Latest Update

I’ve spent the last 3 days fighting a cold, something I can scant afford with cancer dominating the arena, so the hospice has delivered an oxygen device, guaranteed my comfort until I depart this planet along with some serious medication commitments.

Dying appears to be more complicated than movies and TV suggest, however, Elaine has much of this in hand and although I’m not pleased at my passing I am physically comfortable to say the least.

Meanwhile I lie here in bed with this vexing question of “Am I being objective or what?” Personally, I don’t think that objectivity is even remotely possible given the current circumstances, so let’s not look for any. This blog will just be a day by day brain dump that hopefully conveys this abstract end-of-life process I am going through.

For those wishing to visit, just email me at the following address after removing all the underscores “_” from the address:

k_backmann@sbc_global.net

I will provide relevant info about time and place.

Prognosis

Neither my pet bear (Dr. Kilbear) nor its symbolic companion (Jesus Gently Nailed to the Cross) reliquary beat the evil “C” word into submission so I will state the following bluntly:

1) It appears that I have moved a notch in the ratings to terminal
2) Prognosis is a couple of months or weeks
3) No, this is not a practical joke

Given all of the adverse reactions I’ve had to treatment, it might just be what’s necessary and I appear to be okay with the prognosis.

As for all of my friends, I can’t thank you enough and I want you to know that I welcome visitors in the upcoming months. If you contact me here or on FB I will send you an email with phone and address information and we can schedule a visit.

To the best of my knowledge Elaine and I will not be pursuing any additional treatments, not out of despair but from the perspective of quality of life, and the only two chemo options have a 15% success rate but would not buy any real time that I could guarantee quality life standards. Besides, the list of possible side effects is long enough to warrant passing up these desperate options.

I hope I get to see some of you in the weeks remaining. You have all been amazing over the last 29.9 years and I’m certain your best work lies ahead.

Love from Kevin and Elaine

Ouch!

1. Since I’ve been diagnosed with cancer I’ve suffered the following related ailments:
2. Pneumonia
3. Diabetes
4. Blood sugar maxing out at 512
5. Dry Heaves
6. Vomiting
7. Depression
8. Exhaustion
9. Loss of Appetite
10. Loss of Weight (50 lbs)
11. Fallen 4 times at the behest of Sir Issac Newton
12. 14 or so stitches to the top of me head
13. Assorted Battered Ribs
14. Two Stays in Medical City
15. One Stay at Baylor

All of this in 121 days, if all goes according to plan I don’t have any doctor induced procedures and I don’t even see a doc until early December so I’m hoping that these events taper off. Maybe my appetite can be reclaimed in the interim; I would actually like to fit at least in some of my wardrobe.
Later…

Books at Last

I finally made it to Borders and my 2 purchased books lie to my left as I listen to Joe Zawinul wail away on some of his standards (currently “Black Market”) as I admire my newly purchased tomes, their covers, table of contents and fine choice of typeface. The covers are shiny, the pages unstained and unread.
Apparently, no matter what my current state of affairs may be, family, books and music remains a high priority. Now, if I can only get my appetite to follow.
Sunday an AA meeting will be on my agenda followed by a weeks’ worth of activity in just 3 days on Monday. I see Dr. Bluntzer Monday afternoon, Dr. Denham on Tuesday for an MRI and some perfunctory poking and prodding, wrapping up on Wednesday when I return to my former place of employment to say thanks and pay heartfelt goodbye.
Hope I have the stamina, I’ll keep you posted.

Gamma Rays From the Planet Baylor

This gamma ray surgery was not as bloody as you would think from its name, it was painless excepting the tight fitting mask used to hold your head steady and coordinate gamma ray blasts to specific points on the brain. Twenty minutes and it’s all over but for the fatigue, which is still lingering. Compared to some of what’s been done it was cake walk.
Spiritually I must say I’ve hit a low point the last couple of weeks, so much for “love and tolerance is our code.” So to that end I am going rededicate myself to the idea we are all one, we all share the same destination although not the same journey’s and I and everyone else one this planet have a purpose, and it isn’t my job to tell them what it is.
I’ve reconnected with some friends to attend more Al-Anon meetings, and hope as my strength increases to extend that to AA as well. So you will be seeing me some these next weeks and I’ll truly be glad to cross your path.

Two-Entry Day

I’ve finally stepped out of the shadow of despair and into the autumn gloom, quite an upgrade for my frame of mind. If I’ve learned anything from this cancerous ordeal is that I really don’t have the liberty of indulging in some extended stay in a pit of self indulgent pity. Wow, poor me and all those other individuals with terminal disease (like my cool father-in-law). I stand in some mighty fine company and should be honored for all the cool company I have on this leg of the journey.
Finally, I called the office where I once worked and made some tentative arrangements to say good‑bye, which seemed impossible a mere 24 hours ago. Personally I think that ‘closure’ is one of those thera-speak agenda items, but this seemed to be necessary to do. Again, I can’t thank my wife Elaine for keeping that channel open and badgering me enough to stop being argumentative and acquiesce to one of life’s simple requests, “Ain’t it about time for you to get off your chemo’ed skinny ass and participate?”
My request to my dearly beloved readership of 5 is that you direct all those good vibes you’ve been sending my way to include my loving father-in-law as well, the cancer demon has been overly active as of late.
More to follow…

Damn, This is difficult

I have not blogged lately for a number of reasons:

Each time I’ve had something therapeutic done I suffered the worst off all possible side effects. Dry heaves, nausea, brain cells gone MIA and I’ve been falling too. Gravity beckons and I’m like “I’m on my way Isaac.” Three falls, 14 stitches on the top ‘o’ me head and another fall that landed me back in the hospital for three or four days. Enough gravitational events for now

Neuropathy has crippled me. My hands and arms are gnarled to an extent that I cannot type very well. Really bad news if you’re programmer, but I’m no longer a programmer as I had to resign my position and long term disability is now my only gig other than this blog

I’ve fried enough neurons with brain radiation that I can no longer compose a complete sentence, the verbs and nouns come in mangled thought packets that need some sorting out.

Despair. It finally showed up but I was quite depressed for at least two weeks and I’ve had to rouse myself from this self-induced torpor, hence the blog resurrection. Thanks to Elaine my best advocate & wife that appears to be passing

Last procedure done was yesterday, a gamma ray knife that cleaned out the tumor in my medulla. Thankfully its primary lingering ailment is fatigue

So, there will be more blogging, of the one-finger-typing variety. Hey it’s my only job at the moment besides getting well, so I’m sure I’ll have something to say

Wet Fish In the Tub

The experience of having cancer has certainly been enlightening to say the least. However, it’s not been a “This Is Your Life Kevin B.” look at missed opportunities, stupid mistakes and roads not taken, or one long depressing “This Is The End” while I await the inevitable. Aside from feeling like shit most of the time, it’s been mostly “getting through the day” standard fair.

Granted, for a while standing up on my own was just a pipe dream, never mind getting up and getting anywhere like the bathroom or dining room. That would have taken some good Thai stick and bowl of opium just so I could have imagined accomplishing such a feat.

In fact, my first day home from the hospital I had the brilliant idea that what I really needed was an Epsom salt bath. That bad idea was followed by yet another one, actually taking an Epsom salt bath. Getting in was not much of a problem, considering that I had Elaine and a walker to lean on, it was only when I got in that I realized I had a much bigger problem, how the hell am I gonna’ get outta’ here? Try and imagine some spaz in a tub, soaking wet, unable to stand or walk trying to hoist themselves out of a slick porcelain tub. With the exception of the nudity it might have made it to some home video program or YouTube. Splish, splash I was taking a bath.

While I’ve not revisited the tub lately, showering, shaving, walking and driving are all within my range of activities, at least until 1:00 pm, but that is increasing daily. I can even envision a day where I go to work, come home and eat and go to a meeting, so that’s progress.

Cancer has certainly made me appreciate and love my wife Elaine a great deal more than I have in the past. I can honestly say that had I not had her in my life it would’ve been the end. All the help and assistance from my son Dan has been amazing, although I know how he loathes walking the two hounds in the heat he does anyway, while Erin & Brady have made it point to call & visit from Fort Worth frequently. To be honest, I never really knew how really rich I am, I am loved, I have the family never had and didn’t know I wanted and friends I can truly count on. Hopefully it won’t take cancer for me to fully take notice next time.

Later, as we ease into a mountain kind of mood…

Doctor Opens Mouth, Full Sentences Emerge

My oncologist, for all intents and purposes, does not appear to speak. From May 31st till today it’s been the occasional verb/noun combo and for emphasis the occasional shrug or hand gesture. Well not today by god, he came in talking and left talking in grammatically correct, fully structured English sentences.

I looked good, the tumor is responding (both of them) positively, the steroid torture ends this week not to renewed and it’s quite possible that I only have 1 chemo session and not 3 more as originally planned. As for our C.B. plans he said not a word he merely rescheduled my chemo for the Monday after we’re back.

My regimen of herbs (21 pills or capsules per day) is my biggest hurdle, just taking into consideration the amount of time it takes to consume the little bastards, add to that the 4 other non herbal pills and the 2 liquid vitamins and we’re talking 16 ounces of water before I even have a cup of coffee. However, it was great news to know that I’ve made some tangible progress, and with the steroids going away I am hoping for some gym time soon so I can start rebuilding my withered legs before C.B..

While I don’t know the outcome of all of this I can say that having a positive approach, a loving family and a host of loving friends sure makes a difference on your outlook. If life doesn’t strike you as absurdly funny you maybe there's somethings missing in your life.

I don’t see a doctor, other than my internist, until August 10th and that’s just fine with me. I’m C.B. bound and if you know what’s best for you you’ll not stand in my way.

Herbs? Didn't I Smoke Them at One Time?

Yesterday Elaine and I went to see an herbalist recommended by a Native American friend of mine, Albert O. C., so naturally I assumed that the herbalist was a Native America as well. Well, was I wrong, way wrong in fact. This guy was a traditional Chinese herbalist, of the American, born and bred in Dallas, TX variety which made it even stranger. Then a friend I’ve known for over 20 years shows up at this guy’s clinic out of the blue and she has been seeing him for 20 years and swears by him. So it was serendipitous and to use Elaine’s term, it was empowering.

So today when I spoke with my radiation tech she had some complimentary things to say about augmenting one’s radiation & chemo with some natural remedies as well, as long as you’re not going abandon your current recovery regimen. After getting bathed in the ethereal glow of subatomic particles I had my weekly meeting with my radiation oncologist who not only thinks the herbal approach is an excellent supplementary treatment he wants the herbalist name as he’s been seeing an acupuncturist and taking a number of herbs himself.

Maybe that’s why he’s quite relaxed while my oncologist is wrapped tighter than a frozen tamale. His two word pronouncements followed by the spin of a heel and quick exit are about all you’re going get from this autistic freak apparently. So with that in mind, my wife and I are going to postpone the chemo for a week so we can have some normal life for a couple of days. Since Dr. Wordless only speaks using only one verb & one noun we’re not expecting much by way of feedback. It’s gonna’ be breeze.

More to follow, but I’m hoping the herbs will kick in and my mood will become lighter.

C.B. here we come…

You Don't Have a Tumor, You're Getting Chemo

All of the ancillary effects of all the treatments I’m receiving can now safely be blamed on chemo: nerve pain, nausea, weakness in the limbs, loss of appetite, and lack of energy, swollen joints, and hair loss. Yes, you guessed it; it’s all due to chemo. Dengue fever, the yaws, malaria, Ebola virus and other exotic tropical diseases have yet to enter into the stew of afflictions, but I expect their appearance any day now. In fact, since we’ve come this far, let’s just blame it all on chemo.

But the walker has been tossed aside and traded in for a cane and I did go to a meeting this morning at C-stone where I actually mingled with real people as well as my good buds Harry, Steve & Sam. It was good to be out amongst them.

I could have added a movie to my list of accomplishments but we’re having dinner guests and I’m going to attempt to hijack the cooking and get my ass back in the kitchen where I’ve been out of action for a few months. In a couple a week’s maybe I can take back the laundry and start feeling like a true participant, but at the moment the stairs up are a little too daunting when I think about coming up the stairs with cane and laundry basket in tow. However, dinner would be a good start for me, I enjoy cooking, people enjoy eating what I cook (most of the time) and it’s therapeutic too.

So watch out, Chemo Kev is on the comeback trail and even though those 6 hairy tits and 199 mph fastball I was expecting to acquire as a result of all those steroids failed to materialize, I will be a force to be reckoned with, just you wait and see.

58 Year Old Man Shaves for the First Time

Okay, I know what you’re thinking, if I were living in Festering Wound, Indiana, population 249 this might be news, a headline perhaps in the bi­­‑weekly Wounded Gazette. But you’re not living in Festering Wound are you?

The headline (as such) refers to Kevin James Backmann having shaved his head for the first time, a rather strange feeling when your face requires no shaving but your head does. While wiling away the hours in one of my 2 hospital stays I underwent a metamorphosis from Kevin Backmann to Elmer Fudd by way if chemo. It was somewhat of a shock, but not by much as I was expecting the hair loss anyway. Wascally wabbits and all it certainly was a new look to say the least. However the next metamorphosis was to go from Elmer Fudd to Tweety Bird. That was too fucking much. Am I going to have to go through the entire Looney Tunes pantheon before this madness stops (sans Yosemite Sam of course)? So Elaine did the first bald pate assault and now I’ve done one of my own, so it now seems normalized. Trepanning is about all that can be done to my skull now, and that’s far beyond the scope of any treatment that I know might be coming my way.

And in Other News

I decided this morning that I had had enough of me. Not that I was going to start neglecting treatment, but my entire thought process was this vortex wrapped around ME. So when I went to radiation therapy this morning I asked the radiologist what initially attracted her to her line of work, and she spent the next 25 minutes as treatment progressed telling me about being introduced to radiology at UTEP, coming to Dallas because her dad needed treatment at Presbyterian and finding a degreed course here in Dallas. The rest was history, she’s been here for over 20 years and it was one of those serendipitous stories one doesn’t hear often enough. I need to speak up more often and at least make an attempt to know the people around me, care givers, friends, loved one, you name it. My usual M.O. is to listen to someone for years, from a remote distance of course, and eventually come to a judgment of some type.

While I don’t recommend cancer as life changing event, it can be life changing in an extremely positive way and I would at least like to grow positively through this physical assault on my soul, psyche and spirit. So, if you should have a tip, or see that I’m slipping back into those o-so-comfortable Brooklyn modes of behavior be bold and point it out.

If the chemo doesn’t kill you than maybe the cancer won’t either…

Welcome to Terra Incognita

Chemo is one mean son of a bitch. It can destroy your taste buds, or kill your appetite but maybe neither. For me it’s been a little nausea until now, last night each muscle in both shoulders and arms tied themselves into a variety nautical knots and refused to untie. The pain wasn’t excruciating but it sure was relentless, so I am now on pain meds for this condition and gratefully so I might add.

So my spiritual growth, if any, has been difficult to monitor. The last few weeks it’s all been physical, hemoglobin, insulin, blood sugar, white and red blood counts ad nauseum. Perhaps cancer was meant to be a full physical experience combined with the mental and spiritual and you get to focus on what needs attention at the moment. Maybe my spiritual focus is to see beyond the discomfort and pain and focus on my spirit instead.

If anyone has any pointers in this regard it would be greatly appreciated.

Regardless of my physical state my spirit is always free to roam…

Living Better Chemically

Well, it has been some time since my last post, which says a great deal about the toxic waste they’ve pumped through my collapsing veins. The weekend had some milestones to speak of, which was getting to a meeting all by my little self and showering and dressing myself like a big boy. But Monday was CHEMO DAY!

The actual process of getting chemo is quite simple; you sit in what is a comfortable chair (for the first 20 minutes or so), pretty nurses hook you to an IV attached to which are a number of plastic bags. These bags are supposed to contain the key to my recovery, but personally I’m convinced that they’re filled with toxic waste from wherever it may be found, sewage, garbage, last week’s rotting veggies from kitchen. Then it’s “We’ll see ya’ in about 4 ½ hours.”

Well after about 4 ½ hours of this crap you’re not only weakened, but mangled as well. That comfy chair you thought you were sitting in turned out to be an iron maiden and you don’t even want to know about the contents of those bags and the only comfortable position is what’s commonly referred to as a blackout.

So yesterday I did nothing, and I mean nothing. I went to radiation, came home and ate lunch. All that chewing took so much out of me I went to bed until dinner time, followed by some limited mastication (tortilla soup & pork tamales don’t take too much effort in that regard) and back to bed.

So today I need to respond to some calls that I couldn’t attend to in the last few days. But chemo is now 3 weeks away and I should be able to carry on blogging away like the terror typing demon that I truly am.

Onward through the chemo induced fog…

Like Wow, I'm Ambulatory

Sitting here listening to the Kinks on a hot summer Saturday, I’ve consumed some cereal, a smoothie and now I’m behind the wheel of some kick ass coffee. Something will kick in eventually.

As my dose of steroids diminishes I am actually starting to feel somewhat human again. I have an appetite, I crave protein, and with the full-brain fry radiation treatment over with I can think in phrases that extend over 10 individual words. Which is good, as everything needs to be thought out, pondered and routes planned before you even contemplate taking any action while in my state. Two weeks ago dressing my self took 1 to 1.5 hours; it’s now down to smoking 30 to 45 minutes. As for the sprint to the car, it’s a piece of cake. I can make it from the second floor to the car in less than 4 minutes.

After fading away for over 2 weeks it feels strange to actually be aware of being on the mend. I’m actually looking forward to when I can start building some leg mass by working out at the Landry Center again; it would be nice to toss aside the walker. Shit, between Joann and I it’s gonna’ start looking like some sorta’ tent revival at C-stone.

Thanks for checking in, and I think I’ll be posting later on too…

One Should Live at Home, If at All Possible

So, let us take stock, shall we? The anger and frustration from last week’s fiasco has all but dissipated, the appropriate complaints were lodged where they needed to be lodged, so I believe I can let that gaggle of geese loose.

Here I sit listening J.S. Bach, English Suite #2 in A minor, and as far as I’m concerned, early mornings require some Bach, or at least mine do. So I'm off to a flying start by my standards, I can let go with impunity, I am beyond bliss.

Each passing day endows me with a more energy and the will to get around by myself, but what I currently lack is any sort of muscle mass on either leg. I get this total hip transplant last November; spend weeks building up leg mass by working out five or six days a week only to wind up with these sticks that were imported from Auschwitz or Babi Yar just for me.
But the attitude has changed for the better, as one does not heal through hate of any kind, nor anger for that matter. Therefore I am swearing off as of right now, 6:34 am on Thursday, July 09, 2009. Although I must say that that resolution may have come and gone several times by the time you get to reading this.

My kind acupuncturist, Susan Hammett was kind enough to needle me gratis to assist me on the road to recovery, over the week‑end my wife’s best friend from high school spent the weekend with us and as I get stronger I’ll be able to tackle guests on my own, I just never know when I’ll have the energy to actually engage in a lengthy conversation.

One thing for sure though, not getting my entire skull irradiated for 16 days and the elimination of those vile steroids, I’ve been assured I will not be as stupid as I have been (and you have complete license to interpret that in the manner of your choosing).

I will hopefully make additional entries today as the only real thing on my plate is my chest X-ray treatment. This is almost like an off day.

Later, my friends, following more coffee & radiation, the real breakfast of champions.

The Unintended Cost of Hell Care

Zen Kev was an abysmal failure this last week in the hospital. No sapphire bullets of pure love emanating from Chemo-Kev. No sir, nor was it a meditation on “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Actually it was more like what is the sound of two wooden mallets crushing the skull of your supposed care giver. I still imagine beating them into some gelatinous state of being as I write, they’re skulls still have such a soft hypnotic percussive effect, at least when I’m ½ way through with them in my minds eye.
My solution at the moment is to crank up some Tito Puente, which is doing the trick nicely.
So, as you can tell there is much, much room for some spiritual growth on my part. Of course I could make it about them, but I seem to have been trapped in some HIPPA bureaucratic nightmare from which there was no escape and I know I was not the first since they ignored this with such aplomb.
The shit they do to you as they attempt to align your listing vessel is beyond my energy to describe at the moment, so maybe they aren’t trying to kill your body, just reproduce a reasonable facsimile of what it would be like hauling a dead body around.
So, here’s looking to better days ahead and if possible some amends on my part.
Forward, into the smog…

Blog Post Pending, Like With Content

Tomorrow will my first opportunity to blog about my last 6 days in Medical City. At the moment I am basking in the glow of being home with my wife & hounds.

More to follow...

Chemo is like nothing I’ve ever experienced, let me tell you. You have a complete thought, you think you do actually something, but your body does not seem to conceive that you really want take some action. Like get up and have a cup of coffee, or as Lenny would say head off to, “the tinkle, dinkle, ha-ha room.”
Nope, it’s not that easy today, it requires deep thought, the marshalling of what seems to be a great deal of energy, followed by a lurching push in the general direction I had hoped to go in.
Wow, this is work.
Despite my willingness to walk beyond all forms upon my return from Austin, I did not walk beyond any forms at all. No, I fell, Newton in all his glory beckoned me forward, and lo and behold the planet rose to meet my face and bald pate. I guess the message was, like ask for help bozo.
Well I’m still staring towards the void, willing to move on, but for now I’m gonna’ talk a nap.

I Really Don't Want to Go Anywhere, Honest...

Diagnosed with cancer a mere three weeks ago has been quite an upheaval to my daily activity and to patterns of thought that I’ve had for years, unquestioned, unchanged, not really wanting to look at to be honest. This event has been quite a spiritual revelation, removing blinds from my eyes things that have been present for so many years and have forced me to reexamine some long held beliefs.
In my thirties I was faced with a dilemma that required that I place aside my prejudices and seek a spiritual way of life that was meaningful at deeply, profoundly personal level. I really didn’t want to go looking really, I would have been pleased with a self-help book or two and in a day or two a brand new me, but no, all the books in the world were not to keep me from getting off my ass and heading off on a journey.
Today, I have cancer and love is coming at me in so many different ways, ways I would have been offended at the past. I received a reliquary from my wife’s side of the family, long standing Catholics from the same tradition I came from and rejected so many years ago. The reliquary is a large crucifix, inside the crucifix is some relic of St. Oxymoron the Prolific (who knows), it could be finger nail clipping, a piece of his last pair of sandals, anyway it’s something that was personally attached to our aforementioned saint. There was time I would have been truly offended and sent it back. Today it’s hanging on my reading lamp in the bedroom, another signpost on the road to my spiritual growth. My friend Amy told me her dad praying for me, with other friends Catholic, American Indian, Baptists all doing the same.
Which leads me to this: The form of spiritual love you put forth does not matter, form is nothing unless the form is your belief, and the form is the signpost that leads you to the threshold of your spirit.
And what is the threshold you might ask? Speaking for myself, the crucifix, the 5 Buddha’s, the Celtic Crosses that abound in our house are pointing me forward beyond all form and towards the essence of what it is that I am, words and form do not exist when you step beyond your form threshold. Jesus as viewed through the scriptures, the will Allah revealed through the Quran, Buddha hood revealed through deep contemplation are all ways of bring me to the portal of the void. To have come so far to let go of the familiar and step into a spiritual center that I do not know how I will change me is fearful. What exists when one steps towards an experience beyond words, visions and forms?
I could be transformed, or mentally disintegrate into something I did not know existed, I may be enlightened, or stripped of old belief’s and prejudices that have propped up my psyche for 58 years.
What I do know is that powered by all spiritual love and strength I’ve been receiving I have the tools and power to step into the void.
I thank you all for the opportunity to grow, although I could have by-passed the cancer diagnosis.
Onward, towards the void we go…

Life Got Blogged Down Yesterday

Blog Day Afternoon
I thought I had a great deal to speak of yesterday, but it was to think of not to speak of apparently, therefore there was an empty blog entry for yesterday.
Radiation therapy has taken its toll on my sartorial splendor and taking a cue from a dear friend Craig Burger, who claims the natural is always the best, that’s the way it’s like so gonna’ be for awhile. So the hair loss is not tragic, and not being a cat, nor is it catastrophic (really, no pun intended, give a Chemo Kev a break for christ’s sake, it’s 5:00 am in the hair zone). Hair loses as a cat type person would be difficult. Backing up 10 feet of hallway space to perfectly size a delicious hair‑glob that fits my wife’s favorite shoe size from toe to heel is a lotta’ goddam’ work, and just think those projects are now pending in the indefinite time zone, with many more to come. Want some hairballs there Bucko? They would compliment your ceremic cats that decorate that garden pool of yours quite well. Just let me know, OK.
Today is some R & R to prep for what will be my very full-dose of chemo, which is on the agenda on Monday. My lovely wife and daughter, Elaine & Erin respectively, are piling into a Prius, heading to Austin to meet with a well-respected healer, spend the weekend with Sue and then later to have dinner with our dear friends Alexis & Lindsey. And end the day storing up some amniotic mojo by hanging out in a pool at night for an hour or two speaking of the things that are important between those you love, even if it’s the weather.

I Don't Need No Stinkin' Haircut

“Hey, what’s up…”
What? Did I hear something? The dogs haven’t moved or barked, nah, I didn’t hear nothin’.
“Hey, what’s up Doc?”
Now, I did hear that and I did detect the pungent smell of fresh carrot following the chomp by something or someone.
Perhaps I need to scout things out here a bit. Standing up from my office chair I peruse the house and find nothing out of the usual. Dogs doing what our bozoid dogs do, all appliances working in order, Boz Scaggs wailing away on “Jump Street” on trusty XM radio, no all seems fine from my perspective.
I shuffle into the master bathroom, remove my 1918 Regulation Brooklyn Dodger baseball cap (made in Bangladesh for truly authentic reasons no doubt) and lo and behold. Holy mother of god, I look like Elmer Fudd!!! I’m loosing my hair, I knew it was looming on the agenda, but still, whatta’ shock.
And I’m surrounded by all of these wascally wabbits, munching away on carrots and randomly peeping “What’s up, Doc?”
Recovery has moved to another level my friends, wabbits and all. Before/after pictures will follow.

A Good Editor Is A Good Thing To Have

My on‑board editors are demanding, nay, screeching that I allow them out of their respective cages to do the work they are claiming I owe them.
They don’t look like much, they appear very much like mottled images of Horace Greeley and Perry White, but they can sure make noise about prepositions, verb tense and correct pronoun usage.
You see, I’ve just been whipping this content off the top of my head, performing a dutiful spell check (out courtesy mostly) and uploading the content via the universal mojo-wire to the World Wide Dweeb. That is where much of the problems reside. Besides the fatigue of daily radiation therapy, it’s a full‑skull dose of irradiation and it is this effect that has the most impact on my writing, and editing is just some nice interesting concept like multi-verses, or dark matter that I would like to attend to but lack the time and energy to entertain.
I type and ponder, “Just how many neurons up there are actually working in unison to produce a truly cohesive idea? It’s only an idea now; it’s not cohered into a viable thought yet, much less a syntactically correct formed sentence, but those goddam editors won’t shut up. Get busy Backmann, there a thoughts rioting a few neurons back?”
My next physical step is to type this thought‑blob onto a piece of ethereal paper existing solely in RAM and bludgeon the bastard into decent reading prose. Well, bludgeoning the prose appears to happen, until my lovely wife points out the very erratic inconsistencies that appear on Kev’s Chem Lab 101 blog. The editing team must have their day in sun, or diodes, or whatever backlights my laptop monitor.
Well, I’m going to have to unleash the Greeley/White editing demons so I can have them clean things up, and just so you know, my ego is actively pushing this on so that it will actually get done.
To better reading in the future, onward into the smog…

1956 Did Happen in Brooklyn

Much hoopla, in the much subdued professional manner found at the oncologist’s office, I received some X-rays of the chest and my date with chemo was postponed for yet another week.
Well, I’m certainly not living up to my newly minted moniker “Chemo Kev” now am I? What with all the radiation therapy, 9 so far with 6 to go, if I could claim Italian heritage I would announce my new name “The Day-Glo Dago” with great fanfare, in some medieval Florentine manner not doubt, and what with fashion in retro, find some clothes to match, clothes like polka dot shirts with flared sleeves, wide angle bell-bottomed blues jeans, and for home a few black lights and complimentary posters and some really bad psychedelic tunes for the old hi‑fi. In-A-Gadda-Davida, any thing by the Moby Grape, The Jefferson (Prop plane, Glider, Airplane, Starship, et al…).
My family and I are now well into the third week of this rather dramatic event. Nothing has leveled to where there is the standard daily routine, but we are all working together separately and together to forge a daily routine from such a set of alien demands. I, at the moment, am listening to Martin Goldsmith on XM 78, Symphony Hall. It’s a piano concerto by a composer I’ve only heard of in passing, a Henry Charles Litolff, music has always been my musical anchor and this happened to be the next link in the chain. Meanwhile, my lovely wife has set off to her yoga class where she finds a spiritual center.
So, as you can see, new information, requiring a rearranging of our standard earlier morning chores. Done in an order I’m certainly not comfortable with, but done any way, and producing the quite same results. A want and desire to go forth and participate in a practical and beneficial way with those we live and work about.
There have been no report cards as of yet, but my wife, children and close friends have never been more immediate, loving nor have I been so aware of those attributes either.
Onward into Chemo Kev’s delayed Monday…

Did Tonto Really Say Chemo-sabe?

Today kicks off what will be the start of my second full week of therapy, starting with my being dropped kicked through the goal posts of a 5 hour chemo session for my second legal lesson in how one can live better through chemistry. Then, if at all possible and if time allows, it’s down to the radiation lab to be irradiated like a newly picked bunch ‘o’ grapes from Mexico.
When I have time to reflect that my melanoma growth if being battled out by some evilly radioactive particles and a lethal chemical compound that require hazmat suits to be administered, it appears that if they vanquish the victim (the tumor) into remission, the two warriors at the forefront of the battle cease to exist, they both lose. And these lethal doses of chemo and radiation not only lose, they lose if the tumor wins or loses. Inorganic sacrifices are they, and in my intellectual arrogance I can assume they’re work is done completely devoid of any organic consent and their part. But I’m starting to feel more like part of the weave in the fabric of life of this universe I find myself in, and not like some loose end or external participant sitting in a comfortable seat watching the show of life as I could join in and drop out of at whim. I’m going to look at therapies as elements of the universe conspiring to act as a consortium towards my greater well being. Those elements may be as disparate as Eastern medicine, the ancient knowledge of Native American herbalists and standard western medicine, but where joined together in the common cause.
I also want to add that none of this activity is being done in a state of highly agitated panic. It is a conscience effort on my part to pull together what I was not will to really heretofore to expend the effort at, and that was live the live that gives me a countless number of paths to my next truth, revelation of direction.
I’ll post again shortly, post lethal cocktail time that is when some lucidity may have returned so I can complete a thought, and possibly compose complete sentences.
Off again into the future…

What's a Boy to Do

It has come to mind that it’s not quite clear what my purpose is in maintaining this “Kev’s got cancer” log. Am I am attempting to fend off a fear of unimaginable dimensions, prove to whomever that I’m keeping a stiff upper‑lip and proper “can do” attitude with this cancer diagnosis? Or, am I just a scared little boy whistling in the dark hoping to make home before the last fading light of day?
A bit of self searching has revealed a bit of different frame of reference. I have not have had what one would think of a purposeful, always on target kind of life these last 58 years. Nope, not at all, more like the blind pig finding the proverbial acorn now and again. Over the last 30 years I’ve had the pleasure to find friends with deep reserves of love, a family that I love above any I could have imagined and a career that I truly enjoy. But to acquire all of it I had to be willing to be real, emotionally open and fully present in the moment. In my book a marginal trade-off and a damn poor bet as well. But open up I did, and to much life and joy way beyond the initial investment I thought I had made at a great danger to myself.
With that in mind, I find that my cancer diagnosis is now a part of the journey of my life that I will be able to be open, real and present about. Like I’m supposed be worried that it won’t be neat and tidy and market well at Niemen’s? Did any other area of my life appear tidy and marketable? Does yours?
If you have an opportunity, listen to the “Last of the Steam‑Powered Teams” by the Kinks if you care to know how I feel at the moment. Thanks Ray Davies for your little riff on life’s enigmatic style. I’m just gonna’ keep on chugging till my dying day, which by the way is not imminent as far as I can tell.

Might as Well Stand and Face It, Life is So Complicated

I awaken each morning to the mobile phone alarm, reminding me that it’s now time take my next transforming steroids. It also gives me a moment to get up and savor the silence, such as it is on Dallas whilst living on a busy thoroughfare.
Getting out of bed I grab the next set of notions, position and lotions and in the semi‑darkness pad out into the kitchen where I grab ice-cold seltzer water, park it in a cozy and sit in our comfy blue recliner with matching ottoman. At which point I pop the top and await what might or might not show up on my mind’s eye.
The thoughts are not of the fearful variety. Sometimes I feel as if there are miniature male or female spirits, just checking on the sites that have been difficulty these last 8 months. Hips moving okay today check. Lungs functioning check, spiritually centered, getting there, check. A small litany vital check point statistics and an event log generation done in my honor, and then they’re gone. Often that is followed by silence and my mind amuses itself by watching the occasional play of reflected light as it makes its way across the living room. Slowly, taking the shape of the object it reflected on, it brings out surface elements I would have never have been aware off.
So as you can see, it’s not deeply moving soul searching moment of time. It’s a wonderfully peaceful one, one which sends me back to bed for another 4 or 5 hours, at which time I get to wake up and replicate what had just experienced several hours back.
Perhaps one of these thoughts that continually bubble to the service with contain the grain of truth, or event that let’s my move my spirit in yet another direction of reconciliation and friendship with the world at large.
I’m looking forward more and more with each passing day, as this life of mine, that I thought I know so well, appears to have yet a few more secrets to reveal.
Into the future, together this time…

The Hardest Revelations Are Those Most Evident

As someone who is more naturally inclined to be dismissive of those on the periphery of my life while loving, caring and considerate to those that I care and are not on the fringe I have been able to take my low energy interludes and ponder this odd dilemma.
My generation, during the tumultuous 60’s demanded love, peace and understanding. Created entire careers writing songs around the same themes, Miles Davis and B. B. King played the Fillmore (both east and west) to sold‑out crowds, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger, Joan Baez participated in freedom marches and protestations. I, for one, fervently believed that love, peace, justice and above all, equality was due all, not just to the privileged few, and if remember correctly so did my peers at the time. Besides, did not our constitution state these inalienable rights were guaranteed by birth and by birth alone? Not race, class, skin color, no, we are all born with these inalienable rights.
But I failed to realize something, and I speak for myself here, I failed to realize that one does not just hold a beloved opinion, chant at or argue with those that hold different ones and head home, smoke a joint and have a beer and expect the universe to modify itself correctly because I have what I consider high ideals.
Now let’s fast forward a bit, 30 years or so and see how this sits with me today.
I still hold these lofty ideals about peace and equality for all, which is good a thing to have, what I no longer believe is that my job has been complete having made it to and holding these lofty positions all these years. I should now be content awaiting a younger generation to shape up and get this show on road.
I suppose that my ego would have loved some sort of grand gesture in the spotlight of the multitudes awaiting me to lead them into some brave new world. Well, that’s never happened, and does not appear to on the imminent horizon. I’m going to have try and practice these lofty principles in a daily, silent way.
What the cancer has brought to the forefront for me is that these lofty principles can only be imparted by me in my personal life. With those I love, don’t love; wish would go away and never come back, people of differing colors, beliefs and opinions. In other words, I must do this in my daily life, quietly and consistently, and to do so without any fanfare whatsoever, solely out of service and love and not out of some higher calling sense of duty.
I can assure you my friends that really don’t know how one does that; I can only say that I am willing to do my best.
Once, 25 years ago I once heard Joseph Campbell say “Follow your bliss.” I took this to mean that one finds an object of some type, lover, career, a higher calling of some sort and pursues it with passion and fury. Well, here today, with a cancer diagnosis looming largely on my horizon, I can honestly say that I finally know what he meant. You follow your bliss by embracing the life that you have been given, not the one you want or think you should be allowed to pursue. No, my bliss is already present and all I have to do is embrace it and live one day or one moment at a time, striving to make my contributions to this blissful life constructive and beneficial to all I come in contact with.
I am walking towards the unknown future knowing that all is well and that the creative spark of life surrounds me as long as I’m will to look for it. It is present in my beloved family and friends, I’ve experienced with the excellent medical staff I get to engage with daily and from total strangers who know nothing of my but a diagnosis and cared to give a hug.
Later, into the future…

Like wow, I'm tired

Sitting here drinking apple juice, listening to Ray Davies and the Kinks “20th Century Man” and I’m finally feeling some energy flow through my veins. What a whirlwind of activity it has been for a full fifteen days, to say nothing of the information overload, radiation therapy, a partial work week done at the office and one dose of chemo under the belt. My body quietly mentioned to me after radiation this afternoon that “Hey, you can do whatever you want but you’re doing it without any of our assistance.”
So, I came home and was lying about like some lazy slob by 3:00 pm. Zoning actually, like it was 1967, random thoughts, logic gone to the wayside thoughts flat lining by the minute. It was like gently approaching a meditative state, effortless and calming.
My week at work was a wonder, as short as it was, and I’m not the “dead man walking” figure I was afraid I was to be. Although today, Friday, was somewhat different in that I slept about 10 or 11 hours, woke up feeling awake, but with the energy of an under agitated slime mold. I woke up at 7:00 am and was unable to get out the door until 9:30 am, which was not from lack of trying. I would just sit on the edge of the bed enumerating daily routines that I’ve done for decades, get up eventually and do one, return to bed and rerun the daily routine list lest I missed something like shaving or showering or something.
The immediate goal for me at the moment, since all therapies are performing there designated duties is to pay more attention to what my body is saying to me. When it says “Hey, I’m outta’ steam here buddy,” well it’s not just kidding.
I’ve now moved off of the Kinks and I am blessing my soul with some Handel, to be followed by dinner with beloved family members.
Later, but for now let’s move on towards the future.

Back to the Real World, Already in Progress

You know, being pleasant isn’t really all that difficult at all, it’s really easy. Although being from New York City and being a former fleet cab driver from the 70’s I find myself with what might be a year’s worth of acerbic verbosity, and might I add funny verbosity, but the usual venue is rapidly disappearing. That venue being wherever I happen to have my mouth parked and in gear at the moment.
Now don’t get me wrong here, I’m not bouncing about with a beatific smile on my face at all times, a veritable sunbeam for Zoroaster blessing the multitudes and wishing them peace, prosperity and all the joy they can handle. Nope, not quite.
I’ve been to work for three days this week; I garnered a decent annual review, despite all the hoopla of cancer, bone cysts and full hip replacements. My managers, team leads, and peers treated me like returning employee recovering from an illness not like some Gollum who slid under the door bound and determined to die at his cubicle and today I wrote them a thank you note for note only their compassion, which is evident, but for the professional comportment. Later, throughout the day we worked and talked and on occasion I was asked about how I was feeling and what my treatment was like. In other words, I was a member of an IT support team again and we we’re looking forward on assorted projects designed to hopefully make our clients work day easier.
To end the day I had to return to what had been our parent company to address a Microsoft Access issue for a client. Well, the old site is now in lock down and one must be escorted to from point A to point B, employee badges be damned. After briefly talking with the security guard and in failing to contact the party I was to meet we had fun filling out forms and she escorted me herself to my designated appointment. Talk about nice. It was just a genuine effort on her part to be of service. And to think, all I did was not scowl or mutter some comment about these goddam anal retentive rule freaks.
This might not be the easiest event of my life, but it’s been a real eye-opener and myth killer so far.
Later, into the future.

Here it is, over 40 years later, and I’m finally living better through chemistry, and in an entirely legal manner I might add. How strange. The radiation therapy zaps what living brain cells might be harboring some swiftly mutating cells (in the dead of night you can almost hear the cytoplasm cells tear as the cell divides) while lethal chemicals are administered intravenously by lovely little nurses in hazmat suits, as their aides post hazardous waste material signs on the door of both room and bathroom in great haste. The seventh dose of radiation was given today, with a second dose of my lethal cocktail chemo scheduled for Monday, June 15th.
This has been mind altering I’ll have you know, and not in a Timothy Leary “oh wow man” sort of way. I am now forthcoming with a thank you and a smile; I talk to pleasantly nursing staff, toll booth attendants, clerks at the grocery store. I thank the man or woman who comes by your table to wipe off it off before, during or after meal. Missed phone calls are now being returned with heretofore regularity. In other words I am being enveloped in a miasma of kindness and courtesy.
I am calling it short night tonight as today has been busy from beginning to end and I actually put out eight hours of effort that reaped the rewards I was not looking for. But in closing let me say that your love and support has been behind this unasked from transformation, but now that the doors are wide open I know that there can never be any going back.

Late Saturday, May 30th I was lying in a rather large hospital room between the hours of 2:00 am and 3:30 am, contemplating my recent diagnosis of lung cancer. I did not go through the Elizabeth Kubler Ross five step grief dance and it did not even seem relevant actually. I had a diagnosis, its name was lung cancer, and it was mine. Not yours, not something I could shovel under the rug so I could deal with at leisure or not at all, not something I could dole out and have someone experience it for me in a proxy like manner. No, this nasty diagnosis was all mine.
But how the hell is one to deal with something this big. I don’t feel persecuted, nor do I feel that the divine retribution committee deemed fit to finally get my attention after all these years. Nope. This showed up with all the hoopla of an ordinary weather report.
In the semi‑darkness of the room my minds eye formulates a large white vinyl steamer trunk. It’s not reflecting light, it’s emanating it, the white surface concentrating the reflected white light and choking out any color that may temper its intensity. The steamer trunk, in all of its horrible brilliance, is trimmed in highly polished brass adding to the reflected light. There are no visible catches, latches, locks or lids to be seen.
My diagnosis had morphed from word to image and I continued to stare. It wasn’t a hallucination or a sudden burst of psychosis, I’ve had plenty of them, it was just a mental image that I could neither touch nor manipulate, I could only stare and ponder it.
In the silence thoughts of my father came to mind, which I do not have very often. He was a man of few words, a limited amount of gestures and smoldering anger that barely hid itself behind the surface, but in 1985 he was diagnosed with the same disease and after a seventeen year hiatus I was willing to see him and clear up some unfinished personal business that had been long over due on my part.
The first time we met was quite the shock. He was happier and more content that I had ever remembered him being. His conversation was animated as was his spirits and he talked about his impending death with a clear sense of what it was going to be and how it was truly supposed to be that way. We parted as friends for the first time in our lives.
Six months later he is in remission and I decide to visit once again, expecting more of less the same, or shall I say someone in an even lighter shade of mood than six months ago. Not to be. My dad is in a profound depression, like the ones he had when I was eight years old and you had to remove the lit cigarettes from between his fingers at 3:00 am because he would fail to notice and then go back to the next room in the railroad flat I grew up in and hope he didn’t light another. Tenements built in 1900 of timber and tar burn much faster and brighter than the Xmas trees I would find in June and torch with my friends and I had no desire to burn along with the building. Inevitably he would either get another beer and light a cigarette or he would slump along the kitchen wall and fall into a dreamless, REM free sleep. A few months later he was out of remission, happily residing in a hospice and was pronounced dead in fall of 1987 much to his liking I’m sure.
By now my steamer trunk is fading from my mind’s eye and my thoughts are gathering once again. I tacitly acknowledge the debt I owe my father in instructing me on how one can die with some sense of satisfaction and composure, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to stare life in the face with a profound depression, something I’ve implicitly known how to do since I was extraordinarily young. No, this diagnosis required that not only I react differently, but that I take different action to address it.
The trunk is gone and I’m pondering how does one truly deal with this differently and slowly my mind informs me that I now get to do things differently. I cease to criticize, I allow people to love me in way I never had before. The arms length approach is no longer going to work, the fear that I am in so indebted to the universe and I don’t need another upside down loan from someone merely offering me love and support will have be given up in its entirety.
“Well Backmann,” I say to myself, “nice sentiments and possibly good copy but it still doesn’t answer the question of how to do this.”
The next thing I know is that there is a gratitude list scrolling through my head. Not a list of what I own, or the great set of tunes I get to listen to on demand or the comfortable condo that is truly a home or any of the physical things I would normally associate with a list of items to grateful for. It is a seemingly never ending list of names of everyone that has ever contributed to my life in a meaningful way. Friends, lovers, enemies, some dead other alive, yet others state and whereabouts unknown, nor is this scrolling like some end credits at the end of my life. It is for all appearance sake a dynamic, vibrant and growing list of life itself.
Instead of the usual Hollywood “Finis” I get the message that I am to be of service.
The next morning I make a decision that this process of living with cancer will be blogged, my wife is informed that whomever she cares to tell of my cancer is her business and her business alone, and, and this is probably more important than I realized at the time, anyone who expresses a desire to visit is more than welcome to come.
My spiritual decisions have always been just that a decision. I certainly don’t know how to implement it; I just decide that I am willing to be different. The cancer calling card was my next spiritual instruction and my decision to do it differently was choice that has set in motion a full week of inspiration from family, friends and acquaintances I barely knew cared enough to notice.
This spiritual journey moves forward, merely by my deciding to move with it in whatever shape, form or direction in may go in.

From Ground Zero to Here
Sometime in May a friend in Frisco, TX requested that I speak at a Saturday evening event, to which I gladly said yes. Meanwhile, in the back of my mind my entire head is being dominated by what I think is a wicked bad thermo-nuclear attack by airborne allergens. After all, it had been snowing cottonwood allergens here in Dallas for what seemed like a month and I’m hoping that this evil miasma of fluffy white will have dissipated by then.
Well, the sinuses go from evil to malevolent, with spontaneous nosebleeds to spice up the usual inability to breathe normally, so it’s off to the doctor for a check up. Several months earlier I had some blood work done, which came back normal and in November I had a complete hip replacement and a cyst on my femur removed where I was scanned with everything but a live cat and rayed by every letter designated particle in the atomic spectrum. All negative.
Upon further consultation I am off to an eye, ear, nose and throat doctor, who is in total agreement regarding evil allergens, cauterizes some veins in the proboscis and sends me on my merry way.
Well, two days later, not only am I not any better but my face has taken on the color of purple sage. I look like John Cougar Freakin’ Melonhead, with a face color that harks back to Jimi Hendrix and 1966 for cryin’ out loud.
Ear, nose and throat doctor number two pokes about a bit, comments on my unusual flesh tone and suggest that I get a CAT scan of head, sinuses and throat. Tubular devices here I come.
This time the CAT scan catches not only a tumor atop my right lung, but a metastasized spot on the medulla. That was May 29th, 2009, just two weeks and four centuries ago.
The same day I am in the office of my trusted and loved internist of seventeen years willing to let go of whatever it is I think should happen next. She notes that “this is not good” but places a call to an oncology team that she said she would call if in the same situation. It is now sometime near 3:00 pm in the afternoon and I am shunted off to Medical City Hospital here in Dallas. By 4:30 pm I am in the largest single bed hospital room I could have ever imagined and being introduced to my first sure fire cancer doctor named Dr. Wait. Who, well, doesn’t want to wait? “We have to find out what kind of beast this is don’t we?” An apparently rhetorical question if I’ve every heard one. “When was the last time you ate” she asked, and when I said the day before she whipped up a team of five, equipment, some kick-ass drugs and did a bronchostomy right in my very room so she could typecast the tumor.
By Saturday the tumor is typecast, by Sunday I’ve been dosed with my first round of chemo, followed by additional MRI’s and full-body bone scans that do not find cancer anywhere else. By Monday I am released, fully mapped for the radiation therapy that will follow for the next 7 weeks, 5 days a week for the coming month plus and regrouping at home.
In any event, I met my speaking engagement, although it was not the canned, “ha-ha I can’t believe that you really did that” kind of talk, but it was the most cathartic event I’ve had in some time, and I have not even touched upon the love and support I have been the recipient of for the last week, not only from family and friends but from total strangers. My fervent hope is to give some back.
I resolve to allow my tongue to savor the roughness of a strawberry before its sweetness on a hot summer’s day, I promise to run through the meadow in my mind’s eye to feel the rain pummel my face during the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s Pastoral, I am desparate to feel the love in your hug and taste it in your kiss.
Onward to the future…

Kev's Chem Lab is finally underway

Although this is not the creative route I would have chosen it is the route the have been dealt. This is my very first blog post and I assure you that there is more to follow, should one be so inclined actually comeback and read it.

Suffice to say that this is post number one, written in haste and as the day’s progress I will be adding the content necessary to make this readable. Do note that I said readable, not necessarily interesting or rewarding.

To those of you who already know and have professed the love and support I cannot thank you enough. As for family, I couldn't have a better, more loving (exceptionally beautiful one too) than I have at this very moment

As for now, my beautiful wife and I are off to glean the benefits of Hiroshima and cop some radiation therapy.

Love & stuff,


Kevin Backmann