boring, boring cancer patient

Chemo V rapidly approaching… I just hope that it goes as well as Chemo IV; which seemed to fly by after a rather dodgy first evening. I’ve felt good throughout this round and am hoping to carry that through to the next one.

I see my oncologist on Tuesday when I’ll find out more about results to date, treatment regime post chemo and long term prognosis. I know that radiotherapy is very likely to be a part of my immediate future, but how much and for how long remains a mystery.

Saw our friend Elisa play at the Knitting Factory last night and kinda wish that we’d hung out after but am risking nothing at the moment and so headed for home and was in bed by midnight as a good cancer patient should be. She was really good yesterday, I wish I was in a position to help her in some way because it’s music that deserves a wider audience.

Anyway that’s about it, nothing particularly exciting to say or report but another ‘not dead yet’ missive fired into cyberspace (do people still use that term?)

Quick thought

I think I know what caused the euphoria...

Somebody hit this site having Google'd

"john inman widow twanky"

Made my decade

Bouncing off the walls

For some reason today has seen me full of vim and vigor. I can’t remember the last time I had this much energy, it’s bizarre.. I’m still amazed when I ‘overtake’ someone on the subway stairs, or unthinkingly run to catch a train then catch myself – not out of breath, not vomiting, not searching for yet more tissues into which I could hack up bits of lung but upright, comfortable, ‘ordinary’

The last few months have given me a glimpse of old age – losing the feeling in my fingertips makes searching for change harder, buttoning up a jacket more of a challenge. Losing most of my lung capacity meant taking things more slowly, pacing myself, taking breathers. Yet still I find the sight of old people hurtling toward the back of a bus as the driver loses patience and hits the gas as they fumble for a quarter the most hilarious of things. Guess I’ve grown old rather than up.

Anyway 10.30pm and a crap book, two car magazines and the Russian edition of Vice await… it could still be a good night.

Rich white twat

A full day at work today for the first time since November. I feel strangely proud – even though the full day was made up of a call to a very nice man in London, a couple of hours watching some smart people play with three dozen pictures that we’d given them and a conversation with a guy about a very long lasting candy. So it was hardly ditch digging – but hey I wasn’t the last in or the first to leave. Whether this represents progress I’m not entirely sure.

It snowed today too. Properly snowed. A whopping great deluge of the stuff, with huge flakes swirling in the wind accompanied by a soundtrack of 5 million muttered “It’s April”s.

Big revelation moment? I had my shoes cleaned. And realized I was being overly nice to the guy doing the cleaning. This uncharacteristic pleasantness was triggered by the realization that I only know three real ‘hispanics’ – the guy who makes my sandwiches, the woman who cleans my toilet and the guy who shines my shoes. As a result I over compensated with bigger gestures, more energy and a $2 tip. However as I hit the street the sheer shockingness of the realization hit me and I found myself flabbergasted. Utterly flummoxed by my ‘rich white guy’ twatdom. I went all post stroke halibut about the mouth and everything.

Now I’ve never been one to look for a Rainbow Alliance tone to my friends, I’m not a collector – but the people I know in New York tend to be tall, white, skinny and successful. Had I ever thrown a dinner party here it would have been dreadfully ‘Peter’s Friends’… actually it would have just been dreadful. I have an aversion to dinner parties that can only be explained by my being utterly common. The very thought of having to maintain any conversation for a length of time terrifies me… the idea that that conversation be civilized is again numbing.

But that’s not the point. The point is that I have Hispanic people do the jobs that I don’t want to for less money than I really should be paying. Perhaps that the root cause of this cancer. Or not. Who knows?

Lessons learned?

Home alone tonight – so cold pizza and a can of diet coke for dinner as I ponder what to do about this blog in the absence of any real news.

The original purpose of fabulouslythin.blogspot.com was entirely practical – a place to house all of the information that so many people kept calling me to enquire about. Test dates, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment schedules and follow ups.

But now – 2/3rds of the way through treatment there’s less to say – I’ve slotted into a chemo routine. It’s comfortingly dull.

Of course there are odd things – whenever I think about the orange stuff that they push into me right at the end of treatment I shudder so violently items of clothing are thrown clear of my body. When I see a Hershey’s bar (I was eating just such a confection when they ‘glooped me’ for the first time) I have to fight the urge to throw up. Even seeing the empire state building go orange for the night had me throwing up into my mouth a little.

Then there’s my profound irritation with work – where good people are stretched too thin and bad people are paid too much. Where the clients get it and the internal team doesn’t and where an attitude of exasperated belligerence is the only cool thing to be sporting.

What else? Well there’s my teeth gnashing at the jovial demeanor that people adopt during short visits to the hospital. “Oh yes, the transplant is failing, the drugs made my testicles drop off and I have an appointment to have my feet amputated this afternoon – but you’ve got to laugh haven’t you?”

And of course there’s the fake flirting as sick men try to hang on to the last vestiges of their virility by making ever so slightly suggestive comments to the nurses.

You don’t see a lot of fear in these chemo rooms. You see people who have been placed on the conveyor belt and are just trying to hang on as long as they can without getting thrown. There’s a routine to cancer treatment that’s actually quite soothing. Something about having things on the calendar that makes you believe that you’ll be around to see them. “Twenty one weeks of treatment means that they think I’ll still be here in 5 month’s time.” seems to be the thought.

Of course what happens post treatment tends to be scarier. If you’re one of the 30% given the all clear you’re suddenly out of the institution and alone to ponder whether every cough, sneeze and splutter is the beginning of the end. And to go back to the life that everyone (including you) thought would be profoundly changed by a brush with mortality.

What have I learned throughout all of this?

Well I’ve learned that my wife has a capacity to cope that is astounding.

I’ve learned that the people I’ve met here in New York are good and genuine friends and that I owe them more than another disappearance to another continent and only occasional contact.

I’ve learned that white wine is the only alcohol that I really miss – and that it’s not the alcohol but the occasion (home from work, Jeopardy, veggie chips and a selfish half hour with my wife).

I’ve learned that people only talk of ‘hope’ when it’s gone.

I’ve learned that my head isn’t quite as weirdly shaped as I’d been led to believe.

I’ve learned to let go and trust… to give some control to other people, to offer some things up to the universe and to turn off the e-mail when I get home.

But I’ve not learned to stop blathering.