Drag

This is the third day out from getting the 5FU pump off, and I'm feeling the drag. Came back from my brother's birthday party, and am continuing the trend I've been riding where I just don't feel all that great and end up trying to find a decent movie to watch. I got The Core. You can't always get what you want, said the universe, but sometimes you get what you need.

Tomorrow is going to be better. The science in this movie will always be bad.

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Waking hours

I couldn't sleep well tonight, having woke up at 3. I've been assaulted by hiccups. What the hell? Going to drink some tea and try to get some zzzz's before I go back to the doctor's to have the IV removed and the pump turned in. Every cycle of this new treatment involves getting juiced for another 48 hours by a mobile pump following the 6 hour stretch on a given chemo Monday.

My stomach starts to get a bit unsettled during this time, and I'm wiped.

While waiting for my tea to steep I checked out some stills of the rover on Mars. It looks amazing. I think I might have to watch the original Total Recall today. You're in a Johnny Cab!

That reminds me: I was chatting it up with another dad at a nearby park a month or so ago. It was in the morning, and I'd ridden out with my two boys. Me and this other dad got talking about movies, and it turns out that he'd been at Pixar for the past 10 years. I gushed about my favs, and he mentioned we should all expect to see a Toy Story 4 in the coming years. We also talked about the Total Recall remake because I'd mentioned my fondness for Andrew Stanton (Finding Nemo, Wall-e) films, and I hadn't yet seen his direction in John Carter (based on Borroughs' source material, A Princess of Mars), for which Michael Chabon had penned the screenplay. I'd lamented the fact that the remake with Colin Ferrell takes place solely on Earth, which is actually more in line with the original Philip K Dick source material, We Can Remember it for You Wholesale. The other dad said not to expect many films in the next 5 or so years that take place on or involving scenes on Mars because the John Carter film spoiled the milk, so to speak, for Hollywood. Seriously? I eventually saw the flick, and thought it was entertaining. Mars is tight! Remember when Hollywood put out two near back to back Mars flicks in 2000: Red Planet and Mission to Mars? Fickle flicks.

Anyway. I'm still up. Finished my tea. Stomach feeling a little better. No hiccups. Will see if sleep will visit me again.

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That's so punk rock

After spending 6 hours in treatment with my amazing wife, mom, and sister-in-law who are hands-down the most amazing support team slash patient advocates, I then spent some time decompressing after chemo over at my in-laws, who are undoubtedly the best in-laws in the universe, while some equally awesome neighbors watched our oldest, and was profoundly affected and felt extremely humbled and appreciative for all the love and support. If the world had more people like you, it'd be a better place for everyone. Thanks guys.

Not feeling super good now, but that means Toomie feels worse, so that's good. Watching The School of Rock. Haven't seen it? Total Jack Black Tenacious D-channeled performance meets Goonies meets Revenge of the Nerds feel good movie.

The history and theory scenes of the movie are choice and remind me of several other songs that really pump my nads:

Fugazi, Waiting Room

David Bowie, Space Oddity

Pink Floyd, Fearless

The Flaming Lips, Do You Realize?

Deltron, Virus

M.I.A., Paper Planes

The Raconteurs, Level

The Who, A Quick One While He's Away

Mos Def, Auditorium

I recommend listening to all for the strongest, best effect: loudly if possible. If youre feeling ambitious, look up some Girl Talk for some incredible unrelated mashup material.

 

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Round 2!!

Starting round 2 of the tumor poison as I type. Gio and I squeezed in a bike ride early in the morning and it was lovely. We rode through a mountain in a tiny little tunnel. Gio found this really odd sign.

Then we came home, got a bite to eat, took my oldest to his first day of baseball camp, came back home had a shake (kale, watermelon, blueberries, almond milk, kefir, fish oil, flax seed, coconut oil, pineapple) my wife made me, and cruised over with my mom to get some cancer killing action started.

After coming into the oncology center my SIL came through with some paperwork that indicated my cancer markers went down by 45 points (approx 30% decrease) from when I first started chemo. That's good news.

Being a gamer, and someone who works in the business/audience intelligence space, I'm liking the numbers. It's as if I am able to cast +30% Chance to Slay Cancer Critical Strike. Here's hoping that my round of cocktails today wreak havoc on that little fucker inside of me.

Just wanted to let you know Toomie, it's never felt so good to hate anything as much as you. I'm sending lots of destructive thoughts your way, and visualizing that the poison coursing through my veins reaches you and traumatizes you in ways that are unforgiving and merciless, so that you have no choice but to shrink into Oblivion. Happy trails!

Birthday Bash and Benicia

The birthday dinner was a blast. We went to The Fig Tree and most folks went nuts and ordered from the impressive burger menu. It was quite tasty. The Patty Melt with grassfed beef was a big hit. There was also a wonderfully contrived dessert maneuver involving, yes, Scandishakes.

Folks chipped in and granted me the gift of a new iPad. It's hawt sexy. I already used it to take a flattering picture of myself.

The day after I went and caught up with some friends now working at Twitter. I didn't take any pics because last time I was there at their old location there were some strict rules about it, and I didn't want to have my account quietly terminated/suspended. The new location on Market is sweet. The "cafe" took up a hangar sized floor, which also boasted a gorgeous and sizable patio. It was a lovely day in SF, so after lunch we went outside to wait for another buddy. We managed the entire coordination through Twitter. Unfortunately, this blog app seems to have something odd going on with assigning a link to the text I want to hyperlink, so here's the unsexy raw URL: https://twitter.com/jromi/status/234006906430189570

Today the Four Horsemen (me and my three bros) went on a bike ride from scenic Martinez to bayside Benicia. It was a chilly and uphill start. Gio was on hand to provide germane and timely Olympic commentary. I participated.

We stopped at First Street Cafe in Bencia and had breakfast. I had the crab and artichoke heart open faced sandwich, and promptly gained 3 pounds.

Later we cruised downtown and checked out the water front. Gio snapped a picture of the four of us.

Good times.

Oh yeah. One thing on the whole cancer item: I had a meeting with my oncologist and she indicated that my case was recently discussed on the cancer board, where doctors from various hospitals come together to discuss cases and debate options, and the majority felt that my best chance at beating this was to get on a FOLFIRINOX regiment. Boom. Take that you stupid tumor. I am blasting you ten-fold with the most aggressive chemo possible. Enjoy the poison.

 

Day 38, I Might Need to Drop the Whole "Day #" Thing

This week has been pretty chill, for the most part. I won't go into gory details, because there aren't any, but it's all mostly been upset stomach action and such. My port is no longer bandaged up, and has healed nicely. It just looks like there's a button there, and I have to slap people's hands away from it when they try to push it. "Can't help it, I'm a born button-pusher!" they tell me. I hate it when people try to push my buttons.

Ahem.

So the running gag in my house and between my BIL, Gio, is that everything I'm doing or eating should involve a Scandishake. If you're anything like me pre-June 2012 slash pre-totally unaware that a stupid mass of evil tissue was skulking about in an organ that seems to never get much attention, then you've never heard of Scandishakes. They're designed to be sources of high caloric intake for individuals who need to keep weight on. This means people who likely have some medical condition that would require such a diet modification. Fortunately, I am not one such person, but there are a bunch in my house because some near and dear family thought they'd be good to have on hand.

I was drinking them early on, until I started seeing my oncology nutritionist who was all like "whoa, J, you TOTALLY don't need to be drinking those because you can eat all this other awesome food that will TOTALLY fuck up your tumor and aid in keeping your blood kosher during chemo - not to mention you're not having any issues with losing weight, and those Scandishakes require too much dairy for you, and we're going to minimize the amount of potentially inflammatory substances (like dairy)."

Meanwhile Gio, with whom I usually go on bike rides, is constantly dropping completely non-subtle Scandishakes remarks even when there's not an iota of shake-related content related to the context of the situation. Examples:

1. [we're about to go on a bike ride and I'm filling up my Camelback] Hey J, you want me to fill that up with Scandishake for you?
2. [talking about dinner] Hey J, I made you a Scandishake n' Bake breast of chicken. You wanna straw for that?
3. [calling up to coordinate details on taking the kids to park] Don't worry J, I packed them all a Scandishake. They'll all have Type I Diabetes when they get home. Promise.

You get the idea. Anyway, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them. I have quite a few. Maybe I'll mix them with water and substitute them for the milk in a pound cake recipe. Maybe I'll keep them around for when the apes take over and Smithers and Mr. Burns are headjar cybernetics (queue 19:56).

Also, I'm turning 38 tomorrow. It's my 38 Special Day. Please do not mail me a revolver. I'm totally capable of purchasing firearms. Here's a notable historical fact about my birthday: Nixon resigned.

Unrelated, here are a couple awesome pictures from the recent trip to Tahoe.

When I got back from Tahoe, I started to feel a bit better, as I was pretty wrecked up there. I think it was the elevation. When back closer to sea level, I seemed to normalize a bit, and went on a bike ride with Gio. We passed a lake, and saw some awesome signs that should have read "Caution: Hot Lava! Entering Will Cause You to Raise Your Hands in the Air and Scream", which is how we re-enacted them, of course.

Day 34, I Have Become Brundle-Fly

It's been a rough few days, and hanging in there. We went to Tahoe on a trip with some other families with whom we'd gone to university. We'd planned on going well before the cancer, and kept the plans because "fuck you, cancer", that's why.

The chemo is gnarly. The biggest issue is an upset stomach now, and am managing it with family and friends.

We're wrapping up the Tahoe trip, and I'm getting a moment outside. It sounds and looks like a storm is blowing in.

I'm so used to being in Tahoe for snow season and boarding, but it's summer storms right now.

As for Brundlefly, the reference from Cronenberg's "The Fly", I was watching some TV this afternoon and rubbed my beard hair, and pulled some out, and that's the first thing that came into mind when I looked at those surprised hairs on my fingers: you're relics.