Both of Us .org

JSP and I had breakfast and got ourselves ready, almost like an ordinary work day this morning, but rather than driving me to work, we drove to the hospital. The check in went quickly; before I knew it I was in my ICU room and putting on a hospital gown.

The IV team came to see me, and I experienced the thrill of having a pik like put in. (It is like a giant IV line that goes in my arm and leads directly to my heart. Once the X-ray team says the pic line is in the proper location, right next to my heart, the IL-2 can begin to flow.

So now I am in my hospital room waiting...

Labels: hospital, Melanoma, perspective

Tomorrow JSP and I go in and meet with Dr. A for the first time since my IL-2 treatment. I am bracing myself for Dr. A to suggest that I undergo another IL-2 treatment.

I will not be happy to comply with his request. I am at peace with the knowledge that I may not have that much more time on this earth. This makes the idea that I will trade a week of relative health and well being for a week in the hospital literally undergoing hell really very unappealing. Add in the unpleasant week of recovery time, and I am literally giving up two weeks of my precious life for the small possibility that the IL-2 treatments are actually going to do me any good.

Of course, having a doctor tell you that you should undergo a treatment can be very persuasive.
I don't know what decision I will make. The IL-2 treatment was honestly the worst thing I have ever lived through. I am happy that JSP will be at the consultation with me.

My recent complaints about this whole cancer thing are:

• I notice that climbing stairs makes me winded more often now than it used to.
• A tendon in the back of my right knee has been hurting sharply when I extend my leg or walk normally.

My recent joys include:

• Having my back scratched while I lay in bed.
• Enjoying a long hot bath.
• Enjoying dinner with my parents and my partner.
  

Labels: hospital, Melanoma, perspective

This morning was a chilly -14 degrees as we made our way to our respective work places. We hoped spring might appear, or even a few days above freezing. Mother Nature has other plans. March approaches and I certainly feel spring fever. Tulip and crocus bulbs that I planted two weeks ago grow quickly, each rises several inches out of the potting soil. I scanned the seed mailers and look forward to planting heirloom varieties of tomatoes, peas and other vegetables. I should order seeds soon, so I can start some flats growing sometime mid March.

In this cold weather we have been hunkering down in the house the last week or so. Our last weekend was quiet, the first weekend in a while with no visitors and no visits. I did my taxes, JayBee played with is new tiny computer (see previous post) and we watched a the movie Curse of the Golden Flower and several episodes of the Venture Brothers.

The week continues and our home remains quiet. Tomorrow JayBee goes back to the doctor to have the stitches removed from all the the incisions that were made the week before. I believe this weekend we will be more active. Sunday we have plans to attend our first roller derby. The RollerGirls League presents two matches, the Atomic Bombshells vs. the Rockits and the Dagger Dolls vs. the Garda Belts. I have heard about how fun it is to watch roller derby from our good friends Morgon Mae and Pat. I am excited to see it for myself.

We are looking forward to visiting JayBee's sister in Denver. The trip is scheduled for the first weekend in April. This is a continuation of an annual ski trip that has its origins years ago when many of our friends in Washington DC met in the Pennsylvanian Pokonos. Many of these same people have relocated to the Rockies, and the skiing has moved to better mountains. I have yet to ski during any of the last four years I have made the trip. Will this year be my first time? I am a scardy cat when it comes to skiing. I am overly worried I will blow out a knee or ankle (both of which are rather fragile). JayBee will likely try to convince me to give the mountain a try.

We were both excited that our neighbors to the east in Wisconsin supported Barack Obama. He has ten wins in a row and has captured our support over the last few months. Democrats have two very qualified candidates to choose from. Last night we watched Obama speak at a rally in Houston TX to over 20,000 cheering folks. It is refreshing to listen to him, compared to the bumbling speaches from Bush these last seven years. Clinton speaks well too in comparison. The people at the Obama rally were diverse in all respects; race, age, gender. McCain on the other hand is surrounded primarily by old white men. McCain clearly represents a completely different crowd. The election is still many months away, but I feel excited about electing a president (either Obama or Clinton) who I respect and can be proud of.

Labels: Bush, cold weather, Melanoma, perspective, politics, winter

Today I had fourteen tumors removed from my skin. My surgeon, Dr. E was very accommodating before my surgery. We went over the list of tumors that JSP and I had located. He found each one and marked it for excision. I had general anesthesia, and the surgery went very smoothly.

In the past when experiencing general anesthesia, I awakened after surgery to strange and uncontrollable fits of crying. Luckily, due to the use of an alternative anesthesia, this did not happen today. When I woke up I felt great, like I had had a good nap. Surgery lasted about ninety minutes.

The surgery was much less draining than I thought it would be. I am in no pain. I hope this continues to be the case once I get a good night sleep. I have pain medication should this change.

This procedure likely has no effect on the systemic cancer, but the uncomfortable tumors removed from my skin will no longer bother me.

JSP had to work today, so my parents took me to the hospital for my procedure. They stayed at our home for several hours afterward. My mother and JSP made me a delicious Gerson therapy approved soup with wild rice in it and a serving of delicious fresh ornage/kiwi juice. I have been drinking chamomile tea as well. It was wonderful that my parents could be with me today, but frustrating that JSP could not be with me as well.

As we are a gay couple, JSP is not eligible for the Family Medical Leave Act. This is one of the many rights extended to heterosexual couples that are denied to gay and lesbian couples. This is one concrete example of how the right wing "family values" platform makes my life more difficult.

Another result of right wing "family values" is that I am not allowed to have medical coverage thought JSP's work, even though we are domestic partners. Luckily, I have great insurance through the University of Minnesota. My colleagues there have been very supportive through this process, which I am eternally grateful for.

Labels: hospital, juicing, Melanoma, perspective, Republicans, surgery

"How are you feeling?" takes on a totally different tone than the same question held just over a month ago.

I feel good today.

I frequently feel like I am being anti-climactic when I say, "I'm feeling pretty good today." A much more interesting answer feels expected. Sometimes I wish I could answer something like, "My galactoid levels are really high today," or "About five minutes ago my sphincter was in pandemonium, but now I have it under control."

I feel quite good overall and this does not change much from day to day. I am fortunate that people want to know how I am doing, but I get slightly irritated by so much curiosity about my body. Want me to describe my low level nausea in detail? Are details regarding my difficulty following the Gerson therapy interesting? Do I have to admit that my hair is now starting to fall out in small clumps even if if you can't tell yet by looking at me?

When people ask me how I am feeling, the question feels poised to expose my difficulties. That in essence asks me to be vulnerable all the time. I prefer not to feel vulnerable all the time. Sometimes I feel like people are asking "Do you still have cancer?" and the answer to that will always be, "Yes." That can be a depressing question to answer repetitively.

Each glass of juice I manage to drink, each bowl of oatmeal I eat, each soccer game I play in, and even each coffee enema make me feel better. I choose to work and fight to be well and enjoy each day. My life is continuing. Cancer is part of my life now, but it is not the entirety of my life.

I finished the whole brain radiation treatment this past Wednesday, and in two days I undergo the Gamma Knife treatment to treat the largest tumors in my brain. This will be a whole day affair, and may take a day or so to recover from.

The tumors on the underside of my skin do not appear to be growing beyond the size they were a month ago although some tumors have appeared in new places. I don't have any pain. I am mostly asymptomatic of being in stage IV cancer. Beyond that, I don't know how my cancer is doing.

I feel good today.

Ask how my beer brewing is going. Ask if I have seen any good films lately. Ask who I support in the upcoming Minnesota Democratic Caucus (Barack Obama). Ask what my favorite food is on my new diet. Ask me to go out and enjoy the day with you. Questions like these focus on life continuing.

Labels: juicing, Melanoma, perspective, radiation

The day after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year. Store after store offers "amazing low prices" on a variety of items. This spurs people to line up hours before the store opens. Most stores open at 6 AM, some at 4 AM and some at midnight.

What follows is a description of my trip to Rosedale Mall for a Black Friday shopping experience. (Full disclosure: Herbergers had a great sale price on 1000 thread count Egyptian cotton bed sheets; Both JayBee and I are sheet whores.) I left home for the mall at about 10 AM, well after the frenzy of store openings many hours earlier.

My drive to the mall was uneventful. Little traffic could be found on the streets of NE Minneapolis. As I entered Roseville and approached the entrance to the mall, that changed.

Immediately I realized that this would not be an ordinary shopping trip. The mall parking lot seemed completely full. I wisely chose to look for a spot as far away from the mall entrance as possible to avoid the frustration of endless circling. People honked horns from their cars and drove recklessly, ignoring pedestrians trying to cross the parking lot. I entered the mall through the Macy's entrance.

Although the stores had opened many hours before, there remained a sense of urgency in the wild eyed shoppers. The store was packed with a diverse throng of people. Some shoppers wandered aimlessly, stopping without notice in the middle of a busy aisle, noticing some trinket or changing direction, oblivious to those they would bump into. This inhibited my progress, but I eventually made it from Macy's into the belly of the mall.

Rosedale Mall itself was easier to navigate. It seemed the main draw was not boutiques or specialty stores in the mall, but the larger department stores. I found this to be true when I reached Herbergers, packed just as full as Macy's. I made my way to the home section and found a few remaining sets of sheets which I quickly snatched up. I went toward the checkout and found that each line contained dozens of people. I began my wait.

The line I choose to stand in was headed by a woman who somehow caused the line to stall for at least ten minutes, but eventually the line did move. While waiting in line I was privy to several vapid conversations. "Has this line moved at all?" "Do you think we can use all these coupons on the door buster prices?" There was an elderly woman in line who made a purchase of two hand towels and some trinket for the grand total of $5.79. I marveled that this woman endured the throngs of people and stood in line for more than twenty minutes just to buy two towels, saving perhaps two dollars.

After spending twenty or more minutes in line, I was able to check out. I was surprised at the friendliness of the store clerks, who had certainly endured many hours of crazy customers. The whole trip from start to finish was slightly over an hour, not terribly painful, and somewhat instructive on a societal level in regards to who we are as Americans.

It strikes me most during times like Black Friday that sometimes we Americans are little more than sheep. We are easily rounded up and told what to do. We obey. There were good deals on items, but were those deals really worth waking up early, spending time in line waiting for a store to open, and eventually rushing into the store like a stampede of cattle? Have we considered that the hours of time spent in lines and in traffic today may be worth more than the 10-50% they saved on some items? Time is money.

The process of waiting in line, rushing into the store, and hoarding items struck me as bizarre. After my shopping experience was complete, I saw news reports showing throngs of people rushing into stores. To someone from another culture, this might appear to be people rushing to obtain something in dire need, perhaps food or water in very short supply. The opposite is true. People rushed into the store for items which are always there and are almost never in short supply.

Maybe a foreign person viewing this scene would think the rush into these buildings was an attempt to attend some rare event. Perhaps a highly respected person was speaking or a talented artist was performing. This also was not the case. Most of the people rushing into these stores had shopped at this mall days earlier and shop there many times per month. The act of shopping at any particular store is widely accessible.

On Black Friday, Americans wake up in the middle of the night, travel miles and navigate a tangle of traffic, spending hours waiting in line for stores to open. We push, bump, and seemingly trample fellow shoppers to wait in lines for hours to realize some percent decrease in the price of some items.

Why does this happen? The week before Thanksgiving mas media pounds into our collective heads endless advertisements suggesting these sales are a golden opportunity. We dutifully obey the marketing people.

According to the figures on the nightly news, we spent upwards of $20 billion dollars on unneeded items which were for the most part made in China.

Labels: perspective

How does one prevent the gradual slide towards close-mindedness that seems to afflict many people as they grow older? Each of us has likely shared conversation with someone older than ourselves, who is nostolgic for days long past; peaceful carefree days when none of the problems we have today occured.

I fear becoming one of these persons as I grow older. I wonder about why, when, and how fast I might change. I am approaching forty years of age. Could the changes already be taking place as we speak? Will I one day be looking at my neighborhood with respect and pride, and the next day see it as a place filled with scary people and frightening technology?

This is not an indictment of elderly people. Rather it is my observation of the way the mind begins to change as some people age. A few symptoms of this 'aging disease' include; reflecting on an imagined past that is overly simplified and factually incorrect, disdain for current cultural trends, inflating the severity of current events, and presenting the overall attitude is that "things today are terribly worse than when I was young."

Thankfully, I do not associate many of these symptoms with my day-to-day thoughts. I concede that I often think popular culture is annoying, however I felt the same about popular culture in the 80's and 90's. I realize that societal problems exist today, but recognize there were other problems in the past and there will be different problems in the future. Today's problems are not significantly greater than problems of the past. The past held good times and some not so good times.

Do I want to go back to grade school or high school? Would I want to return to my college days or my mid 20's or early 30's again because those days were somehow better? In a general sense no, reality dictates forward progress through life. I cherish memories of my past and look forward to improving life in the present and future. I might cherry-pick some moments of my past to re-live or reminisce about youthful days of few responsibilities, but I will not damn the present because of experiences I had in the past.

One possible cause of the sour attitude of some older folks might be that society has left them behind. Perhaps some older people build bubbles of reality that may artificially lock them into one period of time. Years may peacefully pass until one day events occur which break their bubble and force in some reality. This event can be harsh and frightening, difficult to understand in light of the artificial bubble world. Further, there may be a realization that cultural norms have moved so far and so fast that one can no longer integrate oneself into the present. This could make one frustrated, angry, intolerant, and basically detached from much of what the present has to offer.

One possible preventative measure to avoid this dead end, is to remain engaged in the present. On a local level, getting to know new neighbors as they move in and staying involved with persons you have known for long time. Make new friendships to supplement your old friendships. Remain open-minded to new technology and the changes this technology brings to how the world runs. Change sometimes improves things.

This last point brings to mind the frustration that introducing roundabouts has caused to some with people in this area. They complain about the new traffic patterns without regard to the fact they will actually improve how cars get through a busy intersection.

Don't let far away events or isolated incidences dictate what you think about young people or society at large. Our world is a big place with more and more people born into it every day. Strange events and horrible tragedies are beamed into our living rooms or computer screens. We see these things more because such information is so easily transmitted now, however these bizarre and horrible things have been occurring since humans have walked the earth.

In short, I hope to stay young at mind as long as possible.

Labels: perspective, politics