New Sight

My last notable accomplishment of 2014 was to make it to the optometrist before my annual vision benefit ran out.  I have a pair of glasses I wear occasionally, but I thought, since I didn't need new frames, I should get some contact lenses. I was surprised to find out that I have grown about a point more nearsighted in each eye...so I actually probably will need new glasses now--but we were already going down the contact lens road, so that's what I got.

I tried on a few different brands of contact lenses--which I guess were all super-premium, because in the exam room the doctor said they were all the same price, which he wasn't sure of, we could talk about that in the other room, and in the other room, once all discussion was over, the "same price" was appalling and more than a hundred dollars more per 3-month supply than others in the case.  I had liked my experience up until then, as the doctor was very friendly and knowledgeable, but in the "other room" he and his assistant also informed me for the first time that because I was a new patient, they were obligated to do an eye exam, and this was separate from the contact lens fitting--not in terms of occurrence, but in terms of billing. I walked out of the shop $250 lighter despite my coverage, though they pointed out, delightedly, that I had "saved more than I was spending."  Maybe I should have anticipated this when I chose an optometry center with "Beverly Hills" as part of it's name.

That said, having the lenses is kind of amazing.  I guess everyone always notes that the leaves on the trees look so distinct...but it is always something I notice.  Also, street signs!  Driving is a different and more pleasurable experience.

The last time I wore contacts--in my youth, pre-Lasik surgery, I wore rigid lenses...so the soft lens thing is also remarkable.  It's like putting a little curved piece of Saran-wrap on your eye--and once there, it's truly invisible and largely unnoticeable in terms of feel.

A downside is that unlike the last time I had lenses, I am now old--and seeing far away means I have a hard time adjusting to seeing up close.  For some reason, I thought that wouldn't happen to me...because I'm magical I guess...but not so.  I will be needing some reading glasses.  Which the doctor (not a big surprise here) recommends I don't but from the drug store, as that could damage my eyes with long term use. Is this true?

Another downside thus far is that I don't seem to be so good at removing the lenses.  They are so invisible, they are difficult to find, and almost impossible to get hold of with short-nailed fingers (I actually resorted to tweezers tonight to get them out). I usually succeed by getting it to wrinkle up on my eye enough to see so I can pull it out,  where upon I can't help thinking that it looks and feels like a very tiny used condom.

All that said though, seeing without glasses is super-cool.  It crosses my mind that I might even play tennis again someday.

Related articles

• $15,000 Contact Lenses Are Available Now - Try and Guess What They're Made Of
• Apple Announces iLens, The 'Smart Contact Lenses'

Curcumin for Colon Cancer

I think I have Chris' blog on my side bar--but I want to share this article specifically.  It's about a comparison study between curcumin and a chemotherapy agent called 5FU.  5FU was a large part of the chemo-cocktail that was proposed to me in 2004 in the wake of my colon cancer diagnosis.  I didn't end up taking it--opting instead for a nutritional regime that did include curcumin supplements.  It was a gamble at the time--one that seems to have paid off, and Chris' summary of the study explains why that might be the case.  I have fallen off the supplements lately, but just ordered the recommended type of curcumin he mentions--have to take the reminders from the universe as they come!

Blah Monday, but...TELEVISION!

In a minute I have to get out of bed.  When I do, I have to mix up the nasty, sea-water-tasting solution I will have to start drinking as soon as I arrive home from work.  I will put it in the fridge to chill, because chilled sea water is more palatable than warm sea water.  Still, dread.  I will be drinking into the wee-hours of the night in preparation for getting up early and going to the hospital for "the procedure." Blah.

On the flip side, if I can get through a minimal number of script pages early on, I will reward myself with... TV!  I still haven't watched the season finale of Extant  or dived into Amazon's Transparent (I did get to see the first two episodes at a screening, so I'm thinking I will like it). That's five hours, so probably more than enough, though I also have many saved episodes of Masters of Sex. That project might have to wait until after Paul's writing deadline on October 10.

By tomorrow at this time I will hopefully already be loopy from anethesia and recovering, planning my first meal...

Related articles

• 'Extant' Season 1 Finale Review
• Extant, review: 'chilling'

Let's Go for Three

Got a call from my doctor / surgeon yesterday.  "Surgeon" is perhaps not the right word for him, because we do a pretty good job of not using the word "surgery" for the minor procedures I've had this year.  Instead we call them "procedures." A "surgery" is defined by Merriam Webster as medical treatment in which a doctor cuts into someone's body in order to repair or remove damaged or diseased parts. So I guess it depends on your definition of "cutting into."  Does that refer only to cutting through one's outer epidermis?  Or does it also apply if another mode of entry to the body and organs is used, and then the doctor cuts and burns things away?  Unsure.

But earlier this year I went in for a colonoscopy and the doctor cut and removed "damaged or diseased parts." Unfortunately there was one area that was too complex for that procedure, so we had to schedule another procedure with another procedurist shortly thereafter.  The call yesterday was that procedurist explaining that although the procedure was largely successful, there was a tiny bit of the bad tissue "in the margin," so it would be necessary to go in and "clean that up," in a few months. Three procedures in less than a year is a new record for me.

With my history, of course the most important words are--and the doctor used them many times--"not cancer."  It's not cancer.  It's just tissue that might become cancer, except that we won't let it.

So, happy dance for that--always.

And yet.

There is always an emotional fallout from such phone calls.  News like this has a tendency to come just at those moments where I am thinking about making changes in my life. When I'm feeling "normal."  Literally, for the past week I have been making plans (and even taking actions) for "moving forward," telling myself that I am not trapped in any of the circumstances of my life, that I have a diverse skill set and I can find lots of interesting things to with it, I don't have to be stuck by pre-conceptions, I don't need to be tethered by any reality that is not of my own construction. These were the pep-talks I was having with myself.

The reminder of how parts of my body, while "not cancer" seem intent on becoming cancer is a reminder of how dependent I am on our health-care system.  That is a  reality that does not seem to be  of my own making.

Thus I am tethered.

I am tethered. If I feel there is injustice or ingratitude in a situation, I cannot escape it so easily.  I can't just fly away whenever I want and look over the landscape for something better.  I can make moves, but they will be constricted and complicated because tethered.  I can take the time to dig up the post and I can carry it with me. I can carry the post and I can walk. But I can't fly. 

Lately

Lately I've been writing quite a lot, along with my co-writer.  In the last three weeks we finished a full draft of a screenplay, which is faster than I've ever written a first draft--but it wasn't pretty, and honestly neither is the draft.  Which is not to disparage it--you don't disparage a big lump of clay that vaguely resembles an elephant--it's not bad, it's too early for it to be good or bad.  Unless, of course, you put it on display with other people's more finished elephants, and say it should look like an elephant--which is (of course) what we have done, submitting applications to the Film Independent and Sundance Labs.  Whatever.  The deadlines were helpful in softening the clay and doing the initial elephant, so maybe that is the reward in itself.

The first deadline was May 1st, and the second was May 5th.  Even if you have drafted some of the materials, like artistic statements, synopses, and cover letters, the last days before these deadlines always involve a five and six hours sessions of revising and polishing, so by the evening of the fifth I was pretty fried--getting home a little late to start the prep for my annual round of "medical screenings" on the 6th.  Yes--those screenings.

I arrived at the hospital in my normal state--cleaned out and dehydrated--and realized we were doing an upper endoscopy as well as the colonoscopy, and discovered that since I apparently gagged a little on the tube the last go round, I was getting a deeper general anesthesia this time. They found a  few things in both stomach and colon to remove--which everyone seems to take in stride, but it's not my favorite--it makes me feel like there's some failure in the system.  Either I've been laxer in my diet, or my body is just getting old and deteriorating--my telomeres are getting shorter or whatever. I know  it's  both, though I only have control over one: I've been going with the flow, eating meat  just to be agreeable, giving in to my sugar cravings, and not juicing and eating a ton of cabbage.  The thought of re-establishing all sorts of discipline makes me tired, especially when my whole body is bloated from being inflated with air, and sore from being snipped at. I stayed home from work yesterday and went today.  This afternoon at my desk I was thinking, in words, that I feel like my life force is being sucked out of me. A few minutes later the doctor called  to say they needed to cut something out that they couldn't cut out on Tuesday, so I'll need to do it all again in a month. The thing they are cutting is "not cancer" which means I'm at the high-class problem end of the spectrum for being part of a demographic that is highly susceptible to cancer, but I'm throwing myself a very tiny pity party anyway.  In two weeks I'm also having and MRI and an x-ray to make sure that the back pain I'm having is also of the "not cancer" variety.  Let's all pray that I don't look back and wish for tonight's problems.  Count your blessings and be grateful for them, otherwise, when there's less, you have to look back and feel like an asshole.

Super Ninja Neck Snap

 
I see my chiropractor on Mondays.
He bounces his fingers along my spine, lightly, barely pausing as he presses
the offending vertebrae, muttering,
“L4, T12 C7, C4, C3, C2,”
He stands behind me, cradles the crown of my head in one hand, my jaw in the other
and twists.
The CRACK resounds, and leaves me shaky.
I think about highly trained assassins and wonder
what the difference is
between the angle of relief and the angle of death.
10 degrees? Less?
I ask my chiropractor, and it turns out
they never discussed this at chiropractor school,
It was assumed there would be no death snaps,
like in hair-cutting school they assume no one will get stabbed in the eye with scissors.
Fair enough.
Still.
That crack is loud.
Subsequent internet research reveals that ending a person with a single swift twist of the neck, is much harder than one might think
from watching Die Hard, multiple episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and that scene in A Long Kiss Goodnight where Geena Davis kills the deer.
According to one website (with no listed outside sources), it takes between 900 and 1500 Newtons to fracture a C2 vertebrae.
According to another website, a Newton—a term of which I have no recollection from high school physics—is the amount of force needed to accelerate one kilogram of mass at a rate of one kilometer per second squared.
Another website—referred to since it’s hard to visualize those words that start with kilo—says a Newton might be compared to the weight of a single quarter-pound hamburger.
Which is also difficult to visualize. 900 quarter-pounders torqueing a neck? Is that 300 McDonald’s paper bags? does three burgers per bag seem reasonable? could four fit? or would  the bags no longer fold securely and spill open as you tried to stack them on the side of someone’s face?
In terms conceptualizing speed and force it might be more helpful to know that most C2 fractures happen as results of car accidents.
My chiropractor is not so speedy or forceful as a car wreck.
My inner wanna-be-poet likes the idea that the difference between life and death is only a few degrees.
But this is not the metaphor for it.
There is also the matter of some 1400 Newtons.

Related articles

• Snap, Crackle & Pop (relovertigo.wordpress.com)

Nothing Seems Fair Anymore

"Nothing Seems Fair Anymore."
This yesterday's Facebook status update of a friend from both college and LA.  He is funny, talented, goodhearted.
He has cancer.
Several months ago, he went into hospice, but has continued, on social media, to be the source of upbeat quotes, photos, and memes.
Most of our mutual friends have moved away, and we have not remained in touch directly, though we have made plans for a visit, it has been the LA kind of plan-- where you set a date, and one person has to cancel, and the other doesn't quite follow up, because:life, and so the plan fades away. I tell myself I don't know if his days are too filled or too empty, if I, after being absent for so long, would be a good use of his time and energy, when both are  in limited supply.  But think of him often. I think of him when I sit to meditate, which isn't often enough.  I think of him every time I scroll by one of his posts, and click "like."  And now, for awhile at least, when I think of him, I will think of these words, which went straight to my heart and have brought tears to my eyes, several times over the past couple of days.
Here's a video he and his wife made a decade or so ago.
http://youtu.be/zufK6CufVhA

Cancer Rears Its Head

Wednesday evening I came across this article by Roger Ebert and reposted it, with the status: "I love this guy."   In Ebert's post, he was talking about making some changes--pulling pack because of his health, but also looking forward to new interests and endeavors.  He also said,

At this point in my life, in addition to writing about movies, I may write about what it's like to cope with health challenges and the limitations they can force upon you. It really stinks that the cancer has returned and that I have spent too many days in the hospital. So on bad days I may write about the vulnerability that accompanies illness. On good days, I may wax ecstatic about a movie so good it transports me beyond illness.

This was something that, when I read it, I found myself looking forward to.  Hearing what this smart and passionate man had to say about illness--about living with his illness.  For awhile that evening, he was on my mind.
On Thursday morning, I received an email from a friend of mine in Australia, S. In 2003, she and three other women had been roommates at a retreat I affectionately call "Cancer Camp." She'd gotten in touch with two of the women, L and M, and we'd been planning a Skype reunion call.  But S's email was to tell me that our plans might have to be put on hold because L is in the hospital.  Her cancer is now in her spine, her spinal fluid, and her brain. She recently had a shunt put into her brain and now she has had radiation to her throat, making her unable to talk. L was already Stage 4 when we met nine years ago. She had two little ones and was determined then to see them grow, and she's done that. I hope she can continue to do that--but everything is fragile, and life doesn't always continue just because we plan for it to--as I was reminded on Thursday afternoon, when I heard the news that Roger Ebert had died.

Things They Found in the Attic--Part 5

This Bible and Signs of Generational Anxiety
Old bible.

Post cards, newspaper clippings and copied (or written?) poems circa early 1920s.














And this random piece of paper with the recounting of a bad dream.

I dreamed last night of drinking some poison, perhaps carbolic acid, something that looked like blood, in milk. It seems as though I did not know that is was poison for I had drunk three or four glasses before this. I poured too much in a glass of cream and passed it to others.  They refused, I grasped the glass and placed the beverage to my lips, drank half a glass and found ot my horror that I had gotten hold of something poison and that it was eating my stomach out.  I screamed for mamma. Death was inevitable. 



I've no way of knowing who wrote this. Was it a family bible or a personal bible?    The postcard is addressed to my Grandmother Ernestine--she of the many dance cards--and I guess it makes sense she would have had her own bible.  My sense of it, is that she wrote this.  She lived to be in her late-nineties, but by then she did have a colostomy bag. Her digestive system--like my father's and  my own, was a source of concern later in life.  Had it begun here?  Was it a premonition of sorts--a manifestation of knowing already, maybe subconsciously, that "something was wrong?"  There are no other recounting of dreams in the bible.  This is the only one.

I Work Out

A couple of weeks ago I got on the scale and for the first time weighed ten pounds more than the top weight I'd imagined not too long before (which at the time I'd considered seven pounds above my ideal weight) and realized it was time to get real with exercise.  I spent a week or so considering creative options, but finally settled on my gym--because it's already in my comfort zone, and already coming out of my paycheck.  The only thing was that I had been letting myself work out with Paul--who limits his workout's rigorously to thirty minutes, and had only been going a couple of times a week, with a yoga class on the weekend.

So for the past two weeks, I've been coming home from work and heading to the gym--and taking a class.  My willpower is not so great, so I find it's best not to think much about it. I just have to pull on workout clothes and make to the class. Whatever the class is at 4:30, I take it, and let the instructor provide the willpower from there. (I bring earplugs in case the music is too loud, which has been a deal-breaker in the past.)  It takes less will for me to do things that are asked of me--even if they are physically painful--than it does for me to refuse.  I guess this is a kind of benefit to the flaw of having bad boundaries.

And, as a whole, the experience has been pretty good.  I'm exhausted afterwards.  One night I came home and went to bed at seven, and on other nights my mental capacity is greatly diminished.  But working out makes me profoundly grateful that despite my recent neglect of my body, it still allows me to work out.  It feels like the right thing to be doing.

Resolution on the Rebound

February, as you may recall, is my "make active choices" month. How's it going? Meh... The parameters of the goal are pretty fuzzy, life has been in flux. I have not consistently been prioritizing that trip to the gym over other things. So I thought another form of active choice would be to throw a little bit of money at the problem, and this morning I ordered this.
It should arrive on Saturday. I now need to make a concrete and achievable goal in conjunction with it. Twenty minutes a day, unless I've made a trip to the gym? Or ten minutes at the beginning of any television show? I think I'll see what happens organically, but will make a decision within a week of its arrival.

Cancer and Nutrition: Great Books

I'm going through a period in my life where I am hearing from seemingly many friends and acquaintances who are having issues with their health, and have questions about my journey with cancer and nutrition. Here are my favorite books on the subject.

Beating Cancer with Nutrition

This book is jam-packed with information--and it looks it. The page layout is generally ugly. The margins are reduced and there's a lack of white space that screams self-published, which it is. But don't discount this book on the basis of art direction. ("Dammit Jim, the guy's a doctor, not a book-designer.") The pages are crowded because the authors seem to want to give the reader as many facts and examples as they can. There are citations at the ends of the chapters, which I prefer as I like to have the option to refer to the original medical journal articles.  The book begins with an "Executive Summary--If You Are Too Sick to Read Much Then Read This Section," that impressed me because it showed the authors are cognizant of the real issues that real cancer experiencers face in terms of having scarce resources--from money to time to energy. For same reasoning, they also include an audio CD with abridged sections of the book in case reading is too much. Patrick Quillin's wife Noreen, contributes recipes that follow the nutrition guidelines discussed in the book.

How to Prevent and Treat Cancer with Natural Medicine

If I was going to recommend one book to someone who is generally more comfortable with conventional medicine, this would be it. It's endorsed by the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and there are three contributing doctors in addition to Dr. Michael Murray, who is main author. The book looks very "respectable," and it's also informative and good. A couple of the supplements that I discovered in this book are the ones that I still take. The organization of information is very clean, with sections that deal with certain types of cancer. There is also separate nutritional advice for those who are undergoing chemo and radiation. This book also has recipes and is well referenced.

Ian Gawler - You Can Conquer Cancer

This is the book that started it all for me, in terms of simply helping me make the decisions--about food and other things--that helped me back on the road to health.
Ian Gawler says, "The first thing you do after you panic, is DON'T PANIC," and for a first time cancer experiencer, that can be the most important advice of all.

Try not to be weirded out by the cover that seems both new agey and makes Gawler look like some holy man. Gawler's early experiences with cancer resulted in his leg being cut off at hip. Instead of a single pants leg, he wears a long caftan shirt. And then maybe the photographer got carried away, I don't know, but the contents of the book are very practical and accessible. He discusses the three main tools he used in his own recovery: Meditation, Nutrition and Right Thinking.



Nature's Cancer Fighting Foods

I haven't returned to this book as a reference over the years as much as I have the others, but it's on my shelf and every time I flip through it I'm reminded how accessible it is, and remember that when I was first overwhelmed by my health situation, the explanations that I could actually digest often came from this book. If you are looking for recipes, it probably has the most, along with a glossary of less familiar ingredients. There is a good resource guide in back as well.

This Week at the Office, or "Not loving the smell of formaldehyde in the morning"

At work on Monday afternoon, I spent six and a half hours single-handedly doing this:



So that on Tuesday, they could do this:

The new furniture is all match-y and stuff. When it's not still covered in boxes, I'll take a picture.

I think it looks nice, but unfortunately an entire office of new laminate furniture smells like new furniture--i.e. it smells like what is probably formaldehyde with some pine scent thrown in. I have a sensitive respiratory system, and because of my defective repair gene and all, I'm kind of paranoid about ingesting and inhaling toxins. I'm already not a fan of how close our building is to a busy roadway, or the amount of fumes that I'm now exposed to on my daily commute, which consists of standing for many minutes at high-traffic intersections before getting on buses that constantly stop and open their doors at other busy intersections. So adding to my carcinogen load has not been at the top of my list of things to do. Was I just imagining my headache and burning eyes by the end of Wednesday and Thursday or were they real? Were they due to sitting at my new desk, or just a result of sleep-deprivation and PMS?

Because I'm generally a people pleaser, I hate to be the annoying Debbie Downer who points out, everytime someone walks in the door, happily takes a big breath and says "oh, it smells so GOOD in here," that in modern times, GOOD is what POISON smells like.* But I have been making it a point to open all the doors and windows in our office to vent the good smell. Unfortunately, all the doors and windows open onto our beautiful courtyard, which is equipped with no less than eight benches with concrete ashtrays next to them. More than any other place on campus, this courtyard implies that one should sit, gaze at the pretty fountain, and smoke up a storm.

At the time of my cancer diagnosis, I was going to an applied art school in Australia and had just declared printmaking as my emphasis. My work showed potential, and I LOVED doing it. I woke up in the morning excited about going to the studio, even when I wasn't feeling well. It gave meaning to my days. After my surgery, I only went to the studio to clean up my supplies. I still have several unfinished plates that haunt me (all my unfinished creative projects haunt me.) I could use turpentine alternatives and non-toxic inks (that were never quite as good as the real thing), but almost any studio is shared. Potent cleansers are needed to clean the silk screens and resin dust is needed to coat metal plates for etching. I left because I couldn't feel safe there anymore. Because my surgery scar was still fresh and everyone was still shocked and scared by my close call, this didn't seem like a militant move, it seemed like a no brainer.

I decided my new creative outlet / career could be writing (structured differently, this blog post could be called "how I chose to become a writer"). It seemed a good answer for someone living with compromised health. I could do it from home. Writing wouldn't have fumes, like art, and it wouldn't have the high stress and long hours of my former work in event production. Working from home, I would be able to control my diet, make fresh veggie juices three times a day, and exercise.

Cue Alanis Morissette song having to do with irony here, sung by the girl who hasn't juiced in months, worked out in weeks, gone to bed before 1 am in years.

Day to day, I'm not unhappy. My life has structure, part of me thrives on busy jobs, and deadlines, but there was a time I promised that I was going to take care of myself, and I have to admit that I've compromised on that quite a lot. The addition of one more element--like bad air-- kind of throws the whole picture up on the screen, and makes me have to look at it again.



(*Know what smells good to me? The smell of lighter fluid on charcoal briquettes. This, in my childhood, was the smell of a cooked-out hamburger. It was the smell of happiness. I'm sure that's in no way related to colon cancer twenty years down the line, but just as an example of things that smell good that are not good for us.)

This Week

From my recent posts, you might think it was social-y, with movies and such. And kind of, it was, but it was really much more about being sick. Just a cold I think--but just-a-colds for me tend to involve a long and fierce battle with bronchial congestion, and an utter exhaustion component, and this cold experience hasn't fallen short in either case.

I made it to work everyday, and the two screenings I saw both took place on campus, so it took minimal effort to drag myself a couple blocks to check them out. Even then, I would have opted out, but in each case I had a guest who would not have been able to get in without me, so that inspired me to stay upright. However, a reading, tentative tea-date and a house warming party all fell by the wayside in favor of lying in bed and coughing without feeling like I was scaring everyone in a 20-foot radius.

Yesterday I went to the accupuncturist, who always makes me feel everything's going to be all right. She gave me several baggies, each full of a dozen packets of powders which I am supposed to combine into a tea that looks like Greek coffee. It's bitter tasting, and also makes me feel that good health is just around the corner, because any sickness in its right mind would run from that tea.

And as always, being sick simultaneously makes me anxious about, but also extremely grateful for my general state of good health. The way I'm feeling now is the exception and not the rule. I'm lucky.

I'm also aware of how quickly circumstances can change. In the last couple of months a number of our friends have experienced serious health issues. Just from this blog's sidebar, a brain tumor (Miskellany) and a cancer recurrence (Someday We'll Look Back and Laugh). I've been amazed by the grace and wit and resilience I've witnessed in the face of these illnesses. I've had less grace, wit and resilience just in this week, maybe because I know Paul will put up with some whining if it's going to be temporary!

But that's an aside--point being, if you are feeling good--take a moment to appreciate it. Go do something to support it: eat a fresh, colorful vegetable, go to the gym, take deep breaths that expand everyside of your rib cage as you walk down the hall to your office. Because good health is awesome!