Today begins the fifth cycle of three-week chemo for me. Specifically I'm entering the second cycle of the second round. These terms are slightly confusing and yet important in terms of overall treatment plan. Practically it means I started with the Xeloda pills again this morning, and keep that up 2x a day for two weeks, will have infusions on Tuesdays (even on the Fourth of July, at 8 o'clock in the goddam morning), and then I believe they will "restage" me again after this cycle. (Need to check on the restaging however.)
The "restaging" makes me think, again, about all the euphemisms surrounding this bizarre process of diagnosis, treatment, ongoing care, death, "moving on." See there's another. Restaging, resectable, lesion, unresectable, palliative care, metastases, impaction, access and de-access, ablation, appreciation (as in "no abnormalities are appreciated"), un / remarkable, — [thus starts the blog to come]
Franky Scale: 7. Generally good, the yummy milk of magnesia smoothies, so much fluid intake that you could set your watch by my hourly pee breaks at night, a mouthful of senna every night, and mix that with a fistful of opiates each day to offset all of the above and achieve "balance." There's another word deserving of at least an entire post. Go in fear of anyone who advocates balance... balance is not "rage, rage" for example, for starters.
In terms of the NY trip so far, what to say: humidity, a lot of White People on LI, SUV's, princesses & royalty, Dada, Roux-rain & remembering, animal experiments & euphemisms, a stony brook . . .
More later, hopefully today, perhaps from the Holiday Inn Express if they have internet access...
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Friday, June 30, 2006
6.30.06, Dada and Distraction
Franky Scale for today feels like another variable score, a 6, a 7, a 6. Currently we're looking at the world from the 7 side of things and am, I am, we are thinking of heading into NYC to take a look at the Dada exhibit at MOMA. Seems entirely appropriate with the not always stated but everpresent theme of the absurd that runs through the blog, and more accurately through my Life since diagnosis day and all the days of working to accept and understand and plan since then. Plan to be normal. Plan to live in the most spontaneous way possible.
Being elsewhere is not allowing a lot of time for me to post, so even though talking about Buddhism and the insight paradox of "life is suffering" and "suffering stems from desire / attachment," paired with the question I always have of "Doesn't a desire to exit the cycle of rebirth and attachment to the idea of not suffering contradict the whole idea of 'rid yourself of desire and you rid yourself of suffering'?" is desireable. Or something along those lines. It's not happening today. All of which relates because the idea of not being attached to this world or this life, well, . . . you can figure out how it might apply. I'll keep pondering and thinking of it in post-form, until I post again, until then, Dada.
Being elsewhere is not allowing a lot of time for me to post, so even though talking about Buddhism and the insight paradox of "life is suffering" and "suffering stems from desire / attachment," paired with the question I always have of "Doesn't a desire to exit the cycle of rebirth and attachment to the idea of not suffering contradict the whole idea of 'rid yourself of desire and you rid yourself of suffering'?" is desireable. Or something along those lines. It's not happening today. All of which relates because the idea of not being attached to this world or this life, well, . . . you can figure out how it might apply. I'll keep pondering and thinking of it in post-form, until I post again, until then, Dada.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
6.29.06, A Screaming Comes across the Sky, or Not
Once again, the last post, yesterday, is a novella, so this one is flash fiction. Franky Scale is a bit wobbly today, back and forth between 6 and 7. Some of the "6" portion might be due to the fact that my next batch of chemo drug #1 (of the 3), the Xeloda, which I take orally 2x a day @ 500 mg (14 lovely days of it) arrived from FedEx. (Someone might save money on the deal, I don't know & it isn't me, but my insurance company "requires" me to buy this drug through a company called CuraScript, a mail order drug company. Either buy it from them or we don't pay for it. Gee, thanks guys.) (...part, too, honestly, is GI distress and some humidty/heat adjustment...but) That could be it, all I do is see Xeloda pills and I start with my Pavlovian response, (pre)response. Remember Tyrone Slothrop from my favorite novel....? We won't push the connection too far; yet, the allusion stands.
Tomorrow's blog, I think, is either on the paradoxes of Buddhism or on why we like to, need to, use euphemism.
Tomorrow's blog, I think, is either on the paradoxes of Buddhism or on why we like to, need to, use euphemism.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
6.28.06, On Comments, Symptoms, & the Angelus Novus
[my god, i just realized this is a long post, so i'll let this serve as tomorrow's content too, then i'll just post numbers or something short. -Mr. J]
Let’s start with the scale today. Franky Scale: 7; doing well overall, though some strange and intense fatigue arrived at about 11 a.m. and kicked my butt into bed for about two hours, and in the sleep came dreams, but those later. Even after twelve weeks of chemo (having just finished the 4th three-week cycle) and this f-word of tiredness, I’m not really used to it. I can have a finger on my laptop trackpad and suddenly fall asleep — that kind of sleep that happens when you’re in a lecture boring you to unconsciousness, I can go sit on the toilet and a minute, two?, three? later realize that I just fell asleep. That’s how it comes, no warning, just effects. And then with sleep, I at least feel guilty half the time, like “Ah shit, I can’t just take naps all the time! That’s totally unproductive,” and somehow forgetting that other part of my brain trying to say “Take a nap, you moron! You’re dying of cancer for Chrissake.” Oh yeah, that’s right.
On the thread of sleep:
I have really welcomed the last set of comments to the blog. At last, I see a few people from different parts of blogland, cancer blogland that is (sorry, I’m not a big fan of the word “blogosphere”), are coming together, and some larger sense of community is being established. Not in the cheesy sense but rather as geographically distanced individuals who share a sense of an entirely senseless grief, one that looms always a little larger for some of us, sometimes daily, until, I assume, it will explode. It’s good, then, to see such people come together, talk about it, and then spit in the face of that looming. A second point is that in addition to setting up the blog as a means of establishing better family-friend communication, there was a wish to “help out,” perhaps to speak to someone who was lost or had a question or who was just coming to their own personal degree of feeling fucked up — how else are you going to describe this? — and shattered. In many ways, like I do. What do you do with that news, that diagnosis, your “new life” that is condensed into six months or a year’s worth of payments, payments of various size, and payments in reverse. Now, I’m starting to see commentors, as in the last group, with a family member dealing with pancreatic cancer. That’s reason enough to keep writing, not that I’d stop, but even if smaller more mundane questions never arise between us it's worth it. Then, too, or finally, there was the question on symptoms. This last question might take a whole blog of its own but I’ll give at least the outline of an answer this evening.
On Symptoms: They Arise in the Night
Remember that line from Buckaroo Bonzai, where John Lithgow’s character, John Bigboo-tay, is rousing the troops and saying “History—is made at night! Character—is what you are in the dark!” Well, me too it seems, with cancer. In waking life everybody gets stomach aches, strange bowel issues, gas, some kind of pain now and then, right? So why worry? It’s probably stress. We all have too much stress, especially all the overly self-conscious and neurotic academic types I know. Could be an ulcer, IBS, who knows. But within my memory, maybe late 2004 and definitely in 2005 I’d get stomach pains at night. The “night” part is key because daytime distractions like work are just that, and passing over pains is easy. Part of life. My mom’s line, and Nietzsche’s “If it doesn’t kill you, it’ll just make you stronger.” Good ole Puritan thinking, I always thought; until now. Now I think, some kind of sick linguistic-cosmic irony.
As it turns out, joke’s on me. I’d wake up with a “stomach ache,” and I don’t even know where my pancreas is at this point in my life, so it’s just a stomach ache. They would be so intense sometimes, however, that I’d wake up in the middle of the night. It would break through my sleep and often I’d have to curl up in the fetal position to ease it as much as I could, until sleep would return. Or I could have a drink. Who knows? Anything might help, and when you’re that tired… Apparently I masked these pains and coped in various ways without ever identifying anything until the summer of last year. A friend was staying with me and during the, say, five days she was in town this happened maybe twice. I’d get up, pained look on my face, eyes probably gray if the lights had been on, and I’d find enough bed space to curl into my little ball of waiting. My friend had the presence of mind to point out that this might be somehow abnormal, that usually people don’t get pulled from REM sleep by stomach pain, and that maybe, just maybe, I should see a doctor.
Say August of 2005. So in November or so I went in, tests began, and as I’ll write about later, for the various reasons that make pancreatic cancer so hard to find at any early stage, it took until March to diagnose it. The Big Casino. Then I got the Call, the GI specialist I’d been referred to — twin brother of my primary care provider — told me the CT scan and the EUS (endoscopic ultrasound) said pancreas cancer. Tumor about 6-something by 2-something cm. Me: “I guess that’s serious . . .?” I wonder what he was thinking when I asked that brilliant question. Those were the symptoms that did it, finally got my attention, and the luck of having a friend around with more sense than I.
Bad dreams:
As I said above, there came dreams today. Odd ones. (Another Frank story: There was a time when if you woke up in Frank’s house and started to say “I had this really fucked up dream where….” and the rule was, Frank would roll his eyes, and you’d have to pay a quarter or you couldn't tell it — nobody’s really that interested in another’s dreams, unless you link back to our ongoing underlying psychoanalytic thread. You gotta pay for it or it doesn’t work, Lacan would say.) Anyway, in my story, today I was dreaming about death, and this freaked me out because my dreams are almost never about death, especially not since M20, diagnosis day. So why today? Is it an Ambien come down since I’ve not taken any for three days in a row after doing it every night for two months? A residual high from the stuff? Is it deep, metaphysical, and meaningful? I prefer to think not. (Kubler-Ross stage: Denial? I don’t think so.) Rather, I think the oddest thing is that I haven’t dreamt more about death recently.
More on Sleep, and Poetry:
Whence the poem (below)? All poems are about life and love, at least from one angle — the gaining or losing of both, the fear of one or the other, and logically this brings in death, sickness, sadness, more fear. A poetry teacher I had once said “Fear of loss is every lover’s fear.” How does that relate? Not sure really, but it seems to fit into most poems, through denial and negation if not by more explicit means. Here, too, of course, it relates to cancer too. The blog subtitle, and occasional distraction. We think in happy denial, sometimes, that that’s why we’re here, our cyber raison d’etre. (Yeah yeah I make my living talking & teaching poetry, and I can’t seem to stop writing it, but it’s not just that. Well, maybe not.) Intense dreams, daytime naps, waking into thickness, like the first moment you step out the Exit of a movie theater after watching a matinee, the blinding light and then the clear recall of where we are — all these bring me to think of a poem I did a few years ago. Done in upstate NY, in fact, so there’s one more thread to the now for the meaning finders. In any event, there’s humor in the poem, I think, and hopefully this comes across. If not, then it’s simply another distraction and it’s more fun to think about than what it might mean to wake up at 3 a.m. and curl up in the fetal position.
[my blog/HTML skills are weak still so instead of regular indents on certain lines, imagine them where you see em-dashes, for drop lines. and if sheds any light, I wrote this while I was taking a class with Benedict Anderson, so.]
“Angelus Novus,
—not by Paul Klee”
"Every passion borders on the chaotic, . . . on the chaos of memories."
—Walter Benjamin
I take long naps, sometimes I dream.
I dream in Technicolor, sometimes in German.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
In my dream Ben Anderson is there, naked
as though he is about to move this way
toward something he is contemplating fixedly,
his eyes are staring,
--------------------------his mouth is open,
---------------------------------------------------his wings are spread,
and he is running blithely clowning after me,
this is how I dream him, but in my wish fulfilled
his face is turned toward the past,
where I see a semester's writing he sees
the wreckage of papers past piled ominously at his feet,
pushed forward, paper by paper, by a force
I cannot call progress, but perhaps
-----------------------------------------------jocularity.
My angel, would like to stay, awaken the dead,
make whole what has been smashed,
but a storm is blowing from Paradise,
he is naked, I am not,
his wings wrenched open in satiric violence,
this storm seductively propels him into my future,
he is menacing otherly comical, I afraid to ask
of that to which his back is turned, while
the stack of scribblings before him grows dreamward.
This storm is what they call progress, but wait,
now he has recognized me, am I no longer his slave?
Not even the chess-playing dwarf of historical materialism
can save me
-----------------------I fear.
Ithaca, NY (the poem, that is)
Let’s start with the scale today. Franky Scale: 7; doing well overall, though some strange and intense fatigue arrived at about 11 a.m. and kicked my butt into bed for about two hours, and in the sleep came dreams, but those later. Even after twelve weeks of chemo (having just finished the 4th three-week cycle) and this f-word of tiredness, I’m not really used to it. I can have a finger on my laptop trackpad and suddenly fall asleep — that kind of sleep that happens when you’re in a lecture boring you to unconsciousness, I can go sit on the toilet and a minute, two?, three? later realize that I just fell asleep. That’s how it comes, no warning, just effects. And then with sleep, I at least feel guilty half the time, like “Ah shit, I can’t just take naps all the time! That’s totally unproductive,” and somehow forgetting that other part of my brain trying to say “Take a nap, you moron! You’re dying of cancer for Chrissake.” Oh yeah, that’s right.
On the thread of sleep:
I have really welcomed the last set of comments to the blog. At last, I see a few people from different parts of blogland, cancer blogland that is (sorry, I’m not a big fan of the word “blogosphere”), are coming together, and some larger sense of community is being established. Not in the cheesy sense but rather as geographically distanced individuals who share a sense of an entirely senseless grief, one that looms always a little larger for some of us, sometimes daily, until, I assume, it will explode. It’s good, then, to see such people come together, talk about it, and then spit in the face of that looming. A second point is that in addition to setting up the blog as a means of establishing better family-friend communication, there was a wish to “help out,” perhaps to speak to someone who was lost or had a question or who was just coming to their own personal degree of feeling fucked up — how else are you going to describe this? — and shattered. In many ways, like I do. What do you do with that news, that diagnosis, your “new life” that is condensed into six months or a year’s worth of payments, payments of various size, and payments in reverse. Now, I’m starting to see commentors, as in the last group, with a family member dealing with pancreatic cancer. That’s reason enough to keep writing, not that I’d stop, but even if smaller more mundane questions never arise between us it's worth it. Then, too, or finally, there was the question on symptoms. This last question might take a whole blog of its own but I’ll give at least the outline of an answer this evening.
On Symptoms: They Arise in the Night
Remember that line from Buckaroo Bonzai, where John Lithgow’s character, John Bigboo-tay, is rousing the troops and saying “History—is made at night! Character—is what you are in the dark!” Well, me too it seems, with cancer. In waking life everybody gets stomach aches, strange bowel issues, gas, some kind of pain now and then, right? So why worry? It’s probably stress. We all have too much stress, especially all the overly self-conscious and neurotic academic types I know. Could be an ulcer, IBS, who knows. But within my memory, maybe late 2004 and definitely in 2005 I’d get stomach pains at night. The “night” part is key because daytime distractions like work are just that, and passing over pains is easy. Part of life. My mom’s line, and Nietzsche’s “If it doesn’t kill you, it’ll just make you stronger.” Good ole Puritan thinking, I always thought; until now. Now I think, some kind of sick linguistic-cosmic irony.
As it turns out, joke’s on me. I’d wake up with a “stomach ache,” and I don’t even know where my pancreas is at this point in my life, so it’s just a stomach ache. They would be so intense sometimes, however, that I’d wake up in the middle of the night. It would break through my sleep and often I’d have to curl up in the fetal position to ease it as much as I could, until sleep would return. Or I could have a drink. Who knows? Anything might help, and when you’re that tired… Apparently I masked these pains and coped in various ways without ever identifying anything until the summer of last year. A friend was staying with me and during the, say, five days she was in town this happened maybe twice. I’d get up, pained look on my face, eyes probably gray if the lights had been on, and I’d find enough bed space to curl into my little ball of waiting. My friend had the presence of mind to point out that this might be somehow abnormal, that usually people don’t get pulled from REM sleep by stomach pain, and that maybe, just maybe, I should see a doctor.
Say August of 2005. So in November or so I went in, tests began, and as I’ll write about later, for the various reasons that make pancreatic cancer so hard to find at any early stage, it took until March to diagnose it. The Big Casino. Then I got the Call, the GI specialist I’d been referred to — twin brother of my primary care provider — told me the CT scan and the EUS (endoscopic ultrasound) said pancreas cancer. Tumor about 6-something by 2-something cm. Me: “I guess that’s serious . . .?” I wonder what he was thinking when I asked that brilliant question. Those were the symptoms that did it, finally got my attention, and the luck of having a friend around with more sense than I.
Bad dreams:
As I said above, there came dreams today. Odd ones. (Another Frank story: There was a time when if you woke up in Frank’s house and started to say “I had this really fucked up dream where….” and the rule was, Frank would roll his eyes, and you’d have to pay a quarter or you couldn't tell it — nobody’s really that interested in another’s dreams, unless you link back to our ongoing underlying psychoanalytic thread. You gotta pay for it or it doesn’t work, Lacan would say.) Anyway, in my story, today I was dreaming about death, and this freaked me out because my dreams are almost never about death, especially not since M20, diagnosis day. So why today? Is it an Ambien come down since I’ve not taken any for three days in a row after doing it every night for two months? A residual high from the stuff? Is it deep, metaphysical, and meaningful? I prefer to think not. (Kubler-Ross stage: Denial? I don’t think so.) Rather, I think the oddest thing is that I haven’t dreamt more about death recently.
More on Sleep, and Poetry:
Whence the poem (below)? All poems are about life and love, at least from one angle — the gaining or losing of both, the fear of one or the other, and logically this brings in death, sickness, sadness, more fear. A poetry teacher I had once said “Fear of loss is every lover’s fear.” How does that relate? Not sure really, but it seems to fit into most poems, through denial and negation if not by more explicit means. Here, too, of course, it relates to cancer too. The blog subtitle, and occasional distraction. We think in happy denial, sometimes, that that’s why we’re here, our cyber raison d’etre. (Yeah yeah I make my living talking & teaching poetry, and I can’t seem to stop writing it, but it’s not just that. Well, maybe not.) Intense dreams, daytime naps, waking into thickness, like the first moment you step out the Exit of a movie theater after watching a matinee, the blinding light and then the clear recall of where we are — all these bring me to think of a poem I did a few years ago. Done in upstate NY, in fact, so there’s one more thread to the now for the meaning finders. In any event, there’s humor in the poem, I think, and hopefully this comes across. If not, then it’s simply another distraction and it’s more fun to think about than what it might mean to wake up at 3 a.m. and curl up in the fetal position.
[my blog/HTML skills are weak still so instead of regular indents on certain lines, imagine them where you see em-dashes, for drop lines. and if sheds any light, I wrote this while I was taking a class with Benedict Anderson, so.]
“Angelus Novus,
—not by Paul Klee”
"Every passion borders on the chaotic, . . . on the chaos of memories."
—Walter Benjamin
I take long naps, sometimes I dream.
I dream in Technicolor, sometimes in German.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
In my dream Ben Anderson is there, naked
as though he is about to move this way
toward something he is contemplating fixedly,
his eyes are staring,
--------------------------his mouth is open,
---------------------------------------------------his wings are spread,
and he is running blithely clowning after me,
this is how I dream him, but in my wish fulfilled
his face is turned toward the past,
where I see a semester's writing he sees
the wreckage of papers past piled ominously at his feet,
pushed forward, paper by paper, by a force
I cannot call progress, but perhaps
-----------------------------------------------jocularity.
My angel, would like to stay, awaken the dead,
make whole what has been smashed,
but a storm is blowing from Paradise,
he is naked, I am not,
his wings wrenched open in satiric violence,
this storm seductively propels him into my future,
he is menacing otherly comical, I afraid to ask
of that to which his back is turned, while
the stack of scribblings before him grows dreamward.
This storm is what they call progress, but wait,
now he has recognized me, am I no longer his slave?
Not even the chess-playing dwarf of historical materialism
can save me
-----------------------I fear.
Ithaca, NY (the poem, that is)
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
6.27.06 Arrived in Gotham, Kind Of
Hi all. Not really in Gotham City but in LI instead. Close enough I think, enough some peace and quiet, however weird Long Island quiet might be, and still close enough to get into the city. More anon.
Franky Scale today, despite some longish travel, was about a 7. Not bad. I love no chemo drugs. Till Saturday, thank you cheebus.
So I'm here safe and sound, all my dear family members; someone pass this on to mom.... and I'm going to have to stop here since I'm typing words backwards and about to doze on my tracking pad. Tomorrow.
Franky Scale today, despite some longish travel, was about a 7. Not bad. I love no chemo drugs. Till Saturday, thank you cheebus.
So I'm here safe and sound, all my dear family members; someone pass this on to mom.... and I'm going to have to stop here since I'm typing words backwards and about to doze on my tracking pad. Tomorrow.
Monday, June 26, 2006
6.26.06, The Lower Case Connection
[Since I posted this, below, later last night I'm going to leave it up as today's post, give people a chance to read it. I'll try to get up a Franky Scale number later on — I'm still too much feeling a sleeping-pill hangover to give you a good number now. And the rest of the day is flying back to New York, where I'll be for the rest of the week. P.S. you may have noticed I've had to turn on "comment moderation," but please don't let that discourage you. Most every comment still goes up, it's just a complicated world. -Mr. J.]
Tomorrow off to NY, a break into the cool and dry weather I love so well. Ahh. No need even for an AC. ..... uh. (even here in the emerald city i can feel my forearms stick to the desk between keystrokes, makes me think of all the random places i've tried to write something out or get something down where the weather can be accursed, granted that "humidity" here is a joke, but new york or boston, seoul, bangkok — forget about it, as they say, bloomington, rochester and ithaca, god do i hate humidity. if hell were to be catholic, there might not be flames and burning flesh but humidity and sticky flesh instead...)
Who knows at what point I will actually find a thread tonight, or whether I will, and so if its helps the sententious out there or simply the plot-driven, try to imagine this as a real-time while-I-pack post: scattered, disjointed, almost MTV-ish, the Mekons in the background, here and there at once. Reporting on a day that's almost over but also never started.
Btw, the Franky Scale was about 8 today, really pretty good, though Seattle was uncharacteristically "warm," or simply hot. Somewhere in the low 90s. For those who only need a number, you're excused ;-) (of course this is a joke...)
Sick in East: You could look for cancer links, the blog about cancer and all. In terms of food for thought I recently learned that the friend of good friend (someone on the East Coast in fact) who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at just about the time I was, has been doing really well. Caught it early, successful surgery, small tumor, and so on. You know what? I've never met this man, he's older than I am, different generation, different profession no doubt — but the thing is that I care when I hear about him and his state. I'm not yanking my own chain, it's just bizarre to me, that's all, you can hear the new agers talking about Connections now, yes capital C. When I hear he's doing well I feel better or I feel glad, genuinely glad. (We could get out the analyst's tools, sure, it still comes back around to my narcissistic needs maybe because I want to see myself in him — he gets better and that means I'll get better. Yes, Dr. Melfi. That's too easy though.) I think rather there might really be some connection, however imaginary, however lower case, that has shrunk a few places in the world, with a few certain people to be found there. And there changed to here.
Sick in West: That's the story of one person, one that's heartening, one to feel good about, one we are — or, I, am ready for. There is another story, another real person who is the friend of a friend, maybe once more removed than the man back East. This one is about another man, this one in Seattle, one whose information was retrieved for me by a another good friend. Phone numbers, email address I think was there, and one other thing, was it actually his address? Anyway, the point was that my friend and I had talked about finding someone to connect with — my own little support group — and in part, as a result of the Double Whammy diagnosis referred to previously in the blog (first whammy [sp?] being "you've got cancer" and second whammy being "oh, and, btw, you're cancer is one of the most fucked up types you can get." [dramatic pause for effect]), I'm really not interested in talking to just anybody with cancer. I of course want to talk to someone who is also apparently paddleless, like myself.
My friend found such a one here, with the same diagnosis, same cancer, and when he was diagnosed a year ago he was given even less time, "given time". . . who gives time?. . ., given less time than I was. Something like three months. Of course, I could feel good about the fact of his survival for that long so far because it can either suggest I might do better than they say, too, or simply just out of gladness for him. A year. A whole year. Like a third my oncologist has mentioned, a tough rancher in Oregon who was about 18 months past due, at least he was last time I checked about two months ago. Hardy, keeps living his life, working on the ranch, doing chemo, trying to just keep going. So far so good. You hear the inspiring stories, right? I guess the others don't get passed on. Well.
I guess it was run by him and it was all right for me to call at some point. After 6 weeks I was still kind of nervous to do it. What can I say? It's weird enough to tell anybody you're sick like this, let alone just to be sick like this, but imagine calling up a stranger: "Dude, my friend says you're gonna die from wicked bad cancer. Sorry, me too. Let's talk." Lessons in awkwardness, or just insensitivity, or maybe there's just no out. It's all a bad joke. If you'll forgive another Sopranos reference: Furio's father in Italy, dies of cancer in season 4, go figure, and Furio can only say ". . . The cancer don't respect nothing" or nobody. So I hadn't called as of a few days ago because I was, perhaps, emotionally unprepared, even though there was so much potential help there. Too, what if he doesn't feel well when I call? I know that feeling to some extent. Get to the point... The reason I bring this story up is in part because it represents the "other" of two people I've heard much about with pancreatic cancer, and because the good friend who got the numbers called yesterday.
We talked about a few different things, it wasn't like she called just to say this, but he's dead. Just happened. There is nothing to analyze about it. He got a year, 9 months of winnings. That's three times what they "gave" him. I watched Frank throwing dice about a month ago, you stand at the table, shake, throw, and wait; you pocket your initial bet and play only with your winnings. No, there is no moral to this story, it's just been on my mind. It's not an answer, Frank, but it does speak to the question you put out in one comment, a question that cut through all the bullshit, something like how long does it take every day from when you get up to when you start thinking about the Big Casino.
Time to get my bags, I always put off packing until the last minute. Why is that?
[NB: NPR junkies among the readers might have heard a story this morning about/by a journalist who is also dealing with late-stage cancer, who had his expiration date given to him, has beaten that date, and sounds like he's doing what he can, like most of us I suppose. Just trying to keep going, working as much as he can, etc. His story was solid, realistic, and so I've added a link to that blog--look up on the right side. -Mr. J.]
Tomorrow off to NY, a break into the cool and dry weather I love so well. Ahh. No need even for an AC. ..... uh. (even here in the emerald city i can feel my forearms stick to the desk between keystrokes, makes me think of all the random places i've tried to write something out or get something down where the weather can be accursed, granted that "humidity" here is a joke, but new york or boston, seoul, bangkok — forget about it, as they say, bloomington, rochester and ithaca, god do i hate humidity. if hell were to be catholic, there might not be flames and burning flesh but humidity and sticky flesh instead...)
Who knows at what point I will actually find a thread tonight, or whether I will, and so if its helps the sententious out there or simply the plot-driven, try to imagine this as a real-time while-I-pack post: scattered, disjointed, almost MTV-ish, the Mekons in the background, here and there at once. Reporting on a day that's almost over but also never started.
Btw, the Franky Scale was about 8 today, really pretty good, though Seattle was uncharacteristically "warm," or simply hot. Somewhere in the low 90s. For those who only need a number, you're excused ;-) (of course this is a joke...)
Sick in East: You could look for cancer links, the blog about cancer and all. In terms of food for thought I recently learned that the friend of good friend (someone on the East Coast in fact) who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at just about the time I was, has been doing really well. Caught it early, successful surgery, small tumor, and so on. You know what? I've never met this man, he's older than I am, different generation, different profession no doubt — but the thing is that I care when I hear about him and his state. I'm not yanking my own chain, it's just bizarre to me, that's all, you can hear the new agers talking about Connections now, yes capital C. When I hear he's doing well I feel better or I feel glad, genuinely glad. (We could get out the analyst's tools, sure, it still comes back around to my narcissistic needs maybe because I want to see myself in him — he gets better and that means I'll get better. Yes, Dr. Melfi. That's too easy though.) I think rather there might really be some connection, however imaginary, however lower case, that has shrunk a few places in the world, with a few certain people to be found there. And there changed to here.
Sick in West: That's the story of one person, one that's heartening, one to feel good about, one we are — or, I, am ready for. There is another story, another real person who is the friend of a friend, maybe once more removed than the man back East. This one is about another man, this one in Seattle, one whose information was retrieved for me by a another good friend. Phone numbers, email address I think was there, and one other thing, was it actually his address? Anyway, the point was that my friend and I had talked about finding someone to connect with — my own little support group — and in part, as a result of the Double Whammy diagnosis referred to previously in the blog (first whammy [sp?] being "you've got cancer" and second whammy being "oh, and, btw, you're cancer is one of the most fucked up types you can get." [dramatic pause for effect]), I'm really not interested in talking to just anybody with cancer. I of course want to talk to someone who is also apparently paddleless, like myself.
My friend found such a one here, with the same diagnosis, same cancer, and when he was diagnosed a year ago he was given even less time, "given time". . . who gives time?. . ., given less time than I was. Something like three months. Of course, I could feel good about the fact of his survival for that long so far because it can either suggest I might do better than they say, too, or simply just out of gladness for him. A year. A whole year. Like a third my oncologist has mentioned, a tough rancher in Oregon who was about 18 months past due, at least he was last time I checked about two months ago. Hardy, keeps living his life, working on the ranch, doing chemo, trying to just keep going. So far so good. You hear the inspiring stories, right? I guess the others don't get passed on. Well.
I guess it was run by him and it was all right for me to call at some point. After 6 weeks I was still kind of nervous to do it. What can I say? It's weird enough to tell anybody you're sick like this, let alone just to be sick like this, but imagine calling up a stranger: "Dude, my friend says you're gonna die from wicked bad cancer. Sorry, me too. Let's talk." Lessons in awkwardness, or just insensitivity, or maybe there's just no out. It's all a bad joke. If you'll forgive another Sopranos reference: Furio's father in Italy, dies of cancer in season 4, go figure, and Furio can only say ". . . The cancer don't respect nothing" or nobody. So I hadn't called as of a few days ago because I was, perhaps, emotionally unprepared, even though there was so much potential help there. Too, what if he doesn't feel well when I call? I know that feeling to some extent. Get to the point... The reason I bring this story up is in part because it represents the "other" of two people I've heard much about with pancreatic cancer, and because the good friend who got the numbers called yesterday.
We talked about a few different things, it wasn't like she called just to say this, but he's dead. Just happened. There is nothing to analyze about it. He got a year, 9 months of winnings. That's three times what they "gave" him. I watched Frank throwing dice about a month ago, you stand at the table, shake, throw, and wait; you pocket your initial bet and play only with your winnings. No, there is no moral to this story, it's just been on my mind. It's not an answer, Frank, but it does speak to the question you put out in one comment, a question that cut through all the bullshit, something like how long does it take every day from when you get up to when you start thinking about the Big Casino.
Time to get my bags, I always put off packing until the last minute. Why is that?
[NB: NPR junkies among the readers might have heard a story this morning about/by a journalist who is also dealing with late-stage cancer, who had his expiration date given to him, has beaten that date, and sounds like he's doing what he can, like most of us I suppose. Just trying to keep going, working as much as he can, etc. His story was solid, realistic, and so I've added a link to that blog--look up on the right side. -Mr. J.]
Sunday, June 25, 2006
6.25.06, Perfect Weirdness & Family
Franky Scale, maybe posting the Scale first is anticlimactic.
The phonecall that spawned a horse metaphor, someone a lame one. We discussed this at the time and that was precisely what turns it into a better than average and weird title. So it's there, yesterday. I remains today for all to see — despite that I had to turn on "Comment Moderation" as a blog function, which I hope you won't let scare you away, post! post! just post away as ever before and nearly everything will pass I promise, it just had to come up for now, not to worry — as do the comments.
The third sister post on whether the horse metaphor / comment should be taken or rather "how it should be taken" rhetorically, is simply perfect. The variety of (mis)readings that cross paths here, though not only here are fantastic when seen with sufficient psychological distance. I love it.
More on this . . . just wanted to make this observation first now here though and then. I'm going to go hunting for this dream-poem I have in a notebook somewhere called "Contemporary Family History" about all the equine characters of this mistale.
FS: 8, more good weather, warm & too sunny, breakfast & coffee. Much less unpleasure than most days, thank the Horse. Day three free of chemo drugs. Like pure enlightenment.
The phonecall that spawned a horse metaphor, someone a lame one. We discussed this at the time and that was precisely what turns it into a better than average and weird title. So it's there, yesterday. I remains today for all to see — despite that I had to turn on "Comment Moderation" as a blog function, which I hope you won't let scare you away, post! post! just post away as ever before and nearly everything will pass I promise, it just had to come up for now, not to worry — as do the comments.
The third sister post on whether the horse metaphor / comment should be taken or rather "how it should be taken" rhetorically, is simply perfect. The variety of (mis)readings that cross paths here, though not only here are fantastic when seen with sufficient psychological distance. I love it.
More on this . . . just wanted to make this observation first now here though and then. I'm going to go hunting for this dream-poem I have in a notebook somewhere called "Contemporary Family History" about all the equine characters of this mistale.
FS: 8, more good weather, warm & too sunny, breakfast & coffee. Much less unpleasure than most days, thank the Horse. Day three free of chemo drugs. Like pure enlightenment.
Saturday, June 24, 2006
6.24.06 Saturday: Could Have Been a Horse
Let's say Franky Scale of 7,
the sun is up and Seattle's going to prove its good weather bona fides,
the secret of Seattle its residents hide behind all the stories of rain, so I hear.
Low 70s today, no bugs, no humidity. This morning I'm gathering sources, collecting some books, and outlining chapters for the "one book" I'm trying to get done right now. A memoir of sorts, or out of sorts; it's a broad enough genre to admit whatever schlock I'm going to add and I this seemed to be one project I'll enjoy while I do it and then hopefully my family and a few friends might enjoy it later. We shall see.
Yesterday I was sacked out most of the day and missed my daily post — somehow the end-of-cycle chemo fatigue caught up and kind of kicked my ass for several hours. All was sleep. The good thing is, however, that yesterday was the last day of the chemo drug-taking period and I am a pleased boy to be past that now. Eat breakfast and then NOT take the nasty toxic pills; eat dinner, same. During the week off you can feel your body begin to fight back, to restore some of what it's lost, to regain some ground, to filter out some of that toxic shit that fights the cancer (and so many other fast-reproducing cells in the body).
Makes me wonder, how many more cycles? Is it possible for chemotherapy to go on forever? Likely not, there will be one or the other solution, "solution," the chemo will beat out the cancer and the body will remain strong enough, or the cancer will outsmart the chemo, and that's it.
I think the answer to everything is here, it arrived this morning. As my oldest sister was telling me on the phone, "You coulda been born a horse." So I'm still sitting here trying to determine what it means? What could it mean? Deep? Mystical truth? Or...?
And to David's comments — David who deserves a "Happy Birthday," no? A highly spiritual martini on me; although I hope its effects are solidly materialist. A birthday in Seoul, watch out because I think that means that you pick up the tab. Enjoy.
the sun is up and Seattle's going to prove its good weather bona fides,
the secret of Seattle its residents hide behind all the stories of rain, so I hear.
Low 70s today, no bugs, no humidity. This morning I'm gathering sources, collecting some books, and outlining chapters for the "one book" I'm trying to get done right now. A memoir of sorts, or out of sorts; it's a broad enough genre to admit whatever schlock I'm going to add and I this seemed to be one project I'll enjoy while I do it and then hopefully my family and a few friends might enjoy it later. We shall see.
Yesterday I was sacked out most of the day and missed my daily post — somehow the end-of-cycle chemo fatigue caught up and kind of kicked my ass for several hours. All was sleep. The good thing is, however, that yesterday was the last day of the chemo drug-taking period and I am a pleased boy to be past that now. Eat breakfast and then NOT take the nasty toxic pills; eat dinner, same. During the week off you can feel your body begin to fight back, to restore some of what it's lost, to regain some ground, to filter out some of that toxic shit that fights the cancer (and so many other fast-reproducing cells in the body).
Makes me wonder, how many more cycles? Is it possible for chemotherapy to go on forever? Likely not, there will be one or the other solution, "solution," the chemo will beat out the cancer and the body will remain strong enough, or the cancer will outsmart the chemo, and that's it.
I think the answer to everything is here, it arrived this morning. As my oldest sister was telling me on the phone, "You coulda been born a horse." So I'm still sitting here trying to determine what it means? What could it mean? Deep? Mystical truth? Or...?
And to David's comments — David who deserves a "Happy Birthday," no? A highly spiritual martini on me; although I hope its effects are solidly materialist. A birthday in Seoul, watch out because I think that means that you pick up the tab. Enjoy.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
6.22.06 Two Short Book Reviews
Franky Scale: 6-plus, but I'm still sliding into the day, give it time. Compared to last week this time, I'll take it gladly.
Remember a number of books I mentioned about two weeks ago? Well, I’ve made it through half or so, of that group of five or so and wanted to offer my opinions. The book by Steven Levine called A Year to Live is a completely new age, pseudo-“Eastern” spirit quest, a manual for how to live the fullest life you possible can by pretending you’re going to die and then meditating, singing spirit songs, being “positive,” and forgiving everybody around you so the spirits of the universe harmonize, blah blah blah. Another way to put it, it’s a crock of shit. The long and short of it is that dying and confronting one’s death, or living the last undefined period you’ll ever have to live, is serious business; as a friend of mine said early on during this experience, “That’s why they say ‘Serious as cancer.’” Levine’s book is not, nor can it be. The premise is “Imagine / pretend /fantasize / whatever that you only have one year left to live, then do the make believe.” It doesn’t work, it all comes across as flippant, and far too feel-goody, and I’m already ill-disposed to spirituality so this kind of new age spirituality does not fulfill my needs. (I do agree with Pascal, that, to put in his own terms, "Kneel and move your lips like you believe, and you will believe." Don't understimate what he calls custom. But Pascal's not really trying to get over on anyone. Granted I don't know Levine's intentions, but.)
There’s one contemporary philosopher-critical theorist who calls these Levine types the New-Age Obscurantists. Accurate as I see it. Peace, love, and understanding (but weak versions, with no plans and far too much idealism). (And don’t get me wrong, I love the song, at least the Costello version . . .) . . . but the crystals, power songs and power animals, spirit quests, aura-chakra (sp?)-yoga blah blah blah and the reading of Carlos Castaneda as if all of his writings are factual anthropology rather than fictions and enriched imaginings, this group I can do without. And when I’m in the process of dying, books like the Levine book insult me. I gave it a fair shot, read about two-thirds of it before returning it for a gratifying money-back guarantee, and then leaving the store wondered what the hell I was thinking.
“Let’s pretend you have a year to live, and that will give you insight into a fuller life.” The proposition might actually be true to a certain degree — however, the proposal, or the plan, itself is impossible. You CANNOT pretend to die. You cannot pretend you’re really feeling the pain, that you know how to cope with the psychology of what Frarella (in a comment) posted just over a week ago: How long does it take every morning from when you wake up until you first “Oh fuck, cancer!”? That’s the reality of all this. There is no new-agey solution and peaceful zazen posture for that! Nor for the physiology that dictates incessant pain that will not abate at all until you get out of the bad and take your, now, 30 mg of oxycontin. Crystals and spirit animals, don Genero and power songs don’t do it either. (And I’m a big mushroom fan so I could hang with don Genero, just not to save my life.)
Racism is often just nasty and pretty straightforward, though there are ironic versions such as Orientalism too. The irony here, with the Levine Posse, is that these figures seem to love all things “Eastern”: Buddhism, especially zen / sôn forms and esoteric practice, the loose clothing oft times, the teas, the herbs and alternative medicinal techniques, the whole cultural sensitivity to a fetishized form of ancient wisdom pulled out of an old Tide laundry detergent commercial on 1970s TV.
Why am I saying this? In the Levine book, you can find at least one such racist error (sure it’s only a mistake, but it’s curious that it only happens with regard to a non-white group and therefore no one seems to mind, e.g., author, proofreaders, editors — can you imagine someone saying "In the European language the word is ----"?). The author is discussing some type of sitting meditation or some other “very Asian” technique and the use of a special type of pillow to situate under yourself while you do it. He goes on to tell us that “in Asia they call this the pigae [hypothetical word].” In where? They what? So, we have misguided petouli adoration for “Eastern” culture, mixed with a racist misunderstanding of the complexity and history of scores of cultures and peoples and hundreds of languages. All the billions of people, all the cultures, all the histories, all the traditions, all the literatures, etc. etc. and “there is one word in Asian for …” Argh. In the Asian language we might call this “Big-nose syndrome.” Just my opinion, of which you’re probably heard enough for one day; and like one commenter reiterated: “Opinions are like assholes, . . .”
Kubler-Ross’s book is not a joke, it is sensitively done, and I believe she’s well qualified to deal with her subject matter; the main problem for me is that the book is expressly written not for patients or for the terminally ill but for those around them. That said, I would recommend her main book, On Death and Dying, to anyone else who’s not terribly ill, and she’s got a slew of other books that look helpful (after a skim on my part). The one issue that sticks in my craw a little is a continual return to the idea of “after life” in her writing. By definition death is the country from which no traveler returns, didn’t Joseph Smith say that? ☺ Difficult to write about when no one returns. Near death experiences are problematic, but I think the “return” of the patient disqualifies these individuals from speaking bout “what death is like” with full authority — they failed at dying. Sure, that’s the goal for most all of us, we don’t want to successfully die. But if I’m going to get good advice on what it’s like to be dead, well . . . I’m going to have to realize that personal desires don’t always conform to the world of the possible. That’s it. If you don’t mind the after life idea and if you know someone who’s terminally ill, read Kubler-Ross. She reads like she is very serious and sincere about it all. Points to her.
The problem remains is that there is nothing I’ve found yet that explicitly addresses these issues and questions — all the new ones that dominate my brain — in a manner that’s compatible with a materialist world view, with someone who is simply non-religious, with someone who doesn’t necessarily want to read about “happy” “fun” “finding peace” etc. — just get some explanations about psychologically what to expect, how to cope effectively with those around you, how to be a “good” terminally ill person.
Remember a number of books I mentioned about two weeks ago? Well, I’ve made it through half or so, of that group of five or so and wanted to offer my opinions. The book by Steven Levine called A Year to Live is a completely new age, pseudo-“Eastern” spirit quest, a manual for how to live the fullest life you possible can by pretending you’re going to die and then meditating, singing spirit songs, being “positive,” and forgiving everybody around you so the spirits of the universe harmonize, blah blah blah. Another way to put it, it’s a crock of shit. The long and short of it is that dying and confronting one’s death, or living the last undefined period you’ll ever have to live, is serious business; as a friend of mine said early on during this experience, “That’s why they say ‘Serious as cancer.’” Levine’s book is not, nor can it be. The premise is “Imagine / pretend /fantasize / whatever that you only have one year left to live, then do the make believe.” It doesn’t work, it all comes across as flippant, and far too feel-goody, and I’m already ill-disposed to spirituality so this kind of new age spirituality does not fulfill my needs. (I do agree with Pascal, that, to put in his own terms, "Kneel and move your lips like you believe, and you will believe." Don't understimate what he calls custom. But Pascal's not really trying to get over on anyone. Granted I don't know Levine's intentions, but.)
There’s one contemporary philosopher-critical theorist who calls these Levine types the New-Age Obscurantists. Accurate as I see it. Peace, love, and understanding (but weak versions, with no plans and far too much idealism). (And don’t get me wrong, I love the song, at least the Costello version . . .) . . . but the crystals, power songs and power animals, spirit quests, aura-chakra (sp?)-yoga blah blah blah and the reading of Carlos Castaneda as if all of his writings are factual anthropology rather than fictions and enriched imaginings, this group I can do without. And when I’m in the process of dying, books like the Levine book insult me. I gave it a fair shot, read about two-thirds of it before returning it for a gratifying money-back guarantee, and then leaving the store wondered what the hell I was thinking.
“Let’s pretend you have a year to live, and that will give you insight into a fuller life.” The proposition might actually be true to a certain degree — however, the proposal, or the plan, itself is impossible. You CANNOT pretend to die. You cannot pretend you’re really feeling the pain, that you know how to cope with the psychology of what Frarella (in a comment) posted just over a week ago: How long does it take every morning from when you wake up until you first “Oh fuck, cancer!”? That’s the reality of all this. There is no new-agey solution and peaceful zazen posture for that! Nor for the physiology that dictates incessant pain that will not abate at all until you get out of the bad and take your, now, 30 mg of oxycontin. Crystals and spirit animals, don Genero and power songs don’t do it either. (And I’m a big mushroom fan so I could hang with don Genero, just not to save my life.)
Racism is often just nasty and pretty straightforward, though there are ironic versions such as Orientalism too. The irony here, with the Levine Posse, is that these figures seem to love all things “Eastern”: Buddhism, especially zen / sôn forms and esoteric practice, the loose clothing oft times, the teas, the herbs and alternative medicinal techniques, the whole cultural sensitivity to a fetishized form of ancient wisdom pulled out of an old Tide laundry detergent commercial on 1970s TV.
Why am I saying this? In the Levine book, you can find at least one such racist error (sure it’s only a mistake, but it’s curious that it only happens with regard to a non-white group and therefore no one seems to mind, e.g., author, proofreaders, editors — can you imagine someone saying "In the European language the word is ----"?). The author is discussing some type of sitting meditation or some other “very Asian” technique and the use of a special type of pillow to situate under yourself while you do it. He goes on to tell us that “in Asia they call this the pigae [hypothetical word].” In where? They what? So, we have misguided petouli adoration for “Eastern” culture, mixed with a racist misunderstanding of the complexity and history of scores of cultures and peoples and hundreds of languages. All the billions of people, all the cultures, all the histories, all the traditions, all the literatures, etc. etc. and “there is one word in Asian for …” Argh. In the Asian language we might call this “Big-nose syndrome.” Just my opinion, of which you’re probably heard enough for one day; and like one commenter reiterated: “Opinions are like assholes, . . .”
Kubler-Ross’s book is not a joke, it is sensitively done, and I believe she’s well qualified to deal with her subject matter; the main problem for me is that the book is expressly written not for patients or for the terminally ill but for those around them. That said, I would recommend her main book, On Death and Dying, to anyone else who’s not terribly ill, and she’s got a slew of other books that look helpful (after a skim on my part). The one issue that sticks in my craw a little is a continual return to the idea of “after life” in her writing. By definition death is the country from which no traveler returns, didn’t Joseph Smith say that? ☺ Difficult to write about when no one returns. Near death experiences are problematic, but I think the “return” of the patient disqualifies these individuals from speaking bout “what death is like” with full authority — they failed at dying. Sure, that’s the goal for most all of us, we don’t want to successfully die. But if I’m going to get good advice on what it’s like to be dead, well . . . I’m going to have to realize that personal desires don’t always conform to the world of the possible. That’s it. If you don’t mind the after life idea and if you know someone who’s terminally ill, read Kubler-Ross. She reads like she is very serious and sincere about it all. Points to her.
The problem remains is that there is nothing I’ve found yet that explicitly addresses these issues and questions — all the new ones that dominate my brain — in a manner that’s compatible with a materialist world view, with someone who is simply non-religious, with someone who doesn’t necessarily want to read about “happy” “fun” “finding peace” etc. — just get some explanations about psychologically what to expect, how to cope effectively with those around you, how to be a “good” terminally ill person.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
6.21.06 Like Any Other Morning
[All right, I forgot the Franky Scale, but when I do forget it that's a good sign, it probably means I'm thinking of what to do with myself that approximates some kind of normalcy, rather than the fine points and/or consequences of "5" or "6" or "......
Franky Scale: I will say 8 at 8 today. It's early, but I'll work with it.]
Fatigue from IV chemo is like, well it's like a lot of things, we have similes galore throughout the blog. It's like something really heavy, sudden, out of nowhere, worse than you remember, and demanding, something that quietly comes up from behind and grips you, enormous hands, and once they've locked on, you're a puppet or doll and all you're going to do is follow the hands. Entropy in your little world, that's what I felt like yesterday so I was home by about 4 pm after my oil change and the large hands dropped me into bed.
Today, then, I decided that since it had been over 8 hours (of sleep that is) what the hell? why not just get up and work into my morning of small bite to eat (oatmeal today) and multiple cups of coffee (this now follows, interrupts, and precedes 8 or 9 pills that have to be taken with Prune Juice in two or three installments, but what'ya gonna do?). In fact, if I have (special) people in town would it possible to get the off their asses to come out before nine a.m. for coffee, staring off into the space, discussion, maybe even something productive — like, organize my bills, finalize some legal documents, plan the scary plans! Once or twice over coffee, cocktail, or dimsum with Frank there were some conversations that would stop a few people in their tracks. It's just not the kind of thing you'd expect to find in public, still it happens.
So I succeeded in getting a phonecall from my sister, now let's place bets: will I really hear back from her before noon? Or in time for late lunch? Either way, you will find me at Bauhaus. My clock's ticking.
[I'll take real bets if anyone wants to put up a time-near-arrival in the comments section. For now I'll hold off because I know them so well, so the game is called "Bet how well you know Sheri/Stephi's punctuality" ... If eveyone bets one dollor, lots of hits, you could make a C-note off this. It's 8:20 AM, and Sheri and I spoke at 7:58 AM, Ready, Steady, Go!
--There was only one bet, for 9:52 AM, which turns out to be only 20 minutes off and LATE! --which they surprised me and the universe. The dollor will by yours. Betting is closed.]
Franky Scale: I will say 8 at 8 today. It's early, but I'll work with it.]
Fatigue from IV chemo is like, well it's like a lot of things, we have similes galore throughout the blog. It's like something really heavy, sudden, out of nowhere, worse than you remember, and demanding, something that quietly comes up from behind and grips you, enormous hands, and once they've locked on, you're a puppet or doll and all you're going to do is follow the hands. Entropy in your little world, that's what I felt like yesterday so I was home by about 4 pm after my oil change and the large hands dropped me into bed.
Today, then, I decided that since it had been over 8 hours (of sleep that is) what the hell? why not just get up and work into my morning of small bite to eat (oatmeal today) and multiple cups of coffee (this now follows, interrupts, and precedes 8 or 9 pills that have to be taken with Prune Juice in two or three installments, but what'ya gonna do?). In fact, if I have (special) people in town would it possible to get the off their asses to come out before nine a.m. for coffee, staring off into the space, discussion, maybe even something productive — like, organize my bills, finalize some legal documents, plan the scary plans! Once or twice over coffee, cocktail, or dimsum with Frank there were some conversations that would stop a few people in their tracks. It's just not the kind of thing you'd expect to find in public, still it happens.
So I succeeded in getting a phonecall from my sister, now let's place bets: will I really hear back from her before noon? Or in time for late lunch? Either way, you will find me at Bauhaus. My clock's ticking.
[I'll take real bets if anyone wants to put up a time-near-arrival in the comments section. For now I'll hold off because I know them so well, so the game is called "Bet how well you know Sheri/Stephi's punctuality" ... If eveyone bets one dollor, lots of hits, you could make a C-note off this. It's 8:20 AM, and Sheri and I spoke at 7:58 AM, Ready, Steady, Go!
--There was only one bet, for 9:52 AM, which turns out to be only 20 minutes off and LATE! --which they surprised me and the universe. The dollor will by yours. Betting is closed.]
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
6.20.06 The Quickie
The Franky Scale: 6, a haze of bagged meds, pre-meds, post-meds, and whatever meds you like to imagine.
The Lesson: To write in verse is to throw a wrench in communication's gears. At least in some cases. Be grateful I'm not going to versify today, he said.
The Situation: IV chemo treatment all day with Larry & Lefty. Questions, questions, questions. Perhaps some answers too.
The Condition: Just about too tired to type.......so...
The Lesson: To write in verse is to throw a wrench in communication's gears. At least in some cases. Be grateful I'm not going to versify today, he said.
The Situation: IV chemo treatment all day with Larry & Lefty. Questions, questions, questions. Perhaps some answers too.
The Condition: Just about too tired to type.......so...
Monday, June 19, 2006
6.19.06 turn time then sleep
wait for hours, ----start that again
----what four hours, for wait...?
scala di francis: 7 to start
scala di francis: less one Whole day
the daily game of subtraction.
three bottles from one Rx
[drop line] four from the next Rx
one left out, too much control, too much narcotic
for you my boy: you must wait three days till doom,
then pop, they're yours & we'll be happy to(o)
on my desk are permenant markers: red, black.
[txt msg: like to, guilt, promises, soon]
pulled over one writes "oxyco-done #4"
4th bottle, 5th mg, now the joke pill,
the other writes "B-6" — what, that's not controlled?
"no, but it's cheaper"
i can't keep any of them straight
[call in: truly sorry, just can't]
first red, third bottle, "loraz.", simple, to know
fourth gets "temaz." &/or "sleep" & is useless
"so why do i have that one?"
(Just in case, Hemlock, I mean, Sherlock.
then i write it out, s, l, e, e, p, close quote, why
do i put qts on the bottle's cap?
[text msg: baseball, "we," "u" lots of characters =
headache]is what is on my plate, food, they say, weighs
something like 20 lbs a spoonful, and if funny
you come do it, see how the process of trans-
substantiation really works: the Host to sheer ex-
aggerated weight, the weight to lips, the lips to tongue,
now the Host is just so many calories, & the weight
of the Fall is on your tongue. if it's funny, you come
do it. you cannot bring about the change but
through strength of will: oxycotton, metocloprom,
protonix, clonazepam, oxycodone, lorazepam, zofran,
xeloda + b-6, sildenafil citrate, & then zolpidem.
ah, that's right, how was your day?
----what four hours, for wait...?
scala di francis: 7 to start
scala di francis: less one Whole day
the daily game of subtraction.
three bottles from one Rx
[drop line] four from the next Rx
one left out, too much control, too much narcotic
for you my boy: you must wait three days till doom,
then pop, they're yours & we'll be happy to(o)
on my desk are permenant markers: red, black.
[txt msg: like to, guilt, promises, soon]
pulled over one writes "oxyco-done #4"
4th bottle, 5th mg, now the joke pill,
the other writes "B-6" — what, that's not controlled?
"no, but it's cheaper"
i can't keep any of them straight
[call in: truly sorry, just can't]
first red, third bottle, "loraz.", simple, to know
fourth gets "temaz." &/or "sleep" & is useless
"so why do i have that one?"
(Just in case, Hemlock, I mean, Sherlock.
then i write it out, s, l, e, e, p, close quote, why
do i put qts on the bottle's cap?
[text msg: baseball, "we," "u" lots of characters =
headache]is what is on my plate, food, they say, weighs
something like 20 lbs a spoonful, and if funny
you come do it, see how the process of trans-
substantiation really works: the Host to sheer ex-
aggerated weight, the weight to lips, the lips to tongue,
now the Host is just so many calories, & the weight
of the Fall is on your tongue. if it's funny, you come
do it. you cannot bring about the change but
through strength of will: oxycotton, metocloprom,
protonix, clonazepam, oxycodone, lorazepam, zofran,
xeloda + b-6, sildenafil citrate, & then zolpidem.
ah, that's right, how was your day?
6.18.06 Skimming...
[Musical note: I've been listening to this CD over and over again for the past two days, but not for months before that, and I'm thinking that Coltrane's live performance Newport '63 has got to be one of the best live recordings around.]
Sunday 18 June I let slip intentionally. What with the lengthy post on Saturday and the boredom factor of it being probably high. Today, a day of rest.
For me the day was physically all right, by the end of the day I'd post a solid 7 on the Franky Scale, but would have said 8 if you caught me in the first half of it. No matter, the nausea and other chemo effect subsided to a huge degree since Tues, and Wed, and Thurs, and .... so I'm happy not to complain today. It was spent mostly organicizing my "life" or my small apartment rather, which really had gotten out of hand, piles of bills and medical records and books and brochures on how to have cancer and how to die.
Speaking of which, tomorrow I'll go into details but the Kubler-Ross book is not really my cup of tea — it's not so much a book "for" terminally ill patients but I think it might be quite good for friends, family, care givers, and those of "you" around "us." So bizarre. Then the Steven Levine book was so bad I'm going back to return it. A crock of new-age spiritualist hooey (is that how one spells "hooey"), a nice word for bullshit. And the clincher was one point when he's explaining that "in the Asian language they call this thing X." "The" Asian language? Is that like "the" African language? All them Asians down there in South, Southeast, Northeast Asia... does he include the Middle East? "In Asia they say..."! I was already slightly tilted to one side by what seemed to be an occasionally glib new-age "approach" to how to die, from someone who is clearly only guessing, but then the ignorance and racism wrapped into that surely well-meaning line about Those Asians. Um, nope. (Just think of all the time some of us could have save in graduate school if we knew there was just one Asian language to learn that They all know....?) Anyway, very much not my cup of tea. I think I'm looking into a lacuna, the big empty spot of nothing, or little blind bit of nothing. Still, I can't see anything there, no good books on this. The old standards that tend toward psychology, psychoanalysis, then existentialism (taken broadly) really have a hell of a lot more insight than the ones you find in the "Self Help" section. Come 'ere, I'll give you a little self help. OK, enough of this. I'll explain more on the book review front tomorrow if time allows with Larry and Lefty in town.
It only took them something like 26 hours to drive here from Salt Lake. Hm. (... and I hope I did not disappoint by not talking about orgasms after the subject line above.)
[Request, serious one: If anyone has happened across this blog and has serious cancer, is terminally ill, etc. and it's moving in any way, and if you're interested in communicating one on one, I'd like to do so, or I'd be happy to, as the saying goes. We can arrange something, if so, just let me know. I've heard there are a few such people out there and there are definitely some internet addresses I don't recognize. Possibly being of some service to people like that — which means other people like me — was one reason in my mind when I started this whole thing. Keep fighting. Mr. J.]
Sunday 18 June I let slip intentionally. What with the lengthy post on Saturday and the boredom factor of it being probably high. Today, a day of rest.
For me the day was physically all right, by the end of the day I'd post a solid 7 on the Franky Scale, but would have said 8 if you caught me in the first half of it. No matter, the nausea and other chemo effect subsided to a huge degree since Tues, and Wed, and Thurs, and .... so I'm happy not to complain today. It was spent mostly organicizing my "life" or my small apartment rather, which really had gotten out of hand, piles of bills and medical records and books and brochures on how to have cancer and how to die.
Speaking of which, tomorrow I'll go into details but the Kubler-Ross book is not really my cup of tea — it's not so much a book "for" terminally ill patients but I think it might be quite good for friends, family, care givers, and those of "you" around "us." So bizarre. Then the Steven Levine book was so bad I'm going back to return it. A crock of new-age spiritualist hooey (is that how one spells "hooey"), a nice word for bullshit. And the clincher was one point when he's explaining that "in the Asian language they call this thing X." "The" Asian language? Is that like "the" African language? All them Asians down there in South, Southeast, Northeast Asia... does he include the Middle East? "In Asia they say..."! I was already slightly tilted to one side by what seemed to be an occasionally glib new-age "approach" to how to die, from someone who is clearly only guessing, but then the ignorance and racism wrapped into that surely well-meaning line about Those Asians. Um, nope. (Just think of all the time some of us could have save in graduate school if we knew there was just one Asian language to learn that They all know....?) Anyway, very much not my cup of tea. I think I'm looking into a lacuna, the big empty spot of nothing, or little blind bit of nothing. Still, I can't see anything there, no good books on this. The old standards that tend toward psychology, psychoanalysis, then existentialism (taken broadly) really have a hell of a lot more insight than the ones you find in the "Self Help" section. Come 'ere, I'll give you a little self help. OK, enough of this. I'll explain more on the book review front tomorrow if time allows with Larry and Lefty in town.
It only took them something like 26 hours to drive here from Salt Lake. Hm. (... and I hope I did not disappoint by not talking about orgasms after the subject line above.)
[Request, serious one: If anyone has happened across this blog and has serious cancer, is terminally ill, etc. and it's moving in any way, and if you're interested in communicating one on one, I'd like to do so, or I'd be happy to, as the saying goes. We can arrange something, if so, just let me know. I've heard there are a few such people out there and there are definitely some internet addresses I don't recognize. Possibly being of some service to people like that — which means other people like me — was one reason in my mind when I started this whole thing. Keep fighting. Mr. J.]
Saturday, June 17, 2006
6.17.06, Part 4: "Do Not Go Gentle," Uncanny Holidays
[If you’re bored or morose, sit down and enjoy. Grab a drink maybe, then sit back down. Which is to warn that this post is a bit long.]
[cont. from two days ago]
Again, the last seven lines of the poem:
. . .
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I think this is the point with the father reference, we have no background or context, so we are forced to “read” large. To the extent we desire some insight from this verbal puzzle, we must step back and view it through a larger philosophical, psychological framework and correspondingly larger semiotic field: even if the poem were written specifically to / for the poet’s father and the poet is presumed to be the speaker of the poem, the universality of a “father figure” would still give it the widest possible applicability. (Death and father figures — death and taxes = the two phrases are synonymous, as should be seen.) Not everyone has a father, a particular individual in time and space, having a unique name, etc., however every one of us grows up relating to or living “under” a father function. That is, the symbolic father becomes more important to our making of meaning than the biological father — I used the phrase the father figure above, but the phrase father function more accurately describes it (also, or paternal function). What we need is to investigate the father function through this poem — that’s the point where I think we’ll find some answers. This final part of the analysis, then, covers the father function and then answers “Why?” the father is introduced into the poem in the first place, or, as it were, in the last place.
“What happens if a certain lack has occurred in the formative function of the father?” A question from Jacques Lacan, Seminar III (230). Analytically speaking the answer concerns some form of psychosis but here I think we can read this question, too, more broadly and productively. Our main question, of which the latter question is just a piece, is what is the function of the father in society. (For my readers who know Lacan, I warn you now this is all basics and you might want just to skip the nom-du-père stuff.) First the idea of “lack” from above: in the Lacanian system lack is constitutively tied to desire, in fact, desire is lack. Anything we want, ever, suggests some lack that marks us (so we perceive). Elsewhere, more linguistically put, “[d]esire is a question” also, a wanting something done, something changed, a wanting to know (Fink’s Intro 100, see below). Humans constituted by lack is perhaps the most solid Lacanian idea.
Lacan’s question refers to a lack we will return to, but I want to note here that any apparent lack in the formative function of the father has to do with one individual. Clearly it’s the child, the poem’s speaker. Thomas’s speaker is the one whom the formative function has somehow effected, so as to make the speaker express his desire as either / both “Bless me” and “Curse me”; we as readers are left to figure out which and why. Plenitude in any relationship, even the individual’s to the external world, is always already a lie, however, Lacan’s question, vis-à-vis Thomas’s poem, presumes a specific lack. In other words, something's amiss between Mr. Cleaver and one of his fine sons (— n.b., the observation on plenitude might be another way of expressing and exposing the ideological nature of “happiness” and “fun” referred to earlier —).
The father function idea is not unique to Lacan, the phrase itself appears in Freud somewhere, but Lacan’s analysis of and expanded work on the concept provide us with more interpretive options. From the French phrasing, we’re given at least four ways to interpret what the Name-of-the-Father might mean. Since is more suggestive in French than in English, please pardon my French. As noted already the French for “name of the father” is “nom du père”; when you read the term generously, include puns and near homophones, you come up with the following options:
(1) “the name of the father” simply as a given father’s actual name, e.g. John Smith;
(2) “the name of the father” as the Law of society, the primary figure of Authority or Authority Itself, “the Man,” the Law Giver, or think the Architect in The Matrix, think Tony Soprano;
(3) “the noun (of the) ‘father’” since the word nom is both “name” and “noun” in French, so both the noun “father” and the father’s “person, place, or thing”;
(4) “the ‘No’ of the father” / “the father’s ‘No!’”, the father’s prohibition, since the words nom and non are pronounced the same in French.
We need to think all these possibilities simultaneously. (Scads of citations for this, so I won’t bother, but if anyone is genuinely interested see Bruce Fink’s Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis [Harvard University Press, 1997].)
Why say all this? Just intellectual masturbation, compensation for unhappy wood scale numbers, sublimation? On the contrary I think Lacan’s ideas on the father function, with the linguistic analysis, provide an excellent frame for understanding how we’re all tied in to the Father, even if we don’t have one, even if it’s a mother, even if it’s a cop, etc. Also because the tie is often tightened by a simple word. Thomas introduces all these potentially paradigmatic figures in the poem (5 x); then he reveals his “father”; so the poem can be summed up semantically with (a) immanent death, (b) failed exemplars, (c) the Father, and (d) an ambivalent plea, question, desire, lack. For me, the “answer” to the poem is that as death approaches the dying desire some recognition from the Father, from Authority, the System, in the largest possible sense. There is a lack of meaning, so, a desire for meaning, for sense, for peace perhaps. You might now say, “Well, duh,” and I wouldn’t blame you. It’s more subtle, though, because it’s not Peace of mind that is requested, the speaker just wants a response. It’s not “the meaning” nor any meaning, it’s just acknowledgment, recognition.
You also could accuse me of merely listing off truisms about authority and hierarchy and patriarchy, etc., but that would be to ignore the poem’s particular insight. On top of the most memorable features, which are sonorous and rhythmic (to me), this poem offers a fresh look at how a “would-be” turn to / appeal to authority, in the form of the father function which keeps the balance and maintains the order of a chaotic world, becomes so important in the face of tragedy and death. Yes, it is implied that (a) some peace might be had in a father’s blessing, in a one-on-one reconciliation — but we should be realistic, this sword cuts both ways; and (b) the father might be off drunk, away on business, in a nursing home, too proud to respond, and / or senile and unable. (Cf. Tom Waits, “God’s Away on Business,” Blood Money, 2000; Elvis Costello, “God’s Comic,” Spike, 1989.)
What does it all mean? (I love it, the one really meaningless question.) Or more painfully to the point, is Thomas’s poem really a rallying cry to go spit in Death’s face when it’s time to go? In the real world the father function never works, but the speaker’s desire there is intact. In the end, the noun / name father stands in for authority writ large, for the Law, and it represents the final, utmost, desire / recognition or approbation that we seek (to the degree with identify with the speaker). Further, recognition counts more for us than approbation since we, with the speaker, don’t seem to care whether it’s a curse or a blessing, . . . could be just a nod, a smack across the cheek, a hug and pat on the shoulder.
We all want the paternal function to work, to the very end; we always haunt ourselves with the difference between the ideal and the real. And we’re haunted more in some respects when the paternal function remains in place and we as children are forced first to say that “dark is right” (l. 4) — not in a moral sense, but in the sense that even a craps game has rules. Lots of them in fact. Still, the rallying cry part might work: our cry may not to win a bet only, it could be win or lose, but we want the croupier to recognize it when place the bet. That is all we ask. It could be a little patch of voluntarism in a deterministic world, or “We make our own history, but do not make it as we please; we do not make it under self-selected circumstances , but with poems existing already, given and transmitted from the past. . . ” (what Marx might have said if he had stuck to poetry).
[cont. from two days ago]
Again, the last seven lines of the poem:
. . .
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I think this is the point with the father reference, we have no background or context, so we are forced to “read” large. To the extent we desire some insight from this verbal puzzle, we must step back and view it through a larger philosophical, psychological framework and correspondingly larger semiotic field: even if the poem were written specifically to / for the poet’s father and the poet is presumed to be the speaker of the poem, the universality of a “father figure” would still give it the widest possible applicability. (Death and father figures — death and taxes = the two phrases are synonymous, as should be seen.) Not everyone has a father, a particular individual in time and space, having a unique name, etc., however every one of us grows up relating to or living “under” a father function. That is, the symbolic father becomes more important to our making of meaning than the biological father — I used the phrase the father figure above, but the phrase father function more accurately describes it (also, or paternal function). What we need is to investigate the father function through this poem — that’s the point where I think we’ll find some answers. This final part of the analysis, then, covers the father function and then answers “Why?” the father is introduced into the poem in the first place, or, as it were, in the last place.
“What happens if a certain lack has occurred in the formative function of the father?” A question from Jacques Lacan, Seminar III (230). Analytically speaking the answer concerns some form of psychosis but here I think we can read this question, too, more broadly and productively. Our main question, of which the latter question is just a piece, is what is the function of the father in society. (For my readers who know Lacan, I warn you now this is all basics and you might want just to skip the nom-du-père stuff.) First the idea of “lack” from above: in the Lacanian system lack is constitutively tied to desire, in fact, desire is lack. Anything we want, ever, suggests some lack that marks us (so we perceive). Elsewhere, more linguistically put, “[d]esire is a question” also, a wanting something done, something changed, a wanting to know (Fink’s Intro 100, see below). Humans constituted by lack is perhaps the most solid Lacanian idea.
Lacan’s question refers to a lack we will return to, but I want to note here that any apparent lack in the formative function of the father has to do with one individual. Clearly it’s the child, the poem’s speaker. Thomas’s speaker is the one whom the formative function has somehow effected, so as to make the speaker express his desire as either / both “Bless me” and “Curse me”; we as readers are left to figure out which and why. Plenitude in any relationship, even the individual’s to the external world, is always already a lie, however, Lacan’s question, vis-à-vis Thomas’s poem, presumes a specific lack. In other words, something's amiss between Mr. Cleaver and one of his fine sons (— n.b., the observation on plenitude might be another way of expressing and exposing the ideological nature of “happiness” and “fun” referred to earlier —).
The father function idea is not unique to Lacan, the phrase itself appears in Freud somewhere, but Lacan’s analysis of and expanded work on the concept provide us with more interpretive options. From the French phrasing, we’re given at least four ways to interpret what the Name-of-the-Father might mean. Since is more suggestive in French than in English, please pardon my French. As noted already the French for “name of the father” is “nom du père”; when you read the term generously, include puns and near homophones, you come up with the following options:
(1) “the name of the father” simply as a given father’s actual name, e.g. John Smith;
(2) “the name of the father” as the Law of society, the primary figure of Authority or Authority Itself, “the Man,” the Law Giver, or think the Architect in The Matrix, think Tony Soprano;
(3) “the noun (of the) ‘father’” since the word nom is both “name” and “noun” in French, so both the noun “father” and the father’s “person, place, or thing”;
(4) “the ‘No’ of the father” / “the father’s ‘No!’”, the father’s prohibition, since the words nom and non are pronounced the same in French.
We need to think all these possibilities simultaneously. (Scads of citations for this, so I won’t bother, but if anyone is genuinely interested see Bruce Fink’s Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis [Harvard University Press, 1997].)
Why say all this? Just intellectual masturbation, compensation for unhappy wood scale numbers, sublimation? On the contrary I think Lacan’s ideas on the father function, with the linguistic analysis, provide an excellent frame for understanding how we’re all tied in to the Father, even if we don’t have one, even if it’s a mother, even if it’s a cop, etc. Also because the tie is often tightened by a simple word. Thomas introduces all these potentially paradigmatic figures in the poem (5 x); then he reveals his “father”; so the poem can be summed up semantically with (a) immanent death, (b) failed exemplars, (c) the Father, and (d) an ambivalent plea, question, desire, lack. For me, the “answer” to the poem is that as death approaches the dying desire some recognition from the Father, from Authority, the System, in the largest possible sense. There is a lack of meaning, so, a desire for meaning, for sense, for peace perhaps. You might now say, “Well, duh,” and I wouldn’t blame you. It’s more subtle, though, because it’s not Peace of mind that is requested, the speaker just wants a response. It’s not “the meaning” nor any meaning, it’s just acknowledgment, recognition.
You also could accuse me of merely listing off truisms about authority and hierarchy and patriarchy, etc., but that would be to ignore the poem’s particular insight. On top of the most memorable features, which are sonorous and rhythmic (to me), this poem offers a fresh look at how a “would-be” turn to / appeal to authority, in the form of the father function which keeps the balance and maintains the order of a chaotic world, becomes so important in the face of tragedy and death. Yes, it is implied that (a) some peace might be had in a father’s blessing, in a one-on-one reconciliation — but we should be realistic, this sword cuts both ways; and (b) the father might be off drunk, away on business, in a nursing home, too proud to respond, and / or senile and unable. (Cf. Tom Waits, “God’s Away on Business,” Blood Money, 2000; Elvis Costello, “God’s Comic,” Spike, 1989.)
What does it all mean? (I love it, the one really meaningless question.) Or more painfully to the point, is Thomas’s poem really a rallying cry to go spit in Death’s face when it’s time to go? In the real world the father function never works, but the speaker’s desire there is intact. In the end, the noun / name father stands in for authority writ large, for the Law, and it represents the final, utmost, desire / recognition or approbation that we seek (to the degree with identify with the speaker). Further, recognition counts more for us than approbation since we, with the speaker, don’t seem to care whether it’s a curse or a blessing, . . . could be just a nod, a smack across the cheek, a hug and pat on the shoulder.
We all want the paternal function to work, to the very end; we always haunt ourselves with the difference between the ideal and the real. And we’re haunted more in some respects when the paternal function remains in place and we as children are forced first to say that “dark is right” (l. 4) — not in a moral sense, but in the sense that even a craps game has rules. Lots of them in fact. Still, the rallying cry part might work: our cry may not to win a bet only, it could be win or lose, but we want the croupier to recognize it when place the bet. That is all we ask. It could be a little patch of voluntarism in a deterministic world, or “We make our own history, but do not make it as we please; we do not make it under self-selected circumstances , but with poems existing already, given and transmitted from the past. . . ” (what Marx might have said if he had stuck to poetry).
Friday, June 16, 2006
6.16.06, The Straight Story
OK, certain completely wild over-statements, not even over-statements, just crazy falsehoods have come to my attention regarding "my condition," and it seems necessary to set the story straight & remind some readers what the original purpose of the blog is. Family members in particular, this is for you.
The real story is that I'm fine, you know, given the larger circumstances. There have been no dramatic changes, no setbacks, no surprises or emergencies, etc. I even feel better than the last few days, don't know if I'd say 7 on the Franky Scale but I do feel better than yesterday, which was probably a low 6. I posted that online, though, you should trust what I put up here; I'm not going to complain constantly ever but I will let you know honestly how things are.
Our family. We all know that the family is not the best at accurately conveying information to each other, and that with a handful to a dozen people involved that's even harder. It's like a game of Telephone gone wild. But that's one reason I started doing the blog, so you could each check in without me calling every individual, and you could see "Oh, some nausea today, too bad," or "Ah, less nausea, new pain meds, that's good," or whatever; and so there is one source of information. Still baffles me how one phone conversation can result in so many fictions. I know people worry, I realize it must be hard to be far away and rely on the blog, but "Whatta ya gonna do?"
Funny, I had to send an email kind of like this, but much more professional in tone of course, to a graduate student last week, just to remind the student that telling other students or faculty "I heard X & Y are happening next year because Prof. Jones is...." Rumors. Not good policy; I thought everyone knew this kind of thing.
Too bad I don't carry as much authority with my family as I do with grad students. Life would be easier. So please don't worry so much, maybe read more carefully instead. :-)
The real story is that I'm fine, you know, given the larger circumstances. There have been no dramatic changes, no setbacks, no surprises or emergencies, etc. I even feel better than the last few days, don't know if I'd say 7 on the Franky Scale but I do feel better than yesterday, which was probably a low 6. I posted that online, though, you should trust what I put up here; I'm not going to complain constantly ever but I will let you know honestly how things are.
Our family. We all know that the family is not the best at accurately conveying information to each other, and that with a handful to a dozen people involved that's even harder. It's like a game of Telephone gone wild. But that's one reason I started doing the blog, so you could each check in without me calling every individual, and you could see "Oh, some nausea today, too bad," or "Ah, less nausea, new pain meds, that's good," or whatever; and so there is one source of information. Still baffles me how one phone conversation can result in so many fictions. I know people worry, I realize it must be hard to be far away and rely on the blog, but "Whatta ya gonna do?"
Funny, I had to send an email kind of like this, but much more professional in tone of course, to a graduate student last week, just to remind the student that telling other students or faculty "I heard X & Y are happening next year because Prof. Jones is...." Rumors. Not good policy; I thought everyone knew this kind of thing.
Too bad I don't carry as much authority with my family as I do with grad students. Life would be easier. So please don't worry so much, maybe read more carefully instead. :-)
Thursday, June 15, 2006
6.15.06, Part 3: "Do Not Go Gentle . . ."
A note before the next installment of the exegesis, on almost invisible change.
Franky Scale: 6, three tough days. Not much to be said, though I have liked reading the comments of the past couple of days. Thanks.
There is a sign. A shocking sign, I found, just this morning of the Effects of It All. I left Salt Lake on Monday and didn't shave that morning since what's the point, I was just going to board a plane. Then Tuesday being infusion day, what's the point. And Wednesday was surprisingly unlike the other day-after-infusion days, in that it sucked more, so I skipped it again. The way many men seem to go grey is from the facial hair first, and with me too this is the case. No big deal, no big surprise. I've seen my facial hair become more salt-and-peppery starting, say, three years ago. A little here and a little there. When I shave every day, however, the progress is much less pronounced and up till now it's been what I would assume is normal. A few white hairs show up in my sideburns, also no surprise. But this morning when I looked in the mirror before shaving I saw the sign, not all over my face but definitely my entire chin — white! Not salt-and-pepper but all white. Whether it's the shock of so many drugs for nearly three months, the toxicity of the chemotherapy, or the emotional stress of the experience, whatever the reason there is a chin that's now totally white if were not to shave it. Not that it means much but it's strange and sudden none the less. Just passing on a little a.m. observation to you.
On the continued reading of the poem then.
Part 3: “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” In the Name of the Father
. . .
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
There is that line, “Curse, bless me now father with your fierce tears . . .”
I love this line, the way it extenuates and simultaneously deepens the sense or contradictory undertone in the poem, the internal rhymes, alliteration, rhythm, even a chiastic structure to the consonance (if you read only to comma like I’ve done, leaving “I pray” aside for now). What also draws me is a sick sense of trainwreck syndrome, the morbid curiosity or even psychic need some of us feel to watch the damn thing come off the tracks, smash and kill, possibly ignite, and then those inside . . . We can’t take our eyes off it because it demands our gaze, and we know this, but we must look. I feel similar about these lines that are the key and pivotal moment in Thomas’s poem — the entire piece is general, filled with truisms perhaps expressed uniquely or memorably, and then “Wham!” this line makes it uncomfortably personal. Is the phrase “uncomfortably personal” symptomatic of something? Of course it is. Why else would I be writing this . . . ?
Briefly reviewing the list of characters introduced before the crying father might be a valuable exercise. One after the other, we see the old, the wise, the wild, the grave; then we read “[a]nd you,” and realize the whole piece is directed to the speaker’s father. But those characters, we remember from a previous piece of this reading, they all represent would-be raging or failures or trying-too-lates. It makes one wonder where and why does the father fit in?
The poem itself withholds the father context and any backstory and yet obviously there is a separation, a hierarchy, a remove; the speaker and father exist on different planes of existence, on planes across one might identify but perhaps not empathize with the other emotionally: the father’s sad height, the child’s ambivalent prayer. Does the remove or the “height” suggest a Father of all, some patriarchal god-myth, is it a societal authority or what some call the Law or the-Name-of-the-Father, or does it suggest merely a child-father relationship that clearly has been strained and is now — through an immanent death — forced back into some proximity. In any event there is a contact across the hierarchy, a vertical move or attempted move. And what is the mood or tone, the sadness, what are the tears that are fierce? I want to open up the semantic possibilities of the poem, which means I won’t go into a biographical or psychologist reading of Dylan Thomas’s life, his young death or his father’s health problems; . . .
There are some answers to these questions that I would pose, answers I’d pose not questions, back through a psychoanalytic framework; I think there are enough hints in the text suggest what’s being sought, but I don’t want to post too much at the moment, so once again TBC . . . (and then on to the-Name-of-the-Father, the Nom-du-Père, next time).
Franky Scale: 6, three tough days. Not much to be said, though I have liked reading the comments of the past couple of days. Thanks.
There is a sign. A shocking sign, I found, just this morning of the Effects of It All. I left Salt Lake on Monday and didn't shave that morning since what's the point, I was just going to board a plane. Then Tuesday being infusion day, what's the point. And Wednesday was surprisingly unlike the other day-after-infusion days, in that it sucked more, so I skipped it again. The way many men seem to go grey is from the facial hair first, and with me too this is the case. No big deal, no big surprise. I've seen my facial hair become more salt-and-peppery starting, say, three years ago. A little here and a little there. When I shave every day, however, the progress is much less pronounced and up till now it's been what I would assume is normal. A few white hairs show up in my sideburns, also no surprise. But this morning when I looked in the mirror before shaving I saw the sign, not all over my face but definitely my entire chin — white! Not salt-and-pepper but all white. Whether it's the shock of so many drugs for nearly three months, the toxicity of the chemotherapy, or the emotional stress of the experience, whatever the reason there is a chin that's now totally white if were not to shave it. Not that it means much but it's strange and sudden none the less. Just passing on a little a.m. observation to you.
On the continued reading of the poem then.
Part 3: “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” In the Name of the Father
. . .
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
There is that line, “Curse, bless me now father with your fierce tears . . .”
I love this line, the way it extenuates and simultaneously deepens the sense or contradictory undertone in the poem, the internal rhymes, alliteration, rhythm, even a chiastic structure to the consonance (if you read only to comma like I’ve done, leaving “I pray” aside for now). What also draws me is a sick sense of trainwreck syndrome, the morbid curiosity or even psychic need some of us feel to watch the damn thing come off the tracks, smash and kill, possibly ignite, and then those inside . . . We can’t take our eyes off it because it demands our gaze, and we know this, but we must look. I feel similar about these lines that are the key and pivotal moment in Thomas’s poem — the entire piece is general, filled with truisms perhaps expressed uniquely or memorably, and then “Wham!” this line makes it uncomfortably personal. Is the phrase “uncomfortably personal” symptomatic of something? Of course it is. Why else would I be writing this . . . ?
Briefly reviewing the list of characters introduced before the crying father might be a valuable exercise. One after the other, we see the old, the wise, the wild, the grave; then we read “[a]nd you,” and realize the whole piece is directed to the speaker’s father. But those characters, we remember from a previous piece of this reading, they all represent would-be raging or failures or trying-too-lates. It makes one wonder where and why does the father fit in?
The poem itself withholds the father context and any backstory and yet obviously there is a separation, a hierarchy, a remove; the speaker and father exist on different planes of existence, on planes across one might identify but perhaps not empathize with the other emotionally: the father’s sad height, the child’s ambivalent prayer. Does the remove or the “height” suggest a Father of all, some patriarchal god-myth, is it a societal authority or what some call the Law or the-Name-of-the-Father, or does it suggest merely a child-father relationship that clearly has been strained and is now — through an immanent death — forced back into some proximity. In any event there is a contact across the hierarchy, a vertical move or attempted move. And what is the mood or tone, the sadness, what are the tears that are fierce? I want to open up the semantic possibilities of the poem, which means I won’t go into a biographical or psychologist reading of Dylan Thomas’s life, his young death or his father’s health problems; . . .
There are some answers to these questions that I would pose, answers I’d pose not questions, back through a psychoanalytic framework; I think there are enough hints in the text suggest what’s being sought, but I don’t want to post too much at the moment, so once again TBC . . . (and then on to the-Name-of-the-Father, the Nom-du-Père, next time).
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
6.14.06, Come Back Tomorrow, more on Thomas's poem...
At this point in the afternoon I've just found myself engrossed in the last, and earlier promised, section of my exegesis of the Dylan Thomas poem. I figure it's still due and appropriate, and there are some insights from the poem's end that shed more light on the less than simple if not paradoxical nature of "not going gentle." Presently...
Franky Scale today: 6. Many sent encouraging notes along the lines of "get your ass up above 5!", my thanks, but you can look at this way. The rest of me, whatever parts those are, feels pretty good, but the goddam nausea has picked up with this cycle of chemo and it's just incredibly tedious & frustrating. It seems that nausea and pain have much in common, and can be so interrelated that the presence of either might cause the other. That's part of the frustration, the other is that even when you feel the nausea and know that it isn't pain per se it has nearly the same effects. You just need to get rid of it as quickly as possible, if it's intense; if it's mild but persistent, then it's like a hairshirt in summertime. (. . . though I have yet to be blessed with that experience.)
Maybe I should change my profile name to "piss & moan" . . . ;-)
I'll be back in the evening with some more poetic extrajesus, till then . . .
[Famous last words, for the day at least: I'll work on the exegesis but the evening is nearly spent, night opens, and I'm still in the middle of both dinner and the blog. Dinner I'll finish, the blog will have to wait till morning.]
Franky Scale today: 6. Many sent encouraging notes along the lines of "get your ass up above 5!", my thanks, but you can look at this way. The rest of me, whatever parts those are, feels pretty good, but the goddam nausea has picked up with this cycle of chemo and it's just incredibly tedious & frustrating. It seems that nausea and pain have much in common, and can be so interrelated that the presence of either might cause the other. That's part of the frustration, the other is that even when you feel the nausea and know that it isn't pain per se it has nearly the same effects. You just need to get rid of it as quickly as possible, if it's intense; if it's mild but persistent, then it's like a hairshirt in summertime. (. . . though I have yet to be blessed with that experience.)
Maybe I should change my profile name to "piss & moan" . . . ;-)
I'll be back in the evening with some more poetic extrajesus, till then . . .
[Famous last words, for the day at least: I'll work on the exegesis but the evening is nearly spent, night opens, and I'm still in the middle of both dinner and the blog. Dinner I'll finish, the blog will have to wait till morning.]
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
6.13.06, Chemo IV Day, Start of Cycle #4
From 11 a.m. to about 5 p.m. spent in the infusion mall today at the SCCA. Nausea and pain were much worse today. On the Franky Scale I could maybe go to a 5, but it was draining. Probably due to the cumulative effect of the chemo; there is the one-week recup period each cycle but that's not quite enough. We try to walk that thin tight rope between killing off the cancer and killing off the rest of me — and with the cancer you've got to do what you can before it smartens up and modifies iteself. Chemotherapy has made huge progress in terms of lessened side-effects in recent years, but there's no denying the primitive aspects of it. Though I've been doing very well, they say, still no picnic. "Kill all the cells in the body that multiply quickly." It's like Dick Cheney with a shotgun.
No new numbers today about the cancer marker, the CA 19-9; as one or two of you asked. The last number, remember from two weeks ago, was good: 6300 (from May 23), a decrease of around 50% since the first time they checked. It seems they take the number every three weeks, which means there should be blood sent off for this next week, and since there are only a few labs in the country that test for CA 19-9 it will take a few days on top of that. My hemoglobin and hematocrit numbers were both up (small but good news), the former is still subnormal range and the latter bumped up to the bottom edge of normal. Those are indicators that I'm still having to deal with anemia, though there seems to be a little positive movement.
OK, some technical tidbits on my condition that I hope are somewhat helpful, otherwise, I'm dead beat after the day, which means my only aims now are some calories/food for dinner, and then I'm deciding between The Graduate and the final (tedious) pages of The Brothers Karamazov or Althusser's memoir again.... If I'm lucky sleep will sneak in ("sleep" is personified, "sneak in" is a verb phrase suggesting it's hard to sleep when I try at times... does that help?). Ooh, the excitement is probably killing you, no?
No new numbers today about the cancer marker, the CA 19-9; as one or two of you asked. The last number, remember from two weeks ago, was good: 6300 (from May 23), a decrease of around 50% since the first time they checked. It seems they take the number every three weeks, which means there should be blood sent off for this next week, and since there are only a few labs in the country that test for CA 19-9 it will take a few days on top of that. My hemoglobin and hematocrit numbers were both up (small but good news), the former is still subnormal range and the latter bumped up to the bottom edge of normal. Those are indicators that I'm still having to deal with anemia, though there seems to be a little positive movement.
OK, some technical tidbits on my condition that I hope are somewhat helpful, otherwise, I'm dead beat after the day, which means my only aims now are some calories/food for dinner, and then I'm deciding between The Graduate and the final (tedious) pages of The Brothers Karamazov or Althusser's memoir again.... If I'm lucky sleep will sneak in ("sleep" is personified, "sneak in" is a verb phrase suggesting it's hard to sleep when I try at times... does that help?). Ooh, the excitement is probably killing you, no?
Monday, June 12, 2006
6.12.06, Return to Seattle
Nothing of note today, mostly packing, waiting, flying, waiting, and then walking in to a dirty apartment. Salt Lake to Seattle. Easy to sum up. Two odd things, though. The first is that Seattle actually is kind of humid and with my slow acclimation here over the past three years I've never really noticed — until today, when compared to Salt Lake I can actually feel the stick in the air on this kind of almost rainy evening.
Second point has to do with the Franky Scale. My body felt like a 7, but then my mind about my body felt more like an 8 or so. Strangest thing, but sitting in the airport and even getting ready at my sister's place and packing up I felt more of a disconnect between my brain and my Sickness. The chemo drugs are still the same (as far as I know), they still bother my stomach a bit, still some nausea, and then at the airport and on the plane things seemed better than they have. Maybe it was future-tense cat presence my body could sense, something about "one's own place," or something unusual going on inside me. It's vague, I know, but the change seemed worth noting.
Something meatier will come to blogland this week, too, I'm sure.
Second point has to do with the Franky Scale. My body felt like a 7, but then my mind about my body felt more like an 8 or so. Strangest thing, but sitting in the airport and even getting ready at my sister's place and packing up I felt more of a disconnect between my brain and my Sickness. The chemo drugs are still the same (as far as I know), they still bother my stomach a bit, still some nausea, and then at the airport and on the plane things seemed better than they have. Maybe it was future-tense cat presence my body could sense, something about "one's own place," or something unusual going on inside me. It's vague, I know, but the change seemed worth noting.
Something meatier will come to blogland this week, too, I'm sure.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
6.11.06, Salt Lake City Closing / Midnight Edition
Does it do any good at all for my to post something this late in the day? After 9 pm SLC time? (that's a real question, btw, an answer or two would be appreciated...) There has just been too much going on between family and some very old friends not seen in too long, the required tasks of food, bathing, etc. No surprise to anyone I'm sure.
The day has been decent Franky Scale-wise: I'll say 8. It is progressively tasking to go through a day with numerous talks, meetings, conversations in a group, family dinner. It might today, however, be more like the "good old days" of getting pooped in the normal sense instead of being struck down with bizarre chemo-induced fatigue that sneaks up suddenly. So that's a good sign.
More to come, I'm sure, after returning to Seattle tomorrow & settling the brain. What was already complex in terms of family dynamics . . .
but that's another story.
[Midnight, mountain standard time, very trivial information about physical effects of the experience.
Now it's midnight on a night I had been thinking "sleep early, sleep well." Am I sleeping? Two quick comments from you on whether the late-day posts matter or simply slide out further into the ether, and as a result, I'm back before the keys. Early sleep and well sleep were not in the cards apparently, but breakthrough pain was. I'm partially angry to have to call it that, something so jargony, such a term of art, if I can call it that, or it's simply just another euphemism... "Breakthrough pain": the idea is that you experience your "normal" pain in your normal way — in my case this would be what I think of as "cancer pain," usually upper abdomen left side right under the rib cage and then a diagonal line down the right side about four inches below the rib cage, as opposed to GI pain, incision pain, or something that passes quickly, and the way for me is simple, it's constant — so you learn your baseline, you learn what amount of what kind of drug will alleviate it, how much & how often; then you try to manage it, control it at that level. When the pain breaks up, out, or through that "normal" level you find yourself experiencing "breakthrough pain," suddenly more than what you bargained for and harded to get back under your management control. This is what the pain management book tells me; it's the term used by all the medical staff; it's too clinical but I use it.
Something about this is unsatisfying. I want a better word, I want an appropriate curse to convey what happens. A spike in the pain level — and then you're left asking "well, why did that happen? Is it a tumor fighting, growing, multiplying, or is it a tumor fighting as it's dying off a bit, getting its ass kicked?" you hope the latter. Either way you're stuck with their argot, breakthrough pain, it just happens, and in the end who really cares what it's called? When I stop to think about what I'm doing, and yes I do try to avoid that now and then, going for another pain pill, usually oxycodone at this poibecausease it will take effect sooner though not for nearly as long as oxycontin (Rush's favorite), when I do think it out a part of me recoils slightly because I don't want to be thinking what it signifies: more pain medication, more this week than two weeks ago, ad infinitum. Unless it's a tumor in its own death throws, that thought I can handle even though I'm not sure it is what's happening scientifically.
Information on pain as part of an insomniac journal, if you will. It seems rather banal. I'm abusing blogspace and readertime or even readermind with the banal. The tedium and annoyance are real enough however. And the information describes what is happening now, for not too much longer I hope, and perhaps you'll forgive if you hear that thinking just up to this grammatical level is itself helpful. Food for the emotionally voyeuristic. (joke) In actuality, part of a helpful distraction. Also Erik Satie again lifting from the little PowerBook speakers to the keys, he helps. Other little tricks you learn. Also a hot bath, here in SLC my sister has the best tub anywhere. Also a trashy movie or a seriously deep one. Little tricks, repeated keystrokes. A few words to the can't-sleepers. Hi. What keeps you up? I hope sleep too comes on quick cat feet.
What happens is I type the basics, perform a few of the little tricks, another word or two and then I know that in 15 minutes it will subside. The brow unfurrows. The frame straightens out. Back to normal. Off to what I hope is sleep.
Last, to KK and CC and our conversation today: this is my visualizing, my getting it broken down and analyzed, my taking the power from it, my beating it. Do not go gentle, as has been said.]
The day has been decent Franky Scale-wise: I'll say 8. It is progressively tasking to go through a day with numerous talks, meetings, conversations in a group, family dinner. It might today, however, be more like the "good old days" of getting pooped in the normal sense instead of being struck down with bizarre chemo-induced fatigue that sneaks up suddenly. So that's a good sign.
More to come, I'm sure, after returning to Seattle tomorrow & settling the brain. What was already complex in terms of family dynamics . . .
but that's another story.
[Midnight, mountain standard time, very trivial information about physical effects of the experience.
Now it's midnight on a night I had been thinking "sleep early, sleep well." Am I sleeping? Two quick comments from you on whether the late-day posts matter or simply slide out further into the ether, and as a result, I'm back before the keys. Early sleep and well sleep were not in the cards apparently, but breakthrough pain was. I'm partially angry to have to call it that, something so jargony, such a term of art, if I can call it that, or it's simply just another euphemism... "Breakthrough pain": the idea is that you experience your "normal" pain in your normal way — in my case this would be what I think of as "cancer pain," usually upper abdomen left side right under the rib cage and then a diagonal line down the right side about four inches below the rib cage, as opposed to GI pain, incision pain, or something that passes quickly, and the way for me is simple, it's constant — so you learn your baseline, you learn what amount of what kind of drug will alleviate it, how much & how often; then you try to manage it, control it at that level. When the pain breaks up, out, or through that "normal" level you find yourself experiencing "breakthrough pain," suddenly more than what you bargained for and harded to get back under your management control. This is what the pain management book tells me; it's the term used by all the medical staff; it's too clinical but I use it.
Something about this is unsatisfying. I want a better word, I want an appropriate curse to convey what happens. A spike in the pain level — and then you're left asking "well, why did that happen? Is it a tumor fighting, growing, multiplying, or is it a tumor fighting as it's dying off a bit, getting its ass kicked?" you hope the latter. Either way you're stuck with their argot, breakthrough pain, it just happens, and in the end who really cares what it's called? When I stop to think about what I'm doing, and yes I do try to avoid that now and then, going for another pain pill, usually oxycodone at this poibecausease it will take effect sooner though not for nearly as long as oxycontin (Rush's favorite), when I do think it out a part of me recoils slightly because I don't want to be thinking what it signifies: more pain medication, more this week than two weeks ago, ad infinitum. Unless it's a tumor in its own death throws, that thought I can handle even though I'm not sure it is what's happening scientifically.
Information on pain as part of an insomniac journal, if you will. It seems rather banal. I'm abusing blogspace and readertime or even readermind with the banal. The tedium and annoyance are real enough however. And the information describes what is happening now, for not too much longer I hope, and perhaps you'll forgive if you hear that thinking just up to this grammatical level is itself helpful. Food for the emotionally voyeuristic. (joke) In actuality, part of a helpful distraction. Also Erik Satie again lifting from the little PowerBook speakers to the keys, he helps. Other little tricks you learn. Also a hot bath, here in SLC my sister has the best tub anywhere. Also a trashy movie or a seriously deep one. Little tricks, repeated keystrokes. A few words to the can't-sleepers. Hi. What keeps you up? I hope sleep too comes on quick cat feet.
What happens is I type the basics, perform a few of the little tricks, another word or two and then I know that in 15 minutes it will subside. The brow unfurrows. The frame straightens out. Back to normal. Off to what I hope is sleep.
Last, to KK and CC and our conversation today: this is my visualizing, my getting it broken down and analyzed, my taking the power from it, my beating it. Do not go gentle, as has been said.]
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