Started a painting of my love and accidentally made her sad on the first pass.

I'll fix it in the next pass.

Books and fun stuff:

Dungeon Crawler Carl series is very fun, cool, awesome.

Folded some paper with my niece.

She chose me! I'm the chosen one. And I didn't even graduate from a good school or nuthin'.

Coffee and reading in the mornings has been a true mental health changer for me. I think it fills the old transition of commuting to an office downtown.

A new sticker that Emily gave me.

Cat tax!

I want to scream. I will scream.

It's weird hearing the values you were raised to be believe growing up aren't actually valued by the people teaching them.

Rules for thee but not for me. Why?

You reap what you sow. Karma comes back around. Universal balance.

Nectarine Oatmeal cookies were a bigger hit among my testers.

I ended up with extra cookies this round, so if I continue making this much dough, I'll need to find more testers.

I'm making cookies now!

The first batch is Cornflake Oatmeal Chocolate Chip. There is a crunchy version where the outer rim is crispy and the middle is softer and chewy. There is a softer version that has a very similar flavor, but the mouth feel is more cakey. They are both my delicious children and I cannot choose a favorite. Crispy!

First you gotta powder half the flakes and most of the oats.

And then you give them a good wangjangle and you bake them.

And then you soften up the batter with a little leche love.

And yesterday one of my best friends came over for lunch and brought these beauties.

And the Ghost Horse of Dead Horse Beach made the water tower crooked.

And then a bunny!

And then a squirrel! Say hi Cherry!

All of this was mostly to say. I'm healthier and doing fine after all that cancer garbage.

Hello again.

OPERATION STOMA REMOVAL will be underway in a week and a half and I'll no longer be pooping in a special way. I will miss my toilet vacation, but will not miss the extra way I've been living life these past couple months.

I've been trying to live regularly lately. Actually leaving the house on purpose for things other than coffee and pastries. Sadly, with this next recovery period, that will have to go on pause until mid-to-late December. I truly do miss going out for a drink with friends and trivia nights, but next year look out, here I come. (I hope I still feel this way next year.)

The image below is of our patio-squirrel-friend Strawberry.

I've been cooking and baking a lot more these days.

The image below is from an early morning drive to Kittery, ME for some delicious French crullers.

We took a trip to The Salem Museum before the crowds of October arrived.

A leaf reminded me that we are exactly where we need to be.

Things might change around here once STOMAGEDDON is over, but I'll possibly start blogging a little more about life outside of this disease that has meant something. I'm still trying to figure out what exactly that is...

Surgery happened. Yay! The doctor said he removed around twelve inches of rectum. It took them eleven hours for a four to six hour procedure. Doctor's quote "nothing bad happened, it was just difficult." I think about them working on me in that fashion for that long and sometimes I cry. The endurance and stamina these people have, I want to ask how they take breaks or not.

So many emotions have been experienced. Abandonment, loneliness, anger at myself and others. Many of the nurses and their assistants were magical and helped keep my spirits up. One or two others I wouldn't mind helping to find a different line of work because their bedside manner was like licking sandpaper.

Pain has been pretty well managed except for when I want to sit at a desk in a chair for longer than forty-five minutes at a time. Things are just swollen to the point of pain or complete lack of comfort.

Neuropathy has gotten worse so now I walk with a cane sometimes and my typing has reverted to mostly hunting and pecking. Brain is unaware of where my limbs or digits reside.

Wahh, boo hoo, I don't know what else to say right now other than I miss life outside of my house. Which before I probably never would have said out loud being the introverted recluse I enjoy to be.

Em has been the best. She's done things for me that she swore she would never do for anyone and I can't thank her enough. Many date nights to come with exotic locales and cuisines. But shhh, don't tell her, it may still be a surprise.

Lack of funny and disjointed, but here I am with the best nurse I could ask for.

I had my last chemo treatment and I'm mostly starting to feel human again.

I've had a recent barrage of MRI and CT scans that looked very promising and brought with it the slimmest of hopes that I wouldn't need surgery. But fear hope can be a mind killer and with that hope dashed, I will be going under a robotic knife sometime in August.

I really wish that slim chance of no surgery just never came up because try as I might to not get my hopes up (I'm really good at compartmentalizing my emotions) in the end my humanity overcame my internal android, packing emotions in tiny little boxes all folded up like a neat towel, I was slightly crushed to hear the doctor still recommend surgery. And of course this news came after my sigmoidoscopy where the doctor pumped me full of too much gas causing me to become temporarily feverish and vomited all over the floor in the hospital bathroom. I really hope I haven't scared off all the emetophobes, and I'm sorry if I have. Maybe it's better this way.

Internally, mentally (Can mental be external? Come back for my philosophy lecture here at HeadTalks.) there's a tide pool of emotions that just keep crashing like waves into each other. I'm holding things together pretty well according to Em, whom I would like to thank the sages for being with me during the previously mentioned doctor visit. I don't know what I would have done without her there. I would have left, actually, and probably gotten sick on the drive home instead of at the hospital. There she goes saving my life again. Literally the best.

I've been trying to find balance in life again. It's not been easy lately and sometimes it gets hard to remember to take care of myself before others. Eating meals on the patio and watching the squirrels (Strawberry is our most recent "fan of the peanut pile" in the image above) and other wildlife gorge themselves on peanuts has been great. I've been reading more (books, comics, RPGs) and consuming more really good TV (Ms. Marvel, Lincoln Lawyer, The Boys) and the perfection of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. I've picked up my resin hobby again with some new dice molds and thinking about some new paintings I would like to get going.

Cat tax of the local wanderer, Booger.

"Now that Fortuna had saved him from one cycle, where would she spin him now?" – John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

SPOILER ALERT: There's a kidney stone image below.

In a couple days I will be undergoing my final infusion for this portion of my cancer treatment. So that means a couple more weeks of ho-hum living, but with less severity of side effects. My most recent infusion was done using a lesser dose and it totally reflected in my side effects being lessened in the couple weeks that followed.

And then my kidney stone woke up after lying dormant for about a month. I spent 12 hours lying on the couch or bed on a heating pad moaning in pain or trotting to the vomitorium (I know that use of the word is apocryphal, but I think the word is fun). Oxy helped for a little bit, ibuprofen and acetaminophen eventually added to that effort, but I was totally unable to find comfort for about five days. There was one day of false recovery in the middle that totally faked me out by giving hope that it was over...again. How sad was I when the pain started back up during the weekend and ruined all my plans? I honestly don't remember because PAIN baby!

I passed the stone or there was a random pebble that fell out of my pocket (that's where everyone keeps their pebbles, right?). I'm no longer in pain, but my week off before my last infusion has been shortened by about half and that's where my infinite sadness begins.

So I guess maybe this IS a happy ending of sorts. I'm saying goodbye to "Pebbles" (thanks for the name mom) and dropping it off at the farm up north (doctor's office) so they can do a DNA test to confirm that it is indeed "that bitch."

I'm really fucking exhausted. Here's hoping my body can catch back up a little before the last infusion.

Cat tax

Crafts: Below you'll find some scrapings, paintings, and models that I've been putting together. The Jolly Roger series will be put on hold because they don't give you a NEEDED rubber band to operate the skeleton's arm, but I like what I have so far.

Foods: I've been cooking more lately when I feel up to it. Below you'll see some fried chicken sandwiches, crispy pork belly, and a savory tomato sauce with ziti. My sister sent us these giant frosted cookies for Em's birthday. They are very decadent and delicious.

Others: A book about space wars along with some puzzles to pass the infusion time and some terrible hospital food, one of the two plants I'm personally caring for,  hike we took, a fun box of puzzles that I helped Kickstart with a very nice production value to them, visible kitty, and hiding kitty.

What have I been watching?

• Schmigadoon -- I just started this and it looks fun as hell.
• Severence -- also at the beginning but I hear good things.
• The Tender Bar -- filmed a couple towns over, Ben Affleck, Daniel Ranieri, Tye Sheridan, and Lily Rabe all do a spectacular job under the direction of George Clooney

There's probably others I forget. Oh right, Moonfall was terrible.

What have I been reading?

• The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
• The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemison
• The Human Target comic by Tom King and Greg Smallwood
• And various listenings and readings of the Critical Role DnD experiences.

Short and sweet! Have a cat!

Imagine a world where you go in for a treatment and the side effects are a little different but still manageable (hand tingles, cold sensitivity, see previous post). Then imagine them not actually being that manageable towards the end (leg and arm muscles simultaneously contracting in both directions, try running to the bathroom, ha!) for an extra day.

Then imagine the following week, you get a migraine at midnight and are up vomiting for 4 hours. Then imagine the following week you start passing a kidney stone, a 3 millimeter piece of calcium, that just wrecks your fucking day. The pain finally went on retreat around the 22 hour mark. This was after a trip to the ER for them to confirm what I knew was there, but also for them to let me know I didn't need surgery to remove it. 12 hours of vomiting, at least once an hour. How the fuck am I functional today, how am I typing this?

It mostly comes down to being in the care of my best friend/wife. She stayed home with me yesterday, made sure I had every thing I needed to be comfortable (but let's face it, if you've had a kidney stone passing through you, comfort isn't really an option), she took me to the ER, and helped decipher my treatment after we got home. It was hell and it wasn't my first kidney stone (2 priors). It was just the first one I've had in over 10 years since I quit drinking energy drinks.

Round 3 is next week, wish me luck. I'm armed with a walking cane, a furry nurse, and the best caretaker I can imagine.

Cat tax.

There's no quiz, I just funnin' ya, Joe.

Monday I got my port inserted into my chest. Everything went smoothly, I was awake but sedated for the whole procedure and all I could really tell was someone was pulling some very waxy floss through my skin. If you've run your fingers across some waxed thread you'll understand this part. No pain, just some tenderness where they had to tunnel some things under my skin and put a catheter into my vein. I watched a video of someone else's procedure after and it made total sense to me what I remembered feeling during my own process. It's gross.

I've been pretty lucky so far with my radiation treatments, and honestly probably still pretty lucky today with the IV treatment. It has only been one day since my first IV treatment and here are the (rotten) fruits of that labor.

• Neuropathy: Pins and fucking needles in my finger tips. When this occurs I am unable to use my fingers for anything more than pocket warmers. Good luck trying to type. Yesterday it lasted about fourty-five minutes for the first one and twenty-five minutes for the second.
• Cold sensitivity in hands and feet: I can't touch things that are colder than my body temperature without it feeling like I might be burning myself. I'll be constantly shoed and gloved around the house for a while.
• Cold sensitivity in mouth: Imagine chewing on some really good peppermint or spearmint gum and then drinking a sip of some really cold water. Then imagine the extreme cold sensation you feel if you drink water right after. I can't go outside in this winter without a mask. (Thanks COVID for preparing me for this.)
• Spiders crawling across my face: This isn't some fantastical, haha, I'm in a Moony phase where I say something ridiculous for giggles. It genuinely feels like something is crawling from my nose and down my upper lip which then splits off into opposite directions along my face and stops at my jaw. Like eight or ten spiders just moseying along for a picnic, whistling the Disney dwarves song.
• Muscle twitching: Hands cramping, forearms sore, calves cramping and sore. It's fine so far, just annoying.
• Nausea: It comes and goes and is pretty benign so far.
• Sweating: It's fine, I'm just a little damp.
• Fatigue: Put me to bed, please.

Some of these things have returned for day two, but luckily at a lesser intensity.

I'm fine and I have some wonderful support, but it's going to be hard, I can tell.

Cat tax!

One more week of radiation/chemo to go and then a couple weeks of down-time before IV chemo begins.

This situation has given me a fresh outlook on life and I would like to share that with whomever reads this, but mostly for me to read later and laugh again. I've been a fan of poop and fart jokes my whole life. Everyone does it, no one really likes to talk about it, hence the societal faux pas.

Before all this, can you guess how often in my life someone had to tell me "You're bladder isn't full enough." Now my memory isn't always the best, but I'm pretty sure it was zero. Another fun comment, "What did you have for dinner last night? Because this morning you are pretty gassy." Both these statements were from radiation techs who are doing their best to try to help. Some days it's just hard drinking forty ounces of water first thing in the morning between 6:30 am and 8:00 am. Some nights I just want to make turkey tacos with all the spices, flatulence be damned! (This one surprised me, actually, not sure what was up with the outcome.) My favorite so far was being serenaded in a Target bathroom a few weeks ago with the song "Someone's making a smelly poop, smelly poop, smelllllyyy poop." He wasn't wrong, I just wasn't prepared to hear about it from a stranger. (I withheld my laughter until he left the bathroom, I don't need to enourage my fans.) I recognized his voice later in the toy section, gave him a nod, and moved on with my shopping.

Things are going well, though I do get waves of fatigue some days. 3:30 pm rolls around and I could just tuck my chin into my shirt, pull up my hood, and nod off. But naps are for wimps! Or more specifically, naps are for people who can take a nap and not wake up feeling nauseous. So the opposite of wimps.

Kitten tax.

Last year when I first started being concerned about my health prior to my cancer diagnosis I was experiencing a pain in my lower abdomen where I could feel my body's waste moving through a section of my bowels. Weird, right? This sensation included gas and the solid stuff moving towards the exit (I know, I know). It would last about 24 hours and sometimes be coupled with a low grade fever. It would knock me on my ass a little bit and just put my whole body on edge because it was a pain I couldn't 100% get away from no matter what I tried. It felt like a nagging little stab in my guts like every 10 mins or so and then it would subside to a dull throbbing pain. It's amazing what the human body allows or ignores as a regular viable sensation. This all started around a year ago and would occur 1-3 times every 3 months.

Back to last night: That pain had been slowly building all day yesterday in my lower abdomen, the same sensation of things moving through a tube that is too small to push through. I got up off the couch at one point (to pee, because honestly, why else would I move in this situation) and the pain in my guts hit me with a force where I took two steps and stopped in my tracks. It hurt so much I wanted to process it a little bit before moving again to try to not anger the colon gods more than I already had. Standing still and just breathing normally, it hurt on the left HARD and then it gently hurt on the right (which was new to me.) Then it felt like a balloon animal was unraveling within my belly so the pain could puddle at some point and join forces in the middle. And then POP, intense fire at a central meeting location of The Two Pains, my internal temperature felt like it was rising a good five degrees and slight wave of nausea. I was continuing to stand still four feet away from the couch and I looked over at Em and said "This is bad" or "This hurts bad" or "I'm really hot all of a sudden" but I don't remember specifically. What the fuck was going on? I still don't know.

I eventually was able to very slowly make my way to my destination and then go to bed. I decided to get a hot water bottle on my abdomen which helped a ton with going to sleep. Waking up this morning wasn't easy, the residual pain was still around, but luckily a hot shower and some ibuprofen seems to be keeping the pain at bay.

I've mentioned this symptom to my doctor(s) before but the consensus is, "we can't figure it out unless it happens and you get an MRI during the pain." So that's probably a $10,000 test I won't be doing anytime soon.

My first week of radiation + chemo is now over! Five more weeks to go!

Capybara Chaser!

I laid down on a bed today with some spinning arms floating around me. This bed is a little different; less donut and more science fiction lab.

Just imagine three or four of those robot-y things hovering around you while lying on a hard bed for ten minutes. (I wouldn't mind a little cushion for my tailbone when getting up. I think I'll write the manufacturer.) It was fine.

Today started off as a Total Monday, but seems to be evening out now.

Looks like prestige TV is here to stay, I've been loading up on new things to watch during my downtime lately. Do you have anything that I should add to this list?

• Dexter: New Blood
• Wheel of Time
• Cowboy Beebop Live Action
• Succession
• How-To with John Wilson
• The Expanse
• Killing Eve