Butt of a Cosmic Joke

Butt of a Cosmic Joke

  7:52 AM    Unknown

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Life is weird. So is dying.

Yeah, I’m talking about cancer again. Not that there isn’t plenty else to talk about. With the country tearing itself apart over racism, nuclear war being threatened, and the county closing trash sites last week, I felt like all I had ever fought against was a failure. Thank you to the commissioners who gave me a little bit of hope in a dank, dark week.

So, early last week, I went to meet with the doctor in Thomasville about the special radiation treatment I was to have there. To recap, no pun intended, I have lung cancer that spread to my brain. The radiation was the first step in getting these problems under control.

The nurse there asked me a series of questions about symptoms I might be suffering due to the brain problems. It was like a to-do list of things to be afraid of. So I may lose my ability to walk and chew. That’s great. And apparently I may get constipation and diarrhea at the same time. How is that even possible?

I’m exaggerating, I think. I hope.

Wednesday, I met one of my oncologists for the first time, and he gave me a prognosis I didn’t ask for. I didn’t really want to know, even though I suspected. My cancer is incurable, so I’m on a deadline, so to speak.

“Incurable” is a hard word for a realist to hear. It saps away a lot of hope. That was a bad day.

Of course, I could live years, or I could die tomorrow, I suppose. But a lot of the mystery is gone, which stinks. Why invest in anything? Why get excited about a video game or a football season  or TV series you may never see the end of?

(I’m basically living to see the end of Game of Thrones right now).

I got a flat tire the day after finding out I had cancer. Is it any wonder that the night before I was headed to Thomasville for the radiation treatment, there were major protests over a police shooting only blocks from the hospital?

Luckily that didn’t interfere with anything, but it was another concern. I quickly forgot about it when the doctors and nurses began screwing a metal frame to my skull Thursday morning. I thought a toothache hurt, but this was worse, agonizing and constant. I was shaking so bad from the pain that my brain was showing up blurry in the MRI.

They had to give me pills and more injections to ease the pain, which was when things started looking up finally. The radiation procedure went more quickly and easily than I had hoped. And I emerged still able to think and talk without drooling too much, so that’s excellent.

My mom said my color looked better after the procedure. Of course, having your head stuck in a microwave might give you a healthy glow, too.

After the procedure, I wore two bandaids on my forehead, in public. My mom said I looked like they'd cut my horns off.

Now, I've had my brain bombarded with radiation. I'm on steroids. This week, I get a port installed to help with chemo, which makes me technically a cyborg. I'm halfway to being a super hero, for sure.

And the steroids are making me hungry. I'm going to be the world's fattest cancer patient. A friend showed up this weekend and thought I was bleeding. I wasn't bleeding. I'd just spilled rocky road ice cream down my arm and shirt.

I'm starting to feel somewhat disabled with my fallen voice and shaky, imprecise hand. My latest favorite food is a Cobb Zalad from Zaxby's doused in ranch dressing and barbarous Nuclear Sauce, which is, to me, a perfect hot sauce. I tried to order the other night and the kind cashier thought I asked for "new croissants" instead of Nuclear Sauce, which seemed plausible. I got the right sauce, though, just in time for me to spill my change on the floor, struggle to pick it up and then have equal difficulty putting my lid on my to-go cup.

Speaking of drinks, I had the wise idea to enjoy the unique experience of doing things for the last time. For instance, I rarely drink Pepsi, so I decided I'd have my... drum roll... Last Pepsi. Unfortunately, I rarely drink Pepsi, so I didn't realize I bought a Wild Cherry Pepsi instead.

Of course, chemo will likely put the kaibosh on my steroid-fueled appetite. And my immune system will be compromised, so I have to avoid all sorts of things I love: Medium rare steak, sushi, and even Nuclear Sauce, since hot sauce can lead to minor but potentially dangerous internal bleeding. At least I'll still have rocky road ice cream.

Resting in the gamma knife machine for over an hour, I thought a lot about what to do with the time I have left. I decided to rededicate myself to writing the story I had planned about the Disappearance of Tara Grinstead, but to also include my own ordeal with mortality.

A goal will give me focus and a little bit of the hope that keeps being snatched away.

I ran into a friend at Cirillo’s last week, and she told me a loved one with very similar cancers is still living 7 years after his diagnosis, and that made me feel great. Then I mentioned it to my ex-brother-in-law, who is a surgeon who deals with cancer patients regularly, and he said he wouldn’t count on me lasting that long.

Woo... Thanks for that.

It’s so weird, and so terrible. This has been an amazing year for me in ways. I’ve never felt more loved and appreciated, and I have people from at least six countries praying for me or thinking about me. I’ve had people ask me for my autograph at an oncology center and after a fan approached me at a restaurant last week, I commented on how weird my life is these days.

My niece picked up on the observation.

“Your life is weird because you have fans and you have cancer,” she said, and yes, that’s exactly what I meant.

Like our president, I’m a bit of a narcissist, (although I’d say he’s a malignant narcissist and I’m a narcissist with malignancies.) Also unlike the commander in Tweets, I’m honest enough to admit I like the attention, and awards, unfortunately, motivate me.

So when I learned this past weekend that The Ocilla Star won seven awards at our annual company conference, I was overjoyed. As a part of our team and as a journalist, that will probably be my finest professional moment, but I missed it due to my health. And the joy was, of course, bittersweet.

I almost feel like I'm going out on top, but I also feel like I’m the butt of a cosmic joke. But at least I’m still laughing.

Note: Since I originally wrote this, I did get a bit of good news, but I don't really understand it. I'm supposed to be something like a 90 percent match to some new form of immunotherapy, which I was told was very good news. I don't know much about it, but immunotherapy has shown some new success fighting lung cancer, so not all the news is so grim.

Thanks: There are so many people who deserve my thanks right now, and I want to mention some of them, although I will miss hundreds in doing so. To Dr. Wayne Maris, Dr. Rubal Patel, the nursing staff of the oncology centers in Tifton and Thomasville, Dr. Howard and Janet McMahan, Hazel McCranie, Norma Baker, Carol Pharr, Paige Wynn, Cheryl Odom, the Hicks family, Debbie Russo, Terry James, DeDee Arnold, Stephanie Ross, Traci Harper, Tammy Vickers, Joe McCrimmon, Chelsea Cobb, Walter Hudson, Rob and Megan Dowdle, Matt and Roxie Seale, Sandy McClurd, Greg Sidwell, Daniel Gothe and Jessica Korpinen, Payne Lindsey, Richard Wingate, William Wingate, Leigh Kimbrell, Angie Thompson, Ruby Chamber, Laquita Whittle, Taylor Wynn, Dena Vassey, Kamran Ali, Myda Ali, Shawn Fowler, Jonathan Beal, Linda Rodgers, Zack Jarrard, Irfan Ali, Eric Gaines, Dylan Bryant, Rick Bryant, Maria Hardman, Diane Pless, Beverly Bradford, Debbie Parrish, Laura Beth Tucker, Mona Paulk, Gloria Mix, Yvette White, Sue Bryant, Christy Hagenbaugh, and my rock, my mom, Mandy Bryant, and many others, thank you all for the hope and strength you've given me in this dark tunnel I still plan to emerge from one day.

And here are some songs I composed which are barely related to the story at all, featuring the Joker and Batman.

Cosmic Joke

Super Hero