It Might Get Messy

Been a while since we visited the Tasmanian devils to get an update on the virulent nose cancer that is threatening the species with extinction. The New York Times has a nice up-to-date piece at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/22/science/saving-tasmanian-devils-from-extinction.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0 . Turns out the cancer has become even more ubiquitous and deadly since we last checked it out. It has mutated into an infectious disease, which is extremely rare for cancer (the only known comparable is a non-lethal canine cancer of some sort). The death rate is very high. In desperation, conservationists are populating a non-devil-inhabited island with “clean” specimens. The assumption is that if and when the mainland population goes extinct, the cancer will disappear as well, since it will have no host. At that point, the mainland could be repopulated from the island batch. 

This of course ignores the potential for some environmental cause of the cancer, which may or may not have arisen de novo in the genome of the devils. But I guess there’s only one way to find out… . 

But that’s not why we’re here. We’re here because irony is my favorite thing in the universe. I love irony. You might say I live for irony. And now, it turns out, I might very well die of irony. Here’s the deal.

I saw Dr. H today. His read on my health is that recovery is so far advanced that it is time to think about treating the remaining tumor in my throat. A week ago, he wanted to wait 2 months. Now he says it’ll probably end up being close to that even if we start to plan now. So I have an appointment with the radiologist, Dr. N, to talk over radiological possibilities. H thinks the viable choice might be a source insertion, sticking a small but radiologically hot particle into the tumor mass itself. This technique would avoid disrupting the ongoing healing in my face, neck and shoulders, and also contribute less to my already hefty lifetime radiation dose. 

A week ago, Dr. H was all about chemotherapy. I’m not sure what happened meantime, except that the patient care committee meets on Wednesdays, and maybe radiology won a round this morning. I’m a little skeptical myself, since I’m not even sure what the diagnosis of this residual tumor is based on. It seems to be in the memories of the surgeons who saw it live and in person while they were rooting around in my oral cavity for hours and hours over 3 weeks in the hospital. I’d like a little more diagnostics myself, but we’ll see how it goes.

Because here’s the irony. At the moment, my blood clotting is all screwed up. They suspect the embolism remains, they’ve tripled my dose of rat poison, put me back on the injectable blood thinner, and entered me into a special clinic where my clotting can be measured regularly with the objective of keeping my blood from coagulating into a circulatory-system-shaped slab of caulking compound. I would consider it damn near the ultimate irony to have fought my way through treatment for two rounds of Stage 4 tumors, and be starting Rocky Balboa-like preparation for a third round, only to drop dead of a stroke having nothing to do with any malignancies. 

At this point, it seems a toss-up. Sudden out-of-the-blue death by stroke vs. lingering, fighting death from residual tumors and/or tumor treatments. At the moment, I’d put my money on the tumors, and give myself at least a year or two. But much remains to be seen. What I DO know is that I love you all, and you are all helping to keep me alive. Keep up the good work! Oh, and if you get a pool going, give me $5 on 15 September 2014. Hell, if we run it $5 a day from now until sometime in 2017, there’ll be a fortune to be made!