Enjoy Every Sandwich

I haven't spent much time on the computer lately because I was spending too much time on the computer.  No, I wasn't actually doing anything on the computer, I was just watching it sit and lock up and restart.  I can't complain too much, the computer I was using was from 2003.  However, this week while helping a friend with a project, and sitting at the computer for literally an hour while it processed the request I was asking of it, I said enough was enough.  After begging and pleading with my wife, I now have a brand new computer that actually turns on when you turn it on, and does what you ask it to do.  I bought it yesterday and upon cleaning out the old computer and setting up my new one, I decided to check the speed of the thing by watching some video content that I have missed over the years.  Not porn, because I make sure not to miss that, just everything from a Simpson's episode I missed last month to Warren Zevon's last appearance on David Letterman a few years back.

At my support group meeting two weeks ago, we discussed how all of us in the group, after having the inarguably life changing cancer diagnosis, all have adopted a more living-in-the-moment attitude.  We were not talking about living your life like an anarchist, we were talking about living without regrets.  When people say they live their life without regrets, they tend to mean that they stand by the decisions they made in their life, be them good or bad, because even bad decisions can be learning experiences.  However, the living without regrets that we were referring to, is all of the times in our lives we have passed on an opportunity or not followed a dream for trivial reasons.  They can be life decisions or just fun times we passed up with friends.  Whether it be regretting not going to that concert with your buddy, or not having the opportunity to say "bye" to someone before it was too late, or not marrying Christie Turlington, there are several decisions in all of our lives we wish we could change or get that opportunity back.

Still unemployed, I have recently reevaluated my life and my career path.  My latest career path started when I was volunteering while helping out my hometown during the floods along the Mississippi River.  I loved working side by side with people to sandbag in an effort to save their house, business, church, or just the town in general.  I later managed to get into the disaster business and found that in the disaster business, you don't really get to help those individuals anymore.  I got more and more immersed in my job, working longer and weirder hours, seeing the people I wanted to help less and less.  I got to teach disaster preparedness to people, which I loved, but my job was asking me to take a more supervisory role on that as well and have volunteers do that.  When you work a job you love and you work long hours, the years go by, the job changes, and before you know it, the job you once loved, is no longer the same job, and you just love it out of habit.  It dawned on me recently, that is what happened to me.

After the things that have happened in my life lately, I have analyzed what I enjoy.  When you are faced with life altering events, you realize a job can be something you love doing and are willing to sacrifice for, something you hate doing, but it pays so much it gives you the opportunity to spend that money on your family enriching your life that way, for a lucky few like musicians and porn stars it could be a job that you both love and pays a lot, or it can be a job you hate, doesn't pay that well, and isn't rewarding.  After talking with my wife, we both agreed that in this stage of our lives, I should look for either a job I really, really enjoy, a job that I maybe don't enjoy and doesn't pay much but allows me a lot of time with my family, or a job that pays ridiculous money that when I do get sometime off I can afford to jet off to Walt Disney World or buy expensive guitars (she says spend the money on the family, but that's not how I processed it in my mind).  Just like we talked in my group, live in the moment, make sure your job is worth it to you, either monetarily or sense of accomplishment.

But we weren't just talking about jobs in my group.  We were talking about everything in life, meeting that friend for lunch, dropping an e-mail to a sick friend, taking that trip, learning that skill you have always wanted, whatever.  I wish I could live a week in Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World, get right out of bed walk straight to the Jungle Cruise and shoot an elephant in my PJs (how he got in my pajamas I'll never know...ya gotta love Groucho!).  That is a trip that would probably bankrupt me and put a huge financial strain on my family for many years to come.  That is not the type of thing we were talking about.  However, for years my wife and I have dreamed of taking a trip out west, just driving and seeing the sights this country has to offer.  That trip, I have no doubt we will take in the coming years when we are physically and financially able to go.  For years, I have begged my parents to come to Florida with us.  We went as a family one time and had a great experience.  That was sixteen years ago.  My wife and I are able to visit Florida frequently on a fairly cheap budget.  I have invited my parents many times and offered many ways to help facilitate their travel down there.  Time after time we are turned down and have basically heard from them that they will never travel that far again.  It is something that really saddens me, especially since my cancer diagnosis.  We don't know when God may call any of us back home.  We don't know how much time we have with each other.  Instead of just showing my parents photos and telling them what a great time we have in Florida, we would like to take them, show them, experience it with them (until they get tired and grumpy like old people tend to do, then we will lock them in a bathroom or something).  I think what saddens me is not so much the repeated declines of our previous offers, but how they say they don't ever think they will make a trip like that again.  I was taken to Disney Parks the first time by my family and I was kind of hoping that one day they would be there to experience it with their grandchild.  Who knows, maybe they will be more adventurous by the time that opportunity rolls around, or at least senile enough that we can tell them we are taking them to Big Lots or something and Big Lots has a new one thousand mile long parking lot.

When Warren Zevon made his final appearance on David Letterman, he was well aware that he was dying from Mesothelioma.  He knew it was the last time he would be on there.  He knew that the breath that he drew to sing songs many people loved was being stolen more and more by the cancer filling his lungs.  Warren had a great attitude and repeated many times through his dying days "Enjoy every sandwich."  It may sound stupid and simple, but for anyone that has looked at a doctor waiting to hear a success rate or a chance of survivability we know exactly what he means.  Do what you enjoy.  Don't waste your time on things you don't enjoy.  If you do have to do things you don't enjoy, make sure it's worth it in the end.  Learn to love the gifts you are given in your life, the big ones and the little ones.  Enjoy every sandwich.  With that said, I am sore from typing and hungry for a sandwich, so it's time to get off of here.

Insomnia Has A Name, And Thy Name Is Daisy

For one of the first times since all of this cancer stuff happened, I think I had a decent night's sleep last night.  I still woke up at 6:30 am and couldn't fall back asleep, but I don't remember waking up in the middle of the night and that is a big improvement.

Of course, I know part of my insomnia is caused by worrying that I have cancer.  Who would've thought that?  But I think I am narrowing down a physical cause as well.  For those unfamiliar with basenjis, they love sleeping on the bed, and they love to be touching people while they sleep.  This is where my problem seems to lie, on the bed.  I have been referring to our newest basenji (the abused/neglected rescue one) as the "Immovable Object" because once she curls up, it's hard to get that lump of a dog to go anywhere else.  What I am finding out is the Immovable Object does tend to drift at times.  As she gets more accustomed to us, she seems to drift from the foot of the bed, to the head, I think because we have a ritual of a good ear scratching before we get up every morning.  (I scratch her ears, not the other way around.  And not us scratching our own ears, we could do that anytime.)  My hypothesis is that she works her way up during the night anticipating the massage that will come later.  No matter what the cause, she is moving.  So now, when I go to bed I feel like an early California settler.  I have to stake my claim to my property to try to prevent my four legged claim jumper from stealing my mining rights to that section of mattress.  If I should happen to get up in the middle of the night, or roll over and give her an inch or two of space, I can consider that part of the bed gone for eternity.  You have better luck cutting to the front of the line for the Jungle Cruise at Walt Disney World than you do of gaining any ground on Daisy the basenji!  And anyone that has stood in that line for the Jungle Cruise and the M.C. Escher way the queue wanders around, knows exactly what I am talking about.  It dawned on me last night that this may be what is going on when I rolled over and found that I had to perform a contortionist's move from Cirque Du Soleil:  La Chienne Stupide to pull my legs out and around what now seems to be a concrete lawn statue of a sleeping dog.  Not an easy feat when you are barely a month recovered from having your midsection hacked up by the Testicle Fairy (if you leave teeth under your pillow, where was I supposed to leave that?).  So although I have seemed to keep my chemo meds in check enough to get to sleep, I have no remedy for immovable but drifting concrete basenjis.

One thing that has seemed to be working is avoiding naps during the day and maybe even a little workout as well.  I am trying to perform this dance on chemo where I wear myself out enough to sleep solidly for a few hours, but not letting myself get run down, which is pretty much a feeling you have all the time on chemo.  As I mentioned yesterday, I played Wii for a little while.  Not Wii like kids play, Wii like old people play.  You know, bowling, badminton, ski jump, anything that involves standing in one place, slightly moving, and still calling it "exercise".  Whatever you want to call it, it left me winded after a while.  Today I hopped on our elliptical machine.  A machine I ridiculed when I was younger and thinner.  I would say that only a fat lazy person would use an elliptical machine over a treadmill or stepmill, and as a fat lazy person that was sweating profusely on an elliptical machine today, I realize I was right.  I had high hopes.  In better times, I hop on there hit one of the half hour programs, pump up the resistance, and burn a thousand calories.  Today, I hopped on there, hit the three hundred calorie program, started hurting after fifty calories, crying after seventy five, and called it quits at one hundred.  Baby steps.  Well, funny loopy shaped baby steps.  

Whether from wimpy workouts, nausea induced dieting, or just being one heavy nut lighter, the scale did say I lost twelve pounds today!  However, that scale usually doesn't talk to the doctor's scale and tell it how much I have lost, because they have vastly different numbers at times.  Maybe at the doctor's office I should strip naked and get on the scale right after I pee since that is what has been working at home.  That might frighten other people in the waiting room though.  Especially if they aren't aware that I am there for testicular cancer, because they may just see the fresh scar and that one of the boys has gone A.W.O.L. and run out of the office to find a different, non-testicle removing doctor.  At any rate, between the weight change, sleep, exercise, and everything else, I seem to be holding my own against chemo.  It has me a little worried about what I may face as my blood cells continue to drop, but right now I am just focusing on getting better and so far that seems to be working.

Not without my basenji...

Cancer plays funny games with your head.  I never thought I had a problem hearing my diagnosis.  I constantly think I am strong and can handle it, and then I find something happening that says otherwise.  From the beginning, it never entered my mind for a second that I would die from this, mainly because testicular cancer caught early is extremely survivable, that's why the checks are so important.  Also partially because I can be extremely stubborn and that is not the way I wanted to die.  For one thing, my wife and I haven't quite worked out my funeral plans for when the inevitable comes.  We honored my father-in-law's wishes and spread his ashes at one of his favorite lakes.  I would like to do the same with my favorite place in the world.  I have told her I want to be left at Walt Disney World on either the Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise, or Haunted Mansion, but I also don't want to be cremated.  Since she hasn't figured out all the minute details on how to make that happen, I better not die yet.  But, if it's my final wish, she has to do it, right?

Back to the cancer, a couple things have bothered me.  The first is I don't know how long I have to fight this.  Not how long do I "have", as in "Be honest doc, how long do I have?"  But how many years does the fight generally take?  I know I am going to beat this, but am I done now after my surgery?  Will I be done after chemo?  Am I done after the ten years of monitoring?  When are you "done"?  It seems I am in limbo on everything from applying for jobs, to planning a trip to Florida, to even getting a haircut.  After all, I would feel stupid if I got a haircut if it was just going to fall out in the next week or two anyway.

The other thing is just the word cancer.  It invokes so much fear.  So often you hear on TV or in the movies, the word cancer preceded by the words "is dying of".  And the media also portrays people with all types cancer, all the same.  They are always lying in a hospital bed, bald and grey, tubes coming in and out of them, basically creating a "cancer patient" look.  These are the things that go through your mind when you get your diagnosis.  And you only seem to hear the horrible fights with cancer, the long drawn out battles that are constantly touch and go.  Not ones like mine, with a slice, a lot of waiting, and a lot of sitting on the couch watching the Top Gear marathon.  OK, I will admit, it probably doesn't make for good television to film someone sitting on the couch watching television, but that is the reality of my cancer.  Well, that and the occasional restlessness that leads to me doing something dumb, which leads to me hurting the slice, and leads to even more time on the couch even after the Top Gear marathon ends tomorrow at midnight.  Maybe instead of doctors just telling you that you are stage I, II, III, IV, they can show a picture.
"You are here at Stage I."  he would say, holding up a photo.
"But doc, that's just a guy sitting on the couch."
"Exactly.  The Top Gear marathon starts next weekend, I think if we do the operation now, that will give you a great excuse to watch the whole seventy-two hours."
The picture could have a little sticky icepack that he could move around on the photo, depending on where you get sliced and diced.  I don't know if that would help or not, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.

It's these things that hide constantly in your subconscious that lead to the dream I had this morning.  In real life we recently rescued an abused and neglected basenji.  Yes, after already owning one basenji, we decided it was in our best interest to make the same mistake again.  The ironic thing is because of her history, we are working hard to get her to open up and act like a regular dog, however, in my dream she was THE most affectionate dog in the world!  The dream had me lying in bed recovering from my last chemo treatment in a scene that looked a lot like the ones you see in the movies.  I am laying there, gray and bald and all "tubey", when a lady walks in and grabs Daisy the basenji and starts to walk out of the house (not our house, apparently in my dream they just stick you in a random house to recover from chemo).  I ask what she is doing with our dog and she says, "Oh, she's just a therapy dog, and you are going to be better soon, so we're taking her back."  I start crying, a lot.  I keep protesting that we rescued her and the lady says that they just told me that she was a rescue, she was really just a "therapy loaner".  In real life, Daisy has been a big help to me while I have been recovering from surgery.  One of the few places she feels safe is on the bed, so her and I had a lot of quality time together the first week.  I wake up with a jolt, Daisy laying at my feet on the bed.  And I realize I was crying, not just in my dream but for real.  My eyes are wet, my cheek is wet, and the pillow is wet.  A lot of crying, especially to be something I did in my sleep.  I haven't let that many fluids out since I was eight and had that dream I was peeing after drinking a big glass of milk and going to bed (or my teenage years when I had the dreams about Christie Turlington or the girl I saw at the store yesterday).  But waking up like that this morning just hits you.  It says, I may be convincing some people I am taking this well, but I haven't quite completely convinced myself yet.

Although we haven't gone to the new oncologist yet, he has sent us information about the Wellness Community.  We have put off going to a group meeting for those dealing with cancer.  No real reason, just other things come up, like arguing with our former, crazier oncologist.  They have special meetings too at this place.  This weekend was a "drum circle".  A really cool idea, except in the back of my mind, most of the people I know that did drum circles in college would gladly get cancer just for the medical marijuana.  We decided to pass.  I think we will go to one of the general meetings this week.  It seems talking/writing about things has been a big help, hopefully going to one of these meetings will flush out the things I am still not dealing with.  Whatever those things are.  I am not telling anyone where I live though, just in case there is a therapy dog repo-man in the room (would that  be a "therepo-man"?).  Maybe I can find out if other people have these feelings and dreams, or if it's just something I ate.  I don't think I can handle ten years worth of crazy dreams and fluid spills.