[cancer] Chemo dreams
I keep dreaming that I am wrecking my car. Not giant death-defying pileups, just missed corners, bad swerves, sideswipes, fender benders and the like.
This internal meme has two sources, I think. One, I keep using the “car on ice” metaphor when discussing my side effects management. Two, my driving is frankly crap these days. My peripheral attention is poor. I don’t drive at night anymore, I don’t drive during or a few days after chemo even during the days. When I do drive, I have to double and triple check mirrors, lanes etc.
Not sure what it means. Except maybe I should drive less. Sigh.
Tags: Cancer, cars, dreams, health
Posted: 10:27 am Sat February 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[cancer] Chemotherapy, day one of session four
Yesterday could have gone better. We got to the infusion center only to find the lab computers were down, and they couldn’t do my initial bloodwork. This went on so long I eventually saw the oncologist without the blood results, which is not the normal modus operandi. By the time they set the Huber needle into my chest port, preparatory to doing the bloodwork and the infusion, the ELMA topical anaesthetic I applied an hour before going in had worn off. The needle hurt going in. Not surgical-grade pain, but still astonishingly difficult. And needle had gone slight off, so the chemo nurse had to go fishing, which was even more unpleasant.
Due to these various alarums and excursions, we started infusion about an hour later than normal. It went well enough once things got going. and my parents were there all day, except when Dad went to get us lunch. H— dropped by briefly. Got home about an hour late as well, though it’s not like I had anything else scheduled.
Oncologist recommended I take a lot more fibre, to try to deal with the ongoing GI madness. She also said it was highly likely I’d have to miss a session in the future as my white blood cell counts drop too low. That will play hob with the visiting schedules of and , as well as my own very carefully crafted work schedule. Oh well. My Neutrophil granulocytes keep dropping, which is apparently the leading indicator for WBC decline. All of this is expected as part of the chemo experience.
Spent my afternoon and evening in the recliner. kept me fed and attended to. We watched Dune (see prior Twittersnark) and then Time Bandits (during which I fell asleep). Vegging with DVDs today and generally being on chat and Twitter, but definitely under the influence of chemo brain.
Want to make another, larger and more thoughtful post about cancer, chemo and side effects, but definitely need to wait until next week when I’m off the pump and the worst of chemo brain has cleared.
Tags: Calendula, Cancer, health, Personal, shellyrae
Posted: 10:00 am Sat February 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[photos] Your Saturday moment of zen
Your Saturday moment of zen.
Americana at its finest. Eastern Washington state. © 2006, 2010 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Culture, Photos, zen
Posted: 9:39 am Sat February 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad has chemo head
Announcing New Collections by Jay Lake and Philip Jose Farmer — Subterranean Press speaks.
Yesterday I Twittersnarked David Lynch’s Dune — Click the link above, but you’ll have to scroll down and view older tweets. I may stick this into a blog post of its own later.
Augmented Reality Maps — A TED talk video. (Via .)
Sex-change surgery and universal grammar — A Language Log entry of interest to those concerned with gender reassignment, law and language.
How do you regulate Wu? — Ben Goldacre on regulating the dangers of alternative medicine.
Far-Right John Birch Society 2010 — A discussion of current conservative politics, and the John Birch Society’s co-sponsorship of the CPAC conference. [The founder of the society] had called President Dwight D. Eisenhower a “conscious, dedicated agent of the communist conspiracy” and that the U.S. government was “under operational control of the Communist party.” Sound familiar? Substitute “socialism” and/or “terrorism” and you have the daily Republican talking points on Obama. Buckley argued that such paranoid rantings had no place in the conservative movement or the Republican party. Back when conservatives had principles, maybe.
Joe Stack Hailed as Hero in American ‘Patriot’ Resurgence — Let’s see, are the Patriots socialist? No. Liberals? No. Progressives? No. Centrists? No. Who could this be celebrating a murderous act of domestic terrorism committed by an angry white male? Wait, wait, I know! Conservatives!
Man who crashed plane into Austin IRS building part of decades-long line of tax protesters — his views on taxation follow a long line of protesters who believe tax laws don’t apply to them. Yet amazingly even tax protestors use roads and bridges, call 9-11, enjoy the benefits of national defense and public health. Which are otherwise paid for by the Libertarian fairies? Always a good reason to commit murder, that.
Conservative Is Not Opposite Liberal: That’s Totalitarianism — Timothy Ferris with an interesting article on classical definitions. I am however suspicous of anyone who creates false equivalency by claiming Bill Maher is the progressive’s Glenn Beck. Beck’s marketshare and mindshare is 10X, possibly 100X Maher’s, and Maher isn’t exactly at the core of liberal-progressive thought, unlike Beck’s second-only-to-Limbaugh place in the conservative dialectic.
Hold Onto Your Underwear: This Is Not a National Emergency — Under the circumstances, you would never know that Americans living in the United States were in vanishingly little danger from terrorism, but in significant danger driving to the mall; or that alcohol, tobacco, E. coli bacteria, fire, domestic abuse, murder, and the weather present the sort of potentially fatal problems that might be worth worrying about, or even changing your behavior over, or perhaps investing some money in. Um, yeah. But political pants-wetting wins more GOP votes.
?otD: Ever play chemo side effecs bingo?
2/20/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0 minutes
Body movement: (forthcoming suburban walk)
Hours slept: 9.75
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a (forgot to weigh)
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 7/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Books, Funny, healthcare, Language, law, Links, Movies, Personal, Politics, Publishing, Sky
Posted: 9:36 am Sat February 20 2010 | Comments(0) |
[cancer] Another infusion day dawns
Going to the clinic in a little over an hour. Mom and Dad will pick me and up at 8. My appointments start at 8:30.
In describing many of the processes of my healthcare to (who is British), I find her croggled over and over at how we do things here in the United States. American exceptionalism probably makes conservatives smile in their sleep, but it sure doesn’t apply to our healthcare system. And I say this as one of the lucky ones with good insurance and a generous employer, being treated at a top-ranked medical institution.
Anyway, I will dropping off the blogosphere as the day goes by, though likely continuing my Twitter feed, at least intermittently. will be blogging anything of significance from the infusion day, so if you’re following my cancer adventures, might want to drop by her LiveJournal today.
Time for me to get ready, then get going, then get poisoned.
Tags: Cancer, healhcare, health, Personal
Posted: 6:52 am Fri February 19 2010 | Comments(0) |
[photos] Your Friday moment of zen
Your Friday moment of zen.
The Billy Burger drive-in, Wilbur, Washington. © 2006, 2010 Joseph E. Lake, Jr.
This work by Joseph E. Lake, Jr. is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Tags: Food, Photos, Washington, zen
Posted: 6:44 am Fri February 19 2010 | Comments(0) |
[links] Link salad hopes for an easy day of chemo
Asian characters on book covers
Apple’s Prices for E-Books May Be Lower Than Expected — Hmm.
Vintage robots
My new favorite sign, EVAR — I always thought if telephone psychics were any good, they’d call me up when I needed them.
elucidates the point I’ve been reaching for about the resonance between the Tea Partiers and early 1930s German politics — To be perfectly clear, she’s not accusing the Tea Party of any moral equivalency to Nazism (and neither am I), she’s making observations about political behavior patterns of know-nothingism and negationism which are, of course, available to any ideology. (Though they tend to be conservative behavior patterns, insofar as I can tell. I’m not sure it’s possible to be a liberal-progressive and a know-nothingist at the same time.)
Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right — But it is also about the profound private transformation of people like Mrs. Stout, people who not long ago were not especially interested in politics, yet now say they are bracing for tyranny. It’s exactly those disinterested voters, kneejerk heartland conservatives for the most part, who helped create the current problems by blindly supporting the GOP through decades of ruinous governance and more ruinous opposition. Now these ‘real Americans’ blame Obama and the Democrats, yet almost every one of their objections is to Bush administration policies and their outcomes. It was all fine when a white Republican was bailing out the banks and busting the budget, now it’s tyranny when a black Democrat inherits the GOP mess.
Sarah Palin and the mutual loathing society — George Will, whom I generally find to be both tendentious and deliberately intellectually dishonest (see his writings on climate change, for which he quite deliberately distorts facts and public record in support of his ideology) with a curiously critical column on Sarah Palin. This is the old GOP fighting with the new, basically.
Palin, Paul and Mount Vernon — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on constitutionalism and conservatism. …as far as actual constitutionalists are concerned “limited government” and the “rule of law” are just phrases for national security conservatives and not much more than that. In the eyes of national security conservatives, actual constitutionalists are practically traitors. This is not a gap that can be bridged by shouting, “Constitution!” in a loud voice. Reminding me again why I’m coming to enjoy reading him so much.
Conservatives Sign Hypocritical Declaration — And a leftie view of the same issue. Every single other person who signed that declaration in favor of “limited government” that stuck to its constitutional boundaries, as far as I can tell, was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Bush administration when it utterly ignored the constitution on issue after issue.
?otD: Do you know where you’re going to?
2/19/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0 minutes
Body movement: 40 minute suburban walk
Hours slept: 7.5
This morning’s weigh-in: 228.0
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 3/10
Currently reading: [between books]
Tags: Art, Books, Culture, Funny, Links, Personal, Politics, Publishing
Posted: 6:40 am Fri February 19 2010 | Comments(0) |
[personal|cancer] And the days go by on Dagobah
Another pretty good day on the chemo side effects front. The schedule, however, took a hit. An afternoon visit to the clinic ran into overtime. I came home to an unexpected (and very welcome) appearance from my parents. One thing led to another, and I’d lost my writing time. Given that my right brain checks out for a four-to-five day vacation when I go onto the infusion tomorrow, that’s pretty much it for Endurance until the middle of next week.
Sigh.
Still on track for scheduled delivery of the book to my publishing overlords at Tor, but I detest these lacunae in my creative process.
In other news, put onto a plane this morning, to my great sadness. is here til Monday, to my great delight. Then I turn to local friends and family to fill my need for a keeper until the deep chemo brain lifts, oh, about Tuesday or Wednesday. Next weekend, today’s birthday girl is back. As an added bonus, and are in town for a few days over next weekend as well. Fun will be had by all and sundry. Being the Pacific Northwest, the rainwet will also be having fun alongside the sundry.
Tired now, bone-tired, so sleep comes soon. Up in the morning to prep for chemo infusion 4 of 12, with a significant assist from . Mom and Dad will take us in around 8. Sometime that morning the Cloud of Pharmaceutically-Induced Stupid will descend upon me, and I will likely drop off the Internets for the day except for some very stoned tweets. Some people find the CoP-IS tweets funny, I’m told.
Y’all play nice, in any event.
Tags: Books, Calendula, Cancer, CoP-IS, Endurance, family, friends, health, shellyrae, Writing
Posted: 7:48 pm Thu February 18 2010 | Comments(1) |
[politics] The patriotism of secession
patriotism, n. — devoted love, support, and defense of one’s country; national loyalty. [ dictionary.com ]
secession, n. — 1. an act or instance of seceding; 2. (often initial capital letter) U.S. History; The withdrawal from the Union of 11 Southern states in the period 1860–61, which brought on the Civil War [ dictionary.com ]
Per my question of yesterday to the Tea Partiers, I still don’t understand why promoting secession is seen as patriotic. See here, specifically this: Texas Gov. Rick Perry fired up an anti-tax “tea party” Wednesday with his stance against the federal government and for states’ rights as some in his U.S. flag-waving audience shouted, “Secede!”
As Justice Scalia, not exactly a noted liberal-progressive, has said, If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede..
I spent some time yesterday trying to get my own head inside the weltanschauung where secession could be seen as patriotic. So far, I’ve only come up with two answers.
One, conflating secession with revolution. The Tea Party strongly identifies with the Founders. My own understanding of American history makes it very difficult for me to view the American Revolution as an act of secession in the contemporary (and Civil War historical) sense of the term, but I can see where someone might reach this conclusion, depending on their interpretation of both facts and vocabulary.
Two, if one’s worldview includes the Reaganite assumption that government is the problem by definition, and “government” is interpreted to specifically mean the current incarnation of the United States Federal government, then secession could be seen as a return to the “Real America” that Palin and other conservative leaders continue to invoke in their rhetoric. Not so much secession, in point of fact, as kicking the rest of the country out of the Real America.
From my own perspective, I don’t find either of these viewpoints tenable. Each of them relies on a pairing of strong counterfactual assumptions and a wilful disregard for both history and current events. (Not to mention a failure of vocabulary.) But I see the passionate appeal of the idea, especially to a citizen with a specific set of frustrations.
The question is, how does someone with my worldview speak to someone who can sincerely hold these ideas? And where is the common ground that as citizens in a democracy we should be able to find?
Tags: Language, Politics
Posted: 5:58 am Thu February 18 2010 | Comments(32) |
[personal] A birthday girl
Today is the birthday of the lovely and talented , who is very important to me. Go give her some birthday love. I already have, and will continue to.
She deserves it.
Tags: Personal, shellyrae
Posted: 5:45 am Thu February 18 2010 | Comments(0) |
« Older Posts | Newer Posts »