Category: Medical Talk

DAY 12: BEING RASH

SEPTEMBER 4, 2022 – (Cont.) When my mother got older she became obsessed (apparently) about her kids being rash. “Don’t do anything rash,” was a regular part of her farewell after every visit at “the home.” I won’t speak for my generally well-behaved sisters, but I’ll readily acknowledge that at an earlier stage of life, …

DAY 11: RESCUE AT SEA

SEPTEMBER 3, 2022 – (Cont.) It’s not what I’d pictured. The hospital room, I mean, where most likely I’ll be until Tuesday—Day 14. It’s a luxury suite with a commanding view of Mississippi River, as it wends its way between Minneapolis and St. Paul. If I’m still a little seasick, I’m in the best care …

EIGHT DAYS A SAILOR

AUGUST 31, 2022 – (Cont.) Day 8. Like a sea of porpoises, arching in and out of the water, waves rise, crest, and fall relentlessly toward their destination beyond the horizon. Day and night, they carry my plucky little vessel forward across the boundless sea. Now, in the moment, with the sun in my face …

DAY SEVEN ALONG THE MARATHON COURSE

AUGUST 30, 2022 – (Cont.) “Day 7” is feeling like mile 13 of a marathon. I’m still flying along, on pace, but the pavement’s beginning to burn underfoot. I’ll spare the reader the details I shared at today’s appointment—“It’s all good!” as it is said—but not qu-i-i-i-te as good as it was the previous day, …

“HALF A DOZEN”

AUGUST 29, 2022 – (Cont.) Day Six. Yesterday’s appointment was another visit to the “MERCY CLINIC,” rather abandoned on the weekend, except for skeletal staff to administer to transplant patients like me—a two-day patient, a three-day, a six-day patient, I was informed. The wait was long enough for me to log a 10-minute walk up …

“DAY FOUR”

AUGUST 27, 2022 – (Cont.) Today at noon, I reach “Day 4” after transplant—better than halfway to the halfway mark toward “Day 14”— the day by which the engraftment of stem cells reaches a stage where transplant patients begin to feel better. That leaves 10 days in between. Ten. These are the really tough miles …

THE TRANSPLANT

AUGUST 24, 2022 – Blogger’s note: Being under the gun to make it on time to my daily appointment at the “Center,” I haven’t proofed this post. (Cont.) Yesterday I learned another lesson in hope for humanity. Before the transplant procedure yesterday afternoon, I hadn’t known the somewhat ritualistic significance that the medical team assigns …

BLAST-OFF!

AUGUST 23, 2022 – Blogger’s note: Wife is a sweetie. And I apologize for blowing way past my self-imposed daily word quota (of yore). (Cont.) Late Sunday evening my wife and I were still in the throes of preparing our abode for “cancer con”—short for “convalescence from the effects of cancer chemo treatment.” She had …

CAMPING SUPPLIES (FOR REAL, THIS TIME)

AUGUST 20, 2022 – Blogger’s note: The gracious reader will accept my apologies for the poor self-editing of yesterday’s post. The explanation (versus excuse) is that our hyper-imaginative granddaughter was under our day-long charge. Among her plays, musical performances, story-telling, painting sessions, and backyard expeditions, all of which required audience/spectator participation, I assembled very few …

“GOTTA GO!”

AUGUST 17, 2022 – (Cont.) I once had a friend, a close friend, a work colleague, whom I met my first day on the job as the lucky recruit to manage the “work-out” (deals gone bad) division of bank’s corporate trust department. The guy who hired me, it turned out, would later be escorted ignobly …

GENGHIS KAHN AND FRANKENSTEIN

AUGUST 15, 2022 – (Cont.) “Is it okay if he drives himself to the appointment this afternoon?” my wife asked the physician’s assistant. “Sure,” said the PA. “Well, actually,” I said, “because of the sedation this morning, I’ve been instructed not to drive or make any important decisions for the rest of the day.” The …

IT’S ALL ABOUT PACING

AUGUST 13, 2022 – (Cont.) Yesterday, after rain relented and the earth dried out, I embarked on my daily power-walk to “Little Italy” (next to “Little Switzerland”). For several blocks I thought I felt bone pain that I’d been told to expect from the five “sub-cu” injections I receive over the course of five days, …

. . . THE RACE IS ON!

AUGUST 12, 2022 – (Cont.) Blogger’s note: As threatened, the next number of posts will chronicle my “little adventure” into the land of treatment for multiple myeloma. May the reader excuse self-exemption from my self-imposed daily word limit.  It’s the competitive marathoner’s worst nightmare: not getting to the starting line on time. That nightmare happened to …

AT THE STARTING LINE

AUGUST 11, 2022 – Eight months into my “diagnosis,” I summoned the curiosity (actually, the courage) to Google, “multiple myeloma.” The online Oxford definition squares with what my oncologist told me at the outset: “A malignant tumor of the bone marrow.” Elsewhere on the internet, I read that the disease is “rare,” with only 200,000 …