The New Scrawl

Something always needs to be going on

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:25:49 -0500

Things have been happening lately, for sure. There's been a emotional and physical upheaval. I won't get into all the details in this post, but I will describe some of the physical.

Last Wednesday, I started feeling a pain and soreness in my neck. At first I thought that it was muscle pain related to posture (I may not have the most ergonomic environment at work or at home), and since I am now prone to minor muscle soreness, this seemed reasonable. But it never went away that day. In fact, it swelled up to the point where you could see it if you looked.

I was supposed to leave to go to the Retreat Yourself '08 retreat sponsored by Young Adult Cancer Canada (formerly Real Time Cancer) on Thursday afternoon. I still had some pain and swelling Thursday morning when I got up at 5:30. I figured that the prudent thing to do would be to get it checked out by a doctor, so I arrived at the hospital at 7 am. There was no one else in the emergency ward, so everything happened pretty quickly initially. I saw the triage nurse, then I got registered, seen by a medical student and then a doctor all within 90 minutes, which is pretty fast for a Canadian emergency ward in a large city.

That's so me

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:07:44 -0500

Genocide

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:06:44 -0500

I have a few questions about genocide:

Is what the Germans did to the Jews during WWII genocide? (Note: it is frequently referred to as such.)
Is what the Europeans did to the native North Americans genocide? (Note: it is very rarely referred to as such.)
When is genocide justifiable?
Did the people who instigated and perpetuated these campaigns (which included murder, rape, enslavement and torture) know any better? In other words, can their deeds be understood and forgiven within the greater context and culture of the time, therefore lessening the impact and responsibility of what was done?
Is it only genocide if you are the victim? Is it something else if you are the aggressor?

I would appreciate it if you could answer these questions as best you can in order to discuss what genocide actually is, and what impact it has on the future.

Et la vie continue

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 16:12:59 -0500

As you know, I've been pretty stressed and depressed with the anticipation of the results of last week's scan. I've been very pragmatic and conservative about my expectations until this morning. This morning, and all day until the actual results, I was fearfully hoping that I could hit a home run and be clear. Today I got the results. In keeping with tradition:

There is a previous history of esophagectomy and gastric pull-up for esophageal carcinoma. Since the previous PET scan, the patient has been on chemotherapy with the last dose given in May, 2008. The previously described small hypermetabolic focus located in the retropancreatic region on the left side of the celiac axis and inferolaterally to the surgical clips visualized on the CT scan, shows a similar maximum SUV of approximately 11 and on scanning, there is no evidence of significant change.

The previously demonstrated small lobulated hypermetabolic focus located anteriorly to the superior vena cava and therefore laterally to the ascending thoracic aorta (at the transverse horizontal plane of the carina level) shows a slightly more lobulated appearance and an SUV of 10.6 as compared to 9.7 in January, 2008.

There is a new focus of increased uptake in the region of the left lower internal jugular vein channel, at the horizontal level of the thyroid gland, measuring approximately 1.5 cm in diameter with a maximum SUV of 10.3.

There is no evidence of abnormal increased uptake at the sites of the small pulmonary parenchymal abnormalities visualized on the CT scan.

The rest of the total body PET scan shows no evidence of other sites of abnormal increased uptake to suggest the presence of active lesions avid on the FDG radiotracer at this time.

Very minor changes of the hypermetabolic foci located one of them in the mediastinum and the other in the retropancreatic region, since January, 2008, compatible with metastases. New small hypermetabolic focus in the left internal jugular vein channel, which is highly suspicious for a new metastatic lesion.

The rest of the PET scan appears normal.

Etchings

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 08:28:35 -0500

I decided to post here again,so feel free to check it out.

D-Day

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:52:45 -0500

Tomorrow, I will find out the results of last week's scan. I fully realized today what Julie already knew: I am frightened about tomorrow. I can talk all I want about my lack of faith in this chemotherapy bullshit and about how I am going to take care of this on my own and so on, but in the end, I am scared shitless about what the doctor will tell me tomorrow, no matter how calm I look on the outside. With each passing hour, I get a little more anxious.

In other news, I may get onto another project as early as next week. It'll be a summertime assignment, probably, so we'll see what happens.

Scan day

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 11:34:54 -0500

I had my PET scan today to determine how much cancer is still in my body. I've had some back pain lately, likely due to yoga, which I will likely have to stop. This combined with the hard table you have to lie down on for 30 minutes left me feeling sore, tired and simply sad.

I am not sure what is wrong with me today, but these feelings of sadness and dissatisfaction won't go away easily, I think. This technically should be a time for optimism and hope, but it isn't at all. I think that the closer I get to the day of the results, which is next Thursday, the more that I am filled with a sense of dread.

But there is more than that. It's the dissatisfaction. What am I dissatisfied with? I know it has something to do with cancer, and it has nothing to do with those who have helped me. Maybe it's not dissatisfaction, but rather disappointment. All I know is that I am not very happy today, and the next couple of weeks don't look too great, either.

Maybe I just need to see more friends.

Wings

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 10:42:54 -0500

Do you have wings? I like to think that I do. By the way, this is an old meme, but I don`t actually know what my readers`Myers-Briggs types are. I wonder if there are more I`s than E`s that read my words, and the details of those I`s and E`s. Why don`t you take a Myers-Briggs test and find out, then tell me here? I, of course, am an ENTP. I think.

I would also encourage you to read this. Just how emotionally mature are you? I would say that I am just to the right of the middle of the pack, although the last year has pushed me further to the right (assuming that emotionally mature is on the right side of the scale, and emotionally immature is on the left).

And my God, this is beautiful. I have never heard this story before.

Mystery feet

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 10:27:08 -0500

You may have read about the mystery feet washing up in BC. Here's my take on it.

Dégustation de thés 2008

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:03:23 -0500

Tea is a big part of our lives (Julie and I, that is) and to that end we decided to take 5 hours of our lives and go to the seminars offered by premier tea provider and salon Camellia Sinensis last weekend. It was incredibly fun! We got to taste 19 different teas! Delicious, I must say. Definitely an experience even for those that don't know much about tea. For example:

Pu-erh teas are the only tea that does not degrade over time; in fact it gets better and better with age. For this reason, they are classified by year and region just like vintage wine. They often look and taste similar to a strong black tea to the novice, even though there is a green tea aspect to it. One of the owners of Camellia Sinensis was allowed (after a grueling question-and-answer session by some local tea cultivators and sellers in China) to enter what I would call a shrine to Pu-erh tea. In this room was millions of dollars of tea stored in individual cakes. One such cake dating from 1930 (and there were many, even much older ones) and weighing roughly 350 grams cost about $10 000. Using the consumption of Julie and I as a reference* it would cost us about $30 per cup of tea. $30. Per CUP. If you wanted to try our tea, we'd have to charge you.

Stifled relaxation

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:50:20 -0500

Big deadline this week for localization work in subtitles. My team has worked hard and is ahead of schedule. In fact, by the end of today we will be finished the first pass of all subtitles in all cinematics in the game.

I'm sitting here at my desk in the office. I just installed a little fan behind me and took a few minutes to relax while the game compiles. Now it's time to run the game and see the latest updates in Italian. And the game will not FUCKING RUN.

Goddamnit. Maybe I should stick to managing resources rather than actually being one of them. At least I can try reason with people. You can't reason with code. But in reality, I feel fine.

Now that I think of it, this might actually be a decent day in terms of relaxation and health. It hasn't been a good week in terms of how I feel physically; I realized just how bad my non-cancer-related health is. Specifically, yoga showed that no matter how easy the physical activity is that I am doing, it is still a big challenge for me. I did yoga on Monday, and I still have a sore neck. The soreness goes all down the left side of the neck to my shoulder. I hope it's just a case of unused muscles being annoyed at being woken up.

I am really looking forward to getting my body back, if at all possible. I will continue this gentle cancer yoga for as long as I can until I think that I can get into a gym (although with all the financial management I have started, I wonder if I can afford it). imagine being as fit as I was when I was 25! I think that I can do it. Yoga is about accepting what is, but I find this to be very difficult. We are going to focus on this in the next few sessions.

I think I might be getting a little impatient. I am normally pretty patient when I want changes to occur in my life, but I want to go back to school now; I want to become financially responsible and more debt-free now (although I think that I can attain my credit card goals this year), I want to become more physically fit right now. This isn't wise and is not good for the mind or spirit. I am changing both positively and negatively. I need to work on that, I guess.

Wordled

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 09:40:59 -0500

Inspired by Zura, and since I have nothing to do while code compiles (I'm not a programmer, really!), here is the previous entry in Wordle format. I think it looks pretty neat.

Maybe I'll do more of these. They seem fun.

Changes

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 16:45:51 -0500

I promised to update people on things, and here is my chance to do so.

The last month has been up and down in a number of ways. Work has changed completely. We are in the last stages of our project. People are working overtime, but not huge amounts of it. We have essentially run out of people to do/fix the subtitles so, since I wasn't doing much as a PM anyway because of the nature of both the project and management, I was tapped to be the Senior Subtitle Implementation Programmer. (Did you like that new title I just made up? I've got management written all over me.)

This has changed certain things. I no longer have time to read blogs all day, and so I no longer feel the need to write about certain things right now. I'll get back to it, though, as I think that it is an important topic that most people would rather not discuss frankly. I am not nearly as bored as I was. It was a good bored, not a bad bored, so it wasn't really terrible at all. I got to read blogs all day, after all.

Return

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:10:52 -0500

I have been away for two reasons. One, I have been busy with work (more on that later) and chemotherapy (more on that later). Secondly, I couldn't have blogged even if I wanted to, which I did. There were technical problems that prevented me from entering information in the text box. Stupid, no? What's worse is that it was all caused because I didn't include the "www" in the login URL. Thanks, MT.

What I intend to do for the time being is to show you some pictures that I have taken over the last little while. I will expand on the topics I broached later. This week, hopefully. In the meantime, check out some photos from a recent trip to the Botanical Gardens.

Yap, yap, yap

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:51:29 -0500

I hate these damn dogs. There, I said it.