Thursday, September 29, 2011
The Cyclical Nature of All Things, and The Port
Friday, September 23, 2011
Blogger Commenting
I personally don't have a problem posting, so I can't replicate the problem. Admittedly, it *is* my blog, so it seems normal that I wouldn't have a problem -- but having said that: it still makes me log in every time when I want to make a comment on my own post. I use my Google ID as my login.
I did some searching and found this link, which takes one through he process of logging in and commenting. Perhaps it may help?
http://www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=42399
If anyone who knows Blogger better than I -- which is virtually everyone -- can offer a possible solution, it would be very helpful to those who would like to comment but cannot.
Likewise, if you were once stumped -- but have now managed to solve the puzzle -- please post your solutions here so they may help others.
Thanks!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Apology; also: No Apology
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Changes to blog and Generally feeling Pariah-ish
Who knows: I may decide to make the blog private and people will need to ask permission to have access. This is a pain, but I'm starting to get worried that I have no feedback about who actually is viewing it. I don't like *not* knowing who is reading what amounts to very personal thoughts intended for myself, friends and family. I have been getting 160 or so pageviews on every post, yet only a few comments, so I know that many are reading. Its not the kind of blog where I crave higher readership (unless its people who have bladder cancer that may actually learn something there). So the disconnect between reads and comments/feedback seems odd to me. I had assumed that only 10 or so people were checking in.
Anyhow, I guess this leads into the next comment, wherein I reiterate that this is a lonely-ass disease to have. No one calls or sends cards, write emails or notes (or, apparently) comments or leaves feedback on the blog. People may be tuning in and may care, but I have no feedback on this, so it feels like no one notices or cares. Quite honestly I have felt like my overall friend-contact has dropped dramatically since I got the revised, metastatic diagnosis. Maybe its just that people are laying low and waiting for the storm to pass (me finally dying). I dunno.
Anyhow, its the sort of thing that -- when added to the anger and the uselessness and the tiredness and the pain and the drug side effects -- starts to make suicide seems like a viable option. I can truly understand how people get suicidal, and believe me the tide has turned and every day is a process of reminding myself why I shouldn't just get it over with.
And it really grates when people tell me that all I have to do is think positively. Dammit, it fucking hurts and it all seems completely pointless. How in the hell am I supposed to think positively? Clearly, I am not thinking positively. Allow me this. I know that people have beat cancer by thinking positvely. I may not. I already have a lot of guilt about this. If I don't beat it, is it because I didn't think positively enough?
I have a great family and a one-in-a-million girlfriend, but the few friends that I feel that I still have any contact with spend our time together watching me uncomfortably, not sure how they should act around me. I hide the pain and bolster my mood artificially, not wanting to be a downer. Yes, this thing is on my mind all the time but I like to think and talk about something else. How should you treat me? I have no damned idea. I've never spent any amount of time with someone going through chemo. Basically, treat me as normal, except don't invite me to events a few years down the road, don't invite me to super physical outings, and be understanding of my need for sleep.
Cancer is not a disease that anyone knows anything about -- with good reason. You probably know one person besides me with cancer, and it may have been a distant aunt or something. One way you can help me if we're spending time together is to pick up on cues when I am getting tired that I might need a nap during the day or might need to head to bed -- even if its 9:30. Don't feel like you need to entertain me or like you're abandoning me early. If I'm tired, I'm just going to get more tired until I sleep.
Anyhow, more rants and I'm what feels now like complaints and lists of things that people shouldn't do, which is not what I started out intending to write. Regardless, these are a few things that have been bugging me of late.
I was just talking with my mom and she was telling me that everyone wants the happy, smiley Michael back (but that we'll take whatever we can get, happily). I want that guy back also. Its important to note that he may be gone for good. This makes me angrier than anyone can know.
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Not much new
Other than that, more chemo on Monday.
Friday, September 16, 2011
More Cancer Drugs, and Why I Hate Pepito's Parkway Theater
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
6 Rounds and a Cancerey evening
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Feeling cancerey
Wednesday, September 07, 2011
Round 1 winner: me
The pain has been steadily decreasing over the past week or so, having seemed to level off at a generalized tightness and faint soreness in my lower back. Sitting at the computer chair (which I'm doing right now) aggravates it a bit so I'll make this brief for my own selfish ends.
I called an talked to Dr. Bonzo (the Palliative Care Doc.) when I realized that the pain was decreasing. The Methadone (which I'm on for pain) is scary-ass shit, and I don't want to be on it one minute longer than I need to. With the pain gone, there is no reason for it. The problem is, there is a reason that this is used as a replacement for people who are addicted to heroine. NOTE: I am not addicted to heroine. Nor have I ever even tried it, but I sincerely think that there are Facebook friends of mine who believe that I'm on methadone as some sort of drug-recovery tool. I always say that the only thing more dangerous than no information is a little bit of information. But I digress.
So I'm on Methadone. If I were to go off the drug cold-turkey, I would have withdrawal symptoms similar to going off heroine. Ever see Trainspotting? Get the buckets ready. I would have the shakes, the vomits, the squirts, sweats, and generally wish I were dead... for a period of days. So I must follow their tapering-off schedule, which takes 9 days. Today is technically day 2 and it is going all right except for a few random muscle jerks and twitches and a poor mood in general.
The nausea is also fading, but I've learned a few things about keeping that in check as well. Its sad that this is becoming routine, both for me and for the people around me. No one should ever get used to this feeling.
My next round starts up next Monday, 9/12.
Friday, September 02, 2011
Halluciations and Other Fun Stuff
Thursday, September 01, 2011
QVC Time
I have a feeling that it was the opiates finally reaching some sort of baseline level. I know it takes a while for the methadone to get into your liver. From there it is dispensed constantly to the rest of the body in a sort of internal IV drip (as I understand it). I hear that it itakes about 5 days for the 'done to stabilize, and it has been about 5 days.
Drugged up as I am on prescriptions, I feel fairly unsafe to drive and -- as two friends pointed out tonight -- I probably shouldn't be doing any online shopping anytime soon.
Regardless of the cause and duration, I am enjoying this pain-free oasis.
A Rough Day
It started out quite manageably, and I was able to make time to bang out a relatively chipper-sounding blog post. But shortly after that it all went downhill.
They sent me home from the hospital on Tuesday with handful of prescriptions, which turned into the largest Walgreens prescription bag I've ever seen, approaching the size of a grocery-store bag. Due to the difgestive-stopping-up nature of the opioids (methadone, Hydrocodone, Dilaudid) they have been trying to make sure that everything was working, down there. They gave me a prescription for Senna, which is a relatively neutral and subtle over-the-counter med. But it didn't stop there, not my a long shot. They also sent me home with Docusate Sodium, Milk of Magnesia, Miralax (which is made of Polyethylene Glycol, a cousin -- ironically -- to antifreeze) and suppositories. And I was to take all of them. I think that with this particular concoction I could have ingested a mixture of cheese and super glue and it would have broken the sound barrier on the way out.
So, things started moving. That was discomfort #1, which ties into discomfort #2. In days previous, I alwasy took a few prescriptions daily in addition to a handful of vitamins and other herbal formulas. On a normal day I take about 10-15 pills twice a day. But this has increased with the pain pills (and the pills I take to counteract the side-effects of the pain pills, and the pills that I take to contract the side-effects that *those* pills give me) to so many pills, unguents, powders and elixirs that Jen has created an excel spreadsheet to track them all.
So, I take a lot of pills, Which is, by itself, only annoying and time-consuming. But the chemo takes away my hunger and makes me nauseous, so I don't eat very often, or very much. Yesterday morning I had about 6 cubic inches of bread with my handful of pills and laxatives.
About an hour later I felt strung out: sweaty, nauseous, light-headed, weak. It all hit when my brother and I were arriving for breakfast before chemo. Before our food arrived, I was scouting out good placed to throw up outside if I needed to. This reminded me of something from my pilot training, where you're always searching for and noting emergency landing spots, just in case. Same thing: if you think you're gonna vom, best to plan your route. The bathroom in this particular joint is hard to get to and I wasn't sure if you needed a key. So I made an exploratory trip: no key needed. My inner dialogue went like this: Bathroom, no key needed. Good. Now, that's an option unless someone is in there, which I'll need to keep a close eye on. Otherwise, that bush outside would work well, but its right next to an outdoor table where a young couple is eating eggs....
And this is a place I frequent. I wouldn't want to be remembered as "the guy that puked on the patio".
I breathed deeply, sipped water and nibbled at my food -- balancing between throwing up because I was eating too fast, and throwing up because I didn't have enough in my stomach. Getting the food to go, I felt even worse: now afraid that I was just plain going to faint or pass out.
As this point its good to remember that I was also likely dehydrated because by digestive system had been turned into an expressway over the past 24 hours.
At the chemo clinic, I was too light headed to walk on my own. A wheelchair was found, and in the clinic they put me in one of the two infusion private rooms that they keep on hand for sick people THey're probably shielded from the very worst end of the cancer treatment folks, as those people do their chemo in their hospice bed.
Dr. Grampa recommended that I go off all of the prescription stool softeners and laxatives until things started moving again. A good idea, I thoght.
Today I feel similarly weak and woozy though not as bad. I think the Methadone is responsible for part of it. Today is also a day-after-chemo day, so its understandable that I'd feel poorly. I'm eating and drinking high fiber stuff and drinking plenty of water so here's hoping that there is a pain-free way to fight the opioids and their side effects.
Og, and I have learned that methadone makes me hallucinate music. More about that tomorrow.