Some People Collect Stamps ....

.... and I get to collect cancers.

Lovely

We all know about the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma I have.  About a year ago my doctor diagnosed me with two more.  One is a Basal-Cell Carcinoma and the other is a Squamous-Cell Carcinoma.  Both are skin cancers. Both are related to sun exposure.  They're fairly common.

I decided i really didn't want to know a whole lot about these additions to my "collection".  I just wanted the fucking things gone.  Fortunately these cancers are fairly easy to deal with.  I had the Basal-Cell and one occurrence of of the Squamous removed late last summer.  I had another Squamous-Cell removed from my right temple just the other day.

I went through what's called "Mohs Surgery".  It's fairly straightforward.  They numb you up with Lidocaine.  In my case they used a Lidocaine cocktail of sorts, tailored to reduce the bleeding that would occur because of the Coumadin I take.  Anyway, they numb you up, and then proceed to cut away the affected skin.  They bandage you up and send you back to the waiting room for a couple hours while they send the tissue to the lab for analysis.  If the lab says they got all of the cancer, they stitch or staple you up and send you home.  If the think some cancer was missed, they repeat the process and continue with that until they get it all.

They got mine on the first try.

So they stitched me up.  They had removed an area about the size an almond.  Fortunately the doctor is a plastic surgeon and does a great job making sure I don't end up looking like Frankenstein's monster.  They covered it with a dressing that made it look like I'd been gun-shot, gave me a prescription for Vicodin and sent me home with instructions.

The instructions were of the usual sort.  They included things like keep the area dry, no bending over, keep my blood pressure down ......

And stay off the bike.  For two weeks.

Two fucking weeks.

I was pissed.  Bad enough to loose a day's pay to have somebody dig a almond-sized hunk of flesh off your head.  But to leave the office with instructions to cease a beneficial and fun activity was bordering on the intolerable.  I have a couple centuries in June to train for.  The weather is starting to warm up.  It's glorious out there, and I'm stuck with doctors orders to take it easy.

Bullshit.

But what can you do?

You contemplate your growing collection of cancers and follow doctor's orders.

Bastard.

On the bright side it's less that two weeks till I'm back in the saddle.  I have a dressing change on Friday and maybe the doctor will see that I'm healing beautifully, relent, and let me get back on the bike.

With my luck they'll want to biopsy a suspicious spot on the other side of my face and plan the next Mohs Surgery.

I can hardly wait.

Zero-Sum

Cancer sucks.

Having cancer sucks even more.

For me the suckage comes from a persistent frustration.  I don't feel sick.  I'm not in any pain.  I'm not symptomatic.  I'm not going though chemo or radiation therapy.  It would be the Best Of All Possible Worlds if it wasn't so damned frustrating.  This frustration seems to come from a knowledge that this whole cancer .... thing ...... is going nowhere.  It's not growing or spreading.  We are simply watching it, and waiting for it to grow, or spread to the point where something must be done.  In the meantime, life goes on, pretty much as usual, with the difference being that I know there's a cancer in my body and it's not going away.  There's nothing to do except wait for some event, some indeterminate point in the future, when the shit will finally hit the fan and something will get done.

I hate waiting - waiting for that indeterminate date to arrive.

That's where the frustration comes from.

It's not like I look forward to that day.  The thought of having poison pumped into my body, or my guts burned up from the radiation is repugnant.  Repulsive.

I also understand ..... or believe ..... that day is inevitable.   Sooner or later, my oncologist will say the magic words ....

I think we should start you on some chemo.

The frustration will evaporate, to be replaced by fear - or at least that's what I'm afraid of.

Having a port installed, being nauseated and sick to my stomach all the time, hair falling out, chemo brain, it all scares me and it'll get scarier when it actually begins.  That's what I'm afraid of and it's always there in the back of my mind.  It haunts me.  It frustrates me.

That sucks.  Out loud.

Sometimes I feel lucky that despite the cancer, I still have a reasonable level of good health.  Then I feel guilty when I think about the people I know who have been though things far worse with cancer than what I'm going through.  It's back and forth and back and forth in a perverse zero-sum game I play with myself.  One minute I feel pretty good about things, and the next I feel like shit about it.

And that, I guess, is my karma.

I've been painting a rather bleak picture and for that, gentle reader, I aplogize.  My life isn't non-stop misery.  Having cancer, even a low-grade malignancy like mine is frustrating, but I've found ways to cope.  Perhaps one day soon I'll write about it.

Good has come of it.  I feel I've learned a little something about compassion.  I ponder my own situation and then I consider Shelly, and Jody, and Andy, and Rob and Kelly's wife and all the others who have been through worse than I, and I find in myself a heart that is softer, gentler, and more available than it used to be.  If I'm frustrated by my situation, how must they feel about what they are going, or have gone, through?  How can there not be a place in my heart for these friends, and I wonder, did it take cancer for me to find that place?

Is this the upside of a zero-sum game?

And that thought frustrates as well.

Wrenching

Gentle Readers .....

I have been remiss in my writing of late.  Truth be told, I had lost my job, and was fully committed to finding  new gig.  This left little time for writing.  After about a month's worth of being unemployed, I was offered a job - a really decent job - and will be starting up there shortly.  We then took a long-overdue trip to visit family in Minnesota, which is where I am as I write this.  Things are settling back to a semblance of normal and I feel like I have the time and energy to write.  So without further gilding of the lily ......

I take care of most of the mechanical needs for our bikes.  I really enjoy the activity and feel like there are a number of benefits.  You save money, become more intimate with the working of a modern bicycle and have a better riding experience overall.  There is also a therapeutic value to the activity.

Bike shops are equipped to handle any problem that may arise with a bicycle, but it comes with a price.  Along with the cost of parts, there are often shop fees associated with the routine maintenance, repairs and upgrades that are part-and-parcel to owning a modern bicycle.  Doing this work yourself saves on shop fees, which can add up quickly and may cost ore than the parts involves.  It also frees you, the consumer, to find the best price you can on the parts you want or need,  So by wrenching your own bike, you can save a bit of money.  For me, She Who Holds The Purse Strings really appreciates this.

It may seem kind of strange to speak of intimacy with a machine, but this is what wrenching your own bike gives you.  After a while, there isn't a single part of your bike that is unfamiliar.  You know very nut, bolt, screw and other bits that are on your bike.  If something is going wrong, or out of adjustment, you know about it long before it becomes a problem.  You also know what needs to be done to fix or correct it.  Oftentimes, this level of intimacy, allows you to correct minor issues as a matter of course.  The bike is almost always in peak condition as a result.

This leads us to the overall experience in riding the bike.  Because you wrench it yourself you are always fully aware of your bike's condition.  As a result of this, you ride with greater confidence in the machine.  You ride without the worry that something may go wrong.  Everything is as it should be, so you can relax and enjoy the ride.

While all that is important, the biggest benefit I get is from the therapeutic value of the activity.  Although my cancer isn't foremost in my mind, it's still a thought that lingers, and there is always frustrations and anxieties that go along with it.  Like anyone else, my life has its share of other stresses which can sometimes weigh heavily on heart and mind.  Being able to take a cup of coffee down to The Shop and tinker with one of our bikes is a remarkable source of relaxation.  It may be a something major, like replacing a part, or readjusting the derailleurs and it may be a simple as cleaning the chain, or just detailing the bike.  Whatever I do leaves me calmer, happier, satisfied and relaxed.  The cares and concerns of the day are suddenly gone.  As Steinbeck said so well (and I paraphrase),......

The world, once again, spins in greased grooves.

So, there's a lot to be said for wrenching your own bike and there's really nothing much to it.  Modern bicycles are relatively simple machines whose workings are easily understood and learned.  You can save a buck or two, be a better cyclist, have a lot more fun and it can even help you feel better.

Feeling better is important.