Smooth Operator

The time came on Christmas Eve to finally do away with the hair. Chemo had pretty much knocked out the beard a week or two ago, so it had been cut off and the remaining hair on the head was looking pretty bad. Now all that remains are the remains of a thin mustache which is hanging on for dear life.

This is a good thing.

My hair had started to look like that of a chemo patient. I decided that it needed to look like a legitimate choice, not just a reaction. I have been surprisingly accepting of this change in appearance. I was concerned that I might have an unattractive head for this type of style. I have been assured by many that I can carry it off quite well. This is a relief. Still a major change, but a relief.

Now I may need to reconsider that earring.

It's A Bird, It's A Plane...

Last week I returned to work for three days. I had sufficiently recovered from chemohell and felt a desire to get out of the house and get a change of scenery.

So I decided to go to work.

Yes, I know, chemo makes you crazy.

But before you judge me too harshly, you must understand what happens to my desk if I am gone for a week. Since I have no assistant on a regular basis, stuff starts to pile up on the desk, emails pile up in the computer, and phone messages pile up on the answering machine.

I had been gone for almost three weeks. The horror!

So, I headed out for work, determined to subdue the savage beast that my office had become. Little did I realize what was in store for me.

The parking lot.

Now, it is cold in Michigan right now. Not as cold as it's going to get, but I am particularly sensitive to cold right now, and it was plenty cold for me on Wednesday. Coupled with the fact that the parking nazis are out towing employee cars from the visitors lot, I found myself parked pretty much as far from my office as possible while still remaining on the property. This was not a good combination. The walk, all bundled up against the weather, took a lot out of me. I wasn't quite as recovered as I thought. I made it into the building and immediately headed for the nearby cafeteria where a small breakfast restored my energies.

This is where Superman comes in. I found some of my co-workers in the cafeteria and joined them to eat my breakfast. They had lots of questions, mostly about how I was faring with chemo. Oh, yes. I had been very ill, almost dead actually, but had dragged myself back in to continue working to make their jobs run better and solve all their problems. Then, upon finishing my breakfast, I hobbled off ahead of them to resume my customary place. All very noble, self-sacrificing, super.

I pretty much repeated my performance at each place I reached, keeping the legend alive as I went. This only goes so far. Now that I had reached my office, I had to actually produce. So I set into the office monster with a vengence. I attacked the papers on my desk, returned phone calls, weeded out and returned emails, went to visit people in various departments to check on progress. In short, I did three weeks worth of work in three days, partly to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker (Star Trek reference you Trekkies) and partly to stave off the office monster since I was going to be gone again for at least another week. I had to take a nap each day after hobbling all the way back to the car, driving home, and crashing in the LazyBoy.

I am Superman. Chemo is my kryptonite. The legend is secure.

Kindness

Mitzvot: At the heart of halakhah is the unchangeable 613 mitzvot that G-d gave to the Jewish people in the Torah (the first five books of the Bible). The word "mitzvah" means "commandment." In its strictest sense, it refers only to commandments instituted in the Torah; however, the word is commonly used in a more generic sense to include all of the laws, practices and customs of halakhah, and is often used in an even more loose way to refer to any good deed.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have not been well. The chemotherapy finally caught up with me and when it did it kicked my ass. Repeatedly. I ended up having my chemotherapy suspended while my body regains the high ground and I am up to another round. They will be changing my program to something I should tolerate better, but for now a reprieve.

During this time, my friends have been out in force, making sure that if I needed anything, they were there to jump in. I thanked one of my friends one evening for her kindness and she said that in fact she should be thanking me for allowing her to help. She mentioned the concept of mitzvot which I wasn't totally familiar with. I looked it up and found the definition listed above. I was surprised, not because of the philosophy, but in that it so closely mirrored my own concept of what it means to be a good person. Many times in my life people have prevented me from helping them or offering support because they kept their troubles from me. In some cases, they even kept their happiness from me and didn't allow me to celebrate it with them. In every case I felt injured. Their reasons were usually noble; "I didn't want you to worry" or "I didn't want you to feel sad" or other reasons, but I still felt robbed of the opportunity to be of service. Since then, I have tried to make sure that my friends are all given the opportunity to help me in any way they can. It is for them as much as for me. This was not exactly how I was raised. We were taught to be self sufficient and to look at offers of help as somehow being suspect; "What do they want in return". No sense being a pawn about it, but if someone I trust wants to help me in some way, I would be a poor friend if I would not allow it.

Miztvot: I may be more Jewish than I suspect.

Fighting Shadows

"Put this in any liquid thing you will,

And drink it off;

and, if you had the strength Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight".

-Romeo and Juliet Act V

It was a cold, rainy November morning when I first started drinking the poison.

It wasn’t so bad, not at first. I felt mostly normal. Two days later the poison visited its first pangs. I felt like death. How could I do this? How could I continue doing this? How would I function? Will it get worse? Better? Stay the same? Sweet, sweet poison that will kill that part of me that has rebelled and gone off on its own, determined to be itself. Hopefully enough of me will survive to carry out the judgment when the rebel has surrendered. I will show no mercy. I cannot.

When it is weak and vulnerable, I will come at it in the dark, with my bright lights blazing and my gleaming knives out sharp and ready, to cast it from me and declare that this territory is defended and will not accept the rebel, ever.

It is all I can do.

Now, I drink again.

-thoughts on Chemotherapy

Born On the Fourth Of July (part II)

I was born on the Fourth of July. Technically, this makes me a cancer.

How ironic is that.

For those of you who may not have already heard, I have been diagnosed with colon cancer. Not content to remain in one place, the cancer has sent out a scouting party to my liver.

I have only recently become aware of this rebellion, and have not entirely decided how I feel about this. I have decided that it "sucks" and "sucks hard" at the very least. Chemotherapy starts this next week and I have that to look forward to. I am trying to remain positive, but truely, this sucks. I might have thought that having heart disease was enough for one person, but now fate has dealt me this challenge to deal with as well. Not fair. I quit smoking in 1982. I stopped eating meat in 2005. I have not been especially good about exercising and staying fit (bad me). So I am a little angry right now.

My friends are stellar. Everyone has been immensely supportive. Already the food has begun arriving. Nothing says "I love you and care about you" like food, except maybe saying "I love you and care about you" which they have done as well.

I am sure I will have more to say as I come to grips with this. Right now, it sucks. I can't stress that enough. I am not happy about this. I hope to be a little more eloquent in the coming days.

Thanks everyone for their good thoughts.

-Richard

Frankenstein

The theater group I work with is performing Frankenstein this weekend and I will not be there. They are performing next weekend as well and I may not be there then either.

This is seriously weird.

For the past 10+ years, if there was a show, I was there. Working the lights, running the sound, stage managing, house managing, emergency managing, mentoring, running for coffee, whatever. Even the year I had heart surgery I managed to participate. I did manage to participate this time around, don't get me wrong. I worked on building lighting and setting up the tech area prior to the show, but I have never missed working most, if not all, of the performances. I feel strange, but it is probably for the best. The new parents that have stepped in to take over the jobs I usually do are doing remarkably by all accounts. The program, something I have done exclusively since the first season, looks great. I have always said that the greatest compliment you can give someone is to trust enough to let them have their shot at things and not assume you are the only one capable of meeting the challenges. That is especially true when you are working with young people. So, after last nights performance, I got the email reports of how the show went and I was very proud to hear that the tech crew got kudos for a good job. I was kind of rooting for them.

The parent liasion (whom I think of as the producer/stage manager) is remarkable. This is her first time out as far as I know, and she has organized "everything". If you work in theater, then you know what a blessing someone like that is. I hope we can keep her for many years.

The acid test is tonight; the director will not be there. In many theater groups, the director is finished after the dress rehearsals are done, but with a youth theater, especially ours, the director usually calls the show, with help from the stage manager. This is due in part to the fact that all of our crew are volunteers, no one except the director is 100% familiar with all of the entrances, exits and cues. So tonight the rubber meets the road and the stage manager and the tech crew will be running the whole show on their own.

This is also a good thing. A scary thing, but a good thing.

We are dependant on our regulars and if they are not available we are uncomfortable. It is good to stretch ourselves like this. I will be waiting to hear how tonights show went. I have every confidence that it will turn out well.

This would be an excellent spot to put some pun-nish Frankenstein reference to "creating a new life from the old" but I would never do something that corny. It will be enough to say that the "creature" which we call Michigan Youth Theater is ALIVE.

Haunted Howses

I had a new experience this week. My son and I participated in the building of a haunted house at the county fairgrounds. Not something I ever pictured myself doing, but hey, it's for a good cause, and our theater group makes a few bucks, so I went. This was not rocket science. It wasn't any kind of science for that matter. We were given a diagram of the maze that we were going to assemble from 4x8 flats and 2x4s, cordless drills and cut loose. I teamed up with a couple of guys that were already started and looked like they knew what they were doing. My son found some of his buddies and teamed up with them. Occasionally the designers would walk up and make suggestions or corrections and surprisingly, it didn't go too badly. There were a couple of times we all stood around scratching our heads and staring at the diagram going "No that can't be right", and sought out one of the organizers, but mostly it went together as planned. By 4pm, all of the walls were up and they were starting to string electrical for the "spooky" effects they have planned. That's when we headed out. There were lots of volunteers and not enough jobs left for that day. I have never really been a big fan of haunted houses, so I probably won't be back to see the finished product, but then I never thought I'd build one, so who knows. If you are into that sort of thing, check it out on the Oakland County Fairgrounds in Davisburg MI website for times. It helps the community and puts much needed dollars in the coffers of the nonprofits participating. So maybe I'll see you there. Boo!