End of January. Next phase?

I’ve been going back to fill in the blanks (spasmodically) rather than carrying this forward. A couple of entries covering our Maine trip in September. And going farther back, some description of our Grand Canyon and Zion trip end of March. I still have to fit in my recollections of Tom’s and Jill’s wedding, and will be getting back to that. But the narrative wants to continue, and the new month and the New Year (of the Ox) make a convenient entry point. Hard to grasp that January is almost over.

Number 1. I’ll be starting chemotherapy next week. I’ve accepted it as pretty much the best course, and it’s possible it won’t be as terrible as anticipated. Went to chemo class at Kaiser and got better informed: basically they pump toxic chemicals into your body which target and destroy “rapidly-dividing” cells, including cancer cells, of course, but also blood cells and hair follicles and sex cells and things like stomach and mouth linings. Hence the well-known side-effects like hair loss (on my regimen I’m not supposed to lose mine), anemia, fatigue, nausea, susceptibility to bleeding and infections, but all these are temporary and manageable. The cancer, if any, hopefully gets killed. I’ll be getting twelve treatments over a six-month span, and also an infusion at home for two days each cycle through a “port” which they’ll be installing in my chest. Then recovery for two weeks. Maybe those are enough details—I talked with someone who hates to go to parties with his older partner because all his friends want to talk about is their symptoms! We’ll just have to see how it goes.

Number 2 (I guess). Diana and I got on our bikes and rode with our friend Kerwin out to the Richmond Marina on the Bay Trail, our famous flat route for easy cruising, and it went very well. The first time for both of us after surgery. Diana’s new knee works very well (the old one was giving minor problems), and I didn’t feel any ill effects, climbed pretty briskly on the only hill(s) at the race track. We started on High Street near the Fruitvale Bridge and so covered nearly 40 miles. A good workout: we probably overdid a little. I subsequently rode my bike out to San Leandro to bring music to Bob Fowler (who is going to accompany me at our Northbrae concert on Feb. 28th), around 20 miles, but riding a little harder, so I felt it. I had planned to ride (and BART) to the dentist today, but didn’t really feel like it when the time came. Actually my rib is still hurting on and off, and oddly, more in front where he didn’t cut (referred pain?) But we’re looking forward to riding as the weather gets better.

It’s pretty clear we won’t be going on the Ride this year. We’ll continue to lead training rides for ALC this Spring. Maybe with Denise and Monica, who have just bought a house in our neighborhood. We had dinner with them at Fountain Garden. Diana and I attended a First Aid-CPR class for leaders two weeks ago, which I (and I’m sure others) had suggested. Still in touch, but feeling more like an outsider.

Number 3. Concert for AIDS/Lifecycle at Saint Mark’s, Berkeley, last Saturday. Hard to tell how much paid attendance, after a whole lot of work doing publicity. Valdez will know more. Some outstanding performers and a big variety. We heard a trio of flutes (one a bass flute, which I’ve never seen before); a very gentle jazz group: 21 Flights West who seemed terribly young; a prize-winning junior clarinettist; one of the flutists, now on a Native American flute, with a flugel horn player; an a cappella chorus (who take on singers of any skill level, good sound and clever arrangements); finally a klezmer band: Go Van Gogh (really good instrumentalists and a great sound). Also a lot of familiar faces: Marcie and Isabelle Brown (she’s 6 this year) on cellos; Andrew and Wendy with Verna (“Baby, It’s Cold Outside”); Carlo with a setting, a cappella, of “O magnum mysterium” (I wasn’t quite sure how it fit, but he makes a big sound); Valdez playing Mompou; Wanda Goree even appeared and sounded good in a gospel number. I was very well satisfied with my performance, with Larry Marietta: Rorem, Copland and Bernstein, and even had some audience response during one of the numbers. (Larry said nice things about my singing, but he always does). Program ran way overtime. There’ll be nine more concerts this spring. I’m trying to help Valdez where I think I can (there are some blind spots and some looming problems which have to be addressed), but it is really his thing and his to figure out. I’m not trying to raise money this year, but do want to perform.

January, 2009: Post Surgery

It’s already 2009 (I think the first time I’ve actually had to write the new number!) and I haven’t been keeping up the blogging. I want to try to summarize the rest of our year and bring it up to date, and I’ll be posting some pages below (in the proper sequence) as I get around to it and as memory serves. These include our trip to Arizona and Utah and the Grand Canyon in March (pushed out of the way by cycling matters) and our trip to Maine in September for Tom’s and Jill’s wedding at Edgehill. Starting here with a surgical update.

While I was having colon surgery in June, a small lesion was also discovered by accident in my right lung together with my pulmonary embolism, and we’d been keeping an eye on it through the fall. We finally managed to biopsy it in December, and it turned out “consistent with” colon (not lung) cancer, which was good news: it’s a lot less aggressive, though its spread is of course a concern. After some consultations we decided to go ahead with thoracic surgery, on December 17th; my surgeons and the oncologists thought there was a good chance to “get” it once and for all, since apparently it hadn’t appeared anywhere else. The operation went very well; I was in the hospital only two nights and went home feeling very strong, though I do find myself wanting to nap a lot. My rib, where he cut it, is still uncomfortably sore (and the December chill makes it all feel even worse).

Diana meanwhile, who had to postpone her knee replacement while I was in the hospital, finally had her surgery in early November and has also made a really strong recovery. It turned out she only required a partial (“unicompartmental”), and that has been much easier to deal with. Her surgeon, Dr. Burri, was so pleased with his part that he entered it into her medical record. She did real well with her rehab exercises, mostly to strengthen the muscles, until they kicked her out of p.t. She’s slacked off some since then. But she’s been helping walk the dog around the block, doesn’t need the cane (or the disabled placard) any more, has been cleared to ride her bike, and is basically without pain. And has returned to Kindergarten as planned. We need to get her to the gym on a regular schedule and get serious about losing weight, which will help make the knee last. And she’s already made a tentative appointment to have the other (left) knee done in June.

I had my post-op checkup this week with Dr. Patel, and everything is looking good. In fact he made me feel like a celebrity, as an outstanding patient! I guess they are glad when you make them look good, and it is good to be able to share in the satisfaction, especially when one is the canvas, so to speak. He took less of my lung than I expected, had a chance to feel around, and apparently “got” everything, including another growth which he said was “nothing.” Pathology indicates it was indeed (most likely—you never seem to get 100% sure out of them!) colon, not lung, cancer. I saw Oncology today. They think it advisable to put me through a six-month course of chemo, just to make sure nothing remains. My best chance for an actual cure, although they have nothing concrete, only statistics, to go on. I’m hoping to put the whole thing behind me in 2009.

Counting my cataract surgery last December, this makes four times under the knife between us in a single year. I certainly didn’t intend to turn my body over to medical science in this way (Diana’s procedure was more elective), and we don’t recommend surgery as a steady diet. But Kaiser has been outstanding and I/we are astonished at and thankful for the skill, the expertise, the knowledge which have been available to us. And the care and caring of the nursing and supporting staff. And for medical insurance which has paid for almost all of it. (Of course, if one adds up all the premiums over thirty and more years, Kaiser still comes out ahead, but I’m sure they don’t count it that way). One can only imagine the horrors of being un insured these days, and it is obvious that affordable health coverage for everyone has got to be one of our most important national priorities. We need to keep pressure on the new Administration and Congress until we all have it.