Seidman Cancer Center, continued

Tuesday, July 9, 2019, 1:10 p.m.

Tomorrow morning I’m scheduled for yet another visit to Seidman Cancer Center—yet another bone scan. At 9:30—after some blood tests—they will inject me with some radioactive Spider-Man-y stuff that, once it courses through my system, will illuminate my skeleton for the scanning machine. And then we’ll find if the cancer has once again reawakened in my bones. (We wait a couple of hours between the injection and the scan.)

When prostate cancer metastasizes (as mine has), one of its favorite venues is the skeleton. I’ve had activity in my ribcage (medication weakened it) and in a couple of my vertebrae (radiation treatments last fall slowed the growth).

And now we’ll see if it’s coming back—and, if so, how fast—and where.

I’ve not really had symptoms—or pain. But all of us involved in my fourteen-year journey know that the medication, the radiation, are temporary. Stop-gap. They delay; they do not cure.

So, tomorrow morning, Joyce and I will drive up to Seidman to initiate the process once again. And next week we will meet with my oncologist to see what all of this means—or bodes.


Wednesday, July 10, 2019; 11:15 a.m.

Well, I’ve had a sharp morning—things in my veins, you know? Joyce and I got to Seidman a few minutes before my 9:30 appointment for my blood draw (PSA [Prostate Specific Antigen] and testosterone level). Wielding the weapon was a young woman, a student. They asked if I minded. How could I? A former teacher, I know the best way to learn is by doing. And she did fine. She had a little trouble finding a vein (mine do like to hide, I’ll admit), but she did the most important thing any learner can do: She asked for help. Got it. Found a vein. Drained it (well, sort of).

Then it was up to the third floor (the blood-drain was on the first), where I checked in, where I learned I first was supposed to have checked in at the Radiation department (back to the first floor I went). At Radiation I had to show all the ID and insurance card stuff that I’ve shown them countless times. And, of course, I had to plunk down the plastic: My insurance (Medicare + supplement) still doesn’t cover all of the huge expenses.

My plastic nearly cried out in complaint about the abuse—but didn’t.

Back to the third floor I went, where I got an injection that includes some nuclear material, so now I’m waiting for my Spidey powers to appear.

Right now we’re sitting in the Starbucks at Legacy Village (reading, writing, talking): There’s about a three-hour wait between the blood stuff and the bone scan (I need to let the stuff circulate—become thoroughly radioactive).

So ... about 12:30 we’ll head back to Seidman (about ten minutes away) for the scan, which takes 30-40 minutes. I’ll mumble some memorized poems in my head, and the time will flow more quickly.


Thursday, July 11, 9:30 a.m.

The scan itself is more annoying than anything else: supine, perfectly still, sometimes in uncomfortable positions (my arms stretched out above my head--as if I'm surrendering to a U S. Marshal). I lie on a table, my head in a sort of cushion, my valuables (hah!) in a pile across the room, my feet rubber-banded together, while a machine takes Its Own Sweet Time moving along my body, searching, searching ...

The technician noticed some bruising/cracking (?) of my left ribs, and I had to confess what I wrote about here back in early June: I'd been playing wiffle ball* with my older grandson, and, swinging and missing, I'd fallen heavily to the ground, smacking my head and left side of my body. Ouch.

At last it was over, and Joyce and I zoomed home after about five hours' absence.

Oh, the technician also told me they'd have the results in a couple of days. I'm in no hurry (believe me), so I told him, "Take your time!" He thought that was (mildly) amusing.

And now the worst part--the waiting. I don't yet know the results of my blood tests. I don't know the results of the scan.

I meet with my oncologist next Wednesday to go over everything--and to learn what we (I) must do next. By then, I will know the blood results (on the portal).

But I'll wait until next week to share all the goodies with you.

Meanwhile, I'll repeat what I've written here many times: Politicians, go sit in the Seidman waiting room for a couple of hours and then talk to me about who "needs" and who "doesn't need" health insurance. Maybe go home and look up the words compassion and empathy. And then see if your sullied soul can summon them.

*auto-correct suggested I change "wiffle ball" to "waffle ball"

Whose Life Is It to Write About?

The other day Joyce and I were cruising along, and I recited for her (as I do now and then) a poem I'd memorized--this time, a very brief one by Emily Dickinson:

WE never know we go,—when we are going       

  We jest and shut the door;      

Fate following behind us bolts it,             

 And we accost no more.

She told me she was planning to use a line from it in the new book she's working on. I joked: "You're stealing from me--again!" (Yes, yes, yes--I was joking.)

And I remembered the contentious argument(s) that consumed Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald when she decided that she would like to do some writing. He claimed that their lives together were his to write about; he was the writer in the family; etc.

I guess that could be an issue if there were two writers in the family. As you travel through your lives together, wouldn't the question come up, Whose life is it to write about?

As Joyce and I near wedding anniversary number 50 (!), I have to say that question has never come up in our marriage, our professional lives. She's always let me know that I can write about whatever I want to--and the reverse is true, as well.

Our accounts, fictional or otherwise, would never be the same anyhow. Although the external events are often the same--say, our trip to Grand Manan Island to see where Willa Cather, later in her life, spent her summers writing--how those events drift through the mind and heart cannot help but be different. What I'm thinking, remembering, feeling, associating, etc. will resemble in some ways what Joyce is going through (after all, we have shared three-quarters of our lives together), but those thoughts, memories, etc. will also be fundamentally different. And, I believe, both valid and interesting and even unique.

That said, there are also things I don't really write about because I believe they are principally hers. I mean, I wouldn't write a book about John Brown (not that I could!) on the heels of hers. Nor do I expect to see under her name a new biography of Jack London.

On the other hand, as I think about it, why not? The experiences I had with John Brown--the experiences she had with Jack London--they are just different. I mean, I know Joyce could write a surpassing memoir about being with me through much of my London obsession--just as I could write a (less) surpassing one about being with her through much of her John Brown travels.

But I don't think either of us would do that, out of deference. But not--most assuredly not--out of the this-life-is-mine! concept of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Zelda, by the way, wrote one novel--Save Me the Waltz, 1932--which deeply annoyed Scott, who insisted she revise it because it dealt in some ways with the experiences he was using in Tender Is the Night, 1934.

Zelda was very concerned about his reaction (she was in a ... facility ... at the time), and she wrote to him in March 1932: "We have always shared everything but it seems to me I no longer have the right to inflict every desire and necessity of mine on you. I was also afraid we might have touched the same material" (Correspondence of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 289). (Italics in the original.)

Awkward.

But, as I've implied/said above, I have never felt for a single second that Joyce has used "my" story--for "my" story, you see, is also her story. And I know she feels the same--about "her" story and "my" story.

2400

A milestone nearly slipped by unnoticed yesterday: My "Sunday Sundries" was post #2400 on Dawn Reader, an almost daily blog I commenced on January 6, 2012. (Link to that initial post.) And so I pause today--as has been my custom--to reflect a little (and I mean a little) on the seven years+ that have ensued since "I Am Born," the first post (its title stolen from the title of the first chapter of Dickens' David Copperfield).

First--I rarely check to see how many "hits" I have on the site; I do so only after each 100 posts. So ... pause while I take a look ...

[PAUSE]

... 528,743 total--that's an average of about 220 visitors per day. (Thank God I don't have to serve them all tea and crumpets!) A very modest total--about the same number that other bloggers get every minute of every day. So it goes.

As I've written here before (and if you look at the initial post, you'll see), I'd originally thought I would write more about education/teaching than I have. But too many years have passed by; in a word, I kind of don't know what I'm talking about anymore. I taught my last public school class in mid-January 1997; I taught my last prep school class in June 2011. And although the Test Craze was in its infancy when I retired, I have no idea what it's like, dealing with that pressure, day to day to day to day. So ... I don't say much about it.

Instead, I've found myself writing about quotidian things--about memories--about silly thoughts--about darker thoughts (my fourteen-year "relationship" with cancer). I've also serialized books here. (I'll be starting another one in a month or so--still doing some research.)

Another change: I don't get all bent out of shape when I skip a day (or two--or seven). Sometimes, you see, Life intrudes, and I just don't have time--or melancholy surges through my system--or ... whatever. I really haven't run out of ideas yet--I dread that day. But some days I just know: Dawn Reader ain't gonna happen today.

For the most part, though, I've loved doing it. The blog is kind of a record of my last dozen years; many of the pieces I wrote for my son and his family (here are family stories that exist nowhere else). Many I've written for Joyce, the best audience a writer ever had. And many I've written for myself. As Emerson wrote in his essay "The Poet" (1844), "Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say, 'It is in me, and shall out.'"

I guess we need to modify that: "Doubt not, O blogger, ...."

I do have one serious doubt, though: Will blogs survive much longer? It seems the world is moving on from them; podcasts and other forms of mass social communication are the replacements. (Why read something when you can watch it? Or listen to it? Or simply look at it?)

So, once again, in yet another way, I resemble the dinosaur looking at the approaching meteorite. Instead of lumbering for cover, the saurian creature merely returns to munching on leaves (or other critters) and goes much too gentle into that good night. His/Her world is changing--dramatically, drastically--but he/she would rather munch than modify.

Sunday Sundries, 234

1. AOTW: I didn't think I was going to have a winner this week--and then we went to the grocery store this morning. In the check-out line, Joyce was (slightly) blocking some guy behind us (and not realizing she was doing so). I saw. I conquered. I whispered to her that there was a guy behind her. She moved, and as he walked past, I saw him roll his eyes, and I could almost hear him thinking something ... unkind ... about Joyce. I would have punched him--but he was a bit too big (I don't think I could have taken him). So ... I just told Joyce later that I had wanted to punch him. That seemed to satisfy her. (Oh, we impatient Americans!)

2. I finished one book this week--the latest Jackson Brodie novel by Kate Atkinson--Big Sky, 2019.

Atkinson's incredible gifts and style are once again on full display. I don't want to say a lot about the plot (those who spoil should boil in oil in hell), but I'll just wax ecstatic about her organization--how she sometimes starts a new chapter with a slight (or not-so-slight) "re-wind" of the previous chapter, and we see what we've just read about occur again--but this time from the point of view of another character.

I don't think I know a contemporary writer who loves to play with coincidence more that she does. (Dickens and Trollope and Austen and Collins and other Victorians would welcome her into their circle.) In David Copperfield, David's old enemy, James Steerforth, washes up on the beach after a shipwreck; David is standing right there. And that's the kind of thing Atkinson loves to do, as well.

I'll say just this: Involved are murder, human trafficking, amateur theater productions, a surprise (and extended) visit from a cool character in an earlier Brodie novel, revenge, retribution.

And an incredible amount of fun.

And now I have to wait again. Atkinson's Wikipedia page says that she's at work on a new non-Brodie novel, tentatively called The Line of Sight. May I live to read it!

2a. I've started reading The Pioneers (1823), the fourth volume in James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales. It's actually the first one Cooper wrote, though in the narrative chronology it's the penultimate tale of Natty Bumppo (Deerslayer, Hawkeye, etc.). I'd read it many times in its Classics Illustrated comic book incarnation--I'll see how much I remember ...

3. We're also streaming, via Amazon Prime, the series based on the Brodie novels, collectively called Case Histories (the title of her first Brodie novel). Joyce and I decided not to watch them until we'd read the books, and although she has not quite finished them (I've been hogging them), she's read enough that we can safely watch.

We've gotten to like Jason Isaacs as Brodie (it's always an ... adjustment ... to see what someone else's idea of what a character is like, a character from a book you've read). The plots are slightly different--but very well done, we think.

Link to some video.

4. Last night we drove over to the Hudson Regal Cinema to see Rocketman, a film we've been wanting to see, but we ... stuff happens.

Overall, Two Thumbs Up. Taran Egerton (whom we'd loved in the Kingsmen movies--in the 2nd one, Elton John plays himself!) is great in the very demanding role, and I especially loved how, now and then, the film would morph into a Broadway musical--characters dancing around, singing.

Two things I kind of didn't like ...

• The sort of simplistic psychology: cold Daddy + snotty Mommy = messed-up Elton. (This, of course, can be accurate and true--but I felt they went to that well too many times.)
• There were also quite a few instances of this: people (relatives, acquaintances) witnessing Elton John at the piano for the first time (composing, playing) and standing there with that oh-wow! expression on their faces. I got tired of it. Sorry.

But overall? A great night out! Link to some video.

5. Final Word--a word I liked this week from one of my online word-of-the-day providers:

     - from The Oxford English Dictionary (a couple of citations from R. Kipling's writing!)

doggo, adv. Chiefly in to lie (also play) doggo: to lie flat, remain hidden; to lie quietly. Also in extended use: to keep a low profile, lie low.

Origin: Probably formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: dog n.1, -o suffix.

Etymology:Probably <  dog n.1 + -o suffix, with allusion to the characteristically light sleep of a dog (compare dogsleep n.).

 slang.

  Chiefly in to lie (also play) doggo: to lie flat, remain hidden; to lie quietly. Also in extended use: to keep a low profile, lie low.

1882 Sporting Times  25 Mar. 5/3 He had been a guest, after lying doggoh for some time, at one of Blobbs' quiet little suppers.

1886 Time  Dec. 684 ‘Sharks abroad. Breakers ahead. Benjamins on the war-path. Lie doggo. Joe.’.. ‘What's the meaning of it?..And what is “lying doggo”?’

1890  R. Kipling in Pioneer Mail  28 May 698/1 The other subaltern lay doggo in camp.

1893  R. Kipling Many Inventions  259 I wud lie most powerful doggo whin I heard a shot, an' curl my long legs behind a bowlder.

1914 Strand Mag.  July 89/2 You'll play doggo and keep out of sight. She'll just have to concentrate on me.

1945  H. Pleasants From Kilts to Pantaloons  100 He..knew that he would catch hell..if he were discovered. Accordingly, he..tried to play doggo at his desk.

1955  F. Maclean Back to Bokhara  iii. 136 Lying doggo with an expression of angelic innocence when he came to see if she was in bed and asleep.

2002  G. K. Watt Rebellion in Mohawk Valley  vii. 168 Instead of shooting, simply lying doggo proved the salvation of many militiamen.

Fourth of July Photo Shoot

Okay, the last few years I have posted on FB the pic you see at the top of this post. It shows the Dyer family, very early 1950s, in Enid, Oklahoma, posed in my Osborn grandparents' back yard, all three little boys "armed" with the new cap guns that were, for a while, an Independence Day gift tradition (from Dad) in our family. (L-R: Dickie, Davi, Danny)

Sometimes it pays to look closely.

Which, yesterday, for some reason, I did.

And I noticed for the first time what the close-up/cropped image below shows you.

Yes, Little Davi (born 1948) is pointing his six-shooter directly into Dad's groin. Davi's kind of smiling; Dad most definitely isn't.

Another factor: Taking that photograph was surely my grandfather, G. Edwin Osborn: preacher, seminary professor. Guns-in-the-groin were not exactly in his file of sermon narratives.

Dad, I'm positive, was grimly hoping that Davi would not pull the trigger. (Can't remember if he did.) Prancing around holding your groin was not something you did in the presence of my grandfather. (Or grandmother, who was probably outside that day, as well.)

"Davi," by the way, was pronounced "Davy"; the family spelled it that way because his full name is Edward Davis Dyer, the "Davis" is the surname of my dad's maternal family. I think I remember that the odd spelling drove his teachers nuts during the early weeks of each school year. (No surprise: I taught for 45 years and never had a "Davi" in class.)

Anyway, yesterday I cropped the photo and emailed it to Dave (he's grown up now) (and to my son: I've not grown up) with the message: Be careful where you point that thing.

Davis (he's really grown up now) emailed me back, wondering what on earth I was up to.

Who knows?

In many ways I guess I still resemble that immature satanic prankster I was in the 1950s. Only a glance in the mirror (now and then) makes me realize that I'm not seven years old. I'm in my seventies!

Still ... a gun in a groin? Kinda hilarious ...

Today's Clever Chipmunk

an Internet image--not the fellow I saw today

Walking over to the coffee shop this morning (a little after 6:30), I noticed, right next door (the funeral home!), a bit of movement over by the curb. I glanced over, saw the head of a chipmunk peering over the edge. He must have been in a kind of crouch, his forepaws holding onto the top of the curb. And he was most definitely checking me out. Is this guy a threat?

I stopped.

His head sank below the top of the curb. (Whac-A-Mole!)

I waited.

His head peeked over again.

I thought: This would be a great pic!

I pulled my cellphone out, touched the camera icon. Looked back ...

The head was gone.

I waited--camera aimed at the curb.

Waited.

Waited.

Waited.

No chipmunk.

I gave up, put my cell away, continued my walk. As I was crossing the street a little farther on, I saw where he had been: in a small drainpipe from the downspout of the funeral home.

I thought of going over to take a closer look, then decided I'd probably alarmed the critter enough for one day.

I'll keep my eyes open, though--see if I can catch him another day. Because, you see, I do want that pic!

Why Don't You Just RETIRE?!?

Monday morning, lying in bed, about 5:30, waiting for the digital clock across the room to declare it was 5:38 (the time I drag myself out of bed every morning--and, yes, I can still, sans glasses, read a digital clock from across the room--and, no, it's not got huge numerals), I asked myself a dire (!) question: Why are you getting up? You're 74 years old! Why don't you just, you know, retire?!

Good question, especially in this epoch when we constantly see ads--print, TV, Internet--that show pictures of happy (older) couples frolicking on the beach, sipping Mai Tais, checking the status of their 401k's, the man maybe popping a Viagra before the two of them, hand in hand (sly smiles upon their expectant faces), head off to the lush bedroom of their Airbnb, where ... [fade to black].

I feel that I'm busier than a Retired Guy ought to be. I have two blogs (this one and Daily Doggerel); I review a book a week for Kirkus Reviews; I'm in the process of converting to paperback one of the Kindle Direct books I've published (a YA bio of Poe--soon to be available in a print version via Amazon); I'm frantically reading through the complete works of a writer I love (Kate Atkinson); I'm reading Books I Should Have Read a Long Time Ago (now: the Leatherstocking Tales by James Fenimore Cooper); in bed, before Lights Out, I read a chapter or so from each of a half-dozen books; I work out at the health club just about every damn day; I do the weekly sourdough baking for the family; I do much of the daily cooking; I ...

What the hell is wrong with me? And where's my Mai Tai?

Part of it, I know, comes from the Puritan Work Ethic that my mom and dad worked tirelessly to instill in their three sons. Mine was a little ... slow ... to kick in (just check my high school and college transcripts), but once it did (about 1966, when I began teaching in a middle school), I found myself transforming into some kind of secular John Winthrop.

Let's blame my wife, Joyce, a bit, too, for she is the hardest-working human being I've ever known. She never just does ... nothing--or "kills time"--or wastes time--or whatever. She's always reading, writing, thinking, planning. I practically have to drag her downstairs for meals (she's working on a new book right now--and I mean working).

So ... what I'm saying: How could I goof around (as we used to say Back in the Day) when Joyce is around? It would seem, you know, disrespectful.

But as I've gotten older (and have had to deal with some medical issues), I've begun to understand more and more what I of course have always known: I'm mortal. Very much so. And if I want to write some things I want to write--read some things I want to read--well, I'd better get to it. Father Time is looking at his watch; the Grim Reaper is checking his schedule; Satan is (never mind).

And as I think about it, some of the people whom I've most respected, most loved, have not gone gentle into that good night. I think about Stephen Crane, Edwin Arlington Robinson, John Updike--all quite literally working while lying in their deathbeds--working until they just absolutely could not.

Which is what my mom did. Until her health commanded No more! she worked on her computer, read books ferociously. In her mid-90s she reached the point at which she could no longer read. But she kept on a table in her assisted-living unit--in the living room, visible to all visitors--the book that she was reading when she realized she couldn't read. The bookmark poked out about halfway through the text. It was a tacit message from my mom: This matters.

I really can't imagine just doing nothing. In fact, Satan (if you're listening--which, of course, you always are), a Perfect Hell for me would be a place where I couldn't do anything I love to do.

Despite these noble sentiments, I still stare at the clock each morning about 5:30--and even curse (politely, softly) when I realize It's Time Once Again. And I throw back the covers, swing my legs over the side, take a deep breath, and feel, at last, a tremendous gratitude that I get to give it a go for one more day.