Stuff I Read This Year - 2017

Welcome to my second and maybe annual summary of books from the year. Hope it helps you find something you like, or at least avoid a dreadful mistake!

It was an up-and-down year in many ways, and my reading experiences mirrored that. For some reason I read almost nothing in the first half of the year, then I went on a binge over the summer, then a drought again for a few months, and finally another binge to close out the year. Every book I read but one was released in 2017, though the exception was notable. And they were all fiction except one, which is no surprise since reality sucks. I do read lots of non-fiction articles, which is about all I can stand as they leave me stunned and depressed. But if you like interesting articles, I suggest Don Van Natta’s “Long Reads” weekly email compilation of recommendations: http://www.sundaylongread.com/.

The first book I read when I broke my bookfast was “Since We Fell” by Dennis Lehane. The first half was great, the second implausible and silly. I gave it CCC (out of CCCCC). But things rapidly improved, I read several “Literary” crime/suspense novels that I liked: “Magpie Murders” CCCC¹/₂C , “Celine” CCCC, “The Good Thief” CCCC, and “The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley” CCCC¹/₂C. In particular I liked “Magpie”, which was a mystery within a mystery, and “Thief” and “Hawley”, which were unique and fun, and very well written.

By the way, I categorize the novels I read into two types: “Literary”, which means the author is actually using some symbolic language and I have to pay some attention while reading, and “Mystery”, books I consume like M&M’s that generally leave me feeling sugar buzzed and queasy. But they are a great rush while they are going down. I’ll try to point out which were which as I go along.

A couple other suspense novels I read which got high praise were “My Absolute Darling” and “Sycamore”. I liked them (CCCC), but not as much as the critics did. They would fall in the Literary group.

One of my 2017 favorites was my only non-2017 selection, “A Gentleman in Moscow”. It’s about a Russian aristocrat who is exiled to the nicest hotel in Moscow; in other words, it’s bit of a fairy tale, sort of a cross between “War and Peace” and “Eloise”. But it describes some Russian history, and Towle creates enchanting characters. I really enjoyed it, gave it CCCCC.

A few of the tasty Mystery stories I wolfed down were “Don’t Let Go” by Harlan Coben, who is an absolute master, “The Chemist” by Stephanie Meyer of “Twilight” fame, and “Right Behind You” by the prolific Lisa Gardner, all of which I gave about  CCC¹/₂C. I will say that this year I developed more of an appreciation for Coben and his peers in this genre; they are often very good writers who probably just prefer to write popular stuff instead of stuffy stuff. Coben’s books have more twists and turns than the road to Hana.

“The Dry” (CCCC¹/₂C) was maybe my favorite Mystery of the year, being more Literary than most. It was great to learn that people in small towns in Australia are just as cruel and duplicitous as their counterparts here in the good old USA.

The second of my top three of the year was “Beartown”, CCCCC. Beartown explained that people in small towns in other countries are not only as cruel and duplicitous as we are, but also as insane about sports, in this case hockey. Bachman is a smart and amusing writer, and this latest one is warm but painful too. Good stuff. I might have to try "A Man Called Ove" again.

“Manhattan Beach” (CCCC) by Jennifer Egan was a very interesting and maybe realistic historical piece about the World War era in New York City. She’s uniquely talented, and this one is a major departure from her more experimental books like “Welcome to the Goon Squad”, which has a remarkable chapter entirely in PowerPoint.

A couple of quirky books I liked, and I like quirky books, were “Midnight in the Bright Ideas Book Store” and “Sourdough”, both CCCC. “Sourdough” was particularly offbeat, and left me hungry for more from Robin Sloane.

During my end of year reading binge, on airplanes and in Hawaii I read “Bluebird, Bluebird” a mystery that I gave CCC¹/₂C, and “So Much Blue” (CCCC), which featured a painter who was wrapped in layers of melancholy. On the flight home I consumed “Less”, (CCCC¹/₂C), the life story of a gay writer which I liked for its depiction of a culture that I know little about. It was heartfelt and moving, and I liked it. The Washington Post named it one of their top 10 in 2017.

Last but not least was my third favorite book of the year, “The Smack” by Richard Lange, the story of a mid-level lifetime grifter. The book is not extraordinary (or “Literary”), but it is very well written and has wonderful characters, and I really liked it - CCCCC. It’s another great example of a talented writer who chooses to write very straightforward books; I can’t wait to go back and pick up some of his previous works in 2018.

So that’s my mediocre summary of a mediocre year of literary explorations. At least writing it gave me an excuse to sit down at the keyboard again. I hope you’ll find something you like in it, and please be in touch if you would like to share your thoughts. I wish you a happy fictional year in 2018!

Last week I had a CT scan and appointment with my oncologist at Hopkins. Good news - my tumor has shrunk slightly and there are no new ones, the four rounds of chemo in September and October seem to have been effective. The bad news is that he suggested that I do 8-12 more rounds, though he did recommend a 20% lower dose. But ugh, nevertheless.

So in the new tradition of shopping for a "yes", I went to see my local oncologist, Dr. Wadlow, who oversees my chemo treatments. Dr. Wadlow, as I have mentioned before is heir to Drs. Ben Casey and Kildaire in charisma and compassion, so I was hoping for a more palatable recommendation. And I got it; he suggested that I move to oral chemotherapy, with a daily dose of Xeloda, which is one of the four nasty concoctions that I've been taking in the previous chemo sessions. He is concerned that the Folfirinox (the acronym for all four drugs) treatments have been taking too much of a toll on my body in terms of neuropathy, bone marrow depletion, etc, not to mention making me a depressed and crabby old fart.

So, on Monday I will start with Xeloda. It has possible side effects, too: fatigue, mouth sores, hand irritation, and diarrhea, to name just a few. But still it should be much easier than Folfirinox. So, I am relieved and feeling positive about going forward. In fact I feel better today than I have since August. With luck the side effects will be minimal, and I can manage this indefinitely. Stay tuned, and a Happy Thanksgiving to you all! We have much to be thankful for.

Body Chemistry

A few weeks ago I started chemotherapy again for the second time, the first being in 2015 when I underwent twelve rounds to treat pancreatic cancer. It went about as I expected. During the 48 hours of infusions and the following two days, I felt heavily drugged and crushingly fatigued, and my stomach churned with nausea and diarrhea. I spent most of five days in bed. Since the fifth day I have gradually gotten better, though my energy level is still low and I continue to have stomach discomfort. I feel pretty good now, nine days since the infusions ended, so I was recovered enough to do it all again the following Monday. But chemotherapy certainly hasn’t gotten any easier this second time around.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the chemicals in our bodies this week, and coincidentally I read a couple of interesting articles that further stimulated my thoughts. I was trying to put all of it together into a coherent essay, but I’ve decided to not worry about coherency and just start writing.

About three days into chemo I started taking OxyContin again. I took Oxy throughout chemotherapy in my year of pancreatic cancer; the pancreatic tumors gave me a unique searing pain in my upper abdomen, and Oxy really helped with that as well as simply making me feel better. I found pretty quickly that if I missed a dose, not only was the pain more troubling, but also I felt headachy, lethargic and depressed. In other words, I became dependent on the drug pretty quickly. Back in 2015 I was concerned about how I would get off of it when the time came, but at that point I was a lot more focused on other things like whether I would be alive long enough to care. Eventually I was taking 30 milligrams a day, a relatively small dose. And about a month after surgery in the winter 2016, I was able to stop taking Oxy without too much difficulty, I just dealt with a few days of sleeping poorly and feeling irritable.

This time around I am not having any cancer-related pain, but I was feeling really drained and depressed   last week and experiencing the queasiness and cramping in my gut, so I tried Oxy anyway. I immediately felt much better; the gut clenching and nausea stopped, and I felt more alert and vital. So I’ve continued to take it, and it really helps, and I can feel the difference when it wears off. I still worry about becoming addicted, but let me tell you, when you feel lousy and depressed and you know there is a little white pill upstairs on the night table that will fix it, you don’t second guess for very long.

One of the things I noticed the first time I went through chemo was that the chemicals suppressed my testosterone, and I observed several interesting effects. Of course, I also thought I might be dying, so it’s not very clear what was causing what. But, I saw that I became a lot more emotional; I felt more affection toward the people around me and my world. I also felt more sadness, and I reacted more to events in the world. I stopped watching movies and TV shows, they affected me more and I couldn’t stop the images from flooding my brain. I also became more passive and agreeable, I couldn’t stand any sort of conflict. With my new passivity, I remember thinking on many occasions, why can’t we all just get along; there is so much to be grateful for, what is there to fight about?

As I have written before, the year of cancer was emotionally overwhelming. I go back and read my blogs and it brings me to tears still.

After surgery in January of 2016 I went through a period of depression, which I learned is almost a given after what I had gone through, so I tried taking Zoloft for a while to address it. I didn’t like it, I thought it made me duller and less energetic and it didn’t seem to help with my depression. My anti-depressants made me more depressed. I stopped after a few months.

Gradually I felt better, though I have still never regained the vitality of my old life. (Maybe being 60 has something to do with it too?) But by the time a year had rolled around, when I had fully recovered and stopped taking all of the narcotics, I also found that I was becoming more aggressive again. I became more competitive and argumentative; I found that I was getting more worked up at my daughter’s soccer games, and bickering more with my family. I could actually observe my personality changing.

One of the models that I have constructed over my life by which I try to make sense of human behavior is that I see men as always being in a state of balance between our competitive side and our belonging side. On the competitive side we are aggressive, driven creatures who are always trying to gain the upper hand on our peers and rivals; on the belonging side, we are loving, caring beings who are devoted to our families and friends and would even stake our lives to protect them.  It seems apparent that both sides have been necessary to support survival and growth of the human species; we are aggressive so that we can meet our desires to attract the most suitable mate and to grow and protect our families; and we are also social and cooperative so we can harness the power of tribes and communities and live together in harmony. I have come to see it as a yin-yang between wanting to love our brothers but still establish dominance over them. It is why we can go out on the rugby field and bash our heads together until the blood runs streaming down our necks, then go to a bar afterwards and stand on the tables, and sing together until the cops arrive (a most memorable day I experienced that helped me put the finishing touches on this model.) I’m sure it’s also why, among other things, women find us incomprehensible.

As for women, I believe they also have some of this yin-yang between competitiveness and caring, but perhaps less so than men. I don’t feel as confident in my model when it comes to women; I don’t really understand how women think and I never have and never will.

None of these ideas are new or surprising or original; I’m sure I’ve cobbled the together from a variety of sources. But it is a model that is very useful for me when I try to understand why we men do the things we do.

One of the glib comments I make when I am describing this model to friends is that just about every bad thing that has ever happened to me has come from my competitive side, and just about every good thing has come from my cooperative side. True? I don’t know, but I have been thinking about it a lot. What if all the rotten stuff men do, cheating and fighting and raping and plundering and warring, all come from that competitive side and our need to be the alpha male? What if we could do away with it?

We seem to worship it in our culture. I remember thinking as a teenager, near the end of the hippie period, that we had moved on to an era when men had learned that being more “manly” was not the answer, that we were learning to make love, not war. That we had entered an era of enlightenment, where men would communicate more honestly and freely, and treat women as equals, and nurture living things instead of destroying them. Sadly, it seems to me that we instead moved in the opposite direction. Manhood today seems to be about body-building and six-pack abs and in-your-face tattoos, and buzz cuts. Not to mention that acquiring wealth and displaying it proudly has never been more in style. It’s pretty clear to me that the culture turned away from ideals of The Great Awakening of the 60’s, that today is all about becoming stronger, meaner, and more ruthless; and loving your brother is for wimps.

I’m sure there are many men who would hear my views with disgust: just more evidence of the pussification of America. I’m sure they would say it was the will of men that tamed the planet and shaped it to our needs. Where would society be without testosterone and the drive to be the alpha? Who would build things and innovate and create a culture of production and consumption? By God, we are men, this is our birthright! We build this world, with its great technology and its indulgences and the opportunities to satisfy our animal desires. Without men and our lust for greatness, what kind of world would it be?

What kind, indeed, I wonder. I am very concerned about the future of human beings on planet Earth. I believe the challenges that loom ahead of us are daunting: climate change, overpopulation and resource shortages, the threat of nuclear confrontation, the possibility of untreatable diseases and pandemics. All of these are, at their roots, driven by the animal instincts of men, for more power, more wealth, more indulgences, and more trophies of status. Our culture sneers at the notion of living in harmony with our environment; we believe we are too smart to be held back by the mere constraints of nature and that we can always innovate our way out of any problems we create along the way. And so we grow and consume at an ever more voracious rate, with world population nearing 8 billion, soon to be 10, soon to be 12 or 15 billion people, without a thought that this planet simply cannot support that many human beings. I am so concerned about the future for our children, and indeed, our entire species.

I didn’t really intend to go off on a rant about the end of civilization. This piece is supposed to be about how we are all really just big sacks of chemicals, and though we think we are creatures of free will and thought, changing that mix can change who we are. As I write this I am in now in the later stage of my two week chemo cycle; my stomach is churning like a garbage disposal full of gravel, I have a persistent throbbing headache, and when I close my eyes I feel like I’m on a gently rolling lake. Chemo-state reminds me most of one of those really special hangovers that come from mixing all three of the major alcohol groups, which I guess is fitting since chemotherapy is just another type of chemical poisoning, in my case with four different powerful drugs. I’m a very different person during chemotherapy: passive, jittery, depressed, and very anxious. If someone so much as raises his or her voice around me it throws me into a tailspin.

Perhaps the most difficult part of it all is the depression. The chemicals seem to have been formulated to produce a constant, penetrating state of depression. My chemo mind is hyperactive, and the thoughts that keep churning are sadness, worthlessness, frustration, regret, fear - a whole cornucopia of desperation. I know these thoughts are not “real”, that they are drug-induced and not responses to outside stimuli, so I feel like I should be able to will my way through them, to accept that this is just what the drugs do. But they are persistent, vicious little buggers.

When I was young and foolish I experimented with recreational drugs, including one I choose not to name. My first experience with it was an awesome, enlightening ride; I reached a state where I suddenly knew that human beings were truly beautiful and that I felt love for us all. I could see that most, if not all of us, had shielded our inner beauty under shells of cynicism and mistrust; but I could also see that we all have the capacity to shed those shells and express our inner perfection. I felt that we had a common connection, that we had evolved from a core organism that had shared it’s essence with us all. Of course I did eventually come down and I resumed seeing the people around me as I had always seen them before, but the most wonderful and profound thing was that I remembered what it felt like to see them as holy and beautiful. And I have never forgotten to this day that we are all essentially beautiful creatures who have the capacity for pure love and perfection, despite the shells that we build up around us.

Since then I have read many articles about this type of drug, and the accounts from people who have tried them seem to be overwhelmingly positive. So many of them report reaching a similar state of bliss, of it being one of the greatest experiences of their lives. Their accounts seem very similar to mine, that they felt an outpouring of love and a sense of oneness with people and the earth. More recently, I’ve read of research that shows these drugs have been very effective at treating profound depression and post-traumatic stress syndrome. These chemicals seem to have extraordinary potential for good.

I don’t know what else to say about that. We live in a culture where taking the drug I described is a federal crime, even smoking a joint is still illegal in most places. But drinking alcohol is heavily promoted, and opiates are so easily available that millions of Americans have crippling addictions. So we Americans don’t have an aversion to taking drugs, we just choose the ones that cause ruinous addiction and generate enormous profits over the ones that produce serenity and bliss. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we just put the stuff in the water, wouldn’t that be an interesting experiment?

Of course the most important way in which we acquire the chemicals in our bodies is by the foods we eat. I’m sure that most everyone understands now our food is less nutritious and full of lots more questionable stuff than the more natural plants and animals that our ancestors ate. In light of that, I was impressed and uplifted by this article about how The Netherlands is at the forefront of efforts to improve farm productivity and improve the quality of their output: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/holland-agriculture-sustainable-farming/. It’s nice that we are reaching widespread awareness about the importance of eating better, but efforts like these are still very few and far-between.

And, shortly after I read that one, I came upon this depressing piece about a new scourge that is impacting the nutritional value of our crops: http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511. Just one more effect of climate change that millions of Trump-supporting Americans can dismiss as a libtard plot to enrich those money-grubbing scientists (and Al Gore).

Finally, there was this disturbing article about the decline of insect populations in Germany: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/buzz-off-german-study-finds-dramatic-insect-decline/2017/10/19/6a087d40-b4c8-11e7-9b93-b97043e57a22_story.html?utm_term=.8c337edf1410. It doesn’t really fit with my theme of chemicals, but it is peripheral to a couple other things I touched on. And it does seem to be pretty important.

So that is my rambling piece on chemistry. I do wonder if we could change the world if we could somehow reformulate ourselves to be more caring, loving creatures. But I suspect that most people would think I’ve lost my mind. It’s quite likely that I have.

I’ll probably write something soon about what I consider to be my new reality, but for now I’ll just do a quick summary of the facts.

A couple of months ago they found a small tumor on my liver. My doctor recommended chemotherapy, and I completed my fourth round this week. Chemo hasn’t gotten any easier, I’ve been pretty miserable each round during the chemo weeks, though I’ve felt reasonably good during the recovery weeks, even playing golf several times. But overall, going through chemo again has been very challenging (putting it mildly).

Today I had a CT scan to see how I’ve progressed. The good news is the tumor has shrunk and there are no new ones, so my doctor felt it was as good as I could have hoped.

On the other hand, he described to me today that I need to stop thinking in terms of being cured of cancer. Pancreatic cancer, he explained, almost never goes away entirely. It almost always reoccurs, and is usually present even when undetectable. I have to start thinking about managing cancer instead of being cured, and it is likely that I will be receiving treatment intermittently for the rest of my life. So he is recommending that I continue with chemo for now, probably 8-12 more rounds. If I am fortunate, I may again have long periods where I don’t have to be in treatment, such as the 19 months I had between my surgery in 2016 and this reappearance.

He suggested that we cut back on the dosages of the four chemicals that I receive by 20%, which should make it significantly easier. He also said I can lengthen the time between treatments to 3 or even 4 weeks, which also is very good news; having 2 or 3 good weeks for every bad week will make a big difference for me.

So, it was quite an impactful day. It is, as I described, a new reality. But I still look forward to being around for a long time, and making the most of every day.

As always I love hearing from you, at rabraham1@cox.net or by text or Messenger. 

It Is Time to Stop Kneeling for the National Anthem

Let’s begin with remembering how this all got started. A San Francisco 49er quarterback of mixed racial heritage, Colin Kaepernick, felt that he could not in all good conscience pay homage to a country in which people of color were not being treated equally by the police and criminal justice system. In particular, he and many others were outraged by several incidents in which seemingly innocent young men were killed by over-anxious policemen. From all indications, his gesture of kneeling during the anthem was sincere, not calculated, and certainly not designed to bring him any sort of gain; in fact it has only brought him pain and financial loss.

Since then, the gesture of kneeling during the anthem has blown up and become yet another divisive issue in an America that becomes more divided by the day. Kneeling has taken on a much wider and less defined meaning, to where the noise has drowned out the original point.

Most importantly, the chance to come together to address an important issue, equal treatment of all Americans under the law, has actually been decreased because of the animosity generated by the protests. They have become counter-productive and self-defeating.

So, I propose the following solution.

First, stop kneeling during the anthem. It is alienating millions of NFL fans and customers, many of whom would step up to support the cause of equitable treatment under the law.

Second, find a way to continue to call attention to the issue. My suggestion: all players take a knee during the first two plays of each game. On the first play, Team A kicks off to Team B, and Team B runs it back for a touchdown. On the second play, the roles are reversed, and Team A scores a touchdown. On the third play, the game basically “starts” with the score 7-7. It may be far-fetched, but the idea is sound: do something dramatic that is not offensive to your constituency, but keeps the issue in the public eye.

Third, address the real issue. The NFL should start a fund to raise awareness of police, train them on how to more effectively manage their actions around people of color, and buy them more protective gear. The NFL is a multi-billion dollar business, and it would not be unreasonable to expect them to start a fund in the tens of millions of dollars. The League would also start a challenge campaign to ask fans to match their contributions. In other words, bring all NFL fans into the tent and do something positive to bring change.

This issue has become emblematic of so much of what is going on in America today. It seems that we would rather take sides and revel in our anger than seek common ground and work toward a solution. This one is not very difficult: why would anyone not support equal treatment of all Americans under the law? Maybe a plan like this could set a precedent for more opportunities where we could work as one nation.

Untitled Chapter

I’ve always taken pride that I am a logical person. You are a logical person, too, right? We take stock of the facts, assess them carefully, and make sound judgments and conclusions. That’s what educated, enlightened people do. But I didn’t do it when I had pancreatic cancer. The facts said that only one person in sixteen lives more than three years. I never bought into that; not long after I made it through my first chemotherapy session I began to believe that I could survive it, that I could be the one of the sixteen. Not because I was logical or rational, but because that’s what human beings do – we are natural optimists, we believe we are going to win, often in the face of daunting odds. And with a little luck, or maybe a lot of luck, and plenty of support and some degree of determination, I turned out to be right. So here I am 27 months after my diagnosis, still alive and sometimes kicking.

Not too long after surgery I became aware that the reoccurrence rate of cancer for pancreatic sufferers is pretty high. But I never bought into that either; I felt from the moment they told me ‘we got it all’ that I was done with it. It seemed to me to be karma, the rightful end to my story, that I faced down cancer and won. It was time for me to start chapter two and do something important with the rest of my life. And so when I went for quarterly check-ups and each time received the news that I was still cancer free, it just validated my sense that this is how it was meant to be and would always be.

But it appears that odds and probabilities are stubborn, and they don’t like to being sneered at. Last Friday my CT scan showed a shadow on my liver, about 8 millimeters small; ‘atypical, probably a cyst’, my doctor said, ‘but we will review it with the tumor board on Tuesday’. Which they did. And they concluded it isn’t probably a cyst; given my history and its appearance, it is likely cancerous. And, being that caution is the better part of valor, or something like that, the situation calls for immediate treatment.

In other words, it’s back. I’m “Cancer Guy” again. The foundation has shifted under my feet.

My take, which probably has some relationship with reality, is that the outlook is much brighter this time. The tumor is small, we caught it early; it is in a much better place, on my liver instead of my pancreas; the liver is the only organ that can re-generate, and it is more accessible to surgery; and we know that chemotherapy was very effective for me. I’m not in a state of panic like last time; I feel confident that we can handle this. It’s a setback, not a defeat.

But, it reaaaallly sucks!! I have to start chemo in about three weeks, and chemo, at least my chemo regimen, Folfirinox, is hard! Fatigue, migraines, dysentery, neuropathy… you don’t want to hear it, and I don’t want to tell it. I already know this story.

So how worried should I be? I don’t know, and I don’t want to find out. Maybe chemo won’t work this time (I think it will). Maybe radiation and surgery won’t be successful (I find that highly unlikely). More troubling is the idea that this may keep happening, that I will continue to have reoccurrences. Or that the next time the cancer will be widespread and beyond reasonable treatment. I’m not buying that either. Of course I can’t completely ignore those possibilities, but I’m not worried, even if I should be. But I am really bummed out that I have to go through with this, and put my family through it again.

I was cancer free for 559 days, or thereabouts. It has not been an easy time, for many reasons. The hardest part has been not yet finding a new sense of purpose. But in other ways it has been the best period of my life; I have loved to eat more, and loved to play golf more, and loved to watch sports more, and loved to read more, and most of all, loved my family more, than I ever had before. Every day I have noticed extraordinary things in ordinary life that drifted past me before. There are lots of them.

Doing chemo again is going to be tough. But there is one part that is pretty cool: I get the strangest visions when I’m in a chemo session, as though experiencing the weirdest of all dreams but in a fully wakeful state. I can only remember one of them clearly from the last time… I’m watching a chorus of dozens of little owls, moving in unison to an owl director and singing a song I cannot hear; their identical little white owl faces moving this way and that, swaying with unheard music, and staring with their big brown owl eyes. And the owl director waves his batons with his wings, leading them to ever higher states of owl ecstasy. It was glorious.

I’m going to write them down this time.

PS If you would like to reply, and I like hearing from you, please use Messenger or email, not Facebook

Rick 2.0*

So it’s been about 17 months since I had surgery and became cancer-free. I’m still trying to understand what I went through, how I have changed, and who I am now. That all sounds awfully new-agey and self-indulgent, doesn’t it? I think it means that since I’m not working I have lots of time to think about cancer.

Most of the time I feel pretty lethargic, as though I just got out of bed. Except when I have just gotten out of bed, then I feel profoundly lethargic, like I just came out of hibernation. There are a couple of ways I address this: running or biking, which make me more alert but also tired; and caffeine, which makes me feel less lethargic but very edgy. In other words, when I consume caffeine I still struggle to focus on anything, but I struggle at a much higher rate of speed.

The downside of exercise and caffeine is that I feel worse later; I don’t seem to recover very well by sleeping. So, the next day I feel more lethargic, and I exercise more and drink more caffeine, and so on. Detect a problem here? About every 4^th day I just lie on the couch and play word games obsessively, and start the cycle over again the next day.

While I had cancer, I got older (so did you). But I’m in my 7^th decade now, so I’m sure I would be feeling the effects of age regardless of my health issues; everyone my age seems to have health issues. So, I don’t really know which problems I have as a result of cancer, and which are just from getting older.

Clearly my body chemistry is different now that I’m missing an organ or two, and it impacts how I feel. And I would probably feel better if I knew how to adjust it with meds and supplements. But I don’t think the doctors know what I should be doing, and nothing I have tried has been that effective. I have a friend who has a practice helping people recover from and avoid cancer through nutrition and supplements, and I will eventually get around to seeing if she can help me.

Here are some of the other ways I feel physically different than I used to:

• My stomach makes incredible digestive noises. It sounds like a garbage disposal full of chicken bones. It’s a little uncomfortable, but mostly just weird.

•  I can’t drink much alcohol. One is great, two is dicey, three is big trouble: hangover symptoms at midnight, racing pulse and hyperactive thoughts. This is unfortunate, beer and wine taste better than ever.

•  I sleep lightly and have wild dreams. I wish I could remember them, they are awesome. But as I said before, I don’t wake up feeling very refreshed, just groggy.

• I still have some numbness in my fingers, and a fair amount in my feet. They don’t hurt, but they get cold easily. Most of the time I don’t notice it.

• My nose runs. Sometimes when I am just sitting around doing nothing.

• I’m lightheaded, and I am clumsy (clumsier I guess would be more accurate). I’ve had a couple of ugly falls, usually by tripping over something; I don’t just randomly fall (yet). But in the past I would have just stepped over these things. (The worst one was when I was standing on a chair reaching something on the top shelf of the china cabinet. The chair shifted a little, and I fell into the glass panel of the door, shattering it into hundreds of tiny shards. Later that day I saw a couple of posts from the neighbors wondering about an explosion in the area.)

• I’m more emotional. I get upset easily. I don’t like watching dramas on TV or the movies, I can’t sleep afterwards and I retain the images for days. I lose my temper quicker. I cry at puppy videos and pictures of kids.

•  I seem to have the last song I have heard playing all the time in my head. If I hear an interesting phrase, it seems to play over and over in a loop until the next song or phrase.

Despite this stuff, I still feel good enough to be happy most of the time. I’m at my best when I’m exercising; I love golf more than ever. When I’m playing golf I never think about cancer. Cycling is great, too, though I’m even more not-fast than I used to be. And I’ve rediscovered running, if you can call a 12-minute pace running. But for many years my stomach hurt when I ran, and now it doesn’t since there’s not a big honking tumor in there. I can run 3-4 miles, as long as I have a whole afternoon to do it and two days to recover. It’s cool to enjoy running again.

Another great joy is food. I’m not content any more to just eat to not be hungry. I look forward to every meal, I go to the store and buy good stuff, and I appreciate every bite. I used to think foodies were silly snobs, but now I know they are most enlightened creatures. The year that food tasted like licking a flagpole was very discouraging, and I will never take the joys of eating for granted again. It’s a wonder I haven’t gained 50 lbs. since last January.

The physical changes are significant, but the mental and emotional effects of going through cancer are more impactful and puzzling. I view everything now through a lens of having had cancer, as though this act of my life is being filmed through a filter. I have very clear memories of the events and the images of cancer, but the way I felt through it all has been converted to words; remembering being scared or overwhelmed or depressed is nothing like being scared and overwhelmed and depressed. The Year of Having Cancer has become like it happened to someone else, or I watched it on TV, or maybe I didn’t have “real” cancer, just kind of a JV version. It seems like I should try to hold onto those feelings, that they are too important to let go, but they are gone. I get teary when I read my blog account of events, and can’t believe it was me.

Another strange dynamic is not being the center of attention any more. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the attention I got while I was sick, the texts, emails, visits, cards, and words of sympathy. It seems really perverse to say that I miss it considering the price that it required, and it makes me creepy vain to have those thoughts. I feel like my friends are thinking, “OK, you’re not going to die soon, so we don’t really have to be in touch all the time”; I know this is unfair, I would be the same way. And often I feel compelled to tell new people I meet about my cancer, which I don’t really understand and don’t like; does it comes from wanting to inspire people, or just get more attention? I’m sure some of my golfing partners aren’t convinced that I just shanked my 7-iron into the lake because I’m a cancer victim.

The biggest challenge I am facing is what to do with the rest of my life. I don’t want a regular full-time job; I have neither the energy nor the patience to deal with that. But I don’t have a clear sense of what I want to do on a part-time or volunteer basis. And most significantly, I have not been able to get unstuck and start looking into it. I’m intimidated by the range of possibilities and the ways the world has changed; I’m feeling insecure about my age and my abilities; and I don’t know if I can handle being rejected. So, it’s a lot easier to say, well, I don’t feel that great today (which I don’t), so I’ll think about it tomorrow. It’s especially easy to do that now that it’s golf season.

I’ve been considering just retiring and doing recreational stuff full time. But the reality is that doing nothing makes me feel bad about myself. There’s a powerful voice in my head that says I am in the prime of my life, and that I ought to be doing something worthwhile. I find that I’m in agreement with that voice (as I probably should be since it’s mine).

I think it’s also important that I get out of the house and be around people and stop dwelling on being a cancer victim and not feeling perfect. I enjoy being around people, most people, as long as they are not knuckleheads. I miss the kids I used to teach (though I don’t miss teaching them. Except the few that seemed to enjoy learning; this is why I don’t really want to go back to teaching, most of them have very little interest in learning any math – and why would they?) But I’m sure it would be good for me to be around more people than just the septuagenarian Koreans at the golf courses and the check-out clerks at Harris-Teeter.

All of the above, I wrote two weeks ago. Since then a couple of things have happened: first, I stopped taking two of my meds. I stopped anti-depressants because they were making me depressed, and I stopped blood pressure meds because I wanted to. As a result, I feel more alert and happier, though I’m sometimes a little lightheaded (OK, dizzy). And I sleep better. So, it’s a trade-off, but I think I like this state better.

Second, my dad passed away after a long illness. I really haven’t felt very sad yet, it was expected for a long time, and it’s a relief to me that he is no longer suffering. Also, I think I have a different attitude toward death since my illness; I’m sure I’m still as terrified about dying as anyone else, but now I just don’t think about it. And I feel defiant, like “Screw you, death! I like being here too much to waste my time with you.” But I am beginning to be visited by memories of my dad at random unexpected moments, and I find myself smiling or gasping or tearing up. I guess that’s going to happen for the rest of my life, I will miss him a great deal.

So I feel ready to find a new calling for the new Rick. I’ve come to think that it is important for people, that is, me, to be doing something that they feel is worthwhile, and I have run out of excuses. Well, I guess I will always have an excuse, but I’m tired of listening to me use it.

I wasn’t sure how to finish this piece, but now I am. Yesterday I ran in a “Purple Stride” 5K race to raise money to fight pancreatic cancer. There were about 3000 people estimated to be at the event. At one point they asked the survivors of PC to come up on stage, and 12 of us walked up. That’s right, 12. That speaks louder than anything I could ever put into words.

God bless us all!

*Thanks, Frank Hightower, for the title!