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.