When I was a kid, I thought I had to drink coffee, tea, wine, and beer to “be an adult.” I was really excited when my mom said I could have some coffee. I remember I wanted to be able to drink it black, because that was the coolest, most adult way.
It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever put in my mouth.
“Okay, fine,” I thought to myself, “I’m the sort of person who needs sugar in their coffee.” I added some and sipped again. “Maybe some milk.” Added some, sipped again. “Not enough sugar.” Added some more, sipped again. “And more.” Added yet more sugar and some more milk, sipped again and realized that (A) it still tasted terrible and (B) I was, at this point, just ruining milk and wasting sugar. I poured it down the drain.
I also remember being excited when Mooms told me I could have a glass of wine with Thanksgiving dinner. Ooooh, I was going to be a sophisticated adult who knew things about wine!
It was like someone dumped dirt in perfectly good grape juice.
So I don’t drink coffee or wine. I can’t even stand the smell of beer, so I haven’t tried that. I can tolerate green tea, but my favorite go-to is hot chocolate. And I’m old enough now (and out of fucks enough) that I don’t care if people think I’m childish for drinking it.
One of my favorite hot drinks is what I call “cocoaccino.” You go to a gas station that has those powdered “coffees” that you just push a button and dispense into a cup. Do 1/2 the cup full of French Vanilla Cappuccino and the other 1/2 Hot Chocolate. Add a couple French Vanilla creamers and those little marshmallows if they have them. VOILA.
Is it coffee? Eh, not really. It’s extra-caffeinated hot chocolate, basically. But it’s hot and it actually tastes good. And people look at me and think I’m drinking coffee. “Like an adult.” Like I care anyway.
If you’re an adult and you’re drinking a beverage, it’s an adult beverage. Full stop. You don’t have to “prove” you’re an adult by drinking something you hate the taste of. Life’s too short not to have hot chocolate (if that’s what you want).
I’ve gained some followers and not everyone knows the whole story. If nothing else, this will be an easy-to-link-to summary to catch old friends up to speed. There’s no need to read this if you’d rather skip it; I won’t hold it against you. I’d rather skip it, too, but I’m the one with the cancer, so I don’t have the option.
It first showed up in late 2013, and it was pretty apparent immediately what it was. The dermatologist I went to in January of 2014 knew it as soon as he looked at it. He sent my biopsy results and information over to the University of Michigan because they’re one of the leaders in melanoma treatment.
Melanoma, if you don’t know, is the worst kind of skin cancer. My melanoma is a particular kind called “nodular melanoma”: instead of spreading out along the skin, it goes vertical, which means it not only raises up from the skin, it goes deep down into it as well. Nodular melanoma is the worst kind of melanoma (thus making it the worst kind of the worst kind of skin cancer). But if mine hadn’t been nodular, we might not have known it was there. Y’see, I had a mole growing on the back of my head, in my hair. I kept whackin’ it with my hairbrush. That’s how I knew it was there, and growing quickly. I couldn’t see it without mirror assistance.
A couple of surgeries followed: to get the rest of the “initial site” cleared (the dermatologist had known this was the sort of thing that would follow and deliberately didn’t take as much off as he could have, because taking more would have required a longer healing time before I could be treated and he wanted me treated ASAP), to test the local “sentinel” lymph nodes, then to clear out all the lymph nodes on the left side of my neck, because the cancer had already spread to there.
After that, we discussed options and decided to wait and watch. It meant scans twice a year at U of M (we lived all the way across the state, near Lake Michigan), but that wasn’t so bad. And so, for almost exactly five years, that’s what we did. And every time, the news was good. No Evidence of Disease (NED).
In February of 2019, my scans turned up something on my liver. We did a biopsy and, sure enough, The Cancer Was Back. Not only that, it had progressed to be farther away from its initial site (the back of my head). I had already been diagnosed at Stage IIIC before; now I was Stage IV.
Stages I, II, and III break down into As, Bs, and Cs (so you could be Stage IA, IB, IC; Stage IIA, IIB, IIC, etc.,or whatever, depending on the criteria). Stage IV is just Stage IV; it doesn’t break down into letters. There is no stage after IV.
I was - and am - officially at the worst stage of the worst kind of the worst kind of skin cancer. The cancer was on my liver, in a couple different spots, and on my spleen.
But I wasn’t worried, because I kept up with things and I knew about a great immunotherapy treatment for melanoma that was a combination of two drugs. And that was, indeed, what my oncologist at U of M wanted to start me on. I’d need to have treatments once a month. It would be the combo of both drugs at first, and then I’d move to just one of them.
We moved to Ann Arbor (where U of M is at), and I started the combo. Side effects weren’t bad in the short term, but I developed adrenal insufficiency during the course of the combo treatment. That complicated matters a bit, but I went to just the one drug and my side effects eased. We began to talk about surgery to cut out the liver tumors. The liver surgeon asked for an MRI instead of the usual CT I would have gotten.
The MRI showed a lot more liver spots. As well as an increase in the size of the spots we already knew about. Y’see, some of the tumors were so little that they just hadn’t shown up on the CT yet. The MRI is a more precise (and expensive) scan, and it caught the ones too small to show up on the CT.
My oncologist basically said he didn’t have anything else for me. Immunotherapy is the big dog in the melanoma world, and I had progressed (gotten worse) while on it. He suggested I go to this place called START where they do clinical trials and studies of new and upcoming drugs. It’s not in Ann Arbor though, it’s over in Grand Rapids.
So we moved to Grand Rapids.
I’ve been through one clinical trial but I progressed while on that, so I was taken off of it. We’ve run into the same problem here that we had in A2, really: most of the studies for melanoma are immunotherapy-based. It’s hard to find something that isn’t.
In the meantime, my liver is being literally replaced with cancer. My entire left lobe and a good portion of the right is just tumor now. My oncologist at START recommended me to an interventional radiologist who is going to pump my liver full of Yttrium 90 (Y90), which is a radioactive isotope that is administered via little beads so tiny that they’re 1/3rd the size of a human hair. This targets only the cancer and, over the course of months, should help shrink the tumor(s).
It’s a treatment, not a cure. But it will hopefully buy me time for START to find something that could cure me, or at least work better than the last study did for me. At some point, my spleen may be removed entirely, but that’s not a vital organ. The liver is the big concern.
I also have some melanoma on my scalp (and a spot in my freaking ear), but those are potentially useful for future studies. Anything I take for the cancer at this point - other than the Y90 which is specifically and only ever for the liver - has to be systemic: it has to fight the cancer EVERYWHERE. So if my little scalp spots start to shrink, that means the treatment is working. And it’s a lot easier to biopsy a bump on my scalp than it is my liver or spleen.
WHEW! That’s a lot, and it really is the quick version. I have times when it seems hopeless but I’m doing pretty good at staying positive, overall. Still, I’ve come to the conclusion that liver cancer is how I’m going to die (unless I get struck by lightning or hit by a bus or something random like that). It’s just a question of when. That’s what I’m fighting for: time.
Fingers crossed for another good, non-immunotherapy clinical trial to crop up that’ll take me. In the meantime, I just work on living my life. I’m still pretty good, all things considered; I can still do most of what I want to do, but I wear out quickly. I’ve got physical therapy to help me work on my stamina and strength. I haven’t given up. It’s way too soon for that.
Does anyone else do the thing where you start watching or reading or doing something and you’re like, “I’m enjoying this,” but then you pause for, like, a bathroom break or to make some food, and when you come back, you have this inability to pick up where you left off? Not because you weren’t having a good time, but it’s like a switch flipped and your brain is like, “We’re not doing that anymore.”
Me: But why not? I was enjoying that.
Brain: Too bad, we’re going to do something else now.
Me: Okay. What’s the something else?
Brain:
Me:
Brain:
Me: ...whaaaaat’s the something else we’re going to do?
So, yesterday my physical therapist tried to kill me.
Let me back up real quick and say that I always accuse him - we’ll call him PT Scott, because I have a bro named Scott and I need to differentiate one smartass from the other - of trying to kill me. I’m usually joking when I level this accusation, and he takes it as such. We’re cool, we’re chill, and I do my fucking standing squats (or whatever those fuckers are called, I hate them) and bitch the whole time.
BUT THEN THERE WAS YESTERDAY.
“We’re gonna do lunge walks,” he said, or maybe it was walk lunges, I don’t remember. I just remember telling him that I’d never heard the term before but I could guess what was coming. He demonstrated: take a big step, lower yourself down with both knees bent - and while holding on to this stick for balance - then stand back up, step with the other foot, repeat.
“Oof,” I said, and you can quote me on that.
“You don’t have to go that deep. In fact, your knee should not hit the floor.”
“Okay.” Pithy sound bite right there.
“Go the length of this carpet.”
So he wanders off to do... something - he’s always juggling at least two patients and about half a dozen other things at the same time - and I take a step with my left foot, squat down a little, stand back up. We’re good, it’s good, we’re all good here.
Step with right foot and start to go down...
PAIN! PAIN IN THE RIGHT UPPER LEG AREA!
I grip the walking stick and try valiantly to stay on my feet. I’m still not sure if I said, “Ow,” or he just happened to turn around then or what, but I dropped to the floor almost in slow motion.
“Whoa, hey, what happened?!”
I got back to my feet as PT Scott came over and asked if it was pain or I tripped or was there a cramp...?
“PAIN.”
“Where at?”
I put my hand right on the still ouchie area.
“Right quad,” he said. “Did you hear or feel a pop or anything?”
I told him no and he said good and we switched to lighter exercises. At one point he passed me off to PT Abby and said, “I tried to kill her today, so go easy on her.”
My leg felt better soon after this little... quad adventure. Quadventure. And it’s been okay since then, but I’m a little wary of it now because it felt perfectly fine yesterday right up until it didn’t, with no warning whatsoever, which is frankly pretty rude, right quad. You should warn a bitch before you just drop her to her ass.
PT Scott also said I fell almost “gracefully,” which I guess if you’re gonna do it, that’d be how. If you think about it, “falling gracefully” is just ...diving. Or maybe gymnastics. So hey, Olympic scouts, lemme know if you need to fill out the team.
Like most fans, I love the elevator fight scene in Captain America: Winter Soldier, but I also love the bit right after that where he leaps out the window, falls multiple stories and hits pavement and then destroys an armored aircraft firing at him. For one thing, the superhero landing at the end of that is very nice. But, more importantly?
“GIVE IT UP, ROGERS!” yells the Strike Team.
“STAND DOWN, CAPTAIN ROGERS! STAND DOWN!” demands the person inside the armored aircraft.
YOU FOOLS. Steve Rogers didn’t know the meaning of “Give it up” or “Stand down” back when he was 90 lbs. soaking wet!! He sure as SHIT doesn’t know it NOW.
And Sitwell?
“Are you kidding me?” he asks in awe as Steve gets back up after that fall.
NO, WE’RE NOT FUCKING KIDDING YOU, SITWELL. HE’S STEVEN GRANT FUCKING ROGERS, THE ONLY ‘SUPER SOLDIER’ OF HIS KIND EVER MADE. OF COURSE he can just WALK THAT OFF.
I swear H.Y.D.R.A. loses because even after all these decades they still don’t know THING ONE about this man.
Also, to get back to the elevator fight scene for a second, one of the (myriad) things I love about it is that it’s more of that H.Y.D.R.A. using their target’s way of thinking against them tactic.
They got Fury because he mistook the warning signs as regular everyday racism.
But, with Cap, they took advantage of his courteous and polite nature. See, if he’d stayed back against that back wall, he limits how they can come at him to the ways where he can see them. No one can come at his back that way. He’s already protecting his six like that.
But the “businessmen” come in, talking with each other. A couple of them say, “Excuse me,” to him, and he... very politely gets out of their way so they can continue their conversation more easily. This moves him into the center of the car. So now he’s surrounded, his back open to attack.
They could’ve packed the car with baddies any ol’ way they wanted to, but they deliberately took advantage of his nature to make sure they had the best possible chance to take him down.
But they still were completely ignorant of Steve “I WILL ABSOLUTELY THROW MYSELF OUT A WINDOW” Rogers, and that’s why they lost.
I had a Mooms visiting me and we went all over the place but now I’m back for a wee bit before the Dadoo side of the family collapses onto me (brothers this weekend, Dadoo & stepmom the weekend after).
Then I will be irradiated and get superpowers! :D
In the meantime, my desire for new media came back, so I caught up on “The Mandalorian” and some of my reading, and right now I’m catching up on “The Adventure Zone” (read: bingeing all of “Graduation”). I’ve also played all the way through Career Mode (currently) in Power Wash Simulator.
Schrodi came into the bedroom last night and let out this very discordant meow and then hopped up onto the air mattress. (I have reinflated the air mattress and returned to my nest of blankets For Reasons.)
Fortunately my eyes had adjusted enough (and her collar is glow in the dark enough) that I could see that she had, somehow, managed to get one of her front legs through her collar. ALL THE WAY THROUGH HER COLLAR, which, yes, is a little loose but not “pull it off over her head” loose. And certainly not - I had thought - “able to fit her head and one of her front legs through it” loose.
Clearly I was wrong about that.
Now, I'd been almost asleep when this happened, so the easy way to fix this - unsnap the collar - did not occur to me. No, no.
Instead I grab this distressed cat and start trying to shove her leg back through the collar.
She was not having this nonsense.
So here's me going, "Let me fix it! How'd you even do this?" and her yowling and the both of us wrestling around on the air mattress.
She finally realized that I was helping her when her leg was about halfway back through the collar, and that was when the concept of unsnapping the collar hit my brain but it was quickly followed by, Well, I'm almost done doing it this way anyway so I still didn't do that.
But she's stopped struggling and yowling, so I free her paw, ask her again how she managed to do that in the first place, get no answer because she is, of course, A CAT, release her and try to go back to sleep.
The mystery remains.
Look, I basically want to play Sims but have it be The Grey Wardens at Soldier’s Peak. You can import a world save from DA:O/A and your Warden if they’re alive, as well as their LI, select which Awakenings Wardens are still around (if any), and then you have to work to upgrade the Peak and make it self-sufficient.
The better and more prosperous the Peak is, the more people you get turning up as recruits for the order. The better fed and armored your Wardens are, the better able they are to dispatch darkspawn, which endears them to local banns and other nobles, who then might give you gifts of things you need (like hunting dogs, goats, potion mats, raw materials for Mikhael Dryden to turn into better armor, etc.).
There are occasional hiccups and obstacles - ghosts and other strange phenomenon because of the thin Veil; raiders showing up and stealing shipments meant for the Peak, so you have to go hunt them down; a storm tearing up your garden; banns/arls who dislike you causing trouble in the Landsmeet; etc. - but mostly it’s a resource management game that also lets you continue your Warden’s story as well as the story of the Grey Wardens in Ferelden.
