Tuesday's Gone With The Wind

 Entry 1    8:48 a.m.

Bi-weekly Chemo Week Much Scarier than Shark Week

Thursday is chemotherapy for Jenny.  Her friend Amelia is taking her.  We are saving my sick and vacation days for vacation and cataclysm.  I fucking hate chemotherapy week.  Watching the cancer eat away at Jenny is terrible enough--and not as bad as it could be given her fortitude and resilience, But chemo and the attendant drugs that go along with it are, well, hell.  She is out of it for the first 24-48 hours following chemo.  The following 2 days are touch and go, mostly go.  We are moving forward as if everything is going to continue, as if the deluge has been forestalled indefinitely.  The packing continues apace.  I secured a home insurance binder this morning for the new home.  A moving company--Jenny's girlfriends recommended a firefighter owned company (imagine if I hired a nurse operated moving company, holy shit)--is coming today to provide an estimate.  My sister Jane volunteered to come show the estimator around, she is so selfless!

The academic papers keep rolling into my inbox. I am worried, as always. While treatment has somewhat improved over the last 18 years, people with Jenny's exact diagnosis still mostly die within 4-6 months.  So, all of the tooting of the improvements in the journals don't mean much.   Here is the latest I read, from an article written in 2003:

Eternity's Gate
".  .  . Determination of CA 19-9 provides faster evidence of response than conventional imaging procedures. With decreasing CA 19-9 values, objective progress of tumour is improbable, and treatment may be continued. In patients with an increase of CA 19- 9 or with a decrease < 20%, prognosis is extremely poor and with the exception of cases with significant improvement of clinical benefit response, further chemotherapy with gemcitabine seems to be of questionable value. In the setting of clinical decision-making, CA 19-9 kinetics may help to reduce the continuation of ineffective chemotherapy and the number of costly imaging procedures. Thus, rational implementation of CA 19-9 determination during chemotherapy of pancreatic cancer may induce a substantial reduction in treatment-related costs."1

Good old cost-benefit analysis. If I were a betting man, I would wager we will cease the gemcitabine after this 48 weeks comes to an end July 29. If it isn't proposed, I will have questions for Dr. P.  I am praying we can have one last Christmas together with the girls.

Entry 2        12:54 p.m. 

Oops, I Did It Again

Tonight is tandem therapy.  Currently Jenny is out in her car and on the phone with the "cancer coach."  Today she is likely discussing, among other things, the talk she had with Eric el pinché motherfucker  "about us and the future."  Us being them.  Have at it.  I feel like a horse on the Central Park merry-go-round. It's operated, or was operated until recently, by Trump. I keep spinning in circles, completely controlled by a crazy person whose relationship to the truth is less than tenuous. Every few rotations I tell the same story--the poor horses sentenced to spend eternity listening to me neighing.  They smile politely, listen because where else will they go, and occasionally whinny at me to gtfo.  But, I am stuck to the machine.  I go up and down, and round and round, but never leave.  The scenery never changes much.  Thank Christ I have a captive audience.
Entry 3        2:54 p.m.

You Don't Bring Me Flowers, Anymore

Jenny got a dozen roses delivered today.  The card had no name.  I asked who who they were from.  She says she doesn't know, although after opening them she disappeared to the bedroom with her phone for several minutes. When I told her it bothered me, she asked me why I would care from whence they came?  Love grows where my Rosemary goes.  




Location: Ravenna, Seattle, WA, USA

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