Something Evil This Way Comes

Well, it’s about 5 days since my last chemo treatment and I thought I should say something.

I was just whining at Elaine that this chunk of time, this chunk 4 to 7 days after the chemo, is the worst.
The chemo itself isn’t all that bad, aside from being poked.

But right now, I am:

– bored out of my mind
– drugged out of my mind
– incapable of communicating much so I can’t generate dialogue with most anyone
– really easily worn out, which feeds right back into why I am bored out of my mind.
– completely absent-minded because of the drugs which makes me not much fun for a conversation which feeds into the boredom.

So, this is my main time to lay around and feel sorry for myself.
Unfortunately, I am bored with that too.

The other thing that is happening right now is the neuropathy in my hands and fingers. That’s annoying, though it does fit well with the way my brain feels. It’s interesting to have everything feel pretty much the same. Numb.

And… I know that it is a stage in the process.
And….. I also know that this stage of feeling crappy is starting to take up more and more time of each round of chemo, just because my body is getting more worn now and each time the sludge inside me gets built up a bit more and I have less and less resistance to all the shite in my system.
And just about the time the new cells start to grow again, we slam another needle in my arm and start the process again.
And, in spite of the whining, that’s okay.
I don’t like this process much, but I am not keen on the alternative.
Still, I am pissed off that my lovely summer of leisure is over and I never really got the sort of leisure I was hoping for.
And, it’s all for the greater good.
I do believe that.
I am just achy and whiny and watching summer evaporate before my eyes and I am grumbly about that.

Next year.
Watch out…. next year, I am going to be hedonism personified!

You know, in a big picture kind of way, I mean if you are going to have cancer and do chemo, well, things have actually been going pretty well for me.
In terms of what the test results say, my body has responded well to the chemo.
The people in my life have been wildly kind and supportive.
Things could be way worse.
I just get grumpy about some of the details.

But in a big picture kind of way, it’s going well.

Well, once again I have fallen behind in my posting here.

But hey, I try to catch everyone up on every little thing that is fit for general human consumption in one fell swoop. Trying to make it worth your while. Ever the considerate one, that’s me.

Well, first of all, some friends in San Francisco sent me a bunch of cool bandanas to cover my shiny bald head. I asked Elaine to take some photos of me in the bandanas and now they are up on my gallery page.
You can find them here.

Also, Elaine and I had our photos taken by a lovely homer-sexual lad today. He is travelling around taking pictures of queer couples and he arranged to take some photos of us. We won’t see the photos for at least a couple of months but I do like his work.

Elaine’s van remains on the missing vehicles list. We got a rental car from ICBC, but it may be gone by the weekend.
Returned to the rental place, I mean. Not stolen.
Though lately, who knows…
Though it’s not a mid 80’s toyota, so the thieves will be less interested, I suspect.
Meanwhile, the battery on my truck is dead, because I have spent so very little time driving in the last 3 months that the battery just said ‘see ya later’ and kicked.
All that would be much more manageable if I wasn’t doing chemo again on Thursday. But that’s how it goes.
Bloodwork like crazy tomorrow, and chemo on Thursday.
I guess I better get that battery working and my g-f better learn to drive my truck.

This cycle is almost over and I am now past the mid-way point for this process.
It was weird because I was pretty enthusiastic about hitting the half way mark, but as soon as I did I became really tired of the whole invasive process, tired of being poked and prodded, tired of feeling crappy, just really extra tired and frustrated with it all.
And that’s a bit phuqued up. I mean it’s probably understandable and everything but basically, the bottom line is I need to cowboy up and just deal with it.
It hasn’t been a terribly lovely summer for me but I intend to make up for that as soon as I am feeling better and have my cash flow in better shape.

I’ve been feeling weird and frustrated and tired of being bald quite a bit lately.
And, you know, if one was going to have to pick a time to be bald, this summer is a pretty good choice, since it has been blisteringly hot.
The thing I find most exhausting and emotionally draining is the lack of choice that comes with so many angles of this.
And, actually, that’s not really accurate. It’s really a matter of being left to choose between really unpleasant option and really awful and agonizing option. It doesn’t seem like much of a choice, but ultimately it is.

Summer is coming to an end and I am still feeling a bit cabin-fevered. I can’t imagine what my mind will look like by December, but hopefully I will come up with some more creative ways to get out of the house.
I had a couple of adventures planned for the summer, but things seem to have fallen off the table and now you can feel fall creeping up and the days of romping in the sun coming to a close for this year.
We did bust out and drive up to Whistler for the day last weekend. That was fun.

Elaine and I are planning on going camping in a few weeks, and hopefully it will have rained enough in the meantime that we can have a campfire while we are away.
If you live in Vancouver and happen to have any camping equipment we can borrow, we would be temporarily in your debt.
Mostly what we need is a decent tent and maybe a camp stove. And maybe a tarp, if you have one.

Okay, then, amigos, it’s late and I have to go to bed so I can get up and get poked and all that.

Thanks for checking in.
Stay tuned for the next installment. It probably won’t take long.
Roger Dodger, over and out.

Okay, I uploaded a bunch of pictures from our last trip to Tofino. You can find ‘em here:

More Tofino Pictures

I need to move ‘em around so they are in the right and logical order, but I seem to have hit a wee snag and I need my g-f to help me figger it, but right now she is working on a website or two and I will get to that soon. Or not so soon.
But I know y’all want to see some old vacation photos of me with a full head of hair and luscious eyebrows.
So, knock yourselves out.

It was a really good trip, then we came home and everything got really crazy really fast. It sort of stands out in my mind as the transition point into all the shite that is currently happening.
So, look or don’t look.

In the meantime, hacking and slashing my way through the icky feelings and trying really hard to get to feeling kind of regular.
It seems to take a bit longer each cycle.
I think I am just about to feel normal-ish soon and I feel like the heat wave is part of why I feel so stinky lately.

And… hey… we are going to have a little yard sale next weekend.
So, if you’d like an invite, drop me a line and I will send it off to you.
All the details are TBA, except that it will be sometime next weekend, because that works for us.

Okay comrades, thanks for checking in with me and mine, and don’t forget the sunscreen.

I am in my post-chemo week and things are kind of confused in my head. Not in any sort of tragic way, but the smaller details get pretty muddled right now and I get spun around quite easily. Like, my original chemo treatment was on a Monday. Then it went to bloodwork on Monday and chemo on Tuesday. Now we have moved to bloodwork on Tuesday and chemo on Wednesday.
I don’t know why this minor shift has me so confused. I can handle it when it comes to dealing with how the garbage schedule changes but for some reason this last week or so has been really hard to keep track of.
So, if you have been expecting some sort of contact or confirmation from me over the last while, this could well be why you haven’t heard from me.
That, and we have been having just a few more troubles with the olde e-mail. Honest. But I reckon it’s all good now.
Oh, and then there was this thing where my hard drive kind of kicked up its heels, so lately I have been logging in thru web-mail, which is kind of a drag but better than nothing. But web mail is less convenient for answering people and stuff.
So, you see, I have a billion good reasons to have not been in touch.

I guess if you came by here you are wondering how it is all going, so I’ll touch on that now.

Physically, things are getting better in a variety of respects.
I’m still pretty happy that my test results are coming in with such good numbers and I am trying to keep that in perspective. It’s good and at the same time, I still have a ways to go, like about 5 and a half years, before anyone is going to pat me on the head and tell me I am cancer-free. But I am happy with how it is all going.

Once again we adjusted my meds and I am getting some sleep this time, and that makes such a huge difference. The fact that the temperature has dropped a bit is a huge help as well, because now I have a better chance of being able to stay awake thru the night.

Pride week has come and gone and it was a good thing, but it also took a chunk out of me. All in all, I am glad it happened and glad that we participated the way we did, but I confess, sometimes I feel like people look at me and see some tragic figure, and that gets kind of emotionally tiring for me.I *want* to be regular and be treated like a regular person, even though I know I am not very regular right now. It’s tricky. I realize I do require some special considerations now. I guess I am still struggling with the humility that requires. Never my area of strength.

I keep wrestling with this urge to get out of town for the day and spend some time with my sweetie, just hanging out somewhere green, or on the ocean or something. I know I am going to be cranky as hell when it starts to rain and I realize I missed the chance to spend a day in the woods all relaxed. Okay, really what I want is a whole chunk of time out of the city, but my current medical logistics and financial humiliation make that basically impossible, so what I am after is a good long day in the woods or at the beach. Is that so much to ask?

I am off to spend the day dealing with government employees who may or may not be decent to me, who knows?
I certainly don’t envy them, but on the other hand, I don’t envy me either, so it would be nice if they could just do the right thing and fork over some rent money.

Well, I need to go shower and then go plead my case.

Later, amigos.