget the ugly dude - look at that bar!

I can’t process this. It’s all out of context. I was expecting Kyle & Courtney and that’s all I saw when I arrived. Everyone else was out of context and invisible. I stare at Andy. I ask him “What the Fuck are you doing here?” I stare at some other people and wonder what they’re doing in DC. Why are all the DC people here? I ask Andy again: “What the Fuck are you doing here?” One of my former co-workers/friends point to some of my other friends and ask me who they are. I fumble for names. I know them. I know them well. But why are they here? I look at Andy again….”What the Fuck are you doing here?”

I only had two drinks before I got there. But I’m so blown out of the water. Clayton asks my poison. “Beer and Bourbon, please. Makers will do.” This is not the time for me to be casually sippin’ or shy about my habits.

ATTENDEES

My Good Friend from Home:
Andy. Known him since the 80’s

My Good DC Friends
Zoe & Kate
Eric
Erin
Courtney & Kyle
Lauren
Clayton, Lynn and Sophie
Krissi & Reece

My Good Virginia Friends:
Scott
Karin
Leigh & Maurice

My Good Farmer Friends (where we got married)
Eric & Lori

My Good Backpacking Friends
Katie (Philadelphia)
Kim & Antonio (New Jersey)
Mark & Janet (Baltimore)

My best friend and unbeknownst to me most devious love
Dani

Hindsight stuff.

No ones ever done anything like this for me ever. Nothing close. And Dani really isn’t that good from keeping the smallest details from me. She always has this look. Or so I thought……….

I would find out later that this was months in planning. Dani “broke into” my gmail and scoured it for friends. Breaking in required that she click on bookmarks. Gleaning it for names she recognized was not so easy. On one email regarding the surprise party– she accidently CC’d me. I got a call and she said “Please, if you love me you will delete the email I just sent you without reading it.” She explained that it regarded gift ideas for me. I said “OK” and whacked it. She was kind of begging me to get a haircut. It was getting a little crazy but I was enjoying being able to grow my hair in a fabulous luxurious way. :D She cleaned our apartment like she was expecting company. She bought extra beer for the weekend in case “Kyle & Courtney” were dropping by after dinner. She seemed more than calm when I “ripped” the stove door off. And of course, Dani getting "ill" less than a block from the restaurant and wanting to blop down right there. She was texting, making sure everyone was inside. Nice feign, lover.

Back Room

So there we all are. In the backroom of the tackiest Italian Restaurant I had ever seen. Places like Buca di Beppo try to be tacky and that makes them pseudo kitschy. This place didn’t try to be tacky. They were Old World I-Talians so their decorative sense is…..just tacky. I’ll never forget the 5ft tall alabaster Leaning Tower of Pisa next to us. LOL! The servers were surely but in an odd friendly way, the food, served family style for us, was borderline terrible, the Chianti just barely, but the party was the most amazing event ever!!!! Then people shocked me again by handing me gifts. “Fuck”. I thought the surprise party was more than enough of a gift. Antonio got me a scotch and beer. I drank copious beer and whiskey/ky. And some “lovely” Chianti. Dani the whole time was playing hostess. Working the table, making sure I got everything I needed. I did a few rounds of the table. Just chatting and having a Grand Ole Time. But it’s all one extremely happy blur. Then my bday cake came – a fallen Tiramisu. Ugly but fantastic. Best part of the dinner

Alabaster Masterpiece!

Post party party.

We close the place. Very inebriated, say our goodbyes and then invite all to some more fun. Actually, Dani had invited Anyone who wanted a place to crash. So back to our apartment with Andy, Kim, and Antonio. How anyone drove is beyond me (shhhhhhhh?). Back home I break out one of the gifts – Laphroaig Quarter Cask. Can’t get it this side of the pond. Antonio and I drink it. I drink Dani's. He drinks Kim’s………and maybe I drank Andy’s. Laphroaig Scotch is not for many. Strong Islay…peaty smoky heaven to me. Poison to others. Down them and we’re off to DC9, a nice hole in the wall about 7 blocks away. We get there and are somewhat inebriated. Time no longer has meaning to me. We pull up to the bar and get some beers. I believe I am not aware of much at this point. Then Antonio orders a round of shots. Its strawberry shortcake. Nastiest, sweetest shot I’ve ever done. Antonio must have gone crazy. But I can not refuse. Then I drink half of Dani’s. Antonio orders another one. I can’t figure out if he’s a sadist or a masochist. I think I did all of Dani’s. At this point, Antonio becomes really sloppy…….I think at one point he went out to smoke and he passed out. Maybe. At least that’s what I was told. I was quite gone. After a while we went to Ben’s Chili Bowl. Apparently, Andy needed food ASAP……so I was told the next day. Boy did he not know what he was in store for. It was 4 blocks away and I love it.

Ben's Chili Bowl

It was after closing so Ben’s was packed. For some reason, we were seated with 3 strangers. I was confused. Later, it was explained to me that was the only way to be seated ASAP and get service. But I was too drunk and getting funnier as the night went on, of course. Apparently I berated these people. Three white as wonder bread suburbanites. Two women, one man. I kept asking…….where they were from. Annoyed that they were here. I do recall hating one of the girls. She was really annoying. I swear! At some point, Antonio had passed out in his food. So I was told the next day. The place had skeered Andy and he ordered a veggie burger. I wolfed down my usual - a chili half-smoke and fries. Time to go. Antonio was having a hard time walking. So I was told the next day. Dani asked me to flag a cab. I said we could walk and she flashed me The Sign. I walked into the street and almost grabbed the next cab. I believe it was an uneventful ride home and we passed out pretty quickly.

The next morning was rough. I felt kind of ill early morning. Strawberry shortcake shots almost did me in. I can't remember the last time I vomited. I came so close this morning. Uggggh. Kim & Antonio packed up and left. Andy decided to stick around. It was slooooooooooow going. For me at least. We hung out, ate, went to Dupont and Whole Foods. Drank lots of coffee and water. Dani semi-chastised me for my behavior at Ben's but I just replied with "it was my night, dammit!" :D Andy Fixed things (of course) and Entertained us. Sunday was spent as Sundays should be – lazily. And then Andy was off.

All in all, the best damn party of my life and an amazing weekend. Thank you, my Love.

there are some holes in the story.....for various reasons........feel free to comment.

Peace

Tragedy in the Canyon [L]

2007-05-21T10:02:00.000-04:00

The news trickled out slowly in the Forums on Thursday. An NPS report was posted stating a woman had died of apparent heatstroke on Tuesday while backpacking in a remote region of the Grand Canyon. The few details that were released sent a chill up our collective spines - the party size, location, and women's age fit with one of our own groups out there. Anyone with a number of the party of 6 sent out calls and we waited. A message was finally received: 'something bad has happened'. The forum moderators were asked to delete the threads and complied immediately. We knew which one it was. And it is so unfair.

It was April from Oregon.

I'm not positive, and I am surmising, but from the description it appears she died of "Fluid intact heatstroke" - the heat challenge overwhelms the body's heat loss mechanism even though the fluid level is sufficient. It kills quickly if you can't reduce the body temperature. Not an easy thing to do in the desert with temperatures hovering around 105*. And they were all experienced desert backpackers. They used all their resources and knowledge in a valiant attempt to save her.

She died in her husbands arms, Tuesday afternoon. They had been married for 25 years. They loved the Canyon. Two set out Wednesday morning for help. They were hoping to get to the Trailhead by Friday. From there they would have to search for a Ranger. Another party came upon them. They would be at the River by Thursday. River Rafting Companies equip their people with satellite cell phones.

A Helicopter arrived Thursday afternoon. A Ranger would be dispatched to meet the two hiking out.

I didn't know them personally. But the communities are tight knit. I've met maybe 50 between the two forums and know all the regulars by no more than one degree of separation. I counted them as friends and knew they were two beautiful souls. When I was first diagnosed with Hodgkin's, He & his wife were one of the first of many from the forums that contributed to my fund raiser. He contacted a friend before word went out on how to help. Once, near Christmas, I mentioned on the forums about how I loved ginger snaps. A few days later I got a package of ginger snaps from him. His wife was a Christmas cookie maker fanatic. Best Ginger snaps ever.

It's little things like that make some shine more than others. I promised my next trip would be in the Pacific Northwest. I needed to meet these kind souls. we chatted on the forums last night. He told me he's still looking forward to meeting me one day. I hope it's soon.

Cause I'm a Punk Rocker [L]

2007-05-18T13:18:00.001-04:00

Follow the link:

Iggy

Time To Go [L]

2007-05-18T01:29:00.000-04:00

Received from our Landlord on May 16th:

dear Dani and Phil

I feel bad and have been postponing this email for a while but I guess there is no good way to say this: we don't intend to renew the lease in October. Peter's business is growing and it is becoming difficult for him to work with two noisy girls running up and down the stairs all day. Also, we need storage space for all his supplies that are now increasingly crowding our living and dining room. It is the obvious solution for us to take over the basement to make it into an office, we just very much regret putting your life upside down because of it and hope that out of bad news, good developments will emerge. We thought it'd be better to let you know already now, in case you want to buy a house and need some time to do that. We are flexible and so can accommodate an earlier departure date if you find something that you like earlier than October. It's been so easy and lovely to have you as tenants, we'll be sorry to see you go.
Warmly,
Carole

What can we do? It sucks.

This is my 4th apt in DC ('99-now). Third time I've had to vacate due to "exterior pressure". It's also the nicest apartment I've lived in. I've been OK with the other moves. This one sucks. Job hunts going smashingly horrendous.......worst time I've ever had. Timing is everything......................................

Sometimes Life really sucks, eh? Thank God for Dani....she makes everything OK.

I'm done with this. Hope to post past fun times soon........

PEACE

Farewell, Annie [L]

2007-05-09T15:43:00.000-04:00

We picked up her ashes a few hours ago. Again, we could say little once there. They put her in a very nice place to rest. A poem by Edwin Arnold was including:

Farewell, Friend, yet not farewell.
Where I go, ye to shall dwell.
I am gone, before your face,
a moment’s time, a little space.

When ye come where I have stepped
Ye will wonder why ye wept.

ANNIE: 7/20/1994-4/27/2007 [L]

2007-05-07T11:09:00.000-04:00

INTRO

I only knew her for the last two years. Yet I was home with her all day from 11/05 to her last. Suffice to say, we were good friends and loved each other. She wasn’t a cat or pet, she was a companion. More than that she was also Dani’s baby

Annie was her name. I preferred “The Kitty” or just “Kitty”. But she was no cat. Nor was she a pet. She was a good friend who gave as good as she got. Her current vet put Annie’s age at 16. She looked to be a Norwegian Forrester. She had a hyperthyroid that was difficult to control. Her arthritis was horrible. Her “first” vet was stunned by the x-rays. Showing massive scar tissue on her hind legs – indicative of horrendous abuse, kicking most likely, with no medical attention. Dani wept when she saw those x-rays. Still, she was an unbroken spirit. She would eat what she wanted to and climb where she wanted to be. In the end, however, it was her heart murmur that she couldn’t overcome. Most likely she was “throwing” blood clots to her hindquarters and towards her head.

PRELOGUE
Most should know by now, the story. Back in 94 Dani was home in Missouri from college for summer break. Sitting in a lawn chair, in her backyard, reading. Out of the woods comes a cat, trotting towards her. She gets near her and lets out a loud meow. Dani asks, “what’s wrong, kitty?” to which she cries some more. It’s Dani’s parents Anniversary. Annie is all belly and full of burs. Dani pets her a bit and carries her inside. Dani’s Mom suggests they put her in the pump house for the Father to “find”. This way he can “make the decision” to bring her in. The Mom’s devious strategy works. Two days later, Annie gives birth to seven kittens. Dani personally sees that they are all adopted.

Kitty had chosen Dani. Somehow. Just came out of the woods and announced her decision. And from the beginning it was obvious. Annie was Dani’s Kitty. Dani was Annie’s.

I really can't put into words how much they loved each other.

Soon after, Dani leaves for college. Right after Dani Leaves, her Mom realizes something’s wrong with Annie and takes her to the Vet. Her intestines have telescoped and she needs surgery, ASAP. She’s in danger of developing peritonitis. Mom considers putting Annie down but the Dad vetoes, saying: “Dani will kill us”. After that, Annie would allow no one to handle her besides Dani. Dani would come home from college and it was like they were old friends. It would take 2 years, living at her home, before her Mom could pet Annie. And of course, when Dani moved to DC so did Kitty.

And then I came along. Kitty took an almost immediate liking to me. But I believe at first it was only because Dani liked me. Later we bonded like I’ve never bonded with an animal.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END
And then came that horrible day in late March. She had what appeared to be a stroke. She appeared blind in the left eye, was making clockwise rotations, had a head tilt, and was having difficulty using her back legs. She seemed to have a disconnect with anything Left of her. But Dani was not going to take her to the Vet. They would want to observe her over night and that would not be acceptable. Dani has a strong, and justifiable reason for not trusting overnight stays. I had over six years of training and could easily recognize pain and assess pain levels. If I was unsure, we could always call Dani’s friend, a Vet out West. So we would watch, and hope she overcome this. The first two days were horrible. We worked with Annie, helping her walk, trying to get her to eat and drink, to no avail. She was upset. Sometimes crying out with frustration. Once, I had to hold her up so she could use the litter box. It was the second night when things got much better. She was walking with ease and during dinner came to her “position” next to me. That night, Kitty got my Chicken leg dinner. Both of them.

She improved over the next week or so but it was slow going. She had to do circles before anything, she was very unstable, and she didn’t purr much anymore, only when being brushed. Occasionally she would head butt me and chew on my hair. But nothing like before. It was heartbreaking. She was too unstable to sit in laps or be on the bed. She would come to the bedroom and look up at us, longingly, then settle in her corner on the floor. Still, we hoped for the best.

But then came two more strokes – “mini strokes”, in rapid succession. We saw one; she was experiencing head spasms, and at the same time lifting her right paw to her head, as if she were trying to brush something off her face. She shook that one off. The next one was early in the morning, again, she was falling forward. Unwilling to use her back legs, lifting them up from the ground. She could not support her weight on her front legs alone and would fall forward. She wouldn’t eat that day, not even the chicken legs Dani cooked for her that night. She did finally eat the chicken the next day and she started walking better. But we started to recognize that Kitty may not pull out this time. Dani and I were becoming increasingly distraught. That night we picked up Dani’s Mom at the airport. She was aware of the situation.

4/26/07 – ANNIE'S LAST DAY
It was midnightish when we got back from the airport. Things had taken a turn for the worst. Kitty must have had another episode. She was now circling counter-clockwise but could find nothing. She looked completely confused, disorientated. She couldn’t find her food or water right in front of her face. She moaned her annoyance. Both eyes seemed non-functional now. Her back legs weren’t working. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I just looked at Mom. It was only gonna get worst. It was time. We contemplated taking her right then but decided Morning was just as well. Mom picked her up and soothed her. Dani and I just sat there. Devastated. We started drinking. Hard. Drinking and Crying. My Mother-in-law just barely keeping it together. Welcome to DC, Mom. Kitty laid on the floor near our sofa couch, where Dani and I would be sleeping. Mom went to bed. I sat there with her, brushing her chin and side. She was enjoying it but not purring. I asked Dani to bring my Laphroaig Whisky. She said “can I get you a glass?” “No” I responded. Tonight I drink to Kitty. Dani went to bed, crying. I sat with Kitty, brushing her and drinking my Scotch. She closed her eyes and fell asleep. I finished off the bottle and went to bed. crying softly. Later, I could here Kitty drag herself to the bedroom. It was so fucking heartbreaking.

The Morning came in no time. We sat there like we sat the night before. Devastated. Dani called her vet and told them, as best she could while balling, that it was time. They fit us in for 11AM. Gave us an hour or so. Fuck. In the meantime we watched Kitty. She could walk again but couldn’t find anything. Twice she fell into her food, laying her head on the plate. I watched her drink water without touching the water. At one point, she looked in my direction and let out this moan. Instinctually, somehow, I picked her up and brought her to her Litter box. There, with tears welling up, I helped keep her upright while she peed. Why couldn’t she have died in her sleep? When the time came I grabbed her carrier, just in case, and two bandanas. Dani picked Annie up and out the door we went. In the car I told Dani that I knew this sucked but I was having a hard time seeing the road. Kitties vet was ~10minute drive. I handed Dani a bandana.

Luckily, I find a spot within a block of the Vet. Everything starts to blur. I’m sure there were people on the sidewalk but I remember no one. We get inside, Dani balling and me unable to approach the receptionist. I’m using my sunglasses to help keep my shit together. I can’t take them off. No matter. The receptionist recognizes us and brings us back to a room. She recognizes us from the Vet and she shops at Dani’s stand. We sign this and that, the receptionist being a complete sweetheart. Then the Doc comes in. Another gentle soul, going through the details. Being completely compassionate. She leaves, after getting our permission to take Kitty and put a catheter in.

The vet came back with Kitty and a towel. Put her in Dani’s lap and told us to take our time. She left us. We unwrapped her. We hugged Kitty, told her how sorry we were, and thanked her for her love. Kissing her. We tried to be brave and not upset Annie. But it was too difficult. Dani was inconsolable. Saying she couldn’t do it but knowing we had to. The Vet checked back in. Dani summoned all the courage she could and gave the OK. The Vet started with Saline. Dani hugged Kitty tight. I got on the floor next to them and took my sunglasses off. Tears rolling freely off our faces. As the vet started the first drug, Kitty lashed out with her free arm, trying to remove the catheter. I petted her, trying to console her. In no time she fell asleep, her head resting on Dani’s knee, front arms splayed on either side of her leg. The vet continued. I had to take a Bandanna to Dani’s face. As she would later tell me: “I could feel her heart stop.”

The vet confirmed Annie’s passing and left us, telling us once again to take our time. I don’t know how long we were there, sobbing, thanking her and telling her how sorry we were. At some point Dani said we should go. I left the room to get someone. A tech responded, entered the room, stopped short, and let out a quiet little “Oh.” She knew Dani outside of the Hospital. She gently grabbed Kitty, said she was sorry and she would take care of her. We each kissed Annie one more time on the head, said goodbye, and left. Not sure how I drove home. The silence that night and the next morning was truly deafening.

We have to wait until Wednesday, 5/9, to pick up her ashes…….…it hurts

TRIBUTE TO THE KITTY

Kitty, The Compassionate
When Dani was alone and upset, Kitty would come to her and gently pat her cheek with her paw, trying to soothe her, tell her all was well. The Kitty was always very concerned while I was undergoing treatment, often by my side on days I was feeling particularly ill. And when I slept late on those days, I would open my eyes and there was Kitty watching me with obvious concern, either from the floor or on the bed. She would then let out a little cry and go to Dani. As if satisfied that I was getting up and was OK. She repeated this when I had Mono. I would pass out on the couch and wake up with Annie watching over me.

Spirit of the Kitty
She would climb up on the bed without the use of her back legs to be with us. She would play with toys like a youngster. She would “chase” me around the sofa, trotting until she or I got tired. Usually it was I who gave up. She would watch birds and cats from the windows – with hunger in her eyes. Again, climbing up onto the windowsills without the use of her back legs. On several occasions, she whipped out through a crack in the door to chase the feral Cats living in our back yard. We were scarred shitless when she did this. But we were proud of her. An ancient cat attacking young wild ones like she was a young killer herself. No fear. And she chased the two youngens, the Mom, and on one occasion, the meanest of the bunch - the Tomcat, right out. It was kind of funny to see how petrified they were of her. And Kitty was only 5lbs.

A Best Friend Like No Other
She always wanted to be in one of our laps. Wherever we were sitting. She would come up to us, get on her hind legs and scratch lightly at a knee until you picked her up. The scratching was as gentle as a human scratching, no damage, especially if we were wearing pants. Once on the lap – she needed petting. And she wasn’t gonna take no for an answer. Whether we might be typing or holding a newspaper, she would reach out with a cupped paw with claws slightly extended and pull an arm gently towards her for petting, hopefully scratching.

The Longest kitty and I had been separated was Christmas '06. we went home to Dani's mom in St. Louis fopr 5 days. Kitty was so excited when we came home. She laid in my lap and rubbed. And purred. And rubbed some more.

She was always with us and preferred it if we were in the same room. She loved being on the couch with us. But most of all, She loved bedtime. She often started at the head of the bed, always on the right side, just below the pillows. If she didn’t start out there, she ended up there. If a bad Thunderstorm came through, she would get up on Dani’s pillow and sleep curled up around her head. Sometimes on her head.

And she loved her steel brush. We would brush her at night, on the bed. And she would brush herself. All I had to do was turn it bristle side up and she would rub her neck over the bristles. Kitty would come whenever we called. Even if she were sleeping, as long as we were enthusiastic enough. She followed us to the door when we left, and was at the door when we came home.

Annie liked to lay on the bed. A lot. That’s where we often played. But only after it were made. In fact, she would go to the bed and just look at you and maybe cry out if you didn’t respond right away. Then, after one of us made the bed, she would jump up and make herself comfy. And there we would often play one of her favorite games: Attack The Phil head. I would put my head down and feign a “head butt”, Kitty would grab my head with her claws, lightly digging in, pulling me to her. She would then chew on my hair. This was something she would do with me only, for some reason. She would go right to the base of my hair and chew, pulling up from my head. I could barely feel her teeth against my scalp. But again, it was done with gentle skill and never hurt.

I could also lay my head on the bed and she would put her nose right in my ear and sniff. Hard. This would always make me giggle like a schoolgirl and she seemed to like that. Repeating her actions often. Then she would chew on my hair some. I always loved that. She even tried to do it while I was undergoing chemo. But my hair was so full of Toxins I had to stop her when she tried. I so enjoyed starting up again after my first haircut following my last treatment. It was very comforting. She also loved my armpits. I would lay on the floor or bed with my arms raised/under my head and she would just rub her head into my armpits. Often head-butting them.

What she did enjoy with Dani and I was head butts. Like how Rams butt heads. Occasional she would trot from one side of the bed, put her head down, and “BOP!” Then she would slide her head down against the head she rammed. Always enjoyed that. She also liked to lick eyelids. Waiting until Dani or I closed our eyes to start licking.

And Annie loved the backyard of our new place and had this thing for climbing stairs. She was obsessed with it. Kind of like an autistic obsession - she "had to" climb stairs. Often needed to do this out front as well.

Her other favorite game was attacking The Dani hand. On her side, Dani would start tickling Annie’s belly. The Kitty would get the wild look in her eyes, extend all her claws, and start kicking Dani’s hand with her back legs, then get her front legs in on it. Finally she would start biting the Hand. It used to scare the shit out of me! Kitty looked like she was mauling Dani’s hand! But she never left much of a mark. Certainly never drew blood.

Another game we played was “steal the kitty”. I would grab kitty and run for the bedroom, Dani chasing me, shouting “Don’t take my Kitty from me!” If Dani didn’t grab me in time, I would fall on the bed with Kitty and Dani would jump on. This always seemed to excite Kitty – always happy to be in bed with us – and she'd always start purring.

In the old apartment, Kitty almost always laid on her back on the wood floor in somewhat of a contorted fashion: The front of her body twisted to the left or right with her back half straight up.

Annie preferred water out of a glass. And if not on our laps, or eating food I was giving her, then she wanted to be on the table. If Kitty wasn’t on one of her pillows, then she would lay on black. She loved black - especially my backpack or black duffle bag. We always thought she liked the way her shedded hair looked against black.

Kitty The Provider
One night last Summer, Dani was awakened by the moans of Kitty as she trotted down the hallway towards us from the Living room. Dani woke me up, jumped off the bed, and exclaimed “There’s something wrong wit Annie! We’ve got to go to the ER!” I sat up in time to see (by silhouette) Annie enter the room and sit up by the doorway, under the light switch. Simultaneously, Dani met her and flicked on the light. Annie moaned again and spit a very discombobulated, and most likely terrified, mouse at Dani’s feet. Dani screamed and jumped back onto the bed. It was quiet sweet of Annie to help out with the food, no? Still a mouser at that age is quite impressive.

Jolly 'Ole Kitty
Kitty loved Christmas, of course. And somehow she always knew which present contained catnip.

Gentle, Happy Kitty
In the last few Months of her life, Annie could not climb up on the bed. She would sit by it and wait for one of us to pick her up. As soon as Dani started making Dinner, Annie would go sit upright by my chair and wait. If I was having meat or fish that night, she would get a bite for every bite I took. On non-meat nights I would show my dinner to her but she would still wait. If I wasn’t home and someone had taken my place, Annie would still sit there, looking for food from the person in my chair. And in these late months of her life, she sometimes preferred the floor. Maybe it was the arthritis? Sometimes she slept on “her” (what was once my) comforter in the closet. Sometimes on one of two pillows we had strategically place for her. And sometimes on the floor.

Kitty also went from crying loudly in the Morning to wake us up, to waiting until we stirred. She would give a very low cry, wait for us to stir a little more, than cry louder. She was waking us up gently. On occasion she would stand on us to wake us, but more often then not, she would do it slowly and quietly. I have no idea why.

And through it all, what I remember most is Annie purring. All that was required was for us to be with her. She purred most of the day.

GOODBYE ANNIE

Kitty gave what she got and then some. Annie Loved us unconditionally and we returned it.

I still see her. By the bed, on the bed, by my chair, looking at me, waiting for dinner. In my lap, while I type this. In Dani’s lap, while she reads the paper. Dani catches herself looking for Annie, asking to watch out for Kitty when we leave. Every day Dani called me and would ask “What’s the Kitty doing?” I would usually respond “She’s out back chasing squirrels and feral Kitties, of course.” Or “doing cartwheels. She’s feeling much better.” And it’s so difficult to not sing our Kitty songs.

Nothing’s worst than the silence.

I only knew her for the last two years. It was more than enough and nowhere near enough. I loved her. Dani loved her. Annie was her baby. And we shall miss her like none other.

Her effect on everyone who knew her is a testimonial of who she was and will always be.

“Where’s Kitthhhhhhhhheeeeeeeeeee” Dani? She’s watching. Waiting patiently to play with us.

Thank you, Kitty.

Rest In Peace, little one.

Thank you, Kitty.

Rest In Peace, little one.

Felonies, Brawls, Touching God. Iggy [L]

2007-05-05T22:45:00.000-04:00

I think maybe the best way for me to get back in is post stuff in a semi backwards chronological order. As a side note - I would greatly appreciate it if someone could tell me how to improve pictures taken with a cell phone - i.e. blowing them up without gaining a shit load-o-distortion. Thanks. In the meantime - all I got are tiny cell phone photos......

Thursday, 4/5/07

It was the day of the Iggy Show at the 9:30 Club. 9 blocks from our Apartment. Iggy & The Stooges reunion with the added talents of bassist Mike Watt, co-founder of 70’s punk band Minutemen. It was to be a glorious day. Doors were to open at 9:30. We decided to invite some friends over for a pre-fest dinner at 7.

Clayton: Long time best friend of Dani
Tina: Long time friend of Dani
Courtney: Friend/co-worker of Dani
Kyle: Courtney’s SO and our friend

Clayton & Tina are 40 something’s
Dani & I are 30 something’s :p
Courtney & Kyle are 25 & 26.

I make my pasta & Gravy. Dani makes the apps and salad. Guests bring wine & bread. I start rotating our Iggy CD’s. They all show up about the same time and Tina has some unfortunate news. They’ve added a band or 2 and Iggy won’t come on until Midnight. Ugh. It’s gonna be a long night but we can always have coffee. So we start. Clayton & I have Whiskey. Kyle & Courtney decide on vodka crans, Dani &Tina open the wine. There was much drinking. And eating. But I think more drinking.

We all sit down to Dinner. I put on the new Iggy & the Stooges CD. Not his best work by far but no ones heard it and he’ll probably play a few at the show. We have a nice long dinner. The wine flows freely, as does a lot of liquor. After dinner drinks are done, I brew the coffee. Dani wants me to do it b/c my coffee is eaten with a fork. I seem to keep drinking until Dani has the Laphroaig removed from the table. Clayton adds enough whiskey to his coffee to cut it in half. Wired & drunk for Iggy. How awesome is this gonna be?

Brawl
We head out around 10PM. I think it’s a little early but they (or someone), insists. In hindsight I can say the euphoria we were all feeling was from the upcoming show. And the coffee and alcohol helped a bit. Probably. Supposedly it was cold out. I couldn’t tell. We were all wearing T-shirts and light jackets. 9:30 club stands about 3000, with maybe 2-3 dozen seats, including the bar stools. If you have to wear a jacket then you wanna be able to wrap it around your waist……..please hold.

Hmmmmm. Bloody Mary. Should done this and saved my Scotch for later.

Soooooooooo we get to the club and there’s not much of a line. I bet 90% of the idiots showed up “on time” Bet they froze their arsses off. Kyle brought a Backpack. Only took about 10 minutes to search that. Oy vey. On Claytons insistence, we head to the basement Bar. There’s a bit of nostalgia down there. Pictures of shows at the original site and what not. I head right to the bar with Dani & Tina in tow, I order 2 beers and a vodka cran for Dani. They come in those not so big red plastic cups. $18.00. I look around wondering where the strippers are. I hand the bartender a 20 and ask him when they’ll be coming on. He doesn’t find my comment funny. I “let” him keep the $2. for the first time in my life, I under tip. Fuck it. A weak vodka cran and 2 drafts that were MAYBE 10oz? He can skim off the top. Should have brought my flask, I thought. Luckily, I didn’t. At some point we(?) decide to go to the 3rd floor. Dani dashes up and out of sight. I follow Clayton.

The set up is kind of odd. Second floor is U shaped, the sides with a lot of room, the back is a tiny VIP type area. Third floor only sits behind VIP section and has a bar. Great view but I’m thinking I need to be up front. It is Iggy. Dani reappears from somewhere At one point this dude moves from the wall separating 2nd & 3rd and I move in. After being there about 10 minutes. the fun begins.

This Tommy Chong looking dude, only uglier, shorter, and older, nudges me from the right. Tells me that was his friends space and I need to move. Before I can say “sucks to be your friend”, Dani says “sucks to be your friend”. Love that Women. Then people from my right sytart giving me grief. At this point (I swear) I just said in a not really nasty way: “WTF? We all come here, pay our $40 and try and enjoy a show. Lighten up.” Then this troll women, think Janis Joplin, only older, uglier, and talentless, gives Dani grief. A lot of grief. She took the place of Tommy and is probably his “partner”. Dani chews her a new one. The looks at me and says “she called me a Bitch! Now I’m really gonna Fuck with her.” I agree and we close ranks on her. Tommy “bitches to 2nd floor security. He ignores him. Tommy leaves. What the fuck? Meantime Clayton has a new scotch & soda in his hand and puts one near me. “What’s this?” I ask. “My next drink” he replies. “Oh” Guess he won’t be buying any drinks. Maybe. I still have my beer from downstairs. In the meantime, we give Janis shit. After a while I feel the tap tap tap of a Gorilla. I turn to see……………………….A gorilla. Wearing a shirt that says “Security”.
Mr. No Neck informs me that these people “asked you politely to leave and you didn’t”. I respond “are you kidding?”. Gorillas have no sense of humor and asks me to move. I say Ok. And do. Dani and I both realized at the time of the “tap tap tapping” that the Game was over. I kind of bantered with the Gorilla. I was confused. I asked him if he knew these people. He said “yes”. Well, I was bantering. He kept his responses much shorter. No big deal. The important thing was we were here to see Iggy and I wanted to be on the 1st floor anyway. Right?

So we step back. Clayton, right next to us, is asking “WTF?” I see Kyle & Courtney in the 2nd floor side area. Dani tells him. Including the little verbal tiff she had with Janis. Clayton goes to speak with Janis. I grab his arm to know avail. Dani and I turn to leave and here a glass or two crash.

In case you forgot. There was copious drinking. We turn and don’t see Clayton. I look on the floor and see two pairs of legs. They are splayed in such a way that I deduce the rest of the bodies must also be on the floor. I try to run over there. Simultaneously, Dani grabs me and Gorillas push me out of the way as they move in. It’s amazing how these animals seemingly come out of the woodwork. Anyway. They pounce for a while on the body on the floor, there seems to be some resistance but up they stand with a very restrained Clayton.

Fuck.

They pass us. But ahead of them is Tommy. Damn I wanna kill that weasel. Behind them is Janis. Looks like she’s wearing a Scotch & Soda. We head out. They aren’t being to gentle with our friend. Outside there’s a cop. SOP for 930 club to have a few around. Tommy & Janis give their version. Dani & I also make up a version. Clayton’s bloddied. Cut face, fat lip, broken glasses.

This is wear we learn from the head bouncer that the area in question was reserved for some “handicapped” person. Janis. I’d like to say something but what can we? The cop gives Clayton a lecture, says she won’t press charges if you leave. Dani’s upset. I’m pissed. They never said anything to us about the area being reserved. Nor did the first Gorilla. Clayton insists we go back inside and enjoy the show. We go in, Dani tells me he doesn’t have cash on him so I run back outside but don’t see him. I ask the Cop and the Head Gorilla where’d he go. They informed me he was long gone. I then politely tell the head dude that although our friend was in the wrong, all his lackey had to do was tell us why we couldn’t occupy that space and none of this would have happened. He was very polite and I apologized again before heading back in.

I was so hoping to run into Tommy after the show.

Touching God

Back inside I see Tina & Courtney consoling Dani. Clayton had never seen Iggy. Dani blames herself for saying anything. I correct her. Clayton should have backed off and just left with us. They had Security on their side. Arguing with them is like arguing with cops, minus your civil rights. I grab Tina & Dani and head into the 1st floor. I’ve never seen Iggy. I’m wired and wasted. We are getting our money’s worth, dammit.

I need another BM (Bloody Mary!LOL! I Kill me!)

The bar on the left appears easiest to get to so we head there. Or we just stumbled left. Tina buys us drinks. I get a whiskey. I now it may be my last drink. We are maybe a dozen or so rows back. They’re setting the stage up for Iggy. I’m getting antsy. We’re too far back. The crowd is a surprising mix of young and old. I was thinking it would be mostly old. The bad comes out, starts right up and then FUCKING IGGY POP EXPLODES ONTO THE STAGE!!!! Right into “I wanna be your dog”. Dudes 2 weeks shy of 60 and still has the body of a 20 yr old. A 20 yr old with a 6 pack. We go fucking apeshit! You know, jumping 4 feet off the floor and pumping your fists. Not much room to do anything else. But no one’s with us. Up front they’re going nuts like us. This will not do. So I grab Dani and we go in. Mind you, I’m 5’8ish and Dani’s 5’2ish. Hardly average size. Always seems like the bottom of the curve at shows.

As we go in, stage left, I notice the speakers seem to be clear of people. How odd, I think and head towards them. Thinking we can outflank the crowd. As I break free a get a Gorrila hand imprint into my chest. Dani gets one, too. Damn they’re being pricks. But it is Iggy. So we squeeze into the 4th row and can’t get any closer. It will have to do. For now. We are with our people. The music is all hard core Iggy. All from his previous stooges days and current album. I’m going Fucking Crazy. Like I’m 18. All of a sudden I have a women attached to me. Arms around me, jumping up and down with me, crotch pressed against my hip. Face really close. She has a drink in one hand. Most of it ends up on us. Taste & smells like whiskey. I look at Dani several times. I’m trying to shake her off but she’s glued onto me. Finally, she decides to follow my gaze and sees Dani, looking a little less then happy. She disengages and apologizes. Dani is extremely pleasant to her. And then, Iggy invites fans onto the stage. We bolt. Dani in the lead.

That women can get through a crowd like no other. I’ve heard stories. She’s been first row for David Bowie, Skinny Puppy, and Iggy 17 yrs ago. She gets where she wants to be. Now I was gonna see it. And she cut us through like the proverbial hot steak knife through air. But too late. No more people on stage. It’s too bad. Half of them are moving like their first dance. If that first dance was with a Great Aunt that smelled of mothballs and liked to pinch cheeks until blood pored out.

But we were first row. Against the Metal fence. It was maybe 20 people wide and we were on the outermost left bank. The Goons in front of us were the same ones we dealt with during Clayton’s ejection. Lucky us. But we were front row. Iggy was stage diving. Iggy and his band were fucking rocking like they were 20 yr olds on meth and Coke. Twice he dove near us. But we could not lay our hands on him. A splash of his sweat, some spit, a little water. Teasing us. Taunting us. We were covered in our own sweat. I haven’t gone nuts like that in ages. And it was all electrifying. Unfuckingbelievable. First row can be a fight to the death. But for the most part it was civil. The women to my right was not being so civil but she grew tired of my elbow in her neck and my knee in her ass and gave up. Front row rocks. Then I started getting hit from behind. You know when you’re in a pit and the hits “feel” belligerent. I took a few and then turned around. Ready to get into it. Dude easily had 20-30 lbs & 6 inches on me. Didn’t stop me from getting in his face and shouting “WTF is your problem!?” Again, it all happened instantly. As I did that The goons from in front of me jumped on him and told him to get the fuck out. I was impressed at how well they watch and interpret. But I guess that’s there job. And I’m Not excusing the testosterone levels. Just reporting.

Through all this, Iggy had that serious look on his face, half the time.. The other half he had a shit-eating grin. Nothing like a performer who loves his work, eh?

Back to the show and Iggy was still being Iggy. The stooges and Watt were doing their thing and the it was over. All most. The crowd cried out for more. And he provided. Ending with a better(?) version of “I wanna be your dog”. Then he jumped off stage. In front of us. And we lurched. We made Contact. Our hands sliding off his soaked drenched body. He sat there for an eternity. Thanking people!!!! The God-FRIKKEN-father of PUNK! Saying Thanks! I turned and there was Hump girl. I said “I touched a God. I have his sweat on me.” She grabbed my hands for some God Sweat herself. It was over. A short wait for a 30 dollar concert T and we were out.

Outside I looked for Tommy. I guess the night would have been too perfect if I saw him. We walked Tina to her bike. Clayton had text’d us. He was home. He apologized and hoped he didn’t ruin the show for us. Courtney & Kyle had also left a message. “They hit a wall” and left before the show before it was over.

I haven’t partied like that in a Decade or so and it felt fucking awesome.

Next day, Clayton isn’t exactly sure what happened. Nor who did what. Just that he should've left with us. Oh well. He’s seen the Clash & Dead Kennedy’s. Maybe next time?

I put this show as #1 for me. Often, I was looking at Dani in blissful disbelief. I have never been to a show, rocking like delinquent youth in the front pit with someone I loved. ‘Twas a beautiful time.

Gotta go meet my partner in crime.

Happy Anniversary To Me! [C]

2007-05-04T00:21:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot. One year ago, 4/28/07 at 4:18 PM. I finished chemo. Cheers. Some other shit happened this week, the day before my anniversary in fact, so it kind of got lost in the wake.

Here's to Life.

Hi. I'm back [L]

2007-05-04T00:15:00.000-04:00

OK. I'm really gonna start this up again. i swear. I just had a hellish time trying to figure out how to access my account. I had to "revive" my old hotmail account to get in. I think. man I hated hotmail. This, all after I sent "them" an email saying I couldn't get in. It also says there was a post in April but I didn't do it. WTF happened in here? I'm so confused....

Anyway, if the powers be listening: disregard my email

No one Can Resist [L]

2007-02-13T23:55:00.000-05:00

hello all. Been a long time, I know. A lot of shit has been going on and I'm trying to catch up. I swear I'll get to it soon. Gots lots-o-drafts regarding the best few months. In the meantime, I'd like to post a link. If it doesn't make you smile, then you might be too young. Post a comment or email me if you need more info. Because no matter what, the song makes me smile and I need to sing along.

BananaSplits

1 Year Ago Today. Part II [C]

2006-11-08T00:38:00.000-05:00

Monday, November 7th. 2005
I'm officially diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma, Stage IV. In the time of a weekend I went from thinking I was going to die in a few months to thinking I was gonna beat Cancer. I was "elated". Dani was still upset. I would find out later she was thinking I would be dead soon. And would worry about it for months.

And I'm not sure I discussed this before but Dani thought something went terribly wrong this day in 2005. They told us my Surgery would take about an hour. It took two. Removal of my swollen neck Lymph node was seriously complicated by the fact that it was pressing against my corrated(sp?) artery. So while I was fast "asleep" Dani was in the waiting room panicking. Thinking I had lost my life on the operating table. The things I've put her through...

It's weird to think back on this stuff. I have this euphoric type feeling. Life is good and it's so nice to be here. Words don't really describe it.

Peace

1 Year Ago Today [C]

2006-11-04T22:56:00.000-05:00

1 Year ago today my Girlfriend Dani & I went to see my Doctor concerning some swollen lymph nodes.

1 Year ago today my Doctor sent me to the ER

1 Year ago today Dani & I were laying in my hospital bed in my private room. I had just been given a preliminary/probable diagnosis of "Lymphoma" and I/we were wondering if I had maybe a few months to live.

1 Year ago today I told Dani my intentions of marrying her and that I was sorry this happened.

1 Year ago today Dani told me she would Marry me right now if I asked.

1 year ago today I gave up cigarettes.

6 Months and 1 week ago I had my last chemo treatment and went into remission.

My wife Dani and I had a wonderful day today. Hope yours was well. A toast to all. Especially to all who have had to deal with Cancer. Cheers.”

Katching Kitty Kats and Kitty In peril [L]

2006-10-24T21:32:00.000-04:00

This Morning we were out the door with a mission: Get some Cats. Those cats on my webshot pages have grown since their birth ca. 7/06 and we grew attached, feeding them everyday, even after we left. But they're Wild and only intensive training could reverse that. But what's worse is the Mother gave birth to another round a few weeks ago. So we decided to intervene.

Alley Cat Allies, in conjunction with DC Humane Society, have a Monthly free clinic where they spay/neuter feral/wild cats as long as you re-release them. The ear is "tipped" so animal control will know they have been “fixed” and there is no need to catch/euthanize these animals since they are sterile.

As one humane society employee explained: they’re just like city squirrels or rats. Wild and usually untameable. But very adept at surviving. And as we have seen first hand, feral/wild cats form colonies. Helping each other out.

But we had to catch them with traps provided by The Humane Society. They gave us four. It’s your basic(?) trap. A spring-loaded front that’s connected to a trip plate near the back. After “arming the front you put the bait (cat food) behind the trip plate in the back through the back door. You have to make sure you secure the back door otherwise a thrashing wild cat may break out.

Last night, we set a trap. We didn't feed them the day before and when I arrived with the trap one of the adolescence, Corky, came up, waiting. I put the trap down and entered our old apt. Within 10 minutes Corky sprung the trap! She freaked, as expected. We rushed out and covered the trap with a towel and brought her inside. Her moans were difficult to ignore. Her eyes made us feel guilty: “Why have you done this?” We had to convince ourselves we were doing the right thing. We set another trap and waited for an hour with no luck.

Corky:

We didn’t want to do it but we left Corky, alone in the trap in our abandoned apartment. We still had keys. We couldn’t bring her in until 815AM the next Morning. Dani found it difficult to leave her and vowed we would be back at 4AM. I thought she was being crazy. We didn’t get home around 11PM. Exhausted. No way were we getting up at 4AM…….

The alarm went off at 4. Fuck! I was so tired. I wanted to rip the clock out of the wall. Dani hit snooze, a lot. Around 545 she had me up and drinking coffee. We were out the door by 6AM. We live 1.8miles (by road) from our old apt. We were there in no time. I set a trap and as soon as I walked away up comes socks. The other adolescent we were so attached to. I ran into our old apt and we waited. Corky was calm and in her cage. Within a few minutes Socks was in the trap eating but she wasn’t tripping the mechanism! Fuck we thought. But moments later she stepped on the plate and we had her! She didn’t freak as bad as her sibling Corky until I was hovering over her with another towel. I brought her in and sat her next to Corky. Now was the time they would both start moaning. Oy Vey was that unpleasant.

Socks:

Now was the time for the big Fish. We wanted the Calico. She was the adult female breeder. We were somewhat positive that the new litter was weaned and it would be OK to trap the Queen of the Colony.

Tangent – it’s 623PM and Alley Cat just called for us to pick up the wild ones. We can’t. They misled us or mis-communicated some vital facts to us. Dani tells ‘em we’ll pick ‘em up in the Morning.

I set the third trap and head inside. In 15-20 minutes we get a response

Dani: Here comes another cat!

Me: It’s the Male (The Tom)

Dani: Dammit! We want the Calico! Make it go away!

This is so unexpected. We rarely see the Tom, he is the most elusive/skittish and wasn’t even considering him a target.

Me: He’s circling the trap. Why don’t we want the Tom? He’s half the “problem”.

Dani: we don’t have room for all these cats.

Me: We’ll stack ‘em if we have to

We couldn’t believe how successful this was. We were worried we wouldn’t get the adolescents, much less the adults. We were debating what to do with the Tom but He decided the issue for us.

Me: He’s in the trap. We gotta go with it.

Dani: OK. But if we get him he’s going to be a handful

Me: He’s eating the food….dammit! He’s eating, got one paw beyond the spring release but the rest of his body isn’t moving. He might eat the whole thing and not spring the trap!

Such amateurs. We watched him eat for what seemed like too long. Then, he moved “wrong”

Me: He’s trapped! Gimmee the towel!

I run down there to see one pissed off beast from hell. I double-check the backdoor of the trap to make sure it’s secure. It is but I’m still nervous. The thing looks near 15lbs and is as pissed as a trapped wild cat can be. All I can think about is if it gets loose in the car then we might not survive. It’s thrashing around, paws reaching out past the cage. On occasion it bites the cage. Soon, the Toms paws are bloody from its rage. Reluctantly, I bring the beast in and set our fourth trap. We want the Calico.

We wait about a half hour but nothing happens. We need to get the cats to the clinic between 815 and 900 so we decide to leave the set trap and come back. We’re worried about fitting in 3 of these traps into my Nissan Sentra anyway. I put the back seat down and load the Tom first. I jam him in between my seat and the back of the trunk. It’s an extra precaution to make sure he can’t get out. We then load the two young ones, cover all the cages and head out. We are near the 1300 block of Georgia Avenue and need to get to the 7100 block. It’s @730. We are expecting some morning traffic and some very upset kitties.

Just to be safe – I tell Dani that no matter what, if a cat gets out of its cage while we are driving then we bail, regardless of anything else.

They are silent the whole way. Must be shock. How nice for us. Would be perfect except for the smell of canned cat food filling the air. Ugh. I think we both fought nausea the entire way.

We get to the clinic around 8. We are first followed quickly by two more people. A not so happy women helps us process. The Alley Cat tech won’t arrive for another 15 minutes so a Humane person helps us. Again, a very unhappy Humane person. A not so helpful Humane person. Probably underpaid and under appreciated but still. I’m on @4 hours of sleep, Dani maybe 3. Tic-Tac-Toe could confuse me right now.

Then she drops the bomb: Tells us they’ll be ready at 5 and we’ll need to pick them up then, keep them in the cage for @24hours for recovery at our place and then release them.

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We were told they would keep them for up to 36 hours then we could release them right after pick up. Assholes. OK. I’m being harsh. Maybe they’re hoping to cut costs but we live deep in the city and have a cat of our own cat that would not, under any circumstances, understand. Our cat was once feral/stray. It would rather eat a kitty than share its turf, caged or not, capisce?

So we nod in agreement and leave with no intention of picking them up today. Or if we do then we release them today. No recovery in a “safe house”. Under this program they only kill if they discover the animal could not survive release. So we aren’t worried about telling them when we’ll pick up the cats.

She also tells us if we caught the Calico then we have to wait until the next day to bring her in! Damn it! We want to turn in our keys and get our check from the settlement. We drive back to the trapping field and find an empty trap. We’re kind of relieved. Guess we’ll trap without the convenience of the old apt. We plan to try again tomorrow at the crack of dawn. We put the trap into our car and head home.

At home we find our Kitty in peril.

Kitty Peril

As soon as we get home Dani notices Annie is “not right”. And she’s right. On October 10/14 (Saturday), we had to take Annie to the DC Vet ER. It was around 5PM that she started to exhibit some weird behavior – trying to crap (or so we thought) everywhere and moaning. She would squat in her litter box and tense up. For too long. Then leave and find some corner to try and go. Then she vomited so out the door we went. Arriving at 815PM. I think we only waited 45 minutes. Much better than a human ER. Anyway she had a bladder infection. She was trying to pee, not poo. She also has a over active Thyroid and a heart murmur. The murmur may be secondary to the thyroid issue. They gave us some kitty scripts and we were gone. She responded almost immediately to the drugs.

Fast Forward to Monday, 10/23 and she is exhibiting the same symptoms. She’s done with her meds so we need to take her back. The ER seems quite busy, no one returns our call so Dani calls her regular vet and they squeeze us in for 11AM. Out the door at 1030AM with Annie. At this place, they want us to leave her for a while and take x-rays. Fine. They call us shortly after because the x-rays reveal some serious damage to her hip/thigh bones.

Dani: Yes. I got her as a stray. She had x-rays at your office in 2003, it should be on record. The last Dr thought she was either hit by a car or was severly abused before I got her.

Doctor:

Dani: I don’t know what it’s from. I don’t know how old she is. I got her as a stray.

Dani hates when she sees a new Doctor. It’s obvious they’re thinking Dani might have abused the Annie and I guess they need to explore that but it still sucks.

Around 4PM We go to pick her up. The hospital is on P St, NW. just off of Dupont Circle. I got find Parking. I drop her off and circle twice with no luck. It’s the beginning of Rush Hour/s so street parking is forbidden on P. I decide to stop in front and put my hazards on, car in gear and running. I don’t even see the fucking Meter Nazi until she slaps a ticket on my hood. Fucking Assholes! Snuck up from behind. I get out and say thanks and some other words. Arguing is pointless once the ticket is generated, its all computerized. It’s cold, my cars running and I’m in front of the animal hospital. Could she not just tell me to move on? No, that would be the decent thing to do. They wonder why they’re not liked.

Assholes

Luckily, I’ve got time to fight it, maybe at least get it reduced.

I’ve got a ticket so might as well park there for real and head in. Just in time for Dani to be finishing up. Home we go but Dani is “not right”.

Kitty has an enlarged Lymph node in her Lung and an enlarged Liver. Her Kidneys may be failing. We’ll know more Later. Meantime, two vet visits, drugs, future radiologist diagnostic and $100 Parking fine has cost us nearly $1000. And Dani is convinced, I’m sure, that she needs to make The Decision regarding Annie. Not from cost, for those of you who might not know my Wife, but from medical issues that will only get worse and the quality of Life deteriates. She Loves that cat more than anything but she won’t let her suffer needlessly.

And we are supposed to go camping this weekend with nearly 2 dozen people from thebackpacker.com. I’ve met a few of them and was so looking forward to meeting more. And I so needed to get out before winter ends my 3 season backpacking. I’ve had a string of trip cancellations in the last year and a half and each one I cancel hurts me more. It’s like bad Cabin fever, depression and all that fun stuff. Dani knows this. But money and looming Decision makes this trip unlikely. Going away knowing this might be her last week is just wrong. Dani might be willing to go on this trip for my sake but I certainly can not take her from what may be Annie’s last week.

‘Scuse me, Annie’s vomiting froth right now. Okay. She’s in my lap and purring. She just wanted attention. Whenever Kitty what’s to be in one of our laps (which is whenever a lap is formed), she comes up to you, sits upright, and lightly claws your knee without scratching. It’s an impressive display of control. So, to continue, we stay home and hope the decision is not needed. I certainly will have no regrets, capisce?

Tuesday 10/24

Dani wakes me at 530. ugh. Out the door by 6ish to set the 4^th trap for that Hussy. We set it and return home. About 745 we head back. No hussy. The food in the front of the trip plate, just inside the trap, is untouched. Crap. Maybe she’s trying to keep her kittens warm? I think it dropped under 40 overnight. She might have been “almost trapped” before. They say once a cat is trapped or escapes a trap attempt it will never fall for it again.

We close the trap and put the food in a dish on the ground. We don’t want to trap her after we get to the clinic and then have to keep her in it overnight. Off to the clinic to pick up her family. We get there, throw them in the car and head back to our old apt. Once again, not a peep or a movement from them in the car. From these inactions I make an erroneous assumption and bring them up to the yard from the car without the towels covering the cage. The Tom flips out worst than when we first caught him. He thrashes back and forth in his tiny cage. The power of his hits are impressive. I almost believe he could break out if given the time. He looks up at me as Dani frantically opens the back door, risking her fingers. His nose is bloodied from the thrashing. I’m actually worried that he might attack once out.

He’s out and in one bound is on top of our neighbors 6-6.5 ft fence and out of sight. I would say he was gone in 1-2 seconds. Corky and Socks are freaked out but not as bad. They head towards the roof of the neighbors car port. Dani fills two bowls with canned cat food and Socks struts nonchalantly back to the yard for some eats.

I heard we would still be friends. It was nice to be reassured.

*NOTE* - I don't have pictures of the Tom. He was way too pissed of. But he looked just like the black and white except his paws and nose was bloody from trying to bust out. #&%!$er scared the #&%!$ out of us.

The Horrible Truth About Their Names

We had to name the Colony: Belmont

Black Adolescent with white lower legs/white chest: “Socks”

The all Black Adolescent: “Corky”

We had to name the Colony for the clinic program. We had to name the kittens but we didn’t want to get to close. Hence the lame name “socks”. Corky just came to me. She seemed a little slow, her eyes set a little too close together…..remember that show Life Goes On? Yes, I’m a horrible person and I’m going to Hell.

But I’ve got a Kitty in my lap, purring and pawing my left arm so I’ll stop typing and pet her. If I stop typing and raise my hand from the keyboard but don’t pet her then she’ll form a scoop with her paw and drag my hand to her chin that she just made available by lifting her head. How cool is that?

Kitty says: Life is Goooooooooood!

kitty enjoying some of my whiskey on our ex-futon at our old apartment

I agree with Kitty

Peace

The Settlement [L]

2006-10-24T00:23:00.000-04:00

Have I discussed this? Our Lawyer settled our dispute with the new landlord of our old building. We get out within 30 days (by 10/25) and we owe nothing. We take the deal, of course. So we get back all our rent that we put into escrow minus our lawyer fees. She was more than generous with us. I think she felt bad. On the itemized list was .5 hours for consultation. That was well under the actual time. She took about a 4^th of our escrow money. So you could say our settlement was 3/4ths of a year rent free living. Not so bad considering we had no legal standing. To reiterate: in DC you have to show cause to evict a tenant. Otherwise you pay to get them out. The stubborn ones anyway, and that’s what we were going for. Often it’s in the high 5-figure area. But the new owner only owned that one building in DC, a 4 unit building. If it was a 5 unit building, or if he owned more than one building, then we could have stuck it out. But the one “loophole” (from a tenant view) allows single building, less than 5 unit owners pretty much free will to do as they want. It’s kind of understandable, they want to protect the small businessperson. But it sucked for us.

We tell our Lawyer that we are going to keep the keys for a while in hopes of catching the feral cats. Once we turn in the keys we get the check.

I'm Back. Verizon Sucks! [L]

2006-10-20T01:21:00.000-04:00

Hello Everybody! I'm trying to catch up but Verizon didn't make it easy!

All We wanted Was To Transfer Our Service.

This is a tale of complete incompetence, starting in September and ending Yesterday. This tale encompasses screw ups on the National and Regional Level. Some of this is second hand from Dani. In the final days we often handed off the call to the supervisor out of frustration. In fact, I think we both talked to just about every one.

And Let me clarify one more thing: We could have gone to WiFi as soon as we moved. Two things made us hesitate: 1) The laptop is not ours and we would have to buy an adapter. B) We did not want to pay a penalty fee (~$100 maybe?) to end our DSL contract early.

August
Disconnect Verizon landline. We have two Sprint cells and don't really use the landline. They set up the number as a “Dry Loop” for our DSL and assure us it will be a seamless. Transfer. I won’t go into details on that but it didn’t seem “seamless” to us.

September
Inform Verizon we are moving. Need DSL transferred to new apt (apt address provided.

We are Informed we will have service no later than October 2nd (from billing) and the transfer will be "seamless".

After that deadline passes we call. Told they can’t hook us up until October 12th. They need to “test the line”. Seems someone made a mistake somewhere. We are slightly annoyed. They give us our new dry loop number.

October 10th
Dani Receives an email stating DSL up. Mistake. Order still “pending” according to tech support.

October 11th
Receives an automated phone call that DSL is up. Ignored

October 12th
No DSL. Call to tech support, run tests. Their system show we have DSL. I assure them we do not. Our modem DSL light is flashing green and we have no internet light. Troubleshooting on my end shows everything is connected properly but we are not connecting to any network. I assume their diagnostics say something similar, minus the connectivity. Of course I learn quickly that assuming anything like this with Verizon is a mistake. They tell us a tech will call us on the 13th

October 13th
Miss call from local tech. The caller leaves a message to call the 1-800 number. I immediately call back. Tech support confused. Sees that we have two accounts: The old number & the new number. Tells me I have to call Billing and straighten it out. In the meantime since I missed the call they have to start a new “ticket” and I have to call back after 6PM to start the process all over. I respond: 'WTF?'. he says its 'Corporate Policy'.

Nice to know I should take my phone to the crapper with me.

I reply in a not so pleasant tone:

‘We will not start the process from scratch. This is Bull#&%!$. We could get WiFi and certainly refuse payment for Verizon internet this month since we haven’t had access and we can certainly refuse to pay any early disconnect penalty since you can’t provide us with the service. And I’ll be sure to send all this info to the BBB. Let me speak to your supervisor’

After 15 minutes or so on hold I get a supervisor. I relay all the above History and repeat my my little speech. I then add: ‘I’m the nice one. My Wife is gonna be Livid when she gets home.’ My tone seems to be much worse. He asks me if anyone had discussed the possibility that a tech would have to come to our house and when I could time would be. I said no. nor did anyone tell us that we needed to answer the phone. Seems something was incorrect on the “Ticket”

#&%!$ing incompetence on every level.

All he can do is send a ticket ASAP but we probably won’t be seeing anyone today since their schedules are probably already set and the techs are on the road. He’ll send the ticket for Saturday but he’s not sure that our regional office works on Saturday.

Great. Thanks. He then says what becomes an infuriating line to hear from them: "Is there anything else I can help you with?"

Saturday, we hear nothing. We aren’t surprised.

October 16th
Verizon calls in the Morning to inform me someone will be stopping in before 7PM. This is the important call I missed on Friday? They call me to tell me someone will be coming by? They need to hear my #&%!$ing voice the day the work is scheduled? What kind of #&%!$ing bull#&%!$ is that??????

Of course, No one shows up. After 7PM Dani calls verizon to ask: What the #&%!$?”. Verizon informs us the tech who was scheduled to stop by was calling the dry loop number all day trying to get a hold of us.

Calling the dry loop number? How incompetent is that? They’ve called my cell number twice to set up a visit and the tech calls the dry loop number? All day, mind you. Call the number and you get an automated message saying the number isn’t in service. Complete moron.

Dani asks to speak to the Supervisor. After waiting for about 10 minutes she gets disconnected. I call back and wait. I get connected and go through the spiel again. But I tell him we will discontinue service. Then Dani takes over.

Good Cop Bad Cop

Complete incompetence.

The Supervisor assures Dani 3 times that we will have service on Tuesday, October 17th. He will Flag the ticket. I’m so done but Dani wants to try.

October 17th.
I get a call from Verizon dispatch supervisor: ‘Due to inclement weather and a problem with our system your ticket was misplaced and a tech will not be out today. Would tomorrow be acceptable?’

Me: No

Her: What time this week would be acceptable?

Me: No time is acceptable

Her: How about Saturday?

Me: I’m sorry, you don’t understand. I’m done with your incompetence. One of your techs tries to get a hold of us through our dry loop number and now you screw up another ticket that was flagged? What kind of morons work for you? I want a tech here today or we cancel our service.

Moron: I understand and am sorry, Sir, but I can’t guarantee a tech for today.

Me: That’s a surprise. Then I want to cancel.

Dani: Give me the phone.

Dani: Ma’am, we were assured by a supervisor that a tech would be here today. The ticket was flagged.

Moron: I understand. But as I explained to your Husband, Blah blah blah.

Dani: Well then I agree with my Husband, you’re all completely incompetent. I wish to cancel my Service.

Moron: I’ll transfer you to Billing.

Dani gets on the phone with billing and tells our story for the umpteenth time. Billing is looking at our records and is “appalled”. She credits our account 3 months and transfers us to Customer Solutions.

Customer “Solutions”?

Customer Solutions is looking at our record, including, I believe, all the phone calls and is quite unhappy. She puts Dani on hold while she contacts our local Tech “Support”. She gets back telling us she had to go through 3 supervisors before one told her: ‘The Ticket is open. Someone will be there today’. She seemed a bit frustrated, also.

She makes us a deal. If someone doesn’t stop by today we can cancel our service tomorrow and they will waive the penalty fee for ending the contract early. What the Hell. We’ve got a couple of hours to go and we don’t need to hold our breaths. Fine.

The Hours pass and nothing happens, as expected.

October 18th. 0827
Someone calls Dani’s number. I ignore it but am hopeful because at this point it’s comical. Dani checks her voicemail on speaker phone.

You might be able to guess who called but I’ll bet anything you’ll never guess what the message said……..

Are you ready?

Here goes:

‘Welcome to Verizon DSL Service. We hope you received your Kit. If you have any questions feel free to call us at 1-800-whatever.’

ROFLMFAO! No #&%!$ing joke! Or maybe it was? Anyway, later that day Dani completed the cut. At Noon I bought a wireless adapter.

We have all the names and employ ID’s of the Supervisors we talked to. We have confirmation numbers for our credit and the waiver for the cancellation fee.

Verizon will be getting some mail from us. Along with a record of our minutes on the phone with them. Ever been on hold waiting for a Supervisor? I think they have a minimum time to keep you on hold in hopes of making you go away. God Bless speaker phone! And Whiskey! Still, I lost track of how many times we did that. Suffice to say, we are done with them.

All we wanted was a transfer of our service.

I Kicked Mono's Ass!/Goodbye For Now [L]

2006-10-01T01:07:00.000-04:00

Mono Shmono?
OK. Mono sucked ass but I think I beat it early. I first noticed symptoms on Monday, 9/4. Sore throat and fatigue being the big two. And fever. By friday, 9/22 my sore throat was gone. That's 2 weeks and 4 days? I've heard 6 weeks for symptoms to go away. Man, that would really suck. I hated swallowing. I mean, it really sucked. I had a hellish time staying hydrated. Who wants to drink water when every swallow hurts? I learned to not swallow unless I really needed to. Think about it. Sometimes you just swallow.

Or has everyone had Mono? For those that haven't. You're frikken Lucky. Is this odd coming from someone who just beat Cancer? Perhaps. Dani says I was more miserable after chemo and I trust her. But Mono sucked. I had no desire for anything those 2 weeks and 4 days. All I wanted to do was sleep and not feel pain when swallowing. That was it. Period. I slept 12-18 hours/day. I would wake up semi-delusional. Unrested. I was kind of freaked out that I wanted nothing else that whole time. It was........unique in my experiences. And Frightening. I've never been so knocked out for so long. Although it did make me realize one thing: I wasn't an alcoholic. I drank nothing in that time period and didn't miss it a bit. I was starting to worry about my consumption level until then. ;) :D

On Monday I go see the Doc and get some blood work done. Maybe they'll give me the all clear? If I beat it in under 3 weeks then I must say, my immune system kicks ass! But I couldn't do it without Dani's care. God bless her. Again, I get sick and she just takes over. Giving me the best chance there is to a speedy recovery. Of course once I was diagnosed with mono we put kissing on hold. I haven't really kissed my wife in weeks. That really sucks ass. On occassion we slip up. But God forbid she gets it. We even got another tube of toothpaste so no mixing would occur.

On another front - just before I was diagnosed with mono we went out to dinner with Eric & Lori. I knew I was ill at that point but they invited us to Nora's. High end all Organic Restaurant in DC. Couldn't say no. At one point, I reluctantly(?) tried Eric's Brandy. We told them I had something but they said 'go ahead, the alcohol will kill anything.' So far, they are "clean". But I feel so fucking guilty. Mono, EBV, can lie dormant. I knew better, even though I wasn't sure what I had. You never know what you have. I think that is the moral of the story. If they come done with EBV then it's all my fault. That sucks ass. I'd rather have EBV for months then give it to someone b/c I was stupid. Especially them. They would do anything for us.

Goodbye
It's 1:30AM EDT. Our Movers come at 8AM. Since I have Mono we thought this was best. Besides all our friends being out of town........until my Dr. says I'm clean, I have Mono. One has to worry about Liver/Spleen rupture during Mono. No contact sports, NO lifting. If friends helped us move I would feel compelled to help. I really need my Liver. One can live without a spleen but it really is in your best interest to keep it. Plus any ruptured organ can be a kind of life threatening situation. We pay Movers and I won't feel compelled to help them.

But we are losing our internet. Verizon sucks ass anyway so no big deal. We have WiFi but no card. Yet. We need to buy a card. Until then, no internet. But the place is really nice. It's a basement apartment but that doesn't do it justice. The back is almost at ground level. The windows give it almost as much sunlight as our current fully ground level apartment does. And overall, it's nicer than our current apartment. It's deeper in the 'hood but way nicer. It's further away from all the fugly/condo/gentrification shit.

And it's ours. This place was Dani's before I moved in. And it's kind of sad. I proposed to Dani in this apartment. And we got rid of the futon she was on when I proposed. But nothing physical lasts forever. And there are a lot of bad vibes associated with this place. So tomorrow we start our lives again, in our place that we picked out together. I'm very excited and so is she.

So, until we have an internet connection: Peace.

Wallowing in self-pity. EBV [L,C]

2006-09-15T13:31:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I just can't help it. Sorry. The Doctor (Nurse Practitioner, actually) confirmed EBV but no strep. Often they go hand in hand. Strep being very opportunistic. The EBV is probably secondary to Hodgkins. My immune system being down still, coupled with the CT/PET scans only 8 days apart and all the radioactive compounds I had to ingest. And add the extreme anxiety I was feeling that they didn't quite get all the Cancer. I had a big EBV target on my ass. Something like 80% of the population has it. I probably picked it up in the frikken hospital during one of my scans.

Kind of ironic that EBV is often associated with Hodgkins but in my case it seems like my Hodgkins is associated with EBV.

I can handle most of the symptoms; loss of appetite, fever, depression, weakness, fatigue, muscle aches. The sore throat sucks beyond description. Especially when I wake up. I try so hard not to swallow. The pain just spreads from my throat to my ears. Never felt anything like it. I use a throat spray every 2 hours and pop ibuprofen as often as possible. Sweating this out sucks. Nothing I can do but go to a High Protein diet in order to boost my immune system.

One of The biggest concern with EBV is swelling of the spleen and liver, with possible ruptures. meaning I can do no heavy lifting. We move in 2 weeks. Dani had to spell it out to me: I'm going to be useless for moving. FUCK. I feel worse for Dani then myself. 95% of my life I've been healthy. 95% of the time Dani has known me I've been seriously ill. I think the stress on her is worst than on me. All I would like to do is take care of Her and here I sit, once again too ill to be of much good to anyone.

Keeping up my spirits during my Hodgkins fight was easy somehow. Now I just feel too tired.

I've Got Mono? WTF! [L,C]

2006-09-13T17:28:00.000-04:00

Been feeling like crap for over a week. Fever coming and going. Headache, loss of appetite, sluggish, a little dizzy. Yesterday I went in to see what was up. They took some blood and put me on azithromycin, just in case, b/c I've been running a fever on and off for a week. Got a voicemail today telling me I tested positive for Mono and still waiting on the Strep test. I have another appt tomorrow.WTF? I get this far and my immune system craps out on me? I tested negative for CMV and EBV last year when I was diagnosed with the Big C so this is a recent exposure. Very disappointed in my immune system but very relieved I have something "normal" and somewhat "innocuous".

But gone might be the days when I bragged about my immune system. How depressing...

The Prick Wins [L]

2006-09-13T16:47:00.000-04:00

Is that worth $800,000? What a dumbass.

Friday, Sept 8. Dinnertime.
The Asshole won't stop knocking. Dani finally agrees to allow me to answer it. It's gonna be the same old fight. the Fucktard thinks because he bought the building he can come over anytime to "take measurements". Forget the numerous building code violations. He just wants us out so he can convert to Condos. Shithead has never asked for rent or for a new lease. he refuses to go through our lawyer. So we don't let him in, ever. That's our right. Today he came by with a letter:"This is to notify you that the keys to the main building and the respective units will be changed by the owner of the building, John Fucktard, on 9/11/06. If you are not tresspassing and you are a legal tenant, you may pick up a set of keys from the Landlord's attorney at the address below:"

In effect an attempt at intimidation and wrongful eviction. I read it and then went ballistic. John Fucktard is at least 6', 250-300, of African descent. I was in his face screeming at him and jabbing my finger in his face. Much to Dani's amusement, the Man started to cower. :pThis was not the first letter threatening to change the locks. We also got an illegal "notice to vacate" letter from the Fucktard. he always comes over on the weekend after hours. One time it was Easter Sunday. I want to do this man some harm.

Dani sent me away, afraid I was gonna smack him and started to talk to him. That accomplished nothing of course. He has no respect or concern for us. A letter off to the Lawyer and we sat. Unsure if we wanted to sweat this out anymore. We've been fighting with several assholes on and off since August '05. So tired of the stress and anxiety. Saturday Morning our Lawyer emailed us back screaming bloody murder, threatening a wrongful eviction suit.

Monday Morning. We don't have to wait long. Two large Men come out of a van with drills. Followed by Fucktard. Dani call's 911 as I head out the door. I tell the Men to step away, the cops are on the way. they have no idea whats going on but decide it would be best to go back to the truck. Dani, on the phone, reports that some men are breaking into our building using drills. :DFirst cop car shows up in minutes. A second one a few minutes later. Long story short - we allow him to change the front door lock to the building. That is his right. The cops wait until its done and see that we get keys.We've been fighting for this place since August 2005. This Fucktard has owned the building since last March. Unfortunately for us, he owns no other buildings in DC. It's the one loophole in rent control laws. We can't win.Over the weekend we found a place. Deeper in the 'hood, not yet gentrified.” Away from all the Condo building. For now.

False Alarm [C,L]

2006-09-09T16:24:00.000-04:00

So much going on. So little time.

PET Scan Negative. Still some increased uptake but Bone Marrow almost normal again. Jesus Fucking Christ that sucked monkey butt! the abnormal CT scan, the itching, spiking a Fucking fever or two. I was so worried. So worried about the worst case scenario that I didn't discuss it with Dani. I wasn't sure she knew all the consequences. And I didn't post it here for that same reason. we discussed it afterwards. She was there with me all along. How silly of me to think other wise, eh?

I was sure they had missed it in the Bone Marrow. I had asked them to take another biopsy at the end of treatment but they assured me that was not neccesary. So I sat there, worried. Survival odds suck as if they didn't get it all the first time around. With Hodgkins I had maybe a 40% survival chance. I would need chemo/radiation and a Fucking Bone Marrow Transplant. We would have to find donors. I would be in the hospital, in near quarantine for 6 months or so. The Anxiety was almost too much. I'm thinking this gets easier, no?

Pissing off the Gods
I've bragged too much about my Immune system. As stated earlier, Two days after my Pet Scan (10 days after my CT Scan) I started to feel not so well. fever, sinus pressure/headache, dizziness, loss of appetite. The symptoms are still with me. They come and go like my body almost shakes it but not quite. Never been in this position. Never had trouble with an infection. Whenever I say stuff like this Dani says: "You've never had Cancer before".

The Most Wonderful Women In The World
We have had to cancel our trip, twice. Once because of our nervousness over the PET Scan results. And this past week over our living situation. It's getting ugly or could get ugly and we have to leave ASAP. But Sunday I woke up and there was a note attached to a wad of money. The note said:

'Baby, why don't you go to REI, get what you need and go backpacking for a few days. I'll miss you but I love you and know you need this.'

I didn't go. Didn't want to anymore. There will be time for other trips. In the meantime we have to deal with the new owner of the building. A Prick From Hell.......

PET Scan [C]

2006-09-01T12:33:00.000-04:00

8/31/06
Got a call from my Dr.'s Nurse Coordinator on the 30th asking if a Scan on the 31st at 3:30 was OK. Of course we accepted it and it was nice that we didn't cancel our trip for nothing. Kind of sucked having it in the afternoon as oppossed to my usual early morning appointments because you have to fast for 6 hours prior, only water allowed. I'd rather sleep through that. Forty Five minutes into my fast, feeling groggy, I pop one of our left over wedding mints into my mouth. as soon as I ate it I thought: "What the Fuck did I do that for"? I've probably had 1 or 2 since the wedding and I decide to eat one now? being the paranoid freak I am I call the PET Center to make sure I didn't screw up.

Better safe then sorry. We get to the Center and they do the usual IV of radioactive glucose, set me up in a waiting area and hand me 2 quarts of the Barium crap. I ask her WTF do i need to drink that for? I've never had it for a PET. She tells me its SOP now for all PET Scans and that its not as nasty as the Barium for the CT Scan. Crap. more radioactive crap. And my CT scan was on the 23rd, 8 days ago. With all the lights off you can detect a light glow eminating from my body. I wait an hour they strap me in and thankfully, even though I had coffee in the morning I fall asleep. I was worried I would not be able to sleep. Thirty minutes with no movement allowed would drive me crazy.

Now we wait. The waiting part is the fun part. Dani will assume I have cancer and will need chemo/radiation this time around. I will assume I don't have Cancer and not think about it.

In the meantime, we will go on a little trip starting this upcoming Sunday Night. Avoiding Labor Day Traffic at all costs.

Wedding T-1 Day. [L]

2006-08-30T20:15:00.000-04:00

Friday, 7/7/06
Dani & I Head out to the Farm to set up. Her family stays in town to do more of the tourist thang and buy earrings for Dani. This wedding was put together using no professionals what so ever. I need to give some major credit to everyone who helped us put this together:

Eric & Lori: Donated the Location; Country Pleasures Farms. A beautiful Orchard Farm on rolling hills near Frederick MD. They do have cows and chickens but primarily it's an Orchard, Organic. Eric was one of the first Certified Organic Farmers in Maryland and helped organize the Organic "movement" in Maryland.

Tony & Lori: Donated the Flowers and the decorations, and set up, floral and the dinning/party area. The Flowers were from their farm in LaPlata, MD. Lori was a co-worker of Dani until her just recent retirement and Dani's raises Bees with Lori on her farm.

Dani works for Eric & Lori on Sunday at the Dupont Farmers Market and for Tony & Lori on Saturday at the Old Town Alexandria Farmers Market.

Courtney: Friday's Party

Dani: The Menu.

Phil: Booze, of course :D

Many Friends: Set up

Out at the farm: We set up. Dani and I start in. I put the chairs in the truck but we need Eric to transport the chairs down to where the ceremony to take place. I mean, I could work his standard but the clutch may not survive. Dani comes down to help out, setting up chairs and all is ready for Saturday.

Back to the barn we go to finish setting up what we can. Lori & Tony will be by later to finish what we can't do. we need to head back to DC for the Party. Kind of a dinner rehearsal for family and close friends. For several reasons we decided not to have Bridesmaids/Groomsmen. The main reason was we had been through so much already, this day was gonna be the way we wanted it. Simple, elegant, and completely about us. Thank God our Family's aren't stereotypical and were really pleased with everything. Some might consider that "selfish". We do not prescribe to that theory. we did have de facto brides/grooms peeps. Well Dani had an entourage and I had my oldest friend, Andy, as my de facto Best man. And though I go many years without seeing him, when we do see each other it's like a day hasn't past since we last hung out.

A Comedy(?) of Errors
Back home, Dani went down to the B&B to gather the family. We would meet at the corner and then walk up to Courtneys for the Party which was gonna start at 7:30ish. At some point, I started drinking. Andy calls me to say he missed his turnoff on the Beltway. He was coming in from Fredonia. Instead of heading into DC he was headed through Northern Virginia. That wasn't good. I was gonna have to navigate him almost all the way there using an Atlas, over the phone. At some point My brother and his entouirage called me with some navigation questions.

BTW - I haven't seen most of my family for a long time, Late 90's. Supposedly all 3 of my Brothers were coming along with my Mom. Hence my nerves and my alcohol consumption. as my older Brother Jeff kept pointing out, all of us have not been in the same room, much less the same house, in a few decades.

the details are foggy but Dani is on her way to the Party. My Family is on there way to the Party. Dani thinks I'll be there before she. Meanwhile, I'm Navigating Andy through Northern Va. & DC. once I get off the phone with him I call Dani and catch her just before she gets to Courtney's. She's a "little" surprised I'm not there yet and doesn't want to go in without me. I apologize and explain the difficulties as I head out, just me and a full flask of Makers Mark. Courtney's is only a few blocks so Dani does not have to wait long.

The Party
I'm kind of a wreck walking up the stairs. I assume my family is gonna embarass the shit out of me and Dani has not met them yet. Oy Vey.We get in and there are a shit load of people there. i don't think I knew everyone. I'm confused, thinking it was gonna be a bit more intimate but very happy it's not. I can melt into the crowd and let Dani take the spotlight, reluctantly. I assume as the groom I should be confused, not sure of exactly what has and has not been planned.

And, as I need to remind most, my memory has yet to recover from my treatments. In fact, as I write this my memory gaps are very apparent and Dani has been filling in the gaps.

But the Party went well, The food and alcohol were excellent, and everyone got along surprisingly weel. My youngest brother (-2yrs) was unable to make it so we'll see him at the Wedding. Andy will be spending the night with us.

Wedding T-2 Days. 7/6/06 [L]

2006-08-30T18:09:00.000-04:00

OK. Sorry for the delay. Truth is that day is all kind of a blur. I might ask Dani to edit. I was also hoping to hotlink photos but webshots decided to "update" their software. That means everythings fucked up and nothings running smoothly, of course. I can't even seem to host webshot photos through ImageShack. I spent an hour or so screwing around with webshots. I'll use images off of my PC and host them on imageshack. Why the hell do I have webshots? Anyway:

Thursday, 7/6/06
Dani's Mother, Sister, and two nieces arrive at National Airport from Missouri, around 10AM. The nieces are pilots, apparently

Lauren is on our left and Rachel on the right.

This is the first time I've met them but it was like I knew them. It was very nice that her Mother expressed the same sentiment. Her nieces were little energizer bunnies on Meth. After we set them up at their B&B on 14th & T St., we all headed down to the National Mall. we did the almost-complete-tourist thang:

WWII Memorila -> Vietnam War Memorila -> Lincoln Memorial.

This aint the easiest thing to do on foot. After the sites we headed home for Dani's famous Veggie Lasagna. On top of that dani's friends, our friends, Lizard, Molly, and Courtney stopped by. Words can not describe them. Great People and Dani has the most amazing circle of friends I've ever experienced.

The nieces, The Terrible Two had worn out everyone but me, until the end, 12 hours after they got here. personally, I had a ton of fun with them. The in-laws and Dani were apologizing profusly for there actions but I enjoyed it. I didn't find them all that tiresome and after all, I can wash my hands of them at the end of the night.

We walked them to their B&B, came home and passed out.

Clarification On The Cancer Thang [C]

2006-08-29T15:08:00.000-04:00

A Piece of Random Art in DC.

So, I think maybe my last two posts freaked some people out? At least that's what I've gathered from some calls to Dani & emails to me. And Honestly Dani & I freaked out on Friday. So much so that we cancelled a backpacking trip into the Adirondacks for this week in case the PET Scan was scheduled.

The question is: is this abnormal or is this gonna be a part of living with this crap? I'm gonna break it down here. Remember, I think while I type so God knows where this is going.

:D

I. What's the Danger?
Any Cancer that's not completely obliterated the first time around is gonna come back like a Bat out of Hell and will be more often deadly than not. Hence the Uber caution & concern of my Dr. Initially, the abnormal CT scan would not have worried her. However, I have itching that appears to have no source. These two events put my Dr. on alert.

II. Itching
Itching could be from skeeters, the 12+ types of flora growing wild in our backyard, reaction to the Barium in the CT scan, Hodgkins. I haven't had that type of itching since Friday so I'm hoping that's a good sign

III. Abnormal CT Scan
The scan showed my Bone Marrow Cells (Stem cells) were growing at an accelerated rate in my abdominal area. This was evident in my last PET scan in May. It was expected then and not too shocking now in the CT Scan. during chemo Stem cells grow rapidly in younger patients. Now they might be trying to regenerate from the damage of chemo.

IV. How Fucked Up Were My Stem Cells?
The day of my last treatment my Cell counts were low. Low enough to cancel chemo. Since it was my last one my Dr. authorized treatment. In fact, as a safety precaution the treatment Center needed verbal authorization along with the piece of paper from her telling them to do it. So I'm thinking chemo with a low cell count really knocks one's cell count way down. Furthermore, since it was my last treatment I wouldn't be taking my Neupogen shots which stimulates cell growth.

So at this point I'd like to note I was pretty damn immunocompromised after my last treatment and did not get sick. Props to my Immune System, no? :D

So having a young, Killer (pun intended) Immune System, it's regenerating at a rapid rate and throwing the scan off.

V. PET Scan
Has yet to be scheduled. In any case, I believe it will also record a "false positive". There will be glowing from my cells regenerating rapidly. However, if it were Cancer the PET would pick up more intense "Foci". From my Last negative PET Analysis:

1. No definite evidence for a FDG avid malignant tumor
2. Diffusely increased FDG uptake in the axial and appendicular skeleton consistent with bone marrow hyperplasia secondary to chemotherapy. While such intense activity limits evaluation of the skeleton, given this limitation, there are no discrete foci suspicious for osseous metastatases.

FDG being the radio-tagged Glucose. So the PET scan will pick up what the CT scan can not. Or in this case (knock on wood, puhleeze), pick up what is not there.

This of course is a "disadvantage" to a "Blood Cancer". Leukemia/Lymphoma can be found anywhere and it might be difficult to discern. But solid organ cancer still seems far worse to me; Lung, Breast, Ovarian, Prostate, etc. And I know of people who have had worse false positives, being told they have a tumor only to find out it was a mistake.

What Can We Do?
We're doing it. I'm being vigilant. Gone are the days where I casually ignore something that's not quite right. My Doctor is being vigilant. I think some Doctors would not be so quick to schedule a PET. Since there is nothing more we can do then I choose to not live in fear. It was wrong to cancel the trip but I say that in hindsight. I was unprepared. I guess stuff like this will happen for the rest of my life, maybe? Can't let it interfer with living life, eh?

If the Dr. doesn't call in the next two days we will be off to the 'Dacks after the Labor Day weekend. I mean, I'm not so crazy that I would drive on a Holiday weekend. That's just asking for it.

:D

Peace.