It Might Get Messy

It Might Get Messy

You know, in general, this has been a messy month. Makes me happy that my last radiation dose is Tuesday morning and my last chemotherapy infusion is Tuesday afternoon. Otherwise, I’m not that happy about having the treatments end. Because in this case “end” could well be as in “final”. I don’t think there’s a hell of a lot of therapeutic play if this round of treatment fails (as expected—preliminarily the docs calculated a 20% success probability). In other words, if there’s residual cancer after all this messy insult to my corporeal being, I’m going to have to live…or more likely, die…with it. But we’ll see. 

Problems affiliated with the treatments seemed to compound this week. Pain is up, my throat cramps regularly, and I pour quantities of thick, brown-stained ropey mucous throughout the day. And the real problem? There’s no way to know if any of this is worth it. The malignancy itself being diffuse and smeared across my palate, it’s smack in the middle of the inflammation generated by the radiation and chemotherapy. Which means it will be weeks to months before they’re willing to try  a PET Scan which could reveal the presence or absence of residual malignancy. On the plus side, in the interim I’ll be healing from the hammering of the radiation and chemotherapy. 

In linear fashion, I expect things to lay out thusly. First, I’ll start to feel much better, since we’re halting the treatments. Then there’ll be some weeks to months when I feel normal (well, as normal as a person with his tongue hacked out and his windpipe and gastrointestinal system separated by a thick slab of chest muscle). At that point, assuming there is indeed residual cancer, I’ll start to feel the symptoms as the affected spots grow and mature. Within a year or so, I’ll have to get palliative treatment for the symptoms. And then at that moment it becomes a fight for life once again. Except this time, my side is pretty much out of ideas, weapons, and will. At that point, I fall back on my experience with my Mom, who spent her last days at home under my night time care with supplies from a hospice organization. With Mom, it worked out well. Beth was around to take care of her during the day, and Beth’s posse was experienced in handling the fatally ill. Mom’s sister, my beloved Aunt Deet (still cranking in Florida) and I took the night shift. 

So basically I’m prepared for all eventualities. If I achieve some level of “cure”, or at least reach a 5 year survival probability, I’ll have time to finish this book on urban ecosystems (which is proceeding very well, by the way, although rather too slowly for one likely to die any time soon). Plus I have my cut paper art, at which I am gaining proficiency all the time. 

And if I do NOT reach some level of cure and end up paying boatman Charon for a quick ferry across the Rivers Styx and Acheron, separating the eternal wetland of the dead from the occasionally dry and delightful biosphere of the living, I’ll know what to expect. 

In the meantime, assuming I have the post-chemo vomiting under control, I may get a few days at the beach. A large house has been rented, Cathy has lined up air beds and corners, and the kitchen undoubtedly needs someone to run it. And I am just the boy for THAT operation. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to continue our long run of collecting small, unidentifiable fish in the surf, and retrieving venom from a large number of cottonmouth snakes to run skin-abrasion toxicology experiments on myself. 

I don’t have any deep, burning needs in my soul that I feel compelled to fill before I die. But a trip to the beach? That’ll fill lots of immediate needs. I may be unable to eat seafood (or anything else, for that matter), but I love the coast. Can’t wait to see it. 

Everybody check tomorrow night. I expect to have the full weblog empire up and going, so see http://docviper.livejournal.com/ ,  http://theresaturtleinmysoup.blogspot.com/ ,  http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/ ,  and professional blog at http://aehsfoundation.org/ . And don’t forget Doctor Crossley’s wild west blog at ccrossley.typepad.com/ . 

As a bonus, for my love for all of you and all you do for me, I leave you with a few photos from the hospital campus. Thanks, guys!!!