Monday, December 7, 2009

It's okay

Left the doc's office a few hours ago. I already told a few loved ones that the new scan showed no growth. Not quite true. The increase in size is measured in an approximate number of millimeters. It works out to a curent rate of growth that will take over 5 years for any of the nodules in my lungs to double in size. The doc is going to pick 10 of the nodules and graph their changes in size from first CT scan last January through each of the 5 scans since then. I go back to see that graphing on Jan 11.

Jacki and I left his office, both I think in an absorbing mode. She went to work. I ran a couple errands and came home intending to get a few things done and go to a 6pm meeting. Instead, I have holed up in my cave feeling numb and unsocial with my phone ringer shut off. Have not talked with anyone for over 6 hours which is a near record for me. My emotions are in a slow eddy, swirling but I think going down no more.

I have tried to find others with my particular brand of cancer, "Metasticized Papillary Renal Carcinoma" for those who are technical. Wikipedia says there are about 2,500,000 new cancer diagnosis a year in the USA. Of those, 50,000 are new kidney cancer diagnosis. That is about 2% of all cancers. The doc says there are only 3000 or so new cases a year of my little specialty form of kidney cancer. I would really like to find even just one of those 3000 new patients.
Bill

My Creator

My Creator,
It is Monday morning and in a few minutes Jacki and I leave for the doc's office. I ask that you please go with us; I'll hold the door for you.
Bill

Saturday, December 5, 2009

CT scan blues

I like listening to the blues. If I listen, that seems to take care of having to feel them so much. Sometimes I get blue before the blues deserving event even happens, like today. My CT scan was Tuesday, my doc appt to see results is Monday when Jacki can be there too. So, as before each of my preceding CT scans, I get the CT scan blues in between the scan and the doc. The fear kicks up, the sad kicks in and I get diverted from enjoying a good day.

My back felt a little painfully tense waking up this morning. My head went instantly to, "Must be the tumor, tripled in size since last scan!" If a small cough or little wheeze comes out, then my head jumps into the lungs filling up with nodules conclusion. The frequency of such magnificent magnifying thinking spikes upward every six weeks when a few days separates CT scan and the doc.

On the other hand, I notice that since initial picture last January of my kidney tumor and lung nodules, ZERO growth has occurred in either. NONE! Including the 3 months before starting the everyday chemo pill, no growth at all in my cancer. So, maybe there is just no reason for the CT scan blues other than listening might prevent. So, here are the words to the first verse:

I got the cat scan blues.
Oh yess, I got the cat scan blues.
But as long as I hear them,
All I get is good news.
(harmonica break)

Sing it! I know you can hear it too. So, in a couple days I will let you in on the details of good news Monday.
Bill

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

What's it mean . . .

. . . to be a man?

Where did they come from, the rules defining what is a man? Maybe some men do not grow up learning the same rules, but I did and I see the results of those rules in so many men around me.

Writing this blog over the past, wow, almost a year, has often been difficult. How much can I reveal here? How can I express what is really going on instead of lounging in much more comfortable intellect? Is it now okay for me to be scared? No, not in my life nor in my own head nor within the "rules" of being a man. Only in recent years have I noticed another view of scared, "courage is being afraid and walking through it anyway". Still, expressing scared is a very awkward and uncommon act for me. As a boy and to some extent now, ridicule is the expected response. The "rule" for me seems summed up as, "A real man ain't scared of nothin'"

So what about sad? Much as my Dad received, at age 7 I received a backhand and admonishment that, "Boys don't cry!" I saw other boys ridiculed for crying when injured. "Men can stand pain!" So I didn't cry. Exceptions? Once at 16 when Grandma died. Blubbering drunk sobbing at my 1st divorce. Okay, so maybe a few tears rolled every 9 years, otherwise they were stuffed down inside as I tried to feel nothing. Drugs helped numb. I cried not one whit at my own father's funeral, instead plotting how to get in the restroom by myself to get numb.

Mad was not okay in my home growing up. The man of the house can get mad and show it in what I now know is rage. Throw, hit, belittle, cut with verbal blades. I hear today that anger is a natural human response to pain, but growing up I learned from those older than me to go from pain or fear into rage in a split second. But, only the top dog gets to do that. That's the rule, passed down from one generation to the next. Control your woman with fear and hitting. Tie thumbs together, hang over a door to hold the boy still for application of a board to the back. A few generations back, that was okay, but each ensuing generation of men in my tree was a little bit less violent. We all knew at some level it was wrong, but knew no other way to avoid showing some, according to the rules, sissy emotion. Coming down the tree to me, it was 1978, I remember it well when I used a backhand on 3 occasions, lashing out at my first wife. That is what I learned to do with mad - part of the rule book for being a man. I have never hit again, but I did use a lot of drugs as a plug on scared, sad, and anger.

Talking about any of what I am attempting to write herein, was just simply not done. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors, but the same goings on were apparently going on behind many doors. Stuff mad, sad, scared, intil the dam bursts in a fit of rage. Or the burst floods a pit of despair or depression. Our all too low self esteem is pounded into us by each other from what, age 4 or 5.

The rules:
1. Do not show fear.
2. Do not show sad.
3. Do not begin to be mad because that might lead to rage.
4. Do not speak well of yourself because that is conceit.
5. Do not speak well of another guy lest he get a "big head".
6. Discount any compliment.
7. Compare yourself to others, measuring less than or better than.
8. Judge yourself harshly but build yourself up by belittling others.

The rules seem to go on and on. I could add to the list and so could you. But I want to know, WHO WROTE THE RULES? How long have we been ruled as men by standards of perfection that can only result in failure. Every good job seems followed by a but . . .

Maybe that's just me. Maybe it's not just men.

Even with cancer, I have thoughts that I SHOULD be more spiritual, or eat better, or exercise more, or on and on and on . . . My sponsor shares with me about not talking bad to myself. Turns out I have been hard on myself for about 52 years (since age 4 or 5). I ask my sponsees, "How's that workin' for ya?" I must ask myself that same question everyday to help me steer into thinking and talking well about you and about me. I like experiencing me more concerned with being kind than with being right. I like to acting like I love instead of just saying it. I would like to ask myself, "Is what I am about to do going to divide us apart or bring us together?" I relish my progress away from being emotionally stunted toward showing what I feel. Cry when I am sad. At least say it to myself when I am in fear. I like becoming able to recognise and express anger directly but without malice. I like accepting that I progress and grow and learn and love, and arrive where I really have always been . . . hu-man. You too!
Bill