Ten ways to Sunday

Friday the 13th. Sure, it sounds ominous, but does it have to be? Was I destined for bad news last week when I visited my oncologist to get the results from my latest cat scan? Would this dark day of dark days hold fast its reputation? You bet your sweet patootie it would!!! I've got cancer. Still. "Several" lymph nodes, is how they put it. So it's back to chemo for me, starting on July 30th.

This next section is devoid of insight, poetry, journalistic integrity, or any redeeming social value what so ever. If you are of slight mind and delicate sensibilities, and are easily offended by words, go no further. Then again, if you are of slight mind and delicate sensibilities, and are easily offended by words, you're not reading this, because you and I probably wouldn't get along anyway.

This goddamnmotherfuckercocksuckerassreamingshiteatingsonofamotherlesswhore disease just won't seem to go away!!! I'm so fucking pissed! How much more of this shit am I expected to deal with?!?! I've lost out on half of my 30's, and I'll be goddamn lucky to make it anywhere into my 40's. Sure, I'm alive, but this is living? Having to shove gallons of poison into my veins every few months? Having to spend my summers puking up every last bit of chum? Wasting away until I look like a fuckin heroin addicted anorexic? Having to curl up in a mental haze while having some vague sense of the reality of the world around me? What the fuck did I ever do to you? You'd think I'd spent my life molesting puppies and painting apocryphal scenes with the entrails of human sacrifices. This totally sucks! SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!

Whew! Ok, got that out.

I'm not about to tell you there was a "good" part of the news I got, because in reality there is none. Sure, it could have been worse, I could be writing my own eulogy, but the fact is that when you are told you still have cancer, after 3 years, and that you have to go back to the worst hell on earth that you have ever experienced, none of it is actually good. I won't refer to it as "good" news but for those of you who need to find the bright side, I offer you a few "facts": The cancer hasn't spread to organs, it looks like it's in the lymph nodes; the last time I took this particular chemo drug, it did a very good job on the tumors I had at the time; this most likely isn't new cancer, it's just cells that have avoided all the previous attempts at banishing them from my body.

I was having fun pretending I was well. The summer had started very well. There was trips down the Shore, a wedding, a visit from Dave, a new apartment, a new position at work. But now it stops. The brakes have been hit hard and I've got two weeks to skid into the abyss. I don't know how bad the chemo will be, but I'd put my money on "horrible". I'm sure by now you know the drill. When I'm too sick to care for myself, and you all know how much I LOVE that, I'll be staying at Dad's. I will, however, be doing everything in my power to spend as much time as possible in my own place.

Oh, yeah...forgot to mention, I'm also having some sort of "red hot iron jabbed into my stomach" pains that so far, doesn't seem to be directly related to my current infestation of carcinoma. It got so bad that I had to hit the ER on Saturday and get dosed up with dilaudin just so I could stop crying. I have to go see some other docs to figure out what the hell that is before I can start the chemo. Oh joy of joys!

That's it for now. I'm going to Kentucky tomorrow for a couple of days for work. I hope I can make it through that. Then it's back home on Thursday and I'll try and figure out where my head is at then. Should I party my last couple of weekends before chemo? That is, of course, if my body will actually let me. Or will I just retreat into myself, watch a lot of movies, play a lot of X-Box, and sulk quietly until they come to take me away? Yeah, I know what you want, but you know that sometimes I just have to be left alone. I'll figure it out later.