Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
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 …
AUGUST 15, 2022 – (Cont.) Last night I slept like a rock, not because I was exhausted by the day’s interaction with the medical profession, but because of my complete confidence in the care that has been afforded me. Yesterday’s squad—Bridgette, Amber, Kaitlin, May, Annie, Randall, Bella, Laura, Angela, Mariah, plus others whose names went …
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 …
AUGUST 14, 2022 – (Cont.) This morning when I arrived at the clinic for my third of five injections in the run-up to the stem-cell “harvest,” street parking was wide open. I luxuriated first by pulling into the slot closest to the entrance to the five-story U of MN Masonic Cancer Care Center. I indulged …
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, …
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 …
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 …
MAY 17, 2022 – Blogger’s note: Compulsion for medical yakety-yak has pre-empted the next installment of my account of The Grand Odyssey. The “trip” will resume tomorrow. Before I was diagnosed with cancer (multiple myeloma), I eschewed conversations about medical ailments. Such talk made me queasy. Now look at me: five months into drugs I …