Google's telling me how I can earn more money from blog. I feel like they're asking me to shit in a box and hand it over to them. I don't care to do that, thank you. I don't care to earn money from my blog. I care to earn money from how I set out in the morning to earn money. If they're sending me money for something I don't know anything about, I could be stepping into a huge steaming pile of somebody else's shit or worse. If they're sending me money, it's probably:
a) Less than they should be, and
b) They're making ten times that and,
c) I'm probably getting used, somehow.
I mean, I'll take the money. Thank you. But I have reservations about it.
This blog is not designed to earn me boocoo buckos. It's not that. It's this. A way to take a load off, and help me make sense of the world. I think of it like a rehearsal. Hell, I would have paid to see a lot of artists rehearse. I'm no John Lennon, but what would you have paid for a seat at a Beatles practice session?
Saturday, March 22, 2014
Three and a half years ago, I stood on the second to the last step of my staircase. I was eye level with Big Lou. Big Lou is my brother in law. He is 6-3, 250#. He projects strength and protection. It was the holidays, and family was over.
Big Lou is concerned, he wrinkles his brow. He is asking me how I feel. He asks it intently. What's next medically. I tell him in my raspy voice that I'm going in for a pet scan tomorrow, "because it will light everything up". It's what the doctor told me. In retrospect, I don't know what the hell that means. What will it light up, what does it mean if it's lit up? I took it on faith, and I am surprised that, upon saying it, the knit in big Lou's eyebrow doesn't vanish. My faith is not shared by Big Lou.
I don't know what is supposed to light up, why, or what it means if it does light up. Or, what it means if nothing is lit up. And what we do next in either case. I have placed myself completely in the care of my doctors, and have nothing else to offer anyone. But I am sick. I don't have the energy to think deeply, or sequentially about my health or illness. I have enough energy, barely, to just live.
The pause goes on, and on. Long after the play in my head stopped. It makes me think there's something I don't know. You know the saying, the things we know and the things we don't know we don't know. I didn't know to doubt my doctors and to second guess and press them. I didn't know because I didn't have the energy for it. I found out later why I didn't have the energy for it.
All along, I had placed my trust in my health. I was young, why wouldn't I? Then, when it was abundantly apparant that I wasn't healthy, all that was left was for me to turn it over to the doctors to cure me. That's their job, right?
There was no plan B. There was no co-doctoring or co-patienting. I was sick, now heal me doctor. I wasn't ready for medecine in 2010, for all the doctors who hadn't a clue and didn't know how to say so. All the doctors who knew how to scratch their heads, but who didn't know how to ask for help. All of the resources of modern medecine on their hands; working for a larger, respected hospital in a major metropolitan area, that is a part of a larger network. I'm talking about you, Dr. Casey.
I wasn't prepared for Dr. Casey. It's like shorthand for a form of idiocy. Casey the idiot. I'd compare him to Mighty Casey, the baseball poem, but he sure wasn't mighty and sure as shit didn't deserve the immortalization of a poem.
Matter of fact, harking back to that conversation on the steps of my living room, I was there because of Casey. It was John Cohn, MD who ordered the PET Scan--what Casey should have done the first week of November, that blithering idiot. No, Cohn wound up the plan B. It was Cohn who said the obscure words "everything will light up". John Cohn ordered up the PET, and the next three weeks were a whirlwind of tests, biopsies, doctors and ending with my first chemotherapy on the 23rd of December.
I have made it three years, now, since my last chemo. In the literature, they measure your survival from the date of diagnosis. Once the results of that PET scan came back, it was pretty much a done deal: lymphoma. The 'lit up' portions correlated and explained the swollen lymph nodes. In my neck. Clavicle. Groin. In my belly.
I was into Dr. Nate Evan's operating room room within the week. The PET was on a Friday, then the consultation with Nate Evans, on a Monday. Then the operating room, then Dr. Rose. Dr. Cohn planned the whole thing out. Made the appointments. Formed contingency plans, A, B, C. John Cohn moved with a sense of urgency.
I guess Rose was about 18 Dec. So, operation must have been 14 or 15th of Dec. and consultation must have been 12th. So, PET must have been about 12/5.
It was a blur. The blur ended 3 years ago, next month, when I had my last 'cycle' of chemo. Now all that's left is for me to make sense of it. This is how it's done.
Big Lou is concerned, he wrinkles his brow. He is asking me how I feel. He asks it intently. What's next medically. I tell him in my raspy voice that I'm going in for a pet scan tomorrow, "because it will light everything up". It's what the doctor told me. In retrospect, I don't know what the hell that means. What will it light up, what does it mean if it's lit up? I took it on faith, and I am surprised that, upon saying it, the knit in big Lou's eyebrow doesn't vanish. My faith is not shared by Big Lou.
I don't know what is supposed to light up, why, or what it means if it does light up. Or, what it means if nothing is lit up. And what we do next in either case. I have placed myself completely in the care of my doctors, and have nothing else to offer anyone. But I am sick. I don't have the energy to think deeply, or sequentially about my health or illness. I have enough energy, barely, to just live.
The pause goes on, and on. Long after the play in my head stopped. It makes me think there's something I don't know. You know the saying, the things we know and the things we don't know we don't know. I didn't know to doubt my doctors and to second guess and press them. I didn't know because I didn't have the energy for it. I found out later why I didn't have the energy for it.
All along, I had placed my trust in my health. I was young, why wouldn't I? Then, when it was abundantly apparant that I wasn't healthy, all that was left was for me to turn it over to the doctors to cure me. That's their job, right?
There was no plan B. There was no co-doctoring or co-patienting. I was sick, now heal me doctor. I wasn't ready for medecine in 2010, for all the doctors who hadn't a clue and didn't know how to say so. All the doctors who knew how to scratch their heads, but who didn't know how to ask for help. All of the resources of modern medecine on their hands; working for a larger, respected hospital in a major metropolitan area, that is a part of a larger network. I'm talking about you, Dr. Casey.
I wasn't prepared for Dr. Casey. It's like shorthand for a form of idiocy. Casey the idiot. I'd compare him to Mighty Casey, the baseball poem, but he sure wasn't mighty and sure as shit didn't deserve the immortalization of a poem.
Matter of fact, harking back to that conversation on the steps of my living room, I was there because of Casey. It was John Cohn, MD who ordered the PET Scan--what Casey should have done the first week of November, that blithering idiot. No, Cohn wound up the plan B. It was Cohn who said the obscure words "everything will light up". John Cohn ordered up the PET, and the next three weeks were a whirlwind of tests, biopsies, doctors and ending with my first chemotherapy on the 23rd of December.
I have made it three years, now, since my last chemo. In the literature, they measure your survival from the date of diagnosis. Once the results of that PET scan came back, it was pretty much a done deal: lymphoma. The 'lit up' portions correlated and explained the swollen lymph nodes. In my neck. Clavicle. Groin. In my belly.
I was into Dr. Nate Evan's operating room room within the week. The PET was on a Friday, then the consultation with Nate Evans, on a Monday. Then the operating room, then Dr. Rose. Dr. Cohn planned the whole thing out. Made the appointments. Formed contingency plans, A, B, C. John Cohn moved with a sense of urgency.
I guess Rose was about 18 Dec. So, operation must have been 14 or 15th of Dec. and consultation must have been 12th. So, PET must have been about 12/5.
It was a blur. The blur ended 3 years ago, next month, when I had my last 'cycle' of chemo. Now all that's left is for me to make sense of it. This is how it's done.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
The Blue Zone
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzanne-perryman-/to-the-author-of-the-anonymous-note-left-on-my-car-window_b_3806012.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Cmain5%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk1%26pLid%3D364417
I totally get this.
Click on the link and see if you get it, too.
It's so hard to resist the impulse to judge based on appearances. Case in point: People strolling, running, jumping--anything is wrong except a hunched over greyhead--heck, leaping out of their cars adorned with Handicapped plates. Judgment: they're abusing the handicap status. Stole their granma's car. Illegally parking in the blue zone, so they don't have to walk ten extra feet to the parking lot for the rest of us.
When I was taking chemotherapy, I looked for all the world like a healthy man. But when I opened my mouth, the rasp was the wheeze of a sickly old man. Inexplicably, the chemo took its toll on my larynx. And the gas tank, which is to say, my energy level was kaput. Zilch. Zero. I really needed to save every ounce of energy I could.
I rationed out my energy for the day, picking and choosing the things I could do not on the basis of the clock--your typical 47 year old's gutcheck. But by my energy. And the thing of it was, I always managed to have less than I needed.
I needed to park in the handicap zone. So I could save ten steps. So I could scrape my way into the Staples.
I never got a handicap plate. I just couldn't own up to it. Maybe I didn't want to admit to myself that I needed it. Maybe I wanted to, altruistically, leave the spaces for the greyheads. I wish I'd had it.
I totally get this.
Click on the link and see if you get it, too.
It's so hard to resist the impulse to judge based on appearances. Case in point: People strolling, running, jumping--anything is wrong except a hunched over greyhead--heck, leaping out of their cars adorned with Handicapped plates. Judgment: they're abusing the handicap status. Stole their granma's car. Illegally parking in the blue zone, so they don't have to walk ten extra feet to the parking lot for the rest of us.
When I was taking chemotherapy, I looked for all the world like a healthy man. But when I opened my mouth, the rasp was the wheeze of a sickly old man. Inexplicably, the chemo took its toll on my larynx. And the gas tank, which is to say, my energy level was kaput. Zilch. Zero. I really needed to save every ounce of energy I could.
I rationed out my energy for the day, picking and choosing the things I could do not on the basis of the clock--your typical 47 year old's gutcheck. But by my energy. And the thing of it was, I always managed to have less than I needed.
I needed to park in the handicap zone. So I could save ten steps. So I could scrape my way into the Staples.
I never got a handicap plate. I just couldn't own up to it. Maybe I didn't want to admit to myself that I needed it. Maybe I wanted to, altruistically, leave the spaces for the greyheads. I wish I'd had it.
Saturday, August 17, 2013
Overture.
It took me forever and a day to get around to this. This is not easy, an odd thing for a writer. Yes, writing about my collision with cancer is awfully tough.
Odd, that. I was a jazz critic twenty years ago. A prominent deejay on the local jazz station, which, being the nation's fourth largest City, was a calling card. A man of the media I was. An exhibitionist with a pen and mike. So, the silence is both surprising, and deafening.
A good friend said to just write (which is what I do, anyway), and post the blogs later. So, I did. I do. I'll put those thoughts up, in time. Meanwhile I'll be sharing my thoughts and some reactions to living and dealing as a 'Survivor'. Or whatever the hell it is when you're in remission.
So--there. And there, and there.
Odd, that. I was a jazz critic twenty years ago. A prominent deejay on the local jazz station, which, being the nation's fourth largest City, was a calling card. A man of the media I was. An exhibitionist with a pen and mike. So, the silence is both surprising, and deafening.
A good friend said to just write (which is what I do, anyway), and post the blogs later. So, I did. I do. I'll put those thoughts up, in time. Meanwhile I'll be sharing my thoughts and some reactions to living and dealing as a 'Survivor'. Or whatever the hell it is when you're in remission.
So--there. And there, and there.
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