Well, goddamnit and polish my shoes.  Joan Jett has been inducted into the Hall of Fame.   I am accepting apologies from all who laughed and rolled their eyes behind my back whenst I would announce my devotion to Ms. Jett.  She of the “Do you Want To Touch Me” and “Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-eerry Bomb!”    She of the sneer that would turn up your admiration and of the wink of the eye from stage that was evidence of all those secrets shared only between oneself and Lady Jett.  We had few badass chicks in the 70’s and 80’s, and fewer still who didn’t go all “Alone” on you like Heart.   She doesn’t have much range, and I’m pretty sure she’s not the best gee-tarist… but dammit, she can snarl.  And not all of us wanted to be Olivia Newton John growing up.  God-forhell-forbid.   Her concerts now… because badasses tour until the metamucil calls them home… are so many middle aged folks singing the words to all the songs, and also thinking… fuck, i gotta get up soon to go to work, or i gotta sitter i gotta pay…   anarchy and punk still resonates, but, if i don’t nod to the man and work, they gonna take away the bmw.  AND NO ONE TOUCHES THE GODDAMN GERMAN ENGINEERING!!!!     I really can’t understand why someone I know has not booked Ms. Jett at some sort of event for me…  what the hell good does being gay get me if not someone who knows Joan Jett?   Just saying.  

Bill Withers.  I think he can see into your heart, the hidden spots.  Lean.On.Me.

Green Day.  Makes me think of law school, when I come around.   Green Day and Phish (dude, i went to law school in Boulder)  fighting for the soul of this young law student.  Fucking american idiots.

I am waiting in jail for a client. Waiting waiting waiting. I am about 18 months out from being diagnosed with stage IV cancer. I seem to be doing well. I am still on a first protocol of treatment, taking a wee little pill of femara a day, still having my spouse impale my ass with a lupron dagger once a month, taking 2 pills of an experimental drug nexavar, and of course, a happy blue pill or two…. just to even it all out.

I read too much on the internet. I constantly read the news sites and blogs, HuffPost, CNN, DailyBeast, NPR, Deadspin…. etc. These can only lead to so much mischief. I can only find myself worrying endlessly about Kiev and Syria, ObamaCare and whether this winter will ever yield to spring.

My mischief making to myself occurs when I stray onto the sites that purport to heal me, or scare me with stories of decay and death, or, the worst of them all, promise facts and symptom checkers and treatments. Here… here is where I always fall down the rabbit hole. Here is where I slide down the throat of terror into 5 year life expectancies and “disease free progression” expectations and side effects expectations and expectations of expectations…. I say it enough and the word itself becomes sterile and meaningless…. ex….. PEC…. tay…. shuns. shuuuuuuuns.

I have a rule to avoid these sites. I am NOT SUPPOSED TO BE READING THESE PAGES OR BLOGS. It is a good rule. Like looking both ways before crossing a street. Or, perhaps most important, washing strawberries before you eat them.

(written some time ago… lost…. must have forgotten to hit “send”… but, off she goes….. who even reads about Kiev these days??)

Yes. I see the counters are dusty and the windows need to be cleaned. And don’t get me started about the cobwebs. I shall set about dusting, and washing and opening windows. I will try to remember where I have been since I last visited here, and if I learned anything, about life, love or lollipops….. I think there is wisdom everywhere.

For instance, this is what I learned today: when inserting an IV, it is much better for everyone who may be sitting near you ten minutes later, if the tech remembers to tighten some little knobby thing on the IV. What those folks who we’re sitting next to me in the waiting room learned (it’s a learning day), is that if that little do-jobby is not tightened, you start to spurt and leak blood all over. The nice lady in her paper dress sitting directly on my left expressed with complete clarity, and without saying a word, that she did not find this learning moment as satisfying as I did. Each at their own pace, I say.

This past Sunday, Mim died.  Mim was my wife’s grandmother.  She was lovely.  For 3 of the past 4 years, during the time between Thanksgiving and New Years, wifey has had a death in her immediate family.  Next year, we are staying home, wrapped in bubblewrap, and “opting out” of the holidays.   It has been a tough fall.

When I first met Mim, she was as nice and as warm as someone could be.  I have never met a soul who did not mention those same thoughts when thinking back on Mim.  She accepted me into the family, no qualms, and even gave me some “Mim Money” once in a while.  A sure sign that you have been accepted!

About 5 years ago, it became very apparent that Mim was having problems with memory, with recognition.  She lived with her husband, Pip, in the house they had lived in for over 40 years.  He cared for her, perhaps stubbornly, until he died 2 years ago.  She had Alzheimers.  After Pip’s death, she lived at a home that had a “memory ward” and they provided a safe, unchanging place for her to be.

I used to think how it would be for Pip and Mim, living in the same house, married for decades, and then one starts to not recognize the other.  I want to think that the slide into “not knowing” isn’t necessarily unpleasant for the one sliding.  I think it is probably worse for us, watching her slide away.  Anyway,  I wrote a poem, of sorts, about Mim wandering around her house and bumping into Pip, but not recognizing him:

I was here just a second ago…

did you see me?

I stopped by it seems, completely by surprise,

even to me.

Wandering, as I do, it was so nice to see

a familiar face..

Was it recently we met?

I noticed you are married!

Details, you see, sometimes just jump

out at me.

Lovely, marriage, like a blanket against

a winter chill.

So cold have I been, so chilled by

this winter.

I think that is why I was wandering,

shaking my bones to keep warm.

And how lovely, and how warm, it was,

to see you.

In any event.  I hope she is with Pip now, and they are reliving it all, one detail at a time.

Thanksgiving has to be one of the best holidays of the year… although with my daughter at age 6, Halloween certainly gives Thanksgiving a run for its turkey leftovers.  Thanksgiving is a holiday with its very own day off, family time, a great meal, excellent leftovers, football, a nap, and no stress of gift giving or gift getting.  Honestly, you can’t get much better.  Cancer has not even soured my love of this Holiday.  I will admit that my general lack of having to prepare or clean up after my feast certainly adds to the enjoyment.  My mom-in-law has been the preparer of the Feast for some years now.  She makes a good bird.  And my unquenchable weakness for crisp turkey skin is satiated for one day.  I know… I know how AWFUL turkey skin is…. BUT IF IT IS SO GODDAMN AWFUL WHY DOES IT TASTE SO GODDAMN GOOD????      I ate a wheat thin this morning instead of breakfast to compensate for the crispy goodness to come tomorrow… I shall not be denied!

I had my next “ass shot” given to me by my favorite home health aide…. also my spouse.  She seems to not be too offended by the procedure, but one has to wonder if bearing one’s ass in such an undignified manner does some sort of injury to the “magic.”  I certainly do not feel the same way about my ass as I did before it was a monthly pin cushion.  Not that I thought it was much of an asset (ha!  I said …..  asss-et…. good one!)  before the pincushionery.  But at least it was neutral, like Sweden (or is it Switzerland).  Now it has clearly chosen sides, no longer a SwissAss, becoming complicit in this little story of cancer that we are now writing.

Yesterday I had “Day 1” of my “routine” at the cancer institute of new jersey.  I am now officially part of the clinical trial.  I have had numerous vials of blood drained from my body, and have been weighed and measured.  I have not gained weight.  That is all I will say on that subject.  I was given my medications…. one bottle of serafanib (the trial drug) and one bottle of Femara (estrogen assassins).  I had 3 nurses explain to me like I was a dolt how I was to take these medications.  I have a medication log now taped to my cupboard.  I was told that there are various side effects, including, the ominous sounding “bowel changes.”  Hmmm, that doesn’t seem as specific as it could be I thought.  “UM….”, I asked one of the nurses, “WHICH kind of bowel changes do you suppose this is referring to?  “in” bowel changes, or “out right now!” bowel changes??”    The nurse actually chuckled, and replied, “both….. Have a good holiday!!!”    How pleasant I thought.  How nice to be “in the know” about potential “bowel changes” of unspecified direction while traveling in thanksgiving traffic over 4 hours to Massachusetts to then sit in someone else’s house for Thanksgiving who only has one bathroom.   Hm.  I am thankful…. for…… regularity!!!!   I will keep this post advised of “changes” as honesty and transparency are the best way to disgust people.    😉

Often, I will be around my mother, or father, and they will have a doctors visit, or stand and have a crick, and exclaim, with a wry smile, “Boy, it sucks to get old.” And I have smiled, and thought, “sure, for you….. “. But now I am thinking, no, no, it does NOT suck to get old. I am consumed with fantasies about it….. Picturing myself in a AARP commercial…. Dutifully eating fiber…. Gracefully going grey…. Being one of those “active seniors” that all the Florida resorts try to attract… Having my home health aide still with me….. Keeping up with my adult daughter through whatever social media she allows me to be privy to…. Hold old is that??? 55? Is that old? Is the question relative? Is that old for me…. When at 43 I have stage 4 cancer? Or, do I still judge from the norm…. When my grams is 93 and a pistol….. My family seems to all get old…. Into their 80’s at least….. I think, not me…. I’m not making 90….. And I can get my head around that, I’m pretty sure I can, at least…. But, how long? Do I keep contributing to my deferred comp…. Or should I just put all that into a college fund…. I just don’t know… And I am somewhat paralyzed with the uncertainty. I need to exercise, and lose weight, and eat better, and make these basic changes…. However, don’t these basic changes signify a commitment of some sort to knowing that those changes are meaningful…. Because someone told me that, “my numbers are good…. All the numbers are in my favor.” What numbers? I asked….. Any numbers beyond the basic 5 years? No… No…. But all the five year studies say I have an 80% chance of surviving…. Which is great, I will certainly take it… But, am I greedy to want a solid 20? Maybe 30? Greedy…. Maybe…. I think my “carrying on”…. In a way that requires changes and “positive living”…. Requires me to almost take a religious leap of faith…. Not religious in believing in god…. No….. Not that…. But a religious fervor of faith in “surviving.” Do I believe? Can I get an amen?! Can I get a gospel choir and a hallelujah! Because I can not seem to stop drinking or eating crap or filling my coffee with aspartame and steadily exceeding my wardrobe without some fucking cancer survivor god coming on down here and giving me my twenty. I fucking deserve it. But, maybe that’s the point… What the fuck do I really deserve, why shouldn’t I take my good numbers and run with it…. Run…. Why shouldn’t I run….. Run…… Why can’t I just run….. When has running ever failed me…. Why don’t I just run….. God, I wish I could run again…. I want to run again…. I want to run again and have my daughter see my run…. Survivorship god…. I pray to you, if I eat better, and exercise, not be a drunk, and believe…. Will you let me run again? Can we have this simple agreement? Ok, survivorship god…. Here’s my deal…. I will pray footsteps and cardio exercise, I will say Hail Marys of kale and quinoa, and I will kneel at night in yogaistic devotion….. For the promised land of running. And I will run as long. As. I. Can.