Q-Tip

Another day, another post. Confirm that one of the common side effects of oxycodone is nausea. How great is that? I love to feel nauseated. I drool just thinking about it. Fuck it I’m taking the shit. Anyway. I drool even more for debilitating back pain, so I think we have a perfect match, don’t you?

The only time I ever despaired was the first chemo Saturday when the miracle anti-nausea drugs didn’t work. I received the chemo the day prior and appeared to handle it so well, Chip decided to spend Saturday moving the Boy into his new apartment. By the time Chip had come home, I think I had managed to drag myself up from the floor where I had lain prostrate for hours asking anybody, anywhere I could think of to make it stop. I even left a message for the oncologist on call who had the brilliant suggestion of taking more of the miracle pills that had previously been useless. Those remained useless. Uselessness on top of uselessness if very stupid. Perhaps he thought if I could distract myself from my misery, it could somehow help. Please.

In my arsenal of drugs, there was nothing to make it stop. Nothing to make it even an iota better. Trust me, there is nothing worse in your life than experiencing nausea that shows no signs of looking for a new gut to torment while it’s happy and comfy in yours. Try that in Guantanamo. (The hell of hells in the hell of hells. Nice.) It’s not like stomach flu. You get sick. You drink ginger ale. Mom’s very nice to you. You get off from school, and it’s all right. (That is I think it’s not too bad…)

This was nausea as I’ve never seen before or since. It neither worsened nor improved. And who’s to know when it would ease? It had too sometime, right? Will I have to go through this every treatment? (Good god.) I wanted to hang myself if that were so. (I wanted to hang myself without waiting for Round 2.) I was in tears when Chip made it home. I begged him never, ever to leave me on chemo weekends. He wouldn’t. He didn’t. He must have been freaked by agonizing nausea neither of us were led to expect. The Boy (bless his heart) found me weed fast. I can tell you that while it doesn’t solve the entire nausea problem, it made a magical difference and worked from toke one. Hey, I really never needed a toke two. I coughed like a mad woman. Who knew I was in the embryonic stages of viral pneumonia that helped make me the person I am today. (Somehow, I feel I should commission a monument for that bout of pneumonia. It needs to be real big and in very poor taste.)

The nausea started to dissipate sometime on Monday.

This oxycodone nausea, while annoying, is kid’s stuff.

Saw the ENT yesterday. The left ear is still no good. I have new antibiotic drops which should fix the “Problem” whatever it might be. It’s been about a month since the fever and ear infection and the heavy-duty antibiotics. Why do my ears still hurt? My hearing has gotten worse over the past week. What’s that about? After a recent shower, I touched my left eardrum extremely gently with a Q-Tip. Searing pain went from my ear to points all about my head. That’s just not right. My ENT said I must have scratched it, because there was a blood clot in the ear. But when I pulled that goddamned Q-Tip out, there was a bit of dried blood on it not fresh. The dude knows the drill. And he sure doesn’t want the blame of killing me off laid on him I can tell you. And he’s a very nice man. I’ll do as he asks.

I changed my profile picture today. I got my first haircut in over a year. My truly talented and sweetie pie of a hair stylist came over on Sunday. She kicked ass yet again. I absolutely Love my gray hair. (It really looks good.) It’s too bad it doesn’t show up in the picture. So I look great, and I’m ready to conquer the world. All right, well I can walk the long hallway outside the apartment. With copious oxygen, mind you.) I’m very proud. My profile picture now includes my ever-present accessory: the cannula and the tubing that accompanies it.

What the fuck is the point of all this?

P.S. Mazel Tov Bob! I imagine you still have a job. FYI, Fatboy has now become an integral part of a brand new playlist. I call the playlist “Newish.” It certainly is for me. The hip and initiated can have a good laugh at my expense. I’m only happy to help.

General Washington

To state the obvious, I’ve been writing a lot less the past few weeks. The ear infection wore me out. Yeah, I was wiped out by the infection, but the damned thing ate me alive. And I morphed again. This time into an appetizing quivering lump of fleshy Jell-O. (Wow. I’ve even grossed myself out. The latter is plain repugnant. Like a huge hunk of aspic.) I was petrified. I still am petrified, but much more functional than I was which was not at all. My currently unsolvable dilemma scares the crap out of me. The “currently unsolvable” is a tip of the hat to my wonderful biochemist friend who says that science is closing in on an answer to my problem. (Of having way too few working alveoli.) Me, I’m not so optimistic. And if it takes the scientific community ten years (if so soon), can I hang (oops, poor word choice!) in there?

My dilemma scares the crap out of me. I read somewhere it took Michael J. Fox seven years to accept his Parkinson’s Disease. I have four years to go to before I can join the Zen Disabled Club. Until then, I go down or more down, anxious or uncontrollably anxious, and/or paralyzed and panicked.

I started this blog for a mess of reasons. Since Since When is “done.” (If any one-literary agent or publisher (ha!) really wants it, it’s far from done and the process of sending out queries to agents is not like writing. It is awful drudgery, that shit is. So voilà, my writing outlet.

But a public outlet? I guess after being so fucking frightened to speak, I wanted to strip down nude for the whole world to see. (No waxing, no retouching.) If I could expose even more of myself I would. I’m not sure why, but I feel compelled to do so. (Yeah, I’m sure you all thought I’ve been holding back, haven’t you?)

The blog gives me the opportunity to write about whatever the fuck I want. I can tell everyone all the nastiness involving my illness. My idiot doctors and caregivers. My fears. My suicidal thoughts. (Last week I was definitely testing the waters- getting my toes wet. Not literally. That I did eons ago. Got that out of my system, but the real deal is always hovering about in the background. We are each aware of each other and made actual eye contact last week. We haven’t actually spoken in a long time.)

I also thought this was a way of having a conversation. I may be having a conversation. With myself. A conversation I’m letting everyone who feels like it to listen to. But I don’t want to have yet another stinking conversation with myself. I’ve been doing that my entire life; while it does have its charms, writing them out would be a grand waste of time.

Hey, I have my Grant bio to finish. Grant Memoirs have been read. Read them if you love the intricacies of battles. If not, knowing the incredible poignant story about why he wrote them when he did is more that enough. I wrote about that in some old blog post. Though I can’t remember which one, because my short-term memory stinks. But FYI, this bio confirms, that Grant, besides being the best military figure of the nineteenth century, was also a great man. His huge flaw (not when he commanded armies in the civil war) was that he was too trusting and was easily swindled. A businessman he was not. I can think of worse.

Norman Mailer would publish a book Conversations With Myself. He kind of already did: Advertisements to Myself which I found unreadable though it was cool that my professor is mentioned (who assigned it) in two spots in the book. But how my nice professor (Bob Lucid. Is it even possible to come up with a better name?) could be buddies with Norman Mailer is one of Life’s Mysteries. (Stick with The Naked and the Dead and you can’t go wrong. My mother liked The Executioner’s Song, bless her heart. I’m sure it’s beautifully written. Not for me right now…I don’t think…)

I think Facebook has been a bust. (For the most part. Sadly, it’s not going to replace my old sand box. NYC. The Earth.) My expectations were too great, because I need it or something like it so terribly much. With those requirements, of course it must fail. There are highlights:

I’ve found a few old friends. Danny. Sharon, my Sha. (!!!) I feel I’ve known Rich forever. I love him madly. And then there’s Bob. The diamond in the rough who is rough no more, whom we sadly missed so many moons ago. But he’s here now. And Donna. My god, Donna’s back. (!!!)

Just a small housekeeping detail. The hormones have taken a break from their trip around the universe and have taken refuge once more in my body to, I imagine, have 40,000,000 light years check, change oil, before heading out again. Bob, to keep the Fantastic Voyage image front and center, I wonder if Raquel Welch has taken residence in my body and has anti-bodies plastered over her breasts. Chip loved that image as a kid, and I don’t think he likes it any less now. (I think it’s pretty hot come to think of it.)

I have been stalling to get to the crux of this post. (There is a crux to this post. We’re there now.) I think I wanted a conversation. Facebook just skates along the surface of everything. It is rare to find anything personal on FB. I think I need connection.

What was it, in 1776, when the south has walked out of the Continental Congress. "It’s no use John.” The rest follow them out. Leaving John Adams and the clerk Thomson, Adams asks where Thomson stands on independency. “I stand with the General.” And Thomson reads from George Washington’s latest letter to Congress, “I have been in expectation of receiving a reply on the subject of my last fifteen dispatches. Is anybody there? Does anybody care? Does anybody care?" (Everything about that movie brings me to tears. Yes, even before I first became ill.) I guess I, too, stand with the general.

Postcript: You realize when I talk about FB being a bust is not a commentary on any of you I met, became, reacquainted with (Colleen) through that medium. I appreciate each and everyone one of you. I see that you all take the time to read my posts. My (teary) thanks to you for your patience with me while I stumble about. You help me. I need you.

I Am Alive

I am alive. I was planning on taking a break from this blog. Certainly, it’s a novelty when someone is completely honest about everything (of which she is aware…I get dispensation for lying to myself) she writes. It is pretty ugly.

As I recover from this last “oops,” what appears to be an ear infection run amok, I’ve become more and more grim. New fun fact. When ill, especially fighting a fever, your body requires more oxygen than usual to fight the bug. Running only on a quarter tank, I can barely function with the little that I had left for basic human functions- like breathing.

When ill but with healthy lungs, you’re tired and you’re using more of oxygen than usual. But you don’t notice the loss of breath. Gasping is for lucky people like me. And there is truly nothing more frightening than not being able to breath. Not a surprise that waterboarding was so damned effective in scaring the crap out of our Guantanamo guests. The seconds before drowning must be hellish.

I was assured that as I recovered I’d get back to where I was. (Not that joyful moment when you find out everything will be okay, but it’s the best that I could do. Take what you can get and don’t dare let go.) I’ve spent the past week in a state of panicked paralysis. I can only imagine that was the PTSD talking. Anxiety I know. You feel like you’re jumping out of you skin. Depression is the almighty abyss.

The better I feel physically, the more grim, panicked, and paralyzed I become. I don’t want this anymore. I don’t want to live like this anymore. It’s lonely and can be nothing more unless I venture out into the world and risk catching that fatal bug. The one that descends on my scarred lungs and wreaks my final havoc. (I know this sounds melodramatic. If only it were so. I’d much prefer to be a whining diva than a human living on the edge of life.)

Can any of you actually believe I could enjoy “the world” with Henry’s ax (or Anne’s blessed never-miss French swordsmen) hanging over my head. I guess I’d have to reach a point where dying was no longer an issue. Live for the moment. I was never very good at that at my best. And I truly would need to go for broke- damn the torpedoes. I’m still a scared little Jewish girl. I’m not ready for the big stage. The grand gesture. It’s not in my gene pool. The Hungarian lunacy not withstanding.

So, I was ready to put this blog on hiatus. Every post “…today was horrible…” “I feel so lousy today…” “I had a bad day…” This is tedium. Fresh and different becomes a stale piece of cheese. I am not just writing for myself. If that were so, I’d keep a personal journal. But the illness gave me a voice I thought crazy to waste. (No, that sounds as if I made some cool intellectual choice. Fat chance. I’m no less honest than I have been. I’m just much less interesting. That alone is very difficult to swallow. How do I know this to be true? I don’t. I’m making an assumption. I feel so alone (well I am alone), and the idea that I might be driving away the people who chose to read what I had to say, has just been too much for me.

I was saved by a phone call today from one of my “new cousins” who isn’t new at all. A 2002 family reunion introduced the Kallus family to one another. (My mother was born a Kallus, so we are dealing with the crazy Hungarian branch of the family.) I met David Stein in 2002. He lives in Amsterdam and came in for the big event. On my last vacation of my old life, Chip and I had a full day layover in Amsterdam on the way to Barcelona. I called David to see if he’d be around that day. He was. And he treated us like royalty. He picked us up at the airport at dawn and fed us everything and took us everywhere. Chip and I swore our next trip would be to Amsterdam, but that was not to be. No trips for me. But David, Chip, and I grokked each other. He called to check on me this afternoon at the very moment I needed someone. Forty-five minutes of yacketing did us both good. And for the first time since this stupid-ass ear infection, I feel human again. And maybe, just maybe, there’s a reason to keep on living.