I Spoke to Her Yesterday After Her Breasts Were Removed

I called my buddy to see how his wife was doing.  She had her breasts removed a couple days ago.

She didn't even have cancer in them.  Not yet, anyway.  But some kind of test, and looking at her family history, had the doctors tell her We suggest removal.

Karla and I said a healing prayer for her on Friday, the day of her surgery.  We toasted her good health with our Friday night martini.  And yesterday, Sunday, when I asked how she was doing, he said OK, then he put her on the phone.

I didn't expect to talk to her.  I wasn't ready.  I was, um, nervous.  I was wearing a sweatshirt and I began to sweat.  I'm only saying this now to get it out there because I'm a guy and I spoke to a woman who had just had her two breasts surgically removed 48 hours earlier--breasts that didn't even have anything wrong with them--yet.  We spoke and I paced back and forth but I swear it was great to hear her voice.

She told me how she told her kids.  And I can't imagine hearing such news from my mom as a thirteen year old boy.

She told me about the discomfort.  And as a guy I can't imagine that kind of discomfort in that part of the body.

But enough of this stuff.  I told you how I felt last night when I spoke to her and I know she's brave for what she went through.

El na rifa na la.  Thank you, lord, for healing x.

Last Week's NYT Was Abbey Road

Look at this picture:













Does it remind you of this one?













The top is from last Sunday's New York Times' cover story about M.D. Anderson Center in Houston and it's called "A Place Where Cancer is the Norm." The 2nd one is Abbey Road.

I thought of the Beatles with my cup of black coffee as I read about the hospital dedicated to all kinds of cancer. And today, the following Sunday, as I go through my ritual of throwing away the previous Sunday's NYT to replace it with today's, I think of Abbey Road again.

And I look up the song titles. And I see how they fit:

• "Something" (cancer)

• "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" (bang bang, MSH came down upon her head--radiation? surgery?)

• "(She's So Heavy)"

• "Here Comes the Sun" (this is the Kabbalah and Love part from the Hare Krishna guitar whiz who died from cancer. including brain.)

• "You Never Give Me Your Money" (the opposite of the truth when it comes to the health insurance companies and pharmaceutical industry, esp. when it comes to cancer)

• "Mean Mr. Mustard" (see above)

• "Golden Slumbers", "Carry that Weight", and "The End" (it's all too obvious, those three)

Ah, music. Music and cancer. Music and cancer and a photograph in the New York Times. Over coffee. On a Sunday morning. When I'm supposed to be resting.

You say you want a revolution? Too bad. That's the White Album.

Formerly The Year of Death, http://theyearofdeath.blogspot.com/

On the eve of The Day of the Dead, I've changed the name of The Year of Death.

It's Halloween.

And Karla keeps stealing the Milk Duds and the Skittles.

Trick or treat.

Tomorrow is El Día de los Muertos. It's shorter than The Year, but it keeps coming back.

Exercise Makes You Happy, Even if You're a Radiated Mouse

ScienceDaily (Oct. 19, 2009) — Exercise is a key factor in improving both memory and mood after whole-brain radiation treatments in rodents, according to data presented by Duke University scientists at the Society for Neuroscience meeting.

Now wouldn't you know it? Memory and mood can be helped by exercise. Even after radiation. Even in rodents.

So saith the neuroscientists; thus saith the lord.

"This is the first demonstration that exercise can prevent a decline in memory after whole-brain radiation treatment," said lead researcher and graduate student Sarah Wong-Goodrich of the Duke Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.

Exercise appears to actually protect against the loss of memory and the increase in depressive-like behaviors, Wong-Goodrich said.

"Once a patient gets a doctor's clearance, I think exercise is a good thing during whole-brain radiation," he [Researcher Lee W. Jones, Ph.D.] said. "I think telling patients to take it easy is the worst advice we can give, because we know they will become deconditioned physically, and this study shows exercise potentially could provide cognitive and psychological benefits."

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center.

We had to study mickey on a grant and we couldn't just survey human patients?

Yes, I think this was a mousy project and I hope too much money wasn't wasted on it. (There was an article in the New York Times this past summer saying projects had to be silly like this to win the lottery.)

How'd I remember that?

I tell you this: I was about to get on the elliptical. And I's gwanna get on it anyways. Cuz I wanna remember things like a rat.

Can You Really Be Friends With Your Neuro-Oncologist?

I don't think I can be friends with my neuro-oncologist. You think I'm being silly?

She's saved your life, you say? She's intelligent; she's pretty. Why can't she be your friend?

Because I don't think we could really be friends.

When we're together, in the same room, like we were today, just hours ago, I'm so focused on the images of my brain that shine behind her that I can't pay attention to the words she says.

I mean, I can only pay attention to my brain. All 16 images of them. This hole here, that hole there, the white, the black, the white, and so on.

If we ever bumped into each other at a Cubs game or a play, my words would stumble. And she'd think it was a seizure.

But it wouldn't be the kind she was used to reading about, no, it would be an outrotextbook kind but she wouldn't accept that as an excuse.

She called me a boring patient today, I think. Because I had a stable MRI. And that was the sweetest thing she ever said.

Yom Kippur, and Papa Smiled

For years this Jew worked on the Jewish holidays because he never even thought about belief.

And then came cancer. Again. And then he met the rabbi.

For the last two years, I think, I've done the go to the night time service then go to work the next day strategy. Uno steppo at el timo, I call it.

Then I got the call. The rabbi would like to honor you by having you carry the Torah around in the procession Monday morning, said the old woman's voice.

And I had to think about it. And now that I think about it, I wonder if it was a test. Was it by the rabbi? By Papa? By god?

And as I walked around, carrying the heavy, holy scrolls, I felt like I was the rock star I had never become. Everyone reached out to touch and kiss what I had in my arms on this most important day.

The temperature plummeted last night. The wind blew trashcan lids in the alleys. Our seven foot tall sunflowers were bent over and bouncing and no longer yellow and standing tall.

And all of us in the temple were begging for forgiveness and asking to get written in the book of life. For one more year at least. One more year of life and love.

When I listened to Rabbi Doug chant from that Torah that I had just carried around the temple for everyone to kiss, I saw my grandfather and grandmother, and my Uncle Mitch in the room as angels, and they danced next to the rabbi with 11,000 more.

When Karla and I made it home after a near-four hour service, we stopped at Whole Foods, and picked up gluten free cupcakes with thick white frosting. Once home, we gave each other toasts as if we were drinking martinis, and broke our fasts with sweet cupcakes and a kiss.

Cancer, Kabbalah, and the Cubs

Maybe that should be the new title of my memoir and this blogger. Perhaps The Year of Death is indeed, um, too Freddie Kruegeresque.

I think I remember why I gave it that title--the death of cancer, blah blah blah; radiation and chemo in dark winter, blah blah blah; perhaps the rebirth of my belief is kinda like the death of, well, enough already. You get the point.

By the way, that title is more appropriate for this year's Cubs' season.

Sorry, Sir Ron.

Close to the Edge 2009

Karla's friend brought two friends from Cinci to stay with us this weekend. They had tickets to see U2 at Soldier Field. Our football field. The first of two nights.

The world acted like a spaceship had landed in Chicago.











Next thing you know, the Edge said hello. Or potato. Or something like that with a couple of strings on an expensive guitar.

He saw Karla and said like an Irishman might say, I play guitar, right? Why not stop backstage after the show?

Little did she know that backstage meant meant Io. The moon. U2, in fact, was from Jupiter.










And all this happened, you see, while I was at temple. On a Saturday night. Near midnight. S'lichot, it's called--the post-Shabbat, pre-Rosh Hashanah holiday, identifying my sins, confessing them, then requesting forgiveness.

I'd never done this before. As a holiday, I mean.

But I did cuz this was like prep work to get written in the Book of Life. For another Year. Another Good Year.

And I'm glad I went. Papa's spirit smiled. And I learned something. Rabbi Doug said: The O.T. God is not like Jesus. He/she doesn't love everyone all the time. You have to keep praying. You have to keep knocking at the door. You have to keep ringing the bell. And then god has no choice. God's love is like gravity.

Look, I know none of this is making any sense right now. But that's where meditation comes in. And that's why I ought to do it every day. Focus on why. Focus on life. Focus on love.

Labor Day Poem for Cancer Patients

laborious |ləˈbôrēəs|
adjective
(esp. of a task, process, or journey) requiring considerable effort and time : years of laborious training | the work is very slow and laborious. See note at hard


So is learning to play a musical instrument,
to create art, to write. Does that make cancer art?
No, you idiot. Cancer is hell.
What about the pharmaceutical industry?
You've been watching too much TV. Or been online.
(You haven't been reading the newspaper, have you?)

Cancer is laborious. So is baking bread.
So is fixing cars. Paying the mechanic.
Taking a shit while constipated is laborious.

Jerry Lewis is still on TV raising money for MD.
And Ed McMahon is dead. With Johnny.

Some say love is labor. I say it is easi-
er than a 4-day workweek on a salary,
more difficult than chemo for love gets you through it.


Thesaurus
laborious
adjective
1 a laborious job arduous, hard, heavy, difficult, strenuous, grueling, punishing, exacting, tough, onerous, burdensome, back-breaking, labor-intensive, trying, challenging; tiring, fatiguing, exhausting, wearying, wearing, taxing, demanding, wearisome, tedious, boring, time-consuming; archaic toilsome

Yesterday's Colonoscopy--a poem, pictures included

yesterday a camera entered me
yes, i had a colonoscopy
cuz ever since chemotherapy

began so did its cousin:
constipation.
and with that came and went

blood on t.p.
o chemo, o chemotherapy
so i told my g.p.

(finally)
and this is what he said to me:
go downstairs and see

the gastro dude
and make sure that you doesn't be rude
cuz soon he's gonna stick somethin' some see as lewd:



he's gonna lube ya
but of course you'll
be on anesthesia

and i was
but i wasn't
asleep so i just

watched the live show on the tv
that was placed right in front of the dr. and me
and i want thee

to know
that the show
was worth going

to: it got 5 stars
my colon did, after that jar
of colon cleansing the night before

that all i can
compare is to damn,
i gotta run.

For Ted Kennedy and My Fellow BTB Friend

In first grade, my favorite book was Four Days. Lots of pictures of President Kennedy's assassination. Oswald's murder, too. And other stuff. I must've taken it out of the library 40 or 55 times.

Well we woke up to the radio news today that his youngest brother died. Youngest at 77. And you know why. BT. Or BC. Whatever you want to call it. I almost laughed when I read AP's paragraph that Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor in May 2008 and underwent surgery and a grueling regimen of radiation and chemotherapy. But that's because I almost cried this morning.

***

Two days ago Karla and I met a fellow BTB--brain tumor blogger--on a warm night downtown at Pritzker Pavilion. We had never seen each other before in person but we somehow figured things out. I pulled back my hair to show her my scar; she pulled back her scarf. We compared issues, problems, told each other she/he looked great, and laughed about things only cancer survivors and partners can understand.

Then she left, and Karla and I walked around an acoustic and geometric joy on what may have been the last warm Monday night before school begins again. Maybe that's the good news I should have typed first.

Take that back. Always end on a happy note.

Like Ted, we'll take care of these health care bullshit issues, one of which, I might add, is a cure for brain cancer.

Amen.

7 Step Recipe for Brain Tumor (& other cancer?) Patients

*Not sure of the proper order.
**I ain't a doc but a long-term patient. Who better to trust?
***I'll do my best to provide links to everything instead of spending forever describing details.

1. Eat a gluten free, healthy, vegie diet. Add kefir and turmeric. The first two help digestion and the last one is supposed to kill that cancer. You can shake it on tons of things and it's cheap as heck. It's also a great excuse to eat vegetarian southern Indian food (although not all food is gluten free, so be aware).

2. Get enough sleep. Especially if you work. Especially if you work full-time.

2a. Melatonin at bedtime. I take a lot and have for a while, but that's because of something Karla read many years ago. I suggest reading this link at emedtv.com that tells you a whole lot about the pros and cons.

3. Tongue sores or mouth sores? Ask your dentist for Chlorhexidine Gluconate Oral Rinse USP, o.12%. It's a mouthwash by prescription that may burn while swishing, but my dentist gave me some and it helped a lot. (And I still use it sometimes.)

3a. They're probably officially called canker sores. You can also just go crazy with baking soda and water. At the same time, make sure you're taking zinc as well as folic acid. Lots of the latter. This, I think, is the best way to deal with it.

4. Don't let #1 stop you from a whiskey or a gin martini or a glass or two of wine or a gluten free beer when you feel like having one. Life is too short. For some of us.

5. Say El Na Rifa Na La a lot. It's a Kabbalah phrase that means Thank you, Lord, for healing, and continuing to heal me always. If you don't want to say the word Lord, just thank something or someone for healing you. Believe you are being healed. For that's the only way you can be healed.

6. Enjoy your life as much as you can. Remember your five senses.

7. Love.

Dr. A Shot the Ear Wax

Dr. A took the metal blaster filled with water and hydrogen peroxide and he kept shooting it into my left ear. Was it sexy or was it silly? Was it messy? Was it useless?

I still heard nothing.

I had just read how radiation might cause eventual deafness in one ear and you know what? I came to realize that for weeks, that for months, that damn left ear had weaker hearing than the right. Was I making this up? Was brain tumor boy now hypochondriac?

I didn't hear you.

The solution was getting all over my t-shirt, my shoulder, down my stomach, and onto the floor, then my right ear recognized a sound: they had found something. But it was not enough. He kept shooting. And shooting. And he found something again. But I still heard nothing from my left ear. I was worried. But Dr. A was not. He had seen this before.

Boom/squirt, boom/squirt, boom/squirt, again and again, until, Wow! I was staring at the floor, but I felt the nurse and Karla and Doc A squint in awe at something strange and larger than expected being pulled out.

All of a sudden I could hear again.

And I saw the brown curls like tiny burnt macaroni in the sink.

It has nothing to do with your brain tumor, he said. Just come on by for a cleaning next time you're having trouble hearing.

When we stepped outside I heard the wind. And I hear the wind now. And I hear the ice cream truck song singing on a Saturday afternoon on the first day of August when it's only 71 degrees.

BT, Kidney, Otitis Externa

Brain tumors, kidney stones, and otitis externa. What have they in common, you say? You return to them.

Or they return to you.

I explain. Many cancers make this offer: go without me for seven years or so, and I ain't never comin' back. Or so I heard, anyway. Or so we're told.

Well, mine came back after a decade of rest. Of vacation. Or rock and roll; of learning love.


And I had a kidney stone or two a year after radiation. All those brochures repeat: once you've had one, you're more than likely to have one again. (So drink water; drink water; drink water. They don't say: you'll piss all night; piss all night; piss all night.)


And now, swimmer's ear seems to be returning. I feel as if my left ear is stuffed with gum. Otitis externa they call it in the Doc Coffee Shop.

I didn't even remember having this, but K reminded me I had it near the end of radiation. They said it might happen. Lose your hair. Stuff your ear with wax. Forget stuff. Whatever; just get rid of the damn thing, OK?


But let me end this on a happy note. Other things we return to and we smile: restaurants, candy bars, flowers, songs. People. Happy songs, happy songs. Even the sad songs will sound happy now. As long as I hear them. As long as I get rid of that otitis externa.

Modeh Ani L'Fanechah (Thank You, Lord, For Returning My Soul to Me)

I wrote this yesterday morning, still in bed:

Guess who returned yesterday after almost three weeks in Amsterdam? My heart must have been speeding because I felt as if I was chasing the police car down Milwaukee Ave. toward the Lawrence Ave. Blue Station from O'Hare.

I got there first and skipped to the glass bridge that stood over the Kennedy. I felt like Charlie at the end of Willie Wonka. Two teenagers skateboarded back and forth. They filmed themselves. Maybe I'm on YouTube now.

And then, the train.

I stood there. My heart beat. I saw her; she saw me. The first time in 19 days and our smiles were wider than the Kennedy and Edens combined. Our hearts sped faster than the planes.

I drove her home, showed her the roof, this and that, then watered the garden. For the first time this summer, I noticed beans on the bean plant, and squash on the monster squash. The mother nature garden is happy to have Karla home, too; now I see rainbows of love growing on the ground.

An Excerpt from the Journal of the Global Love Association

I just returned from five days in Portland. My uncle Al brought me out there where he just moved for a new gig. He's an oncologist. He's my uncologist.

One morning, I sat on his huge back porch and drank coffee and breathed the freshest air I've inhaled for years. Trees surrounded me. It was my last morning and I'd already read the four day old Sunday New York Times. So I found a magazine called JAMA in their kitchen. And what other title but this could grab my peaceful attention?

A Network Model of a Cooperative Genetic Landscape in Brain Tumors

I sipped the hot black caffeine and read the abstract, the results, the conclusions; so many big words. What did it mean? Are doctors good at Scrabble? Crossword puzzles?

Then I read this happy introduction: Malignant gliomas, with disproportionately high morbidity and mortality,¹ are among the most devastating of human tumors. Ah yes, good morning indeed, I remembered.

And I remembered a rule: if Karla were here, she wouldn't have let me pick up that journal in the first place.

Why? Cuz here's her formula:



and it's simple, really, once you add l+o+v+e.

Re: Last Night's Gig

It went great. Only two songs but I nailed 'em. For rock music, that is. And it was great to see Clem again. His hug was so tight I thought he was gonna break my lungs.

Even Greg came by and we caught up on gigs and gardens.

Almost makes me itchy to play that Tele some more.

That's it, just wanted to write it; just wanted to let you know. Just wanted to thank Miki for asking me to play those two old rock songs with him at Phyllis' last night. Cuz he's the one that reminded me it had been five years since I did such a thing I used to do all the time.

I've got a Gig Tonight

I used to wanna be rock star. I put reality on hold and went to Grunge University. Nothing, Billy Pilgrim, Agatha, and so many others, yes, these were the names of my bands that played everywhere in Chicago, a few places in the midwest, and even once at CBGBs in New York City. No one remembers these bands except those of us who played in them and now it's a new millennium.

One of the first gigs I ever played was at a dive called Phyllis' Musical Inn on Division St. It was a polka place in the '50s and Phyllis was the owner; her son, Clem, owns it now.

I was a kid. And I played there a million times.

I've played nowhere for the last five years, not since you know what came back, not since chemo entered my life, soon to be followed by radiation. Yeah, I've been playing, yeah, I've been recording, but playing in front of people? For some reason, I feel my anti-seizure meds don't allow such a thing.

Well, Miki, the guy who married Karla and me in our backyard has a gig with his band It's a Girl at Phyllis' tonight. He asked me the other day if I wanted to play a couple oldies with him before his show. My initial reaction was I doubt it, but I said yes. And I've been practicing my ass off.

I'll carry my Telecaster to my Saturn in about an hour and a half down to the place I've drunk dozens of gallons of all kinds of things over the last two decades. And I haven't been there in years. And all I have to do is play two songs.

I better not drink anything until the songs are over. And then I hope to celebrate.

Read Today's Trib Article about PJ

I walked to the library today and saw this front page article grabbing my attention from the Chicago Tribune metal box on the corner. If you're here, you should read it, too. And hope that PJ helps find a cure for all of us.

Here's to you, PJ.

A Roof is Like a Brain

We just had our roof done last week. Four layers ripped off and a new one placed. We had to. The inspector told us when we moved in: "you'll need to in a few years," and now seven years have passed. Last year we got some drips in the ceiling after rainstorms.

We got different prices, looked at different catalogs, talked to different salespeople. Similar, but not the same. And not cheap. But in the end, we knew we'd never know the final price until it was over. And we'll also never know how things will be after the next big storm until it hits; how the roof will be in three years, in five years, in ten. And would our house be different if we would have used another roofer?

A roof does not think, but it's on the top of the house. And though a brain does all that thinking, let's not forget it's an organ; it's tissue. On the top of the head. On the top of the body.

When this tumor returned some five years ago, I asked five doctors what I should do. I got six different opinions: chemo; radiation alone; radiation and chemo together; no, biopsy first; surgery; no, just wait another six months and let's see what happens.

While I wasn't happy having to make such a decision, I'm happy with the decisions we made.

So when I heard neighbors talking with each other out the window this morning about how they would have done our roof differently, how they didn't like the color, how they disagreed with the roofers' technique, and so on, I was confused. I waited and sipped my coffee. I went for a walk. Three miles. I stared at roof after roof after roof. And when I got to ours from across the street, I

thought ours was the most beautiful roof in the neighborhood. I was pleased with our decision.

Supreme Snort Slugs

a sonnet round in honor of Ump Sotomayor

Senators say that judges are like umpires
as if to imply
there are no liars
only those who know the rules
and command them among the fools
of the country who hired the hirers.

This patient says doctors, cancer doctors,
are more like the managers
who must decide the batting orders,
when to bring in the relievers,
and when to argue with the senators.

umpires differ. judges differ.
managers differ; doctors, too.
same evidence: it's always up to you*

*here's where i want to end with the patient. but don't forget the pharmaceutical industry, and the insurance one; or the slow motion on your tv. and history. and me.

Now this is a round, so on the word "you," go back to the beginning.

Chai, David, Lincoln to the second power

I woke up sore all right. And I woke up to the Polish guys doing their boomboomboom thing on our roof again. 7am on a Saturday. But what's a Saturday to a teacher on summer vacation?

I touched my toes with pain and a smile. I opened the blinds. Our plants were happy; Karla's stained glass windows reflected colors on the walls.

When the roof boss guy came and did his talktalktalk, I had to digdigdigdig into our checkbook. Let's not talk about that part. It's just money.

But wait. Yesterday I forgot to mention finding a dirty penny on a dirty garage floor while cleaning out the silly car box. I felt it was a lucky Lincoln, because for some reason Karla's a Lincoln lover.

Well, today as I suggested in yesterday's poem, I went up to the attic and cleaned it. Moved stuff here and there, threw things away, put stuff in the car for recycling, and sweptsweptswept like never before. Besides yesterday in the garage, that is.

And I found another Lincoln today. On the dirty attic floor; I swear. Not just that, but I found a red string bracelet with a star of David that I bought in Jerusalem hanging around a desk lamp that I'm about to give away. Karla has the red string with Chai on it that she takes to every MRI. (Rabbi Doug ain't a big fan of these things but don't tell mom.)

What does this mean?

That I should find another Lincoln asap. While cleaning somewhere else in the house? At a bar with friends? Just walking around tomorrow somewhere?

I'm not sure. The Lincoln lover of the house is still in Amsterdam. If she were here, she would tell me.

Garage Diem

After something like a bt hits you, you're supposed to appreciate every moment. Seize the day! Don't waste time and stuff.

So after I ate a mushroom and cheese and garlic omelet this afternoon while watching the Cubs vs. the Cards, I hit our garage. And for the first time ever since moving in over seven years ago, I cleaned it.

I carried heavy stuff into the enormous dumpster in front. I threw little stuff into the garbage cans in back. I put whatever people might want into the alley.

And I rearranged things--little garden items here, bigger tools against the walls, car stuff on the other side. And I swept swept swept ancient poison and dirt that inhaling must have been like smoking half a bag of Drums.

and when i was done
all i wanted
was a shower and a beer
and if Karla were here
she would kill me
and I'd say
all I was missing was a boombox
playing the smiths or something
stop me if you think you've heard this one before

maybe tomorrow i'll take care of the attic
if I'm not too sore

Maybe I Should Change the Title? Celebrate!

I was up late last night reading a blog. I never do that. But I read somewhere else yesterday about a certain fellow alumnus that had a blog re: a certain issue. Karla's in Amsterdam on biz--poor thing, and I miss the Belgian chocolate out of her, no matter how much she may enjoy it out there--so I felt I had to stay up and check this thing out.

Well I kept on reading and I got so inspired and shocked by the similarities, I blog-responded the writer. I never do that. So just in case she visits this space, and just in case others do, too, know this: I had my first post-chemo MRI a couple weeks ago. And it was great. Yes I was nervous and I don't know why cuz we knew the attitude to go in there with.

But let's be real.

And this is real: the results were great. Life is great. Karla is great. Love is great. And you know who/what/where/when/why else is great?

As we say w/the rabbi, as I say every morning, every night, a few times a day: el na ri fa na la, thank you lord for healing and continuing to heal me always, amen.

By the way, on the way home from that long MRI/results afternoon, we did what we always do to celebrate: pints of Guinness at Galvin's. Prescribed, I believe.

Boy's Funeral Saturday; Sunday, Old Man's Death

birds they be feastin after 2 days of showers
and death there be 2 now in 24 hours:
yesterday's funeral, myles was just four
near the next state, on the south side so far
and in that state, the next day, a man near a century
lived in a town of three hundred fifty
breathed his last laughing breath when they pulled the plastic plugs
and the grave plot he's saved, they'll soon begin to dig
so in between there's some jewboy who wants to live live live live
cuz he recognizes life and he's in love love love love
and at the same time this death stuff make him why? what? huh? why?
cuz the 4 year old had a brain tumor especially
but i will live & love cuz i ain't forgettin
the songs they sang with myles' coffin open
and the travelin that ol' grandpa ron did when
there was no bullshit worldwide web to check in
(nonetheless i'll take my travel writer
and do my damned best to excite her
and introduce her to a rabbi & love
while she kisses my flowers with life)

written 4.26.09

Myles

His name was Myles, not was, but is, and he wasn't even five years old but he died yesterday morning after spending the last nine months or so in the hospital. Yes, it was a brain tumor.

I saw him in rehab when this whole thing had started, it was last summer and we could all see Lake Michigan from his ninth floor window downtown. It was a sunny day, we were all smiling, Myles, too, even his also young roommate who I can still see today.

Why can I still see him, with my terrible memory? Even with that hole in my head from that surgery from the last century?

Myles, I see your face, too. I see your smile. If I were angry, I'd wonder why. But I work with your grandmother, Myles. And she came to work today. She was dressed in black over her sweet Jesus-loving black skin, and when I hugged her tight for ten seconds that seemed like a minute, I couldn't be angry at anyone about anything.

But I am sorry, so, so sorry that this kind of peace came so, so early.

Questions, Answers, and Whiskey Celebrations

Two weeks ago I had a good MRI. The thing hasn't disappeared or anything but things have been stable for a while. Here's to radiation. Here's to Temodar.

Or is it?

Cuz what did what? Get it? I did them both at the same time over two years ago, continued with the chemo thing, so who's to get the trophy?

Besides me, that is. Cuz I'm still here. Still here with love and the ability to write such gushy words as that too.

So back to the song: How many rounds of chemo can this Jewish boxer swallow, how many pills can he stand? The answer my friend, is no one really knows, cuz this stuff ain't been out long enough for anyone to be too sure.

It's always up to you, patients; it's always up to you. And the people you ask, and what your doctor tells you, and what your uncle the doctor tells you, and what the rabbi tells you, and what your parents tell you, and what your sister tells you, and what you hear inside, what you hear inside, enough's enough, enough's enough, not because you can't take it anymore cuz you can but because the poison's done all it can now and you have overcome this fucking monster, you hear me? I have overcome you, fucking dead armless grendel, and a decision has been made and on next Monday night instead of beginning to take the poison we will celebrate with Maker's Mark, straight up; we will celebrate with whiskey, god, and love.

Musicowackia

I should also let y'all know I'm written about in Oliver Sacks' big hit Musicophilia. O, that pen pal pal of mine. Check out chapter two of that cool book of his and you can read more details on our communicadoship.

I sent Dr. Sacks a copy of The Year of Death about a month ago. I doubt he'd ever follow the link and read it online.

And what if he responds? In a good way? With one of those sentences or two that you find on the cover or back cover like he's done hundreds of times already? Do you think he even writes them? Or does his assistant write those, too?

Out of the Blogger Closet? Eric's Brain Tumor Blog?

OK, OK. I see this book is out called The Adventures of Cancer Bitch by Sandi Wisenberg. What kind of an idea is that? A Jewish cancer blog book??? Maybe I should start shopping mine as The Spiritual Enterprise of a Brain Tumor Schmuck?