I have spent a lot of time saying things like “I am thankful for my health.” but I really had no idea what that meant. I still don’t but now I am at least aware of the fact that I am only just beginning to experience the unavoidable transformation that will be the rest of my life. There are a lot of little things I took for granted, more and more things I am noticing I still take for granted, and weird shit that is happening to me that gets stuck in my head.
I don’t have anything remarkable or especially thoughtful to say here this morning. I have insomnia and physical problems and I am mostly thumbing this into my phone to avoid looking at the horrors of the news and to do something quiet to pass time without making noise that could awaken Ellie. DO NOT DISTURB THE SLUMBER OF THE SAINTS.
Anyway, I was thinking that up until this past July I would make maaaaaaybe one medical appointment per year? Maybe a couple per year if I did something stupid to myself. I did a count just now and I have 11 appointments in the next month. So far. It will probably be more.
I go to the hospital more often than the grocery store. I can tell I am still a newbie too because I am only just starting to have the “Oh here comes trouble!” exclamation from staff and I don’t know everyone’s name yet. It’ll get there. I am always That Guy for places of repeat business. I am not the greatest at making friends and there’s something atavistic about being an old midwestern nerd that sets me off when there is an unfortunately captive audience in front of me. I do not want to annoy or torture the folks that work at the places I go repeatedly. On the contrary I think I try to be the best possible customer/patient/client they see in a day because I still remember standing behind a register or desk for way too many hours and dealing with too much bullshit. I am probably still getting on folks nerves though because I am either trying too hard, or taking too long, or it’s Thursday and you know how Thursdays can be.
Is there a such thing as Regular Syndrome? There’s gotta be. I am probably a textbook case.
Change of subject: I got a new ridiculous bed for the first time in over 10 years and I am pretty guilty at how fancy it is but you can’t take anything with you after all and I just hit a button on the fucking remote it uses and as I am typing this it is raising me into an upright position and I just whispered “fuck yeah” to myself in the dark. Space bed. The future is now.
What else can I share? Oh! Smells!
I don’t know what happens to other folks with cancer, or my type of cancer, or my specific chemo, or if I am just a beautiful and unique creature but over the past few months I have started emitting some ~*☆S T A N K☆*~ in just about all the ways a person can stink.
My personal flora and fauna are definitely mutating into something that produces the opposite of aromatherapy. Stenchtrauma? Funkderangement? It is abhorrent and constant and I am lucky Ellie hasn’t locked me in a hermetically sealed room to suffocate. Yesterday I caught a whiff of my left armpit and my eyes are still watering. When I fart it’s like the Daffy Duck cartoon where he can only do the exploding stunt once, but I do it over and over again. I am a walking superfund site. Chemo farts are no fucking joke. I need new booty shorts with “This place is not a place of honor… no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here… nothing valued is here.” screenprinted on the back. Except they have to be made of asbestos or they’ll just vanish like flashpaper the first little toot that squeaks out.
Both hospitals gave me binders full of cancer info and what-to-expects and FAQs and neither of them had any warnings about the farts. It’s a major oversight and something I think needs to be more widely known before someone gets hurt. If I farted in a crowd right now it would make the news with the word “casualties” in the headline for sure.
I am out of dumb shit to say for a minute. Anyone got any cool stories? Got any fun questions? Lame jokes?