Cancer Can Bite Me » Quick Hit

Echoes

PaduanBenedick — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:57:22 +0000

Good afternoon, dear reader. During my lunch hour today, I started working on a new post full of updates on how my condition has changed over the past few months. Not surprisingly, it’s turned into quite the lengthy little novella. I’ll have it posted by the end of the week.

However, I didn’t want to let the day pass without posting anything. There is a quote that I heard somewhere that strikes me. I find in it that kernel of truth about life-altering experiences like cancer. So, the thought of the day, courtesy of Spanish poet Ramón de Campoamor -

There is no cry of pain without, at its end, an echo of joy.

Beautiful, isn’t it?

Until next time, be good to each other. Namaste.

Poetry Monday

PaduanBenedick — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 20:35:17 +0000

Good afternoon, dear reader. After a very unintentional four-and-a-half month hiatus, I’m back with a little ditty just to let you know that I’m still around. I promise to catch you up on the happenings of late, but the short version of the story is that I’m alive and well and looking forward to reconstructive surgery in the next couple of months. More to come, but for now, please enjoy the following poem (written on or around 27 October 2009).

Hollow

Finding hollowness where once substance was held
I deny the metaphors and the dry humor
Of the practitioners of fiction who wield
Their empty wands of care and superstition
For if I but choose to renege upon my own convictions
Their construct of cards
Jokers all
Will collapse upon its own encumbrance
And nothing shall remain but my pain
Yet in that moment of clarity
What can emerge but a new superstition
A new metaphor
A unique caltrop
Is this moment more than I see
Or am I as delusional as those who seek to find me
Lost as I am in my own world and mind and faith and
Rotting flesh
The stench of which is apparently offensive only to me
And more so than the rank hypocrisy of the purveyors
Of snake oil and charms
Wordlessly I speak I cry out I call I swear
An oath of vengence that falls upon the ears
Dead and deaf
Of my birthright and my gift
Stripped of all efficacy
I must choose either to face the world
Powerless
Or fade away into that very nothingness
Signified by my own sound and fury
And I find that I relish not these so called choices
Finding each of them a lie
Spoken by a mute fool
To an ass
Back broken
By his time at the yoke

Quick Hit: The Reason I Hate People Today

PaduanBenedick — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 04:45:24 +0000

Good evening, dear reader. I don’t feel like writing much this evening, so this will be brief, but there is a story that I had to keep off my chest. My final phone call at work this afternoon (not because it was the last time my phone rang, but rather because I refused to answer it after this call) was with a student who needed some assistance. At the beginning of the call, I asked if she had contacted Student Technical Support; she said that she had been on hold for longer than she liked and wanted immediate assistance. Technically, I should have referred her to someone else, but I like to help when I can.

To make a long story short, I made sure to speak slowly and clearly – I’ve gotten much better over the phone over the past couple of weeks – yet I was still having to repeat myself several times to be understood. I would choose different words so that I would not encounter phonemes that I am still unable to generate. The conversation ended when she said, “Y’all really should have somebody people can understand on the phone, don’t ya think?” Yes, you read that correctly. Yes, that is a direct quote.

As you might imagine, it is difficult to relate the barrage of hateful thoughts that scorched my brain as she posed that lovely question. If I began to string together insults, I don’t think I would ever finish. So I shan’t start. I’ll just go to bed.

Suffice it to say, she is the winner of the Why-I-Hate-People-Today competition. Good for her.

Until next time, dear reader, take care of each other. And refrain from being an ass-clown to those you encounter who are disabled. Thanks.

Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is, there’s the superhero and there’s the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he’s Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn’t become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he’s Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red “S”, that’s the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that’s the costume. That’s the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent. He’s weak… he’s unsure of himself… he’s a coward. Clark Kent is Superman’s critique on the whole human race. - Bill, Kill Bill Vol. 2

Quick Hit: An Important Anniversary

PaduanBenedick — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:56:56 +0000

This is a very busy work week, plus I’ve started teaching a class this semester, plus this is the frst week of rehearsals for The Diary of Anne Frank, which I am directing at a local theatre; all of this to say that I may not be around much until next week.

In the interim, however, I could not let pass without note th 70th anniversary of the commencement of World War II, which began 1 September 1939. For this occasion, it seems à propos to recall the poem “September 1, 1939″ by W. H. Auden. I would gladly contend that it is one of the most finely honed political poems ever written in the English language, at least on par with the slightly more well-known “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen¹.

And so, for your reading pleasure on this day, “September 1, 1939″ by W. H. Auden:

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

___________________________

1 – For those of you who are curious, Owen’s poem was written just a few years earlier in 1917 in reaction to World War I; it was published in 1920 after the poet’s death. The title (and subsequent Latin phrase) from the poem – Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori – are taken from a much earlier poem by the Roman poet Horace. The translation is “It is good and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Quick Hit: My Morning Meal

PaduanBenedick — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:37:01 +0000

Good morning, dear reader. It’s been a very busy week, but I assure you I’m still alive and writing. I’ve been working on an essay about fear that should be ready by this weekend. In the meantime, I thought I’d give you a little peek into how my mornings have changed over the past month or so.

My morning routine is not what is was when I first came home from the hospital. At that time, I had more time in the morning, more flexibility, and I could take time to “eat” as part of a regimen. Now, however, I’m back to the same choice that most people face – eat at home or sleep more – and like many people, sleep wins. That extra half hour is golden.

When do I have breakfast? In the office, just before 8 am. When I get to work, I set up a gravity bag with two cans of vanilla syrup, about 6 oz. of hot coffee (for the vitamins), and the inner contents of two iron supplement softgels (removed by cutting into the pill with an Exacto knife and squeezing the contents into the coffee to dissolve). Over the next half hour, I’m able to inject the concoction while catching up on my morning email. It has become part of my routine.

Which is scary. You see, I don’t know how long I’ll be like this. How much longer I’ll have the tube for feedings. My hope is that it will be – at most – six more months. By then, I hope to have regained enough skill with my new teeth and fake tongue to be back to solid food. But what’s odd is that most of the time I don’t consciously miss breakfast anymore – until someone brings something in that smells of sausage and cholesterol, and then I start to drool uncontrollably.

I’m just afraid that I’ll accept living like this. It’s important for me to remember to fight against that acceptance every day.

Until next time, dear friends, take care of each other.

You must act as if it is impossible to fail. – Ashanti proverb

Quick Hit: Dammit

PaduanBenedick — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 17:41:15 +0000

Good afternoon, dear reader.

Dammit.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

Just got off the phone with the distributor of my baby food liquid terror sustenance. It only comes in vanilla.

Dammit.

That is all.

Quick Hit: When Good Tastes Go Bad

PaduanBenedick — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:09:21 +0000

Good morning, dear reader. I have an odd little story from this morning that I thought I would share. When I woke this morning, I found that my voice was in sorry condition. Very scratchy, very quiet, and rather painful to use. So I haven’t been taking much at work; I’ve been making my computer talk for me.

Anyway, I thought I would try some hot coffee to see if that didn’t loosen everything up and make it easier to speak. Now, first of all, you have to understand that the coffee in my office is inexpensive. And, as with most things but especially with coffee, you get that for which you pay. So, I have never really been impressed by the flavor of our coffee. It’s one of those of the “boiled boot leather plus balsamic vinegar with a hint of gym sock” variety; and it is just a hint of gym sock, the flavor has never been particularly strong.

Cut to today. Ordinary pot of office coffee. The color and aroma indicate that it is just what one would expect. And then I took the first sip.

It is hard to describe the sensations that rolled across my palate at that moment. Similarly difficult to describe is the wave of revulsion that rolled through my stomach. What was that taste? There was a bit of overcooked shrimp, basted in butter, and strongly oversalted. There was the hint of something green – not sure what, perhaps oregano?

Suddenly I found that I was not satisfied with my ability to describe the truly vile nature of the substance I held in my hand. So I took another sip.

Yep, that was dumb.

Definitely shrimp. Very overcooked shrimp. Toxic levels of salt. Not oregano; the compost pile that was in my family’s backyard when I was in high school.

Blech.

I’ve been told that tastes will return to normal in three months. Let the countdown begin.

Quick Hit: When I Return

PaduanBenedick — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:50:00 +0000

Good morning, dear reader. This brief update was actually written last night; I was simply not able to post it until this morning. If you’re curious about the writing process, I can tell you this – writing something as though it were written in the future when your current present is the past can be a bit of a challenge.

I wanted to let everyone know that I am not disappearing again. Monday was a bit of a slow news day, so I took the day off and didn’t write anything. Unfortunately, the home internet service crapped out on Tuesday, was briefly restored on yesterday, but then crapped out again – so I haven’t been able to post anything. There were definitely some items of interest over the past two days, including, but not limited to, the following:

I have started coughing up blood;
I am freeing an ever-growing army of mucus monkeys;
I again chafe at the unfair disposition of policies by the bureaucracy (which was recently expanded to support the needs of the expanded bureaucracy);
I take serious notice of the fact that radiation burns suck; and,
I celebrate my final week of radiation treatments (yes, the last treatment is scheduled for tomorrow morning).

I will spend another hour on the phone with Comcast this evening to see if I can perform the appropriate stupid human tricks to restore domestic access to the Interwebz. Hopefully, a full-fledged update will be posted tonight. If not, I shall pen it tonight and post it as soon as possible.

Until next time, dear friends, take care of each other.

It’s only a flesh wound.

Quick Hit: Anecdote of the Day

PaduanBenedick — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 15:43:23 +0000

Good morning, dear reader. This morning I found out what kind of computer runs the system for my radiation treatments. I’d never really paid attention to it before, but it turns out that it is a Windows machine. How do I know this? Let me explain.

As I was meditating upon the various joys of being bolted to cold pieces of furniture, I heard a familiar voice from around the corner and through the door. One of the radiation technicians posed the following question to her colleague, “Uh-oh, what is this? I’ve never seen this before.”

There was a short pause, then came his response. “That is called the Blue Screen of Death. Go tell him it will be a few minutes longer since we have to reboot the computer.”

She entered the treatment room and delivered the message. I don’t think I was supposed to have heard the earlier conversation.

So, an extra fifteen minutes on the slab today as they figured out what annoyed their system. Then treatment concluded as normal.

I left without giving in to the temptation of asking which version of Windows they’re running. They would have said 98, and I would have cried.

Let me be clear – I don’t trust my recipes to Windows machines.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Quick Hit: Zombie Apocalypse

PaduanBenedick — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:55:57 +0000

Something unsettling has occurred to me. If I do not learn the location of the factory where my liquid nutrition is manufactured, my odds of surviving the zombie apocalypse decrease dramatically. I can deal with the need to scavenge for clothes, ammunition, and contact lens solution (screw it, I’ll wear my glasses; they’re dead sexy), but trying to scrounge up sustenance with a sufficient number of calories and amount of protein that can be safely injected through a stomach tube could be difficult.

The obvious answer is that I “refine” my usage numbers of the stuff sent to me so that the insurance company fills the order more often. Stockpiling is good, I suppose. But that might take too long. Plus, I’m not sure how long the zombie apocalypse will last. Will it be a Night of the Living Dead or a 28 Days Later kind of thing? And I’m going to need teeth eventually, anyway.

Ok, that’s it. The zombie apocalypse is simply not allowed to occur until I have teeth again. So let’s put that on the schedule for a date no earlier than Halloween. That work for everyone else? Good.