I am closing up these days and don’t think that will change till I get the high-caloric bag back and operate on something like 1000 calories again. As it is I’m operating on 400. You can probably see that’s not enough. It’s taking me everything to write this. God I’m going to miss you guys but hopefully I’ll be back.

water!

Practically all I want these days. That taste has replaced the Whopper as my ultimate crave. Hey, luckily I can have it, but smaller than the real gulp-sized amounts I want to throw down my throat. This is what I did today. Throw it down my throat. I’m not supposed to do that. But the worst of it seems to be I throw up a little water and my tube runs faster with the water. Oh yeah I also got my vitamin C IV drip for the third time at this place. Results? Beat me. Don’t feel any genkier, any bit healthier, I’m just exhausted from all the everything that is not sleep. But my wife, eep, I think the stress of all this work before her work, today it really got to her. Didn’t help we were late in getting back, didn’t help I fell again because I didn’t follow instructions properly. After helping me to my bedroom door, she gave me my small popsicle, my water, and cellphone and hurried to work. Some people might think it cruel, I think this is the flip side to all the things she does, many which are in the background to what I see everyday. She came back from work to help me back up, and that’s why I’m writing right now, then she returned, because there’s a lot she has to complete. That’s where she is right now.

And the biggest insult is I’m thinking of giving up. Everything exhausts me, I don’t think about my story much any more (Jake!), the substance I dream about consuming is water rather than a Whopper as I think I might have said, and I fear going up and down those stairs. I mean I came up here to die, basically, before all this hope stuff set in. But then again, I’m writing this blog post I couldn’t have done in the hospital.

That’s got to count for something, right?

Not a furlough, not a what-if, not an imaginary story. I was finally released from the hospital into the hands of nurses and IV drips (which won’t be as round the clock) and a flight of stairs I fell on as I reached the top. Got nothing for legs (hold on let me see if I can do this one exercise thing… yes, I did thank you very much so I’m better), but maybe the decline isn’t a trend, just this afternoon. I’m already down enough. I think as any of you who read this know, haven’t had much energy lately, and then there’s the bad back which I made worse sitting up to blog. You have seen the results. Now that I’m home I promise… okay okay, I don’t know what’s going to happen now that I am home. And the only reason I'm home, sitting up in my chair and not still on the floor is my wife, obviously. Not going to forget her again. You know she's the one that changes the bags of my IV drip, injects other medicines into a little tube I have that goes into my stomach, and helps move me around so I'm not virtually paralyzed. So... Keep up the blog as long as I can as I head for a miracle cure or the end of my time. Hoping for the former even as the prevalent exhaustion whispers into my ears for the other side. 

Hope after all this absence you’re still with me.

Home

For another furlough and everything thanks to my wife. Really I got to start giving her more credit, like the way she transfers everything from my hospital room to my bedroom, and we’re talking my computer my clothes, water bottles, pads, my man pampers, the way she negotiates with them and handles the paper work. Then leaving she wheels my wheel chair, folds it into the car and yeah, drives me home. Me? I sit on the bed, I sit in the car seat. I make an effort to get up, which I am usually not successful on my own. Oh yeah, she also helped me piss into a piss bottle so I wouldn’t piss into pants. But I did climb up the stairs with her pushing me all the way. Some of that was my muscle effort.

just to be clear

I am not out of the hospital. And probably never will be (okay, that’s just how it feels). I can go out for a couple days, like I did for the new treatment, but that’s it. My release date is like a dream, something phantasmal, but to be fair, I just can’t go home. I can’t eat. I need an IV drip to survive. They need to set up a private doctor for this and part of that is a consultation. Finding this doctor and setting up the consultation has been a continual nightmare. So that’s where I am now. 

Another just to be clear, but this goes a long ways back. I talked about the angels, but only had nicknames for the female angels giving the impression they’re all femme type. This is not true and a disservice to all the male angels, including my nurse last night. He helped get me through that long night when he could do nothing about the lack of powerful medicine available. Along with megane nurse he might be one of the arch angels of the hospital.

It has started

My first treatment with alternative medicine. I’m not sure what to think except I hope it works. The thought of having a lifespan instead of a death sentence is very appealing. You know it is a lot harder to face death when it’s weeks away instead of a year. It is scary harder. So yeah, everything into this and the doctor’s confidence. 

But first, let me tell you about the place. For one I came in a wheel chair, and they had no ramp. Not a confidence booster. The nurses were already out in full force and helped me climbed the steps so that helped some. They were extremely nice, considerate. Inside, it was a small little clinic with a number of bed for IV treatments. They were occupied often, people were coming in and out of the clinic. The doctor herself greeted me in English, though most of the procedural talk continued in Japanese. The gist of it was my main treatment was going to be this vaccine and a vitamin C IV drip till we can get to the real cancer killer. For yesterday, I took the the vitamin C drip and are waiting for the vaccine which might come in by Friday. It went smoothly, the bed was comfortable and I basically slept through the whole thing.

Troubling but I guess necessary aspects. My life beyond will be a healthy one, eating Japanese food and little fattening foods. Well, I guess that’s to be expected, but one of my motivations is just to have these fattening foods. Not all the time, but sometimes, oh God do I want the fattening. My image of continued life is me eating a Whopper again, pasta again, cookies again. The doctor was quite insistent, all of this stuff was poison and I’ll be living with cancer all my life that there is no getting around that. 

Just as long as I live.

my back

Is getting like before, in other words it is starting to hurt round the clock and all the ice pads won’t help it. I can’t even seem to lie on my side all that much. The solution is getting the hell out of here. That’s all I can think of. 

Damn it I was given four weeks to live four weeks ago, come on, I need out. Sorry, I’m writing this with the pain in my back driving me crazy, I can’t seem to write about anything else or with any kind of patience and understanding.

I am weak, I do very poorly with pain.