kvetching up

Rank Stranger Sigh.  Honestly, the headache and my tinnitus might have decided to summer in Seattle, and to do so a little early. Otherwise, I am an extravaganza of excellence.   Last night in therapy we talked about our fears. It was an ice breaker for cohabitating but estranged partners, kind of a therapy party game.  It was a helluva lot better than discussing the relationship.  We have formally shifted to talking about grief, death, and fear, the trifecta of shite, as I refer to it--generally under my breath.  There was never a time that therapy was intended to save the relationship.  I am, if should the day arise, leaving.  That is my preferred outcome.  That I have made clear multiple times in therapy, although I would concede no one can tell the future. I believe mine does not lay in remaining married to a person who has wronged me so intently and intensely. Despite that, it kept feeling like we were slip sliding into that discussion....

Culling the Herd The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. I  I look at disease as nature's way of culling the  herd.  Bad genetics, of which I have no dearth, tend to help sort things out.  I saw yesterday that due to environmental contamination, caused by human activity, fertility rates are crashing, another genetic culling.  This isn't social darwinism, but actual natural selection (aided by our hubris and inability to stop destroying the place we live) doing its work.  Of course, poor people and therefore, generally, non-white people in the West suffer the most--since race and economics closely track. That isn't Darwinism at work, but racism, by the way. Any other answer is unsatisfactory as an explanation, and likely contains bedded racist assumptions. Enough about that. The more we try to architect around it, the more ways nature shows it's inescapability, underscores our hubris.  We build vaccines and embrace the germ theory of disease, and the worl...

He said, " Let me break it to you, son" Your shit's fucked up. " I said, "My shit's fucked up?" Well, I don't see how-" He said, "The shit that used to work- It won't work now." --Warren Zevon A Neurologist Walks into a Bar The neurologist called today, early, as it turns out.  Two hours early.  I do love how COVID-19 has changed everything.  I'm used to an appointment starting about 30 minutes before the doctor actually shows up.  This is a follow up appt., after I visited urgent care two weeks ago, and my PCP some days later, to try to solve the dizziness crisis.  I should mention here, the dizziness and attendant nausea, while not completely abated, has signficantly--like 95 percent improved.  The tinnitus rages on. So proud my tinnitus, my own progeny, never lets anything stop him.   "Did they talk to you about your vestibulary arteries at Urgent Care?" the doctor asks me.  I tell her no.  She asks if I know what...

Sunday March 28, 2021 “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” --Frank Herbert Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less. --Marie Curie Today, I am living in a world where I have to prepare for the worst.  I have again spent the last few days obsessively reading medical journals on PDAC.  I don't want to believe this is incurable.  I read things like, "Most people die within 4-10 months," and that the true statistic for stage IV with distant metastases survival is .5% over 5 years.  We are at 7 months.  I pray for 30 more years.   How do you live in such a state without becoming fear's doppelgänger?  I don'...

Hell - Hieronymus Bosch   Weekend Jam I fell again this morning--thanks inner ear crystals! In the beautiful series of events that comprise my life, I had terrible abdominal cramps last night that led me to going downstairs and laying across an ottoman just after 9, trying to find relief.  My torso covered the ottoman, my head bent down over its front, my knees bent on the floor at the other end.  Its a fucking freezer down there.  Nevertheless, I fell asleep while reading about CA 19-9, maintaining that awkward position for two hours.  Jenny, came to check on me around 11, as she and Kim were going to bed.  I woke briefly, intending on going back upstairs, yeah--not so much.   At 3:15 a.m., I woke again.  It was so cold, cold enough I should have checked for hoar frost on my chin.  I didn't.  It was my first mistake.  The second mistake? I tried to stand up.  Silly me.  I fell like Tommy Hearns connecting with a Tyso...

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born "Come in," she said, "I'll give you shelter from the storm " -Bob Dylan Friday I am 10 minutes from the start of the work day. I can't get 3427.8 out of my mind. Two weeks ago her CA 19-9 was startlingly high at 2349.4, a slight increase from the February 25 measure of 2321.5, which was more than double the 939.9 two weeks prior to that. I am worried. Numbers trending up like this generally mean the tumor is growing. 0-36 is the normal range for this marker. So, fuck. Jenny hasn't checked the number, and I promised if I looked I wouldn't tell her. So, I haven't. Won't. I imagine she will look today at some point, as noted earlier, we all gaze into the abyss. It's in our nature. This is a slow-motion train wreck. Stage IV Prog...

“And some things that I want to say Aren't survivable Or advisable Like, "Happy Birthday heroin But God, how I loved you And how I still do." -Lucy Wainwright Roche  The Ever Burgeoning Day Its Wednesday.  I want to remember these good times, from back in July 2009, in our family home.  By now things were a struggle.  Leiney was well older here than when she suggested to my mom that Jenny and I get a peace table like she used at Giddens.  Still, this was clearly a happy day.  I have to say, I wake up every day with a growing sense of doom.  I know that in a month, six months, a year or more, the foundations of this family will be shaken.  What we are experiencing now is like living in a house full of gnats.  We will be living in the center of a hornet's nest soon enough.  I would like to think that life is a farce.  But, that is true only insofar as much as The Joker is a farce. There is nothing funny or humorous about losin...

Musings After Coffee I had a thought for no one's but your ears: That you were beautiful, and that I strove To love you in the old high way of love; That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown As weary-hearted as that hollow moon. -William Butler Yeats, from Adam's Curse Satan Touching Job with Boils Wm. Blake What is true, what is real is that we stopped working. Looking back, I remember when the fighting stopped. I was relieved. Does this mean that I had already given up? I hadn't been intentionally creating conflict. I was relieved when she was with her friends, it meant one less point of contact in which fighting might occur. But no, we were getting along better before D day. I was convinced. My children would say the same. We had traveled through Europe in 2018 happy as larks--okay with the exception of our anniversary date, when we had a row in front of the kids. I am as blind as a drunk with his hat over his eyes. Yes, even now. I have no idea how I...

  Lest We Forget The feelings of grief, anger, and betrayal after the discovery of the affair have made me see the world through a cataract eye.  Nothing is clear or concise.  There are no clearly defined borders.  There is no good or evil in this story.  Jenny isn't a child eating ogre who is never kind to me, who lashes out in anger all the time. She presents, generally, as loving and kind, even when texting with Eric the pinche motherfucker.  She is, though, intentionally choosing to do something incredibly painful to me, and doesn't care enough about me to stop hurting me every single day.  That she acts lovingly toward me just fucks with my head. She walks around seemingly oblivious that the fact that she refuses to stop the affair while she is dying makes me feel like I am standing in a wind tunnel on a bed of nails. This dissonance, both cognitive and emotional, makes me feel all the more like I have lost the plot here.  I love her. I car...

Kim is here for 12 days, visiting from Quakertown.  She is sleeping in what used to be my spot in the bed, long ago ceded to the invisible presence of el pinché motherfucker. Kim is the loveliest of humans. 12 days though?  I slept in the big red chair downstairs in the unheated basement rather than sleep on the living toom sectional couch, trying to maintain a modicum of privacy. Glad we got rid of the sleeper couch, I finally understand the urgency of getting rid of a couch in a room with a door. Or not. In preparation for the guest's arrival, Jenny and I cleaned and organized the bedroom closet.  We managed to fill a black lawn and leaf bag with clothes to give away. As I was winnowing my t-shirt collection, I came across the EJI t-shirt Jenny gave me as a gift after returning from Alabama in 2019.  She went with her friend "Ike" a 70-something teacher at TOPS and Eric  the pinche motherfucker. Ike wanted to see and show them the seminal sites of the civil ri...

I'm cranky over the mundane pettiness of this existence.  The grating anger toward me, the seething resentment, which moved like slow magma beneath Jenny's otherwise calm exterior when she was healthy, and that used to infuse our everyday interactions, shows up again when she is functioning without the effects of chemo.  

De Nile flowing through Egypt Leiney is an amazing young woman.  Her kindness is innate, and overflows all the time. She is whipsmart, curious, and obsessed with justice.  It's what drew her to Fairhaven, where she has just completed her first two quarters.  She entered uni with 60 credits, so she is technically a sophomore.  But she has been stuck home, doing distance learning since last spring as a high school senior and is done with it.  Yesterday, she told Jenny and I that she has withdrawn for spring quarter and is going to find work.  I felt sorrow for her, and was quiet--trying to keep my shit separate from hers--after she told us.  Jenny, gushed with pride.  She told Leiney she was so proud of her for telling us, and for being proactive about withdrawing--sentiments I share.  Jenny then said, its just so hard with so much going on, COVID-19 and your mom sick with a terminal illness.  I waited.  The third leg of the stoo...

Everybody knows that you love me baby Everybody knows that you really do Everybody knows that you've been faithful Oh, give or take a night or two Everybody knows you've been discreet But there were so many people you just h ad to meet Without your clothes Everybody knows -Leonard Cohen I am being consumed by this, swallowed whole.  I live this life, stuck and not wanting to get unstuck, because I know the only way that happens is when her cancer runs its course.  I think about two things every day, all the time, pancreatic cancer, and the betrayal.  I am convinced my vertigo is a direct result of the constant stress I have been under these last several months.  I don't feel strong enough to do this. But I don't have an alternative.   Jenny is upstairs on the phone with Big Sisters, laughing hysterically.  Earlier tonight a teacher friend dropped by and they had a good old time.  Jenny, not suffering from the chemo, is in high spirits.  Meanw...

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV). Also known as fuck my life.  Why do I get all the weird disorders?  Some years ago I had scleritis in my eye.  If I recall correctly, my left eye.  It looked like a popped blood vessel covering half of the white of my eye.  It was benign, thankfully.  If not, it could have signaled a much worse disease and a shortening of my life.  It causes great pain that can't be reached by the use of opiates or other pain relievers, which was fun.  As it was, I wore an eye patch for months until it cleared up.  It also was benign, like the BPPV.   I had tests this morning, again, at Kaiser.  They finally nailed down the issue when they moved my head rapidly while laying me down, and checking to see if there was involuntary movement of, yep, my eyes. There was.  I'm not pleased.  The only treatment, except in the most extreme cases, is this weird head and body exercise I am supposed to d...

Walking on the Moon Dizzy.  Three days now.  Overwhelming.  Scary.  Worried I have a brain bleed.  It comes in waves. I went to urgent care on Sunday.  MRI and CT.  My brain is photogenic. No bleeds, no tumors.  I go back today.   This has been going on since Wednesday.  On Saturday, I saw Jenny and Abby parking Abby's car after acting. I had been out walking.  I was so dizzy it felt like I was walking on the moon, or jumping up and down on a very springy mattress.  Sunday, another episode hit while in full repose in Abby's car.   I was going to leave around 2. She went to see Eric the pinche motherfucker today and had therapy--which is 50 minutes, right?  Therapy started late.  12:43. She just texted me that she just finished therapy  and is on her way home.  I'm sure she was lying.

Springing Forward Riding shotgun in Abby's car on the I-90 bridge, 3.11.2021. Abby had her first performance of The Complete Works of Shakespeare last night, and she was marvelous.  She was lit up like an 80s FM haunted house at Halloween when she got home. That was great to see, and I love that she finds such joy in something.  Leiney, always clutch, drove Abby over and back so I could have therapy and Jenny could continue to rest while receiving chemo (5 FU) through her take home pump. Therapy was, as it should be, cathartic, and especially affirming.  3rd week of putting issues around the pinche motherfucker in the box, and it's going well.  When I was trying to describe my current relationship with Jenny, I described her as a friend, searching for the right words. My doctor asked me, if you had a friend who was knowingly and intentionally doing something that hurt(s) you, would you remain friends?  Fair point.  So, I don't know how to describe this rela...

Terrified of the Road Ahead   Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan Currently, I am sitting in the parking lot at YTN, reading medical journals on PDAC. I am curious what the journals suggest an elevated CA-19-9 level (the cancer marker) might mean. Jenny's is stable at 2349 (normal reading is >37). Hers was under 1000 at diagnosis, and crashed as low as the 300s in initial treatment, before beginning its ascent in late October.  It more than doubled from 331.2 in early October to 792.4 at the next session. It dropped below 1000 a couple times since then, but the trend isn't encouraging.  Amongst the literature I perused, I found  this, "Rising CA 19-9 values mean the tumor is growing." That statement is too strong.  Other things can cause the number to go up, an obstructed biliary duct, for instance. The worry for me is of all the examples listed as reasons CA19-9 may be elevated, none were things Jenny has. I'm not a medical doctor, so I don't know what t...

Work was busy today. It will continue to ramp up as the year progresses.  Even so, Jenny and I managed to have several interesting interactions today.  I got up around 7, made my coffee and sat down on the sectional/bed 🛌 in my living room/bedroom.  The dog climbed on my lap, and I began to read the news on my phone.  For the first time I can remember since Jenny fell ill, she came out to the living room and laid down on the opposite end of the couch, with her feet closest to me, and her head on a far cushion. We offered good mornings to one another and then she closed her eyes and I went back to reading.  Jenny hadn't moved or even opened her eyes, although she was awake.  After a bit, i picked up a game controller, intending  to play a video game.  The tv lit up, and as it did, Jenny got up and stormed off, upset that I hadn't been cuddling her.   I started work shortly after this.  And worked all morning.  Jenny and Leiney ...

Sorrow -- Van Gogh 1882 I want to fix her. I want to find a cure, a way to stop the suffering.  The agony is real. Ceaseless. The fear corporeal. Tonight, I started receiving harrowingly sad texts as I sat in Abby's car at YTN.  My heart broke into a million pieces again and again with each message.  I found her at home in the bathtub for the third time today, abdominal cramps from the cancer leaving her ashen and bereft. It took 3 visits the the bathroom to coax her from the now tepid water, which she had been in for over an hour.  I pulled the plug, and got her up, wrapped her towel around her. Dried her off.  The sorrow in her eyes leaving knife wounds wherever they came to rest on me. Mostly, she stared vacantly into space, not resolute, not resigned, not stoic.  Lost.  Even asking to no one in particular, "Is this what it was all for?"  "Can this really be it?" "Why?"  I left her alone in our cramped bathroom. Fifteen minutes later, aft...

Defensiveness keeps individuals from accepting responsibility for their actions. If a spouse is defensive, they are justifying their behavior, or blaming their partner for the problem.”  --John Gottman I am much more introspective when I begin putting down words.  At the outset, I want to be clear that our marriage has been far from perfect for a very long time, something we both have and do acknowledge.  A very long time.  Things started heading south on my end back when we began having fights about money, and Jenny would be angry I wasn't making enough, and wanted me to find additional work. Nevermind that I liked the work I did, even if I hated the job.  Nevermind that she worked in a field that paid far less than me, and that her ideas were gender bound. When I would suggest that, perhaps, if she wanted to have more money she should get a different job, she would retort that she was doing work she liked--even though I would often hear she hated to do that p...