It Might Get Messy

It Might Get Messy

For a long time, we ecologists discounted cancer as a risk factor in nature. The thinking was that by the time animals were old enough to develop terminal tumors, they’d have been eaten by something else, obviating the cancer as a population problem. More recently, we’ve found certain cancers in certain animals to be a definite problem (technically, plants don’t get “cancer”, since their cell wall structure prevents runaway malignancy. But they do get large swellings, galls, and other “cancer equivalents”, sometimes resulting from fungal infections, but more often from insect infestations of various kinds). Most obvious (check the arrears of this blog for details) is the transmissible oral cancer of Tasmanian devils. It’s going to eliminate the affected population within decades. Then game managers hope to re-stock the habitat with non-infected individuals. I’m a little skeptical myself. Despite their being no known environmental trigger for the cancers, it seems odd that it would arise de novo and disappear forever with the last case gone cold. But, I’m not a game manager, so really am not entitled to such speculation.

More and more, cancers are becoming important issues in ecological assessment and management. For one thing, some animals are able to develop resistance in real time—on the order of years. This is evolution in action, right in our faces. The common bait killifish is a master at this. The populations are incredibly dense, reaching hundreds of individuals per square meter of mudflat in urban river systems, right downtown. After a decade or so, populations previously not subjected to urban pollutants become resistant to cancers and other diseases. Their genes are modified by “natural” selection of the pollutants, and the population goes on its merry way despite the toxins in the water and mud. 

We’re finding that there is much to be interested in ecosystem cancers. But that’s a theme for another email (or several-volume book). I’m here to report on MY cancer’s progress, my physical status, and the future. 

All of which are, to say the least, unknown. The doctors are happy with what they can see. Which is that where there was visible malignancy in my mouth before treatment, there is none now. But that’s not a fair measure of successful therapy. The real culprit is cancer deeper in my oral cavity, on my palate, not visible from my mouth. And scoping visuals via my nasal cavity basically show the destruction of the radiation and chemotherapy. In other words, a mess. So to really find out whether this round of treatment (which pounded the HELL out of me, I have to say) was successful means a wait of several months. In the meantime, life goes on. 

Which means HOOOOLLLLLYYY  SSSHHHIITTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!! Taking a recently-treated cancer victim to the beach is a logistics and medical nightmare akin to attacking Omaha Beach in flimsy sheet-metal landing craft. For one thing, traffic was brutal nearly the entire way. And certainly the entire way from Columbia to Newport News. Which was, to say the least, unexpected. This means said cancer victim (that is, Your Obedient Servant, or YOS) was nested in the far rear seat of the minivan for around 9 hours. Arrived at beach house after one nasty vomiting fit in the car, and one immediately upon making it up the first staircase of the house. Now I smell like some horrendous industrial acidic chemical, for some reason, or maybe it’s just dead tissue, but I really, really stink. Possibly a beach house full of happy vacationers is not the ideal place for someone in my condition. However, like Operation Overlord, the die has been cast, and I’m here for a while.

It will help that my primary functions are snake hunting and supper cooking. This will keep my smelly carcass at least somewhat out of the way. It’s now 9 p.m., and I managed to force in and keep down a full suite of meds about an hour ago. They are working—just. I suspect I’m going to have to go to a reinforcing dose in another hour. Which will be just fine. 

Tomorrow, I’m going to start hard quest for a green snake, a king snake, and a legless lizard, along with the more abundant and easy-to-come-by cottonmouths. While I’m doing that, I’ll make a stop at the market and get stuff to make a huge pasta y fagioli (that’s “pasta fazool” to us Italian Americans) with bread and salad for supper. 

Feeling has horrifically sick as I do, I expect to be turning for succor to writing. That means this weblog is likely to get a daily or every-two-days update, with plenty of photos for your delectation. Check back often. Assuming I get my body under control so that I stop this reflex shivering and the associated intense vomiting, I expect the remainder of the weblog empire to be up and running by Sunday night per usual. 

Finally, an observation that’s been rattling around in my head for several decades—since my first trip to the Middle East. “Pasta fazool” is usually treated as a grammatical mistake foisted by later generations who have lost facility with the native tongue. I suspect a more complicated story. In Arabic, bean dishes are collectively called “fool”. I’m guessing there is an Arabic root to the pronunciation of “fah jee oh lee” as “fah zool”. After all, for centuries, Muslims owned the Mediterranean shoreline and environs as deep inland as southern France via Spain, incorporating Sicily and southern Italy as well. Pasta Fool? Pasta Fazool? I’m feeling it in my aged, irradiated Italian-American bones. Tomorrow night I’ll make it with sausage and some tomatoes. My mother’s version used unsmoked pork and tomato paste. I like her version better in winter. Fresh tomatoes and some good sausage make an excellent summer supper. And, what the hell, just for consistency, later in the week I’ll make pasta lenticci, or “pasta lindeech”. This is a similar soup made with lentils playing the role of fool. My Mom’s differed from her fazool—smoked pork and bacon, and no tomatoes. Tons of garlic, though. Which, it goes without saying, will be in both my soups this week. 

Well, my friends, we are off and running on a cancer-impaired beach vacation. Tune in here for all the (potentially actually) gory details. Sincerely, YOS.