On the Edge of Change

 Near Room 115, Satterfield Hall, KSU
Where Joyce and I met in the summer of 1969--
note our reflection in the window of the door that
we exited that day she first spoke to me!

Almost exactly seven years ago--on July 15, 2013--Joyce and I, after supper, drove from our home in Hudson over to Kent, to the campus of Kent State University, to Satterfield Hall, where, in the summer of 1969, we'd first met in a summer graduate school course in American Transcendentalism.

We parked and walked to Room 115, THE ROOM (it was locked), but the classroom door had a long vertical window, so we could see inside. And remember.

Then we drove over to nearby 323 College Court, site of our first apartment (we lived there from 1969 to 1972, when our son was born: The landlord allowed no children, but he was very kind, helping us find a new place, 214 S. Willow, only about a block away, a home that's now gone, razed for the Esplanade project in Kent).

323 College Court

And why were we doing this? Driving around Kent? Visiting sites that had meant so much to us?

Because we were on the eve of what we knew would be a major change in our lives. The next day--our son's birthday!--I would take my first dose of Lupron, a drug that diminishes/kills testosterone, the "food" of the prostate cancer that had returned after my surgery in 2005, after a round of radiation in 2009. A persistent foe.

I've been on that drug ever since--and will remain so, getting quarterly injections in my derriere.

The side effects were indeed life-changing. Sweats. Weariness. Fragile bones (I'm on a med for that, too.) Fits of depression. Loss of all (and I mean all) libido. Weight gain.

And I've experienced all of them. I now eat very little because weight arrives the next day--like a big, heavy box from Amazon Prime--if I eat the way I did pre-Lupron. If I eat the way I want to!

Some years passed. I went through immunotherapy and another round of radiation treatments. (By then, the cancer had metastasized into my bones--and the radiation zapped several spots on my spine.) My numbers calmed down.

But my Evil Numbers have started edging up again, so my oncologist at University Hospitals wants to stop that before it gets out of hand. So ... a new med ... an expensive one (as I posted on Facebook the other day, I got some financial help from a UH office, and I will have no co-pays, which would have cost thousands a year).

The drug is Xtandi, and many of its side effects mimic/intensify those of Lupron. With some others thrown into the mix--like dizziness (which is among the less common ones, but it worries me because I'm already dealing with it).

I'll take four pills a day (large capsules), and I will start today at noon. They actually arrived yesterday, but that was our son's birthday, and because he came up with his family to celebrate (masked/socially-distanced on our front porch), I didn't want to be dealing with anything odd, different, frightening while they were here.

I've already made some ... adjustments. As I wrote here last week (I think), I have resigned from my book-reviewing gig at Kirkus Reviews--a gig I've enjoyed for twenty-one years. I just didn't want to have before me an assignment that I couldn't finish. I never missed a deadline with them--didn't want to end my career by doing so.

And until I see what the effects are, Joyce will do all our driving--I don't want to have an "episode" of some sort while I'm behind the wheel.

So ... we shall see.

I hope there's nothing much but some "adjustments" to make in my life--nothing transformational. And I hope I can keep writing and reading and spending every possible second with Joyce.