Your Thursday moment of zen.
Mom, me and Dad outside the Channel 69 studios in Washington, DC. © 2006, 2010, M. Lake. All rights reserved, reproduced with permission.
Posted: 5:01 am Thu July 22 2010 | Comments(0) |
How to Distinguish Fiction From Nonfiction — Telling fact from fiction isn’t always easy on the on the web. Now researchers have discovered a method that could help automate the process. Fascinating. But I have to say that sometimes, the jokes, they write themselves.
Rastafarians and Quakers — How young religions adapt.
Bulldozers Meet Historic Chinese Neighborhood — Ah, hutongs. (Thanks to Dad.)
The 100-year-old salamander — Also known as “the human fish”. Really…?
Snakes in the MRI Machine: A Study of Courage — What courage looks like in the brain–in real time. As if it were not bad enough in there… (Thanks to David Goldman.)
Shirley Sherrod and the shame of conservative media — Worth the read, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.
“Context is Everything” — More about Breitbart and the Sherrod video. Also, Scrivener’s Error with a great rant on the same topic.
?otD: Have you ever been too lose to fak?
7/22/2010
Writing time yesterday: 1.25 hours (editing, WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bicycle ride
Hours slept: 6.5 (good but interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: 234.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 5/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy, emotional turmoil)
Currently (re)reading: Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
Posted: 4:57 am Thu July 22 2010 | Comments(0) |
calendula_witch and I are off to Writer’s Weekend tomorrow, whereat I am pro’ing with davidlevine. A cast of dozens — well, about two dozen — will be there at a resort in the Olympics, but no longer the Iron Springs of memory. (For those newish to the blog,
We’ll be back in Portlandia Sunday evening. Monday I am off to Omaha, my first such trip since last October. I’ll fly back from Omaha to Seattle on Friday the 30th, to attend the Clarion Party there that night. Home on the 31st, then off to New Jersey on August 4th.
Once I get back from all that, I will see the liver surgeon on August 11th. After that, quien sabe? (Except for continued Endurance revisions, of course.)
If you’re playing along with the home game version of “Where’s Jay?”, this update should suffice for now.
Posted: 5:10 pm Wed July 21 2010 | Comments(3) |
Well, the PET scan result yesterday was confusing. On Monday, when we met with the oncologist, she was quite convinced this was a metastasis. My oncologist is not an excitable person, she always hedges. This time she didn’t. Then the PET on Tuesday showed the growth in my liver failing to exhibit the high level of metabolic activity associated with tumors.
A few things I know, or reasonably assume here.
Once I get a consult with the liver surgeon, I’ll know more, but my current understanding is that we’ll go ahead with the surgery, then rely on the biopsy to guide what comes next. I find it improbable this is not a metastasis, but the evidence is showing mixed.
Weirdly, in some ways this new ambiguity is more upsetting to me than simply being on the path to another round of surgery and chemo has been. That says a lot more about the quirks of my psychology than it does about medical science.
calendula_witch and I spent quite a bit of time yesterday discussing the implications of all this. I am feeling very vulnerable, all too aware of my own mortality. If this proves out to be a met (which is still my belief), my survival odds have taken another nose dive. They’re already pretty spooky, but I do understand the difference between statistics and prognosis.
My fear — and here I am talking about emotional reactions, not logic or sound medical judgment on anyone’s part, least of all mine — is that this cancer will continue to be aggressive, and throw mets faster than we can treat them with surgery and chemo; that I’ll spend the next few years grinding myself to pieces trying to catch up to something that’s killing me slightly faster then we can cure it; that I’ll become too sick to work, too sick to write, and within a few years, too sick to go on living.
I recognize I’ve had all of this news less than forty-eight hours, and mental/emotional whiplash twice already, once with the Monday consult and again with the PET result. This is no time for me to be drawing firm conclusions or making major decisions. Yet the New Zealand/Australia trip impends, Endurance is due, my life hurtles onward, and everything is inflected by this problem.
Ugly mysteries, life and death stakes, colliding schedules and commitments. If I were a character in a book, this would be fascinating. Living through it, not so much…
Good thing I’m seeing my therapist today. Gee, I wonder if we’ll have enough to talk about?
Posted: 5:22 am Wed July 21 2010 | Comments(9) |
Your Wednesday moment of zen.
Stonehenge replica, Maryhill, WA. © 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.
Posted: 5:04 am Wed July 21 2010 | Comments(1) |
Fine-tuning Cancer Treatments — Drug companies are harnessing new knowledge of cancer genetics.
Size matters — Asteroids, to scale. (Via Bad Astronomy.)
7 Wonders of the RV World — Americana at its finest. (Via e_bourne.)
The Lizard, the Catacombs, and the Clock: The Story of Paris’s Most Secret Underground Society — (Via shelly_rae.)
The American Aristocracy — On the repeal of the estate tax. Remember when the GOP was on and on about how family farms could be lost to the “death tax”, and Farm Bureau couldn’t find a single example of that happening? Yes, this is definitely another conservative win for the little guy.
Romney and Palin — Conservative commentator Daniel Larison on a likely GOP presidential primary contest.
Beck Subtext: Obama Planning to Assassinate Tea Partiers — Nothing to see here, citizen. Just politics as usual, being conducted by rational, principled persons.
GOP Reps Align with Muslim Nations Against Gay NGO — Wait, I thought the GOP tells us Muslims are the enemy? Anything to stop teh gay, I guess. How these people can sleep at night is beyond me.
?otD: What’s your worst medical experience?
7/21/2010
Writing time yesterday: 3.25 hours (editing, WRPA)
Body movement: 30 minute stationary bicycle ride
Hours slept: 6.0 (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: 234.2
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 5/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy, emotional turmoil)
Currently (re)reading: Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
Posted: 4:59 am Wed July 21 2010 | Comments(1) |
PET scan today. Results are anomalous with respect to yesterday’s CT scan. To be specific, the mass in my liver did not “light up” the PET. This may turn out to be cause for optimism, but I’m not going there yet. Next step (so far as I know) is still surgery, but we’ll deal with chemo based on the pathology reports.
Much to think about.
Posted: 5:04 pm Tue July 20 2010 | Comments(11) |
Some semirandom thoughts about yesterday’s diagnosis, and a new round of surgery and chemo forthcoming.
Posted: 4:35 am Tue July 20 2010 | Comments(11) |
Your Tuesday moment of zen.
Stonehenge replica, Maryhill, WA. © 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.
Posted: 4:17 am Tue July 20 2010 | Comments(1) |
John Klima reviews Is Anybody Out There? for Tor.com
calendula_witch on my latest cancer diagnosis — Likewise shelly_rae.
‘Inception’: Ghost Town, Ghost Faces — More on the movie from Hua Hsu, guest-blogging at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ joint.
Vintage Movie Poster: The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
Welcome to Detroit: 1900 — Shorpy with an image that includes one of the moon towers later appearing in Austin, TX, my former home.
Bye-Bye Batteries: Radio Waves as a Low-Power Source — (Via my Dad.)
?otD: Tumor or not tumor?
7/20/2010
Writing time yesterday: 0.0 hours (derailed by medical science)
Body movement: n/a (PET scan prep requires low activity)
Hours slept: 6.25 (interrupted)
This morning’s weigh-in: n/a
Yesterday’s chemo stress index: 9/10 (fatigue, peripheral neuropathy, emotional turmoil)
Currently (re)reading: Heretics of Dune by Frank Herbert
Posted: 4:14 am Tue July 20 2010 | Comments(1) |