The Weekend

The weekend, the weekend

Been kinda nice here this weekend. The sun is shining, the temperature is hovering at around 20C (perfect Velcro weather) and old friends have been resurfacing.

First up this weekend was Michael – celebrating his 35th birthday in a bar called ‘The Back Room’. It’s literally through an unmarked gate, talk to the large, scary man who leads you down a rat infested alley (we saw two monsters) up another unmarked flight of stairs and into a surprisingly nice bar where they sell their booze in teacups – prohibition speakeasy style. Some nice people there for Michael anyway so good time had be us.

Next up was Sue (who Judith worked with around 10 years ago and whom I’ve not seen since a jaunt to New York to be here for the opening weekend of the rather disappointing Godzilla)… a quick brunch at FADA where the waitress was incredibly rude in that distant, waifish, Williamsburg nonchalant-aggressive way. Still the food was good and because of said waitresses inability to add came to a mere $26 for the four of us (Brunch is $11 so go figure)

From there it was on to the BAM ROSE where we met ‘a recently returned from global travels’ Alex and his ‘in town for the weekend’ girlfriend Christiana – and suffered through ‘Brick’; a dreadful but interesting teen meets noir flick that doesn’t quite pay off ; before finding a tiny bar for drinks that did.

Of course before we got into a taxi for the BAM Rose we had to contend with a volley of gunfire coming from two blocks down - rather pulse quickening as you raced to your taxi and screeched away toward safety.

Today it’s off to the park with the dog before our friend Ali comes over for dinner and tales of her new movie (Jude is going to fill in as a New Yorker in the background)

I’m still heavy legged (could that be a new syndrome? Restless Leg Syndrome – RLS – is all over the TV ads at the moment, this could be the opposite in terms of symptoms but as profitable in terms of suckers willing to cough up cash) but other than that doing well.

Hoping that Friday sees the last of treatment. And that if I do need any radiotherapy it will be short. I booked the vacation in the belief that any radio’ I needed would be done by the end of June. If it’s longer then we may well miss the vacation and lose the money (no insurance for people in the middle of chemo). I’d hate to miss the vacation so everything crossed here.

Anyway LONG entry… time to get dressed and get out into the sunshine.

Ten Tonne Tess

Well the weight continues to pile on - I've gained 10lbs since ending round 3 of chemo. Doctors, nurses, friends and family all seem delighted, I'm not so sure. I hate the feeling of my thights rubbing together or the sight of abs disappearing under a layer of fat.

But I will not diet. It has the word 'die' in it for god's sake. Instead I shall be more organically veggie, drag the dog for yet longer walks and generally live the life of a native of Portland (minus the hiking - even I have limits and they're drawn at walking that requires specialist equipment)

Managed to catch the UEFA Cup Semi final in which Middlesbrough set them selves up for Cup Final Heartache - by coming from behind to score the 4 goals they needed to make it to Eindhoven and the final. They will of course lose the final narrowly and tragically whilst fat men in replica shirts that they couldn't afford even before blowing the rent on travel weep - not at the fact that they've spent money that could have fed and housed their children on a childish folly; but at the fact that reflected glory was denied them.

There's something very wrong with a town that NEEDS its teams to be successful. Where all pride is caught up in their success. I think that's why there's less fervent support for clubs here in the US. Sure people are passionate about their teams but the teams don't represent their every once of hope. In the land of opportunity there's always hope - so when the Packers lose you go back to the project that will make you a billionaire. When Boro lose it's back to the single room you rent in somebody else's house, with only enough money to buy more temporary hope in the shape of a scratchcard (or a bet on the horses) in your pocket.

Anyway enough of this tragedy. I'm off to Bodies today (see how the body works by looking at skinned, diced and dissected real ones) and then for a quick drink (oh how I wish it was alcoholic) with a friend having a birthday celebration.

Hope it's a big room - these thighs need space

Rest Day

So I'm not going in to work today - the throat was sufficiently sore and the glands sufficiently swollen for me to think "screw it'

Of course sufficient is a moveable feast but in truth the commute and the atmosphere of dread panic is more than I can bear today - and we're seeing no work until tomorrow anyway.

My cat is acting as a poster kitten for the benefits of diet food - since we switched her she's been playful, inquisitive and noticeably less rotund. You'd think we'd plied her with 'kitty speed' given the way that she's bouncing about.

I love those diet pill TV ads here - 'not only will you lose weight, you'll gain energy" - well of course will Mrs Pudding, they're filling you with cheap speed.

Not a great deal happening in my world - wanting everything at Yokod.com - three great blazers in the new collection and cashmere T-Shirts. The store is just down the road, but oh the expense. The stuff is gorgeous though, I'll go and join the throngs looking longingly through the window at it at some point today.

And with that I'll disappear, breakfast does not buy itself and I need a French Stick to get me up of a morning these days.

Sick enough for sick leave?

Today I have a new mantra. It’s one that I will be repeating to myself and I fear to others over the coming weeks

“I will not let work get in the way of my recovery”

A subtle mix of workplace tension, looming deadlines and a body filled with steroids has made me the stroppiest of madams and it’s starting to have adverse implications for my health.

I need to stop worrying about what’s going on in the office and start worrying about getting well.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

Will talk to HR today about signing off for the 6 weeks of sick leave that I’m allowed to take before they slash my salary – after which I intend to come home, eat healthily, walk the dog and rest up with nothing but pictures of healthy cells in my head.

Best for all? Maybe. Best for me? Absolutely,

what the hell?

Spent last night in fear of the door being smashed in and my being taken away to a place where the uniforms are orange and the international laws on holding people without a trial lax.

Just as I started reading the Rolling Stone 'Worst President ini History?" article the sky filled with choppers, the air with the noise of sirens and the streets with emergency vehicles.

I can't see that anything major was happening outside but I have to say there were 5 minutes when I was wracking my brain for details of how I could have been the cause of so well orchestrated a manhunt.

Sadly I could think of nothing. It's never great to realize that you're not subversive or edgy or dangerous - but that you're a middle aged cancer patient livning a quiet life of domesticity.

But for the first time ever it wasn't a wrist slashing thought either.

Oh dear - I should go and buy 'dinner party music' now, shouldn't I?

At work

and at a loose end - so more blog stuff for you.

Had a blood test this morning, which was fine. I'm starting to get to know everyone at the hospital so preferential treatment is mine - 'come straight through'

Of course the rain this morning was bad enough to wash out the downtown subway and to ensure that every cab was filled with a smugly dry bastard - so I walked the 30 blocks to work, stopping to look at a bulldog puppy and getting into several 'brolly bashes' with fur coated harridans.

Feeling so much better today than last week - and sun forecast for the weekend. Hurrah.

So endeth this entry, short and pointless really... ne'er mind

Gas at $3 a gallon

Gas went through $3 here yesterday. All of the car mags are showing 'small' cars and asking "Is this the way forward?"

As I walked the dog I saw this... obviously America has a long way to go before it breaks its 'addiction to oil'

Still knackered

For some strange reason I continue to be knackered this week. Perhaps I did too much on Monday and Tuesday. Went into work yesterday but had to leave early and by 3pm was asleep on the sofa despite the best efforts of Penn and Teller to entertain me.

My High Potentials Graduation Gift (HP_GG) arrived. It's a badly made perspex box that contains some heavy, but useless miniature versions of our Creative Council Score Cards (CCSC). I'm not entire sure what I'm supposed to do with a faux slate mini card engraved with the legend '01 Wasteful' but I guess that's now my problem rather than theirs.

Was invited to a Yankees game yesterday - but alas couldn't make it. Jude was still in Washington talking to politicians about the US's role in the lighting industry and I was asleep on the sofa. A metaphor for our lives at the moment? You betcha.

Finally Madonna tickets sold out again, so we won't be seeing her Madge-esty this year. Shame. I was online at 9.00am, but there had been an 'exclusive' pre-sale so by the time I got to the bookings page all had already gone. Will treat myself to a photo printer by way of recompense.

And that's it for now. Coughing the cough of the knackered, far from my best, further from my worst.

New blogs?

I’ve been contemplating two new blogs today.

Fabulously Thin is getting close to having run its course – with chemo 6 weeks away and no real ‘needs to be shared’ news beyond that. Of course there will be a flurry of activity as I do more scans, get back results, decide on more treatment (or not) and get to hear whether on not I’ll make the age of 40. Then of course there will be the second flurry when Dakota Fanning’s people get hold of the story (don’t worry it will be much ‘juiced’) – but ultimately I reckon there’s about 2 months of this left.

My other ideas are both much more self serving than this. Actually they’re both designed to show that I’m the cleverest man in all of advertising – and both seek to do so by giving away ideas that companies would usually have to pay for. How’s that for the cleverest business model ever? Hey I said I was clever, not savvy.

Blog one will be called “Hey Genius....”

Watching big brands struggle to nail what they’re about frustrates the hell out of me. Take Coke. Everybody knows that what Coke promises is ‘Unity’. It’s what the world has in common. One of the few things that brings us all together. Always has been. The best ads have been exactly about that (‘I’d like to buy the world a coke’!). It’s also the reason that Coke sponsorships of other events that bring the world together (like the World Cup) always seem to bring out the best in Coke communication. But Coke keep missing it.

So that’s Blog one. A big brand per day. An idea per day. A couple examples of what that might practically mean per day. And a fervent hope that they find the post and do something with it… (Nike I’m going to start with you and ‘Participation’)

Second one is just mischief really. I’ll call it ‘Pitch Perfect’ and post a strategy for every advertising pitch that’s ‘live’ out there. The real reason for this one is to piss off the ‘pitch planners’ who charge a fortune to quote the fucking obvious at length and with the use of too many adverbs. My site will say the same stuff, more clearly and for free. Put that in your pipes and smoke it.

As I said – self serving – but isn’t that what blogging is about?

Where's Steve

I don't think that I can manage work today - and I feel more guilty about it you than you can imagine. It's a big week at work yet since Monday I've been sitting, close to my couch, feeling as though someone has filled my ankles with mercury (or something else heavy and poisonous). If only I had a symptom more violent or volatile. This one is so passive and yet... it seems to be enough to stop me managing to do very much. Every burst of energy is followed by the feeling that I've just completed a marathon, in costume, carrying a small woman on my back.

This, of course, is a symptom of the drugs rather than the disease but it's driving me to distraction. Ultimatelty I hate letting people down - and being here rather than at work where people need me IS letting somebody down. No amount of phone, e-mail or BlackBerry content can change that.

Mind it's such a big week that a million big people have stepped in to fill my shoes. We have company Presidents and Country Planning directors all being able in my absence so maybe I should just follow my Sydney incantation and 'let go and trust' - after all I wrote the brief, I decided on what should accompany the brief, I helped sell the brief - it's just that I won't be there to physically deliver the brief.

'Let go and trust'

Soppy Sod

So Judith’s brother just packed up his enormous bag and left New York for London – almost exactly a year after he arrived. He left on a beautiful spring day – filled with glorious sunshine and easy company and it’s made me enormously sad.

Of course he’s leaving for all of the right reasons, he has the right mix of people & opportunities to be really happy in London – and it’s a brave man who pays his way out of a contract and ‘follows his bliss’. I know he’ll find it there.

But it’s not his leaving that makes me sad. It’s remembering him arriving – on a gloriously sunny spring day filled with easy company. It’s amazing to think how hard the year between then and now has been – and how we had no idea that it was going to be so tough. Had someone shown us that day the year that we had in store I’m not sure any of us could have imagined living through it.

There’s been the illness and death of Jude’s dad, her mom’s relocation, her brother’s company dissolving into tiny fragments leaving him looking for a role in a strange city, my sickness, delayed diagnosis and treatment.

It’ s been a year of reconsideration, relocation and lots and lots of deep breaths.

And each of us has had to handle pieces of it alone. There’s been so much going on that we haven’t wanted to add another burden to the other’s and so sometimes we’ve struggled in silence when we should have asked for help. Or pulled away when we should have allowed ourselves to be hugged. Or iced over at an unexpected display of warmth.

But I hope that through it all we’ve never forgotten that we cared. Never stopped hoping for the other’s happiness. Never stopped wishing that the other does a little better today than yesterday.

I’m glad I had today, in the sunshine with people that I care about. Because it was a day when none of us felt the need to protect the others, a day when we could just ‘be’ rather than one where we had to ‘be aware’

I hope that the coming year is filled with more and more days like this. That we each find the easy going happiness that we deserve.

And that we look back on 12 months as something that we all went through knowing that when the it really came to it – somebody would be there – and that that will be the case going forward.

Paris Hilton Sex Tape

Apparently you can get lots of hits on your blog if blogger search finds phrases like 'Kylie wrestling in jelly' or 'Dido done with Dodi's dildo' hidden within the text.

I of course would find such trolling for an audience beneath me.

Yup, I'm feeling much better - and the retention problem (I gained 13lbs over the weekend) seems to be resolving itself nicely

As tired as Tarby's act

Absolutely knackered today.

Just back in from traipsing around the park in the wake of the dog whilst feeling every step vibrating somewhere deep and weary making in my bones.

The reason? A chemo session this morning followed by an afternoon at work attempting to run a spine through what might otherwise have become the world’s sexiest jellyfish. And sure whilst being the world’s sexiest jellyfish is an accolade - don’t expect the world to go to bed moist and eager each night, thoughts of jellyfish in their heads and of tentacles replacing their probing fingers. So it now has a spine. And a chance to walk on land. And I’m happier. But SO tired. Glad I made that so clear.

Interesting to do a conference call from a hospital recliner too. I’m better when I pace and it’s hard to pace when one of the wheels on your drip is wonky.

Wanted to do the motor show this evening but not sure I can make it as far as the sofa – let alone the Jocovits (?) centre.

Anyway jellyfish now suitably backboned, dog happily trotted, dinner still to be digested.

Then a very, very early night for me.

Easy like Sunday morning (the faith no more version)

So it's early Sunday morning and I'm surrounded by animals, animal hair and tiny amounts of our new, rather bad, cat litter - which seems to spread around the house independent of the cats. My weather widget is telling me that the temperature outside has dropped from yesterday's 27C to a less balmy 11C - which probably means I should feed and walk the dog before the heat starts rising and people start to tell me 'hey man, I think your dog is really warm'

Still it makes a difference from the universal cry of 'Shaggy Dog, shaggy dog' we've been getting since that damned Tim Allen movie.

I seem tobe replacing food with a mad spending spree. Expensive brunch yesterday, tickets for The Importance Of Being Earnest, ready to bid on Madonna tickets as soon as the extra show is released (I refused to enter the previous auction - floor level seats were up to $3500) and of course the seats for the US tennis open go on sale pretty soon too. Oh and I have tickets for the New York Auto Show too - a bargain at $14.

Off to see 'The miracle of life the birth of Sean Preston Spears' later today. It's a sculpture of Britney giving birth, on all fours, on a bearskin rug - and it's on display just down the road, so I have to really, don't I?

Not a great deal else going on - eating well, feeling well, one chemo to go

PS - what a weird picture

Trying a post from widget...

Okay, here's a post from the blogger widgit - how high tech of me.

The first day after Chemo V and I seem to be doing a lot better... nurse was in such a hurry to get the drugs into me (and me out of the chair) that she pushed at three times the normal speed... continuing even as I vomitted noisily into a bucket.

Still managed to hold down the one chip I nicked last night (but only just) and to have a good brunch today (mind it cost a fortune... green salad, poached salmon in champagne saucy thing, strawberry ice-cream, OJ, coffee - tres Parisian)

Will spend the evening wih my feet up in front of Capote. Marvellous.

Spring - said Zebadee

So Chemo V tomorrow (let’s hope it’s better than Rocky V) and I’ve decided that it will be the chemo of better eating. I’ve felt great during Chemo IV but have rammed anything even resembling a sticky bun so far down my greedy gullet that I choked on my fingers - gaining 8lbs in 3 weeks as a result.

Nurses, doctors etc. all think that this is a great thing – they reckon without my new wardrobe (I can’t bring myself to say ‘closet’) of 29” waisted trousers.

So what pre-treatment news from me? Well I went out to get a manicure today. When the place was closed I tried to buy a photo printer instead (try making that link). When that didn’t work out I went and spent a minor fortune on hemp based trousers and visited a Polish store with the intent of buying a multi-system LCD TV so big you'd think it was related to Mandissa's knickers. I do believe that I’m morphing into a bored Connecticut housewife. All I need now is to have my tits lifted, the more they resemble earrings the better the Martha's and Clarissa's of this world like 'em.

Anyway Chemo V – lots of fresh fruit and veggies, no Easter Eggs (chomping down on the last this afternoon), no giagantic cookies from Sette Pani, no Chocolate Croissants from the new French bakery (even if they are half the size of American breakfast items) and no sneaky visits to the chip shop for a ‘small’ cod and chips.

Sounds miserable dunnit?

Still the sun is out (it’s 25C outside), my camera is back in action (there’s nothing like the sun to bring out Williamsburg’s weirdest) and everyone I know is pregnant – so I have the perfect excuse to hit Sam and Sebastian any buy baby Che T-Shirts.

Life, as they say, is beautiful.

Dr Mazda

So got to the hospital at 9.45

Was stuck for blood
Then ushered into suite 3A where I met with Nurse Maureen
Then told Dr would be right in

Time : 10.05

He showed up at 11.10.

Shook my hand, told me that he was pleased, that decisions on radiotherapy etc could wait, that my results are as close to perfect as you could hope and was gone in a cloud of expensive cologne.

Zoom-zoom-ZOOM

Time : 11.12
Cost : $1400

I make that a possible $40,000 an hour.

Still the news was good

Quick post

As I have a ten o'clock with my oncologist.

I know that the news is good, I've been told that repeatedly and have the results with the 'Excellent response to treatment' written on them and yet I'm still approaching this meeting with some trepidation. I wonder why that is?

More later - when I'm back

What a gay day

Had brunch at the cafe pictured here today, sunshine, crisp clean air, my wife and an old friend from Sydney...

... then spent HOURS looking for a bar, eventually ending up in the garden of Williamsburg's least cool spot - a place so unhip that I'm expecting the BillyBurg police to arrive and revoke my provisional hipster license at any moment.

Luckily Chemo Chic is a very B'Burg look so I might just blag my way to an extension - unless they call during America's Funniest Home Videos (the epitome of Suburban sensibility and one of my personal favorites) in which case I'll be forced to eat meat outside of a vegan restaurant and stoned to death with mouldy tofu.

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.

Land of the living

Judith's friend Varya headed over yesterday and we managed to go out for dinner and drinks (I wasn't drinking)

It's the first time that I've been out and about at night in an age and it felt good to be back amongst the living... though the number of people flooding into Billyburg at midnight was shocking to these old eyes.

If ad men were doctors

I was just wondering what the world would look like if the world of healthcare was run like the world of advertising. Some things wouldn’t change – doctors would still have a distain for their patients built on an attitude of superiority. An attitude born of specialization.

Patients would still be the ‘stupid’ people who should unquestioningly take advice and promptly pay their bills.

But other things would change. Medical school would go out of the window. Hey, who needs all of that understanding how the body works shit when you might have magic in your fingertips?

If you were to apply the rules of an agency to healthcare you’d end up with a service populated almost exclusively by witch doctors. Guys who have never looked at liver cancer before but are certain they can cure it based in the success they had shaking a stick at strep throat.

That’s not to say that there aren’t people who know what they’re doing in an agency – but they’re dangerously outnumbered. And that’s a scary thought.

How fast am I typing

Faster than the downward trajectory of an X Factor contestant's 'career'.. that's how fast.

And on my new keyboard and newly Tiger upgraded computer

Why so fast? Mainly because I'm running late for work - but also because the dog is displaying an unnatural fascination with what lies beneath the edges of my dressing-gown.

Not much to say - more work today, trying to arrange a date with the doctor so he too can slap me heartily on the back over my PET and CAT scan results... and the worst American Idol of all time last night - send 'em all home

Wanted to be in London tomorrow. Have chest infection. Advised not to fly. Grounded. Bummed.

Ne'er mind

Work again

Back to work today - after a couple of shots of Velcade and that white blood cell thing that isn't Neulastra but sounds like its cuter sister; you know the one - the name escapes me right now.

Kind of wish I hadn't bothered going in to be honest. It was one of those days when lots of bits and pieces of the stupid agency shit that get in the way of doing the job seemed to come to the surface. You know the stuff - it happens everywhere and it's always petty and personal and political and pointless.

There was a time when I'd have cared; but one thing that I've learned over time is that office politics isn't a game that I'm cut out to win. So I don't try. These things are always molehills and I don't have the breath for mountains. I shall leave the politics for those with careers paths to carve out rather than cool jobs to get on with.

This sudden (and I realize uncharacteristic) high mindedness coupled with the very real possibility that I might actually live through this disease and come out with a reasonable lifetime ahead of me set me thinking - for the first time in a decade- as to whether this job is what I want to do with my life.

I've always loved what I do for a living, but I've never been particularly proud of it. Advertising has always seemed like such an easy and ultimately disposable job that when it came to the "things of which you are proud" list I'd always looked at other aspects of my life.

But when I got in tonight I looked at some of the things out in the world that exist only because one day I spotted an idea and then managed to convince other, cleverer, more creative people that it was a good enough idea to pursue collectively. Tp explore some.

And there's lots of stuff.

There are products out there that we have willed into existence. Companies that literally started as a note on an envelope under my desk and grew to be places where people are proud to work.

There are ideas out there, ways of thinking, that might actually have changed the way that some people looked at the world..

There are famous campaigns and funny ads and some gloriously stupid failures (with the caliber of people around me I have no excuse for my miss rate)

There are even some buildings that look the way they do because we had a good idea - and some corners of cyber space visited only because they house the stranger products of our over salaried imaginations.

But they're all out there, in part, because of this weird job of mine - a job where you spot an idea, bring people in to nurture it, defend it, build it and let it go out into the world.

So yes, it's worth doing. And yes I can be proud of it. And yes I'm going to say that I'm proud of it. And the next time I buy an ice cream that's half choc ice, half ice cream biscuit sandwich and very easy to eat (for some absurd amount of cash) I'm going to tell the woman that sells it to me "this was an idea I had once"

The dog

wideawake
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

The dog

Before Jude got
to her

The adman glasses came

baldbloke
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

as did the post chemo
face swelling

Chemo, test results, a dog in disguise

Okay, so chemo four passed without much incident. And quickly. I was home by 1.30 in the afternoon – asleep by 3.00 and throwing up violently and noisily by 6.00. Only the second time in four sessions that I’ve had to throw up (though as I type I feel queasier than might a fat kid being force fed a vegetable on a roller coaster)

Have in front of me the results of CAT and PET scans and they’re excellent. It says so in the summary – the vast majority of the cancer gone (even the large mass in my chest), no signs of anything new and just two spots left to kill – both between my right lung and rib. This represents ‘an excellent response to therapy” – hurrah!

Of course I now have a minor chest infection (I refer again to The L Word and Dana) so I’m taking antibiotics for the next ten days.

Still I’m in better shape than the dog. Health wise she’s fine but Jude chose my being incapacitated as a sign from the doggy Gods that she should set about Velcro with a pair of electric clippers. The result? Well she’s more sheep then dog now, has a face that looks as uneven as Roger Ebert’s and the occasional ‘Adam Ant’ stripe where the clippers got away from Jude a little. Had Velcro come back from the groomer looking like this we’d have sued… as it is Jude is claiming that she looks ‘adorable’ in a way that only a mother or the culpable can.

Hoping that my ‘ad man’ glasses are back today. Went in to collect them last week only to find that the left lens was so far off I couldn’t see through it. The glasses are an attempt to ‘rock the chemo look’ in a way that makes me appear more hipster and less tragic old goat. They may of course have the opposite effect – giving me the Gary Glitter in that Vietnamese court look – a look for which he could have been tried and convicted separately.

And on that unpleasant note I shall attempt to eat a yoghurt. Amazing how a couple of bags of poison in your system can turn your life into an edition of Fear Factor.

Chemo IV - revenge of the revenge's revenge

So all PET and CAT scanned up (no celebs yesterday) I'm ready for the fourth of what should be 6 chemo sessions... and for some reason I'm up ridiculously early. The place doesn't open until 9 - but it's bright and sunny outside and our blinds are more decorative than functional so I'm up - full of wheat, banana and yoghurt and ready to go.

I also hit Disc 4 of Deadwood today; so I'm right on track with that too. Forgot / couldn't be bothered to charge the DVD player so of course I'm now going to have to unplug Ethel just for her power socket. If Ethel's family are reading - she died for a noble cause - Ian McShane was on a foul mouthed rant that REALLY couldn't be missed.

Actually when I say 'ready to go' I mean slubbing around in a foul dressing gown (I just can't find a new one I like) surrounded by animals and holding a cup of tea in my lap (an accident waiting to happen)

PET and CAT scan results at least a week away - you'll 'll know when I do.

Robert Altman

Went for my PET scan yesterday (radioactive suger, a nice lay dow, too much Enya) and found myself sharing a changing room with the delightful Robert Altman.

Yes THAT Robert Altman.

Had a conversation that I was tempted to turn into an audition, he told me the history of the hospital and its buildings and then we went off to our different machines.

He looked great, was a real gent and I wish him all the best going forward...

Of course I shall be carrying my movie screenplay with me at all times from here on in.

Big up for Ella G

So my niece, Ella G, was born this morning... the first day of spring.

Weird to have a niece (my brother is 25, lives in box room in my parents’ house and has Middlesbrough FC bedspreads and wallpaper – so you can imagine just how weird his being a dad seems)

Of course if this was a soap opera someone would have to die – soaps always do births and deaths in the same episode, unless it’s a teen pregnancy in which case they do the hard assed mom / granny melting when she holds her 14 year old daughter’s baby. I know I don’t live in a soap but have looked both ways before crossing the road.

Anyway freshly flush from having paid off every credit card and medical bill with a combination of tax refunds, quarterly bonuses and Jude’s consultancy money I decided that every baby needs to know that life is full of good things – and headed off to Tiffany. I have to say that the ground floor was rather unimpressive, but the guy calling the floors in the elevator was just solemn enough and the bizarrely accented women in the baby section sucked up delightfully. Ten minutes, a couple of hundred bucks and a nice sit down after entering - baby Ella G was the proud owner of a classic silver Tiffany rattle. Blue box, white ribbon and all.

It’s odd to think that Jude and I are pretty certain not to have kids. First there’s the very real issue that I might be dead soon. An issue that people want to skirt, that they avoid by pointing out that I’m tolerating chemo well, looking much better and generally not acting like dead man walking. Statistically though the most likely ending to this little adventure is my dying sooner rather than later.

Of course I might live and then there’s the equally real chance of relapse – would I want to have a kid only to check out on them before they’re five – leaving Jude holding baby, a menagerie of animals and not very much money at all.

Then there’s the fact that neither of us is in the prime of youth, that chemo damages fertility and that we both rather like the ability to get up and do whatever we want without a thought (that’s called selfishness, isn’t it?)

The thing is, we really love the life we have. So maybe kids were never on the cards and this whole rant is nothing but melancholy.

I do hope that I get to meet little EG though. I want to tell her that despite everything she might see on the news and read in the newspapers the world is an amazing place just waiting for her exploration – that it’s full of sights, people and adventures yet to be discovered. I want to tell her that she’s unique and amazing and that the world is richer for her having entered it. And to let her know that she can be anything she wants to be, love anyone she wants to love and do anything that she wants to do. I just want to tell her that she has wings and that she needs to use them. I’d like to be around to help that happen.

Busy few days ahead on the disease front. PET scan tomorrow, CAT scan Thursday, Chemo Friday and Monday… Have started to lose the feeling in my finger tips – and to get the dry cough that I was told would start around chemo III. It’s sad just how closely I stick to ‘typical’ when it comes to side effects; still it’s proof that I’m not on the placebos (or is it?)

Enough of this, I’m knackered, the dog needs out and the Amazing Race is in Moscow.. time to get this ass into gear.

Slow Days

Slow days these but with two tests, a round of chemo and 'the moment of truth - will he survive?' coming up the next week should be interesting. Scans Weds and Thurs, chemo Friday... hopefully bringing new stories, some fresh emotion and a cast of minor but colorful characters...

St Patricks day

St Patrick's day today...

Which means green beer, crowds of drunken swine and a sea of watery green vomit flowing down through the gutters of the city.

It's also the day that my brother's baby (hopefully to be named Sugar Walls) is due

Scans Tuesday and Wednesday of next week - Chemo IV (revenge of the revenge's revenge) on Friday

Oh my giddy aunt

After the inactivity forced by my cold and the attendant mucus, dire warnings of infection (and we all saw what happened to Dana on ‘The L Word’ this week) and a need to sleep 18 hrs a day I’m finally back at work. And busy. I’d describe it as a ‘giddy flurry of activity’ – if I was a 74 year old harridan from Harrogate, but I’m not and thus I won’t.

Tuesday was a 6am start (I’d forgotten about rising before dawn) and a quick blast up a familiar road to Tarrytown – where a two day client training course in need of my moderating skills awaited. Of course two other agencies sent planners – and they sent people with real careers. Quite what happened to my career I’ll never know. Splendid as both ‘proper planners’ were they seemed no more able than I – yet they command vast planning empires and more enormous salaries, whilst I languish in squalid anonymity, commanding not even the clout to order pens from the man in the cupboard downstairs and worried about the spiralling cost of Velcro's 'Oooops I poo'd bag'. It’s actually quite shocking the potential I’ve squandered over the years – and what’s more shocking is that I’m not quite sure how. There was a time when I was really good at what I did and yet… never mind. In the words of Mother Teresa ‘Fuck It’

Anyway client day went well – terribly bright people having very interesting conversations and then finding all that they did blunted by the tools, forms and formats that they’re forced to use.

One example – all were accused of being ‘too linear’ in the way they approached filling in a key form. Well yes… BUT the form was numbered. It was a form full of numbered boxes, given that people tended to start at ‘1’…

Such is corporate life (said the man working for the ad equivalent of ‘the man’)

Tonight was a ‘cocktail party’ at SoHo house. The New York SoHo house is much more glam’ that the UK version – though fewer minor celebrities can be spotted doing coke of the lavatory cisterns. I guess it’s a trade off.

Said party was thrown for David Lamb – a man with whom I loved working and moreover loved listening to. My favorite David quote came at the US Open Tennis Tournament where a very overweight Jennifer Capriati was glued to the baseline and losing badly. In crystal clear tones that cut through the stadium David cried,

“Jennifer, think of the net as a buffet… and rush it.’

I swear I saw her tense.

I didn’t want to lose David as a colleague and had I not had one foot sinking quickly into the grave would have attempted some kind of switch to the world of Diamonds (where he now works) in a bid to maintain some contact. As it is the diamond team is quite strong enough. But the idea of diamonds being a solution to the romantic inarticulacy of men is one with which I’d love to play.

Good to see colleagues past and present tonight – though I really ought to make myself some kind of T-Shirt that says ‘It’s not a look, it’s chemo.’ – the explanation gets tiresome after a while and I find myself veering into brutality in the way I deliver the information. People deserve better than that.

Oddly I’ve just received an e-mail from a ‘futurologist’ who wanted to know what I have under my sink. She’s asked me this before. It’s bordering on obsession I think. To the point that should she ask again she may find her entrails joining my recycling bin and old carrier bags.

And on that note, I’m off to bed.

Ask your Doctor if WobLeX is right for you

Time to update the blog again – but with what? This cold has taken so long to shake and left me so utterly and totally wiped out that most of the tales that I have to tell are tales of Rip van Winkel like sleep marathons and ‘wobbly leg’ syndrome.

Actually all I need is an acronym, a celebrity spokesperson and a sugar coated pill and I could make a fortune with Wobbly Leg Syndrome.

‘Do you wake up in the mornings? Do you get breathless on stairs? Do you sometimes get tired in the mall? Does the idea of your completing the Iron Man Triathlon seem ridiculous to you? If so then you may have Wobbly Leg Syndrome. Millions of Americans suffer from WLS… but you need suffer no more. Thanks to WobLeX. WobLeX is a revolutionary new drug that can address or sometimes even relieve some of the partial symptoms that you think you might possibly have. Ask your doctor if WobLeX is right for you, he'll write a script immediately. Side effects often include weight gain, weight loss, nausea, rectal bleeding and tired, heavy legs”

I tell you throw a celebrity chunkester (chubby but not fat, heaven forfend) at it and we’re rich.

I’m feeling much better today. Still waiting on approval for my scans – will follow up on Monday. Check (cheque) in the mail (post) to the villa people. Ready for action here.

A place in the sun

Ok so we've finally booked a place in the sun - we're off to Anguilla July 2nd through July 10th.

Decided to book a villa so that we would have some privacy, the chance to chill out by our own pool and to cook for ourselves rather than falling for the 'Continental Breakfast'

There's a link here to where we're staying

http://www.18degreesnorth.com/amenitites.htm

Of course there's no guarantee that I'll be finished with treatment by July but I'm assured that treatment can e worked around my being away for eight days and that my having something in the diary that doesn't involve my ingesting poisons is a positive thing.

It's on days like this that I start to feel lucky again. We have access to the best treatment for this disease, the support of really good friends and the ability to buy ourselves a little light at the end of the tunnel. That's something that very few people can say.

Now if anyone fancies a spot of pet sitting in early July - we have a 16,000 BTU aircon unit and a 'fridge full of ice-pops.

A slow day

Other than the ongoing war I'm having with our heating (sometimes it responds instantly, occasionally it decides to hang out a while, to chill, to relax, to heat only, say, the kitchen for 20 mins bfore moving on to the rest of the big room we live in) things are ok.

Nose is still streaming, legs feel as though they're made of some weird polymer but the cough is all but gone and I cope better with what I see as 'unrelated' symptoms.

Still waiting on insurance approval for the CAT and PET scans, will follow up with Adela tomorrow, meanwhile it's sit tight and do nothing today - hard as I'm bored already

That's better!

After a week of coughing and spluttering and three days of eyes, nose and anything else that can produce liquid just streaming away I woke up this morning feeling SO MUCH BETTER.

It may be the big, red horse pills that Maureen (my nurse) gave me; it may be the gallons or tea that I drank, it may be the change in weather (they're talking an 18C weekened and spring is springing as I write) but it feels great not to be surrounded by snot pagodas, assembled from tiny mounds of coughed into tissue

Oscar Night

So whilst the starlets are being plucked, the stars tucked into their tuxes and Isaak Mizrahi's hands warmed (whose tits will he grab on tonight's red carpet) I'm starting to feel the effects of the Rituxin.

Had a great day yesterday and woke up this morning feeling fabulous but knowing that at any moment my body would start pumping out anti-bodies to attack the cancer cells now clearly marked by the man-mouse hybrid drug.

And so it is... I'm not feeling bad, just a little 'flu like, a little achy, a little tired, a little congested, glands just a little swollen. Exactly what I should be feeling - another $5k well spent.

More Velcade and Neulastra tomorrow and a drastic decrease in the number of drugs I'm taking, so we'll see if it has the same effects as last time.

Cough still knocking around, but deeper, less frequent and more 'boomy' a good sign I hope.

On the Oscars I'm shocked and scandalized that Dakota didn't get a nod for 'Dreamer : Inspired by a true story"; I, like her agent, had seen it as the Liz taylor way to Oscar stardom - involve a horse and surely you're there

But Oscar this year was feeling political... perhaps if it had been a gay, soon to be gelded arab horse trained in Israel .. who knows?

Ok - time for some pre-Oscars filler TV

Chemo III - big bit done

Chemo went well yesterday

No vomitting! Yeah!

Pretty quick too, which was a relief as the i-pod REALLY needs updating with something a little more contemporary than 'Cyndi Lauper sings her old songs in a different key'... or whatever thealbum is called. Sometimes I just have to pinch myself to remind myself that the world already has one Nathan Lane - and that's one too many.

Drilled all about my cough - they were very doctorly.

My lungs are clear, I'm taking in more air, I haven't developed any classic lymphoma systems and I'm tolerating treatment well which means there are three possible causes for the 'Return Of The Cough'

1) Most likely. I have a cold

2) Quite Likely. It's a reaction to the chemo drugs (a cough is a common side effect)

3) Unlikely but possible. I'm not responding to the treatment, the tumor is growing again, I'm screwed


Option THREE will be discounted or proved after my PET and CAT scans (about then days from now, so results in about two weeks)

After months of optimism I'm firmly in camp three - necessitating new (unproven and dangerous) treatment (possibly given in a bubble for extra drama), an against the odds cure and juice for the narrative of the film sure to follow.

It's the classic Don Simpson 'Top Gun' structure; you need to have hopelessness in the second real so that you can have triumph in the third - that's why Goose died.

Anyway coffee done, Jude up and as I have no signn of nausea (yet)) I'm about to eat more than any man should. Pancakes, hmmm.


Steve

handbags at dusk

Feeling just a tad shirty today. The reason? Work, mainly.

Spent the week dragging my cancer infested carcass across town, on public transport, to the asbestos filled building site that doubles as my office- all in a bid to help come up with some answers for an important upcoming meeting.

This regime saw me manage to catch a cold, start coughing again and generally exhaust myself - but we got to a good place. I wrote up all my thoughts, quite nicely I thought and then reminded people that I have chemo Friday and Monday – so I wouldn’t be working the weekend or available before the Tuesday am meeting. Tuesday am would be tough but I agreed to drag my recently poisoned self there, downing steroids and anti-nausea pills as I went.

Of course nobody heard the last bit. Today has been a barrage of ‘you have to come in’ calls. Of coercing, pleading and emotional blackmail.

‘Hey’, they said, ‘why not come in at 6pm and we can work late?’

‘Because’ said I ‘There’s a very real danger that my dragging myself in through a snow storm, to work late, the day before chemo, might just kill me.’

‘You’ll be fine. We need you here. You said you didn’t feel THAT sick. If this goes well you’ll be able to take some time off, it’ll all be agreed’

‘F*ck right off.’

‘5pm?’

I really do think that if I do end up in the 50% of people who are killed by this disease there will be a move from my account management team to have my headstone wired for broadband – just in case they need help with PowerPoint charts.

$5493.01

That's what it costs for a single shot of Rituxin here.

Yep the first chemo bill came in and a single shot of the R in Chop-R costs close to $5500.

If I get that back against my taxes today I shall turn loop de loop and cartwheel through Union Square.

Thank god for insurance, huh? It 'only' cost me $550.

Still full of cold here, nose dripping onto the dog as I type. But a cold I can cope with.

Mail this week brought novelty wigs, sideburns, moustaches, fake glasses, lollipops and a bag of toffees (!) from my cousin Janet who is almost as mad as she is loud.

Wigs for the NY winter cold, lollipops for a Kojak impression should it turn warm, toffees because she thinks I can afford American denistry.

It is tax day today. That means heading into a tax preparation office, whipping out your pay stubs and answering lots of detailed questions within the hearing of 20 strangers - all of whom you have to think have the wherewithall to commit identity theft (I know I have, I lived as Liza Minelli for two years in the early 80s). Franky I hate sitting in H&R block having people tut at my lack of 401k and sigh at my lack of write-offable receipts., but to date they've handed me a cheque at the end of the inquisition and I've been happy.

Hoping to get a refund big enough to pay the hospital bills so I can get back to looking at mad (if unresponsive) Frenchmen on Caribbean isles

What are people expecting?

Was visited by a couple of old friends this weekend. They seemed surprised, perhaps disappointed, that I wasn't more fragile. Of course I don't feel fragile at all - the cough that started late last week persists but the lungs are clear and I'm coughing up nothing and the days of crawling to the bathroom to, quite literally, puke up bits of my guts are (I hope) way behind me.

So when asked these days

'How are you coping?'

I usually say

'With tremendous elan'

And people know to leave it be.

That's not to say that the whole thing is worry free, as I said I'm so suspicious of this cough I could be a hypocondriac Hettie Wainthrop but generally life goes on, the dog demands walking, the bills require paying and the clients - whilst sympathetic - demand the same value for their monies.

The truth is it's a bit like having a cold - but being told to watch for signs of bird flu. Your antennae is up but you just keep trucking along.

We hit Chemo Three (the halfway point) this week; a couple of weeks later it's scan time and we'll have an indictation of how I'm responding; and to what to expect post Chemo 6. The likelihood is radiation therapy, I had a big mass and standard procedure is to radiate, but who knows? It could be good news and May 5th sees me done with treatment or bad news and 2006 sees the world done with me. Such, as they say, is life.

Anyway enough early morning musing from me, I've breakfast to eat, a dog to walk and a wife to pack off to Albany.

Later

Mental Death Spiral

So having been at work all week I woke up on Friday REALLY late for something important. Naturally I reacted as any half awake drama queen might and flew around the bedroom grabbing clothes, swearing and generally enjoying the melee.

Five minutes later I fly out the of the front door and start on the three blocks to the subway station. And I cough. Then I cough again.

Immediately my mind turns to images of rapidly growing tumors, failed chemo, stem cell transplantation, a tragic end and a park bench with my name (and bird shit) on it.


Of course the cough gets no worse, my nose starts to run and I realize that I have a bit of a cold; a result no doubt that week at work - but I hope that this isn't a glimpse of the ghost of Xmas future - every minor ailment a mental crisis... 'cause I REALLY don't want to be that person

Today's review

Amusing myself by writing film reviews; here's how today's started

"The Pink Panther, a movie delayed more times than a Tantric orgasm, finally hit the screens this week. And like a Tantric orgasm it made more of a splash than anyone was expecting"

I do amuse myself... just as well really

Red cells, white cells, platelette count all a-okay

Nausea a thing of the past

Fighting fit and raring to go here

DOLLYWOOD!

When Quokkaboy (I have no idea what it means and am afraid to ask - he's British) suggested that I head to Dollywood for a vacation he knew that I'd take him seriously.

I know that there will be bits of it that remind me that cousins shouldn't be forced to work in close proximity generation after generation and that there will be bits so sugar-coated it will be like being force fed donuts for a weekend - but ultimately the idea of visiting Dolly Parton's themepark is something that I can't resist.

And I will be visiting without tongue in cheek, eyebrows raised and with cynicism unplugged. I'll be there as a genuine visitor hoping to soak in some old style goodwill rather than there to gather some 'Dolly's second cousin is SO too fat for sequins' stories.

Don't ask me why I make an exception for Dolly - but I do and I will

So the job now is to convince Jude that a Xmas spent at Dolly's Tennesee Mountain Home (TM) would be an exercise in warmth, good heartedness and uncommercial Xmas spirit and not an exercise in my indulging in high camp at the expense of the people there for the spiced apple cider, acoustic singing and simplicity of it all.

The good thing is that I'm thinking about vacations in August and Xmas plans... two months ago I was thinking about whether I had the energy to make the bathroom or whether I should vomit into my dressing gown (bathrobe) pocket - again.

Blood work today - all was good again - now have 10 days to chill, feel good, visit friends and get ready for Chemo III (milking the formula)

Peace Out - as they still say in some quarters

Villa au hostellerie?

To (mis)quote Julian Clary 'Im strangely torn"...

Actually that would have been rather a fabulous quote from the man exiled from British TV for having claimed to have Fisted Norman LaMont (Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time) but already I'm off point.

So friends, family, casual viewers and disappointed Googlers (if you searched for 'fisting' or for 'Norman LaMont' I very much doubt you intended to end up here... try google images) here's the quandary.

We've settled on a vacation island - St. Barts.

It's famous for very little other than being the place where celebs get snapped naked in their villas (think JFK jr, Brad, Gwyneth etc.) but that-s what we want - not naked pics in OK magazine but beaches, sun and a break from the norm.

Our dilemma is this.

Do we rent the fabulous villa and spend our time sipping supermarket wine and badly mixed cocktails by the pool, pausing only to raise a towel above waist level when the maid service arrives

OR

Do we head for Hostellerie Des Trois Forces - a holistic hotel, run by a French astrologer with a penchant for the Buddhist. He sounds mad, his food sounds wonderful and the place is described as either 'basic but spotlessly clean' 'unlike anywhere else on earth' or as 'that dump with the junk yard car park and the mad old French guy.'

I'm thinking Hostellerie Des Trois Forces - a little yoga, some massage, some meditation, lunch by the pool, a great wine list and conversation with the Gerard Depardu meets Hermes owner. It's leaping out at me in a way that I seem powerless to resist.

But then you're my friends. It's your job to help me resist things that leap out at me, rendering me powerless if they look like a bad idea. The COMMENTS section is now open to all - you don't need to be a member of Blogger so feel free to weigh in on the matter... but hurry I feel my credit card burning a bigger whole on my wallet than the chemo is in my chest.

As filler to this and to prove that I still have half a brain I wrote my best intro to a film review since I said of Sahara

'Rarely has a movie been as aptly named as Sahara - an arid film, devoid of any real distinguishing features
that seems to go on forever'

This time I amused myself (if no-one else) with this opener to a review of hideous potboiler 'Firewall'

There are some people (of whom I'll admit to be one) who will see 'Firewall' as further evidence that Harrison Ford is coasting on autopilot toward an Indiana Jones IV payday that will keep Calista Flockhart in SlimFast for decades to come.

The plot of Indie 4 ' tentatively titled 'Indiana Jones - your grandfather's front room' has Harrison - now older than time - rediscovering an old box from his childhood, realizing through the medicare haze that it is the arc of the covenant and subsequently taking it down to a local filming of the Antiques Roadshow... just for insurance value purposes.

It's a surefire winner - and more tightly plotted than the Potboiler by numbers 'Firewall'

As I said it amused me


But enough of my old wank - blood tests then WORK tomorrow - yeh!

Fat Virgin

Have been whiling away the long weekend (it's president's day) looking at Villas in the Carribbean. We're planning on taking some kind of vacation once treatment is over and of course therein lies the rub. We don't know when / if treatment will be over.

Chemo should be finished in May. It's then quite likely that I'll do radiotherapy too. That could be anything from 6 to 12 weeks. Of course there's then a 50% chance that I'll be in full remisssion (can't clam 'cured' for 5 years as 80% of people relapse). If the flip of the coin doesn't go my way we start to look at weird and wonderful new treatments - like stem cell transplantation - which can take another couple of months (locked in a room)

All of this needs to be balanced with the fact that it's been a tough year, it's sub zero outside, Jude's been working 100 hr weeks and we're running on fumes. We need a break - and I think that we'll take one at the beginning of August.

The brief - warm, clean, close and absolutely no cruise ships. Having stayed in Nassau I have come to detest both the floating pollution chambers that are the ships themselves and the badge wearing locusts that disembark from them - devouring all tourist tat in their wake and believing that a country's culture can be found within a half mile of its Duty Free shops. These are the people who take their homes with them and believe that they've travelled the world; and they fill me with more hate and resentment than is healthy for a man who owns as many Buddhist books as I.

So we've discounted St. Martins and all of the US Virgin Islands and are now looking at the British Virgin Islands generally and Virgin Gorda (the fat virgin) in particular. A villa will give us some privacy and autonomy, our own pool and a saving over a hotel and might even mean that we can invite a couple of friends to join us. I miss taking a bunch of people to a sunny paradise island for the weekend.

To that end I'm also looking at Necker. 26 of us could take over an entire island for about US$1000 each. Staff ratio is 1:1, we'd have our meals cooked, our own boat and helicopter transfers to wherever we want. But do I have 26 friends? I guess when it's a cheap private island jaunt on the line I could find them.

Anyway the question - do I say 'screw it' and book for August or do I play sensible and wait and see how the chemo goes before doing anything? Decisions.

An aside... whatever I do, I won't be getting travel insurance. Cancer ridden chemo patients booking months in advance are a pretty high risk of no show apparently - who'd have thought?

Fiddler on the roof

It’s been a while since I posted anything on here. The reason? I’ve been feeling crappy. I’m not sure whether I caught Jude’s stomach flu or whether Chemo II (the revenge) wrought some revenge for the ease of Chemo I but it’s been a couple of days of nausea, knackeredness and the weak sipping of yoghurt based beverages.

Still all now seems fine as I sail I into the coldest weekend of the year bright eyed, bushy tailed and ready for the Barney’s Warehouse sale. Of course I still have clothes from 2 years ago that are still too tight for me – trousers that create the dreaded ‘muffin top’ effect around my hips but I’m telling myself that I’ve lost SOME weight and that new clothes and good health are conceptual bedfellows.

My ability to spend of course has been hampered somewhat by the medical bills that come in daily – another $700 demanded for some random treatment yesterday – and the fear of what my co-pay per chemo session will be (I still haven’t seen a bill). I’m reckoning that I have to be close to my deductibles (the amount I have to pay before insurance kicks in) but that’s complicated by treatments that started in December. You see deductibles run the calendar year – so I have $2000 for 2005 and $2000 for 2006. What this means is that I end up paying $4000 for treatment rather than the $2k it would have cost had I gotten sick in say Feb and had all of the hospital care in a single calendar year.

Handy hint – get sick at the start of the year

Mind I find that I’m spending less on treatment than I used to on lunch. I’d easily go through $25 dollars a day when I was at work each day – on lunch, the Starbuck’s run and then a supposedly healthful smoothie; and when I needed company for lunch you could double that. So I’m saving about $200 a week on food and coffee alone.

Enough though about the US medical system, things here are good.

I’m not coughing, the stairs are no problems anymore, the dog is looking better exercised, I have a fresh perspective on work, a clear perspective on what needs to be done there and I’ve discovered that our friends here are very cool people. What more can you need?

Ah - that's better

So after a couple of days during which I felt as though I was being routinely tortured by an invisible hand inside my guts I woke up this morning with a passing fancy for a banana. And some toast. And a cup of tea.

The sense of smell is no longer turned up to 'bloodhound' either; which is a blessed relief as EVERYTHING made me feel like throwing up - from the smell of coffee through to the shampoo they used on the dog.

It's a good feeling.. sitting here, tea in hand, dog at feet, nausea pills in cabinet... so good I may even sing a little... la-la-laaahhhh

Yup - that good

Bleurgh

Not a great day today - spent 99% of the time feeling like I was going to vomit and 1% of the time vomitting.

Will check in with the hospital tomorrow re. meds that I should be taking but it's not been fun

Let's see what tomorrow brings

A quickie

Chemo II (the revenge) went very well. Of course the 'red stuff' made me throw up my cookies again but I was expecting it this time. Other than that all was smooth - took 6 hrs instead of the 10 and a half the first time and no real side effects yet. In fact not nuch of anything yet - yes I feel slightly queasy, yes I'm burping and belching for England (a disgusting thing to be doing) but more of a worry than anything right now is the snow that's falling at a rapid rate outside. We're looking at 18 inches by the end of the day.

Why is snow a worry? Well I love TiVo - it's a great system that manages to record every show I love and introduce me to some I didn't know I loved. There are other systems but none are as easy to use or as intuitive. Of course TiVo is only available on Satellite - so whilst the rest of the building gets their TV from underground cable I'm reliant on the satellite dish on the roof - and that dish can get buried in snow. Leaving me with no TV - on a Sunday. The day of America's Funniest Home Videos, Desperate Housewives, The L Word and best of all the finale of the Gray's Anatomy bomb in a man's chest cliffhanger.

So keep your fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed as we pray for clearer skies here

More chemo tomorrow

More chemo tomorrow - and a new nurse alas.

Still everyone I've met to date has been both efficient and empathetic; rare qualities indeed.

Have a final check in with Dr Hermann - the man who did my biopsy (for a mere $37,000) today. Hoping to get a final all clear from him, if only because it's finally cold here (-4C outside) and I don't fancy doing the trek out there again.

Short entry this one.

Nick went home on Project Runway yesterday - Daniel looked alarmingly blase throughout, midget asian woman was dressed up like a filipino mamasan, South African bird did another outfit that looked like 'last year at Gap' whilst Santino skated on ever thinner ice with a glued on jump suit that lost a sleeve on the runway.

Superbowl ads

Had some students over from the UK on Friday.

I set them a 'superbowl ad' assignment and had them come back in this morning - and boy were they disappointed.

For those of you who don't know - the Superbowl is the biggest advertising bonanza in the US. A sport game during which 1 minute of airtime costs $5m dollars. Accordingly marketing dicks are pumped, inflated and waved during the game. It's 4 hours during which America gives a damn about advertising and it's always a let down.

Superbowl extra large (40 - XL, geddit?) was a HUGE flop.

We had a diet Pepsi can using a Diet Coke can as a stunt double (the diet coke can gets crushed, haw!);

We had a Toyota ad so sickening I went looking for my left over Kytril

KID daddy why do you drive a hybrid
DAD for the future, it uses two types of energy
KID like you with Spanish and English?
DAD yes
KID then why did you learn English?
DAD (smug look into rear view mirror) FOR YOUR future

We had P.Diddy, we had Jessica Simpson, we had Jay Mohr, we had Leonard Nimoy, we had Fabio(!)
We had an avalanche of C list celebrity and D rate 'humor'

We had Dove campaigning for real beauty by begging us to send money to ugly kids (or a 'self esteem' fund)
We had Pepsi (again) informing us that it's brown and bubbly.

We had Kermit whoring it for Ford (he's green, so is the hybrid)

We had an end of the pier with the Nolans and Dooby Duck type dancing 'spectacular' for Burget King - the woman dressed as a meat pattie drew the shittiest stick in a poo-ey pile)

We had men being stupid for Bud Light, women being busty for whateverthehell.com

We had Clydesdales (big horses) for Bud (hurrah!) and a pretty good sheared sheep as streaker gag

Worst of all the world's best agency ripped off JWT Thailand for a Hummer spot, knowingly or not

An total and utter waste of time, I told people at the office that my Grant Mitchell meets an un-touped Liberache look was the result of my having torn out my hair in frustration at the sheer waste of it all - and they believed me.

Thank god for Pizza Hut - pricking at Jessica Simpson's pomposity with a shot for shot remake of her 'this pizza with 26 additional cheese pockets is made for swallowing' (I kid you not) ad - starring Ms Piggy! Yes, Ms Piggy.

Maybe there's hope yet

This is me

after
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

'30 minutes of frenzied 'Jude with a razor' action later... mess with me not face optional

This was me

before
Originally uploaded by stevenjude.

This was me at 10am - scalp itching, hair falling out faster than Leena Zavoroni's during a trip to Chernobyl

Hairless

Woke up yesterday morning with what felt like a sunburnt head. Touch it and 'youch'. Most odd, thought I, my head seems to be on fire and my pillow seems to resemble Captain Caveman (or perhaps Fatima Whitbred) - how can this be?

It turns out of course that the doctors were right, that it takes about two weeks for your hair to start falling out and that I am going to be bald here.

In truth the hair loss is quite comforting. I've felt so well during all of this that you do start to secretly suspect that perhaps you're uniquely immune to the drugs, or part of a placebo study or something similar. Evidence that this stuff is doing what it's supposed to do is very welcome - and the prospect of getting to shave my head is making Judith monsterously excited.

That's about it. After doing full days at work Thurs / Friday plus a couple of decent walks and stuff with the dog yesterday was a write off - an 18 hrs of sleep day. Much brighter this morning however and ready to take on the world

Crash

Watched 'Crash' on DVD yesterday. I''d seen it in the theatre, but Jude hadn't and so we ploughed our way through just under two hours of inhumanity, despair and general teeth grinding. It's all very well done of course, even Sandra Bullock manages to avoid any obvious pratfalls (didn't YOU expect her to play her fall down stairs for a cheap physical laugh?) but the whole thing ended up leaving me cold.

In fact my one take away thought was that the puppets of Avenue Q managed to get across pretty much the same message, in a fraction of the time and a much more entertaining way with their song 'Everyone's a little bit racist'

Maybe I am horribly shallow. Maybe I'm sociopathic. But I just can't find it in my heart to feel very much during movies that ought to be affecting. Brokeback Mountain, ho-hum. Love Story, whatever. Titanic, is it over yet?

Of course when they turn this Blog into a major motion picture Dakota will capture all of this - capturing both my Mercahnt-Ivory British reserve and madame Tussards like waxiness.

Ok, ok... cancer.

When my doctor first told me I had cancer I wanted to ask (regarding survival chances) - is it worth my starting to watch the new season of American Idol (the season lasts about 4 months)... I didn't ask but January is here and I am watching, almost despite myself.

Of course Idol has nothing on TV's best show 'Project Runway' - in which fashion designers compete in various challenges, one being eliminated each week. To date this season has brought us the classic lines

"Where the HELL is my chiffon?"

and

"Oh my God, it's a mother-f*king walk-off"

Last night the task was to make runway ready dresses using $100 worth of flowers. The remaining contestants (four gay men, one of whom is about 7 ft tall and balding fast, a chinese midget and a South African bird with no fashion sense and a surplus of testosterone) sewed up a frenzy before sending some very uncomfortable models down the runway. Michael Kors managed to comment

'It looks like the kind of dress that the town slut would wear to prom, if her mother was a bad home sew-er"

Ah, it's good to be alive.

Alles Gut

Went to have my blood work done yesterday.

Fast appointment - and all is good.

White cells, red cells platelettes - all where they should be.

Next five treatments should be easier, though first wasn't really hard and I do expect a backlash at some point - karma baby

But seems that I'm doing pretty darned well

Hurrah!

Steve

It moves

So after a weekend spent clutching my back and making vague moaning sounds I started the week free of back pain and devoid of energy. Slept about 14 hrs yesterday - and spent the rest trying not to fall asleep. Weird.

This morning however I feel much better. The dog has been walked, the repair people hassled and I'm ready to hit the shower before hitting the hospital... it's my 10 (well eleven, scheduling issues) day check up - the day where everything should be at its lowest - white cells, red cells, platelettes.

Anyway good to be back in the land of the living.

'arold!

No coughing today - which is miraculous.

Managed to get out and about quite a bit and to move with phlegmatic impunity until the early afternoon when my back started to ache like a rotten tooth in a Robin Williams movie. It's agony and my immediately turning into Albert Steptoe has done nothing to help matters.

Other stuff.

Bought a vacuum cleaner with a 7 year warranty - there's optimism! - it's Italian - there's more
Started to resent unfit looking smokers - bastards, who gave you the good genes?
My brother announced / admitted that he's about to become a dad - in 7 weeks. It's a girl
Walked through the Polish part of town - marvelling at how only in NYC can you go from hip to hip replacement in 3 blocks
Fell in love with Newborns at Ralph Lauren - making me the gayest straight man in the world (but c'mon cashmeer kimonos)
Took a pic in which I looked terrible - then posted it anyway in a 'see I AM sick' statement

Geo-targeted

If you talk to Matthew George - a very nice, bright man who I maintain is proof that John Denver and Kermit got very friendly during the making of the Muppet's Xmas album - he'll tell you all about Geo-targeting.

The idea is that media is getting smarter... that when people know what you're watching, or reading they'll now what ads to show you. In a geo-targeted world you'd get an ad for Kleenex just as they were telling you that you're favorite aunt had swallowed that ring you'd always wanted just before she died.

It's a simple idea. You get targeted with ads just at the right moment. The Internet should be great at this, but isn't. It will be.

Of course there are better ways to Geo-target. I've never understood why Kleenex for example haven't published the 100 greatest tear-jerkers as a range, inserting a tissue during every 'weepy' passage. The 'jerkers' idea could be extended too - I'd love to see the '100 sexiest' with tissues inserted for entirely different fluids too.

But I digress.

The people at the hospital told me that my biggest enemy would be constipation. Really? thought I before being regaled with stories of liver toxicity and all manner of things what could block me up bad. I was handed revolting drugs. Generic stool softeners, spasm inducing laxatives - and like a fool I took them.

Yesterday therefore was a just stomach spasm after stomach spasm. It was nasty, lots of bending double and cursing of the people who make 'senna X' or whatever.

And of course every spasm triggered the same ad' - a librarian suddenly doubles over with pain, her book trolley shoots off at comedic speed, it hits a bookcase, a domino effect is seen, library crashes down, 'bad day' is had, 'none spasm inducing laxatives' are recommended as a solution to both spasms and the decaying library system.

Damn if I'd only taken 'Senna XY'

If this is the future you can keep it - Tom Cruise's Minority Report future seemed sexier than this, but it's all the same.

Really, I don't want to be targeted, I want to watch Grey's Anatomy.

Is that too much to ask?

First day wothout drugs

Day whatever past first treatment and no drugs at all. Wah-hey.

Mind yesterday may have been a drug infused hallucination... a dog with its head stuck at the dog run, men with crow-bars, Japanese women buying jeans from what looked like someone's living room, a small dog that appeared in ours and 'the hulk's sister' on American Idol.. all just a little stranger than usual.

That said I'm drug free and ready for work - let's see how this day plays out

Steve

A tale of three coughs

Chemo +3 today and I'm up early and ready to head in and get my white blood cell boosting shot of 'as seen on TV' Neurestra (?)

Last three days have been the tale of three coughs. Saturday my tight cough of 4 months became a deep, chesty. booming thing that had me coughing up old wounds, bits of body and (for an hour over brunch) rather a lot of blood.

Day two was less bellowing - but no return to the love lorn seal bark of yore. Lots of nasty thick phlegm yesterday.

And today, much better. What a restaurant might describe as a 'stunningly light cappucino foam' - certainly the lighest cough (and the lightest 'product' of that cough) in months and months.

Of course by way of recompense (the universe demands payment after all) I woke up singing the Boyzone version of the Cat Stevens song 'Father and Son' - at 7am!

Not the most pleasant of posts I admit - but feeling sparkly good here today, let's see how long I can keep this going

Chemo +1

Well yesterday was long - but not unpleasant.

Everything went pretty much to schedule and to plan... I needed a break from the Rituxin at 100ml / hr, but a benedril shot fixed that and the rest of the infusion passed without incident and I got up to 300ml / hr without incident.

Had an M&M meets injection of orange goop vomitting spell toward the end of the day... never has vomit so closely related ad' - a whilrl, swirly, chocolate kaleidoscope of color.

Everything else was unremarkable.

Got home last night, slept well, took all the drugs suggested and feel good today... slightly strange, but by no means sick. Have walked the dog, picked up more drugs and checked football scores, brunch later... of course next couple of days will be the real test of how things are really going; worst comes at 3-5 days I'm told.

We shall see

Steve

Chemo day!

Looking at a long old day today. Standard chemo takes about an hour to administer... but the R part of CHOP R takes 5 hrs the first time.. infusion reactins are common and the slower they go the less likely I am to become a shivering wreck. Add in blood work and the all important Insurance Checks and you're looking at a 10 hr day.

Have loaded up the i-pod (Cyndi Lauper - The Body Acoustic). the DVD player (Deadwood Series One) and have my taking forever to read Roddy Doyle book with me (the one where the Irish guy comes to New York in the 20s) so I'm as ready as I think I can be... and looking forward to actually starting treatment.

September seems a long time ago - but that's when the cough started and when I had the first x-ray. Starting today means being finished end of July (and end of World Cup) meaning that I can start in the gym ahead of a September beach holiday. OK, maybe October (we'll head south) - besides September is the US Open and perfect, perfect weather.

Time to head off...

What Fresh hell is this?

So yesterday I had my first PET scan. Turn up a at the hospital, get injected with radioactive sugar, lay immobile for an hour as 'any movement, even turning the pages of a book could send the sugar to the muscles rather than the organs" and then wander through to get into another whirling donut machine.

'Do not move' warns Dr.24 year old. "No moving". He then proceeds to position me until I'm as uncomfortable as possible all the while muttering "must be still, still, still"

Finally I'm ready, he flips on the machine, gives me one more 'do not move' and turns to leave, flicking on the radio as he goes, arrrghhh. The radio is tuned to 'hip sway' FM... it's playing all the Latin music you know and all of music that drags the Latino out of you... and you can't move. At all.

40 minutes later the beat is now frenzied; I'm still, my arms are starting to go into a 'world's strongest man' shake and I'm pretending to to Finnish (anyone else used to love Janne Virtanen?) in a bid to both hold them still and resist the beat.

Machine chugs, splutters and spits me out and I'm free to leave. I try to capture the 'sense memories' so that I can help Dakota later but have visions of Sandra Bullock and give up. We'll shove Dakota in the machine... that oughta do it.

CAT Scan Thursday (hmmm, Barium) - will call and try to schedule chemo today; hoping for this Friday

A partner in crime?

Just heard that one of the guys I used to work with (my favorite Australian Darren) has just been admitted to hospital with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia... not the same disease as I have I know but close enough a cousin to make marriage a questionable option.

Hoping to trade tales of disappearing hairlines, stool softners, infusion reactions and survival with him very soon.

Action stations

All go this morning... as of an hour ago I have a PET scan Tuesday, a CAT scan Thurs and my first Chemo session pencilledin for Friday.

It may seem strange but I'm actually looking forward to the chemo... people keep asking about fear, trepidation, apprehension and I have to keep telling them "erm, no". This of course adds to the current 'brave face' therory.. the theory that I'm showing a sunny side to the world whilst crumbling within. Alas not (I should be so Judy Garland). Truth is I'm done with the coughing, the wheezing, the pulling of muscles as I gasp for air, the occasional day spent spitting blood into mounting piles of tissue - it's time to put this thing to bed and chemo is the way to do that.

So I've picked out the Chemo DVD series ('Deadwood : Season One'); loaded up the i-pod and am ready to go with this thing. Genuine, positive anticipation.

Still talking to various sperm banks. Well to two of them actually. There's a 30% chance that the chemo will make me infertile. Sperm banking is recommended but then at $650 a 'pop', a minimum of three 'pops' and 'storage rental charges' it all adds up and I'm left thinking - do I want kids more than I do a new sofa?

My instinct is to take my chances - if I can't have kids after this then so be it; we're hardly in the first flush of youth anyway. And besides I've always secretly wanted to adopt a Vietnamese piano prodigy who'd look like Maddox Jolie aqnd play like... erm... well... a really good piano player.

Cool idea of the week comes from Men's Health - a wallet sized card that has my blood type, meds taken, allergies, medical insurance and contact details on it. Everyone should carry one - if you get hit by a car it'll help the ambulance guys.

Premonition time... I see myself in week 17 of treatment. Bald, moon faced and with steroid induced anger management issues; about to be given the all clear and heading home via the subway when somene bumps me; the steroids kick in; I give my best Travis Bickle; he takes offence and beats me to death there and then. Don't know why that scenario keeps coming into my (admittedly over-medicated) head but it does. Needless to say I shall be avoiding subways.

Last bit... woke up last night with an idea for my ashes that I want to get down before I forget it. When Velcro was a puppy and we lived in upstate New York I used to walk her in Bowdoin Park. She loved it and so did I. Even when she tugged so hard she sent me rolling down the steepest of hills towards a duck pond. That hill was nearly the death of me... and should I fall victim to subway rage attackers, stray ambulance or chemo infusion reaction then I think it's as good a place as any for my ashes; just make sure that the dog doesn't eat / roll in them... that may cause the most tragic grooming of all time as jude tries to get bits of me out from between the dog's toes.

Okay - too long a posting... time for some Dr Phil.

ahem-hem, cough splutter

Well carried little bits of my body from Long Island to Manhatten yesterday. Alas it wasn't in a bid to get on an revamped SwapShop, but it was an attempt to get this treatment started.

I still need Insurance clearance for a CAT scan and for a PET scan, then an appointment to have both done and the results before I can start. Looks like the 13th is a vain hope and the 27th is starting to pop up as a date... not one I LIKE but one I understand.

Chasing all I can but Doris Day was right - whatever will be, will be.

Meanwhile I alternate between miaculously healthy and coughing wreck (the latter usually after food and too much exercise)

About to chase insurance again

More when I know more...

It's the weekend

And the L train is down...

Which means that there's nobody in Williamsburg and that the streets belong to me and my dog. Of course it would be nicer if the temperature was above freezing, if I could walk more than 50 yards without coughing up sputem and if the dog didn't try to eat every piece of trash she finds (and there's plenty)

But who am I to complain, ambulatory, free of responsibility and ready to bask in the sunshine.

Read this yesterday on a Chuck Norris site...

"Chuck Norris' tears can cure cancer.... it's such a shame he's never cried"

It made me laugh

Ouch, really

Quick run the hospital yesterday turned into a four hour visit... lots of aimless waiting punctuated by fresh fresh faces and big needles.

The fresh faces were Maureen - a lovely looking lady who will be my nurse throughout all of this and Trish, an efficient looking woman who will monitor my progress throughout.

The big needle - well that came when they took the bone marrow sample. Procedure? Gown on... position prone... ass there for all to see... much pushing of hip bone and spine.... 6 'dentist like' injections of anaesthesia each preceeded by the phrase 'a pinch and a little burn'... a warning that anaesthetic can't permeate bone and to expect 'discomfort not pain'... some modest bonely scratching... pressure... discomfort.... 'deep breath'... cold sweat... agony.... muttered swearing... another breath (less deep)... more sweat... done... pressure bandage... 20 mins of pressure on it and home.... worse for young men than their older or differently chromosomed bretheren by all accounts.

Youch

Still I advance further up the 'pain threshold' chart - meaning that I can look forward to more unmedicated agonies in the near future. Hurrah.

Ba Da Ba da - Baaaa-da-da-daaah

So the countdown to treatment begins. I'm racing to get everything ready to go for a January 13th chemo start date.

That means getting my slides back from pathology, getting insurance clearance for PET and CT scans and considering (again) sperm banking - though at $650 per shot and $500 a year 'storage' I'm thinking of making 'popsicles' of my own, perhaps in the shape of Xmas trees.

It's looking like I'll be doing six rounds R-CHOP with Velcade - one Friday every three weeks; tests in between and possible radiotherapy at the back end. All done in time for summer holidays.

Though the thought of me on a beach bald, moon faced from the prednisone and suffering 'roid rage may not be great.

Anyway lots and lots to sort out... I'll go do it. Good to be back at work though.

toof arse-end n six

Happy New Year all

Here's hoping that 2006 is a better year than the one it replaced. Here's to fewer freak storms, disasters, wars, epidemics and needless death and to more stability, compassion and genuinely positive action.

On a personal note 2005 wan't our best year - it started well as we settled in Brooklyn, work got better, Jude's PhD was flying then bam - her dad gets cancer and things start to spin some. He gets sick, then sicker and in September he dies.

Around the same time I start to cough, am diagnosed with cancer and am awaiting treatment as I type (I'm coughing too, in a weird hunched position that I've convinced myself will minimize the chance of hernia)

Yet weirdly 2005 wasn't that sad or depressing a year. Friends did what friends should, family fretted and time marched on; we coped and carried on with the day to day routines that life demands. The cliche is that it's all about the people in your life - I'm starting to get it. The people around you are your life... get the right people and they're what make it rich and interesting and challenging and all of the things that you want it to be; get them wrong and you're being taken up a back alley by an anonymous John in a bid to get enough cash together for your next burger. Or worse - you live a passionless life.

Enough of this though. Happy New Year all.

Lesson learned

Today's lesson - when you don't update your CANCER blog for almost a week people start to wonder whether you're dead.

I'm not (obviously) but , as my mother in law might say "who was to know that,huh?"

Not much happening here it being Xmas and all but I do have a diagnosis - Large B Cell Mediastinal Lymphoma - and an appointment to see the Cornell guyts January 3rd.

From there I should start CHOP-R chemo followed by radiotherapy. The Prednisone is likely to turn me into a cherub faced fatty with anger management issues (by all accounts). Great - lots of scenes reminiscent of the one when Christoper Biggins lost the part of Widow Twanky to John Inman... with me as Biggins!

Anyway a short post today - home alone and want to maximize the time I spend watching LOST and minimize time spent on everything else.

A note on 'top specialists'

'Top Specialists'

... have large friendly faces...

... they explain things to you in a way that's so obviously dumbed down you wanna scream, but that makes enough sense to stop you

... they tend to disbelieve all but their own evidence

... they have minions, who prep you before said Top Specialist sweeps in and does everything again, in a more sunny manner

...have done this before - no pauses while they look for that sperm bank address somewhere on their desk; it's all pre-written and ready to be 'discreetly handed off'

... don't have water-stained ceilings - all other doctor's do

... are smiley

... carry the faint whiff of expensive automotove leather about them

... know from experience that second wives get bigger diamonds

... carry a little too much weight, making their faces and their handshakes somewhat 'piggy'

... tend to make you feel more confident than other doctors - despite their obviously not having studied your records

... are cool!

Still no news

The transport strike made getting to Cornell a bit of a nightmare - but with some begging, pleading, threatening, walking and waving of cash we made it. Alas the support staff did not - so the wait was 4 hrs.

4 hrs to hear that pathology reports aren't back yet and they can't tell me anything at all until they are.

Still I'm in the system - they've sticked me for blood, scheduled me for bone marrow and slipped me the name of a sperm bank.

And I have another number to chase for pathology.

So almost, but not completely, a total waste of my time