The baby Jesus

jesus
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

Somebody this week refused to believe that upon having been diagnosed with cancer I hadn't immediately fallen to my knees and offered up prayer.

Their argument was that, in times of trouble, EVERYBODY turns to prayer. But I can honestly say that I didn't. It really didn't occur to me. Now I know that some people have offered up prayers, lit candles and generally taken the time out to think about me and to those people I am grateful.

But the idea that I'd suddenly use prayer as a get out of jail card strikes me as more than a little strange.

And this person's insisting that I MUST have turned to prayer; that I was lying got further up my nose than the cat dander floating around our place.

Still it gave me a chance to use this pic - the Jesus in question beinng affixed to the rooftop of a house in a local Italian neighborhood.

So the pics have been random

homedog
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

but this is what I come home to most days... a bewildered looking dog, a mass of visible wires and a rug that still smells of India despite constant beating (it didn't work on Jude either)

have to say I love it here

Half way through radiation

Today marks the half way stage in radiation and so far so good. I have a bit of a cough, sore ankles and the arches of my feet are murder in the mornings but other than that I'm pretty good.

Treatment is much more jovial than chemotherapy - lots of laughter, lots of chat with the nurses. I guess seeing people daily helps, as does not having to hand them a bucket to throw up in whilst you try not to burst their veins as you inject poison.

Chemo did make me realize just how easy, how varied and how effective torture could be. There are a thousand ways to inflict pain on somebody and their bodies have a response distinct from their brains. I for one was determined not tp throw up during the 'orange gloop' stage. I prepared, I ate nothing. I breathed deep. I thought verdant forests of unusual fecundity. Then I saw orange and threw up. Imagine if it had been electrodes on the bollocks.

Anyway radiation is far from torture. Though the heat might be torture this weekend - the last weekend of spring has temps at 32C and us at a polo match. If the heat don't get ya the horsiness will.

Aircon still placed in the living room window (too close to the fire escape but what the hell, there's no-one above us and it doesn't block our exit) and it's working, Last year we obeyed the law, put the aircon in the bedroom window and sweltered, never again!

And on that emphatic punctuation I shall leave you. Bon Weekend.

Another day, another session

fmtoughmenu
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

On my way to radiation yesterday I found a great little pub, full of old ladies, young navvies and slumming business men all trying to make sense of the World Cup whilst eating vast portions of very wel battered fish.

It was a day for overheard conversations

"Of course the Tunisians should be good. I've heard that the Eastern Europeans practice 18 hrs a day"

"Europe has to be 6 hrs behind us, if it was 6 hrs ahead we'd not be eating lunch"

And then, loudly, in the waiting room of the doctor's surgery

"I've maxxed out two credit cards on this and I'm not maxing out another. We should have let your mother die years ago, 'cause she has the money and she's not sending any our way"

Radiation going okay. First signs of a sore throat today, but nothing major and a doctor who seemed very happy with my progress through the sessions to date.

I even managed to get a phone number out of one of the nurses - must be the newly and rapidly growing hair

Eve of Destruction

So far so good on the radiation front, no major side effects, no major reactios, no real fatigue. I see the doctor today (just because it's Wednesday) so doubtless today's session will take forever and involve more blood than a Hammer slasher movie but so be it.

Construction started on one of the FIVE new condo blocks going up around us; well destruction did, they're knocking down the original building and are having a noisy old time of it.

Still the weather is good for them - it's 27 today and will gain 1C every day for the next week, so at least there's the prospect of topless workmen at whom we can whistle (it confuses them) to look forward to.

Have tickets for the US Open tennis, a sofa arriving today, the dog at my feet and a British commentator on the football today - life is good

Work, work, work

soph
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

I really do want to go back to work proper - rather than the hanging around the office hoping to catch snippets that I might be able to help with version of work that I'm doing at the moment.

Went in yesterday and started snapping the Smirnoff team for a LIVESTRONG series that I'm hoping will be something that I can print, frame and auction for 'Lance's lot'

Anyway more radiation today, a talk with a dentist (the teeth not in great shape but can't do any major work until after the radiation for fear of infection and prolonged bleeding), the Brazil match, a talk with some people who (flatteringly) might want to employ me and then dinner with the people who do.

So almost an average day

How's this for scary?

Disappearing
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

There was a line in 'The L Word' that struck home with me. As Dana lost her hair to radiation and weight to nausea she said "I'm not sick, I'm disappearing"... I haven't felt that way - and yet I look at this and all I can see where she was coming from - only the 'face furniture specs' give me any features

Remember when this was a cancer blog?

fmlivesoft
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

I thought that it was about time that I talked about cancer, or lack thereof again.

I've said this a lot over the past few months but my impressions of cancer treatment were entirely shaped by made for TV movies and the tabloid press.

'FIGHT' was the word that came to mind when it came to cancer.

Cancer was something against which celebrities 'Bravely Battled.' Treatment was a private war, fought out of sight of the world - usually with an unhappy conclusion.

Weirdly though the reality has been altogether gentler. It's not about fighting at all, but accepting. Not about being brave but being optionless. Not revelatory but rather mundane.

The reality of cancer treatment is that it's routine. A routine of visitations, treatments and pills. Marks and milestones on calendars.

The reality of cancer is that it changes nothing. Other than your ability to function. You don't come out of the other side a better, wiser or different person. You come out a balder, heavier, more scarred and more tattoo'd person (well in my case)

But there's nothing brave or pugilistic about it. Sure your routine changes but that's about all.

Will I be a kinder person moving forward? Probably not. Will I be more empathetic - probably. I've met and talked with a lot of people over the past 8 months. They've shared stories with me, a stranger, that they wouldn't with their families and friends (precisely because those people care) and I've witnessed too much warmth to not have been affected.

I'll be better at my job. I'll think more about the future (knowing that people will survive you puts you in a position of wanting to make the transistion to surviving alone as comfortable as possible), I'll talk more and I'll listen more intently.

Perhaps then I am changed. Just not violently. But then the violence of cancer treatment really does seem to be a TV movie fiction.