It Might Get Messy

Back at undergraduate days at Rutgers, it took me the better part of 4 ½ years to sort out such minutae as whether I would really flunk out, what major and/or minors I might pursue, what I could possibly do with myself after I did get out, etc. I learned a lot about myself along the way. And, because I experimented with course after course and program after program, I learned a lot of wacky facts and research results. 

In the early days of experimental psychology (a field I rather enjoyed, and took multiple courses in), researchers were, for some reason, surprised to find that constant application of “negative stimuli” to dogs (such as keeping the floor of their cages electrified to the point of pain) eventually caused them to give up trying to escape and simply lay down and accept the hell. It didn’t occur to the experimenters, apparently, that absent any recourse, the dogs were just gonna run out of energy. Cross reference Ghost Busters for outstanding commentary on psychological research, BTW, if you haven’t seen it in a while. Hilarious.

Anyway. I’m starting to feel like one of those dogs. On Wednesday this week I got out of the hospital after spending 4 days in intensive care and 3 more in the oncology ward. I was still not fully recovered from the prior chemotherapy infusion when it was time, yesterday, to go in for the next one. So I just shuffled on in to the infusion center and got my hit of docetaxel. While there, we found out my red blood cell count is seriously anemic, so early Monday morning I have to go back in for several units of whole blood—I think they concentrate the RBCs in it before administration. 

In short, I’m a frickin’ mess. But I am, for the moment, still alive. Not kickin’ very hard, but trying to. Keep me in your thoughts this week, everybody. I’m gonna need all the help I can get to get through this round of chemo. With the little bit of incentive that the lung tumors responded, I’m just piling along for the ride, looking to see what happens next. And as soon as I know, you will. 

Thanks guys. Hopefully I’ll be more lively and able to provide more interesting material next week. My love to you all!