It Might Get Messy

We spend our todays with the aftermath of yesterdays, tomorrows with the aftermath of todays. At some point in our lives, we start dealing largely with the accumulation of what we’ve done before. I wonder when we make that transition, from building our selves-to-be to managing the sum of our lives-to-date? Human culture as a whole is mostly our attempt to steer the enormous, momentum-bound, awkward heap of history in some direction, any direction, other than its own random slide toward the future. 


Cancer is, of course, largely a today representing the sum of yesterdays. At some point an inflammation becomes self-sustaining, eventually genetic material in the area mutates, and cellular constraints shut down in favor of runaway replication. In my case, the inflammatory influence was probably the combined, chronic presence of ethanol—a highly carcinogenic chemical—on my tongue, from beverage alcohol and from mouthwash, and who knows, maybe from decades of daily spritzing with asthma inhalers. 


But the thing about cancer survival, at least in context of the present level of treatment technology, is that you’ve swapped a long time…a lifetime…of dealing with the outcomes of treatment for the outcome (inevitably, death) of the cancer itself. 


This bit of insight, such as it is, came to me last week when my lymphedema therapy team told me it was time to start working on my shoulder. My shoulder? What the hell, my face is still full of loose lymph fluid, and needs the massage to shift it around and break up the scar tissues that prevent if from being resorbed from more functional parts of my body. True, the therapists allowed, but that left shoulder is misshapen and dysfunctional, an artifact of the nerve trunks cut inevitably during the three rounds of surgery it took to finalize the status of my lymphatics.


And right they are. Certain specific muscles in my left arm system no longer work. I can’t lift that arm beyond horizontal in the dorso-ventral plane (that is, straight up from my knee to over my head sticking straight out to the left). This is not such a tragedy for someone like me, whose life doesn’t depend on physical acumen. However, the therapists are careful to demonstrate that certain muscles are atrophied, parts of my joints are freezing as others compensate, and that in general I need to be responsible and responsive and do specific exercises as needed.


But this is on top of daily exercises for my tongue strength (and speaking and eating abilities), lymph fluid control (self-massage and lengthy hours of mask-wearing), and attempting to generally reconstitute my physical condition after more than a year of letting it go to hell. Basically, my days are frickin’ out of time. After such necessities as earning a living, getting some sleep, and doing a little writing and reading, four exercise regimes are more than I can handle on a daily basis.


Ah, well, at least I’m here to complain about it! Later this week I’m in Europe, a week-and-a-half after that, in Asia. I expect hiking around Berlin and Mindanao to go a long way toward restoring my general physical health. So, for today, check out the professional blog at http://aehsfoundation.org/ . I haven’t updated the other three weblogs. Starting the end of this week, there should be travelogue and photos from Germany showing up at http://doviper.livejournal.com/ , and I’ll keep this weekly diary complete. Thanks for stoppin’ by, everyone. Guten nagen!