2 down, 8 to go

Radiation treatment started yesterday, and I've already had my treatment today. The Zip car arrangement is working out nicely and now Kevin knows the route and the routine. These treatments are very quick. I was in and out in 15 minutes today. I have a little ritual of chanting internally "Die, you f###ing cancer cells!"each time the machine zaps me. It helps me feel actively involved in the process. :)

Yesterday I saw my neuro-oncologist, Dr. Liu, for the first time since all this latest drama. I was heartened to find that he has the same focus I do, i.e. we get rid of all the cancer cells in my brain with this radiation round and get back to a period of stability and surveillance. There is one spot on my right gluteal area that appeared thickened to him on the last full-body CT scan, and he wants to do a PET scan to further investigate that once I've finished treatment, but he wasn't able to feel anything there when he examined it. He told me to avoid reading about my condition on the internet, because I would see a lot of stuff like "once the cancer is in the brain, the patient has x months to live,"and we're not there yet. I am certainly on board with that. I just want my arm and balance back. I'm not looking for a countdown *shudder*

I'm slowly getting used to my left arm limitations and learning to ask people to do stuff for me. I'm a supremely self-reliant person, so this takes a real effort, but it is better in the long run to ask for help than to frustrate myself needlessly. I reach a point inevitably every day when I am just sick of the dead arm and want to stamp my foot and whine about it, but I try to do that when I'm alone so others don't have to deal with it. I will be starting physical therapy for the arm soon. It hasn't made much progress in the last week.

Kevin is my angel and helps me in a thousand ways, enduring my moods with good humor.

I LOVE having the house cleaners in every week. Since I spend so much time just sitting around the apartment, it's important that it's all clean and tidy. Last week, I discovered the joy of the mani-pedi at a little nail salon around the corner (nail care with one functioning hand is impossible) What a treat! I wish I'd started that long ago. My feet have never been so pretty.

In other news, Junie the cat that used to hate everyone but me has had no choice but to mellow out what with all the traffic through my place. She actually seeks affection from Kevin now.

Radiation is a go

I got extra special good care from my radiation oncologist, Dr. Gillis, today. She saw me on the schedule with a different doctor for tomorrow and, wanting to care for me herself, juggled everything so that I would be seeing her today. She also arranged that they would do the treatment preparation today, and knowing about my arm, had the receptionist arrange for me to be picked up by cab and driven there (on Kaiser's dime). It was a long afternoon, but Dr. Gillis was very optimistic and pleased to tell me that so far the cancer is staying out of the rest of my body. She thinks we can really shrink down the remaining tumor and expects me to get the full use of my left arm back. She also said that my hair may grow back.

I'll be having just 10 treatments , starting Monday, 11/1, ending 11/12. I am hoping Kevin will be able to get a Zip car account and drive me every day, but if that doesn't work out, I may be putting out a call for chauffeurs. Thanks in advance, my would-be drivers!

I feel more hopeful than I've dared let myself feel after today's visit.

Oh the places you'll go!

As most of this blog's readers know by now, on Oct 9, I went to the ER after weeks of being listless and rather fuzzy in the brain. That last week before the 9th, my left arm and hand were weak and difficult to control and I was starting to lose urinary continence (!!)

At the ER, they did a CT scan of my head and discovered there were two masses in my brain, one of which they deemed life-threatening, and so I was sent to Redwood City, where they perform all of their neurosurgeries, and that one mass was removed. I stayed in Redwood City for almost a week. A few days after the first surgery, the surgeon performed a procedure to the other mass. He could only remove part of it, as it's attached to an important part of the brain (like where my left arm controls are). I was finally moved to a hospital room in SF last Wednesday, so my friends didn't have to travel so far to see me. The next day, the oncologists got the lab report that told them the masses in my brain weren't some rogue bacteria or fungus as they had been trying to do cultures for; it was the cancer. However, that same day of imparting rather grim news, they sent me home, my incontinence was cured, and I got to take a shower in my own apartment. A mixed day. Having the masses be caused by the cancer makes more sense to me anyway.

Despite the severity of these procedures, having them done not only saved my life, but brought me back to my senses, truly. I feel better than I've felt in months, including having a lot of energy. I hate not having my left arm in full use, but I plug on doing what I can with it. Fortunately, I am dexterous enough with my right hand to give my cat her twice daily insulin injections using that hand only. She indulges me in taking her pill from one hand too. I hired a housekeeper who will be coming every week, which will be lovely. Kevin, who returned from several years in Japan last month, helps me with practical things on almost a daily basis, and he and I are going to work on purging my apartment of junk over the next few weeks.

This is the plan: I rest and heal, and in a few weeks, I'll start radiation treatment on the brain. I'll lose all my head hair (permanently) and brain radiation is said to be the most fatiguing kind, but if that second mass can be shrunken, I can get all my left side control back. I'm glad I have all my caps from chemo because my surgery scars are straight out of Frankentein, and soon I'll be a skinhead baldy and need them for warmth.

I am not devastated by this new development since we all knew the merkel cell cancer would work more mischief eventually. I only cry when I reflect on how lucky I am in my family of friends who have all helped me so much, and have done whatever they could to make me comfortable and safe. I think I must have done something right in my life to have so many stalwarts around me, and that's very precious to me.

I probably won't blog very frequently at first, since I hate typing with only one hand, but I'll try to keep it up to date with important news.

My newest acquisition

David Imlay's art show at Blackbird ended and I got the oil painting I'd bought from it.

His painting technique is so photo-realistic that you'd almost think you were looking at a photograph. But on closer inspection, you realize it's just really fine brush work.

This painting is about 18" x 24". Well worth finding a spot on my crowded walls for.

I can report no improvement on the fatigue front. I'm going to Costonoa with Robert for a couple of nights. I think a change of scene might help and certainly can't hurt.

Not much to report

This is my latest linocut print. I finished another 6-week course last night. I think it's interesting to compare it to my very first linocut that I did in my first class:


My new tulip at the top has much more detail and was carved in much less time, so I definitely know I've made progress. I now have a break from linocut for a couple of weeks, one night of open studio printing, then another couple weeks off, and then another 6-week class commences.

I wish I could report that the fatigue is gone. I hangs on stubbornly, varying somewhat from day to day. Somedays it fairly incapacitates me from the moment I wake up, somedays it doesn't appear until late in the afternoon. I meekly obey it whenever it crops up, as I have found that defying it and being active in spite of it reaps bitter rewards.

Meanwhile, I have managed to keep to my daily habit of lunching out. In addition to that, I walk as much as my body will allow. I did not actually walk the AIDS Walk this year, but I was the 34th top earning individual and my one-person team was the 110th top earning team. Holly and her helpers made some delicious tamales, so that part of the tradition was upheld, thank god.

July marked 18 years in the same apartment. Amazing.

Printing again

The fatigue is very slow to leave me. Wah wah wah. I'm so sick of complaining about that, I could puke. But there you are.

Thanks to the fatigue, I had to skip the first session of my new linocut class last Wednesday, because I was pretty sure I couldn't stand on my feet for 4 hours, which is what I have to do when I'm printing all evening. However, I was able to attend it this week. This lino plate took quite a lot of carving time, as you can imagine. Very creative people in my new class. I look forward to getting ideas and inspiration from them. It's also great to see Katie (the teacher) again. She and I are such kindred spirits.

So what am I doing now...

As I wait for the fatigue from the radiation to lift (no it hasn't yet), I'm getting a little bored. I only have a few minutes each day when I have enough energy to do art work, so the other activities I find to preoccupy myself have to be rather passive, like reading, doing crossword puzzles, or watching TV.

God knows I already watch enough TV, my brain can only function in crossword land for so long, and I own a tremendous number of books I've never even read. Shopping in used book stores used to be a great passion of mine, back in the days before Amazon, when it was a real challenge to find anything not currently in print. I'd try to keep the names of authors and books from the past that I was interested in or had seen referred to in other books in the forefront of my mind, and scan the inventory of each used book shop I went into, hoping to find one of my must-haves. It was fun, and whenever I found something from my mental list (or better, something related to something on the list that I didn't even know had been written) I felt a great sense of victory.

I no longer buy books. I live one block from my local branch of the library, and there just isn't that much in print that I need to read more than once. However, there are still a great many untouched volumes from my voracious used-book-shopping days on my shelves.

This one by Elizabeth Bowen is proving to be very enjoyable. I was last in Rome 16 years ago, and although she provides no maps or illustrations in this slim volume, her descriptions of the city are so lucid and rich in detail that I can picture where she is in each chapter perfectly well, my imagination combining her experiences with my memories of each place.

And don't you wish they still took author photographs like that one for the dust cover? So clearly posed and so clearly designed to show off her credentials as an intellectual (she's reading James Baldwin's "Go Tell it on the Mountain" and in her lap is Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex"). This is the kind of thing the Kindle cheats you out of.

I still go out to lunch every day during the week, and I try to see Della and Rene at least once a week. Cito has such a busy social life of his own these days that I don't see him as often, but when I do, it's always fun. He's grown into the dearest little boy, much nicer than I was at his age.

My old scooter got repaired after all, and good thing, since the new one is held up in Chicago getting inspected by the EPA, with no projected or promised release date. My linoleum block print class starts again this week. It's going to be tough to get through Wednesdays until this dadburn fatigue wears off, but I'm going to force myself, because it's so worth it.

I went ahead and signed up for the AIDS Walk, even though I doubt I'll have the energy to walk it this year. I've already met the goal I set, but I like to try to raise more money each year than I have the year before and I'm not there yet this year. If you 'd like to sponsor me, here's the link.