Hakuna matata - bless you

I didn’t have much to say this week, so I didn’t say it. About the only eventful thing that happened this week is I didn’t throw up on anyone at dinner at the 1865 restaurant on Tuesday night. Our great friend Gerardo came in from Madrid, so we had a nice cookout dinner at Stacy’s on Sunday, and then on Tuesday Gerardo took us all out to dinner. I had a shot of cytarabine and of procrit that morning, and have never had any reaction to those two. Doesn’t it figure that, as we sit down at 1865, I feel this gurgling in the gut. Too late to take any anti-emetics; I grin and bear it. When the entrees arrive, my swordfish is bathing in this heavy reduction sauce, sitting on a bed of garlic potatoes. I take about five bites, and that is it. Dana and I are in this booth, and Lia is on my left, and has me trapped in the booth. Lia looks at me, sees that I am whiter than paste, and moves her seat over an extra foot, as far as she can go, and I appreciate the room. I wore the Indiana Jones hat, and I am considering that, or will I make it to the rest room?

The feeling fades. I sit tight, and drink another 12 glasses of water. We all get in a heated discussion of the Marketplace Project, which will put another shopping mall on the outskirts of town. Dinner is finally over, and we all go to leave, and when I stand the nausea returns like a tsunami – you know the wave is coming, but you don’t know how big it will be. READER WARNING – GRAPHIC NAUSEA SCENE AHEAD. Standing in the lobby to say goodbye to Gerardo it is all I can do to hold it. As we walk to the car I find a discreet garden area and finally lose it there, fertilizing the plants with what looks like stomach lining mixed with Alka-Seltzer. Feeling much better, we go home. I am thankful that nobody had to witness that, and I am sorry that it was such a boring week I had to describe it here.

I figured it was the cyclophosphamide from the week before, the stuff that really kicks me, but Nurse Sue thinks it was the cytarabine finally building up in me to the nausea point. Next day I take the anti-nausea pill, then the cytarabine shot, and I do that every day and have no further problems. Next week it is back to l-asparaginase gut smackers and vincristine the numbness drug. The numbness in the feet and hands is getting really annoying, totally messes with doing tae kwon do.

Started contemplating the Jade fountain I always said I would build. All the materials are here, ready to go, but the final design will not present itself. It was supposed to be this beachy thing, but that has faded, and now an Oriental rock garden/mountain stream is coming in, complete with Bonsai. Always wanted some Bonsai. It seems like it will be really big, though. I am going to have to ponder this further.

April 15 came and went. That was the day I would’ve died if leukemia had gone undetected, assuming three months from starting to parting. I know back in early Feb when I first heard I had leukemia and heard it had a three month fatality, I thought Well, I am not doing taxes, 4/15 is my dying day, sorry Dana. I am not sure how to consider all the days after this – bonus days? It all seems morbid to consider, so I may have to drop the whole notion. I have noticed that a lot of journals of people that go through cancer include days since diagnosis. That would be dX+73 for me. The weird thing is I don’t feel particularly mortal, no more so than in the past. Well, maybe a little. I read the obits page closer, and am cheered when everyone that dies is over 70.

Another strange thing to contemplate is that I may already be 100% leukemia-free. The next year and a half of treatment could all be for naught. There is no way you’d forego it; one little leukemic bastard hiding out in my spine or cranium and we’re back to square one, and of course that is how and why they ended up developing all these treatments in the first place. It sure would be nice if they had some Star Trek scanner and just scanned me and said, OK, this guy’s clear. I remember the episode where the crew comes back to Earth in the present day, and they are in a hospital, and Dr. McCoy passes some lady moaning on a bed. He scans her, gives her a pill, and says ‘These people are barbarians!’ I wonder how long it will be before they look at these chemo treatments in that way.

There were a couple of other big happenings this week. I got my finger slammed in son John’s door in January, and the finger was broken. The nail was broken in a diagonal line across the mid-point, and I have had a bandaid on it since. The nurses have all told me not to let that nail fall off, as it would be a big site for infection, so I have been wearing a bandaid for 3 months. It got to the point where all that was left holding the nail on was a spot this big – O – near the tip of the nail. The new nail was growing in underneath and was 1/3rd of the way out. So, I trimmed it all down to the last little nub, which finally tore off a couple of days ago. This has reduced my typos by 1/4th. I know the chemo impacts nail growth quite a bit, and I wonder if the gnarled beginning growth for this nail shows that or the trauma from being slammed in a door.

The other big happening is I received a card from Bill and Hilary Clinton. I have long since forgiven Bill for being stupid enough to provide ammo to his detractors by being so damn human, and I think history will measure him as one of the true global leaders of our time, so I was pleased to get this card. It also says something to me that of all the people Dana asked to send a card, 1 in 4 did so – Larry Bird, Arnold Scharzenegger, Robin Williams, Angelina Jolie, The Clintons, Vanna White and Michael Jordan. It says, they either have great PR machines, or they are people people.