Little things now

Like my neighbor. I’m not sure what his deal is, but he definitely gets the preferential treatment. The nurses are always in his tent, asking questions, chatting amiably, sometimes they take his temperature... so early on I stuck my thermometer in the crook of my armpit waiting to tell my result to the nurses who never came (as patients we usually take our temperature readings before the nurse comes as a courtesy to her). Now I figure anything for him is for him alone. What’s the deal really? At first I thought it because he was really ill and they couldn’t get a room closer to the Staff Station, but just this morning Mr. Ishioka was transferred to a closer room. So what gives?

Seriously?

A week or so ago Clumsy Sensei and a nurse were cleaning out the hole in my side. They had the metal bowl propped against my side, the cold rim always a shock to my skin, but a welcome one as I am sore there. They are threading a tube through the little tube I have in there, more like two stubs held from getting slurped up by my hole by a safety pin. I’m always a little nervous about this part, you know, where a tube goes through a tube and deeper into the cavity of me. It usually doesn’t hurt and sometimes I don’t even feel it, I have to wait till the mild murky liquid comes out the other tube to know they hit pay dirt. So while they are doing this and the nurse is squeezing that bag of water on high we hear a fart from the other tent. My neighbor back then farted all the time, it was part of the room. All you’d think was, ah, it’s ten o’clock. Like that. But when he farted, both the doctor and nurse laughed. Despite their work in the field and going through rooms like this, a well timed fart can always draw laughter it seems. 

Hospital food: it’s not a little thing, really. But since I haven’t really gone into this subject before I thought I’d noodle a few thoughts and questions over it. A question, at least: how is hospital food in America now? When I went it was TV dinner level, and they didn’t look much better in the nursing home my grandmother was in ten years later. It’s like they don’t care about nutrition back home, certainly they never went over our diet. Asked us how much we ate. They slapped a tray down, picked it up, sometimes dumped it over my cast. Here it is quite different. Quite? Don’t you mean “opposite?” As in the opposite. The food is quite good, healthy, and comes in separate bowls to keep the hot ones hot and the cold ones, you know, covered. Sometimes it’s really good, like they had a sweet and sour pork thing going, chawan mushi (kind of a dinner pudding thing), and stew or the Japanese version of stew. They often have spinach, healthy, and shiitake, delicious, and lots and lots of pumpkin, also delicious. From 88 I remember eating the bread. Everything else looked horrifying. For breakfast there was Fruit Loops. Let’s hear it for American nutrition, circa 1988.

Another little thing: the sound of footsteps outside my curtain. I am able to recognize those calm slipper flapping footfalls of my neighbor across, as he walks a lot, and then distinguish them between the doctors and nurses. So when I hear him I know it’s not a new test, possible bad news, something I have to do, needles or what not coming my way. Also with the nurses, usually you hear the wheels rolling of the carts they bring along with all their instruments and a computer for recording our results. Now of course, I wait on the sounds of that curtain for footfalls I rarely hear and won’t be able to recognize probably. The sound of Y sensei approaching with the news.

Which will be in the evening of course. Operation. Looks like Clumsy Sensei won’t pinch hit on this one. Well, I want it in English anyway. Fuck after this wait it better be good news.

Oh yeah, and it was, you idiot. Delivered in great form by the pinch hitter Clumsy Sensei. I wish I had a better name for her, but my wife picked it and it's cute. Thank you Clumsy Sensei for being the bearer of good news this time.

The little things

I missed writing about when I was here last. Like how all the young nurses, when they’re doing something with their hands, often make these little shoo-shoo sound effects to accompany them. It’s endearing really. Like when they smooth out my colostomy bag, or move my table, the IV stand. And there’s often a little youshyaa before lifting things. Youshyaa, pronounced more like Yo-shaw, is something you might say to psych yourself up, before you do something a little difficult. At least my take. You’ll get the correct version later, I imagine.

Or the curtain’s perpetual sway, like our very own waves.

The little medicine tray with little pockets for asa hiru yuu neru mae, morning afternoon evening and before sleep. We never get medicine before sleep so far. Also they only put the pills in right before we take them. Imi ga nai! I mean what’s point. Might as well have one little box saying After Meal. 

Chotto chiku. They say when giving a shot, blood test, IV drip needle. It describes a sharp pain. When they say chiku now, I feel it. Yes, what other word would you use for sharp pain?

Also something I didn’t write about before but that was because I couldn’t. The Would Be Crush has succumb to the brown hair mafia and dyed her hair in accordance with the nurse’s Omertà code. But here’s a constant: that OK sign she makes next to her charming smile when she sees I don’t need anything more for the time. Yeah, that works. I would definitely have a crush on her before. A couple days ago I saw in her double teeth a resemblance to Wendy, a nickname of course, a girl I was so in love with back in the day (back in the day equals 20 years ago). So yikes, definitely Would Be Crush Nurse.

“Okawari nashi?” I know I heard this phrase last time I was in the hospital, they say it all the time. Means “nothing’s changed?” Or your condition’s stable, nothing has gotten worse. Checking up on you, you know. Okawari is the spelling for the word you say when you want refills of your food. It that case it also talks about a change, as in my bowl is empty, change it to a full one... so is it the same word? Same kanji or Chinese character for it? Perhaps I ought to ask my wife. Tomorrow, when she gets here at 10:00. 

Because I’m leaving then.

  

Free

Tomorrow they release me. A hungry me, a me that can stand on my own two feet for longer than two seconds, a me without manatees for feet, a me that can walk ten meters without huffing, a me with a far better better novel under the keys, with the Day Room scenery more deeply ingrained in my mind. I have a lot of things to thank the hospital for, and all the nurses and doctors who worked on me. And of course my Paramount bed (angel choir accompanied by a Moog synthesizer this time). Thank you hospital, thank you everybody. I needed to be here. To stay here. I’m better for it. But now it’s time to go home, time to be with my wife. 

Hope I’m not back by next week.

So...

I don't know the result yet, though Y-sensei expected the result to be positive. In other words, it is the low hurdle I had hopped for. Just don't trip, Edwin! Anyway, what I wanted to tell you about is my wife. Yesterday I wrote about the worrying with her late and all and then I didn't follow it up to tell what happened to her. It was nothing serious, just something incredibly frustrating for her and would be for anyone. A long call with tech support with the usual run around and an unusually bad speaker,  really slow, like those Shatner pauses slow, and then repeating her words unnecessarily till my wife just snapped. So anyway, mentally damaging maybe, but my wife's alright. End o story.

A little prayer for my blood

Funny the last post was called Waiting. Now I wait on the most important decision in my life. Um, I just didn’t want didn’t want to finish that last sentence with awhile. Not that I don't feel it like that: This is the most important decision in all of human history. And it’s all up to you, my precious blood.

I don’t know if this is a test you’ve passed before and they expect it to continue, thus all the talk of going home they throw around. This is what I hope. Not that I’m saying you can’t handle the high hurdles my blood, but why not something manageable, something you can clear in a hop so you can continue to run your race smoothly, because who likes the steeplechase? No, we want you to go Edwin Moses-like through the hurdles and every hurdle race. Please. Continue to be good, continue to be gold. My blood I envisioned you gold when they drew you. I envision you gold when they spin, and gold when parse you out into results. Please be gold. Gold, healthy. That is what I wish for you, and for us.

Take me home.

Waiting

For my wife to get here. It’s 5:48, almost time for dinner. She’s never this late. Worry starts to mount and God I hope this is a short post, ending by the sliding open of that curtain…

Not yet. Jinxing it by say it. Damn it. Okay, email (we don't say texting here): she’s parking now but she just said cho daijoubu jyanakatta. Means she wasn’t fine. What does she mean by that?

God fucking Christ at least you can ask her any minute now.

Tai-in

I am sure that is not the right spelling, if you hiragana it, it would read たいいん。That doesn’t look right. Anyway, my wife will correct me later (man what a lazy attitude I’ve cultivated), right now what’s important is the bloody meaning of the damn thing. Riiight, that. It means you’re being released from the hospital. It’s a word getting thrown around like crazy in this room right now. An hour ago the doctor went from tent to tent, and in each one discussed with the patient their taiin day. Sunday, tomorrow, the last guy the doc was talking to hadn't even had his surgery yet. Guess which tent they skipped?

Yes, it’s driving me crazy. They talk about me going home, they are preparing me for it. No IV, not even the needle in my power port, which means no nutrition bag and no anti-biotics. Y sensei had said that would be one of the keys to my going home, being able to take anti-biotics in pill form and not have it IV’d into me. My sonograms have been fine, no Cthulu shadows sneaking around in my gut, and a nurse told me they were thinking of stitching up the hole. But no word on when I’m leaving beyond the last, which was next week, then Y sensei said this week was “possible.” Of course they couldn’t tell then and maybe they can’t tell yet, but Gob it’s driving me crazy. Did I mention that before? 

The thing is I’m not waiting for a definite answer I’m waiting for a definite positive. I guess that’s natural. But I don’t want the suspense over till it can be resolved into a happy ending. So keep that suspense tension rolling… I am so afraid of the moment Y sensei will pull that curtain. He might have an answer, he might just be prolonging it, but then that means another day or two or who knows how long. 

My gut is made of glass, that seems to be the problem. It seems anything can break and at anytime. First it was the acidtitis, or some spelling like that, which brought on hiccups like crazy and my colostomy bags filling with my stomach’s acid. They had to drain that. Then my abdominal cavity filling with pus, likewise for my gall bladder. They had to drain those as well, all different procedures. Between my rectum and liver, they seem to be working some kind of cancerous magic on all the organs in between. Come on guys, give me a respite, let up, let me out. Please don’t give me anymore problems. Please let the problems you’ve spread throughout heal up so I can get out of here safely and soon. 

How about it guys?

No Mrs. Heep her

I ask for a sign, and the Good Lord of ruining my perfect image of people provides. Not longer than an hour after wondering if I’d ever see a sign of humanity in the BMN, I get one. 

It started with her usual bullying of the helpless and the groaning, of course by which I mean Mr. Ishioka, the fallen patient of my last post. Now she was trying to get him to eat. Tabeyo ya, harsh Japanese delivered in a harsh voice. I was willing to concede maybe the hospital needs an enforcer to get the reluctant patients to eat, eating is important, so jobwise, you know, points for her. But then, sigh, I didn’t see what was going on, but after a  short passage of time, her voice changed. And she said something like (but not exactly I’m sure):

“Zenbun tabenai ii yo.” You don't have to eat it all.

Her voice was kind when she said this. Damn. Even if inside this is part of her evil, and this is only what she’s doing to get through her job, that doesn’t matter. The Angels might be devils in disguise after all. I can only go by what I see and hear. And what I heard was a person who had empathy enough to switch from bully mode when the patient needed it. Or she simply felt sorry for him. Either way, a display of human feelings that doesn’t match my graph for her character. Oh well.

This round to you, BMN. I guess the world isn’t so kind to give us perfect caricatures in real life.

Obvious

My favorite subject is back, apparently. It’s little after 6:00 now. About twenty minutes ago, the patient in my old spot, diagonal across from me now, one of those who can only speak in groans to the nurses, fell. I heard the clonk of the floor and the groans. I was still on my side half asleep, like to think if I was up I’d have hit nurse call and told them myself. Didn’t even think to though. Finally after hearing him move around, the poor guy did himself. He was calling for help. He got the Bully Mom Nurse.

“Daijouuubu?”

That rang out of her mouth first thing, yeah there’s a surprise. Naturally, being the Bully Mom Nurse she goes from zero to belittling in 1.5 seconds, going past a second because of all the time it takes to get out that hefty daijoubu. She starts up asking why did you do such a thing? oh I wish you had called me first, this is such a problem now, her tone acid. She must’ve been in heaven. Our BMN (see the Bully Mom Nurse is back if you don't know what I'm talking about).

There must be some good in her. That would be the real skill, to find it. Because you're the writer with a writer's power of observation, right? The easy thing would be to believe her when she says she worries about us, that’s why she says daijoubu instead of ohayo or konnichi wa. She told me that after I went itsumo iu, or you always say that. But I just worry about youuu. I think she think she does. And if you’re generous you can say, okay she does cares, but it has to be added, only in a horrible now that you’re broken  and you’re weak and feeble and I can remind you of it every step of the way. Because that's what's out of her mouth after daijoubu. It's just there. Ah, when my wife was here, I think it was the first Sunday. She was talking to us and actually seemed nice. Nice. So she can talk to people given a couple minutes. It's not much. It's something. Of course she was soon getting on my case for not eating enough (because I'm so skinny now) looking over my feet for the rash on them (I slipped them under the covers). No, I have to dig deeper. I don’t think I want to, I don’t see even her outside these hospital moments of bullying. But since I love judging her so much, it appears, I kind of have to try. I mean because I'm the writer, right, it might be nice to say something more than the obvious. 

Props for the OCD nurse

I don’t know if I’ve officially nicknamed her in these pages yet, but I’ve talked about her. She was the one who ignored me when I was yelling out itai, for example. The one who wouldn’t stop trying to force those corn on the cob looking rolls of hot towels on me for my rub down. Now? Now? Now? Every hour on the dot, seriously that's what it felt like. That’s when I got the idea she might have some mild OCD thing going, that she might be so obsessed with schedule that she becomes a toy robot endlessly bumping against that wall till the batteries run out. Worse when she has full control over you and just ploughs through the procedure and whatever you have to say or scream.

But for this morning, at least, she wasn’t like that at all. It started because of the worst thing for me, a failed blood test. She didn’t jump to the next vein and stabbed, she worked with me, she went looking over my arms in miru dake mode (just looking, not a needle in sight), asking me if the wrist was okay, was this spot okay? I like that she didn't try to force it, cramming the needle in site by site, hunting for the spurt. She listened too when I told her the wrist was my trauma spot (the Hokuto-no-Ken golfball swelling of my right wrist). We finally came back to my wrist, but it was a little lower, and with no other vein site available except for the other side of my wrist, which might be more painful, I went with it. She got it, tap, and everything was okay. Two vials of my blood ready for the centrifuge. 

Whew.

Thank you, OCD nurse, you were not the OCD nurse this morning.

Scream on hold

But just barely. It’s not appropriate to subject everyone, anyone in the public, to such a level of whining so I didn’t write the latest news: wait till next week till you can even think of getting out of here, motherfucker (man, those nurses can swear). God, that made (made?) me depressed, as in you have to prefix it with “so fucking” each time. I want to go home. My body wants to go home. I want to be with my wife again and go out for pizza. Go out for pasta. Go shopping at Aeon or fucking anywhere as long as I’m with my wife. This is what I would’ve written a few hours back with again a lot more “fucking” added to it, and a lot more “I’m at my limit” and “my body wants this so much (I don’t know how many “fuckings” I’d have to add to that).” It’s a howl of it’ll take me a week longer to get home (at the earliest, don’t forget that knife twist), of frustrated expectations. And kind of insulting to all the legitimate howls out there. After all, it’s not like I have cancer or anything.

Oh right I do. 

Maybe that’s it. It’s all cancer related, ol Pennydreadful casting his long dark fingers out from my liver and tickling over my stomach and my gall bladder, the doctors draining the damage he did, trying to keep up. But the lingering touch remains, keeping me here and the motherfucker’s laughing at me for it. 

Yeah, that sounds pretty good, worth howling about.

“Motherfucking Pennydreadful!”

Pennydreadful, with sickle moon smile on.

“You’re chapters way too early. Let me be a good chap and point out you’re simply not ready yet. You’re not in the Darkbackwards now and you’re not Jake, you’re just the writer.”

Right. Not the cancer then. Then what do I have? Guess I have to fall back on I wanna go home mommy!

There will be no howl post today. 

Sometimes

I just want to scream. Today, I'm not doing it here.

Calmer

That’s what I think of myself these days. I don’t take things with as much vehement objection as before. Things like other people's eating, breathing, talking, and the people themselves. That's all. Other than that, I was cool. Okay, chewing gum if they were popping it, but seriously, who likes that? Numbers bothered me, and who had too much and who had too little (sports, AKB, not the little stuff like the boring ol distribution of wealth). Anyway, some of that slid from me after my cancer day, some of it I can wade through for awhile. When my roommates start up their meal time smacking and slurping it doesn’t bother me; if they do so in the middle of the night, I might be a little concerned, the mystery of when they're going to finish sticking in the mind till about ten minutes later when they do. I don’t mind when they’re blabbing on their cellphones in their outside voices, like the one you use on a busy street to make yourself heard over a passing truck or two (over? Okay, that’s pretty over). I like listening to people talk now. It’s about time. To think how much time I've spent hating the sound of other voices, Jesus I should’ve known I had cancer with it rotting my soul and stuff. So the physical cancer's elbowed aside the psychic. Some of it at any rate. Hell, I even try not to annoy my neighbors, though good job at that with my big ass walker I only use to piss at night getting in the way of my neighbor across the aisle. Damn, I hope I continue to live through this because now I might at least qualify for a passable human being

Except for the numbers. Again. In this case it’s my damn bag o nutrition. It’s 900 ml of nutritious calories and it takes forever to empty into my veins. Oh but I thought it would be over early. I mean the damn read out had it at 750 ml. 750! That’s almost over. Like I could be free of tubes and IVs and the machines latched to them to speed them up (good job at that) by 3:00 or 4:00 or something. It’s fucking 3:00 now and I’ve got to wait for the damn medicine bottle—and they don’t have it at 200ml per hour, like they always do! Are they purposely trying to fuck with my life? I think they are. They are trying to slow me down so I can’t get out. Now it’s going to be 6:00 or later, fucking usual time. So I get to the Day Room at 8:00 yadayadayada, it’s a usual night of sleeping and waking with a demon urge to piss every hour or so. 

Whew.

Sorry to say those are my real feelings, removed by about 15 minutes of rehab, including 7 minutes of huffing and puffing on the exercise bike (but not as much as I had expected, yea). Or about a hair’s width of mood, or my fingers on the keys. It still gets me. More than the numbers themselves and the frustration of expectations they invariably bring (I think Zeus must be a nest of numbers, re: punishment of Sisyphus), it is the entitlement I feel the damn ml per hours give me, so everything I said up top oh I feel it and feel it and feel it, like I want to get up and start smacking people for all they've done to me. Oh why do they keep interrupting my bag flow to freedom with all this fucking medicine? Sad sad sad, but if you opened up my heart you would probably hear these sentiments expressed wholly without irony but with plenty of vehemence. 

Infant enthroned, yea.

I didn't listen to the Gurgle Community

It’s not so bad, but I did push forward with breakfast a little too much, a little too fast. Like I thought I was invincible me yesterday, ploughing through all that sweet and sour pork with almost no effect. Maybe this is the effect. But I was hungry all night, dreaming of food--but not so strong with the hunger in the morning. See? The bruises to your stomach appeared, and it got all swollen up. Now you have no room in the inn. Yes, that's the scientific explanation for it, I'm sure.

Hungry? 

Yes. 

But not the dreaming about food every moment kind of hungry. It’s funny, I pushed it but at the same time held back, knowing I had to parcel out the thigh for lunch and dinner. 

Hm, yes, the Gurgle Community is still punishing me for my transgression of eating too much bread. That's what it was. I mean I almost ate the whole damn roll. I'm still hungry... no, no that's not quite right. I feel hunger... and it's wrapped around a medium sized ball of stuck gas, of not belching. Not like before, but I gots to be careful with my lunch ingestion that's coming up in two measly hours. Gots to hold back, when they tell me to stop I stop despite what the wrap around hunger says, then drink yogurt drinks if I get hungry the rest of the day. Dororich.

So this has been a thrilling installment.

The Yuaaz Nurse is a genius

They all are.

The Yuaaz Nurse is making the rounds, brightening our lives as she goes curtain by curtain through the room, and I thought there was more to say. About her and all the Angels. It could be said (that it could be said is a terrible way to open a sentence) there it's pretty damn condescending calling someone an angel because of their natural kindness and then leaving it at that, as I have. Natural is great kindness is great, it's wonderful, I feel lucky to be visited by it, but the Angels are more than the sum total of their naturalness. They are also, at the very least, social geniuses. They might be literal geniuses too, but I am in no position to judge that. Let's face it, there is a skill navigating a conversation with four different people, four different types of people, and in my case a gaijin to boot without a complete battery of the ol Nihongo (Japanese, I wanted to be fancy) at his command. Her first stop was my neighbor on the right, and the Yuaaz Nurse talked with him about the early baseball today, the Hiroshima kids vying for the annual high school tournament at Koshien in Osaka, and how she watched the game before leaving. Next me, and we talked about the sweet and sour pork my wife brought and how I’m going to miss her tomorrow and Tuesday (summer school classes, there are tons of them). Then it’s off to my neighbor opposite who has the game on now, and she dives right into it, agonizing along with him as the Carp can’t drive in anymore runs with the bases loaded (it sounded like they got one across, but this is the limited Nihongo guy after all). I couldn’t understand all she said to the last guy, but she briefly talked about him leaving tomorrow. It’s so skillful the way she does it, and from a person who has trouble talking to strangers, I’m in awe. 

It made me want to write this. It bothered me. "Natural kindness." Like it's some kind of animal instinct they possess. If you, or I in this case, deny her and all the Angles the skill of their intelligence we are denying their own creative agency. And that's exactly what I was doing. 

I think.

The Revised and Complete Akamatsu-san

I decided I wasn't satisfied with my post on Akamatsu-san, it was incomplete. So I completed it, somewhat.

Since he is leaving now I better write about him while I have the chance. This morning I chanced to see him through the curtain Akamatsu-san for the first time. His face reminded me of a turtle’s head: bald, all smoothed down to his basic features. Quick hitting impression, but somehow it seems apt. Akamatsu-san is the “old man” next to me. For a long time, hell beginning with my first stay here, I have learned to admire the old men here. I've almost always been unable to walk these corridors without strain or help while they look like the picture of vitality to me, traipsing the halls with a jaunt in their step, going to the shower or the observation room at will, these spry old guys putting me to shame at every step. I’m a hobbling on my walker while they careen by in cruel inversion of some Simpsons montage on the old folks home Grandpa Simpson lives in. By the way, I’m pretty sure old people here are much healthier than they are in America though my immediate family’s got some pretty spry gents and gals themselves. It’s just I don’t see or remember so many old people out and about in America, certainly not bicycling on the roads like you find here (of course you don't have to worry about street crime here). Hell, you could get a traffic jam of old people bicycling on the streets. So to sum up: old people here, genki, spry. And usually so positive: when the nurses ask them about their meals, meaning how much did they eat, zenbun, is almost always the reply or hyaku-wari. Meaning 100 percent. Actually I’m not sure about the second one. But eat up all their meals they do while I usually struggle in the 10s and 20s percentage wise. I often say to myself, only if I had the power of an old man. 

Akamatsu-san is different. As negative as they are positive. When asked about his meals, a couple times maybe because he’s hard of hearing, he busts out with nothing, like he’s proud of it. It’s a bit shocking to hear that from one of the old gents here, but there he goes, every time. All Akamatsu-san does is sleep, I hear the gentle sound of his sleep breathing more than anything else out of him. Whenever the nurses draw those curtains back he’s asleep and they have to wake him. At first I thought it was cruelty. Sometimes they seemed to wake him for the most minor things. 

Akamatsu-san! Akamatsu-san! It’s 11:30! And they leave.

But of course they have to wake him, no matter what they have to do because he’s always asleep. He seems to have no other interest. For example today’s the big fireworks day. I mean it’s a big deal, especially for us patients trapped in here. He’s gone now, but that wasn’t on the docket when his wife asked him about it a couple days ago and he displayed no interest. Sounded a bit miffed she would even ask. 

I don’t know what’s wrong with him. The nurses talk about the insulin he has to take, but I don’t think he’s there for that. This seems to be the cancer ward, we're affected by it one way or another. Perhaps he’ll soon slip into a state like Mr. Ishikawwa. Here I’ll post what I wrote about him now from earlier in the Diaries.

Mr. Ishikawa is someone who sounds worse off than me. Like the old man earlier, he speaks in little more than groans, though with Ishikawa some words are made out. Is this my level now? At least I can ape him in some bad hiccup stuff sometimes and you never know when I’m going to organ out again so there’s that for our minimal solidarity of pain. Tomorrow, chemo.

The reason I say something so absurd "as is this my level" is I think they slide our beds in and out of our rooms depending on our condition. I think the worse off you are the closer they set you up to the staff station. Now I’m near the end of the hall, then they wheeled my bed a couple doors off. That’s when I got all the nurse shouting at old men who were so sunk into themselves, their affliction and age. I saw faces with pointed features, it seemed like the room where you are just waiting to die. Poor guys, I mean I was impressed with Mr. Ishikawa because he could put articulation in his groans back at the nurses. I think he made the effort every time. It inspired me to want to find solidarity with him, recalling my horror with my colostomy bag over flowing with my stomach’s acid as my merit badge of suffering. So I wonder if Akamatsu-san is in the early stages of that waiting-to-die stage of his disease. Or is it that Akamatsu-san only wants to slink back into his shell of sleep and stay there?

"Fireworks" and Angels

Yesterday was mighty Onomichi’s mighty Hanabi Taikai. Lots of fireworks shooting over the ridge of a hill, right on the bay where it was probably all beautiful and shit. It was beautiful from our sideways view and we could share for hours the sphere of lights blowing up in the night sky and even the occasional canon shot boom to go with it. We, in this case doesn’t pronoun my wife and I, but the people in the observation room, day room as they call it, and hours in this case isn’t an exaggeration of happiness. There were two fucking hours of fireworks and I watched all of them. I could’ve gone for one of them, the last part for the golden giant climax, but no, I thought I had to get there early, everyone was talking about it, the hanabi taikai the hanabi taikai, so everyone was going, right? They were going to pack the room and I wasn’t going to get a spot. And if I couldn’t sit down that would be the worst. 

Oh diddly, I was an idiot. I think most people did the smart thing, come in for awhile watch, leave. Bang bang bang, pretty, let’s go. I sat there and sat there and sat there. I’m pretty sure I’m the only idiot of the sixth floor who scraped every last visible firework shot into my retina.

So here’s the point A to point my God when is this going to end of it. I get there at 7:00 armed with two pads, still trying to figure out ol Jakes tyrns and find almost every seat taken except the sofa at the front. I take it but the damn thing isn’t facing the window, you have to turn around and see, very twisty and uncomfortable, so I look for a chair, see one suddenly open in the middle of the room. I’d have to make a cane assisted dash for it or… that couple that’s been occupying two chairs three, they don’t seem to be waiting for a third persin, so I ask, they answer and I got me a seat up close. Around 7:15 a couple older gentlemen come in, one of them turns around the sofa so it’s facing the window (ohhh) and I have a couple heads possibly in my way. The guy who turned the sofa around seemed to have actually just met the other, who was 80 years old at least, and they share a pleasant conversation while counting down to the fireworks. And countdown the first guy does (probably in his sixties), at 7:30 going five four three two one and bang the first shot goes up. I mean he got the timing perfect.

That was probably the most impressive thing about the whole show. I mean it was beautiful, spectacular, they wheeled in patients to watch and stashed them in front of me, nurses and even my doctor came by, people slipped in for a photograph or two, sometimes they stood for awhile got tired and left… Probably the best was when one of the nurses, a little bigger than the rest, with a pleasant friendly roundness to her face came by to watch the fireworks with me a bit and ask what was hanabi in English. She was expecting fire flower naturally. When works climaxed the word she was thrown for a loop, it was charming really. Why was it works, she wanted to know. I told her I had no idea. I added as I’ve mentioned her before that hanabi was a much better word. 

“Fireworks,” she said, for pronunciation. Hers wasn’t bad, I could hear he r without it being over pronounced, a lot of my students, when I had students, could do a lot worse. And did. “Hatsuon dou?”

I told her it was good, like I said. Sounded clear. When the show was over, she walked with me back, seeing I was clearly unsteady, on the way telling a male nurse that in English hanabi was fireworks. He understood works in English meant working, a job, not explaining the mystery of the word, but okay he’s got some English on him. When I got back to the darkness of my room (past 9:00, lights out) or the threshold of it, she waited while I pissed, again to make sure I didn’t fall, and stayed to I made it safely to bed. The night lamp was already on. I bet she was the one that did it. She must be another Angel. The Fireworks Angel.

  

Not hungry

Ehhhhhhhhh? You mean after thirty six hours one meal is enough to derail your hunger? 

One meal and a blueberry Mcshake. It’s filling and all. Lots of calories, which I need. Probably combined with lunch I’m getting what I usually get for lunch and dinner. 

So everything’s fine.

Look, I’m not happy about this either. I was looking forward to tearing apart that thigh. That breading with the hot stuff in it and hey I’m writing about it, it means I’m actually closer to hunger now than I was before when thinking about my pieces o chicken lounging in the fridge made me sick. So cheers for me.

Are you hungry?

Hey, come on.

ARE you hungry.

I’m feeling something?

I asked you a direction question soldier!

Soldier?

Sorry, channeling Sarah O’Conner in Terminator.

I think that’s Sarah Conner.

It’s the Irish version. 

I don’t think there is an Irish version.

Wait a minute, are you really going to blog this? That?

What?

The above.

I can’t even remember which one of us is represents which side.

Careful meticulous writer you are. Anyway… hungry now?

A little. Maybe. I feel a twinge.

We all pray upon your twinge.

Pray harder.

Akamatsu-san

Since he is leaving now I better write about him while I have the chance. This morning I chanced to see him through the curtain Akamatsu-san for the first time. His face reminded me of a turtle’s head: bald, all smoothed down to his basic features. Quick hitting impression, but somehow it seems apt. Akamatsu-san is the “old man” next to me. For a long time, hell beginning with my first stay here, I have learned to admire the old men here. I've almost always been unable to walk these corridors without strain or help while they look like the picture of vitality to me, traipsing the halls with a jaunt in their step, going to the shower or the observation room at will, these spry old guys putting me to shame at every step. I’m a hobbling on my walker while they careen by in cruel inversion of some Simpsons montage on the old folks home Grandpa Simpson lives in. By the way, I’m pretty sure old people here are much healthier than they are in America though my immediate family’s got some pretty spry gents and gals themselves. It’s just I don’t see or remember so many old people out and about in America, certainly not bicycling on the roads like you find here (of course you don't have to worry about street crime here). Hell, you could get a traffic jam of old people bicycling on the streets. So to sum up: old people here, genki, spry. And usually so positive: when the nurses ask them about their meals, meaning how much did they eat, zenbun, is almost always the reply or hyaku-wari. Meaning 100 percent. Actually I’m not sure about the second one. But eat up all their meals they do while I usually struggle in the 10s and 20s percentage wise. I often say to myself, only if I had the power of an old man. 

Akamatsu-san is different. As negative as they are positive. When asked about his meals, a couple times maybe because he’s hard of hearing, he busts out with nothing, like he’s proud of it. It’s a bit shocking to hear that from one of the old gents here, but there he goes, every time. All Akamatsu-san does is sleep, I hear the gentle sound of his sleep breathing more than anything else out of him. Whenever the nurses draw those curtains back he’s asleep and they have to wake him. At first I thought it was cruelty. Sometimes they seemed to wake him for the most minor things. 

Akamatsu-san! Akamatsu-san! It’s 11:30! And they leave.

But of course they have to wake him, no matter what they have to do because he’s always asleep. He seems to have no other interest. For example today’s the big fireworks day. I mean it’s a big deal, especially for us patients trapped in here. He’s gone now, but that wasn’t on the docket when his wife asked him about it a couple days ago and he displayed no interest. Sounded a bit miffed she would even ask. Akamatsu-san, just wants to slink back into his shell and stay there.

Hungry

Not now in particular, although that I’m starting to wake… If I go 48 hours without putting put food in my mouth oh Gob I really want to put food in my mouth. Getting nutrition from my drip drop bag so I’m safer than I’ve been at home, so there's that. But man, they are really being cautious with this gall bladder thing. Get the feeling they won’t let me eat till they decide what to do next. Come on guys, it’s absolute cruelty to subject a body to not eating, to this hunger. If you keep me from my food for 72 hours...

Okay, hunger and sleepiness I’ll blame this whine for because when you think it over… I mean what percentage of the world would be rightfully pissed at my little whining. Oh so you want to take a little tour of our world with bags of nutrition running through your veins and an entire hospital stuff to look after you? 

Me: but I have KFC waiting for me. Including two thighs.

The hungry world: well then by all means. We bow to your suffering. 

Me: I thought so.

It’s no fun though and I’m sure tomorrow I will not be above begging anyone in earshot:

Me: When can I get some fooooood!

Hospital staff: you never eat and now you want food?

Me, toddling off crying: why does everyone hate me?

Good things

Because it’s after the storm, today’s big storm, and certainly the biggest storm in two Fridays. Though compared to three Fridays ago, it was a cool Santa Ana breeze (oh the laughter, the howls of laughter). Seriously it wasn’t bad, the storm of it was the worry. The Fear. You know, that post below me if you’re reading in normal bloggy order. Once Y sensei told me what they were going to do, I had time to worry about how it would all go down for hours before Yuaaz nurse showed up and wheeled me down to the second floor. There I first met a young doctor all in green scrubs with English he had to summon from the recesses of his memory. He explained the procedure and where they were going in, between two ribs, where according to his drawing it would breach the bottom of the gall bladder. Through the ribs, yow, wasn’t that going to be—hold on, because he explained what could go wrong with this and then some, so first let’s explain why it they were going in through this point. See, from any higher, which I saw by his drawing, they would be skirting my tumorous liver, not something they wanted to do. I agreed. Suddenly going between two ribs didn’t seem like a big deal. Of course that was before Green Scrubs went through his catastrophe list of all that could go wrong. I was groaning with fear and probably pale by the end of it. So the shot shouldn’t be too bad, but maybe once the needle for draining the gall bladder got in deep there might be pain. 

My God pain in deep that sounds so terrible but they’ll stop it then right? 

Oh no, you have to gaman, don’t flop around in agony too much. Gaman means endure. It’s probably one of the worst words you want to hear coming from out of a doctor’s mouth. 

So you can imagine I wasn’t too reassured after this. He went on.

It could be worse, he told me, I could start bleeding from the point of puncture and then they’d have to stop the procedure. 

Bleeding? 

It’s very unlikely.

Unlikely, that's good. 

It could be worse.

Worse?

Well, we could spill your gall bladder’s pus into the  stomach.

Seriously?

This is really unlikely. 

Basically me at the time: ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! As in Pink from Comfortably Numb. Okay, so here’s a preview of some of the good things to come. It’s the Yuaaz Nurse, there to wheel me to my doom and handhold me through it. Her smiling sympathetic face (wearing a cold mask but her eyes smiled which says something right there) helped me through the doctor’s catastrophe explanation. There would be more. 

But now came the needle procedure itself. We left Green Scrubs looking exhausted himself, as if he was imagining what would happen to Onomichi if a 3/11 earthquake struck (think it was all the English he had to summon, about fifteen words or so).

So we got to the room and thanks to Green Scrubs I was prepared for the worst. Armed for it? Seriously at this point I didn’t know, but that bed was an awfully narrow thing. And the doctor inside wasn’t Green Scrubs. Can you believe it, this worried me at first. Well, we went through the explanation together…

Oh my God I’m so glad it wasn’t him. A guy like that doesn’t exactly inspire confidence. Instead I got a sober older gentleman in a neat suit and glasses. He kind of looked like he was pressed himself and I would turn out to like this about him. The dude was calm steady and precise. Quiet. No discontented murmurs, no okaashi na. He did minimal explanation. This is the cool jelly for the sonogram, this is the iodine swab, this the shot, breathe deep—whoa I felt something there—breathe out—oh that’s okay then—even as he kept threading it in. Later he talked to his nurse about a piece of equipment he needed and she could find in the locker. Normally I’d be all asking what’s wrong, what do they need, but his calm manner belayed that. Yes, I asked the question, maybe more than once, but I didn’t go crazy with it. All eyes on the sonogram, it didn’t look like anything wrong was going on, they were simply following this swirly grainy movie I couldn’t see (screen turned away from me) like they were watching the Matrix unfold from that rain of green symbols shit. And that’s how it went at the ribs and through them. It was easy, but longer than the five minutes Green Scrubs had promised, the one piece of good news he let slip. 

The only real problem was that damn narrow bed. Of course I had to keep still, what do you think it is, sonny, a disco? Still. Still meant keeping my arm in place, 12 and 6 on the dial, my right stretched over me into the abyss and my left hugging the edge of the you know, very fucking narrow bed. This was the hard part. Keeping them there. And here again, Yuaaz Nurse was a pillar, helping me hold my left to the bed. Did I tell you it was a very fucking narrow bed. Okay it’s not a real bed, more of a hospital slab thing (stop with the technical language, I beg of you) but it’s got a pillow. And I believe even for a hospital slab thing it was not inordinately wide. By the end of it, the arm hanging over was getting numb. She couldn’t do anything for it, but again, the sympathy of her eyes above her cold mask meant something. Clean Press Sensei and a young assistant in dramatic rectangle glasses who hung over my chest were watching the Matrix of my sonogram unfold, Clean Press sensei while he held the threading in place. The me who lives outside the Matrix of my gall bladder was invisible to them. So it was nice to have somebody see me, and see me as a human. This is what I mean by the Angels, and they are irreplaceable to this or any hospital. To all those Angels out there, you rule. 

Back to the procedure and it’s finished. Luckily there isn’t anything dramatic to write here, the procedure simply wound down to success with the pus amount shrunk and the needle pulled out without any pain or gushes of blood. I was stretchered back to the sixth floor where I was deposited from said stretcher back to my bed. There was a little scooching of me involved and a lot of hefting by the nurses. Let’s Go/Ganbatte Nurse, who’s nice but not Angel level, said I ganbatta, which would translate literally to I did well. Hell, I’ll accept it. She even gave me a hanamaru, a flower circle, like a gold star you give to students, except no one stops loving getting one. That’s a bad sentence but you get the point. So a hanamaru for me. Naturally I gave out one to Yuaaz Nurse, she more than earned it today. She even cheered at getting one. Then they left and I had to wait for three hours lying down flat on my back, no elevation, no movement. 

Did I tell you about that?

I mean it kind of sucked yeah, thought I’d have more hours. If you’re a writer you can’t be pleased when you find your beautiful writing hours snatched away from you. Still, it wasn’t so bad except for my lower back. I Youtubed up some Floyd, Wish You Were Here in particular. Yuaaz Nurse came in later to change both bags, I looked at some email, some Facebook, had to piss as the second hour rolled around, and finished the hours off with Floyd, Darkside, only up to the middle of Money before it hit 3:00. Then I did the elevation thing on my Paramount bed (angel choir) and was ready to piss. A minute later Yuaaz nurse shows up (she had set her timer, I mean come on, if that isn’t high on the hierarchy Angel-like nothing is) and helps lead me to the bathroom, makes sure nothing happens to me or my recently needled side and I was good to go. I gave her her second hanamaru, and she cheered again.

So now I have my peach tea, one of the few things allowed to me (no food for the rest of the day I’m sure, no yogurt drinks, but sports drinks and tea are okay, ergo my bit o happiness). 

Good things.

Fear

Straight fucking fear. The fear of the unknown that seems limited to three hammer options and I know how that worked out before. So it’s really unknown with one hammer option that seems to overshadow them all, a massive mallet of Damocles eclipsing all else, especially the sun of seeing past this moment. Man when it comes down…

So we’re going to stab your stomach with a horrible shot needle, followed by tubes and endless pushing and pulling because that’s what we always do. Welcome to your third hole. And your third bag. Which kind will this turn out to be?

And I’ll protest that another bag on my chest would be cruelty, and they’ll give me this daijoubu smile, with a lot of ah, this stupid patient and his silly worries acting out again in it, and say don’t worry about another bag, it’ll be a small hole or they’ll just use gauze or a small cup. Everything will be alright you’ll just have another hole. A smaller one or a prettier one so everything will be alright. 

Later

So it seems it will be a minor drain. Still painful shit, but not so much. Yea? I know how this went down last time. Mostly waiting. Still that first poke. 

Later, after Y sensei.

Internal medicine guy. It sounds so specialized and medical. He said something like aspirate the gall bladder? Going to go in with a needle first, pumping in local anesthetic as they continue towards the liver? Then comes the I don't want to call it this, but it feels like it, the wire. Probably a really slim tube? I don't know, I don't want to see it. 

See? More poking and pulling. And for the rest of the day I don't get to eat.

Oh yeah, and my wife can't come today.

Loving how this day is shaping up... 

Bitch bitch bitch, after a bit of unavoidable horror, you got nothing but time and nothing standing in your damn fingers' way. And when you conk out occasionally, from the hunger from the sleepiness, just pick yourself up, hold onto to any shred of good dreams you got out of it, and write the fuck out of today. Jake is waiting to get out of Oakwoods for a long time now.

Gall

The Dark Backwards had an intimation before anyone else did. Re: 

“Motherfucker!” firing a rich globe of yellow light into the the waterfall. He didn’t know when he had waded into the stream. “Motherfucker motherfucker motherfucker mother—“

More foxfires from his gall followed, raging up, blistering brighter, disappearing into the blinding sheet without effect. 

Working his way through the Dark Backwards, Jake uses the old system began by great Greek and Roman surgeons such as Hippocrates and Galen as a schematic for converting his emotions into power. Gall was connected closely with anger, the planet Mars for Chrissakes, season summer, hot hot hot, and its specific humor or fluid was yellow bile. Boiling over, raging, what Jake needs at this moment to clear his mind, so drawing lines over his gall (without his even realizing it) he calls up his anger, his gall. 

It was like he was trying to warn me from way inside my novel, bless you Jake, but those foxfires of gall disappeared without effect. 

That would be me, not noticing a damn thing while today’s CT scan, the one that would decide between Bigger and Good, came up instead with Gall Bladder. Luckily it isn’t cancerous—fucking that should be the first thing they tell me.

Hello, cancer patient here, worried any changes, spots or shadows on CT scans equal more cancer. I really should set the scene first…

So my wife and I are getting ready for dinner and my chance to snack on some KFC as it is a little past six, feeding time. Then the curtain is drawn back there’s Y sensei. He talks about a spot or shadow on my gall bladder and talks about an abscess and maybe if I’m a medical person I know he’s not talking about cancer, but I’m not. I’m still thinking it could be cancerous so I have to stop him and ask. I don’t think he gives me a definite no, they don’t do definite here, but clearly Y sensei has gone beyond cancer and is worried about the immediate problem posed by the abscess. So I can breathe again, it’s not about cancer for now. It’s what do with this damn thing. It’s a problem that it doesn’t hurt or I’m not feverish because of it. It’s really okaashi or strange, and they do that Clumsy and Y sensei ritual of discontent murmuring. I feel I have to apologize for feeling no pain or fever. It makes it harder to find? I wasn’t sure about that part.

Bigger 

Good.

Gall.

Oh I’ve got gall alright.. This is why they don’t promise things, are purposefully vague: the human body isn’t clockwork. Unexpected things are going to pop up. Ping the wrong way. 

Be grateful it doesn’t seem to be cancerous. Oh I’m fucking fucking grateful for that. Imagine if my life was cut down to three months, three horrible painful months. Oh I am so fucking grateful for that and I pray to the indifferent Universe to let a little probability slide my way. 

Pray for patience and grace. Breathe deep, calm, try to reach that diaphragm which is where the gall bladder seems to hang around. 

Damn.

Okay, I wasn’t sure about the second part, the harder to find part, as they located it alright with the sonogram—it’s a gall!—and I seem to have a gall stone there, he did English that, though I did hear an ishi, yea for me. I worried would I have to pass it… no, I didn’t have to pass it and I didn’t have to worry about suddenly feeling any pain or fever. If I didn’t get them before, I wouldn’t be getting them now, he seemed to be saying. 

But…

Because my pain and discomfort isn’t really the issue, nor my cancer, they had to decide on what to do with it. Operate on it and take it out. Full anesthetic surgery. Puncture my stomach and drain it—not again and this time in my stomach. Or reduce it with antibiotics and such… medicine! 

My body hopes medicine, I hope medicine. Jesus, I don’t want to be punctured again. I'll take even full anesthetic surgery. Otherwise: A really painful shot into the belly, the long needle just sticking in and then a lot of shoving and pulling stuff in my stomach, face covered by a crinkly sheet, stuff gushing I see through the disco ball ball eyes of the alien disk they hang above me and it lasting for hours. Fuck I don’t want that, I fucking dread that. It’s the same fucking thing as two weeks ago, I’m going to have three fucking holes above my waist before I even get to my fucking head. Come on please, I am begging you. I am praying to you to whatever force is out there, please don’t let it be that. 

Two holes above the waist and below the head is enough, don’t you think? Below the ribs, in my side, and now one between the rib cage? All with bags attached to them? I am praying to you Universe, let things slip my way this time. 

You’re talking about karma because you deserve a break today. Why don’t you instead reach for those twin stars, grace and patience, and then you might be able to step out of the way and let the Universe do its work as it sees fit.

Scary.

Not if you have Grace and Patience. I know, I know! Reach up, man, then maybe you might be able to get out of the way of the Universe and let it do its work.

Breathe deep…

Overwhelmed

I was going to write about all my worries, needles ripped from my power port then fresh ones stabbed back in, and whether they can plant a different needle in the same rensho spot at the side of my wrist after the perfect blood test prick there this morning, and the greatest worry and conundrum related to all this… can I go home this Saturday and will that betoken a return home next week as Y-sensei was hinting at? Does it all depend on those two cryptic, apparently contracting words.

Bigger.

Good.

The cavity was bigger. But it was good. Does the good refer to the cleanliness of the cavity. But the CT scan isn’t going to tell us if it’s pus in there are not, only the size. Fuck, that doesn’t seem good, that doesn’t seem good at all. But then why is he ordering it? He said bigger and then a couple days later he’s ordering a CT scan. What else can he possibly be looking for? Especially after bluntly saying I might be able to go home for a day. Maybe the emptiness of it is good, the emptiness of any matter, foul or otherwise. So bigger not so bad… is that the solution to the mystery?

Please let that be the solution to the mystery…

Ahh, worries powerful enough to peep though like a ray of darkness into your gloom of feeling overwhelmed. Was going to talk about the publishing industry here. Going the traditional route, I could easily die before the years it takes to get your novel repped by a proper editor and published by a proper publisher. And the self-publishing industry seems the scam it’s often been. Talks about keeping the source material on the trims, I mean that’s fucking scary. Then there's another place where you got to pay a yearly fee and for the ISBN numbers (and that's pretty fucking expensive). The self-publishing gig though, if medicine doesn’t advance my lifespan, if I am stuck with one to three, as in years, damn it I want to see a fucking published, even if self-published, volume of the Dark Backwards in my hands. Something I can show my wife.

Or is it the Cancer Diaries/The Dark Backwards because everyone loves a slash between two separate titles on their front cover. Think it’s two books. In a way…

To be honest that’s why I like it. You think it might be two separate books, the first thing you get is from the fantasy Dark Backwards before we get a real email which launches the Cancer Diaries. Because nothing sells better than confusion, right?

Hmmm…

The other tweak of title was going to be, wait for it, The Cancer Diaries: Into the Dark Backwards. I kind of hate it now. Because compromises are so artistically satisfying.

How about in Star Wars big: THE DARK BACKWARDS

And under it Book One: The Cancer Diaries.

Hell at least it starts with I and not IV. Does that mean, if I am lucky enough to do Book Two, it’ll just be in the Dark Backwards? 

A New Hope. The Empire Strikes Back. 

The Cancer Diaries... something something, okay I haven't decided on anything like a name yet.

But it is better. Maybe for Year Two I can rename the Cancer Diaries which I continue to blog while pulling it away from the narrative mechanics of the Dark Backwards, plunging deeper in towards that second title.

I like this. 

Book Two. Year Two. 

And that’s all I better think about it, before I bring about the shivers and start thinking about something really OVERWHELMING. 

Which also kind of equals negotiating the keyboard with this needle in the side o me wrist and the damn delete button on the right.

Later:

And now it is over and the wait for the verdict begins… 

Good: well there’s not much in there, so you can go home Saturday.

Bigger: the cavity is still too big so get ready for one more month of hospital stay. And get ready for stab Friday.

Oh Jaysus, I just can't take this anymore!

Pennydreadful: did somebody ring?

Shower, bag change, cleaning

In that order? For starters, hoping so. Might have to get up and go to the Staff Station pretty damn soon to put in that request, nobody’s going to come my way before they drop the food trays on my table. Geez, when are the cleaning crew going to come? Will Y-sensei be among them? This cleaning crew is the one that pumps water through the hole in my side to wash out the vile matter still in me. Mild and murky I have referred to what pours out before, so there's not much left? Always something a little orange browny in my bag so it's still there. Umi. Pus. Still didn't get the word on what it is, I don't think it matters any more since it is mostly--really?--out of me. I don’t think Y-sensei would mind if the shower pre-empted the wash either, since he basically ordered it on me. If you can't do it here, you can't do it at home. Good point, motivation enough. Still, I would feel better if I could ask first for any precautions I should take regarding the second bag. Be a squeaky thing. Take a shower between the cleaning and before the IV drip, if you can pull that off. ..

Cleaning, shower, IV hook up, bag change.

Now there's my ultimate order. My starting line up I'm hoping nobody will scratch. Oh, the catcher is going to be late today... annoyed grunt!

Then there is the CT medicine and whether they can indeed let it flow let it flow through my IV tubes and into my power port. I’ll be worried about this till I get my answer which I can’t imagine happening before 9:00. And then if it’s the wrong answer than I can worry about the nurses and my beautiful rensho.

Hey, hey, hey! work in progress here. First of all the nurses came while I was eating and asked about my shower. They got right on that. Then it looks like the answer is the good one. At least they are going to try to use my power port. And during the shower they can unplug my IV drip. 

This post is almost entirely irrelevant. Whoops.

But, because you can always worry. My power port tubes might not work out after all. So, a little spare worry, written down before...

See, there’s a spot in my right arm by the wrist. It gives out blood, accepts the IV needle every time, that’s my rensho, mainly the nurses resho, but these days I contribute by pointing it out. Bang, we’re collaborators and that’s pretty cool. But today that sweet spot has already been used—ippatsu!—for my blood test. So now I’m right back with vein anarchy, right in the jungle and we’ll have to see whether other spots tap out as well.

I’ll think of the other old men in the room, particularly my immediate neighbor who seems to have to have an IV needle applied regularly and then taken out. He’s not too happy about. He never gets rude or anything and has to accept his fate. I’m not sure what it is, I thought I heard something about insulin. That would be rough. The one in my old spot also, who seems to be suffering from pretty constant diarrhea, I’ll keep him in mind too. 

If I have to get needled to flow in the heat medicine, if it takes more than one try, just remember you aren’t the only out there suffering. 

Ikio shite…

Breathe deep.

I only wish I had written this last part after all this.

Fuck

Just straight up complaining here. See, for my nutritious calories IV they have a machine set up around it to regulate the flow and beep like crazy if anything’s wrong. It took the pressure off, no looking at the drip to make sure it’s dripping. I can let it go and know as well there’s nothing wrong with Mr. Power Port either. It takes all the worries out of play. And that’s worth enough for that mad scramble when I have to unplug and piss, always making the usual ordeal a near thing.

Damn. See, instead of fixing it, they took the damn thing away. Now I’m going to be looking up a lot, probably obsessively at times. Probably the main reason for writing about this is so I can complain about looking up, thus relieving the pressure, for a little while, of actually having to look up. 

I just did. Guess I spared everybody the threat of my 10,000 word epic about not looking up.

Hungry?

The start of those Cup o Noodles ads back in the early nineties. Hungry? Cave man chasing a mammoth. As I remember it chases them back, or maybe that’s just my keen comedy instincts providing what should happen. Maybe I’ll find the ad on Youtube someday when I don’t have to worry about the data. Anyway the cave men give chase, possibly chased back and slam. The glory shot of the noodles in their cup. The voice over goes something like Nissin Cup of Noodles. It’s the type of short simple ad Japan used to do so well at. Sigh…

Anyway.

Now that question applies to me. Hungry? Well, yes, I could sure eat some bread, miso, and milk. Except the real statement has invariably become, I could sure start eating like a normal person and then have my stomach tell me it’s already full. I don’t want to fuck up this stomach, the keeper of my appetite, which I think is starting to come back again, was starting till I got hungry sick. Still, getting sick because you ate too fast or ignored the warnings has always been a James Luke Stilwell thing. Always. 

So? 

Listen to your schizo stomach, try to decipher it’s cryptic instructions, and then get ready for lunch.

Gearing up for lunch now.

Failed

Three days in a row now I have failed to reach my writing quota. Or that third day was me at a miserable 2,000 instead of my majestic 4s or even 5s. That's in thousand folks, so you should really be impressed. But now I guess this is a headstart, starting around six and all. 

Yesterday I was up at 5:00. Well, I was up at 11:30, up at 1:00 at 2:30 at 2:30 at 3:00. It wasn't a good night. But last night was one very small good night. And now it’s like six hours later, maybe even plus. I slept after writing you, after it had creeped past 12:00, dozing off even then, and then I just went out for four hours. Four hours straight, not even fully reclined but fully zonked out. I never even did that on my reclining chair back home. But then I have somewhere for my feet. The bed, my Paramount bed (angel choir) holds me completely. But it is this Paramount bed (angel choir) that will become my prison if it isn’t partially already. It saved my feet, it allows me to write to sleep to eat, but it is also not my bed, our bed, whose air mattress we just bought and I want to sleep on, whose dimensions I want to share with my wife and see the new screen she installed and the curtains. I want to go home, in other words, and this day by day, drag by drag is starting to get to me. Another two, another three weeks? Is that what it’s going to take to get out of here? I will miss being able to walk without having to go down and up a flight of stairs and my walker which makes life easier, hell possible. Of course I have no where to go but more hospital and in the final analysis, that’s a good a reason for wanting out as any.

Later...

I talked to Clumsy Sensei and the basic deal is, once the cavity shrinks to nothing. Then I get out. Once nothing returns to nothing, as I have brilliantly stated before. And how long will that take? Please cavity, once you shrink for me? For life? For wanting to live?

And wait and wait and wait...

My battle

With trying to walk. Without my nifty walker, I can’t make it 10 meters before my heart rate goes over 130. Like I had done a sprint. After 30 meters I was in danger of blacking out, my blood pressure sinking to 85. That was a bad day when they recorded that, I have been better since. But I don’t think walking on my own two feet I can escape that radius of exhaustion and near blackout weakness. I mean this is what I have felt on nearly every walk I have taken since I have gotten out of the hospital. Except when the steroids kick in, I guess, God bless steroids, everyone of last one of them. The idea here or my rehab people's idea is little by little but I don’t want to be here long enough for that to take significant effect. Exercises they can give me to take home instead?

Home home home…

Today the heart rate never got lower than 119, even after the breathing exercises. It has something to do with breathing from the diaphragm and how that will relax me. Sounds good. My Japanese wasn’t good enough to pick up why putting my hands on my stomach and breathing was helping. I felt my stomach go up, felt it go down. And? I mean I wasn’t supposed to press just feeeeeeeel—Bruce Lee’s voice cutting through everything else—well, it was easy enough.

It is the ravages chemo right? Beating up on a poor guy leaving the hospital after a month. It would be really sad, if it was me unable to get better on my own. But it’s been awhile with no chemo in my system. I guess that damage has been done and now I’m trying to recover.

Right?

I’m not here complaining about chemo, just trying to pinpoint it and say, yes, from all the time Hulk was rampaging in my house, rebuilding's going to take some time. At least it looked like one of those blows connected with Loki (Avengers reference, the whole paragraph).

Takes time. Long view. But sometimes it is hard not to worry. What if I do only have a year left and I spend it either weak from chemo or weak or worse from dying. Damn it, I want to live. Live normally, in this one year scenario. At least for a couple weeks, a month, maybe more…

Don’t like thinking like this. Scares the fuck out of me (though the visual image I have to accompany it is a big ol slice of Costco pizza, not the best but big and nostalgic tasting).