In this corner, we have Cisplatin, a quiet, light-on-its-feet option that is deceptively powerful. The pros:
- Worked wizz-bang to take down a big fat bellyrat not once but twice (aaaaaahhhhh... and the crowd goes wild)
- Most side effects minimal; a little joint pain, a little hair pulling, nothing you wouldn't expect in a match like this
- I last engaged Cisplatin to work its quiet magic 11 months ago; does it have the wherewithal to thwap again with the same intensity and smooth efficiency, or has the sly, shape-shifting Chimera that is the tumor become inured to Cisplatin's many charms?
- It's a nerve-beater; my tingly little fingers and toes are already numb... can they withstand more punishment?
- I'm checking with my friend Amy on this (who somehow, over the years, has committed to memory every surgery, treatment, dosage, and side effect I've ever endured... and in the right order) but I don't think I've mixed it up with Carboplatin since I was first diagnosed in 1997. That bodes well for effectiveness.
- I'm sure there's another plus to this heavyweight, but I can't think of it at the moment.
- Oy, with the side effects. This thing attacks the cancer and, for good measure, rips out every white cell and platelet in my tired little bloodstream. Exhaustion. Loss of appetite. Not to mention baldy-bald-bald-bald.
- I don't want to be a conspicuous cancer patient, i.e. skinny, bald. I've done that too many times to count. I always gain weight; the hair always grows back. I always hate it.
- I just spent A's college tuition on my hair.
- Did I mention I don't want to lose my hair?
- Also, more importantly, the low blood count thing means hypersensitivity/proclivity to infection. "Stay away from people with colds," the guidelines say. I'm a graduate student with a kindergartner at home. All I can do is laugh at that advice and cross my fingers that I'll be able to finish the semester, keep up with A, and die of something other than cancer or a head cold many, many years from now.
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3 comments:
Hello E. I'm an old friend (and fan) of yours from many years ago. I found this post informative, unflinching and moving, which is what I always thought writing was supposed to be. This is a subject you know about. Only too well. There are others out there who know about the inanity of early education or the daily vacillations of our putrid human politics. And some even write about them in an amusing way, perhaps. But you know about something profound: surviving a war with and within your own body. There are many tens of thousands of people out there facing, for the first time, what you have faced countless times. You can guide, inform and inspire them. You can make something tremendously positive out of the infuriating cosmic injustice that was hurtled upon you.
Once upon a time I thought I could write, but after a while I realized I did not really have all that much to say. Or, more specifically, there was no objective reason why anybody should be interested in what I had to say (unless I became way way more entertaining, which would have just made it a job). You however, have something to say, and there are people, many people, who would be interested.
Me again. Speaking of Cisplatin: http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20080915/hl_hsn/geneboostsresistancetochemodrug;_ylt=AuVwT66vMXUbNRkWyqFZBvi3j7AB
Apparently some people have a genetic resistance.
The more we learn about genetics the more we learn about cancer. But for a written work to be captivating we can't know too much in advance, right? A quandry. Can one write one's way out of one's genes?
D, is that you?
Thanks for stopping by. Yeah, I have a lot to say about a lot of things, obviously. The reason they're all tangled up together in one blog is that that's how my life is; there's kindergarten, and putrid politics, and poetry and the infuriating process of submitting work for publication (infuriating because I get nothin' but rejection slips) and speakin' of nothin' what's with Palin's aversion to pronouncin' the final g? She's dum. Then there's cancer. I'd love to claim it's just another aspect of my life, but it looms a bit larger than that (though it fluctuates in girth), and is every bit as menacing as the desperate political situation we find ourselves in. It informs my views profoundly in ways I really would rather it didn't -- and viscerally it bears down on me a sense of urgency in matters that seem mundane, inflating their importance and exploding my perspective. Hence the vulgar riff on kindergarten. But it's all of a piece, and I can't write about cancer exclusively any more than I can partition it from my poetry and fiction, though I wish I could. I've certainly tried.
Anyway, it's nice to see you here, and thank you for the good thoughts and the link. No, I don't think one can write one's way out of one's genes, but one can write. And I disagree with you: everyone who's lived for more than five minutes has something compelling to say.
xo
E.
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