Merry Christmas.

Short and sweet.

My family has always, on Christmas Eve, served everyone rice pudding.

Hidden in one of the bowsl of rice pudding is an almond.

The person getting the almond will have good luck for the coming year.

I GOT THE ALMOND THIS YEAR.

talk to you later.

It's More Than A Cane

A few months ago I found myself in Atlanta walking across a fairly nice hotel lobby.   

Hotel?  Motel?  

As a young lad I recall my parents trying to explain to me the difference between the two. 

I still don’t get it. 

  I think it had something to do with if you drove to it and stayed less than an hour…. no that wasn’t my parent’s explanation.

But a few months ago in Atlanta, my Cane clicking on the faux travertine lobby floor I made my way past paintings produced by the masters.  I fleetingly examined each and my untrained eye told me that these paintings, hanging in the lobby of a chain hotel motel were obviously originals.

Halfway across my fine art tour from A to B I hear, “Excuse me sir.  Excuse me sir.”

In the past, even knowing the beckoning was directed to me I would continue walking intent on my trip to  A and B.  In the past, I would wonder why someone was saying “excuse me sir” and think it meant ill.  In the past I was a different man.

I turned to where I thought the “excuse me sir” was coming from and saw a woman behind the hotel/motel reg…OK, OK it will be a hotel from here on out…registration desk.

I walked back across the lobby all the while, my eye realizing “hey these are motel paintings not masterpieces” and feeling temporarily chagrined.

I smiled at the seemingly nervous lady in control of registration and said “yes.”

She asked odd things about my cane.  She asked a lot of questions about my cane and was tremendously serious.  I really didn’t understand her intensity but due to my new life I’ve become more tolerant and inquisitive.

She asked if the cane was for the mobile impaired, seeing impaired, was it ADA approved, could I take it on commercial flights.  Finally she asked the big time question.  Why do I have a cane?

I explained that I have Cancer and it has made it difficult for me to keep my balance.

Tears, streamed and streamed and she thanked me for my time.  She explained that she was asking because her husband… well he had suddenly had become a hell of a lot sicker then I at the time including that very day.  One hell of a lot sicker.   

I felt so bad for her though.  She was so afraid that she would buy the wrong cane for her husband even though she is bright enough to run a desk for a major hotel/motel in a major city of the U.S. 

She didn’t know what cane to buy for her very very ill husband.

It makes me cry that someone can be so afraid they can’t think.

It makes me cry that I got to help and she has since gotten a cane. 

KARMA

Karma.  Is that word even in today’s vocabulary?  Perhaps I’m dating myself using the word but I was and am a firm believer in Karma or whatever word you want to use for what goes around comes around.

Karma swings both ways.  Karma can leave you standing in the middle of the dirt road crushed and bewildered wondering what just happened.  Karma can make you silently scream in the middle of the night "why?"  Karma can make you introspective and wonder what did I do to deserve insert word here? Hell, Karma can be bad mouthing your dishwasher and the next day all your appliances decide to rebel.  Karma is also the five dollar bill you find in the parking lot because earlier you held the door open for the lady who didn’t even say thank you.  Karma is the grocery store checker running after you to give you your change because months ago you told a different checker that she had given you too much change.  Karma is the balance of the universe.  Somebody even wrote a song about Karma that was instant and going to get you.

I have experienced both the reward and penalty of Karma.  In fact I believe that a facet of my illness can be directly attributed to Karma. 

As a young man I would hear women complain, both in real life and on television, about hot flashes.  On T.V. women like Betty White would even make jokes about hot flashes.  I always thought “hot flashes seriously?  You need to get over it.”  Not a whole lot of sympathy from me when it came to the mystical hot flash.  Hot flashes seemed like an excuse to me to not do something; drama to get attention; affliction of the mind certainly not a physical discomfort.  My less than sympathetic attitude years down the road would gain me Karmanic retribution.

Prostate cancer loves testosterone.  Testosterone is the high octane fertilizer of prostate cancer.  One of the treatments for the disease is to get rid of the testosterone.  In the old days they, doctors, would do this the same way you would your dog only in a hospital and not a veterinarian.  As you can well imagine this technique didn’t and doesn’t really sit well with the patient and marketing the procedure was  brutally tough. 

Today, they do it chemically but still call it basically by the same name.  In fact Prostate Cancer can and generally does eventually become what the medical profession terms Castrate Resistant.   

The particular drug they give me is called Zolodex [depending on your insurance there are others that are administered differently].  Every three months I go in to one of my oncologists for check up, infusion and implant.  The very kind nurse gives me some Lidocaine in the insertion area and once comfortably numb she takes a needle about the size of a railroad spike and implants a pencil lead diameter piece of Zolodex in the fatty tissue of my belly.  Scary the first time, but no biggy thereafter. 

This drug removes the ability to produce testosterone.  Removing a man’s testosterone has a number of predictable “manly” side effects.  You can guess what those side effects may be or look them up.  I suspect your guess will be correct but if you’re a man going through this there are non obvious side effects you may want to know about.

One of the side effects that varies from man to man is hot flashes.  In my case I have hot flashes that drench the bedding to the point my wife offers to change the bedding sometimes twice a night.  I have some sort of hot flash every night and can only recall since treatment started one night where I did not have a hot flash. 

I’ve had shirt drenching hot flashes during business meetings causing everyone to scream “Oh my god he’s got Ebola” as they run out of the conference room while I shout “no no I’m not contagious”.   

I have discovered that hot flashes are very real.  Hot flashes are miserable.  Hot flashes are neither of the mind nor a ploy to get out of something.  I own multiple zip up hoodies because you go from melting to minutes later freezing thanks to hot flashes.  Zipper up zipper down.  Zipper up zipper down.

I know there are men with this disease that suffer minimal hot flashes due to the hormonal treatment.  I know there are men whose days are seemingly a continuous hot flash.  I know I’ll never again begrudge a woman having a hot flash.  Instead I’ll ask her if I can do anything to help. 

In my case I’m pretty sure Karma is serving its just and wet retribution.  Betty, if you can hear me, I take it all back.  Joke all you want.

Talk to you later.

Radiation Trepidation

The evil empire of prostate cancer likes the bones.  Especially, as my Onc [Oncologist] says, “the big bones”.  I guess that explains why I have mets [metastases] on my skull.   

Even in the early stages of invasion the bone lesions hurt.  Sometimes they hurt like hell.

One of the goals for improving and supporting “quality of life” is the reduction of pain and sometimes radiation can be that tool that is used to reduce pain.  Radiation has worked more than once in my case.

Radiation! Oh my!  Don’t they do that to fruit and we aren’t supposed to eat irradiated fruit?  Nuclear bombs are radioactive.  My watch dial back in the day glowed in the dark radioactively.  Geiger counters, dosimeters oh my!

Disclaimer:  Lesions on my bones are being irradiated not my soft tissue so results may vary.  Just ask one of my age old friends. She will vouch that soft tissue radiation is not for the meek.

They don’t put you in a microwave structure and zap your whole body hoping you will cook from the center out.  Being zapped actually requires something called “targeting” or “simulation” or “pin the tail on the donkey”.  Not totally sure what the first step is called but it involves this machine. 

                                        

Look familiar from my Scan 101 blog.  If you said CAT scan then…hell who cares if you were right or not.  Armed with a bone scan, an image I may or may not share sometime in the future, they CAT scan the “target” area in an effort to dial in where the radiation is going to go.

Once they get you where they want you the really cool stuff happens.  They come in and tattoo you and take pictures.

                                       

Pretty cool huh?  While that is a tattoo on my body the techs, though kind helpful and knowledgeable aren’t that talented with the tattoo pen and if they are they don’t have time to be overly artistic [though some are pretty talented with a Sharpie].  The really cool part is if you are in competition with your daughter for most tattoos you can count these

                                     

teeny-weeny dots as tattoos.  Merely a spec on the land of your skin but somehow through photos, CAT scans and X-rays they are the targets that help align the targeting lasers.

So for me a couple days after “targeting” I go in for zappage.  If you are lucky you have a nice place to go to like this

                                  

and after a no wait at all you will be whisked away to face The Machine.

Admittedly I’m visiting a world class cancer center that is fairly new so when I say “The Machine” is in a pleasantly appointed room where today “K” the tech chose Motown for the music du jour my point of view may be skewed.  For a fact though, the process is painless and far less scary than the disease that is silently coursing through your body. 

Once in the room I always kick off my shoes but that is the only shedding I do.  Today, because of the area being zapped I had to pull my jeans part way down.  I tell you this only because in the special waiting room there are all sorts of hospital gowns and pants available.  Don’t put them on unless you are told to.  The effects of cancer are humiliating enough.  Why walk down the hall way with an open back gown, white whatever flashing with each step, if you don’t need to?

In the room you lay down on the table and the techs make sure you are comfortable and gently align your new tattoos with the lasers.

                            

Once aligned the techs leave and close the 15” thick door and you are terribly alone in the room with The Machine!

I’ve mentioned this before but if you are fighting the evil empire there is no lonelier spot on the planet than this room once that door closes.  In this room there is only you and your disease. By yourself, no one is holding your hand.  No one.  By yourself.   Here in this room the fact that you are sick is silently but crushingly driven home.  The upside is Marvin the Martian does good things like zap the pain.

Marvin the Martian? 

Yep that’s what I call The Machine.  You see, whoever put the damn machine together apparently had a great sense of humor.  When they zap you they want you to lie very very still.  Right!  Try lying still while you are silently laughing because each 53 second zap of The Machine sounds exactly like and I mean exactly like Marvin the Martian’s ray gun aimed at Bugs Bunny and going “ZAP”.   

Too funny.

Talk to you later.

                                   

Thank You

Thanksgiving?  I’m pulling the cancer card and saying “Really, Thanks?  Cancer.  No not just cancer, currently untreatable cancer.” 

NOT

I was fortunate to spend this day at my daughter’s and her husband’s home.  I admit, four year old twins, my seven year old grandson and some people I didn’t know made me a little apprehensive.  I’m not telling any secrets, my family knows how I am.

Wait!   

With one laughing farting four year old sitting on my after dinner left leg and the other twin on my right leg helping me sneak whip cream while my grandson showed his martial art talents  I realized…this is life.  This is living.  This is simple.  

So thanks family.  Thanks to the woman I love more than life.  Thanks to the people at work that think I don’t know watch after me and give me rides.  Thanks to the people that keep me in their thoughts and prayers. 

Thanks because I’m alive.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Thought From The Shower

Since my first broken bone I've always wondered the necessity of acute pain.  It has always seemed to me acute pain is a waste of resources and energy.  Yes we need to be told that something is amiss with our bodies but at some point enough is enough and anymore serves no purpose. 

Now, with my disease, barring some out of the statistical realm of possibilities that we hope for on a daily basis, there is probably a point in my future that will include some sort of acute pain.  Obviously this  gives me pause and causes me to  give no little thought to the subject such pain.

Standing in the shower the other day, a place where I at times do my best thinking, I was wondering why the Gods thought that "suffering" pain was such a good idea.  Particularly for those that are chronically ill.  Does that suffering really serve any purpose?   Does it make those that are ill stronger while their body beats them down?  “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”  Really?    

So, I stood there with steaming water cascading down my right side and my left side leaning against the cold tile and the light of epiphany seemingly started to come on until it was finally fully aglow. 

Suffering of the chronically ill makes all the sense in the world to me and it does in fact serve a purpose.  Amazingly with that thought  seventy five pounds seemingly, instantly shed from my shoulders. 

Whether you agree with my showery epiphany or not apparently depends on your perspective.  How close you are to the one who will suffer and how much you will suffer along with them.  I discussed this with a friend of mine and she agreed whole hardheartedly but of course she won't and doesn't have to watch me each and every day.  I discussed with the person who will thankfully  be there each and every day and she was in complete disagreement.  Discussed with a deeply devout acquaintance and they put a decidedly religious rationale on my epiphany.

So…

Imagine [some of you don’t have to imagine]  loving someone who has been a part of your life.  Suddenly they weren't there.  They were just gone.  Poof.  You will never see them again.  Poof.  You don't even have the comfort of believing they are unknowingly alive and well somewhere else on the planet.  Nope they are undeniably, confirmed totally not part of this world any longer.  Gone!

Whoa!  Were you prepared for that?  Can you imagine the hole in your life?  In your soul?  Could you recover?  Even if you could how long would it take?  No preparation, no warning what so ever.  A universe built that way seems and is often absurdly cruel.  Even at my worst woe is me moments my mind reels at that level of galactic cruelty.

Now imagine that same person.  Two months, two, three years whatever time frame other than sudden.  See where I'm going?  Of course if you care, of course if you love them you too will suffer as your loved one does.  But that person is suffering, hanging on beyond hanging on to help those he or she loves come to grips with he or she not being around.  That decline over time prepares those left for the spot that is left empty. 

I'm not saying that makes one a hero or martyr for hanging on for as long as they can. But  I'm guessing this is why God created this kind of suffering…solely to help those that remain behind.  To make that hole not quite so large as perhaps would be left with a sudden absence.

Perhaps that is what we mean when we make comments like.  "Such a great attitude", "So selfless", "Such courage every day"….etc.  We are just describing a person whose only reason they can give to their own "suffereing" is that they are helping the ones they love most into the future.

Like I said, just a thought I had in the shower.

Talk to you later.

SCAN 101

Thanks to a PSA that doubled in a short time recently,  I was sent off to spend the better part of yesterday being scanned.   I remember the first time I was going to be “scanned”.   My fascination with Science Fiction terrified me when thinking about being “scanned”. 

CAT and Bone Scans, those seemingly  “scary scary”, are cake walks.  The worst that happens to you is a “slight poke” as they put the IV in…if you need an IV.

So I thought I’d share yesterday.  Yesterday that was filled with people that helped.  People that cared.  

 

This is where my day started.  My best friend dropped me off.  Having a ride is a great thing.  Especially if your friend or spouse can deliver you.  No reason for them to stay unless you want them too.  Trust me they will be bored as ultimately you will be to.

OK, it’s blurry and scary.  It’s also taken apart for QC.  They knew I was showing up so they wanted to make sure it was running fine for me.  This is the bone scan machine in what they call nuclear medicine.  The big thing at the top.  Well that’s the thing that comes down really close to you, scares the crap out of you because you think it is going to squish you, but ultimately takes pictures of your bones which saves you.

 

Before you have a bone scan they will have to put an isotope in you.  No worries about that you won’t glow.  The isotope, without being technical, helps “develop” the bone scan picture.  Doesn’t even hurt and if you don’t like needles….well they don’t really use needles.  Today’s needles look like a small plastic tube thing and they don’t even hurt.

I had two scans yesterday.  This is the “contrast” they make you drink for the CAT scan.  No biggy, tastes like nothing, but does waste an hour of your life as you sip.  For some reason they won’t let you just guzzle it.  So make sure you bring a book or something to entertain.  Oh and you can't eat four hours before, so make sure you have that late night snack.

And here is the CAT scan machine.  It’s blurry but look to the right of the doughnut.  Your IV will hook to that apparatus for about 30 seconds.  They will “push” some more “contrast” into you.  Here’s the cool thing.  When they do that…you’ll get a weird taste in your mouth and you will feel like you are peeing your pants even though you aren’t.  How many times during all of this do you wish you could pee your pants?

 

OK so it’s posed and my “bone scan” friend took the shot.  I’ve done this five times now.  The first time.  Wow.  I was terrified.  Ask questions if you are worried.  Talk, smile and participate.

Oh…the folks in the room with you.  They are there for you.