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