If Indiana gets a bad rap for anything, often enough it's for the environment--and we deserve it. We're one of the most industrial and least regulated states, leading to a cornucopia of crap in our air, rivers and land. We're rural, too, and filled with pesticides that leach off into the watershed. Our love of coal power kills forests from here to New England.
But today, ah, today...there was that special sunshine that hits orange leaves, and sets yellow ones alight. I woke to it, after falling asleep for a morning nap that went until Noon. Last night, I was fussing with too much gunk in my throat that wouldn't come out and kept me awake until early morning. Today, I'm fussing with beauty. I'm fussing with my nap buddy, Rally, who loves a nice morning snooze. He, in fact, doesn't mind an afternoon, evening, night or brunch-time snog, either.
I had a rendezvous with Wound Care today, too, and I was in an unusually good mood for it. Along with the bright light as I drove, I reviewed all my good news, from my scan, from the evidence of my life, from how I feel, from how I think--and added to this, the fact that I can see that my chest tumor has shrunk recently, significantly to my eyes, and is expelling tons of grossness into the bandages like the dying wrath of a volcano god with no further believers.
I am cautious these days with too much celebration, wondering if I need to quietly slip by cancer and hope it forgets who I am. I dream of hearing words that they've told me I'll never hear--"cancer-free"--because I want to beat odds and, yes, I love to say I told you so.
I went 70 mph down 37 South past Bloomington's answer to the strip mall dingys that someone believes every city requires. Headed to see Dr. Wilkins, with whom I'd also celebrate the fact that we won't have a treatment interruption because of insurance issues--marriage is here! I mused upon the fact that everywhere I turned recently, things seem to be...working. They seem to be ok.
It's times like this that I allow myself to think of survival, and how sweet it is to do so, but also what shape that survival takes in the near and further future. Lately, I've had terrible issues with drainage. I work and work to get this stuff out of me but I lack the natural power of a throat and mouth that help one expel so efficiently. Recently, gunk has started to shoot out of my trach tube when I cough--thick, snotty threads that are, sorry, gross to the touch. If I could save this stuff, one could build with it, I swear. Roman concrete.
Though, it's kind of fun to see how far this stuff will shoot, and what kind of cough it takes to really work up a nice arc of a few feet's duration. You have to make your fun, often enough, and find it where it lives. This is my odd fun. Just to let you know, I've mastered hitting the bathroom wall from standing at the sink--a good couple of feet.
I am reworking my social graces because this year, I'm hosting with the help of IU's wonderful Political Science Department Ladies (Jan, Amanda and Jessica), a birthday celebration on November the 20th when I'm 54...54! Imagine that. Just a few years ago I worked out like a fool to not look 50; I worried about my tummy and my ass, I hoped I'd keep getting erections forever. I thought of everything like I believe a typical man does, hoping the rest of my life had good food, hot sex, cute dogs, warm rooms.
So, the cute dog and the warm room remains, and the rest of the ideas have changed. I could give less than a boner for how much tail I get from here on out, I am learning how to deal without food better and better (while keeping hopes alive!...). I see survival as a power that overweens the incredible smallness of who I was, the little hopes, the modest wants. Survival has demanded of me that I grow bigger than what I'm fighting, such that in looking down, I can see in physical fashion that the greater entity rules my world. I can keep going.
As I keep going, and keep finding new tricks to do with my trach tube, and new ways to ignore how good that chili smells, I hope I become better, too. Better not as in vital signs, but better as in moral signs--that when I care, I care more and more because of who I am; that as I grieve, it is with the true sense of loss, and not an ersatz cry for attention. That I continue to see how small my problems are in the sight of the world.
At my birthday lunch, with--hopefully--20 or so of my favorite people around, I hope to type the word fuck about twenty times on my Ipad, and laugh, and maybe even tear up a bit--I haven't seen some of my IU friends since the great change happened. I want them to feel a bit of what I felt today as sunlight came into the room, hitting Rally's face, warming my leg, waking us up to what was a terrific day. I want them to know how readily these days are available.
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