Karma

It occurred to me this morning that maybe I should have seen all of this coming. I mentioned in my last post that a few months before it started, I went through a pretty difficult break-up. I was still having a rough time with it when the tumor set in. But shortly after the break, in May, was my best friend's birthday. As a celebration, we went down to Atlantic City for a night to have some fun and to take my mind off of my recent loss.

I have a strong belief that your mindset, or karma, or whatever you want to call it, plays a large role in the kind of luck you carry with you when you enter a casino. My game is Blackjack, and I usually play well, but on this particular occasion I could hardly fake a good mood and I lost. My friend won, however, so it wasn't all bad, especially since we were there for his birthday and that's a damn good reason to win, if you ask me.

We split a cheap room at the Showboat, and for at least one night I was able to separate myself from the grief that had been consuming my every day.

The next day had rain in the forecast, and we had decided on spending just a few more hours into the afternoon before getting in the car to return home. For those who don't know, Atlantic City is right on the water, and a long boardwalk densely populated with little novelty shops, restaurants, kiosks and arcades connects a string of casinos that lasts farther than the eye can see. While it was expected to rain, we walked outside after a late breakfast into unpleasantly bright sunlight.

We began to stroll the boardwalk, taking a few minutes here and there to peruse the shops, though we didn't buy anything, and by all accounts we were having a nice time. But, before long, while walking down the center of the wood-paneled boardwalk, two pigeons conventiently pooped right on my chest. My friend and I each saw them flying towards us from down the strip, but it happened so fast, neither of us could really have done anything to avoid it. It was like they had planned it between the two of them, like a little game they play, and I just happened to be the victim of the moment.

You know, one pigeon turns to the other and says, "Alright, Ed, how about that one there in the yellow t-shirt?"

"I've got him in my crosshairs, Pete. Locked and loaded," says the other.

And, before I know it, they're right overhead and it's "bombs away," and "bang," there's poop all over my chest. They had just about the best aim in the world, too, since the poop landed in perfect symmetry on either side of my chest. I guess they may have been aiming for my face and just barely missed, but when I looked down I found bird poop just about two inches above each nipple.

My friend reminded me that it's generally considered good luck to be the recipient of bird poop on a sunny day, or any day for that matter, but to me it just seemed to go along with the recent theme of the world shitting on me. My hypothesis appears to be closer to the truth, considering that about two short months later, I was diagnosed with cancer.

As I said before, I don't always have bad luck at casinos. In fact, I usually do well and win. One time, this same best friend and I were at Niagara Falls with another of my best friends (I have a few), and the three of us were all sitting together at a Blackjack table. My other best friend, who wasn't in the previous story, wasn't very well versed in the intricacies and betting schemes of the game, so I was doing my best to help him along whenever he asked for advice. I was doing well, making decent conversation with the dealer, who appeared to be about our age, and he seemed to agree with the philosophy I was using to teach my friend how to play.

The dealer was a really nice guy, and as I said earlier, I truly believe that good karma at the table leads to favorable results. The only oddity that stood out about this dealer was that his voice was very weak and high-pitched, almost like that of a girl. I presume he had simply undergone some sort of surgery to make it turn out that way, but it wasn't the first time I'd come across that sort of situation and it made no difference to me what his voice sounded like.

My friend, however, the same one from the first story, must not have been as aware as I that an operation, usually performed out of necessity to remedy some dangerous condition, could leave a man's voice sounding that way.

At some point, my other friend, the Blackjack novice, was dealt a tricky hand, and for some reason he didn't agree with my advice for him. We asked the dealer, who echoed my instructions, but still my friend wasn't convinced. In the end, he decided against both of our opinions, and as luck would have it he lost the hand.

"See, you should have listened to her-- HIM!" said my friend from the first story, and though he tried to cover it up, the slip was undeniable.

I tried pretending like I hadn't heard anything at all, and so did the dealer, who sort of put his head down shamefully for a moment before picking the cards back up to deal. And, after a few awkward moments, we were again playing Blackjack.

You could probably have predicted that after making such a comment, my friend's luck turned immediately downhill. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he lost every hand from there on out. I, on the other hand, continued the good rapport I had created with the dealer, and my good fortune continued until I finally decided to walk away with a few hundred dollars' earnings in my pocket.

That second story clearly has little to do with my cancer, but I like telling it and it reminds me that things haven't always been so bad.

I've come to the point in my treatment where the doctors have ordered an MRI, a PET Scan, and another Biopsy, which will be my ninth. A Biopsy is when they remove a sample of bone from the base of my spine from which to take a sample of the tumor. Yes, they actually break off a piece of my spine and I assume try not to crack the area around it too much. And bone takes a really long time to heal. And yes, I endured eight of these Bone Marrow Biopsies within the first few weeks of hospital experience, as three different hospitals scrambled to find a diagnosis for what was ailing me. One of them was actually done while I was awake, an experience that pained and shocked me to my very core.

I just returned home a little more than an hour ago from the first of the three tests, a routine MRI. Or, at least, it should have been a simple, routine MRI.

The actual MRI takes only somewhere between fifteen minutes and an hour, depending on the body part being scanned and the extent of the imaging needed. This one took about an hour, which I didn't mind, but what did bother me was the other five hours I spent waiting in the hospital to have it done. Just another example of terrible communication between members of the hospital staff, and again I'm the one who has to suffer.

They had me come in at 9:30am today, only to tell me that they couldn't see me until noon. So, I obeyed the orders they gave me and sat around the clinic until I was told to go down to the MRI facility. The secretary there told me that she was all booked up, and since I had been waiting upstairs in a different place, it was no better than just showing up when I walked into the room. After two and a half more hours of arguing and watching people call one another to accomplish nothing on the phone, and taking elevators back and forth between the first and seventh floors just trying to remedy an inexcusable mistake that they had made, I was told that another MRI facility in the same building would be able to squeeze me in after they were done with their current patient.

I was then escorted upstairs to the other facility, where, wouldn't you know, I walked into a dead empty waiting room. That they hadn't brought me to this other place hours sooner is so far beyond me, I really can't think of anything else to say about it. That the doctors insisted I come to their hospital to use their machines despite the fact that there's a perfectly adequate MRI Imaging place in my own town is also beyond me. But after another long day at the hospital, I'm so fed up with their inability to organize a number line (you know, 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on), I'm ready to give up. If I had the option, I'd rather stand outside, walk underneath standing or propped-up ladders, and tie a bird poop magnet to my head than deal with them anymore. Unfortunately, I don't have that choice to make, and I'm at a loss for how to prepare myself for their lack of know-how with regards to their own jobs.

I want to treat people well. It would be foolish of me to expect that good karma at a casino will lead to good results but good karma at the hospital isn't just as important, or probably more important, considering that the results of the things that happen there really do constitute a life-and-death situation for me. It's damn near impossible, but I think that somehow I'm just going to have to try harder.

Anger and Sadness

Today I was angry. There's not a whole lot to it. I was just really angry. I woke up cold and nauseous, I had to go have blood taken, the car ride made me sick and I was angry. I came home, flopped down on the couch and fell asleep, and when I woke up I was angry.

I passed the day, muddling through interactions with my friends and family, but I just kept thinking about the way things are and it made me angry. I could tell I was taking it out on other people, but I just couldn't make myself care. I'm trapped in this nightmare and I can't run or take a break or get away from it because right now it defines me. I can't live or breathe like a normal person; I can't go find excitement or intrigue or anything new. I can't meet new people or have a job or go an entire day without feeling like I'm going to vomit and it makes me feel so empty. It feels like the one and only thing I have in my life is cancer, and god knows how badly I don't want it.

I don't expect life to be like a fairy-tale. I know it isn't. But I think about going through nine more sessions of this misery and I wonder if it's really worth it. I've already been through five rounds of chemo, and there are still nine more scheduled. I've never heard of anything that requires fourteen rounds of chemo! The sad part is, the pain I was enduring before I was diagnosed was so severe that I finally concluded life wasn't worth living if I couldn't figure out how to get rid of that pain. Now, the pain is mostly under control, but I'm hardly less miserable. I find myself asking whether I have it better or worse now than before. The objective is obviously to get rid of this thing so I can move on and be happy again, but it's so damn far away and nobody really knows if I'll ever get there.

I had a girlfriend up until a few months before my diagnosis. I know it's important to be able to rely on myself, and I don't ever want to depend upon someone else to determine my happiness. But at least when I had her, I always felt like there was one huge good thing that I had regardless of how other things in my life were going.

These days, I don't have much of anything except an empty stomach. I mean that literally and figuratively. And while I still believe she's out there for me, that special girl, I have no way of finding her. I can only sit here and hope she'll still be there when I can finally escape this interminable prison. Even then, nothing's guaranteed.

So, I'm angry. I'm sad. I feel helpless and frustrated and I don't want to go through any more chemo, let alone nine more rounds. The prospects of tomorrow look depressingly like those of today, but who knows? Maybe tonight I'll fall asleep and when I wake up it will all be gone. Like one big, terrible nightmare.

Celebration

Yesterday, I put blue jeans on for the first time in months. It occurred to me as I was slipping them on, unfamiliarly pulling up the zipper. It's not that I avoid wearing jeans, or any kind of pants with zippers or buttons, for that matter, I just hadn't since my diagnosis. Realistically, I spend all of my time either at home or at the hospital, so there just hasn't been any reason to wear anything other than comfortable shorts or sweat pants. I don't think it's a good idea to try to impress anyone in the children's ward, so I've simply opted for comfort.

Yesterday was also my twenty-third birthday. All week, I was tentatively planning on having a few close friends over. Nothing crazy because I still have to worry about getting sick, and obviously it all depended on how I was feeling. My good sense told me that three days removed from chemo I would still be feeling badly, but it was my birthday, so despite my better judgment I held out hope for something miraculous.

Just as I had expected, getting up yesterday morning was rough. Waking up is usually the most nauseating part of the day, and as usual it took me a while to force myself out of bed. I always have this unfounded hope that if I lay around for a while, letting myself fall into and out of sleep, it will somehow be easier when I finally decide to get up. Of course, it never is.

Sometimes, my body will adjust as the day goes along and the nausea that plagues me in the morning will dissipate over the course of a few hours. I kept telling myself that yesterday would be one of those days, even though I woke up nauseous and the following hours were nauseating as well. But it was my birthday; it just had to be one of those days.

I went along with the plans to celebrate, because, after all, I really deserve it. If anyone deserves a birthday, I know it's me. And since I was too proud to postpone the party to a day that wasn't my birthday, I made a promise to myself that I was going to enjoy it regardless of how sick I felt.

I felt sick all day. It just never went away, and though I masked it with meds, it didn't seem to get much better, either. But my friends came over and I think they had a good time, and I swear I didn't complain once about feeling sick. I didn't force myself to party too hard, and by allowing the joyful surroundings of the day to sink in, they eventually conquered my psyche and in the end it was a good day. It obviously helped to have my closest friends around, but I'm convinced that maintaining an optimistic outlook eventually overcame my inevitable physical struggles.

Though the party lasted all day, I hardly made it until nightfall. With these meds I'm taking, there's just nothing I can do to keep myself from fading, and it always ends in a nap. Yesterday, I think I managed to keep my eyes open until the last of the guests had left. Still, it was an earlier night than I had hoped for, especially on my birthday.

As luck would have it, today has been a much easier day for me than yesterday was. It's usually around this day that I cross the hump and start to feel better, but I was just hoping that the big jump would come a day sooner this time.

Everyone knows that a birthday only lasts one day. Though I may feel better today, there are no guests, no celebration. Like most other things in life, I don't get a re-do. I'll have to wait an entire year to do that again. It's frustrating and it makes me sad. There's just no way around it.

I never get overly excited for birthdays or holidays, it's just not my nature. I don't crave presents or new, shiny things, and like I said it's just one day and it's always over before you know it. I've had homework and midterms on my birthday, and in college it always fell during the week before basketball started so nobody wanted to party too hard and put themselves at a disadvantage for hell week. (Hell week is the first week of practice, which involves two-a-days and some of the hardest conditioning of the entire season.)

So, I always temper my birthday expectations. This year was no different, because in addition to my usual temperance, this year I have cancer. I don't know for how long, but for now and for this year's birthday I do, and it's a pretty good reason to moderate my birthday expectations. Nowadays, I can pretty much always expect to feel crummy, and that's not going to change just because it's my birthday.

But, like any other birthday, it was one day long and it's over now. I'm a year older and the day has passed, so I can move on. Next year is a whole year away, and I know how quickly things can change, so there's no telling the conditions in which I'll find myself by then. If I stay dedicated to my recovery, then maybe next year I'll be able to set my expectations a little bit higher.

Overall, I would call yesterday a good day. I may not have felt well, but for the first time in a while I had a reason to put on jeans and a reason to celebrate. I also learned a lot about the power of positive thinking, and how despite the most unfortunate of circumstances, good people and some chocolate mousse cake can really go a long way towards having a good time.

I will continue to fight, and I truly believe that next year the only reason to throw up on my birthday will be if I drink too much.