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…
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Well, so glad to see you are feeling well enough to write. Now the Trepanning is a no go. Boring holes in our skull, even by the best surgeons, is still not good. Keep Elaine away. Maybe one Sister Sunday, we can sit and sip coffee and discuss this physical assault on your soul, psyche and spirit. I have had the same thoughts many times. Oh, the coffee must be goooooood coffee, not Safeway.
ReplyDeleteSEE YA LATTE
JIM