The Good Side of Bad

It was true: in progressive care, I slept four straight hours before anyone woke me up. I feel like I could lift a car or something right now. What do people do who sleep for 8? Chop down forests for kicks? One of these days, I'm going to rediscover that feeling.

My night nurse, Toni, has been in a few times and she manifests as a face on the body of a dervish. This would be more perfect were she a believer in the divinity of nursing, but she's far too practical for that--this girl just loves the nursing. If I had to guess, I'd say her personal religion has a heavy dose of scheduling and process involved int it--that by doing rightly, well and on time, we could solve most of the world's problems-and I agree with that.

It may open the door to Taylorism to believe so, but if you watch Toni go through the steps of checking vitals, dispensing meds and assessing need at her interval checks, you probably would never associate Taylorism with her whatsoever. You'd do a great disservice to the fact that if you truly love what you do, you truly want to do it with as little error and as well as possible.

Since yesterday, I've been thinking a lot about the good side of bad. This is an old conundrum for me. As a kid, I couldn't understand why anyone was ever angry at the Jews over the crucifixion. Weren't they simply doing what god had planned for them to do? Did they have any choice in the matter? Without them, would the crucifixion have happened if they had gathered up their psychic nuts, grabbed tight, and said, "don't kill the so-called rabbi, who cares?"

One extreme example of the good side of bad, perhaps....cancer, another.

I'm finding more and more how the GSB paradigm is applicable across vast areas of my life. It answers the worst pessimism with a slightly less polly-anna-ish optimism. It doesn't attempt to quell the forest fire of pouty self-loathing, it redirects it to that line of psychic pines we all have in our personal mountain ridges that require a good burning to pop out new seeds and spread themselves in acts of regeneration. The GSB allows you to look in the ugly screaming face of all the terror you can have and calmly tell it to fuck itself. You can stabilize with the GSB where no one can improve what condition is attempting to improve.

It is never bad to be practical. That's merely a way to explain what you actually can do in any given situation. Practicality itself isn't an answer; it's merely a laying of new fencework when you've had to sell some mental real estate. You cannot be made worse by trying, and we all know it.

So damned if some progressive care sleep wasnt' just the GSB I needed...Toni certainly understood that when I told her.

Janis Joplin didn't ask The Lord for an Aveo

I've had two distinct situations in my day today--one as high as possible, and the other quite possibly the lowest I've yet had.

I woke today as the perfect hospital patient, in my beautiful ICU room with the nice view, the wood laminate floors and the incredible nurses. Mind you, I got no sleep last night. My blood pressure was taken hourly by a dictatorial machine. There was a special breathing treatment at 2am, a special chest xray taken at 3am, visits by a pack of roving doctors a couple of times, poking at my flap, hourly doppler checks of the blood flow through two special incisions, one arterial, one venal. I did not wake to the breakfast plate--my food flows through me on an hourly, pumped basis here--a very stingy 28 ml per hour of pale beige Nutren. Blood sugar was checked all night long--there was no room for anything but the cattiest of naps.

I woke knowing that I might move today--to a progressive care unit, not intensive. There, no hourly checks existed--I'd be far more autonomous, but frankly, for all their nursely hassling, I loved the ICU folks. They were thrilled that I like moving under my own volition, and seem to have a power of recuperation from surgical anesthesia little short of unheard of...yes, my special superpower is the ability to be intensely out and completely up almost like a dog.

And much as we might wish to fight for one another, I don't need ICU and they didn't need me. I was a vacation patient, they were my spa hospital.

Still, I had things to look forward to--I knew I'd have Monica the physical therapist who understands that my hell yes attitude reflects my deep hell please attitude to going home. I will throw myself 1000 per cent at anything that reeks of goal attainment and discharge status. So it is with physical therapy, the kicking of legs, walking with walkers, curling of arms--besides, one day in a balloon bed and anyone should want to take a walk, no matter how small, and no matter how much Monica keeps telling you to slow down.

I knew when I woke that I was a couple of hours from respiratory therapy, the one thing that stands between my trach tube and my trach tube strangling me. The RTs fascinate me--they seem like a gang within a gang, and yet without any one defining characteristic to predict who would take medical training and choose to be one. All sizes, shapes, genders, and attitudes.

I whipped through PT this morning insisting I should be able to walk to my new room. I sucked down albuterol from the RT like it wa last supper at a chemical plant. And then the order came, and I moved.

I'm now in an older part of the hospital, and it shows. There's no cabinetry or wood laminate. The view is of an alley I'm sure I've seen on Crime Stoppers. The lighting is harsh. It vaguely smells. I was swabbed for MRSA as my introduction in. Welcome to the real hospital Mark. Welcome to hospital hell.

The bed is awful, the chair is awful, the television is not a 32 inch flat screen. It's a Zenith CRT of indeterminate age. It hangs too far above the floor to be easily stolen The only art in this room is the art of survival.

I've been a little pouty because of this move, but damn if I don't always overlook the good in what goes on if I don't like the gloss of the moment. My nurse here, Silma, is about the most charming woman...and being Indian, she digs the fact that I used to work at India Studies. She unhooked me from the huge number of things attached to my body and allowed me the utter pleasure of going to the restroom in a real toilet with no one watching. It was fantastic. Also, likely against protocol. I love that woman.

And even though it's progressive care, she has pretty much treated me as if I'm her ICU project--but there's not as much coming and going, and Scott and I were in this room most of the afternoon without any intrusions, though trust me, dirty eggshell walls, scuffed floors and a boyfriend 3 days out from surgery aren't turning any of this into a lover's weekend.

I will continue to hope to witness no personal injury crimes as I look out the window of my hospital room--and I'm sure my mood will lift further the more that people allow me the silly pleasure of going to bathroom like an adult. Only time will tell....

But I will wonder if they are eating york peppermint patties that were slipped onto their pillows on the other side of the hospital.

Room and a view

I have an incredibly nice view of downtown Indianapolis from my room, which they tell me I will lose soon. This means that I will lose my nursing set who are incredible, the view, and the fun we've had--but it also means I don't need ICU, and that's an thumbs up I'll not fail to mention.

I've spent the day viewing my body through the eyes of others--as a set of numbers to some--blood sugar, blood pressure, weight, and so forth--as a marker for conditions--good flaps, swelling, response to stress--as a teaching tool for the students at the Med school.

This morning, for the first time, I saw my image--quite a surprise. I resemble a cartoon character, one with the odd jaw, the big circular cheek to one side, the rather pendulously swollen neck. I was neither shocked nor alarmed. This is clearly what 18 hours of surgery on delicate structures will do. It won't go away tomorrow, either--the biggest surprise is the strength of the mental image I had of myself as looking rather like I always do. That map of the self is such a powerful and calming possession.

I'd say I look like a monster but you might take that the wrong way. The quote that Scott included in the banner of the site is from one of my favorite Bugs Bunny cartoons, wherein being chased by a dysmorphic hairy monster, Bugs turns around, whips out a manicurist's table and starts doing the monster's nails.

We can discuss or argue all day the relative gayness of Bugs Bunny, but an opposition to my viewpoint that the rabbit was Charles Nelson Riley level gay will fall on deaf ears. To my young eyes, it wasn't even subtext, or subversive. That rabbit taught me on both sides of the scale who and what I was, wasn't, wanted and didn't want.

I am in perhaps the least camp of all places and yet I'm thinking of the most camp things--a lisping rabbit, a man's vanity being challenged, a man's life changing from normal to monster to normal again.

The monsters in Looney Tunes were, let's face it, a pretty lovable crew. Their idiosyncrasies defeated them long before Bugs arrived to finish them off. They existed in liars that were set on the right turn that took the place of the left that should have happened at Albuquerque. The rabbit was simply the turning of the key in the lock that kept them from bothering society at large.

I think of cancer as a hairy monster that was more successful with me than it was with Bugs. Lucky for him, things can be drawn in and erased out and involve no meter of change with which to deal. Bugs' tumor won't need to be excised and his body won't have to change to demonstrate where and how it has worked to realign its normal.

Is it okay that I laughed when I saw my cartoon face? I hope so. We monsters do lead such interesting lives....http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=acfx4orazEk

We are the champions

I've never spent a more full 18 hours than those I spent in surgery--nor have I been so unaware.

I woke to a smiling face, a few times coming to the surface, I thought I was dreaming, and that I remember. The dream part because there was no pain, no lump in my throat, I wasn't struggling against anything.

I was in a room with a smiling woman. She spoke to me in soft, suede tones. Finally I realized she was asking me how I felt. I wanted to tell her.

Right now, there's no telling anyone anything. Tongueless, there's going to be no saying of anything for some time--but I still have a voice box! Someday, I will speak again. It won't be in Elizabeth's tones, unfortunately, but the possibility is enough to satisfy me.

At the moment, I'm sitting in a chair, and I'm happy. Happy because of the chair, and where I am, and how everything has gone. I'm happy that I did well, and the doctors did better. Happy because the nurses are so good to me, but refuse to bring me coffee. I'm looking across the room at Charles and Scott and happy to see them happy.

Yes, this is day one of a very new adventure, and day one of a lot of work, but I'm starting day one out by doing more that I thought I would in a manner better than I was so certain I could.

The person I want to be is this person here, and now.

To all who have checked in, I'm doing it! For all the love you've sent along, accept mine in return,

This is how beautiful weird can be.

Mark Surgery Update

Hi....this is Scott writing for Mark.

It was a long day for Mark yesterday. He was in surgery for 18 hours, but I did get updates as each stage of the surgery progressed. The cancer removal went well, but he did, as expected, have a total glossectomy, and the neck and lymph node parts went well, too. They were able to keep the voice box, which was a big thing, too!

I was able to see him about an hour after the surgery was over. They told me he wouldn't be conscious, but he was, actually. I don't know how aware he was, but I took the opportunity to tell him how much love I felt for him all day long, both mine, and everyone else's who waited the hours to get updates from me.....and how how proud and amazed I am to have someone so extraordinary in my life.

Please keep Mark in your most positive thoughts as he begins a very long, new, and difficult journey.

But rest assured he won't be doing it alone :)

Scott

Signs of Spring

Underneath a bare dusting of snow, the ultra dark tulips I planted two years ago have crested the ground.

The dogs want to stay out longer, even though it's not noticeably warmer.

When the sun is out (rare in the past couple of weeks), it seems progressively brighter and more direct. 7:00am is not pitch black.

Although surgery is new this year, big change in Spring isn't a new concept to me. It seems that once the calendar reaches Valentine's Day, there's a natural spring that releases a coil of weird energy into my life at about the same time. I theorize it's because, being born on November 20, that February 14 was my conception day. The thought of my parents doing the horizontal boogie on a romance holiday is, I admit, enough to make me hurl, but there it is. The calendar doesn't lie.

Sunday, like Sunday always is, is for tying up loose ends. Laundry for all the towels I've drooled on, the clothing I've drooled on, the sheets I've drooled on (whoa, a pattern, huh?); a visit from my niece who is in this section of Indiana for a change; the sorting and placement of trash for Monday night curbside placement (Charles, don't forget to pull this out to the curb!); the general straightening of the house so it doesn't look a vulgar mess. Sunday like Sunday should be.

I've been thinking today about the claim that there are no atheists in foxholes. I call myself an atheist, but honestly, I'm sure something more than randomness has made this world--I'm just not theistic or christian or any religious label. And I have not, and don't intend to pray about what is coming up. I've put my own faith in doing well and acting best whenever possible. But to do honor to my humanist side, I've also tried to be as normal as possible, given that what saves us, often enough, is a firm belief in self, a firm tether to reality, a firm desire for one's routine.

Scott has told me he'll post here when the surgery is done, and he's received word of what has happened and how successfully it's been perceived. I of course will be out for awhile. I don't know how long, but they tell me they want me up out of bed in a couple of days, so let's hope that means I'll be clear enough to engage in something as fun and satisfying as this one-way conversation.

Yes, I suppose I always admired monologuists and simply didn't acknowledge it. Selfish, I know. Menschlisches, allzu Menschliches!

Talk amongst yourselves--here, I'll give you a topic: the Holy Roman Empire was neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire--discuss!

T minus 68 hours

I check in for surgery on Monday, March 4th at 5:30am. Surgery is scheduled to start around 7:30am. Surgery may still be going as late as Midnight on the 4th.

I'll be alseep, of course, and given the twilight state, won't even realize I passed a 14 hour period out of consciousness. The person to worry about in the scenario is Scott, who is sitting out the interminable thing at the site. If you're in Indianapolis that day, bring the guy some lunch! Better, pry him out of the waiting room and make him engage with the outside world for a few minutes.

I have as many mixed feelings about that as one can mix. I can't sleep now, at home, because of the pain in my head and neck--I want to sleep badly. I'm welcoming this as a corrective. I go into the surgical plan without clear outcomes. I won't know until I'm well up just what I kept ad just what I lost. I'm prepping to accept the worse and ready to exult for the best, and perhaps I'll land in the middle and be neither morose nor obnoxiousness.

There are so many images, lines of poetry, aphorisms, voices of other people with cancer, my family, floating through my head that it's difficult to manage any one of them or pin down why it's there--

I could say those mountains have a meaning
but beyond that I could not say
to do something very common, in my own way


Teach us to care, and not to care
Teach us to sit still


a vulturous boredom pinned me to this tree
if he were I, he would do what I did


On the day my mother died she got and cleaned the baseboards in the house so that when people came over, it would look good. That's where I got it. (my mother couldn't live up to her mother, either)

And hundreds of others. The voice of my brother Matt, gone these past 8 years, on my porch in Bloomington, drunk, when I was an undergraduate:  "Don't call me Vicki Sue, Call me Fallon."  My father, a delightful fellow in so many ways, telling me I was the most selfish person he knew (had to get that from somewhere, Mr. Price....).

There's no summation to the business of life that can be neat, and no amount of tying of loose ends will create a bow in this case.