* Chapter 7 * 9 March 1997

W A R N I N G : this material contains ADULT content and should not be read by anyone under 21 years old unless accompanied by an 89 year old relative / friend / bottle of Spanish / French red wine.

9 March 1997

Hello again Dear cyber-contact,

Well, here it is -- another event filled week!

First, I guess, I have to do the ERRATA thing. I was called on the carpet by my brother because I gave the incorrect age of my father when he croaked (= died, verb, past; I really hate the "passed" euphemism, to which I have frequently replied, "what test?", or "gas?") -- he was 54 N O T 44, when he died at home! A minor slip of the now less-nimble fingers when typing the numbers in.

I also neglected to include the cookie types that Thom and Mike, the friends from Philadelphia, brought me on that fishy Sunday: Nabisco Chocolate Teddy Grahams [they come in several bear activities such as roller blading, slam dunking, cross country biking, wind surfing, copulating (= fucking) -- SORRY, that was 2 cookies stuck together !] (I actually like bears -- have a couple dozen which usually come out of hibernation at Christmas time -- but anything with graham cracker intent turns me off after the absolutely horrible ones they gave me for snacks at the hospital -- have been eating them little by little because I hate wasting anything!), and the most delicious LU [named after the initials of the founders of the company -- in 1846 -- Monsieur Lefèvre and Mademoiselle Utile] (made in Athis-Mons, France, by a company of the Danone Group, like the yogurt) Le Petit Écolier (butter biscuits topped with pure dark chocolate) and Le Truffè (pralines filled biscuits dipped in fine chocolate).

Gawd, then I also neglected to mention that George's amaretto almond cheese cake came from the famous Trenton source on 549 Hamilton Avenue [(609) 393 0539], Michele Loriê®.

So, how was it that they discovered the cancer thing anyhow? I had not had a "checkup" for about 2 years (after my first real one! ) At that time the only thing they noticed was that I was in great shape, and had a low cholesterol count despite the fact that I use butter in frying, and never read labels to see how much fat something has. Why bother -- the cave people did not have these stupid labels and they were able to enjoy lives replete with hunting, gathering, tattooing, cave painting, etc., and were able to engender all of us living today!! (the troglodytes apparently did not have TV to tell them how good MONOSTAT is for curing yeast infections in 2-4 days so they could do it all over again and get more yeasty results! [wonder if that's how the fabrication of yogurt began? OR, since it must have been noticed that something rose *= verb, past of rise* before the yeast infection, they decided it might make the stone ground multi-grained bread rise also?] And they probably used bear grease instead of a Summers Eve douche to keep the male Cro Magnon's olfactory (= smell) receptors humming! Modern man really needs all this Bos droppings (= bullshit) to worry about, to add to the desensitizing violence in newscasts , TV talk shows and R-rated movies; crap fed to us by politicians -- which we all "know" is pure mierda (= Sp., shit)!; scientific stuff such as global warming/Greenhouse Effect which is contrary to Gaiea (the self-sustaining Earth "organism"); whether an asteroid will hit again (very likely, but what can we do about it?); when is the "big one" coming to the San Andreas fault (soon, I hope, to finally shut up all the theorists!); does producing a sheep from a pair of fucking sheep or by cloning adult sheep cells (from a hair follicle, for example) mean that cloning a human would imply that it wouldn't have a "soul" (what a crock of shit -- GOD "rested on the seventh day" = N O W -- and does not have the time to go around breathing souls into every human life form that is conceived. Theilhard de Chardin, the infamous Jesuit theologian/scientist (co-discoverer of Peking Man, and the sitter for the bronze bust I have of him by Malvina Hoffman located in my study, constantly looking over me)

would suggest that at a certain stage of embryonic complexification, due to GODS plan, a "soul" would appear -- thus the theological/ethical ponderings concerning when a fetus is "human" and should not be aborted.). Nobody has yet suggested that that famous sheep, whatever her name was, did not have a sheep "soul" (= that which would make it a sheep!). I am absolutely certain that someone somewhere has already "created" a human clone, "a la" The Boys from Brazil -- can't wait for the leaked press release one of these days! Imagine all the furor it will cause among the tabloid "theologians", as well as in the herd of "public" scientifically illiterate creatures! It is not playing GOD, it is just another way of procreation (albeit a technological "advance" having nothing at all to do with the original Virgin birth! OR was GOD the first one to try out cloning?? Didn't HE use one of Eve's ribs to "create" Adam?? THUS, the BIBLE already depicts HIS first use of cloning to produce a new individual, though one of a different sex, which is simply a technical detail! ), as with the multi varied methods by which plants and "lower" animals already have done it for millions of years! So now it can be a bit more depersonalized, sort of like the chat rooms on AOL!

The most unfortunate thing about science, something that has been lacking for over a century (since Darwin's Origin of Species and Lamarck's work), is the "humanizing" of it, adapting/reconciling science with human mores/ethics/"morality", not just dropping the latest "discovery" onto the laps of the starving (for a story as well as morally!) public/press who have no idea what is happening due to their fantastic lack of technical preparation.

Oh, gawd, can you see how I got off onto a tangent again -- one of my specialties! Back to why/when I found out I needed another checkup. For some months before last Christmas I noticed that I was unusually flatulent (= farted a lot more than "normal") and that, for some reason, when I urinated (= pissed) it would cause the gas and whatever else was near the sphincter (= ass muscle) to blow loose. This bothered me somewhat. At school I would bomb the class to bits. When friends visited, not very often, they would ask "did the dog do that"? When I went out to the movies, the mall, the flea market, Borders Book Store or wherever, I would have to look around to see "who" farted such an aromatic scent! (just trying to be the "innocent" one!). So when I saw the Doc, who really did not appreciate the fact that I was not officially "his" patient (HMO's can do that to one! I only went to the HMO when I had the flu or whatever, and was usually taken by the next Doc in line), he stuck his digit (= finger) up my butt and discovered a lump on the left of the lower, inner (of course!) rectum. The rest is history.

Sunday and Monday it snowed, enough to leave some 2 - 3 inches of the fluffy white stuff in the garden. The flakes were really largish when they were falling. Looking out my bedroom window at the koi ponds below was fabulous-- the fish swimming lazily on the bottom of the ponds with a blanket of white snow surrounding them! KEWL as hell! After so many days of 60° and 70° weather! Had to go to the dentist Monday evening -- they called to make sure I would be there despite the frozen precipitation.

Have been taking at least one Imodium tablet daily, trying to reduce the number of times I evacuate (= shit) in bits and pieces. Curiously I usually have the "big one" in the morning after breakfast -- before the radiation session at 10:15h each day. Still have the gases, et al. (= the mucous secretions caused by the cancer) when I urinate -- the MD said it was due to the cancer, and that this only occurs in males -- females don't seem to have this technical difficulty. I usually soil (= shit in) 2 to 4 briefs/day, so I organized a routine to cover this problem: put the underwear in the washer with detergent and bleach, not filling the "low" cycle completely with water, then add what has to be added during the day, after which I complete the wash cycle in the evening. It is a real hassle makes me feel even more inutil (= Sp., useless). BUT, it works.

Over the last couple years I have used baby wipes, those moist (with Aloe, the healing plant), soft tissues generally used to clean the baby's butt and such, after a bowel movement (= shit, verb). They come in handy now that my posterior (= ass, noun) is tender/burning. Even took a box of baby wipes to the hospital a couple weeks ago just in case they did not provide them (they did not).

I am still driving myself to radiation. Monday's blood test showed that ALL of my blood indices were "L" (= low), by a few points. Feel more tired than normal, and sort of listless. The doctor, on Wednesday (= Doctor's Day) after the radiation celebration, prescribed some hydrocortisone suppositories to alleviate the "pain", which is not really pain, more like an uncomfortable feeling, although since my auto accident in 1982, the one that resulted in a fractured hip and the use of a cane, I seem to observe that I have a high pain threshold (= do not notice pain as much as I might normally). I got 5 surgical rubber gloves from that nice technician who does the radiation templates to use for inserting the suppositories -- I did not like the idea of having to stick my bare finger in an area having so many potential cancer cells, after all, they do migrate and such.

This week ends Day 14 (Monday through Friday) of the 31-day radiation parties. Next week they restage the radiation treatment in order to direct a smaller beam more directly at the cancer site (or so I understand).

Thursday I was sort of resting in bed, on top of the covers with 2 of the kittens and the other 3 cats when I got a phone call from Aunt Fran. She had heard that I was "ill" at the wedding of my brother's girl last week. She wanted me to come live with her and my uncle, Raymond (my Mother's younger brother) in Turnersville, New Jersey (I have not seen them in over 20 years!) during treatment because I was alone here at home. She would take care of me and all. Nice thought, BUT I still have to go to radiation every day and all.

Wednesday & Thursday have been VERY windy -- the trees seem to be blown horizontally every now and then! I did get the 2 cans of newspaper and another 2 of plastic/tin cans, etc. out on recycle day -- is once every 2 weeks. Always worry I will forget and have the cans overflowing for the next pickup date. So there is a power outage and about 6 paragraphs of this are lost!! HELL!

I still have to wait for a nice day to : rake the leaves that are blowing all over, clean out the 2 pond filters, clean out the cat litter trays (they have been accumulating for a couple months already), scrape the windows that I painted last fall (always paint the glass), scrape, prime and paint the other windows on the first floor that were not done yet, clean up the fallen branches in the yard, and work a bit on the flower/plant beds. Right now I don't feel up to any of these necessary things!

OK, so what about side effects?? I have noticed some loose pubic hairs, not really clumps or anything. So now I shall be triply balled (= syn-sound for bald) -- aside from the two B I G ones I have always had -- shall not miss the redundant hair in any way -- who the hell needs hair on their butt and balls these days, it's not the Pleistocene Epoch (= Ice Age) anymore! Wish the longish nasal and ear hairs would fall out! Sometimes I think I'm a vampire or something! What I don't appreciate too much are the roasted cojones (= Sp., nuts/balls), although in Tenerife one can always find a chestnut vendor on the street corners in the fall roasting his nuts in coal-fired stove pipes and serving them in rolled paper cups! If you ever do it (the chestnut thing! Get your mind out of the gutter!) make sure you slice the heavy outer coat of the nut before roasting -- or it explodes! < B O O M >

Speaking of "exploding", did you know that your huevos (Sp. = eggs, and something else, BUT I am too timid/bashful to tell you!) can explode?? It happened to me twice (thus far!). All you have to do is put some eggs in a pot with water to boil (= hard boiled eggs), forget that you have the pot on the stove happily boiling away, then stop back in half an hour or so to find a very scorched pot, as well as exploded egg all over the walls and ceiling!! I shit you not! I have the ceiling stains in two houses to prove it!

This week's TV fare has not been anything to crow about. [Using a scale of from 1 to 10, 1 being awful, 10 being would see it again]

The Sentinel [8], Star Trek Voyager, which follows the latter, part 1 (hope to catch part 2 next week) [9], reruns of Married With Children, with its real Earthy humour [9], as well as the new series [7]. King of the Hill, the animated comedy, is really kewl [9]. The Sliders episode, after not watching it for some weeks, found the Professor gone for good (he always reminded me of Al, the only truly Renaissance Man I have ever met -- meet him at http://www.grazian-archive.com) and the remaining time warpers fighting against human "man eaters" [8] -- not as kewl as Night of the Living Dead which would get a [10].

Goldeneye, the only James Bond flick I hadn't seen yet [7]; Julia, one of those movies about Hitler/WWII had its human side [7], as did another one (can't remember the name) about finding Klaus Barbie [6] (the cat he fondled in the movie probably got an Oscar that year for best lead feline) -- wouldn't it be a tribute to German industrial innovation/power (as was/is the case of the Volkswagen) if the world famous and highly sought after/ collectible Barbie Dolls were created by the SS!! OK, Alphonse Demato, after you finish checking all those Swiss bank accounts, check this one out! Bat 21, a war movie -- don't usually watch them [4]; Jefferson in Paris, a really great historical rendering of Tom and his life -- I appreciated it because of the scientific aspects of his life, especially his work with fossils; there is a giant ground sloth from the Ice Age named Megalonyx jeffersoni, and I ran across the bones when I was working at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia when I was in high school [10]; Zooman, a social drama [6]; and I finally saw the beginning of Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh -- did not stay up to rewatch it all, but will give it a [9]. Cadfael 2: The Virgin in the Ice -- even though she was no longer a "virgin" when found, was another of the fantastic episodes of a monk, Brother Cadfael from Shrewsbury Abbey , a master herbalist and former Crusader; alas, 12th Century Shrewsbury is in ruins today [9]. Dark Skies, that spinoff of the X-Files, was good as usual, even sometimes better than the latter [8].

Every once in a while I feel sort of dizzy -- could be the lowered red blood count-- not enough O2 (= oxygen) reaching my brain (as you might surmise after reading this stuff!).

The four Seal Point Siamese kittens (4) are now 8 weeks old -- time for me to give them their first shots and get the ad in the local paper. They are CFA (Cat Fanciers' Association, the world's largest cat registry) registered (and TICA, The International Cat Association), and at $145 a pop (not for breeding), they are a real BEST BUY! The "for breeding" cost is $250.

If you are not using AOL (= America Online) I doubt that you receive the nice colour parts of the text -- it is another method that is kewl (= cool in cyber speak) to accentuate words/phrases, and keeps my "little gray cells", as Poirot (the Belgian detective from PBS) would call them, firing their electrical impulses more excitedly.

I have also been taking one COMPAZINE tablet almost daily when my stomach feels sort of weird. Not really nauseous, just strangely active. Also discovered that Noxema sort of alleviates the radiation burn in and around my pubic area.

For some years I have noticed that if I smoke a pipe, for some reason that I have been questioning since I first noticed the "effect", my bowels are very receptive to evacuating on certain occasions, not each time I smoked. It always sort of suggested to me, in a rather simplified manner, that smoking might cause a colonic reaction, if not cancer. It seems sort of far fetched, because the reaction is almost immediate, and taking the distance between the mouth/pipe smoke/sphincter, it simply does not seem a valid conclusion. I mentioned this to Dr.Schaebler and he said that it is probably psychological, that different people have/use different stimuli to produce the same result, and that it has nothing at all to do with my cancer. Notwithstanding this focus, it does seem logical/ possible that there is some REAL physiological connection. Could it be that some acupuncture point in or around the mouth is stimulated? Could it have something to do with the nose? Freud said that there was a connection between the nose and sex -- and I know from experience that a certain few scents are highly arrousable, sexually.

I slept poorly Friday night. Aside from the frequent getting to the bathroom to urinate (and take care of the anal discharges) almost every hour or hour and a half, but less frequently during the last 3 hours of "sleep" or so, the butt pain and burning sensation somewhere in my polla (Sp. = penis) (I could not localize it, the pain not the polla!) kept me up for hours. The cats did not help, because every time I got up, they had to rearrange their warm little bodies in a different way under the covers -- the poor suffering creatures!

What I really need (not counting the $$ to pay this months mortgage payment!) is a human, warm, cuddly body to feel beside me in bed at night. Someone to share my thoughts/feelings with. An unconditional, selfless, adventurous/uninhibited "dreamer", one who is REAL/awake/totally aware, and knows who they are, what they want and is not afraid to go for it, has a stable personality and will remember tomorrow what they said/felt/promised the day/s before!. One who takes risks without constantly weighing/harping-on the potential negative results. Someone who is not so thoroughly wrapped up in them self to be able to appreciate whatever positive/human qualities I might possess (if there be any!). This could be my real cure! [Perhaps a clone would be the only solution! I think that Bud, on Married With Children, needs one too!]

WOW, Saturday I ordered a medium pizza, with the works, for dinner -- they delivered, which made it kewl. Accompanied by red wine, of course. Had not enjoyed one since this whole cancer thing began over 3 weeks ago! As usual, I cut off the crust on the 6 (of 8) slices which I ate, saving them and the last two pieces for the 2 dogs (Tracey, the female Doberman and Mieke, the female Brussels Griffon). They love it also.

Saturday night I decided to attempt to get to the flea market on Sunday -- had not gone for 2 weeks already, even though I paid for the space in advance in order to reserve the spot. So, when the alarm/buzzer rang at 5am, I sort of felt like I had to go to try to make some $$. Let the dogs out, had some decaf and a strawberry cheese pocket for breakfast and got there by 6am. DID NOT SELL A FREEKIN (= fuckin) THING! BUT at least I got out for a few hours, despite the temperature hovering around 30°F (= ± -1°C)! Sat in the van most of the time where the Sun, when it came out, sort of warmed me somewhat (had long johns, a scarf and a knit cap on, BUT I did not wear my winter boots thinking it would not be so cold!). Got home at about 15h (= 3pm) to find that Bernar was there (he usually visits on an almost daily basis during the week) cleaning the places where the dogs spend their time-- for which I shall be eternally grateful, of course.

Got a get well card from Thom & Mike, the Philadelphia friends, and several e mail notes from Doug, Henrik, and Ami,(Al's wife), and Horacio, my former student (now a Ph.D. in biochemistry) from Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain). Thank you all mucho (= Sp., very much).

My weight now is : 204 # (fully clothed and shod).

Thanks for allowing me to keep in touch.

Sigmund

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