Merry Christmas, Good News about Jerry, and Book in Progress

It's 10am on Christmas Eve in Atlanta, and we are having unseasonably warm and stormy weather.  It's going to be mid-70s today with a tornado warning in effect, be in the high 70s for Christmas, and stay in the 70s for several days after. 

Many of you know about Terry's hand-painted annual holiday cards, but for those who don't, I scanned and inserted this year's card--a great multi-media image of Good Vibes with a bit of snow on it and under the rare Christmas full "Cold Moon" we'd be seeing, if it weren't 100% clouded over.  This won't happen again until 2034--I'm planning on being alive for it at 82, but might need some help finding it in the night sky, and remembering it the next day.

The idea behind the card is to celebrate our second best kind of Cancer Revenge ever--a place we can get away to and share with family and friends for years to come.  The best revenge of all, obviously, is surviving the Prairie Dogs for 7 years--all with such great support from Team Mike.

Team Mike came through again this week.  We learned yesterday that our friend Jerry had his surgery on Monday and is resting in the hospital.  We were told that the doctors think the surgery was so successful that he won't need chemo or radiation as followups.  Personally, I'm hoping he's back on his feet and working soon--I need a haircut.

However you say it, and however you celebrate it, please accept my thanks for helping me to see another Holiday Season as a cancer survivor.  FYI, I am going to write a book in 2016 about my journey through Cancer World, and I want Team Mike to be a big part of our story.  So, be on the lookout for requests to think back about how you contributed to the team effort along the way, so I can give you the credit you deserve--well, everyone except Nurse Kimmie, who will get her just reward.

Mike

Need Good Vibes for Jerry

Jerry L. cuts my hair, and Terry's, in his small shop in an ATL neighborhood.  On Monday, he told Terry that his recent colonoscopy revealed some areas of concern and that he was going to see a surgeon soon to hear his treatment options.  I spoke with Jerry yesterday to make an appointment for early next week, and to hear more about his diagnosis and treatment plan.  Things have developed faster, and he's now not taking any appointments for the foreseeable future.  We don't know any details, but we are alarmed.

Jerry and his co-worker, Tara, have been wonderful to me since my own treatments started, offering to come to our house or the hospital to cut my hair.

Please send your best Good Vibes to Jerry.  He is truly one of those few really "nice guys" you come across in life, so we want to give him any and all support we can muster from Team Mike.

I'll post more as we learn more--hopefully soon.

Mike

Time to Start Rebuilding this Brokedown Palace

Picking up where the last entry ended, there is a song written by Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia that has haunted me many times during my stay in Cancer World.  It's called "Brokedown Palace" and like many Hunter/Garcia songs, it can have many interpretations.  My own is that it's a story being told by someone whose body has given out (thus the brokedown palace) and they are preparing for the inevitability of death:

Goin' to leave this brokedown palace
On my hands and my knees I will roll, roll, roll

Going home, going home
by the waterside I will rest my bones

After my surgeries last year and this year, I would quietly get very emotional when I heard this song, and often had to turn it off.  While I never thought that my death was close, the song did remind me that my body has been damaged in so many ways from seven years of cumulative side effects from chemo and radiation, and surgeries.  It is a truly brokedown palace in many ways:

--my left leg  is about 90% functional which causes me to wobble sometimes
--my left arm has a large scar from the 2015 surgery and is about 80% functional
--my left hand has restricted range of motion and reduced grip strength
--I can't raise my left arm laterally above that shoulder
--my left and right shoulders are not in balance
--my neck area has large areas of fibrosis and loss of sensation
--I have only five bottom teeth, all on the right side
--I have hair growing in my mouth, from the patch of arm skin grafted there this June
--I have a noticeable speech impediment, especially as the day goes on and I get fatigued
--I've had both cataracts replaced
--my lower face is disfigured

I'm sure there's more, but you get the picture.

But, the point here is not to feel sorry for myself, or to seek pity.  As my oldest brother Jim once told me "Any day you can get out of bed with both feet hitting the floor at about the same time, is a good day."  I can do that, and with the second dreaded PEG tube in the past, and regaining enough function to start exercising again, I can begin to rebuild this brokedown palace.  I know it will take a long time, and it will be a difficult road after seven years of physical setbacks and creeping age, but it's time to start.

But, there is another motive at work here.  One of the realities of life in Cancer World is that every major episode--be it damage from treatments, recovering from surgery, or (God forbid) a recurrence--takes an extreme toll on one's body and psyche.  Some people fight very hard mentally, but the accumulated effects on their body can sometimes not be reversed, and they just give out physically.  While I want to get stronger and healthier to feel better for its own benefits, I also want my body to be as ready as it can for the possibility that those persistent Prairie Dogs might show their ugly heads again.  If they were to surface again right now, I have serious doubts about my ability to fight them off.  I need to get rid of those doubts.

When all of this started--almost 7 years ago exactly now--I defiantly called my blog "Mike Metzler Beats Cancer" for good reason.  I was full of enough piss and vinegar to will my body through the coming ordeals, and I was determined to beat the Prairie Dogs into submission.  After these seven years, I know that I have not beaten cancer--it has changed my life and Terry's life in profound ways that will never end.  But, I have survived cancer for seven years and counting, and looking back--that was the more realistic goal to have

So, the best way to keep surviving and to be ready if the Prairie Dogs come at me again, is to rebuild this brokedown palace into a stronger, resilient structure.

mike

Tubeless (and Painless)

The only thing I was thinking about more than having the PEG tube out of my body was the sharp pain I had when the first one was taken out in 2009.  That one really smarted, and even more because I was not ready for it to sting so much.

So, this time I thought I'd ask for a local pain med (too early in the day for full-on opioids) and was getting ready to do that when the nurse said "All done."  Huh?

Turns out this was different type of tube, and once she deflated the little balloon holding it in place, it pulled right out--barely even a tug needed.  As Terry said, had we known that we could have taken it out at home ourselves--probably why they didn't tell us in the first place.

So, I'm feeling good knowing that I don't have to manage that intruding tube any more, and worry about accidentally tugging on it as I get dressed and undressed each time, or look at it dangling out of my tummy in the mirror every morning.  Believe me, there will be no post-partem blues with this!

A couple hours after getting back to my office I got an email from Terry, saying that I have an appointment with a doctor on Friday to start the consultations about dental work.  That will probably be a long and sometimes painful process, but it does mark progress and will get me closer to knowing what my long-term eating abilities will be.  I am resigned that my choices will be  limited from here on out, but anxious to know just what my options will be and to figure out how to stay at a safe and healthy weight going forward.

Today was a good day.  I'll savor that until the next round of work on my Brokedown Palace starts.

Mike