Something Evil This Way Comes

it’s another thing, and I guess in the big scheme of things, the things that have been screwing up for us lately haven’t been as bad as they could be.
Like, we got the first round of blood tests back, and things are looking good. I’ll get more info about what’s what when I see my GP on Monday, but all in all, things are apparently look good.

Anyway, I am feeling fairly good, this far after the chemo, and as always, I have no idea what happens next.
I had every intention of going out, at least briefly, last night, cuz there was some more of those swell Vancouver dykes doing a swell Vancouver fundraiser for me and the Little Woman, but it just couldn’t happen in the end (leaving the house, I mean, I am pretty sure the fundraiser happened.)
But I do want to say a big thank you to the Stacy and the folks at Lick and all those lovely drag kings. Thanks, you guys.
I swear I would have made it if I could and I do appreciate the thoughts and the huge effort.

So, life is okay… different… interesting.
My doctor tweaked my meds a bit and I may crash later in the week, that remains to be seen. Right now I have a bit of a ‘headstone’ going on, I am not completely sure why, but it’s interesting and I have decided that the best thing to do is just roll with it and try not to hate it and take it from there.
Still, if I had any sense, I would log off right now and not reveal the secrets that happen within these walls.
But who ever said I had any sense?

But as I always say, it’s the little things.
Okay, Elaine’s van dying in the suburbs is maybe more than just a little thing.
But it has seemed that since I got sick, lots of little things are screwing up. Okay, some of them are bigger than little, but lots of things are just going screwey and I guess it’s the stress and the busy-ness of it all and like that.
Now, we all know about the little incident with the van clipping my door.
Yesterday I had this *need* to go buy some free run/organic chicken. I think it was as much about a need to do *something* and to assert some independence as it was about any poxy old chicken.
So, with no vehicle to safely drive, I got on my bicycle and zig zagged down the side streets of the east end. That was interesting, and I am happy to report that the chicken and I all made it back home. It was a true sensory adventure. I am sorry I can’t share it with you all.

Anyway, we’ve been telling you a lot about some of our bigger disasters around the home, but I thought it might be time to detail some of the smaller ones.
Like how a couple of weeks ago, I opened the dryer to grab some clothes and looked down and saw my favorite watch laying on top of my jeans, inside the dryer.
I love this watch… it was love at first sight with me and this watch, and there it was, all sterile and the face plate turned sideways from being clonked around. It’s trying desperately to limp along, and if anyone knows of a cheap little jewellry or watch shop, preferably in the hood, please let me know. I have other watches, but this one is far and away my favorite and I think it deserves a chance at a second life.

And then there was today’s little mini-disaster.
I am trying to eat/drink as many smoothies and other good things as possible. Just a little something to try to help offset the toxins I am ingesting.
Anyway, Elaine had an appointment coming up and I needed to get some food in my belly so I could take my medication, so I made us a smoothie.
It was lovely. All organic and good. It had organic melons and organic mango, organic berries, organic yogurt, banana, orange, apple, and a whack of juice, and it was all going to be so lovely and delicious and good for us.
So, I mixed it all up and flipped the switch, and I noticed that the blender was making more of a howling sound than usual, but I figured it was just working hard trying to plough thru all that frozen goodness. So, I just ignored it.
Elaine, hearing the great grinding sound from the other room, asked if I thought we would have to replace the blades soon. I don’t know why that comment made me stop and check out the situation, but I did. So, I stopped the blender and dug a spoon in there to see what was what, and out came the little clear measuring cup lid that slides into the bigger plastic lid.
Now, this would be easier to feel okay about if it had been *my* blender, but it ain’t. It’s Elaine’s and it’s a damn nice blender, or it has been up till recently.

Anyway, I mostly wanted to say that because I think lots needs to be said about how much Elaine is doing, and enduring, and balancing, and tolerating, and I think she deserves an enormous amount of credit for going thru all this with me.
And I sure do appreciate it, because I am more of a space cadet now than I used to be, and I thought she was brave before I got sick.
So, I suggest, on top of it being Gay Pride everywhere but in Vancouver, that we agree to make today the “Hooray for Elaine Being So Swell to Spike Day”.
I know there are some marketing types out there who can turn this into a huge money-maker.

Okay… off to see what other damage I can cause before sundown.

Spike of the poached brain

I just wrote a whole chunk of info about ovarian cancer, because it seems like people either get it confused with other types of cancer, like cervical cancer or breast cancer or whatever. And then I accidently hit the wrong button and that was the end of that.

The bad news about ovarian cancer, in case anyone needed more bad news about any type of cancer, is that there is no good test for it. It doesn’t get caught with a pap test and there is no equivalent to a mammogram.
Mine got caught because my girlfriend kicked my ass until I did something about the lump in my guts that turned out to be benign but was neighbouring in there with the actual cancer we are now dealing with.
So, as I keep saying, my cancer being caught at this stage is a complete fluke.
And still, it is staged at 3C, which isn’t anything to take lightly.
You can go online and find lots of very scary survival rates for someone in my shoes, but my oncologist says I have a 50/50 chance of dying of old age and since he has all the specifics, I’ll go with that assessment.
The good news for me is, most women get diagnosed when they are about 10 to 20 years older than me, so I expect I may have a bit more spunk to get thru this.
I also have a remarkable support system and people who are just generally looking after me. I am on a couple of e-mail lists and the women on those lists seem to often have to continue with all the same old expectations they ever had and that they don’t get much help. They make dinner for their families, they iron their husbands shirts, they get screwed by their insurance companies, and they don’t ever seem to get really pissed off about how tired and awful they feel. Needless to say, I don’t post a lot to this list.
I think I am really lucky to be so well taken care of, not just by Elaine but also by the big gang of close friends and less close friends and aquaintances and co-workers, and from 10 years ago former co-workers and on and on. It’s really shocking to me all the people who have jumped out of the woodwork to help, people I haven’t talked to for years. It’s amazing and I really appreciate it.

I also feel really lucky that when my girlfriend comes home and finds me asleep in the middle of the day, she thinks that’s a good thing. (Though I have been training her with the afternoon sleeping for a few years.) I believe that having the time to rest and not grind myself into the ground will make a big difference.

Also, my surgery was done by a gynocologist/oncologist, and that makes a huge difference because when surgeries are performed just by gynocologists, they aren’t as well skilled at knowing what bad parts to take out and where to go looking for their secret hiding places. I have read stuff that say the type of doctor who does the surgery has a huge impact on how well one bounces back.
And since the original predication was that the surgery would take 45 minutes and it took 2.5 hours, I would say that my surgeon was pretty thorough. I can say that because he said he promised that he removed every bit of cancer that is visible to the human eye. I don’t know if I would have got that from a gynocologist. So, I feel lucky. I most certainly didn’t feel lucky when I woke up from the surgery. I felt like I had been hit by a truck, but I am grateful in retrospect.

I have spent a bunch of time, going through a wide spectrum of emotions about this whole situation. And for me, here is the bottom line.
Early on in my diagnosis. someone who has survived cancer mentioned to me that she was cranky and stubborn and it was her observation that people with these characteristics seem to have a high survival rate.
Now, you can hear all kinds of things about the different attitudes people bring to all this, and I can swear to you that anyone in this position will experience a lot of different attitudes and emotions over a small course of time.
I have decided that since Elaine says I am probably the most stubborn person she has ever met, when it comes to certain things, I am going to work from that perspective and make it work for me.
I have a few ex’s who may chime in that I am downright bull stubborn when it comes to some stuff.
You see, I am just so completely not willing to let this thing get me. There’s plenty to endure and there will be a lot to learn and there will be a lot of changes to life in general by the time we make it to the other side.

But the other side will have the wedding of the two dykes least likely to wed.
See, now *that* was the long shot, that Elaine and I would get married. Much lower odds than me beating this cancer crap…just because we are both just a tiny bit jaded.
But hell, if I am going to take her nice cozy life and shake it up, and shake it some more, and then some more and do that for 6 to 8 months, I think that is she still wants me after I get to the end of this, well, hell, that would just be so great.

Anyway… the link where you can learn as much as you ever want to know about ovarian cancer, from the folks who know.

here you go

Ovarian Cancer Canada

They have lots of groovy little drop down windows that give you more info.
And hey, it’s local. Their address bears a striking similarity to the address where I have my chemo treatments done… hmmm, what’s up with that?

I know you hear cartoon characters threatening to do this all the time, but it just happened to me.

Spike’s head is shaved, but the hair-falling-out process is in no way complete, and she’s got 3rd-day stubble all over her head.

This morning, teacup and cereal bowl in hand, I tiptoed up behind her in her chair and bent over to place tender kiss on her crown –when suddenly, at the merest touch of my lips, she whipped her head around.

It was like I’d kissed a running circular sander.

There was a rasping noise, followed by my leaping backwards, in turn followed by my muffled squeaking as I frantically checked for lip function.

Then we laughed until we hiccuped.

“I thought you were coming to kiss me on the lips!” Spike said, setting us off laughing again.

It’s a short while later, and my lips still hurt. But I’m smiling anyway.

-Elaine

Just a quick update because I have to get some sleep before my big chemo date tomorrow.

We went to the Cancer Agency today to get (even more) bloodwork done.
It was weird to be back there. I was really less than enthusiastic to be back, sort of like a dog realizing that the car has arrived at the vet’s office.

Anyway, we did more bloodwork and then met with the oncologist and the chemo nurse that are handling me for this drug trial.
It was good to sit down and recap what has been happening and find out that stuff is going in a pretty normal way. Except they say that most folks don’t get as sick as I did/do from the chemo.
I said, “That’s because I am really quite delicate.” and the chemo nurse, without looking up from her paperwork, snorted and then laughed quite hard.

The chemo nurse gave me a quick run down on how my blood tests are looking, which is basically really good, though don’t ask me to explain what that means because I only remember her saying the word ‘good’ quite a few times. Maybe Elaine can fill in the details.

So, the doctor adjusted the meds a wee bit, like I now have a bag of Gravol automatically as part of my chemo, and he gave me a script for a couple of new meds, so we will see. The plan is to have this round be a bit less gruelling than the last time. Fingers crossed. And I will be on the steroids for 4 or 5 days this time, instead of 3 like last time. That’s good news because when I came off the steroids last time, I really started to feel like crap.
But the steroids keep me awake.
On an up note, that will give me time to catch up on some of my e-mail and stuff, because I have fallen way behind in the last while.

Anyway, off to bed and then off to chemo.
Wish me luck.

We were driving over the viaduct yesterday and the Cirque du Soleil was packing up and heading out of town.
I remember last year when they left town, I was leaving work as their semi’s drove down Hastings Street. It was really cool and kind of sad, all in the same moment.
Anyway, yesterday, we drove by as they were taking it all apart.
Same thing, kind of cool and kind of sad.
I just want to say again how happy I am that Elaine and I got to go see Quidam this year, that was so great. And it was good that we saw the show before I started the chemo.
Thanks to the artistically minded elfish sorts of friends who made that happen.
I know I have said it before, but this whole nasty thing is so much easier to manage because of all the kindness and support we are being given.
So, thanks.

And, that said, I think me and the Missus are going to try to do something nice with each other today.

Later, comrades

I’ll put a better link up soon, but if you ain’t on Spike’s mailing list, and wanna be, go here:
http://spikeharris.com/mailman/listinfo/spikebroadcast_spikeharris.com
-Elaine

So today I had a lot of things to do in my little home office, and great deal of things to do outside the home, and for some reason I didn’t want to leave to do the outdoor things. I hemmed, I hawed, I kissed Spike, I procrastinated, I took a bath, I did some work on the computer… and finally I said “Okay, okay, I have to go, Spike, shall I jump your truck(‘s dead battery) for ya before I leave?”
Continue reading »

Okay… I said this would be up a few days ago, and I didn’t get to it.
Bad Spike.
And, I still haven’t seen all the pictures from that day, because they got taken on 2 different cameras and even if both sets of pictures are in the same house, the house in which I live, it happens that one set of pictures is on my computer and another set is on the Little Woman’s computer and there actually hasn’t been a moment when we were both free when we could consolidate and cull and then have the definitive head shaving photographs.

But here at least is a bit of a glimpse of the day.
It’s a picture of me, yes… that’s me (after clippers but before razor) shaving Elaine’s armpit hair. She decided to shave her armpits, which have been growing strong since the years of her misspent youth.

The day itself was great.
See, I had started to slowly feel better over the day or two before and that meant I was feeling just slightly less helpless and maybe I had a few opinions about all this stuff that has happened over the last 6 weeks or so.
And so I sat around and cried.
Oh, right, did I mention I am going thru menopause on top of everything else? Basically that is nowhere near as rough as I thought it might be, but having excess emotion of any kind right now is a bit, well, excessive.
And sometimes it’s hard to figure what is a reasonable emotion and what might be some excessive hormonal ride.
Anyway, I wasn’t enthusiastic about it.
I was touched that my friends wanted to be so sweet, but I still was pretty well stuck in the vanity department and wasn’t at all happy about it.

My pals showed up and we chatted and we were all pretty normal, and then we got out the clippers.
There were 4 of us getting our heads shaved, and then there was Elaine losing her armpit hair. There were a few people who wanted to drop by and visit but the rule for the day was that anyone who came into the house had to lose some chunk of hair before they left.
We started at around 11 am and we finished up around 4:30 in the afternoon.
It takes awhile, especially when you shave with the little razor.
It was the most contact I had had with people, besides Elaine, since before chemo and it was really really a good thing.
If you had asked me on the Saturday if I could hang out with people for 5 hours, I would have said no, but it worked on Sunday.
It was really nice to hang, and be supported and just talk about regular life and Harry Potter trivia and the new movie and who each of our friends who be in the Harry Potter series.
It was really fun and really sweet.
And I think it’s the sort of thing this group of people will be fondly remembering 15 years from now.
I have a really great bunch of friends.

I am really hoping that sometime today I can get the rest of the photos and go thru them and post them to the gallery pages.
I’ll let folks know when I get that done.