It Might Get Messy

Here’s my problem. I’m not much of a guitar player. I can do basic open and barre chords, of course, and minor 7ths, and a few useful scales (major, pentatonic, blues, the usual). And I can noodle a solo or two, usually ripping off something I heard Leslie West play on the radio in the winter of 1972. I’ve even written 3 or 4 instrumentals, one full length, a couple of miniatures, and some uneven-but-interesting pattern runs. But my playing is actually pretty sucky. 

I CAN write a decent song. I’ve got 8 or 10 originals with interesting lyrics that cover my lack of instrumental skill. And while my “singing” is on par with my guitar-playing “skill”, I enjoyed writing and recording songs for several years. Just for fun, and just because I enjoy the word-play of song writing.

Now I don’t have a tongue. No more writing, “singing”, and recording. I’m down to instrumentals, which are not my strength. I have to stretch. I’m learning some new scales, and some new chords, and working on putting together credible guitar music without lyrics. Just another frustration on the long road from cancer to functional human being. 

I’m brought back to that thought from a few entries back. That the gods, realizing how important my voice has been to me, got together and decided that was precisely what I needed to lose to make it clear that I don’t control my destiny. Of course, putting me on the path to death-by-cancer of any kind was sufficient to make that demonstration. Maybe the voice was just somebody feeling cranky that day.

All this, of course, assumes that I get out of the cancer alive. A threshold which is still at issue, pending that important September PET scan to look for residual or recurrent malignancies. 

But I feel good. Not great—I still tend to bind up with mucous late in the afternoon, I have trouble eating enough to keep my weight up, and I’m too weak to do much more than sit and read or watch TV. I assume by a month from now I’ll be mostly over the drastic impacts from the radiation and chemotherapy. I dug out a couple of light weights from the basement, so I can start to try to rebuild some muscle mass. That’s the issue with my lack of weight gain. With my muscles atrophied from 3+ years of war with cancer, I’m incredibly weak. And have no metabolic foundations to move my weight north of 187 or so pounds (if I recall, the last time I weighed less than 190 was on my sophomore year high school football roster. It was 190 junior year, 200 senior year). 

I have pretty much worked out how to best take my medicines to maximize my ability to function. I wake up, usually late—9 or 10 a.m., and proceed to pour 3 or 4 cartons of “food” into my gastrointestinal tract. I keep it parked in the recliner, often snoozing, also reading, writing, and noodling on guitar, until 4 p.m. or so. At that point I dissolve a Zofran (anti-nauseal) and a couple of dilaudids (painkillers that also help dry me out) in some water, and take them with some “Tussin” cough syrup (also a dry-out med). That makes me comfortable until 6 or 7 when I “eat” 3 more cartons of food. Soon after that I change venue to upstairs, where I watch movies and videos with more guitar noodling. I take nighttime meds around 9 or so, and am usually asleep by midnight. Although these days I’ve been keeping music videos running most of the night. I tend to sleep while they’re on, and wake up when it’s time to change them out. Odd, I know, but it’s working for me. 

I did manage a breakthrough of sorts this week, in addition to sitting on my butt tossing little tiny barbells in the air. I ate some ice cream by mouth. And I didn’t immediately choke to death, as Dr. H feared when I told him I was gonna try it. Actually it was quite odd. Without a tongue to manipulate something in my mouth, I ended up having to tilt my head back to let the melted ice cream sort of flow into my throat. But flow it did, and it ran down the correct plumbing, never threatening my airway. So that was a worthwhile experiment. In fact it felt good to eat by mouth. I’m thoroughly sick of the milk-like liquid food I pour in through my gut tube. Being able to at least contemplate eating by mouth is helpful. Or maybe it’s “hopeful”, as in there’s hope I won’t be totally crippled for the rest of my days. 

A couple of other interesting things this week. Dr. Crossley (of course, don’t miss his weblog at daccrossley.typepad.com/ ) sent me an email regarding a cousin who was given 6 months by his oncologists and is now cancer-free. Very encouraging for someone like me, given 20% odds of remission by the doctors who now don’t see residual malignancy, at least on initial observation. And my high school class got in touch, after 40+ years of being out of contact. It’s nice to be back in communication with people I haven’t seen since 1971 or 1972!

Anyway. No other blog progress this week—this one’s the only one going up. Thanks to all of you for being here. You make it worth the struggle, and I love you all. Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and I’m looking forward to cooking the hell out of a house full of food. I promise to work harder on guitar. Until next week, my friends!