Notes from the Cafe Fiasco

Sodoku

So, it's not bad enough trying to concentrate on the Sodoku as the Silverline bus tries to periodically drop both my teeth and kidneys somewhere deep below the South End, but now I have to cope with incipient blindness brought on from the Metro screening a corporate logo over the puzzle as it tries to squeeze a few more bucks out of the caffeine pushers from Seattle.  I think not.

Space Shot

The military has recently announced that they will launch a missile to shoot down a spy satellite because the thing is coming down soon anyway and it is carrying hazardous chemicals. This raises a number of questions:

1) Why are they telling us this? This is the Bush Administration. They never tell us anything.

2) Who were the geniuses that put the hazardous chemicals in space in the first place?

3) Didn't these people ever hear of "what goes up, must come down"?

4) Is this just the military playing "Space Invaders" on a larger scale?

5) Will someone in Hollywood try to make this into a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones?

So much government, so little understanding.

Valentine's Day

It can be one of the cruelest days of the year for those of us who are single and unpartnered - full of self-recrimination, emptiness, and loss. Be nice to your friendly local single person today.

MLTD - Chronic - 2/12

Though the last PSA number of a couple of weeks ago was good, I found myself not being ecstatically happy with it for some reason. Certainly, it was much better than what it could have been. A large rise in the number would have started a heavy conversation about treatment - a conversation that I've been trying to avoid since my diagnosis. A drop in the number would have meant that the cancer had shrunk considerably and I my usual optimistic nature would not expect that this was going to happen. Cancer doesn't just show up and then go away, even with all the stuff that I've been doing over the past six months. So, the number that I got - one indicating that I was holding the line, was probably the best that I could expect. So, why wasn't I happy?

It took a while to figure out, but it finally came around. With this last test, my relationship to the cancer has changed. Things are less like World War II and more like World War I - I now have a chronic disease. The cancer is more like diabetes than it is a heart attack and the effort that it will take to heal it is going to have to be long-term. The changes that I will have to make in my life have to not only be large, but they have to be deep.

I don't know about you but, as much as I've done it in my life, I really hate making changes. It rubs my static Scots-English nature entirely the wrong way. There are parts of me that would rather be miserable than change to make things better. Well, this time I don't have a choice. To not make the changes throws me down a rabbit hole that I don't want to go down - one of radioactive seeds and incontinence pads and catheters. No, don't want to go there. I'd much rather change my diet, tweak my supplements, and do my visualizations. Even if I hate it. Even if I have to do it for a long, long time.

So, there is no joy in Mudville. The numbers are good. But that only seems to mean a whole lot of work. The work will be good for me. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to like it.