Coffee get-togethers

Many of you have expressed a desire to meet me for coffee or breakfast. I really want to do that, but my energy level seems to fluctuate significantly day-to-day, and I never know how it's going to be. It even changes from hour to hour. Yesterday, for example, was a rather normal day. But the day before, I went home and back to bed immediately after breakfast because I felt so fatigued.

Of course, my energy level has been spotty all my adult life, but it's more unpredictable now than ever.

I'm reluctant to schedule coffee get-togethers because I'm afraid I'll bottom out twenty minutes before I'm supposed to be there and have to cancel.

I try to drop by The Red Cup most mornings after breakfast, but even that is not a sure thing.

You'll see me out and about with Diane Coady from time to time because Diane has been willing and able to adjust her schedule to whatever I'm able to do during any given part of a day, usually with little or no notice.

I hope I'll have at least a little more get-up-and-go soon.

Thank you again for your support and interest.

What's Next

I let some info slip through the cracks in the process of moving my updates from Facebook to here.

So here's what's next. On February 1, I go back into the hospital for a needle biopsy of my liver. There is a very slim chance – like about 1% – that the shadows on the CT scan of my liver are something other than the cancer. The biopsy will confirm that one way or the other. This is about a six-hour procedure.

After that, but I don't when, radiation for my ass tumor, followed by surgery to remove part of my colon and I don't know what else. They'll also be moving my ass around to my stomach, since my existing ass is pretty much FUBAR. After that, chemo to attack the cancer in my liver – assuming that is, indeed, cancer.

And that's all I know.

Sunday morning part 2

I went to Jimmy's Egg for breakfast. Planned to visit the Red Cup afterward, but I was too tired. I came back home. This happened even before I became ill, so I'm not surprised. I'll sleep an hour or two, and then I'll feel better.

Sunday morning

I turned down a movie invitation last night because I didn't feel like I had the energy for it. I slept/dozed until about 11 pm, then got up for about an hour. Then I went back to bed.

Can't decide what to do this morning. I need to eat, but I don't want to leave the house.

Rollo the cat is here, hanging close by, and I'm grateful for his company.

iTunes

I've turned iTunes back on after a layoff of a few months. I've got a lot of calm, relaxing music on it. And lord knows I could use it right now.

You can see what's recently played on the last.fm widget at right.

Back Under the Covers

Went to dinner with Diane, and by the time we were done, I was almost too tired to drive home. It's now about 6:20 pm, and I'm back under the covers, ready to sleep.

In Spite of a Good Night's Sleep...

In spite of a good night's sleep, I've been pretty wiped out today. Got to Jimmy's Egg about 9 am, and the Red Cup about 10. Got home at probably 10:45 am, and slept/dozed on the sofa for about two hours.

I still don't especially like being holed up here by myself. But I don't know what else to do. I don't have the energy for the crowd at the coffee shop. I'm still an introvert, and I have largely lived a hermit's life these past few years. It's hard for me to adapt to anything else. Sleeping on Suzanne's den sofa last night, with her and John in the next room, was just the amount of human contact I needed at that moment.

I've come to rely heavily on a handful of friends, but they still have their own lives to tend to, and they can't drop everything to wait on me hand and foot.

My right knee buckled once while I was getting dressed this morning. I didn't fall or hurt myself. It just felt like my body was refusing to do what I wanted it to do. I picked up a glass of orange juice at Jimmy's Egg, and it almost slipped through my fingers.

I don't know if this is caused by the cancer, or if there's something else going on.

I'm eating pretty lightly now, because it seems like the larger a meal I eat, the more likely I'll have indigestion and bloating afterward. So I'm not eating very much, and maybe that's why I'm having these odd weakness issues.

Again, there's some discomfort associated with the indigestion, but no pain at all.

A Quick Update

The past couple of days have been up and down. I have some discomfort, mostly related to indigestion, but no pain. Last night, I went to Suzanne's with John, but I wasn't up for much. I snoozed on a sofa in the den while they watched TV in the living room.

Even though I wasn't in the room with them, it was comforting to know they were close by.

When I got home and to bed, I had the best night's sleep I've had this week.

I have a lot of email I need to answer.

An Overnight Nadir

If you didn't already know it, I get depressed sometimes.

And typically, my depression gets worse as the evening goes on. The "Sitting In A Box" post was written right before dawn, after a night of fairly restless sleep.

The solitude thing is still a problem. This is a bad time for me to spend a lot of time alone. But the previous post was written at an overnight nadir, and doesn't reflect the way I feel every minute of the day.

Sitting in a box

Solitude really sucks right now. I wondered how I would actually deal with this in a real crisis, and now I know: I don't deal with it well at all. Evenings and overnights are the worst.

I don't think I'm wanting a lover. But I am wanting Quan Yin, that bodhisattva of unlimited compassion, to come and sit with me, sleep beside me, ease me through this time.

It would take a woman of unlimited compassion to go through this experience with me 24/7. It would completely be an act of selfless charity, not something motivated by desire or attraction.

I keep telling myself I am one with everything around me, and that solitude is only an illusion. But at the basic emotional level, it feels like I'm just sitting in a box, out of everybody's way, until I die.

My (other) brilliant career

In a comment to a previous post, James Stover referred to a website I once had. I remembered it as 'The MCARP Institute of Situational Journalism Ethics," but that was actually the subtitle. It was called "My (other) brilliant career."

It was sort of a proto-blog that I created in 1999, when blogging was still in its infancy, and I was still ranting daily about the idiocy of TV news.

The original site is long gone, but another former reporter, Ike Piggott, archived it and has republished, with my permission, most of the original content at his site, Occam's Razr.

Here are some of those posts from 1999 - 2000:

Adrenalinholics Anonymous

Mt. Everest Is In Alaska

The MCARP Guide to Sweeps Series Planning

It's A Reporter's Worst Nightmare

I Was Suppose To Be An Anchor

Where There's Smoke, There's Breaking News

There are a few more there. If you'd like to read all of them, visit Occam's Razr and search for the keyword "mcarp".

Stage IV

Had the CT scan today. The cancer is Stage IV. It appears to be in both lobes of my liver, and there's a tiny spot on my lung that may or may not be it as well. The next step is a needle biopsy to confirm the liver cancer. After that, radiation, surgery and chemo. And a colostomy.

Michael Landon

I've been thinking about that last interview Michael Landon did with Johnny Carson in 1991. I remember he looked terrible; he would be dead six weeks later.

I found the interview on YouTube, and started to embed it here. Then, upon reading further about it, I discovered Landon didn't die of colon cancer, but pancreatic cancer.

So, never mind.

Strangely, I feel a little better now.

A chat with a doctor

I talked on the phone this morning with a doctor friend who lives out of state. She asked me some questions about my condition that no one else has asked, including my GP and the GI specialist who did my colonoscopy.

I don't want to go into a lot of unpleasant detail – we are talking about my colon, after all – but after I described my situation, she said, "Well, at least you don't have ________."

I replied that I did, in fact, have ________, and that seemed to give her pause.

She suggested that the next step for me will probably be a CT scan to 'stage the cancer', as she put it. In other words, to see if it's spread to other organs.

See assured me that tremendous strides have been made in colon cancer treatment in the past 30 years, and that it's "by no means a death sentence."

Cats

Starting maybe two months ago, my gregarious and affectionate black cat, M. Gastón, began spending more and more time away from the house. I would let him out, and he wouldn't come back until the next day. Then he'd stay gone for two days, then three. Sometimes I would see him sleeping on a neighbor's porch, or wandering through a front yard across the street. He's been gone four or five days this time.

In the meantime, my grumpy old ex-cat, Rollo, has come back home (with some encouragement from me), and is sleeping on the bed with me this evening. He's been living with neighbors for more than a year, and I think he left because he didn't like Gastón. He's OK with being here as long as he's the only cat.

I wonder if this has anything to do with one or both cats sensing my illness. Probably just coincidence.

Friends and sanctuary

I spent last night and the night before huddled with my friends soartstar and blogblah. I am fortunate to have many friends these days – far more than in my days as a minor local television personality – and there are a lot of places I can go.

But the safest and most comforting place right now seems to be Suzanne's dimly lit living room, with her and John close by, and something playing on the TV.

I wrote a description of my situation on Facebook early Friday morning, and fifty or more friends from all over the country have sent me messages.

At some point, I'll turn to many of them for some kind of moral support or practical help. But I don't want to wear people down with my needs and issues.

Right now

I am, as many of you have long known, prone to over-thinking and obsessing about even trivial stuff.

From a Zen perspective, the thing to do now, I think, would be to sit with this. But I doubt my ability to do that. I'm afraid I will either get so comfortable with it I'll just give up (an idea which already has some appeal, frankly) or work myself into a complete panic.

So instead of sitting with it, I'm sort of frenetically trying to keep my mind occupied with other things – anything, in fact, that will keep me from dwelling on this illness.

Later that afternoon

There's a sort of seedy little convenience store two blocks from my house. I've lived here eleven years, and I had never set foot inside it until Thursday afternoon. I was still proscribed from driving by my doctor, and I didn't feel like walking the 3/4 mile to my regular convenience store, so I went to this little store instead. I bought a quart of Diet Dr. Pepper, the first bag of Fritos I've eaten in years, and a KitKat bar.

Some of the inventory looked like it had been in the neighborhood longer than I have. I doubt I'll be back.

It's cancer.

So here it is: the doctor found colorectal cancer yesterday. I have a horseshoe-shaped tumor that covers about 65% of the inner circumference of my colon. I'll meet with another specialist in the next few days to discuss treatment options.

That's all I know.

Random Update

I go in for the endoscopy and colonoscopy Thursday, so I'm now in the zone where my diet is restricted. I have to go to the pharmacy today and get all that stuff you have to take before you go to the hospital.

One of the things that's on my mind (since I still tend to worry about things over which I have no control) is whether this will turn out to be some sort of tumor, rather than just a return of the ulcers.

I am on the fence about what I would want to do if this turns out to be something life-threatening, or something that needs expensive and invasive treatment.

I've had a pretty good five years of retirement. That's more than some of my coworkers had, since they died before they could retire.

To bankrupt myself financially just to spend another ten years sitting around the coffee shop seems kind of pointless. I could do hospice instead, let nature take its course with my body, and leave that money for a scholarship fund or something.

But I don't have to think about stuff like that until I know exactly what's wrong with me.

Random update

Just a note to talk about my health. I'm not feeling 100%, but I am about 85%, which means I'm able to get out and tend to most of my fairly sedentary daily routine.

But my search for a love life is on quasi-hold, mainly because I don't want to take someone out, get sick and then have to cut off the evening early.

I'm still getting quite a few emails from women via okcupid – and I mean emails from thoughtful, quirky women whom I would gladly take out if they lived in my area code.

Some evenings I go to bed thinking, 'Damn, I'm sick of being here alone,' but other nights I find myself thinking, 'I am so glad to have this bed and this time all to myself.'

It snowed last night. My dogs are inside, but the cat's outdoors somewhere. Couldn't get him to come in.

Trying to not feel like crap

December was a month I just sorta missed. As in, I wasn't actually here for it. Days when I was almost indescribably tired, but always completely alert. Days when I was woozy. Days when my stomach was doing weird stuff. Days when I slept all day long, and days when I barely slept at all.

My friend DianeC finally recommended a combination of over-the-counter antacid and iron supplement. After about four days of that, I was back to normal, and felt better than I had in weeks.

I still have a colonoscopy and endoscopy scheduled for later in the month.

But just as I was recovering from the month of tiredness, I got hit by some other kind of bug. I spent the whole day yesterday in bed, fighting off chills and fever, coughing, sneezing, body aches and the like. But I seem to have mostly gotten rid of it today.

No more free printing

I put new ink cartridges in my inkjet printer yesterday. I mention this because I used up the previous cartridges printing stuff for other people. I printed maybe ten sheets of paper for my personal use. All the rest was for about three people who had come to think of me as their own personal Kinko's.

When you offer to print something for someone, I've learned, their likely response is to then insist that you also provide them scanning, email service, web browsing, layout and design service and faxing. Someone actually got annoyed with me a couple of years back because I didn't have a fax machine here for her to use.

The real Kinko's (now FedEx Office) is about six blocks from my house, and not terribly expensive. I sometimes use it myself.