My Stand on Transgender

We’ve seen many odd trends in these odd times, and one of the oddest I think is the transgender trend. Years ago this was the fringe of the fringe, so way out there there that it didn’t warrant a thought but has in recent years come into the mainstream and – even more – is now epitomized as courageous, aka Bruce (Caitlyn) Jenner. We even had a transgender incident in little old Cato, New York, where I happen to live. Just before the commencement ceremony last June a female suddenly turned into a male; the question was what color of robe should he (or she) wear: blue or yellow? All these questions. Alas, life used to be simpler in the days of Leave It to Beaver, but that’s a topic for another blog.

Felis Catus

The rationale behind all this is that a person should be free to pick their sex. Why, after all, be bound by biology, and its constraints thereof? Why not break the shackles of the sexual organs dealt at birth to thee and be whom you always wanted to be? Don’t like being a man? Fine, be a woman, and vise versa. Freedom – it’s as American as the stars and stripes and apple pie, and who could argue against it?

Not I.

But I will only make two comments on this line of thought. First, one could theoretically rationalize perhaps in this universe that it makes some sense to switch from a woman to a man, but to go from a man to a woman shows a grave foolishness, even stupidity verging on a mental illness. What man in his right mind would opt for the cyclic hormonal life of a woman and the overhead of boobs and a bra? Bruce Jenner may be courageous but in my book he’s also stupid. Sorry, Bruce.

And second, I’m not sure the transgender line of thought has been fully explored as it should be. If biology is the prison, there are many walls to break through to achieve full liberty. Well, we can take race, for instance. I was born a suburban while child of the great American middle class. Why can’t I opt to be black if it suits me? In Black Like Me, a white person in the 1959 did just that, using the science of dermatology to achieve the color of black, and I’ve met people who are ostensibly white but had enough black blood in them that they had to decide which race to subscribe to. And why can’t it go the other way: if you’re black, just declare that you are white? Or why can’t I just be of American Indian descent and get benefits thereof when applying at college?

Why not, I ask!

Biology is cruel, we all have to admit. If I can change my sex, which is only logical, then why do I have to be imprisoned in this homo sapien body? If I can pick my sex, then why can’t I pick my species? What if I never really felt comfortable as a homo sapien and instead wanted to be, for instance, a cat? Would you judge me on that? Would I face discrimination when I slept 16 hours a day on the couch and/or the bed? What is wrong with that, I ask, dear reader!

Just so you homo sapien bigoted bipeds understand, I am now a felis catus (cat) and will now curl up at the end of the bed to take a nap, thank you.

My Stand on Diets

[In no way do I want to make fun of others who happen to want to eat better for whatever reason;  this is just a little blog on my observations as a spectator to all this, and I might go down this road myself!]

This is a blog on – of all things – diets, from someone who has hardly been on a diet and is anatomically configured to always be thin. But I will make some observations on the subject because I have a plethora of dieters in my midst. Even the cats are on a diet, so at some point I have to blog about it and have picked now as that point.

Regarding my new anatomical configuration, I am just different. I think I represent a new evolutionary advancement in the spices, as biologically I am now configured to always be thin. My stomach is behind my heart, 60 percent of it is gone in a stomach-stapling surgical operation to remove the cancer and, even better, my appetite has in the past been about 30% but is now up to 70% – just enough to sustain life on but not enough to become fat. If all humans out of the womb were put together like me, think how much better the species would be doing; no diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol etc.

But, alas, it is not so! There is only one of me like me and lots of you. Thus, enter the diet (or, as I am constantly reminded of, it is not a diet but a lifestyle change, new eating regime etc. I’ll stick to the 1970s term, diet, for this article, thank you.)

Observations

My first observation is that everyone and their dog (yes, the dog!) is an expert on what you should eat, and everyone has an opinion. Not only that, but it’s not any opinion, but it’s an opinion based on science. So if the diet consists of eating grapefruit and only grapefruit, then the science behind it is that somehow the citrus reacts with enzymes in the stomach to produce super hormone, and this hormone regulates everything all so well in the body that fat literally plops off the hips and stomach while walking. I jest. But, no matter what the diet, the question is: how can you argue against scientific truth?

It’s difficult for a lay person like myself to know which diet is the best, seeing they are so true and, like all the many lobbyist for the government, all have their backers. No matter what I eat, I will be crossing someone’s dietary line and committing gastrointestinal horror. If I go low fat, I offend the fat eating dieters (they’re out there), and if I eat fat, the low fat people take offense. The same goes if I eat meat – now I’m in trouble with the vegans, and if I only eat vegetables, the meat-eaters are no longer my friends. And all this in itself is not even static; this too changes. Eggs are in or out depending on the decade, and butter met the same fate: out then in, and I don’t know where fat stands now. With all these issues with what goes in the mouth, you feel like not eating at all. Or maybe if you ate dirt, you wouldn’t cross someone’s party line, but then again you might.

The second observation is a corollary to the first, and here I will refer to the Bible to justify my position: “for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Romans 14:17. Let’s take this apart. There is food and drink on one side of the seesaw and righteousness, peace and joy on the other. If you have to choose, which side would you want to go flying up in the air? For me, it’s the righteousness, peace and joy part. I’m saying don’t get too caught up in this crap. Life is too short to obsess about what goes in one’s mouth.

Subsection 2a of this is as follows: if it works for you, do it. I don’t think I have to elaborate on this concept in any further detail.

The third observation has to do with a biblical concept: enjoying your food. Ecclesiastics says:

Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward. Eccl. 5:18

I personally think it’s good to enjoy your food; it’s healthy, and promotes good mental health. To me, it makes no sense to put yourself on some regime that you hate, even though I do understand that there might be withdrawal when getting off sugar and refined foods. But at the end of the day, when you have landed on your preferred eating regime\diet, hopefully you like the food you are eating!

The fourth observation is this: regarding your health, it’s always good to do something rather than nothing and just let yourself go, and this becomes more of an issue as you get older. If you work in one area, you’re more inclined begin in another. Start eating right and the thought might fly across your head to actually exercise, and who knows: that stationary bike that for the last five years has doubled as a clothes depository might actually get fired up. It all falls under the heading Taking Care of Yourself, and it’s all good. But nothing comes from nothing, so adopting a different food lifestyle can be very good.

What I Have to Live With

I happen to live in a house where other family members are on some sort of eating regime, and I respect that. Gone, however, are the days when they were young and were forced to eat what we put in front of them; well, we left room for refusal, but we determined what was bought, prepared and served. We – my wife and I – the food tyrants that we were, held all the cards, and they were victims of all our gastric mistakes.

No more. I have sons on the keto diet, which I respect, and they can’t get over the fact that our refrigerator is not filled with meat. Why in the world would we buy pasta at $1.00 a pound that feeds hundreds rather than meat at $3.00/pound or more, and feeds a few? I sympathize but, as always, everything is fun when you’re spending someone else’s money, but all this is another story. (And I do try to meet them half-way.) Even the cats are on a diet: one tends to get plugged up and needs a diet high in fiber, and the other poor thing has a sensitive stomach, so we end up buying fairly expensive cat food for this animal. Others want to diet but have not found the resolve.

We have talked about putting everyone in the house on some eating regime, and there’s a push for the Keto diet, and we may go in that way, but that means I have to in that direction also, and there’s the rub. I like that every day for me is carb day but am open for other options, even if it means no more Bearclaws from Panera Bread. There are different sufferings in life, and this might be my lot. More later.

My Diet

I actually came up with my own diet\eating regime\lifestyle change. It’s simple: you pretty much know what foods you should be moderate with, so do it! Beyond that, the specifics are: if you can club it, eat it. If you can pick it from a tree, eat it. If you can pull it from the ground or snap it from a plant, eat it. Take hamburger, for instance. You can club a cow, so that’s in. How about potatoes? A potato can be pulled from the ground. An apple? You can pick it from a tree, so you’re good. But venture into the regions of a bagel, and a huge Stop sign awaits, and Oh-the-horror of a donut! All this may sound like the Paleo Diet, but I add my own caveat: salt everything except for watermelon and grapefruit (which is an abomination); you see, I have low blood pressure, and can eat as much salt as I want.

The only problem is I have to write my diet book. What will I do with my first million? I know: I’ll take all my friends and family out to Kentucky Fried Chicken!

This is the 50th Blog

Well, this happens to be the 50^th blog in the Cancer Chronicles series, so I thought to pause and reflect upon what we’ve accomplished, or haven’t accomplished.

On the accomplished side of the tally, we can say that the dear readers of this blog have gotten an insight into what it means to have cancer at a fairly young age, with all the attending physical, emotional, spiritual and financial issues. We’ve veered off fairly quickly into other but just as intense areas, like raising a family of eight in times are, to say the least, interesting. Just feeding these kids is monumental, so here’s to my wife! We’ve talked about sundry topics, like what different holidays mean, technology and what it is doing for us or not doing for us, and our cats. We’ve even addressed politics.

We haven’t, however, solved the world’s problems, and I’m still waiting for the leaders of this world to give me a call and ask for my advice on important issues; the wisdom presented in this blog is so rich and stark, you would have thought the calls would be rolling in. But alas, they are not, and the world’s problems continue.

Still, we’ve had some laughs, and I live in a comedy with eight kids and two cats, so I have a lot of material to draw upon. And I’m a Christian, so it’s good to also edify the others when possible, and we try to do that as it fits.

Still my poor readers have had to put up with my rants on occasion, such as against healthcare (well, not the technology but just the financing end of it which is just a mess) and Black Friday, among other rants. Sorry.

I do usually let my wife read these blogs before I publish them, just in case I’m so out there – well, she can reel me in, just like a kite. Also, she can tell me when my humor isn’t coming through; someone might actually take me seriously. Then there are the blogs that might be offensive, like one I just finished, My Stand on Dieting [not published – yet]. It is a light romp about dieting with some sprinkled wisdom, but in no way do we want to belittle anyone or their struggles in these matters. Still, your blog writer has to find what is appropriate re these issues, and that is not always easy.

Still, I enjoy writing these blogs, and I hope you enjoy reading them. Here’s to 50 more!

All the Weirdness that’s Fit to Print

We can use different analogies to illustrate what it is like listening to the news these days. My favorite, I think, is to compare it to walking through the zoo and beholding many strange and colorful creatures – creatures you never thought could ever exist but somehow they do: weirdly colored birds with fearsome ca-Caws, poisonous frogs with brilliant markings, big animals from Tibet with curved horns and irregular snouts. This is what we encounter when we are foolish enough to turn on the news in the car or surf over to a news webpage these days.

One such strange bird in this zoo is the Middle East, which seems to be disintegrating into its constitute parts daily, though all these parts are not clear in themselves and keep re-arranging themselves in interesting and unique ways. Like a complicated math formula with a single numeric constant, Israel seems to be the only country that is stable and thriving.  Funny how that is!

Another very strange animal is the US and world economy, which I’ve thought for a long time more closely resembles a gloried Ponzi scheme than anything else. Remember the Ed Sullivan show where the guy ran around crazily trying to keep all the plates up in the air? Replace this poor fellow with the world’s central bankers, and you can be thankful that you are not one of them.

This very strange economic bird, like the dodo bird, can never fly, no matter how hard the central bankers try to get it off the ground. These plate-in-the-air central bankers have kept the interest rates at zero for more years than the universe should allow, and now Janet Yellen [chief plate spinner] is floating the idea to bring interest rates into negative territory, following Japanese plate-in-the-air bankers. In case you don’t know what this means, you would pay money to keep your cash in a bank’s savings account, rather than receive interest from it. This is a lot like physics, where there are particles and anti-particles, so we are no longer living in an economy but in an anti-economy. Welcome, thrifty savers, to economic hell!

And then there’s a ferocious strangely-colored tiger slamming against the bars whenever whenever an “idiot” walks by and, yes – you guessed it – we have Donald Trump, who, when asked to comment about the trend in Russia for journalists who criticized Putin to end up dead, said – and I quote – “at least he’s a leader.”

Ah, we are not done, for perhaps the strangest animal used to burrow deeply into the ground or hide in the depths of a cave, but this animal has now come out for all to see and – even more – is widely regarded as courageous. We speak none other than of Bruce Jenner (i.e. Caitlyn Jenner) who managed to win the Woman of the Year award in 2015, although the confusion comes when you consider that he (or she) was born a male. Oh well, if you can pick your flavor of ice cream (and you can pick your nose), why can’t you pick your sex?

Alas, alas, another analogy is needed for all these strange sightings at the zoo – and there are more that go unmentioned in the interests of time – and perhaps a space analogy is in order. That is, we somehow tapped into the Mars news network here on Earth and all the news we hear is actually from the red planet. That might explain these strange zoo sightings that constitute our news these days!  Or maybe we fell through a wormhole and are now in another alternate universe; we are in an anti-normal universe with anti-news.

Really, the only good news in all this is that we can turn that radio button off and go about our business as a normal person, even though being normal these days is abnormal.  You can say the normal person’s fate is to be abnormal in these times.  Now, that’s news!

Taking Stock on Valentine’s Day

Today is Valentines Day, a most apt holiday wherein we celebrate the relationship with those whom we are closest to.

Us, when we were young and foolish!

When I look back over my life, I see three events that turned out to be monumental. First, I was converted at the age of 19 and found a very radical and truly Biblical Church by the age of 23. Second, in my travels across the country I came upon a sweet Montana girl that won my heart when I was 31 years old. Marriage followed along with eight kids, whom we popped in twelve and a half years, though that wasn’t exactly planned – it just happened. Third, I was diagnosed with cancer at the height of my career at the age of 46 and haven’t worked in the same way since. Taken together, these three events set the entire direction of my life; they are why I am where I am now.

Marriage, in particular, is an amazing thing. We basically take two people who are in love and have them live with one another, and I’m convinced that any two people inhabiting the same house will drive each other crazy within a matter of x years, x being a variable between two and five. It’s just how we are. God made us all so very different, and our personalities often fit together like two puzzle pieces but at the same time often clash along different fault lines. These fault lines can be anything, from how the finances are handled to whether the spouse squeezes the toothpaste tube from the bottom up or not; and how should the toilet paper be hung? It doesn’t help that we have a human nature that isn’t always so kind to the others faults and happens to minimize our own. You can easily end up with a stew of ugly things like anger, resentment, being offended and so forth.

The ship is not sunk, though, and this is where being a Christian, comes in. If each in a marriage is a Christian (actually, one is enough), there is a prayer, for they (slowly) learn to become like Jesus in truth and spirit. Where better to become like Jesus than in the context of marriage? It’s a great training ground to attempt the impossible: to actually see yourself and to swallow the truth about yourself, as great as you think you are; to bear with the others knowing they bear with you; and to give up some of your precious opinions. Maybe even listen to someone else. Christianity saves the relationship.

But in marriage we are not only supposed to come to the place where we can barely tolerate each other; no love shall grow like a plant that is thriving, and that requires a deeper cleansing from how we are by nature. The end is absolutely amazing, where two very proud people full of their own opinions can actually become one (the Bible refers to it as “one flesh”) throughout all the fires of life, and one of these big fires involves raising children. It was amazing they build the Brooklyn Bridge, and it was amazing to walk on the moon, but becoming one is even more amazing – and also possible.

It’s a long story, but I still see a developmentally disabled client who has mild Downs Syndrome; I was a counselor to her in a previous job, and per her request we’ve kept in contact since I left. She is lonely, the poor thing, and it is so very sad. Unfortunately, the world is full of such people, despite Facebook and how easy it is to communicate these days. The takeaway: be thankful that you have good people in your life who take the time to care about you. Be very thankful.

Almost twenty-three years ago I got a good one, with a nice smile and a caring heart, who has been a great mother, and she’s pretty too! Best of all, she’s a wholehearted Christian and loves Jesus, who has stood through all the trials of life. What could be better!

Happy Valentines Day!

P.s.  I made my girl from Montana cry.  She says this blog was her best Valentine’s card ever!

My Stand on the Presidential Candidates

My kids ask me what I think about the presidential election and, specifically, if I am for Donald Trump – and what about that old guy, Sanders?

I have some pretty shocking political beliefs that are for another blog, as I still want to have friends at this point in my life, but I can tell you what I answer my kids: that in normal times, Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders wouldn’t stand a chance – but these are not normal times. Normally a guy who can’t put a sentence together or someone who calls himself a socialist wouldn’t have a prayer, but then again these are not normal times. Far from it.

And then there’s Hillary, and no one knows what she is all about except getting elected. Then we can talk about the anti-trump Republicans, all vying to be the lead anti-trump candidate while he just schalleked all of them in New Hampshire and (maybe) cast the entire lot into irrelevance, which is sad, as some of them were at least respectable.

My take on Trump is this: I like his lack of political correctness but he takes it too far. In the final analysis, however, I really have no idea what he would do in office. I don’t think he does either. When governing a nation is just one stream of consciousness policy pronouncement after another, we can question the intelligence of the voter who put him there, but justice is that the voters get the president they picked.

And then we have a senior citizen socialist who plans on making education free for all – a worthy goal – but I’m not sure reality in this universe works that way. At some point someone someplace has to pay, and that’s always the rub with socialist schemes. Usually that person is me, Mr. Middle Class in the American heartland.

No, perhaps we should look to a third party candidate who would be as good as these distinguished candidates and maybe even better. I am speaking about none other than Vermin Supreme! Unlike Trump, he can speak in a complete sentence and – even better than Sanders – he promises to give every person in America a pony if elected. Regarding being not politically correct, he wears a boot on his head. He also favors mandatory tooth brushing.  I think at this point, our country deserves such a president. [Note: Vermin finished fourth– fourth – in the New Hampshire Democratic primary!]

Well, that’s politics in the End Times. What did you expect? One of my sons has told me many times in jest that if Trump gets elected to take him out in the backyard and shoot him. Let’s hope I don’t have to do the deed.

Why Would You Rip Out Your Feeding Tube?

Yes, I ripped my feeding tube out with my bare hands, as chronicled here, but there is a larger purpose in what I did – more than just to be a rebel against the Empire that is the American Medical System; it is to make the point that I plan to go rogue whenever possible and use my brain when accessing this system because – for all its technological achievements – it is a racket and verges on corrupt.

Strong stuff, eh?

More than half of all bankruptcies in the United States are medically related. More than half. No other nation on this planet has a statistic like that. And we are just beginning.

I can buy a new feeding tube for $120 and have it shipped to my house. The hospital where I get my feeding tube changed most likely gets them at a discount, I’m sure. For this exercise, we’ll say they can buy it for $100, as they have purchasing power. Can you guess what the hospital billed the insurance company for the feeding tube? They billed the insurance company $504! That is a 500 percent markup! If you read here, you will see that this is not unusual.. Not at all. Those Tylenol they give you – the two pills – the hospital will charge insurance $15.  Medical bills verge on craziness (and here).

Then there are facility fees, and balance billing, and a cost system that no mortal can understand, and if you are self-pay, you pay the entire sticker amount, whereas insurance companies can negotiate a huge discount. Oh, by the way, it is estimated that eighty percent (and here and here) of all hospital bills are incorrect. Eignty percent. If that was true of your mechanic, would you find another mechanic?

 

In general stay away from hospitals. Period. There’s been numerous cases where ER patients are shuffled from doctor to doctor but – surprise – not all are in their insurance network so months after being put back together, the patient gets a huge bill; the doctors can bill separately from the hospital, and the patient never knows who will bill and where the doctors stand with insurance (and here and here).

Another reason to stay away from hospitals is that they bill at a higher rate than practices. But even here you’re not safe in the shark infested waters called the American Medical System: hospitals are buying up practices for just this reason, so the patient can easily think he’s at a practice when the billing is done at a hospital rate. Hospital rates mean higher patient costs – much higher!.  Again, it’s all so confusing but becomes much clearer when the bill comes and the bankruptcy judge lowers his gavel: bankruptcy approved!

If you want to have some fun, call up the hospital and ask how you will have to pay after insurance kicks in for your procedure, if it is at all complex. Even better, ask for an itemized version of your bill and try to understand it. If you really want to have fun, call around and try to price shop for a procedure, like you would do when buying shoes. The question comes: how in the world can you operate 1/6 of the American economy when the consumer (i.e. the patient) is like a mushroom in a dark place regarding costs and billing?

Then there is the question: how do they come up with prices for different procedures, and is there an index someplace? In general, prices are unteathered from reality, so they can charge whatever they want (even $504 for a feeding tube), and one provider might bill $300, another $700 (differences in the same city can be by a factor of nine!. The sky’s the limit.

I can go on and on, but this is just a little blog, and we can’t solve all the world’s problems here. Sorry, dear reader. But I did solve my feeding tube problem by yanking it out myself. In my book, it would be stupid to go to the doctor for something like that. Use some common sense. Old timers have told me that years ago not everyone ran off to the doctor for everything. A hangnail is not open heart surgery. We need doctors, but let’s keep them at arm’s length as much as possible. And if you don’t have an arm, use a leg, and keep those dollar bills tucked away nicely in your wallet.

[Note:  I have worked in healthcare as a manager at a major hospital in Syracuse, NY, for 13  years and have a master’s degree in Health Systems Administration.  I also got to see the other side of the healthcare world from a hospital bed and a chemo chair.]

 

Redneck Medicine

Today I went Redneck, striking back at the medical system in one blow.

Feeding tube aparatus, shown with balloon blown up. The white part sticks above my skin and is attached to a feeding tube machine.

Since I had a good scan the other day, I purposed in my heart to get rid of my feeding tube. After all, I it was only useful when I was in chemo and shortly after that when I was getting used to eating again, but with a good scan and me being a hefty 150 pounds, I’ve proved that I can eat enough to maintain my weight. Besides, there is some overhead in having a feeding tube; it’s not a huge inconvenience, but I do have to make sure the balloon inside my abdomen is inflated, etc. – see here.

A normal person would got to Specialty Services at the hospital and have a trained professional with x years of education behind them and lots of initials after their name remove the feeding tube ever so carefully and bandage it with something sterile. Then the charge would be submitted, the insurance company would be soaked, and I would receive a bill in the mail for the co-pay – also inflated, as we found out after my last visit.

I was going to have none of that. I’ve gone Redneck before. At about the five year cancer mark in 2011, I was driving my teenagers out to our Churches Conference Center to play soccer and, on the way back, I pulled over in the blazing sunshine of Spring and yanked the thing out. It had been bugging me and, hey, we were at the five year mark, so why keep it? Now, mind you, the balloon was deflated, so we were not pulling an elephant through a garden hose, but still.

This time I used more precautions and made sure my hands were at least clean, then I sat in a kitchen chair, extracted the water from the balloon as if I’d had my RN license, and yanked. With just a little fight, it slid out – out just like that! The thought occurred to me that I probably should bandage it, as yellow bile was dribbling down my stomach, so I found what would pass as a bandage in the bathroom, and we were done. Talking to my wife on the phone later on, of course she asked if I had washed the site. That’s what you get when you marry a nurse.

Anyway, it’s a job well done as far as I’m concerned. It’s strange having a flat tummy again. Now I know how it feels when pregnant woman get back to flat tummys after having a baby. I can sleep on that side easily, and when I get in the pool, the gawky feeding tube will be gone. On the negative side, when I get stopped by a police officer, I won’t have anything to show him to prove I’m a cancer patient. I guess I’ll have to start driving more carefully.

Once again I’ve beaten the system. It feels great! Too bad I didn’t think of a quick fix when the cat got constipated (see here) recently and ended up costing us over $200. I’m sure we could have cleaned him out somehow.

Some Good Cancer News*

When there is good news in the cancer world, it needs to be celebrated!  Today is just such a day!!  

My Cancer treatment Center

I went for a scan today and, just before seeing the doctor, had a burst of humility, praying that no matter what the result would be that I would take it right.  It wasn’t sure how things were going to go, as this cancer has not behaved itself in the last few years.  Would it continue to be a bad boy, the juvenile who is always making trouble for others?  Or would it have reformed itself and become an upstanding citizen, starting to get good grades and participate in class?  Or did it leave town altogether?

That was the question.

It turns out that the news was good.  The scan showed no new cancer spots, and the spot that was radiated last November was dead.

Sometimes you are so conditioned for bad news that good news is an unexpected surprise. The cancer that was on the march seems to have stopped and has gone back to base.  Maybe its destroyed altogether.  I tend to be a realist, and understand what metastatic esophageal cancer means, but I also know that there is a God in heaven, and I know what that means also!

So, God has given me more time to work on my salvation, and I am very, very thankful for that. Living on the edge makes life very, very interesting. Everyone should experience it at least once. 

We celebrated with ice cream: Mint-Ting-A-Ling to be exact – my favorite.

*Today happens to be National Cancer Day, but I prefer to celebrate it as National Non-Cancer Day!

 

Oh, How I Hated Chemo!

I remember a while back the last thing I wanted to do was go to work; just wasn’t up for it, and getting a bit grouchy around the edges about the whole thing. But then I got a revelation, and joy filled my heart: I’m not in chemo.

Me just before chemo, 2007

The question can be raised: when you are not in chemo, what problems could you possibly have? I can’t think of one.

In 2014 I had seven months of chemo, and, oh, how I hated it. Now in our advanced Western culture, hatred could be thought of as a thing of the past, something from the middle ages; how often do we really hate? I’m not talking about a mild dislike or an acute sense of distaste, but an active, burning hatred, and that is what I had for chemo.

The chemo building was new and quite sparkling, and I hated it. The receptionists and nurses were always nice, and I hated them. The same went for my doctor. I hated the chemo chair, and the infusions, and the fanny pack full of chemo that I had to wear home. The center nicely offered free coffee and tea and little snacks that you could eat during chemo. I hated it all; not a sip or a crunch did I have. A few years before all this, my wife bought me a shirt with the cancer center logo emblazoned on it. I hated it. Would not wear it. Later, after my chemo treatments, I had a chance to drive by the cancer center to get to my destination in the quickest way, but froze: I thought: should I take another, longer way or go by THAT building? I finally decided to drive by it but didn’t look – not even a peak. Turned my head away from it. Hated it.

Why so irrational, you might ask? Yes, at the end of my chemo cycle when the chemo was flushed out of my system, I was feeling much, much better and then I had to go in for something euphemistically called a “medical treatment.” I would be poisoned again. When you have the flue, you feel awful and throw up, but you’re still you. But when I was in chemo, an alien chemical had entered my bloodstream; godless, silvery metal liquid poison was coursing through my veins. I felt dizziness, as if I was on the roller coasters at Seabreeze Amusement Park, and I would threw up first thing in the morning (just to start my day), and when I touched a cold faucet, electricity jolted through my arm – I had something called “cold sensitivity.” My Mediterranean skin turned sage green.  Going to sleep, and my jaws would suddenly kill, both sides. What was that? It was a symptom. Everything was a symptom. I was a symptom.

Slowly, day by day, less of it coursed through those veins, and slowly, day by day, my body returned to me, one day at a time. Then the day came when I got my body back, and it was mine again. To feel like yourself – what an amazing feeling! To live in the body God gave you without any strangers there – how great can that be! I was free.

Alas, it never lasted, as just when I as returning to a state called normalcy, it was time to take another drive to the cancer center, sit in the infusion chair, and get poisoned again. Repeat cycle.

(During these seven months, I told my wife I knew what it was like to have a period. I had a cycle, and all my activity was organized around that cycle. It was like clockwork: every three weeks, I would feel awful for about a week, get better, and hit that three week mark again, and we would do it all over. What a way to live!  All this me very thankful that God made me a man.)

Well, the chemo eventually ended for good, and the darned stuff didn’t shrink the tumor at all. Oh well. Now I am getting up without wretching like a normal person and having to face all sorts of trials: the bathroom floor is cold, and someone placed the sugar someplace so I can’t fix my tea, and the cat yells at me because he wants food. All sorts of trials like that. How easy we forget what IT was like. Our memories are so short, thus it is written:

In the day of prosperity be happy,
But in the day of adversity consider—
God has made the one as well as the other
So that man will not discover anything that will be after him. Ecclesiastes 7:14