It Might Get Messy

At the turn of the century (that’s the LAST century, not the recent one), my Mom’s family lived in an agricultural village called Pianozza in the floodplain northeast of Genoa and west of Florence. Apparently life as sharecropping peasants eventually wore them down, and in 1902 (according to records from Ellis Island) they changed venue to Union City, New Jersey where a complicated extended family purchased an apartment house and squeezed several generations of several families into the tall, narrow space. 

Being from the north of Italy, Mom’s people felt that southern Italians were a different, and more dangerous, species. There was an elaborate Sicilian restaurant around the corner from the house on 27th Street where Mom occasionally took me for lunch. One day, when we entered, Mom looked around, sniffed, and said “Dave, we have to go. There’s Sicilians here.” Even at the age of 7 or so, I knew this was unnecessarily dramatic. But revealing regarding the state of the Italian-American community at that time. 

And why do I entertain you with this childhood anecdote? Because I am not alone in in having Italian ancestral throat cancer. John Gotti, one time Capo of the Gambino New York area crime family, was brought down, after a long career of murder and racketeering,  by throat cancer. Two items of note in Gotti’s life. When his boss, “Big Paulie” Castellano was affronted by Gotti’s heavy gambling habit and narcotics operation (Castellano had a standing order for death to “family” members dealing drugs) and was about to have him removed, Gotti moved first and killed Castellano. He also, in retribution for an automobile accident ruled accidental by the police, dissolved his next door neighbor in a vat of acid with his feet stuck in cement poured in the bottom of the vat. Post-dissolution, he was dropped offshore somewhere in the New York Bight. 

Anyway. This has been a hellish week for me. I’m not taking to the radiation as effectively as I did two years ago. This means in the morning, and sometimes in the afternoon, I vomit. Note I have several drugs intended to prevent nausea and vomiting. Further note that when I take them first thing in the morning, they are the first thing I vomit up. My dietician, Nurse K, has suggested a sequencing of medicines and foods that may or may not help keep me from losing my lunch. Even when I haven’t HAD lunch.

With that said, however, it appears that the radiation IS working. Dr. N says he can see a void where part of the tumor is now gone—burned out in place. He expects the rest of the tumorous area to follow suit. It is at least conceivable that I will beat the 80% chance of death scenario and survive this cancer a little longer. I sure hope so. Summer’s finally here, and I’d like to be around to enjoy it, and the autumn following. But we’ll just have to see. 

This was also the week I went in for more surgery. A medical “port” is a small device which is inserted in the chest. A long cannula runs from the device into a large vein (providing an expressway not to the skull, as late 60s Buddy Miles Express would have it, but to the heart, so injected materials are rapidly circulated). The Device itself is about the size of a stack of quarters, and about the same weight. Injections are via specially designed needle into a screened-over void in the device. They gave me the old one they pulled from my left side, its photo is below.  My port ceased functioning when the cannula broke loose from the injection portal. They replaced it on the right side with a working model.  

And why are they inserting medical apparatus directly and permanently into my bodily infrastructure? Because, of course, I’m on a weekly course of chemotherapeutic infusion. The chemo seems to be contributing to my gastrointestinal problems, although I can’t be certain. In any case, next week I’ll get my chemo via high-tech port vs. low-tech intravenous needle.

The radiation (and maybe the chemo) is also sapping my strength. I am very weak, and have an almost…wait, strike that “almost”…a pathological need to sleep. So most days I get my 0830 radiation, find a comfortable couch in the waiting rooms, and fall into a bizarre dreamy sleep until my 1530 treatment. Some days I wake up to take a walk around the campus, and sometimes I get into writing, but the problem is…uh…problematic enough that my writing progress has been very poor. 

This week, I was even too sick to respond to emails. Can you imagine me, for whom email is a dearly beloved form of communication, unable to deal with email? This frustrates the hell out of me, and I expect pisses off those of you who take the time to email me as you do. So I apologize. I am working my way back into writing strength. This weekend I expect/hope to get caught up on emails built up in my in-box, and get some new threads started. I also hope and expect to get caught up on my writing…the 5 weblogs I maintain, plus the urban ecosystems book. I just have to fight my way through being weak and sick on a daily basis. I’m on it, guys. Please bear with me.

Finally, by Sunday night, I expect to have new material up around the horn. So check out http://theresaturtleinmysoup.blogspot.com/ ,  http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/, http://docviper.livejournal.com/ , and my professional blog at http://aehsfoundation.org/ (go to lower left on the home page and click through to the blog). Also, don’t miss DAC Crossley’s wild west weblog at http://ccrossley.typepad.com/ .

My apologies to all to whom I owe communications. My thanks to all wellwishers. My love to you all for as long as I have love to give!