THINKING POSITIVE: A blog about cancer and AIDS

Paul E. Serchia - Feb 5, 1958 to March 1, 2010

2010-03-01T09:50:00.001-08:00

I'm sorry to have to post this, but Paul passed away peacefully this morning.
I want to thank everyone for all your support. I've been a close friend to him since 1994, and for those of you who only know him from the words in this blog, please believe me when I tell you they are an accurate representation of Paul. He fought this disease the same way he lived with HIV/AIDS, with humor, grace an admirable strength.

Please continue to post your thoughts and memories of Paul here. This blog will live on. It is the wish of myself, his family and his friends that this blog gets published some day. These words need to be shared.

Please feel free to contact me if you want me to relay any information regarding services for Paul. godscomic (at) sbcglobal (dot) net

Thanks again for keeping Paul in your thoughts and prayers. It really made him feel good when he knew he reached someone with his words.

Dean Micheli

Good night, nurse

2010-01-26T21:38:00.001-08:00

Methinks it is not wise to blog by clicking send at a time when your reason’s playing treason and your thinkin’ has been stinkin’. So I’m passing these scant words to a friend of Thinking Positive who agreed to update this page.

Gang, I am now a resident of a skilled nursing facility in Hollywood as a result of the determination by many who believe I am no longer able to care for my situation on my own (case in point: the struggle by my Boy Pony Express to read my incoherent handwriting).

The fast-paced environment here leaves little room for learning how to be a citizen of a nursing home community. Already I have had a flare-up during a sponge bath. I wanted to wail, “hey, I can wash THOSE myself, thank you very much”.

In theory, I’ll be here for the duration. We’ll see about that.

No need to Hurry,Sundown

2010-01-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

Chris Eisenberg, (Chris E) another AIDS/LifeCycle participant, is doing her darnedest to keep the worlds of cancer and AIDS intertwined.

After stopping at the hospital on Monday to show me a Technicolor-ready pair of slide shows of ALC events --some charting the erosion of my features, Chris and her reliable mascot BunnE hopped back to Hollywood with laptop to allow me another post.

At least I hope it is Chris E and BunnE sitting across from the bed from me.

All day I have been seeing things that I don't believe are actually there. First I thought an intruder enter my hospital room and was looking out the window at rain-slickened Sunset Boulevard. Then they wheeled my IV pole into an architecturally altered bathroom that looked like some kind off-site betting establishment. And finally, while lying in bed --it's really all I do these days--and believing that a friend was parked in a corner waiting for two nurses to wrap up a sponge bath, and was alarmed to get a text from him explaining he hadn't left his office yet, o!

When one of my saw on his late-morning rounds, I described each episode to him. "You've been Sundowning," he explained.

Another name for this condition may be "Paul's Brains Slowly to Mush".

By the way, Chris E is a stellar human being and one of the brilliant flames that blaze California highways on AIDS/LifeCycle year after year. Visit her ALC page to support her.

If you see her ask her if she noticed the geezer in raincoat staring out on Sunset Boulevard this afternoon. I swear he was there all the damn day.

‘Fessin’ up to my absence

2010-01-19T16:37:00.000-08:00

The last time I prepared to update this blog seems as remote to me now as watching Beanie and Cecil cartoons while slurping a bowl of Quisp cereal.

But it was only Saturday morning. I was sitting on my sofa, staring at my computer three feet away, feeling drained of all energy, and absolutely inert, unable to move from one position to the other.

Two friends were visiting Los Angeles for the holiday weekend, and we had plans to meet at my apartment. Instead, I tossed a monkey wrench into the plans for the day by calling on two other friends to rush me to Kaiser’s emergency room.

Late Saturday, X-rays revealed that I had substantial fluid in my lungs, and sometime after midnight, a laborious procedure to remove some of the fluids began. At this point, it’s not clear whether the fluids signal an aggressive advance of my cancer, or if this episode is just another annoying bump in the road of life.

I’m writing this on a laptop loaned by a pair of Positive Pedalers who drove from the Bay Area. They graciously have suppressed their snickers as they watch me struggle with a laptop keyboard and a cursor that spontaneously slips into hiding. They know it’s not nice to needle an old geezer with a misshapen skull and 27 tubes in his body.

I’ll write more as I can.

Meantime, a homework assignment for you: Find out why manufacturers of urinal receptacles can’t invest some serious R&D into development of a product that would satisfy more consumers. The current standard is challenge for the lesser endowed to use, especially in the dark of night wile contending with all of the other wires, cords and tubing that make it nearly impossible move while in bed. My soiled linen bin overfloweth.

Go to www.pospeds.org for some spiffy news about yours truly

Caving into reality

2010-01-14T17:14:00.000-08:00

What is the difference between yours truly and the greater Los Angeles white pages?

The L.A. white pages has column after column of Chins.

Your loyal blogger has none.

I'm pretty sure I had one when I went in for my pre-Halloween biopsy last fall. Since that day, the lower part of my face has been cloaked by bandages and surgical tape and until recently I hadn't really studied it that closely.

When I did the other night, I felt like wailing "WHERE'S THE REST OF ME?", like Ronald Reagan in "Kings Row."

It's the damnedest thing: My face essentially goes from lower lip —which is severely contorted— to my neck.

Aside from my old chin's way of humanizing my features, I can't really say I miss it that much. What are chins good for, anyway? Sure, I could rest it on my knuckle if I ever wanted to look thoughtful but in my book unless you're Kirk Douglas or one of his
kids, you probably need your chin in order to achieve in life less than you think.

The wound incurred by that long-age biopsy is finally showing signs of stabilizing, so it won't be long before wearing bandages may be superfluous, and I'll need to decide how I feel showing my chin-less mug in public.

It may be a moot point; I'm practically a fulltime shut-in these days.

I shouldn't complain. The people in Haiti affected by Tuesday's earthquake —now that's something worth getting upset about.

And the loss of my chin? Not a gig deal, gang. Even those strong jawlines on Mount Rushmore are bound to erode eventually.

Press P for Panic

2010-01-12T16:16:00.000-08:00

At this stage of illness, I've gotten pretty accurate at estimating how much energy I need to complete one of life's basic activities, and whether I have enough fuel in my tank to pull it off.

There are really only four stations in my apartment that I use for sitting —the sofa, the bed, my desk and the toilet— and much of my time is spent calculating whether I have enough energy to move from one station to the other.

Like, I just spent a good 30 minutes building up strength to move from the sofa to my desk, which is only about five feet away.

Pathetic, eh?

It's a bit more complicated that it may appear. My sofa —actually a loaner futon that showed up at my doorstep for the holidays— slopes downward, as if its intent is to swallow you whole. As soon as you plop down, your butt starts to slide toward the floor, and standing erect from the floor requires a good investment of wind.

If I ever found myself on the floor and unable to move on my own, I have a button-like device on my wrist that I can press to tip off three of my friends and a service based in Massachusetts about the crisis. In theory, this gadget —its name is LifeLine— should work swimmingly. We'll see about that. I've been wearing the gizmo more than an week and I'm surprised I haven't triggered the alarm by accident yet.

And speaking of accidents: This morning I had an incident that probably should be declared hands-off for blog fodder but I'm gonna share it anyhow. By basking in humiliation, maybe I can set an example for Tiger Woods.

I was slouching on the sofa with the fibers of my jammies grazing the floor when I realized I had been there for hours, reading, napping and feeding myself my medicine and Isosource.

And I needed to pee.

Thing was, I didn't quite have the strength to achieve liftoff. I mulled over the best course of action to take. Should I just continue napping, hoping the urge to pee will pass? Should I move toward the bathroom by scooting my butt on the carpet rather than walk? Should I press that LifeLine button and throw three of my friends and an office of innocent workers in Massachusetts into a panic?

Reader, I checked the "Continue napping" box.

Of course the inevitable happened. Only about half of my bladder's yield made it to the bowl; the rest soaked my jammies and splattered on my leg.

If any former classmates from Mrs. Kios' English class at Sierra Elementary School in Lancaster, Calif., are reading this: well, Paul hasn't changed much.

I go to pieces, part 2

2010-01-08T20:44:00.000-08:00

You may recall me telling you about my trach collar and trach falling apart during a fitful night's sleep in December.

Somehow, I was able to pull myself together and got through the holiday season without another incident.

Two nights ago, the same thing happened. But this time, when I placed the trach up against the hole in my neck, it wouldn't slide in; the circumference of the trach was just a bit more than the circumference than the hole.

I considered panicking. Instead, I sat at the computer and e-mailed my doctor, telling him that I hoped he would be able to help me if I just showed up in Kaiser's Head and Neck Department. Then I threw on my jacket and shoes, tossed the trach in a Zip-Loc bag, grabbed my keys and drove to the Head and Neck Department at Sunset and Edgemont.

The receptionist almost didn't recognize me without the familiar plastic apparatus around my neck, which she has been seeing on me for almost a year. But I held up the Zip-Loc bag with the disassembled pieces and handed the receptionist a note explaining what happened, which I wrote in the elevator ride to the sixth floor.

It was before 8 o'clock and the clinic had not opened yet but the receptionist checked me in and said that the on-call doctor would arrive shortly before 9.

I was the only one sitting in the dark waiting room for 15 minutes or so, then a young kid walked in and took a seat opposite mine. I expected him to catch him staring at the hole in my neck but instead he seemed more interested in my flannel Mickey Mouse pajamas.

After a short wait, a nurse led me to one of the exam rooms. I was hoping that Dr. B1 would have been on duty but another head and neck specialist, Dr. T, walked into the exam room.

Dr. T read my note and then pumped up the chair so that we were eye-to-eye. He held a flashlight above the hole in my neck and peered inside.

"Bummer!" he said.

"What do you mean?" I wrote in my pad. Along with "Code Blue" and "I'll send for the chaplain," "Bummer!" is one of the last things you want your doctor to say when he inspects your breathing capacity.

The hole in my neck, Dr. T explained, was already beginning to close up, which was the reason I could not slide the trach back in. I didn't think that could even happen, I wrote. Dr. T said that trach holes could close in within a matter of hours and when that happens, the surgery needs to be repeated.

He left the room for a few minutes and returned with a tray of instruments and tubes of gel and lubricant.

"This is going to get a little messy," he warned, wrapping a large towel around my chest and shoulder.

My knees were knocking as Dr. T lubricated the rim of my trach hole, and then applied the same gel to a fresh trach. I clenched my eyes tight as the round end of the trach pressed against my neck, and Dr. T applied more and more pressure.

Finally, I heard a soft pop, and then felt the trach slide in. When I opened my eyes, Dr. T was lifting the blood-splatted towel from my chest.

I held the trach with a finger as I rode the elevator down and walked to my car. Two trach-separation incidents in as many weeks doesn't give me confidence that this won't happen again. When it does, the trick will be to get to Kaiser before the trach hole seals up.

And also I should have a pair of Donald Duck pajamas ready to wear for the next emergency. You don't want your doctor to see you in the same jammies twice.

Suck it up

2010-01-06T21:40:00.000-08:00

If I am not careful, I'm never going to have a chance of getting my face on a box of Wheaties.

When I was hospitalized at Kaiser in January, I was loaned a suction machine to use to clear the secretions that build up in my throat, mouth and trach. After a brief spell of using the machine at home, it got to the point where I was able to clear the secretions without the suction machine so I returned it.

Lately the secretions have gotten pretty severe so my hospice nurse thought it would be a good idea to begin using the suction device again.

It's at my side throughout the day and night, and when I'm not actually inserting the long stem down my throat to suck up the gunk —imagine my lips around a vacuum cleaner attachment and hose— I'm recharging the battery so it always will be ready when I need it.

The thing is, it looks like a bong. To the people who live in the apartment building next door, who have a panoramic view of my living room, it must look as if I'm perpetually stoned.

And the fact that I rarely change out of my pajamas these days just makes me look more like a stoner.

My neighbors upstairs and anyone who walks past my front door, on the other hand, probably think I spent 24 hours a day vacuuming.

The reality is that I wouldn't know the first thing about using a bong, and my disposition toward household cleanliness leans more to Oscar than to Felix.

By accident, I figured out a way of expelling secretions effectively without using the tube or switching on the machine. I close one nostril with a finger, place another finger on my trach to plug it up, and then make like Dizzy Gillespie and blow.

It's the most effective way I know to achieve a secretion-free airway but also the grossest. It's also difficult to control where the secretions land, so I'm not doing it that often.

But I'll do it for anyone who offers me money. Any 8-year-old boy would be pretty damn impressed.

Hair apparent

2010-01-04T20:13:00.000-08:00

"Jinxed!", the first film in my Netflix queue, arrived today, and I'm gonna watch it as soon as I update this blog.

A friend expressed surprise that I would want to revisit a Bette Midler film that flopped so badly when it was released in 1982 that it landed Bette in movie jail for six years.

I told him I remembered liking it in 1982.

"Yeah, but you were so much gayer then," my friend said.

Maybe I was gayer in 1982 —I have the Village People and Liza Minnelli ticket stubs to prove it— but I am definitely grayer now.

I noticed this over the holidays in the harsh fluorescent light of the men's room at the Hampton Inn in Agoura Hills.

I'm sure that my new gray hairs are the result of the annus horribilis that just ended, and my anxiety over the new annus just begun.

Of course, an evening watching "Jinxed!" may be no way to begin a brand new annus. It could turn even more of my hair gray.

Just a spoonful of sugar

2010-01-03T19:58:00.000-08:00

I used to be so timid when it came to taking medicine. Ingesting so much as a single aspirin was something I would avoid at all costs.

Getting an HIV diagnosis helped me overcome my drug phobia pretty quickly. Since the early '90s I've been taking a few AIDS treatments at a time, until they stop working, and then I have moved on to a new combination.

In 2009, with my cancer diagnosis, my drug experience exploded. Now, I take more than a dozen medications every day, and I have a handful of others that are ready for me whenever I need them. All of my drugs are lined up on my coffee table, along with a variety of syringes I use to pump the meds down my G-tube.

I'm no longer taking anti-cancer medications. The three that I tried —carboplatin, Erbitux and radiation therapy— all failed for one reason or another.

If one of them worked as reliably as Sorbitol I might not still be adrift at sea on the S.S. Cancer. Sorbitol is intended to treat constipation —caused by another one of my meds— and if I'm not already sitting on the can when I pack Sorbitol into my G-tube, there's a good chance that I'm not going to get there in time.

My hospice physician last week prescribed Lorazepam after I complained about not getting a full night's sleep. Lorazepam also works —it's probably too effective, in fact. After waking up at 6 to read the newspapers and to take my medicine, I've been crawling back into bed and sleeping till 11.

A friend suggests cutting the Lorazepam tablet in half but as it is it's about the size of a grain of salt.

I'm not crazy about padding about the apartment in my jammies till noon so I'll bring this up with the doctor when I see him again.

What I really would like is to see the quality of anti-cancer drugs improved. It doesn't look like that's going to happen in my lifetime, but I hope it does in yours.

Interior design by Marcus Welby

2009-12-31T17:40:00.000-08:00

If my neighbors are paying any attention at all, they may be thinking that I'm turning tricks in my apartment these days.

What else could explain the steady flow of unfamiliar gentlemen and ladies showing up at my doorstep this week? Since my family left on Monday morning, the rapping at my door has been incessant.

It began on Monday with a visit from a social worker in Kaiser's hospice program. Shortly after she left, a guy delivering medical supplies arrived, followed closely by a man bearing a plain paper sack filled with drugs from Kaiser's pharmacy. Monday night, a burly fellow with arms the size of tree stumps brought me more medical supplies in three separate trips. Early Tuesday morning, a friend came to visit, and soon after he left more medical supplies showed up. Wednesday, still more medical supplies were delivered, and midday a Kaiser nurse case manager stopped by. Thursday, I was visited by another friend, accepted a FedEx package and a Kaiser physician paid a call on me.

I used to have a reputation as the guy in the building who kept pretty much to himself, leaving home early in the morning and coming home late at night. Now my lights burn nearly around the clock and my front door swings open more than the turnstiles at Union Station spin.

And the feng shui of my home is on the defensive. With all of the new supplies being hauled in, my apartment is beginning to resemble the set of General Hospital.

Let's start with the big oxygen tank that now dominates my bedroom. It's steel; it's industrial green in hue; it stands as tall as a Christmas tree. The thing looks like the missile that Slim Pickens rode bareback in Kubrick's Doctor Strangelove. Yes, this oxygen tank may save my life some day, but couldn't it be designed to fit in with the contemporary single man's bedroom decór? Painted a pale pastel, it wouldn't scream "A SICK PERSON SLEEPS HERE!!!" nearly so loud.

And then there's the oxygen tank's sidekick: a whirring machine on wheels that has the height and girth of R2D2. This device may ultimately turn out to be a life saver too, but wouldn't it be just as effective at half its size?

I can't kvetch much about a few additional pieces that also arrived this week.

The suction machine that arrived on Wednesday doesn't take up that much space. Even better, it's portable and includes a discreet carrying case that would allow me to take it with me the next time I shop at the Grove and think that I may need to clear secretions from my trach while I browse the racks at Abercrombie & Fitch.

The LifeLine device that will enable me to contact outside assistance in the event of an emergency is as compact as it is essential.

And the air mattress doesn't look like it's going to take up a lot of square footage, once I figure out how to blow the damn thing up.

My Kaiser case managers are always cautioning me about accidentally falling in my apartment with no one around to help me up. But the way I see it, each new medical gizmo that gets dragged into my home only raises my tripping potential.

And I've only been part of this program for less than a week. Who knows what surprises the next delivery man has in store for me?

What holiday lull?

2009-12-29T17:09:00.001-08:00

Man, I really cleaned up on Christmas loot this year.

In addition to being visited by Santa Claus sometime after going to bed on Christmas Eve, at 9 a.m. on Christmas morning, a woman I'll call Susie Claus dropped by.

Susan is my nurse in Kaiser's hospice program, and I'm one of that program's newest patients. When Dr. B2 referred me to the hospice program after pulling me off my cancer treatments, I didn't really expect the wheels to turn very quickly —certainly not as quickly as they have.

This hospice team ain't messin' around.

I met with Susan in my home for nearly three hours on Christmas Day; had a long meeting with Vicki, the social worker on Kaiser's team on Monday afternoon; and on Wednesday the physician overseeing my case is coming by.

Getting this much attention from a huge HMO like Kaiser during a holiday week is pretty extraordinary, in my book.

During Susan's visit, she performed a handful of miracles while making calls on her cell phone on my living room sofa. Watching her work was dizzying.

She got me access to five new medications to manage pain and cope with some of the side effects from cancer I have been experiencing, and we were able to pick up each new drug on Christmas at one of Kaiser's pharmacies. I'm not prepared to break the seal on the morphine bottle but I sure was glad to get my hands on that constipation prescription.

After I told Susan that I often experience shortness of breath as I move around my apartment, she facilitated an order for an oxygen machine to keep at home. She also ordered an air mattress so I can avoid getting bed sores, and a suction machine so I can clear the secretions that build up in my throat more effectively. (Susan warned that the company responsible for delivering the equipment is notoriously unreliable, and sure enough, I'm still waiting to come through, three days later. But at least I know that relief is on the way.)

Vicki, the social worker I met with on Monday, is every bit as efficient as Susie Claus. During the two hours we had together, she helped me advance some other key needs, including a MedicAlert bracelet to summon for help in case of an emergency and special telephone devices to help me communicate better despite my speech and hearing impairments. And Vicki has been nagging the medical equipment company to deliver the items that I need.

I'm not going to pretend that everything is beautiful these days in the Life of Paul. Any way you look at it, it does suck to be sick enough to require hospice care. There are other practical matters that I'm addressing that I'd just as soon rather not face.

But I know that these things have to get addressed. With the support of Kaiser's team and my family members and friends, I'm tackling these issues, too.

Holiday hiatus

2009-12-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

Apologies for neglecting this blog, gang!

A bevy of family members swept into town last week for the holidays, so my energies were directed toward them. But they all have gone back to Tennessee, Colorado, Arizona and San Diego now and I'm settling back into my routine, so I'll be posting the latest news over the next day or so.

Here's a photo of me and my dad, who spent the past four nights with me. I hadn't seen Dad since my mom's funeral in September 2007 so it was wonderful being with him again.

As Dad left my apartment to head to LAX this morning, he turned around, gave me a thumb's up and said "You're going to make it, Gus. You're going to make it."

Dad, I'll try my best not to let you down.

I go to pieces

2009-12-23T15:29:00.000-08:00

Just when I thought I had seen it all, my trach showed me Wednesday morning that I still have a thing or two to learn about living with fake body parts.

After climbing into bed around 11 on Tuesday, I tossed and turned for hours, unable to get comfortable enough to sleep.

For one thing, Dr. B1 had re-dressed the wounds on my face on Tuesday afternoon, and I didn't have a lot of confidence that the bandages were going to hold through the night. He held the dressing in place with a single strip of tape; when I replace my own dressings, I all but lock the bandages into place with long strips of duct tape.

Also, Dr. B1 replaced my trach collar with one that felt differently around my neck and I was having a hard time getting used to it.

Finally, my left eye was popping open every five or 10 minutes, which kept a dream that I was having about Jon and Kate Plus 8 from getting under way.

I finally drifted off to sleep around 3 a.m.

About an hour later, I woke up after my nose rolled over something hard and smelly. To my alarm I saw my trach on my pillow —not only the removable plastic cannula that fits inside the trach, but the trach itself. And the trach collar was dangling from my neck.

I bolted out of bed, ran to the bathroom and put all of the stray pieces back inside my neck, where they belonged.

What happened? Beats me, gang.

Maybe one of Jon and Kate's Plus 8's brats were monkeying around with the trach in the dream that I had. Or maybe I had removed the trach to slip under my pillow so that the Trach Fairy would come visit.

I haven't checked the commodities listings for Fake Body Parts lately; a trach with less than a year of wear might yield five or ten bucks in today's Fairy market.

Whatever it was, I can't risk lose any of my fake organs just because I can't get to sleep at night and start clawing at my body in a reckless, willy-nilly fashion.

Tonight, I'm giving my G-tube the duct tape treatment.

Another bloody mess

2009-12-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

The collar that holds my tracheotomy began the day gray, but during the course of the day it caught a whiff of some holiday spirit and turned as red as Rudolph's nose.

I first realized what was happening as I was caught up in episodes from the fourth season of Seinfeld. I thought I would just watch one or two while I fed myself lunch but I couldn't stop watching, and before I knew most of the afternoon had gone by and I had spent all of it in Seinfeld's universe.

Around the time that Kramer and Jerry accidentally dropped a Junior Mint into the surgical cavity of Elaine's boyfriend during an operation, I felt dampness on and below my face. I ran my hand along my neck and when I looked at my fingers they were red and wet.

When I got to the bathroom mirror I realized that my trach collar and half of my face was drenched in blood flowing from the wounds resulting from my biopsies on Nov. 3.

After weeks of persistent bleeding and a few visits to my doctor for help, it finally looked like these wounds were beginning to heal. Then my head suddenly began to swell in new directions last week, stretching out the skin in my face and interfering with any healing that was under way.

Today's episode of bleeding was the scariest yet.

I changed all of the bandages —about 10 bandages of varying sizes are needed to cover the affected area— and mopped up the blood that had trickled down my neck to my chest and stomach.

And then I hopped on to the computer and e-mailed my doctor to beg for help. It's crazy to still be dealing with wounds that are stubborn to heal six weeks after the surgery took place.

Maybe I should follow Kramer's lead and plug up the holes with a few Junior Mints.

Jeepers creepers, what's up with my peepers?

2009-12-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

I gotta envy that animatronic Abe Lincoln that returned to Disneyland's Main Street Opera House the other day.

The life-size robot of our 16th president sure looks lifelike —far more lifelike than I look or feel these days.

Linc blinks, which is more than I can say for at least one of my eyes.

Sometime over the past few weeks, my left eye stopped blinking. My doctor says that it's a consequence of cancer on my central nervous system.

An unblinking eye can cause vision damage, so my doctor immediately prescribed eye drops so I can get some moisture in my eye and an ointment to help me keep the eye shut when I sleep.

He said that I can't overuse the eye drops. At the rate that I've been dropping the lubricant in my eye, the 15 mL bottle he prescribed will be depleted in no time and I'll be back at the pharmacy for a refill. Maybe I'll get a keg of the stuff.

As for the ointment, my doctor says that I should use it to "sort of glue your eye closed" when I go to sleep at night.

I see potential for all kinds of disaster. If one eye is asleep and the other glued shut, how will I be able to aim at the toilet when I get up during the night to pee? What happens if I roll my head during the night and glue my eye to my pillow? What if mistakenly grab the tube of eye ointment when I need to apply Preparation H instead?

I guess all of these issues will resolve themselves over time, and using the new drugs will become second-nature to me.

What really worries me, however, is the possibility that this new symptom may spread to my right eye.

With two unblinking eyes, and a red-and-white dress, I'd be a doppelganger for Little Orphan Annie.

Calling off treatment

2009-12-17T18:17:00.000-08:00

After just four treatments, my oncology doctor has yanked me off the drug Erbitux.

I had been counting on Erbitux to succeed where radiation and chemotherapy had failed, but toward the end of Wednesday's treatment in the oncology department, Dr. B2 told me that it's not producing the results we need in order to knock cancer out of my system.

Erbitux never really looked promising to Dr. B2, but he thought it was worth a shot. At this point, he said to me on Wednesday, continuing with treatments probably would do more harm than good. I didn't press him on that point, although in hindsight I wish I had.

Dr. B2 said that he was handing me off to the hospice program, and I'm waiting for a call from hospice now.

A lot of "what if" scenarios have been piling up in my head lately and airing those concerns with a social worker seemed the best thing to do. A friend called the Social Work Department on my behalf, and facilitated a visit from one of the staff during Wednesday's Erbitux infusion.

At the head of my list of concerns is what to do about an advance health care directive. Up till now, making decisions about my health care has been my responsibility, but I need to think about what I want to happen if I'm not able to make decisions on my own. The social worker gave me all of the information and legal forms to complete.

She also gave me the Department of Motor Vehicles application for handicapped parking privileges. As hard as it is for me to admit, I can really use a handicapped parking placard; it's not uncommon for me to get winded after walking from one room of my apartment to another.

I wish I could post happier news on this blog today —after all, 'tis not the season for tidings of gloom.

All I can say is no one knows what will happen next.

Stay tuned.

Thinking random

2009-12-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

Not feeling up to developing complete thoughts today, but here are some scatter shot observations ricocheting in my head:

Eek! My cancer has spread to my Facebook page. From my home computer, I'm not able to post or comment on Facebook. I'm even more mute there than I am in real life.
I watched "The Wizard of Oz" last night with the English subtitles. Turns out I have been singing incorrect lyrics for the Munchkins' independence song for my entire life.
I was no fan of Dick Cheney during the Bush years, but in hindsight the candidates that the Democrats picked in 2000 and 2004 —Joe Lieberman and John Edwards— turned out to have Prince-of-Darkness mojos of their very own.
I miss getting up and going to the office every morning, but the midday naps I've been able to take lately just can't be beat.
Regarding that problem I'm having with Facebook, I don't know if I should invest time and energy in restoring my Facebook voice, or whether it would be smarter to wait for Facebook to go the way of MySpace.
My employer erased my voice mail greeting on the office line, which I recorded long before losing my voice last year. If you have any recordings of my voice, you got yourself a bona fide collectors item.
Given all that I should be thinking about and doing, is watching old Seinfeld episodes from sunrise to midnight a wasted day?
The album title I chose for my car's vanity plate almost 10 years ago has been named the Best Album of the Decade by Rolling Stone magazine.
I finally figured out a way to sleep that prevents me from rolling over on my side and hurting my bum rotator cuff, but if you were to walk into my bedroom in the middle of the night, you'd think that you had stumbled upon a crime scene.
Now that I know that my left eye does not shut or even blink, my new nickname for myself is "Cyclops."

Head games

2009-12-14T12:49:00.000-08:00

I'm getting the feeling that cancer has gotten into the cockpit of my brain and is messing with my control panel —spinning dials, flipping levers and punching buttons, just to create mischief.

A few friends mentioned recently that my left eye is blinking at a different rate than my right eye. Well, while replacing the bandages on my chin Monday morning, I stared at myself in the bathroom mirror and realized that the left eye does not blink at all.

In fact, unless I shut my left eyelid with my fingers —you know, the way priests and doctors do in the movies when they realize that someone is dead— I can't close my left eye at all. This is really creepy, gang. No wonder I have trouble sleeping.

And it explains another weird symptom I've noticed over the past few weeks: every so often, my left eye has been tearing up. I figured I was just becoming a big crybaby but now I'm thinking that cancer is just playing with the knobs in my brain that control my left eye.

It's not only my eye that is acting up: I'm also essentially deaf in the left ear now. That side of my face has been growing gradually numb, and now it has knocked out half of my hearing ability.

Yet another symptom is probably not cancer's doing but a side effect of the Erbitux treatment that I began three weeks ago. At nighttime, my facial skin gets slightly greasy, and I feel slight bumps along the sides of my nose. This must be the onset of the rash that Dr. B2 told me that I can expect as a result of my new treatment.

All of these things have been happening at a brisk pace, which makes me dread what new surprises may be lurking around the corner.

Christmas is in about 10 days, and family members from three states will be coming to Los Angeles to celebrate. I've got just one item on my list for Santa Claus: Don't let cancer get in the way of me having a good time with my family on Christmas.

It's a lot to ask, but not too much to hope for.

My lucky day

2009-12-09T17:14:00.000-08:00

My third Erbitux treatment on Wednesday was happily uneventful.

There's not much I can write about sitting in a Barcalounger for four hours tethered to an IV drip. The drive home from Kaiser, however, was another story.

I decided to swing by Skylight Books in Los Feliz to see if copies of San Francisco Panorama had arrived yet. The Panorama is an actual newspaper published on Monday in the Bay Area and as soon as I read about it I knew I had to own it, despite its $16 price tag. (Sound a tad high to you? Eh! —it won't be long before the Sunday New York Times costs just as much.)

Parking is always tough on Vermont in Los Feliz and I didn't even have change in my pocket to feed a meter. But a loading zone space right in front of Skylight Books was open as I approached the store. I figured I could easily get away with sneaking a few minutes in a loading zone without getting a ticket, so I pulled over to the curb.

As soon as I shut the car door, I got a queasy feeling that something was not right. Peering through the window, I saw my car keys still hanging in the ignition, and both doors to the car were locked.

I'd like to blame the Erbitux for my foggy-headed behavior but there are readers out there who would never let me get away with that. Truth is, this type of ditziness has been my calling card for about half a century.

I know myself well enough to always make sure that my AAA dues are paid up so they can bail me out in situations like this.

I walked into Skylight and stepped up to the counter. First I handed a note to a woman named Mary asking if they had Panorama in stock yet (Mary said that they didn't) and then I handed Mary a second note asking if she would mind calling AAA for me so I could get into my car.

Mary said she was happy to help me out. I handed her my cell phone and my AAA card and a note with all of the details that AAA Roadside Assistance asks when a member needs help. (I'm way too familiar with how this process works.)

Less than 15 minutes later, a AAA driver pulled up and unlocked my car.

Didn't even get into trouble for illegally parking in the loading zone. I got home in time to stay on my feeding and meds schedule and to get in a long nap to sleep off the Erbitux.

Sometimes I am far more lucky than I deserve.

Pretzel vision

2009-12-08T16:54:00.000-08:00

Cancer seems to be working full time to defeat me, so I have to work double shifts to stay one step ahead.

And that doesn't leave any room in my life for my job.

Although my medical leave officially began last week, the reality of my situation is only beginning to sink in now. On Monday, I went into the office for a few hours to wrap up some loose ends and give my boss all of the passwords that she needs to access various programs on my computer. (Tip to the TP community: Avoid creating passwords like "So-and-so is a poo-poo head" even if that helps you remember them.) And I also had to turn in my key to the building: an act that shredded my heart just as much as it liberated me from my job responsibilities.

When I left the office on Monday, I tiptoed out the back door after sending an email announcing my leave. Despite everything that has happened, there's a part of me that hopes I'll wake up one morning and be completely healed and ready for the labor force again.

On Tuesday a work colleague and friend I've known for decades visited. The few hours we spent together mixed reminiscing and discussing resources at Kaiser that I haven't yet tapped into. He also expanded my support network by offering to accompany me to my Erbitux treatments or other medical appointments. And he made me giggle —well, I tried my best— by showing me a photo of the two of us from 20 years ago in which I'm sporting two pretzels in place of eyeballs.

Yesterday another friend —probably mindful that my new income situation will force me to cut back on movie outings and shopping sprees for used DVDs at Amoeba— generously gave me a gift subscription to Netflix.

And on Sunday a friend I met through AIDS/LifeCycle slipped a card to me at an ALC holiday party. When I opened the card at home, I saw a ticket to Disneyland. This friend knows how much I love the park and also knows that I haven't been there for more than a year.

So while one of my chief fears about going on leave from my job was going stir crazy in isolation at home, I'm feeling far from isolated these days, and grateful for the support.

On Wednesday: another round of Erbitux, some blood tests and maybe a call on the social work department at Kaiser. Without the pressure of needing to return to the office, it'll be nice to handle these appointments at my own pace.

Andy, Ed, Chris E and Mel: thank you for making these early days of full time cancer-fighting easier for me.

I messed up

2009-12-06T12:35:00.000-08:00

Got myself in a little hot water this weekend.

With all that has been going on in my life and all of the changes that I've been going through, I've managed to overlook something important.

Like, my anniversary.

And not just any anniversary, either —I overlooked my first anniversary, and that establishes a rotten precedent for all that will follow.

Yep, it was one year ago yesterday that I checked into Kaiser's Los Angeles Medical Center and got hitched to my G-tube.

Or maybe the G-tube got hitched to me. Whatever. I slept through the whole ceremony. My point is getting hooked up to my G-tube was a pretty big event and I'm a cad to not acknowledge it yesterday.

So right now my G-tube is giving me the silent treatment. During our three meals together on Saturday and all during breakfast this morning —not a word.

The funny thing is, I didn't really expect my G-tube and I to last this long together.

We are so different from one another. I'm made of flesh; my G-tube is made of rubber and plastic. I like a little variety in my diet; but all my G-tube allows me to put inside of it is Isosource and my medicine. And I like to think of myself as being somewhat outgoing, but all my G-tube ever wants to do is hang around.

So it's something of a surprise that we made it this far together without going separate ways. And believe me, I have been tempted at times to grab a pair of scissors and call off our relationship.

The reality is, however, as much of a nuisance my G-tube is, without it I'd be a goner. I've poured about 995 cans of Isosource down my G-tube's hatch over the past 365 days, and if I didn't have that option, I'd have starved to death long ago.

And it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to feed myself through my mouth again anytime soon, so I better do everything I can to stay on my G-tube's good side.

My cancer stay-cation

2009-12-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

Barely eight hours into the first day of my medical leave from my job, I can already see that this staying-home-from-work jazz is gonna suck.

I'm missing everything about my job, even those things about jobs that are universally hated.

In the long run, however, negotiating a medical leave with my company's HR director was a good decision. So if I may take a cliché and adapt it to my sorry situation:

I'm gonna stick to my gums.

I can already see some of the upside of staying home sick.

When my usual waking time rolled around this morning, I didn't have to drag myself out of bed and get ready for work, despite not having a full night's rest. Instead, I knocked my alarm clock to the floor, and went back to sleep for another hour.

The alarm clock bounced beneath the bed, I think. Sometime before the end of the year, I'll make an effort to look for it.

Later in the morning, when I was struck by fatigue and struggled to keep my eyes open, I didn't have to hide how I felt from my co-workers. Instead, I threw a blanket over my head and treated myself to a nap.

And when secretions built up in my mouth and throat and needed to be expelled, I didn't have to duck into the bathroom at the office to discreetly clear them. Instead, I was able to grab a paper towel and take care of business without regard to how disgusting I sounded or disrupting my office mates.

I'm not sure how long my medical leave will last although I have promised myself that it won't last a day longer than necessary. But the pragmatist in me has already collected the forms that I need for long-term disability and assistance from the office of State Disability Insurance, and I'm completing them as quickly as my bum right rotator cuff allows.

As long as this leave lasts, I do know that each and every day I am going to need to seek out some kind of interaction with another human being.

Today I had plenty. I went to Bed, Bath & Beyond to find a new pillow that help me train myself to sleep exclusively on my back and avoid rolling over on my side and keep my right rotator cuff from healing. Every six feet, a bright and buoyant BB & B employee chirped, "Hello! Are you finding everything that you need?"

I know that it was in their job description to do that, but it still felt good.

And early this morning while feeding myself breakfast I picked up the phone and heard my aunt's voice on the other end of the line.

I didn't do such a hot job at keeping up my side of the conversation, but it was a real treat to hear her voice. And I don't think that she called because it was in her job description.

-----

A community memorial for HIV/AIDS activist Howard Jacobs will be held at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 6, at Fiesta Hall or the Community Rooms at Plummer Park, West Hollywood.

Trouble below the neck, for a change

2009-12-02T19:26:00.000-08:00

After more than a year of dealing with head-and-neck medical issues, it was almost refreshing for a crisis to erupt in another region of my body.

I've been experiencing sharp pains in my right arm for about a month —to the point I can't lift my right arm, reach for my wallet with my right hand or carry anything heavier than a Q-tip with my right arm.

For weeks, I just wished that the pain would go away, and compensated by substituting my left arm instead of my right. In the meantime I've been having a dickens of a time doing things like tucking in my shirt, shifting my car's gears from Park to Reverse and even typing.

Last week an internal medicine doctor at Kaiser told me that it looked like I sprained a muscle group in my right arm, and he referred me to Physical Therapy. My first appointment was on Wednesday morning, before I headed down to the oncology department for my second treatment with Erbitux.

The therapist asked me to doff my shirt —at 131 pounds, I won't be gaining any recruits from Team Jacob— and asked me to tell him when I felt pain as he maneuvered my arm. It didn't take him long to determine that rotator cuff was injured.

He worked on the arm for about a half hour and showed me two exercises to perform at home three times a day. More important, he said it was critical that I stop sleeping on my side, in order to allow the rotator cuff to heal.

How the injury happened —jeez, I have no idea. I got an H1N1 vaccine in my right arm one evening, and as I slept that night I remember hearing a pop in my shoulder region. From that point, the pain slowly escalated.

I'm counting on the arm beginning to heal, even if I have to learn how to sleep hanging upside-down in my closet, like a bat. I'll be seeing the therapist again in two weeks and I should see progress by then.

Meanwhile, it's nice to have a medical condition that can be treated without using radioactive voodoo or debilitating courses of chemotherapy.

Long live rock

2009-11-29T17:49:00.000-08:00

A friend wrote on my Facebook wall: "Just read the Stones plan to tour again next year. So now you GOTTA stick around!"

He makes a good point. The Rolling Stones have been helping me keep that hooded dude with the scythe off my back for almost two decades now.

In 1991, when I got my AIDS diagnosis, I had no expectation that I would ever see my favorite band perform live again. The Stones had just completed a massive world tour the year before, and it had been eight years before their previous jaunt around the globe. In 1991, no one with an AIDS diagnosis reasonably expected to live four or five years, let alone eight, so I figured that the band's shows at the Coliseum in the fall of 1989 would be the last Stones shows I would see.

Surprisingly, the Stones waited only three years before hitting the road again, and just as surprisingly AIDS didn't get in the way of me catching a show on the band's 1994 tour.

But as I waited to exit the Rose Bowl parking lot after that performance, I told myself "That was definitely my last chance to see the Stones. No way am I going to live long enough for another tour." (I didn't expect to live long enough to find my way out of the Rose Bowl lot that night.)

Well, soon I was taking new combination therapies to treat my HIV. Those treatments succeeded and before I knew it, it was 1997 and the Stones were hitting the road yet again. I had an unexpected opportunity to see them a few more times.

Then they toured in 1999.

And again in 2002.

In 2005, the Stones began yet another tour, and I saw them several times that year and in 2006.

By this time I had stopped associating Stones tours with my longevity with AIDS. But now I have a new grim prognosis: one that may or may not come to pass by the time the Stones begin their 2010 juggernaut.

My doctors have penciled in spring as a possible expiration date on my medical charts; Mick and the boys are probably looking at summer for the first shows of the new tour,

If past is prologue, time will remain on my side and I'll find myself in the audience at a handful of Stones shows in 2010. I may need to stay seated during the most frenzied moments of the shows, but I'll be there.

Whether my eardrums make it that far is an entirely different matter.

Nurse No-show

2009-11-27T19:31:00.000-08:00

My calendar had a bright red circle around today's date.

Kaiser was sending a home health nurse named Mary to my apartment to assess my situation today. I wasn't given a time to expect the nurse, I was told only that Mary would call when she arrived so I could buzz her in.

I got my shower out of the way early so that I wouldn't miss Mary's call. And then I got out my cleaning supplies to get the apartment presentable.

The last thing I wanted Mary to think was that her new assignment would be nursing a pig. I swept and mopped the kitchen floor, vacuumed the living room, fluffed up the pillows on the sofa, and scrubbed the counter top, shower tiles and toilet in the bathroom.

And then I sat on the sofa with the phone in my lap and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Around 4 p.m., my best buddy sent a text message asking if I wanted some company.

It seemed fairly certain that Nurse Mary had stood me up so I told him sure.

The only problem was the apartment looked suspiciously clean: cleaner than it would need to be if I knew it was only my buddy coming by to visit.

I didn't want him to think that I was throwing away money on a maid's service, so I erased the vacuum lines in the carpet, scattered some debris on the kitchen floor, and replaced the good pillows on the sofa with the ones stained with drool, and put the guest towels in the bathroom back in the closet.

While my buddy and I watched an old episode of "Bewitched" in my comfortably disheveled digs, the phone rang.

I thought it might be Nurse Mary calling to say that she would be coming by after all, so I gestured to my buddy to pick up the phone.

Turned out to be someone calling to see if I had purchased a cemetery plot for myself yet.

Judging from what my friend said to the caller, I don't expect them to call back. I felt sorry for the guy. It must get tedious making cold calls on people to pitch cemetery plots, and he will never know how close he came to a live prospect.

The "Bewitched" episode saved the day from being a total wipe-out. I don't know if Nurse Mary keeps weekend hours but I may as well get up early again tomorrow, drag out the cleaning supplies and prepare for Mary's visit.

This place is a pig sty again.

It's now up to you, Erbitux

2009-11-25T18:01:00.000-08:00

Thirty-three sessions of radiation therapy couldn't blast cancer out of my body, and chemotherapy didn't work, either. So now it's up to a drug called Erbitux (Cetuximab) to succeed where all of the other treatments have failed.

Another episode of spontaneous bleeding delayed my departure from home Wednesday morning. By the time I got the flow of blood under control and dumped another sealed bag of bloody gauze and bandages in the Dumpster behind my apartment, I was a half hour behind schedule.

I made it to Kaiser's Oncology Department on time for my scheduled appointment, but not early enough to claim one of the select private or semi-private rooms in the oncology ward. By the time I checked in and had my vitals taken, all of the rooms had been filled and patients were being assigned to individual chairs in the high-traffic open area around the nurses' station.

I plopped myself down in chair No. 5 —all 131 pounds of me— opened the newspapers and waited for the day's adventure to begin.

Before long a nurse named Gilbert —wearing scrubs that were inside-out— came along to get the action under way. Gilbert started an IV on my left arm and began feeding me Benadryl before beginning the cancer drug du jour.

Today's dose of Erbitux was expected to take about two hours to deliver, and I hoped to spend as much of that time as possible asleep. The chair I had been assigned to, however, had seen better days: the only way I could recline was by leaning all of the way back and propping up the footrest with my kneecaps.

Around that time I realized that a woman sitting opposite my station had initiated a staring contest. Every time I looked up, her eyes were riveted on me. I held the newspaper over my face to get her to stop but each time I peered over the top of the page she was still staring at me. I shut my eyes and hoped the Benadryl would lure me to sleep but even then she didn't get the clue that I had no interest in a stare down; whether I liked it or not, I was her guy.

In desperation to make her stop staring, I got up, unplugged the IV stand from the wall and walked to the rest room.

While checking the bandages on my face, I was struck by something that had escaped my notice before today: Either Kaiser has installed fun-house mirrors in the johns in the oncology ward, or my head is getting rounder. I may have begun my cancer odyssey bearing a resemblance to Ben Stiller, but I've definitely moved on. Draw three circles on my forehead and you got yourself a bowling ball.

When I resettled into my chair, the woman who had been staring at me was now getting an IV of her own started. She left me alone for the rest of the visit, but I memorized her features in case I spot her in the ward when I return next Wednesday.

By noon, the Erbitux bag was empty, so Gilbert in the backwards scrubs came around to remove the IV and hand me my schedule of treatments. Barring intolerable side effects, I have eight more Erbitux sessions scheduled between now and the end of January.

Too bad it's too late to arrange to hop a red-eye to New York City. With my head swollen as it is now I bet I could I slip into tomorrow's Thanksgiving Day Parade as —good grief!— a Charlie Brown balloon.

Taking care of business

2009-11-24T19:33:00.000-08:00

At midweek, the theme for T.P. is T.C.B.

Ain't no time to wallow in the miserable medical news my doctors have been feeding me lately; I've got business to take care of.

Today I met with a benefits counselor at AIDS Project Los Angeles about applying for Social Security and disability benefits. I'm not quite ready to take that plunge yet but I know that the day is coming and this year has been full of surprises. Last week I made an appointment to discuss my options with APLA's Benefits team and today I walked out of APLA carrying 77 pages of forms to complete.

Yesterday I asked a friend to call Kaiser to get me an appointment to have my right arm looked at. Late last month, I twisted my arm in my sleep and the pain has been getting progressively worse ever since. The doctor I saw yesterday said that I sprained a muscle group in my arm, and I need to see a physical therapist to get it back in shape. As I wait for that referral, I'm allowing extra time to perform functions like buttoning my shirt and fastening my seat belt.

After the doctor looked at my arm, I asked him to take a peek at the bloody, pockmarked battlefield that used to be my chin. The cuts made during last month's biopsy remain murderously slow to heal and are prone to erupt blood at inconvenient times. Got a referral to a "wound care specialist," and in the meantime I'm stocking up on Johnson & Johnson products.

Next, Kaiser's Home Health Department booked a session with me at my apartment on Friday. Guess that means I can scratch "getting trampled at Toys R Us on Black Friday" off my list of worries. Getting home health services in place now will also allow me to access hospice services if that day arrives.

Finally, I'm having my first treatment of Erbitux tomorrow in Kaiser's chemo ward. My doc doesn't want me to get my hopes up but maybe this will give me the big break I've been waiting for.

Time's a-wastin', Loweezy!

2009-11-22T17:15:00.000-08:00

Watching "The Bucket List" was not one of the items on my own bucket list, but it's what I found myself doing the other night.

While pawing through the massive inventory of used DVDs at Amoeba on Thursday evening, I spotted Rob Reiner's 2007 film in a bin of blowout DVDs. I passed up on seeing "The Bucket List" when it played in theaters because the trailers made the film look pretty schmaltzy. I prefer movies to go easy on schmaltz; for that reason I rank "Death to Smoochy" higher in Robin Williams' canon than "Dead Poet's Society."

But the subject matter of "The Bucket List" made the film more relevant to me now than it was two years ago. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, both cancer patients sharing a room in a hospital owned by Nicholson, both get news from their doctors that they have six months to a year to live. So they compose a list of things that they want to do before they kick the bucket and then spend the rest of the movie doing those things.

Having heard similarly crummy news from my doctor on Wednesday, I wasn't so sure it was a good idea to bring "The Bucket List" home and make it the centerpiece of an evening of entertainment.

In my first attempt to view the film, I didn't get very far. I bailed after Morgan Freeman hears his doctor tell him he has six months to live. I yanked the disc out of the player and medicated on "Everybody Loves Raymond" till I fell asleep on the sofa.

But on Friday, I gave "The Bucket List" another shot.

It does get pretty silly and is completely predictable.

But it got me thinking about coming up with a bucket list of my own. I have no desire to drive a Mustang around a race track, jump out of an airplane at 20,000 feet or see the pyramids, but there are some things I'd like to do before kicking my own personal bucket.

I'm getting a late start, and I don't have a billionaire underwriting my expenses, but that's no reason to not come up with my own list.

And at the top would be "Prolong the amount of time I have before it's time to kick the bucket."

Another doctor weighs in

2009-11-19T21:32:00.001-08:00

After the nurses in Kaiser's oncology ward succeeded in halting the flow of blood from the wounds on my face Wednesday morning, they led me back down the blood-dotted corridor and into an examination room to wait for my visit with Dr. B2.

My appointments with Dr. B2 ended abruptly last winter after my blood counts took a nose dive and a third session of chemotherapy was called off. So it had been a good eight months since I had seen Dr. B2 or even been inside the oncology department at the easternmost facility at Kaiser's Los Angeles Medical Center campus.

A lot has happened in the intervening months. I made it to the finish line of my radiation treatments, then struggled with side effects. A PET scan and a biopsy indicated that the treatments had succeeded, then three months later another biopsy cut my career as a cancer survivor short.

Lately my doctors have begun telling me that there's not much that can be done so a lot was riding on what Dr. B2 had to say.

He turned out to be the most pessimistic of all.

"Your cancer is present in a widespread area," Dr. B2 said. The fact that my face is slow in healing from the biopsies indicates how aggressively the cancer is moving, he added. "I don't think that more chemotherapy would be helpful at this point."

I tried to take careful notes but my pen kept slipping out of my fingers and skidding across the page.

"Will this kill me eventually?" I wrote. "And how soon might that happen?"

As soon as I held the note pad up for Dr. B2 to read, I regretted asking that question.

The doctor's reply was unexpectedly blunt. "The cancer is likely to cause some kind of issue —difficulty swallowing or bleeding, perhaps— and that will probably end up killing you. As for the time frame, it could be less than six months. Maybe longer."

While Dr. B2 doesn't expect much of a benefit, next Wednesday, he's starting me on a type of chemotherapy to try to slow the cancer down. This drug, called Erbitux, is limited in how helpful it can be, and he warned that the cancer will progress whether I do the new treatment or not.

It was a lot to handle all at once. Left alone in the examining room, I sent a text message to my best buddy telling him that Dr. B2's assessment was the gloomiest yet. My buddy asked me if I wanted him to come down to Kaiser, and I said yes.

Before I knew it, he was there. My cancer may be moving aggressively, but my friends can move even more swiftly when they know that I need them by my side.

Next step is seeing what this lil' ol' drug Erbitux can do for me. Dr. B2's expectations could hardly be lower, but it's up to me to prove him wrong.

I'm in no mood to start leafing through hospice brochures.

Blood on the tracks

2009-11-18T20:09:00.000-08:00

While waiting in line in the Oncology Department at Kaiser this morning, I unfolded the newspaper and skimmed the headlines.

Splortch!

Suddenly, a photo of President Obama touring the Forbidden City was bathed in a violent circle of blood. Seconds later —splortch!— another bombshell of blood fell on the paper. And another! And another! Run for cover, Mr. President!!

The blood was falling from two holes in my chin, where two weeks ago Dr. B1 sliced off slivers of skin for biopsies. The holes in my face have been extremely slow to heal, and I have been applying fresh bandages every day, but this was the first time that I've had a bleeding crisis in public.

At least I chose the right place for it to happen.

I hurriedly stepped up to the counter to get aid. By reflex, the woman said "Your Kaiser card, please," while staring at her computer monitor. Only after she glanced upward and saw my newspaper —now soaked almost to the edges in red— did she realize that this was a situation requiring intervention, and quickly.

She rose and told me to meet her at the door leading to the exam area. I moved quickly through the packed waiting room, keeping the paper below my chin to prevent blood falling upon anything other than Wednesday's New York Times.

Reunited, the woman and I walked quickly down the corridor, toward the nurses' station. I saw that the blood was dripping onto the floor, now. At least I wouldn't have to worry about getting lost when it was time to leave.

Two nurses —both of whom I recognized from my chemotherapy treatments last winter— directed me to sit in a reclining chair. One grabbed a large white towel and placed in on my chest while the other opened a cupboard and collected gauze, bandages and tape.

By the time that they were through, I looked like the Invisible Man. But the bleeding had stopped.

In all of the excitement, I didn't notice what happened to my newspaper. So it wasn't until deep into the evening, hours after my visit to Oncology was over, that I caught up with President Obama and how his visit to the Forbidden City went.

I submit my experience as evidence why print media can never completely be replaced by electronic newspapers. What good would a Kindle reading device have done me in a situation like I had this morning?

Some days, the Luddites win.

———

Note to my TP peeps: No, I haven't overlooked the fact that today's post tells you absolutely zip about my face time today with my oncologist. There was a lot to absorb, and I need some time to process it all. Come back later in the week.

Where's a good editor when you need one?

2009-11-16T19:21:00.000-08:00

Boy, am I red-faced tonight. And I'm not talking about the various shades of red below my lip and around my chin where blood continues to ooze from one of the craters that Dr. B1 made when sampling tissue for biopsies almost two weeks ago.

No, I'm red-faced because I caught myself in a major boo-boo.

Throughout the year, my trach and my G-tube have enjoyed co-star status on this blog, popping up at times I want to give you an idea of what it's like to live with a hole in one's neck and a rubber tube punched into my belly.

"Trach" rhymes with "snake" and is short for tracheotomy.

Or so I would have you believe.

Well, tonight I was scrubbing my trach clean of all of the gunk that builds up inside it when I realized I should probably spare myself all of the elbow grease and just soak it for a day or two. And I reached for a fresh trach to wear in the meantime.

Imagine my surprise when I read the packaging and saw that the proper name for a trach is "tracheostomy," not "tracheotomy."

I know that I've been just one consonant short of having the name right, but wrong is wrong no matter how you cut it.

Over the next few days I'll be going backward in time, and correcting all of the instances where I've screwed up the name. But I thought I better come clean with all of you first.

Just goes to show you: You really put your neck on the line when you blog without a safety net.

Remembering Howard Jacobs

2009-11-14T16:37:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, I posted a link to an obituary for my friend Howard Jacobs, an HIV/AIDS activist who died of liver cancer on Wednesday.

I met Howard more than 15 years ago, when he became involved as a volunteer for AIDS Project Los Angeles, where I worked. I edited Positive Living, a monthly magazine at APLA for people living with HIV/AIDS, and Howard was a frequent contributor.

Today I dug deep into my closet to find pieces that Howard wrote for Positive Living. I found nearly a dozen, published between 1994 and 2000. This is one of them:

I Want to Paint My Hair Green
By Howard Jacobs

I said to my best friend, "I'll paint my hair green if I survive this. He replied, "If I survive AIDS, I'll paint my hair green, too.

Today I'm eyeing a bright florescent green. It is a brilliant shade that says hey, world, listen to me. "MY VIRAL LOAD IS UNDETECTABLE and I have 891 T-cells." Isn't that amazing. Just think: I may be a survivor. After an arduous eight-year battle and a quick, yet difficult adjustment to a new drug cocktail that includes a powerful protease inhibitor, I want to paint my hair green. It seems simple. Get a can and spray it, but I can't paint my hair green. If I do that I won't blend in with my community. Unfortunately, not everyone is doing as well as me.

•

What if I paint my hair pink? Pink is a color that says you're different. It reminds me of the ACT UP marches I attended, the safer sex demonstrations I gave and the lobbying visits I made. During the Holocaust, if one wore a pink triangle it meant one was gay. People now use that symbol to represent solidarity. I want to paint my hair pink but I can't. Pink was the color emblazoned on my best friend's tattoo. It said HIV-positive. I'll never see that tattoo again. My friend is dead, along with too many others. These friends can no longer guide me with their words. They guide me with their spirits. Sometimes that makes me sad.

•

Perhaps I'll paint my hair blue. Blue is my favorite color and has given me luck. I wore a blue short every time I cleared customs in countries which wouldn't allow HIV-positive visitors. I never got caught or suffered the humiliation other foreigners did when entering my own country, the USA. It makes sense to paint my hair blue. It's a color which brings me good fortune although it didn't when I was originally diagnosed. I wore a blue suit the day the company I worked for fired me. They discovered I had AIDS. Soon after they took away my employer-financed, private health insurance coverage. It was a trying time. I want to paint my hair blue, but I can't. Having blue hair may not help my search for a quality job or a kinder corporation.

•

Maybe I'll paint my hair yellow. Everyone knows blondes have more fun and if I'm going to have a future I'll need to have fun. It's been difficult enjoying myself these past eight years, but I've tried. I visited beautiful places and met extraordinary people yet I've learned living with AIDS means I have enormous responsibilities. These have not been fun. Or easy. It's hard to disclose one's HIV status or care for a sick friend. The vision of my parents' crying eyes as they walked into my hospital room will remain with me forever. I want to paint my hair yellow but I can't. Until there is a cure for AIDS those responsibilities and painful memories cannot go away.

•

I should paint my hair gray. Gray hair commands respect. Many distinguished gentlemen proudly display their gray hair symbolizing a lifetime of wisdom. I feel I've lived a lifetime. Graduating from college, becoming satisfied with my career accomplishments, living dreams I thought of as a child and burying loved ones: that is a lifetime. I deserve to paint my hair gray but I can't. I'm 33 years old and too young to explain a head full of gray. My chronological age does not match my experience.

•

That's why I'm keeping my hair the color it is. I'm afraid to paint it. Surviving AIDS makes me afraid, too. The feelings are awesome and the obstacles seem endless. I am unsure I can overcome them but I am ready for the opportunity to outlive them.

I want to paint my hair green but I can't. Not yet.

A memorial for Howard Jacobs will take place at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 15 at Congregation Kol Ami, 1200 N. La Brea Ave., West Hollywood.

A nor'easter of bad news

2009-11-12T19:08:00.000-08:00

Dr. B1 already let the cat out of the bag about my biopsy results a day earlier, so I didn't know what to expect when I showed up in Kaiser's Head and Neck Surgery Department on Wednesday for my post-op appointment.

Once Dr. B1 entered the exam room and placed a hand on my shoulder, however, I had a gut feeling about what he had to say.

He logged on to his computer and called up my chart and the pathologists' notes. Dr. B1 took six tissue samples in last Tuesday's biopsy, beginning at the base of my tongue, where cancer was first detected in January, and moving forward toward the front of my face. From my chin, he carved out a hole about the size of a dime.

His harvest of flesh struck the jackpot: Each of the samples Dr. B1 captured contained carcinoma. Six skulls and crossbones in a row.

What this means, Dr. B1 explained, is that the cancer did not respond to the radiation treatments and chemotherapy I had last winter, notwithstanding the midsummer biopsy that produced "no evidence of cancer."

"You must feel like you've had a load of bricks dropped on you," he said, then adding that it looks like I'm now "caught between a rock and a hard place."

If I could talk, I would have interjected, "That's two cliches in one sentence, Doc. I'm cutting you off."

He described what a surgical response to my cancer surge would look like. First, my tongue would be removed, and then my mandible. Bone grafts from my leg and arm could make up some of the loss, but whether they would work would be uncertain, and cancer could still return.

The whole thing made me queasy, so I was relieved when Dr. B1 said that surgery wasn't a viable option.

That left chemotherapy as the next option.

I really snapped to attention when Dr. B1 told me that the chemotherapy would not be "curative" but instead "palliative." In other words, he thinks that a cure is not possible. The best that I can hope for is controlling the symptoms of the cancer.

You see the term "palliative care" a lot in hospice brochures. I wasn't prepared to see these words introduced into my medical vocabulary.

Dr. B1 and I spent a long time not saying much of anything to one another. I quietly tried to absorb everything that Dr. B1 had said, and he sat beside me.

After several minutes, he passed me off to Dr. McNicoll, another surgeon in the Head and Neck Department.

I wasn't really clear why I was seeing a new Head and Neck physician after more than a year of office visits and three surgeries with Dr. B1, but I was certainly open to hearing another doctor's assessment of my situation.

Dr. McNicoll didn't pull any punches. He said that surgery would mean cutting off "half of my head," and his take on the chemo was that nothing can really cure me at this point.

So he took the discussion in a new and wholly unexpected direction. He urged me to think about how I wanted to spend my days: doing things I enjoy or running around seeing oncologists and sleeping in hospital beds tethered to an IV.

He added that I might want to see a social worker about an advance directive.

Both appointments were over inside of an hour. And after I checked out with the nurse at the front desk something happened for the very first time: I was leaving the Head and Neck Department without having a return visit set up.

My hub of my Kaiser experience is now drifting eastward, down to the oncology department at the complex on Vermont Avenue. I'll be seeing Dr. B2 there on Wednesday to discuss chemotherapy.

Where this is all going to lead is anyone's guess.

My dad reminded me on Wednesday that when faced with dicey odds, I have a history of proving doctors wrong. I'm counting on history repeating itself.

Saluting a special vet

2009-11-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

It's Veterans Day and I want to write about a veteran who I have known all of my life.

My dad is a decorated veteran of the Korean War, and I'm very proud of him and the sacrifices he made for this nation before I was even born.

Dad is a vet in more ways than one. After serving in the Army in the 1950s, Dad went on to become a veteran care-giver. He didn't choose that role, but when the times came when his family needed him, he never flinched. He was always there.

This morning, Dad sent an email to remind me of a time in my life when I was facing steep odds, steeper than what I'm facing now.

"I remember when you were about three years old and had a bowel entanglement and went into a coma for a week," Dad wrote. "The doctors did not have much hope for you.

"Your mother and I were with you around the clock taking turns. I remember one Saturday about 6 a.m. I was with you when you woke up and started to smile. I had just opened the drapes in your hospital room and the sun started to shine in. Shortly after that Dr. Schiff came in and when he saw you were awake he said to you that you sure must have a lot of guts as you really needed it to pull through."

Dad isn't happy about the latest news about my cancer fight. But he wrote today that I have to "continue believing in yourself and remember not to give up."

Many years later, Dad was keeping vigil at a hospital after my mother fell ill and was also in a coma for weeks. But Mom pulled through, and stayed with us for another 13 years, thanks to her tough spirit and Dad's boundless capacity to care for her.

Dad's regular emails to me throughout this struggle have lifted me in more ways than I can ever explain. He always tells me that I'm tough, just like Mom. Today's remembrance from Dad reminded me that when I beat this current bout of cancer it won't be the first time I will have caught my doctors by surprise.

Dad has faith in my ability to overcome this crisis. What I want Dad to always remember is that whatever strength I have I learned from him and from Mom.

Thanks for being there for me, for Mom and for Mike, Dad. It has made all of the difference.

I am so lucky to be your son.

Love,

"Gus"

———

I lost a friend today: Longtime HIV/AIDS activist Howard Jacobs dies

This just in

2009-11-10T16:28:00.000-08:00

This year roared in like a lion, and it looks like it's going to go out the same way.

On Tuesday afternoon, Dr. B1 emailed the pathology results of last week's biopsies, and they reinforce the observations made by my radiation oncologist late last month. "The results of your biopsy unfortunately showed a recurrence of the cancer," Dr. B1 wrote today.

Dr. B1 went on to say that he has spoken with other doctors on my Kaiser team, and their recommendation is for chemotherapy treatments. I'll be meeting with a new chemo doc Wednesday at 4, right after seeing Dr. B1.

I would have been surprised if Dr. B1 had told me that there was no longer evidence of cancer, as he said following the biopsy last summer. Just by looking in the mirror, I can tell that something wacky is going on with me from the neck up. This has been obvious to me for weeks. And on Monday, I noticed that the same kind of numbness that I began feeling months ago in my jaw was now advancing into my left ear.

So the bad cells are gaining ground. And the sooner that my doctors and I can initiate a vigorous counter assault, the better.

Pushing the panic button

2009-11-07T16:11:00.000-08:00

Had a mini-meltdown the other day at the end of my workday.

The inside of my mouth was feeling increasingly full and I started feeling dizzy. When my breathing became labored, I was convinced that my airway was closing up and that the janitorial crew was going to have one unholy mess on its hands when it arrived to tidy up the office that night. Or I would have a shot at being picked in an audition for the Blue Man Group.

If I left work right away, I had a chance of getting to Kaiser before the Head and Neck Department shut down for the day. If I didn't get there in time, I would just go down the block to the emergency room. I sent a text message to my best buddy to loop him in on what was going on, and he phoned right away to tell me I should go straight to the ER.

I made good time getting across town to Kaiser so I decided to head first to Head and Neck to see if Dr. B1 was around. It was an economic decision, frankly: The copay for seeing Dr. B1 is $15 but a visit to the ER would set me back 50 bucks. My symptoms weren't getting worse so I thought I wasn't taking an unnecessary risk.

While riding the elevator to the sixth floor, I listed the symptoms I was feeling in my notepad so I could just hand it to the receptionist at Head and Neck as soon as I walked up to the counter.

She greeted me by name, as always, and sensed right away that I was scared. After reading the first few lines of my note, she got on the phone to see if she could find Dr. B1.

He was out for the day, so she found another doctor in the Head and Neck Department. And in just minutes I was sitting in the exam room for Dr. Ditirro, shaking like a leaf.

As soon as Dr. Ditirro entered the room, I thrust my note pad at him.

The first thing he did was check my airway by sliding a camera into my trach. He assured me that the airway was clear and that I was in no danger of suffocating. He said that my mouth was still recovering from the biopsies on Tuesday and that the swollen feeling would diminish.

Based on Dr. Ditirro's calming demeanor, I got the feeling that I'm not the first Head and Neck patient to have an anxiety attack like this. Right away, I felt at ease.

I am fortunate to have been able to walk in off the street and get looked at by a Kaiser provider right away. I thanked Dr. Ditirro for his time, and then spent a few minutes in the reception area steadying my nerves and texting my friend that I was fine.

I know that health-maintenance organizations sometimes get a bad rap from patients; even in this blog I've written about occasional loose cogs I've encountered in the Kaiser system. But those experiences are the exception, not the rule. The quality of care I get at Kaiser is excellent.

My mug . . . rhymes with 'ugh'

2009-11-05T13:25:00.000-08:00

A biopsy-turvy day

2009-11-04T16:41:00.000-08:00

The end of the year —heck, the end of the decade— is nigh (are bloggers allowed to use prose from the Middle Ages?), and so my hat trick of surgeries for 2009 is now complete.

I really don't expect to go under the knife again any time soon —not for Dr. B1, nor for anyone else. (And if the hoods who mugged me in my alley two years ago happen to be reading this, that means don't come prowling around my neighborhood wielding a blade rather than a gun.)

This time around, Kaiser didn't need me to check in till 11:30 in the morning, which gave me five additional hours of perpetual nervousness about the day's procedure. It also gave me extra time to properly underpack for a brief stay in the hospital.

The last time I had surgery, the folks at the admitting desk wouldn't let me bring my wallet —or any cash at all— with me into the pre-op room. So when I left my apartment for Tuesday's surgery, in one pocket I carried my photo I.D. and my Kaiser membership card and $16.25: 15 bucks for my copay and a buck-and-a-quarter for the subway ride. My other pocket held my house keys and a few bucks in case of an emergency on the way to the hospital.

I also packed my trusty note pad and pen, and a magazine whose name, Uncut, might seem an ironic choice for a guy about to be carved up. (Those of you snickering about the name Uncut ought to be ashamed of yourselves; Uncut is a music magazine, not what you're thinking.)

I sailed through the first few steps at the admitting desk, then found a seat in the waiting room. Without a wallet and carrying not even a penny (I wedged that emergency stash into the crack of my butt), I felt oddly vulnerable. So I reached into my bag for my magazine to try to relax.

I quickly put the magazine away. Uncut has a bold, red nameplate that can be read from across the room, and I didn't like the looks that some guy a few rows away was shooting in my direction. Lou Reed is on the cover of this month's Uncut, and I can imagine a stud like Lou being featured in another kind of magazine with the name Uncut.

Two cops came into the admitting area, along with an old man in a dark blue sweatsuit and a woman around the same age whose face was on too tight. I quickly sized him up as a white collar prisoner on a surgery day pass from San Quentin and I tagged her as his moll, mistress or wife. One of the cops was telling jokes and the crook and his wife seemed to be having a good time, even trading turns squeezing a stuffed animal, but I could tell that they were captives. Hey, remember how chummy Jack Nicholson and Otis Young got with their prisoner, Randy Quaid, in "The Last Detail"? Before I could eavesdrop long enough to get anything dirt on their situation, my name was called.

Before I knew it I was buck naked and fumbling for the strings in the back of my hospital gown. I stuffed my socks into one of my sneakers, my underwear in the other, rolled up my jeans and my shirt, and stuffed everything into a bag, along with Uncut, which I still didn't feel comfortable reading, not around people who are paid to slice guys like me open for a living, if not sheer sport. I laid in the bed with my notepad on my belly, prepared for the pre-op do-si-do of men and women in scrubs. I was kinda chilly, but there was no blanket to be seen.

First, a nurse queried me on the last time I ate (6 p.m. Monday), the last time I took any medication (6 a.m. Tuesday) and asked me to prattle off the names of all of the meds I'm now taking. That list was long before I got cancer and now is only getting longer. (I need to come up with a clever mnemonic for Epivir-Norvir-Prezista-Viread and Ziagen, and newcomers Acetaminophen Codeine Phosphate and Cyclobenzadrine and sometimes Flomax. Anyone help me out?)

Then a trio of anesthesiologists showed up, one at a time, to explain the day's procedure and to review what kind of surgery I would be having. Two of them were convinced that I was having ear surgery in addition to biopsies on my mouth, tongue and face. Another smiled that she would be back soon to give me my "Happy Juice." (If that's how some medical professionals tout that anesthesia to their patients, is it any wonder that Michael Jackson got hooked on the stuff?)

Well, it turned that propofol was not Kaiser's happy juice du jour, because when my next visitor, Dr. B1, came to my bedside, he said that there was a regional run on propofol —and he added that the shortage had nothing to do with Michael Jackson, although it wouldn't surprise me if some overly devoted fans are shipping tanks of propofol to Jacko's mausoleum at Forest Lawn.

Then, one of the anesthesiologists returned to shoot me up with Happy Juice, accompanied by yet another anesthesiologist. As I watched one of them approach my bed, my heart raced when I saw she was carrying a blanket. Imagine how I felt when, after reaching the foot of my bed, she let out a huge yawn and wrapped the blanket around herself. (Hey, Dr. B1, I may have smoked out an explanation for the shortage of Happy Juice in Kaiser's fridge.)

Finally, the nurses came to wheel me into the operating room. This is my favorite part of surgery day: the dramatic ride down hospital corridors. This time, they didn't wheel me around aimlessly until the anesthesia took hold; I actually remember being brought into the operating room, and what a shiny, gorgeous showroom of gore it was.

And that was the last thing I remember before surgery. When I came to, it was already 6:30 p.m., and both of my guardian angels had been called to come drive me home. Because the call came unexpectedly late, Guardian Angel Tweedledum deferred to Guardian Angel Tweedledee —I know, I know: that's no way to talk about one's Guardian Angels— and before long Tweedledee showed up at my bedside.

But I sent him away for an hour or so. You see, my bladder felt full, but I couldn't bring myself to pee. This happens to me a lot, but usually only in men's rooms with no dividers between urinals. When it happens to me in a private hospital john, I know that the anesthesia I was given may be wreaking havoc on my urinary tract.

To be on the safe side, I asked Tweedledee if he could find something to do as he waited for my text to alert him that I had successfully peed. Luckily, urine did flow before long, and I felt comfortable enough to check out, hop in the wheelchair and ride to my friend's car in the parking lot, making a pit stop at the pharmacy for Band-Aids for the oozing scabs on my face (Tweedledee paid. What was I gonna do: fish three bucks out of my butt and hand them to the pharmacist?!).

By the time Tweedledee and I got to my door, it was pushing 9:30. It had been a long day.

And it's going to be a long week of waiting for the first results of the biopsy to roll in.

P.S. to Tweedledum: Don't be cross I assigned you the less appealing moniker of the two. You know I love you, too.

The blogger is zzzzzing

2009-11-03T23:53:00.000-08:00

Hello, my TP peeps: I'll write soon about Tuesday's biopsies, which kept me at Kaiser until 9 p.m. tonight. Right now, I need to sleep, heal, and get to the office in the morning. Come back later in the week. Deal?

Fun while it lasted

2009-11-02T19:06:00.000-08:00

I'm making no predictions about what Dr. B1 will or will not find Tuesday afternoon when he slices tissue in and around my tongue for a biopsy, for the third time in 10 months.

There's only one guarantee about tomorrow, as far as I can see: When I get wheeled into the recovery room at Kaiser following surgery, no nurses are going to flutter around my bed mistaking me for Ben Stiller.

With the horrifying transformation of my face over the past several weeks, my days of faux celebrity-hood at Kaiser have come to a close. If anyone were to confuse me with anyone famous, I think it would be a hybrid of Freddy Krueger and the Incredible Mr. Limpet, with a hint of Nixonian jowls tossed in for good measure.

But the changes in my face are occurring at an alarming pace, so who can predict where my mug is ultimately headed?

Every now and then I'm tempted to take another self portrait and post it here so all of you can see what I'm talking about. But I don't want to shock anybody and I probably shouldn't embarrass myself.

And I'm grateful no one I saw at the office today took a look at me and said, "Hey, Serchia! Don't you know that Halloween is over?"

Back under the knife

2009-10-29T20:40:00.000-07:00

Luckily, my appointment with Dr. B1 Thursday morning went as well as I hoped it would.

I showed up early, Dr. B1 was on time, and he set up a hospital visit on Tuesday for more biopsies. On Friday I have to go back to Kaiser for the pre-op appointment.

I guess I was naive in thinking that this round of biopsies would be simpler than the other two that I have had this year. I've never had a biopsy under only local anesthesia; I've been given full anesthesia and hospitalized for each one.

I'm kind of curious about what I'm missing when I'm knocked out on the OR table with sharp instruments poking around the inside of my mouth. My only reference points are "E.R." and "M*A*S*H." (Come to think of it, Dr. B1 sort of resembles television's version of Hawkeye Pierce.)

I have five days to think about it.

The doctor is out

2009-10-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Not only did I not get a biopsy on Wednesday during my scheduled appointment with Dr. B1, I didn't even get a chance to see Dr. B1.

I got stood up.

I've been stood up before, memorably in the early '80s when I invited a guy I had met over to my apartment for a home-cooked meal. He never showed, and he never found out how lucky he was. The quiche I prepared was rancid.

Two days ago, both my radiation oncologist told me that he would consult with Dr. B1 to bring him up to date on my situation and to share his recommendation that I get a biopsy, and fast. My maxillofacial surgeon also said he talk to Dr. B1, whose department is adjacent to his own.

But when I stepped up to the counter in the Head and Neck Department and presented my Kaiser membership I.D. and the postcard I received for my 2 p.m. appointment, the woman who checks in patients shook her head and said my appointment had been canceled.

I could almost hear the cancer cells in my face cackling with glee.

And not only was it a waste of my time to leave work and drive across town to Kaiser, my best buddy left work, too, to meet me at Kaiser for the appointment.

The woman at the check-in desk told us to take a seat so she could try and straighten things out. A few minutes later, a door creaked open and a nurse named Bernadette led us into a part of the Head and Neck Department I haven't seen before.

I thought I was going to be seen by another provider, which would have fine with me. Even a Doctor Doolittle would be able to look at my face and see that something is seriously wrong, and get the ball rolling on a new treatment plan, beginning with a biopsy.

Instead, Bernadette brought us into a conference room and asked us to take a seat at a long table.

She began by expressing her apologies about the canceled appointment.

I wasn't about to play Mr. Nice Guy and accept her apology with grace; I was peeved and wrote words to that effect in my note pad. My friend was ticked off, too, and his T-shirt bearing a Rolling Stones tongue logo with fangs made him seem even more menacing. So we played Bad Cop, Badder Cop: my friend expressing himself orally and me scribbling my complaints in my note pad.

But the goal was to get a biopsy and Bernadette could not do anything to make that happen —at least not today.

My friend and I parted in the lobby. As soon as I returned to my desk at the office, I shot an email to Dr. B1 asking for his next available appointment.

A few hours later, I was crawling down Melrose Avenue on my way home from work when I saw that I had missed a call on my cell. Seeing no TMZ reporters lurking about —they must all be staking out in Mandeville Canyon— I listened to the message the caller had left.

It was Theresa in the Head and Neck department, offering me an appointment with Dr. B1 at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. I hurriedly sent a text to my friend asking him to call Theresa back and grab that slot.

So unless I oversleep and stand up Dr. B1, I'll be seeing him tomorrow, just 17 hours later than originally planned.

I give Dr. B1 a lot of credit for getting me in so quickly. But if my cancer truly has returned for another round, it's moving fast. If I have any chance at all at beating it —twice— my doctors and I have to move even faster.

Double whammy?

2009-10-26T19:17:00.000-07:00

Here's one thing you never want to hear a doctor say to you in a solemn tone during an examination:

"I wish we didn't have to have this conversation."

When my radiation oncologist Dr. Chen uttered those words to me on Monday, I crossed my fingers and hoped that his next words would be something like "But we've been hearing complaints about a patient with uncontrolled flatulence in our waiting room and we think that you're the problem, Mr. Serchia."

Instead, I heard the very words from Dr. Chen I hoped never to hear again for the rest of my life:

"It appears that your cancer may have returned."

What? I thought. Back for a rematch —already? Well, that was a short honeymoon.

It was less than three months ago when Dr. B1, my head and neck surgeon, reviewed the results of my last biopsy and declared that the procedure showed no evidence of malignancy.

"That means at this point," Dr. B1 wrote, "we cannot see any more active cancer cells."

Dr. Chen's appraisal of my situation today is based on several factors. One, the nuttiness going on with my face that is rapidly making me unrecognizable to myself is occurring in parts of my mug that were not exposed to radiation during my 33 sessions in winter and spring. Two, the results of the CT scan that was performed on me earlier this month look "suspicious" to Dr. Chen and to another doctor who looked at it today. And three, it is unusual to see symptoms such as I am presenting so many months following the conclusion of radiation therapy.

Dr. Chen's assessment does not necessarily reflect what is truly going on with me. Even he said so. The next step, Dr. Chen explained, is another biopsy, which I hope can be performed during an already-scheduled appointment with Dr. B1 on Wednesday.

That biopsy could support what Dr. Chen said to me today, or it could contradict him.

If the biopsy shows malignancy, however, Dr. Chen says that he is not sure anything more can be done.

Certainly no more radiation, at this point. And my chemo treatments were halted earlier than expected this year after my blood counts dropped, so I imagine that also might limit my treatment options.

I didn't know quite how to respond to Dr. Chen's news so I reacted honestly: I cried.

But my afternoon at Kaiser was not over yet. Next up was a visit with Dr. Y, my maxillofacial specialist, just down the block from the building that houses the radiation and oncology department.

It's possible that osteonecrosis is causing the problems in my jaw and face, but Dr. Y doesn't think that's likely, after looking at my CT scan and two thorough inspections of the tissue in my mouth. If I had osteonecrosis, Dr. Y explained, there would be evidence of exposed bone, and he can't find any.

And believe me, he looked. Today he and an assistant inserted tongue depressors in my mouth to force it open and then Dr. Y ran his finger along the interior of my mouth.

They weren't messing around. The tongue depressors were used as if they were the Jaws of Life, to the point that my mouth began to bleed. The bleeding didn't appear to faze Dr. Y but it scared the crap out of me, reader, and I wasn't thrilled about being sent on my way following the exam with a paper bag filled with gauze.

I didn't shake Dr. Y's hand at the end of the visit because I had blood on my fingers. But I know I must have come across to Dr. Y as grumpy and he probably is hoping that Kaiser doesn't mail an anonymous survey to me to complete about today's visit in Maxillofacial Surgery.

On Wednesday, I'll get a biopsy and then can decide what my next steps are.

Wednesday is also the day that Alice Cooper is bringing his Theatre of Death show to the Nokia Theatre. I had a killer seat in the sixth row of the pit in front of the stage, but I'm letting a friend use the ticket instead.

There's way too many creepy theatrics in my life now to expose myself to whatever fantasies Alice may have cooked up.

Balloon Man

2009-10-24T11:14:00.000-07:00

My face is more swollen today than ever before.

It feels like my head is going to separate from the rest of my body and float high in the sky, followed by National Guard helicopters and CNN, before crashing in a meadow 50 or 60 miles away. If that happens, maybe it will turn out that this whole nightmare that has unfolded over the past year was just my body playing a hoax on me.

My painkiller isn't bringing any relief today, and it's too early in the day to take my cyclobenzaprine tablet to relax the muscles in my face. I guess I'm just gonna tough it out and spend another Saturday on the sofa or in bed.

Last night I brought that DVD of Robert Altman's "A Wedding" back to Amoeba to beg them to liberate it from the anti-theft plastic case that the cashier forget to remove when I bought the movie on Thursday.

I wrote a note and handed to the DVD to an Amoeba employee working the Returns counter.

He studied the hard plastic shell, which bore evidence of blows from my hammer and stab wounds from a screwdriver. Then he looked suspiciously at me. "They should have removed this case before giving you the DVD, sir," he said, staring right into my eyes.

I nodded, wondering if my contorted Famous Monsters of Filmland mug just makes me look like the kind of guy who would subject anti-theft plastic DVD cases to violence for sheer sport.

"Wait here," he told me, in a tone that suggested I was in trouble.

He returned about 15 minutes later, with an Amoeba staffer named Jimmy. I knew Jimmy was fairly high up on the Amoeba Music chain of command, so I braced myself for being accused of never buying the DVD in the first place.

Instead Jimmy apologized. He explained that the girl who rang up my purchase was brand-new to Amoeba's staff and that she hadn't been trained properly. After liberating the Altman DVD from the mangled case, Jimmy gave it back to me, along with $5 in store credit to compensate for my trouble.

I tried to smile, but my attempts at smiling these days just make me look angry.

Last night I watched "A Wedding." Richard Schickel, who tore Robert Altman apart in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe my threshold for being entertained is low these days, but I liked "A Wedding" and Robert Altman is still one of my favorite directors.

On Monday, unless my head snaps off and floats away, I have an appointment with the maxillofacial surgery department and another in Radiation Oncology. Two days later, I'll be seeing Dr. B1 again.

I hope to hear at least some good news from my team of doctors. But even if they don't have any encouraging words and their bag of tricks is empty, I'll take that $5 credit at Amoeba and go shopping to ease the pain.

Going through what I'm experiencing builds strength and endurance. Heck, I'm bold enough now to revisit Altman's "Popeye."

A hard case to crack

2009-10-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

Having apparently nothing new to say about Gustavo Dudamel, the L.A. Times found space on the front page of Thursday's Calendar section to publish a review of a book about the late director Robert Altman, written by Richard Schickel, who knows a thing or two about film.

A more-than-casual Altman fan, I was drawn to the headline for the piece: "Altman lovers, read no further."

Schickel's first sentence was a grabber: "It appears that from the beginning of his career until almost its end (when illness slowed him), Robert Altman never passed an entirely sober day in his life." Schickel goes on to say many equally harsh things about the director —so many that I started to feel sorry for the guy, who of course is no longer able to defend himself.

So on the way home from work on Thursday, I pulled into the Amoeba Music parking lot and headed directly to the store's DVD section on the second level.

There I found a section of used DVDs of Altman's films. One of them, "A Wedding," was reasonably priced at $7.99 so I decided to buy it.

I brought the DVD to the counter, where a young lady named Lauren greeted me and rang up my purchase.

When I got home, I saw that Lauren had forgotten to remove the anti-theft plastic shell from the Altman DVD. Each cashier at Amoeba has a gadget at his or her station that strips the casing from the DVD so it can be used again.

I brought the DVD into my kitchen and dragged out my tool chest. First, I tried to pop open the case with my fingernail, but I couldn't pry its hinges apart. Next, I got screwdriver and started to stab the plastic to get it to break, but that didn't do any good, either. Then I used all of my strength to shatter the plastic with a hammer. That just created one unholy racket.

I thought about getting into my car and rolling my tires over the DVD a few times to see if that did the trick. That sounded a bit extreme, so I guess I'll just go back to Amoeba after work tomorrow and ask them to help me out.

If I could tell Richard Schickel about this situation and ask his advice, he might crack that slipping an anti-theft case around any Robert Altman DVD is a waste of good plastic. Just toss "A Wedding" in the garbage, he might say, and give the stinker the pauper's funeral that it barely merits.

In the hour so I was trying to crack open the DVD case, I peered through the smoky plastic and saw Desi Arnaz, Jr.'s name listed as a star of the film: an ominous sign. I guess Desi plays the groom, which leaves Mia Farrow, Carol Burnett or Lillian Gish as the woman Altman cast to play the bride.

Mr. Schickel, I just may owe you 125 minutes of my life.

Drive-time dithers

2009-10-21T19:01:00.000-07:00

A buddy at the office who lives nearby asked me if he could ride into work with me on Friday.

Of course, I told him he could. This guy has performed a ton of kind gestures over the past year of my infirmity —including taking me to the hospital one morning and staying there as I underwent surgery, and hauling eight cases of Isosource from his car to my kitchen— and I have barely done squat for him.

He's moving to New York this weekend, so this may be my final chance to do a good deed for him.

It'll be about a 30-minute commute, depending on when we get started. And now I'm freaking out about how I'm going to keep a conversation going with him that long.

If it's illegal for every Californian except Maria Shriver to text-message while driving, it surely can't be legal to make small talk in a note pad with your passenger while behind the wheel.

I've got two days to work this out. I think I'm going to write out a bunch of questions and comments on index cards and let him work his way through the stack while we head over the hill to work.

The cards could say things ranging from "I hope my car doesn't smell funny" to "Gee, that color looks good on you" and "When you get to New York, try to avoid accepting a job working for David Letterman."

The playoffs may be still be under way on Friday, so I can ask him who his picks are for the World Series. One team comes from his current home town and another team comes from his future home town, so he might have a lot to say on the topic.

If traffic is moving slowly, I could hand him a card asking him to read the funnies to me, or the forecast for highs and lows in cities across the nation.

On the other hand, maybe I'll scratch the small talk altogether and play him a song celebrating his move to the Big Apple.

"New York, New York" is an obvious pick. But at 6:30 in the morning, can anyone really stomach Liza Minnelli?

Better play it safe and go with Sinatra's version.

Where's Sweeney Todd when you really need him?

2009-10-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

I shaved on Monday night, and I expect a badge for courage in the mail by the end of the week.

It was scary as hell because I had to use a mirror. For about 45 minutes, under a bright, unforgiving light, I subjected myself to the image that the rest of the world has to deal with around the clock.

If I had the cojones to take a self-portrait right now and post it on this blog, I'm sure that many of you would scoff, "You call that a shave?!" There are entire patches of whiskers on my face that I left alone.

My straight-edge razor just won't go to those places. The skin has hardened to granite and the surface is lumpy. Getting a clean shave in those regions of my face is like trying to landscape Mount Rushmore with a lawnmower.

Other parts of my face are clear sailing for my razor. The area between my upper lip and my nose —has that part of the body been given a name yet?— is still soft as a baby's behind and the area below my ears present no problem for the most part.

But my neck, chin and the area below my lower lip are a No Man's Land. And because I lack feeling in those places, I can't really tell when I nick myself until I see blood oozing out and making candy stripe-like swirls with the shaving cream.

I put the blade away for the night. In the morning, before heading out to work, I'll see if I can make some last-minute improvements before heading to the office.

I don't expect perfection, but it makes me feel better if I at least try.

And I better add Band-aids to my list of items to pick up on my weekly runs to Ralphs.

Let's face it

2009-10-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

Guess I haven't been fully reporting to youse guys about the recent changes in my face.

I never really thought of myself as a particularly bad-lookin' guy, but lemme tell you: These days, I am UGH-ly, as Redd Foxx might say.

My sister-in-law was in town this weekend and came by my apartment for a visit. We haven't seen each other since late spring, and she was a bit startled at the changes in my appearance when I greeted her in the lobby of my building. But she quickly adapted to my new face, and over the hour of her visit gave me a lot of encouragement.

Among other things, my sister-in-law reminded me how I haven't let HIV get the best of me after all these years. When she said that, I remembered that today marks exactly 18 years since I got my HIV and AIDS diagnosis. It's been easy to remember the date over the years because it also happens to be my brother's birthday.

Her visit was the best part of the weekend. Otherwise, I have left my apartment only to pick up a case of water and toilet paper, and grab the newspapers in the morning.

I wish I had skipped picking up Saturday's edition of The New York Times, however. It published a piece on the editorial page that summed up key plot developments in the early episodes of the third season of "Mad Men," which I won't get around to seeing until they're released on DVD next year.

I know I could watch the new episodes for free on Hulu but I'm stubborn that way. I'd rather wait several months so I can watch the third season on DVD rather than watch the new episodes on my computer now.

By next spring, maybe I'll forget that a secretary mauled a boss' foot while riding a lawn mower in the Sterling Cooper office, that Don Draper is visting his daughter's teacher at suspicious hours of the night, and that Salvatore Romano has been "unjustly and cruelly fired."

Each plot point seems pretty ugly. Maybe it's for the best that I save the third season for next year.

I've got all the ugliness I can stomach in my life right now, from the collar up.

Don't think twice, it's all right

2009-10-15T16:29:00.000-07:00

I got in line on Sunset Boulevard in front of the Hollywood Palladium on Wednesday an hour before doors were scheduled to open, and about three hours before Bob Dylan and his band were expected to hit the stage.

I didn't want to take any chances that I would be too far from Bob to see watch his expressions and capture the subtle ways he moves while performing. Dylan is an artist who doesn't include fancy-schmancy high-definition video screens as part of his staging —just another reason I love him— so unless you're up close to the stage or have binoculars, you miss the special ways Bob lifts his eyebrows, squints his eyes and sways his hips when he performs.

Rushing into the ballroom, I found a Palladium staff member and held up a note asking where the disabled seating was located. He gestured toward a cluster of seats stage left behind the enormous dance floor. I was confident that my trach, G-tube and distorted mug would be sufficient to grant me access to a seat in the disabled section but I would sacrifice the ability to see Bob up close. Instead, I ran to a vacant spot close to the security barrier in front of the stage, to the extreme left.

I didn't know if I was going to have the strength to stand for four or five hours, so retreating to the disabled section was my Plan B.

The front of the stage is where you find the greatest concentration of fanatics at any rock show —you know, the ones who follow bands from gig to gig, and refer to songs not by their names but by the initials in their titles— and on Wednesday I was stationed beside two stylish septuagenarian ladies chattering excitedly to each other. Either one would have a shot at a trophy in a Ruth Gordon look-alike contest. The women appeared to be longtime friends, but I overheard one of the ladies ask the other's name so they must have met just a few minutes before I arrived on the scene.

I opened a book to pass the time while waiting for the opening act to begin, but it was too dim to read, so I closed the covers.

One of the ladies turned to me and smiled, "I hope we don't get too wild for you!" while the other added, "Whoo HOO!"

Then the first lady looked closely at me. "Oh, you have a trach," she said. "I used to have one, myself. How long have you had it?"

I scribbled in my note pad. "About 10 months," I replied.

Her eyes seemed to twinkle. "You know, these days, I don't even think about the scar." She ran a finger along her neck. "You're going to be fine. You are going to be just fine."

The other woman repeated, "Whoo HOO!"

I wanted to find out how long these women had been Dylan fans but the light really was too poor to write in my pad, and besides, the security guard on the other side of the barrier seemed to take an interest in both of the ladies. So I watched them all flirt with each other while waiting for the show to start.

As for Bob, I had a clean view of his every twitch and gesture for the entire set. The guy is 68 years old and I'm guessing that he performs on a stage somewhere on this planet at least 200 nights a year.

Over the decades, I've seen Bob perform close to two dozen times and I'm sure I'll be seeing plenty more of him before he or I reach the end of our roads. Because like the lady said, I'm going to be just fine.

Still more tube tribulations

2009-10-13T19:52:00.000-07:00

I've been complaining for months about a steadily eroding rubber cap to my G-tube.

When I showed the cap to my doctor last summer, he got Kaiser's Durable Medical Equipment Department on the phone and asked them to send a replacement to me. When I received that delivery, it was not the part that I needed but an entire solid-state G-tube that was useless to me. When a friend and a clerk in Kaiser's Member Services both called Durable Medical Equipment to straighten out the misunderstanding and get the proper part delivered to me, Durable Medical Equipment just sent an G-tube that was identical to the one that I already told them I couldn't use.

That second delivery was packed into a box the size of a microwave oven, though the G-tube itself is only about the size of a Red Vine.

Last week, I contacted the surgeon in the Gastroenterology Department who originally installed my G-tube last winter, and she agreed to take a look at it. I missed an appointment last week but showed up 30 minutes early on Tuesday to make sure I wouldn't blow my chance to be seen by Dr. Sekhon a second time.

I told my boss I should be able to handle this appointment and get back to my desk before my lunch hour ended. But as I stood at the check-in station to Gastroenterology, on the sixth floor of the building that used to be the main hospital, I wondered if I should have packed an overnight bag.

With one eye on the clock and the other watching a woman named Melva make multiple impressions from my Kaiser card, I could tell that I wasn't going to make it back to the office anytime soon. There was a form for anesthesia, a form for an advance directive and a form admitting me into Gastroenterology. After wrapping a band around my wrist, Melva handed me a plastic sleeve stuffed with papers and directed me to take a seat in the waiting area.

All this to get a rubber cap replaced?!

Once my name was called and I was led into the ward, things got even sillier. A nurse told me to take my shirt off and slip into a hospital gown, and then she disappeared. When she returned she was pushing a regulation-size hospital bed into the exam room.

I kicked off my shoes, climbed into the bed and hunkered down for the long haul —which means, I took a nap.

Dr. Sekhon woke me when she and the nurse came into the room.

Luckily, it looked like I wasn't going to need to be knocked out for the procedure to happen. I showed Dr. Sekhon the frayed cap on the G-tube and she said, "Oh, you just need a bumper!"

She told me she would be right back. Sure enough, in just a few minutes Dr. Sekhon returned with a fresh bumper. She popped the broken bumper off of my G-tube, slipped the new one on in its place, and said I could get dressed and leave.

Replacing that bum cap cost months of frustration, was far too complicated, and I think I burned some bridges in the Durable Medical Equipment Department, but my G-tube is good as new now.

And the next time I return to Gastroenterology I hope it will be to have the G-tube removed, not to have a spare part replaced.

Welcome to General Horrowshow

2009-10-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

Just about every amusement park and tons of other venues in Southern California are hoping to scare up cash this month by hosting Halloween events.

Universal Studios is offering Halloween Horror Nights; Knotts Berry Farm is doing its Annual Halloween Haunt; Disneyland has both of its parks decked out with Halloween decorations and is doing Mickey's Trick or Treat Party at California Adventure; and nightclubs are staging spooky events like Fred and Jason's Halloweenie.

Me, I've been a regular trick-or-treater at Mickey's bash for several years. I'm sitting out Halloween at Disneyland this year —not unless I hear that they're tossing cans of pumpkin-flavored Isosource into the bags of trick or treaters.

But I gotta wonder whether these Halloween parties might be starting to get a little stale —like a piece of candy corn you find under a sofa cushion at Easter— and not very scary.

Well, I have a smashing idea that I just might pitch to the suits at Kaiser.

Earlier this year, Kaiser moved its Los Angeles Medical Center hospital out of its former site on Sunset Boulvard and into a brand-new state-of-the-art facility next door.

I don't know what Kaiser's long-range plan is for the old structure but my idea would give Kaiser an edge over Cedars-Sinai, Childrens Hospital, City of Hope and all of the other facilities in L.A. that are competing for consumers like you and me.

Why doesn't Kaiser make the old Los Angeles Medical Center into a Halloween Hospital Hell?

In the old hospital's last days this winter, the facility already was looking a little dilapidated and eerie —as if the guys watching Kaiser's bottom line had made a decision to let the place slowly rot, since spectacular new digs were close to completion. So it wouldn't take much to make it into a real creep fest that would give even David Cronenberg the willies.

Besides, aren't hospitals inherently scary places to begin with?

They could start by splashing black paint on the walls, or maybe just board up all of the windows. Then they could collect all of the gurneys and wheelchairs that have fallen into disrepair over the years, and bring all of the surgical instruments that modern technology has made obsolete out of hibernation.

As each guest arrived in the first-floor lobby, he or she would be handed a blood-stained gown and ordered to strip. Then they would be strapped into a gurney or bed and pushed around the facility as hooded scapel-wielding ghouls leaped out from behind partitions and demanded to harvest their organs. Or maybe they would just be pushed into a waiting area and subjected to watching "The View" on a television hung too high to turn off or have its volume turned down.

I don't want to tip my hand on other spooky elements of my hospital horror show. But the evening could conclude in the check-out station as each patient is handed an outrageous bill, a death certificate or maybe a diagnosis of a terminal disease —all in good fun, of course.

Kaiser might find this idea to be at odds with its current marketing efforts, which emphasize living healthy and thriving. But my Kaiser Medical Center Horror Show could balance out that message, which frankly I find a little Pollyannish compared against the realities that many of us face.

I'll let you know when tickets go on sale.

Citizen Pain

2009-10-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

If President Obama had time to send an 300-word email to me this afternoon telling me that he is "humbled" to be selected for the Nobel Peace Prize, I certainly should be able to find the time to update my own blog more than once every few days.

Right?

I'm sorry I haven't maintained my quota of posts lately, gang. If I may be so bold as to piggyback on the current emotions of the POTUS, I might even say that I am humbly sorry.

It's been a trying week.

The jury is out regarding whether the meds that the Maxillofacial Surgery doctor prescribed are going to successfully deliver a K.O. to the pain I've been dealing with lately. I've got 10 more days of taking the antibiotics and the muscle relaxant is such a tiny pill I can't imagine that it can travel to all of the places in my head that are causing me grief before it runs out of gas. Sleepless nights cut into the hour or so each morning I set aside for writing, and exhaustion sucks up much of the time in the evening.

Continuing in the kvetching vein, I missed the appointment with the surgeon who said she'd look at my G-tube, due to conflicting work commitments, and I ran into a snafu in the pharmacy getting a refill on the pain meds that the ER prescribed last Saturday.

Right now I'm debating with myself about whether I should catch a screening of "Citizen Kane" tonight at the Linnwood Dunn Theater in Hollywood. The theater is on my way home from the office, and I can kill time at nearby Amoeba Music before the movie begins. It's been a while since I've seen "Citizen Kane" and the Linnwood Dunn may be the finest theater in the city that's open to the public. It also has the distinction of being located in the building that used to house AIDS Project Los Angeles in the mid- to late 90s, so it's always a treat to go there, dial back the years and daydream.

It doesn't need to be a late night for me. An hour of "Citizen Kane" is worth 10 hours of "Zombieland." Besides, I already know that Rosebud was Kane's sl— aw, I don't wanna spoil it for you in case you never saw the film.

Looking ahead, Bob Dylan swings into town next week for a three-gig engagement at the Palladium. Under normal circumstances, I'd be holding tickets for all three nights but I'm going only once.

I'd be a fool to walk out on Bob Dylan, so I'm counting on both him and me having a good night next Wednesday. And when he asks "How does it feel?" I want the pain in my head to be the furthest thing on my mind.

Tube tribulations

2009-10-07T12:23:00.000-07:00

The "G" in G-tube might as well stand for "goner."

Tethered to my tummy nearly precisely 10 months ago, my G-tube has gradually shown signs of erosion. I chalk up most of this erosion to normal wear-and-tear but many nights I wake up and find my G-tube wrapped around my legs or wedged between my thighs so who knows how I abuse the thing in my sleep?

A few months ago, I showed my HIV doctor how the rubber cap to the tube was wearing thin, and he said he would do his best to make sure that I got a replacement cap.

If the part broke off, there would be no way to seal the tube between feedings. Wherever I went, I would leave a runny trail of half-digested Isosource, which might make it easier for authorities to track me down if I ever disappeared but otherwise would just create an unholy mess.

A few days later, Kaiser's Durable Medical Department dropped off a package at my door. Inside was a complete G-tube, not the part that I needed. And it was a different style from my G-tube, so I couldn't just clip off the cap and toss the rest.

I put off dealing with the problem far too long, but last week, I paid a call in person at Kaiser's Member Services Department and explained the situation to a handsome guy named Laurent who presented himself as highly competent. I showed the bum rubber cap to Laurent, had him examine the new G-tube that was useless to me, and explained to him that if the frayed rubber cap finally broke, I would have no way of eating or taking my meds.

I'm confident that Laurent understood what I needed, but he had to work with the Durable Medical Equipment Department. So to minimize the possibility that Durable Medical Equipment would botch up the request, I also enlisted the advocacy of a speaking friend of mine.

Well, Durable Medical Equipment told my friend that they had shipped the exact equipment that my doctor had ordered, and as if to underscore their insistence that they had not erred, they delivered another G-tube just like it.

In desperation, last Friday I emailed the surgeon who implanted the G-tube in my belly 10 months ago and explained the situation to her. Tomorrow, she and I have set up a rendezvous in the procedure area of her department.

If anyone can solve this problem, I think the suregon can. I don't know why I didn't start with her in the first place, except it does seem to be a function below her pay grade.

I just need to keep the cap from snapping off for three or four more feedings.

Today, I've got rosary beads around the G-tube to ward off malevolence. It probably won't do me any good, but it can't hurt.

Face time in Maxillofacial

2009-10-05T19:50:00.000-07:00

Don't know if it's safe to be blogging right now so I better be brief.

I picked up two new prescriptions during my visit to Kaiser's Maxillofacial Surgery Department today —it's time to think seriously about building an annex to my medicine cabinet— and one of them is not to be used while operating heavy machinery. My Mac is about 58 pounds and my computer monitor must be at least 30, so I better just hit the highlights of today's visit and crash on the sofa.

As usual, I arrived for my appointment this afternoon with a long list of complaints already written out. Today's list had 12 separate issues to discuss with Dr. Yafai, the doctor/dentist who saw me today, and we covered them all to my satisfaction.

I had been anxious that today's appointment would have led directly to surgery on my jaw. So it was a relief to hear Dr. Yafai tell me that surgery on my jaw is something that should be done only as a last-resort measure: if I was experiencing pain that was more than I could bear, or if infections in my jawbone were out of control.

If Dr. Yafai's hunch is correct, surgery may not be necessary. After a good look into my mouth, Dr. Yafai told me that he doesn't believe that my jawbone is infected, but tissue in my mouth may be, and that's what may be causing some of my discomfort. So he prescribed clindamycin, an antibiotic, to treat any infection. The other med he prescribed, cyclobenzaprine, is a muscle relaxant that should ease the pain in my mouth.

I hope that these meds do the trick because jaw surgery scares the heebie-jeebies out of me. It would involve grafting bone from my leg onto my jaw, and Dr. Yafai said that it could trigger a number of complications that might only make things worse.

Before the end of the month, I'll be seeing Dr. Yafai again, as well as Dr. B1, my head and neck surgeon, and there's another visit with radiation oncology coming up as well. Dr. Yafai also ordered a CT scan of my facial bones, so I'll be making another trip to the imaging department again.

So I feel as if I'm making some progress, even though my immediate goal is managing pain, rather than recovering my voice and resume eating through my mouth.

Now if you'll excuse me, I better shut down this heavy machinery before the cyclobenzprine kicks in and somebody gets hurt.

A trip to the ER

2009-10-04T12:24:00.000-07:00

I've been told that I have a high threshold for pain.

Well, I shattered that ceiling into 18 million pieces on Friday night when the pain in my mug and my head became just too much to bear and my routine Extra-Strength Liquid Tylenol remedy couldn't make it go away and let me get some sleep.

To make things worse, I got a good look in the mirror and saw that my facial muscles were really wreaking havoc on my appearance.

I was tempted to blame this all on the full moon, but in an email to a friend I mentioned that I was considering going to the emergency room. My friend, who is something of a wise guy but also genuinely wise, replied, "If your body is telling you go to the ER, don't ignore it."

So early Saturday evening I threw my things together and drove to the emergency room at Kaiser Sunset.

I was expecting to walk into a room filled with wailing babies, weekend athletes with sports injuries, a gunshot victim or two, and Kaiser patients using the ER for treating conditions best addressed by their regular doctor. I expected a long, miserable wait and nearly tossed a blanket and a pillow into my backpack before leaving the apartment to go to the hospital.

Instead, practically no patients were sitting in the emergency room when I arrived, and there was no one in line ahead of me. I sailed through the check-in process and the following station, where I handed a note explaining my condition to a Kaiser clerk. And less than a minute after picking a seat in the waiting area, I heard my name called.

A nurse in Winnie-the-Pooh scrubs led me to a room where she took my vitals, and asked me how severe my pain was on a scale of 1 to 10 (I told her 9, because I think 10 should be reserved for women in labor).

Minutes later, the nurse led me to a private exam area, handed me a gown, and told me to change out of my street clothes and wait for the doctor.

About 15 minutes passed before the attending ER doctor arrived, but I think that was because he was reviewing my electronic medical chart, which has expanded to Dickensian length over the past year.

After Dr. Schoeman asked me questions about how I was feeling, he tried to pry open my mouth with a tongue suppressor, with little success. He said he saw in my chart that I had been seen by the Head and Neck Department earlier in the week, and would be having my first appointment in Maxillofacial Surgery on Monday. And then he said he would try to get in touch with Dr. B1 to let them know that my pain had suddenly escalated and to ask his advice.

He didn't reach Dr. B1 but was able to speak with another doctor in the Head and Neck Department. They decided that the best thing to do was to give me a prescription for pain and release me.

I was happy with that. I was even happier that the ER adventure —from the time I left the apartment to the time that a pharmacist handed me my prescription— took less time than the average wait for a table at Cheesecake Factory.

The prescription is for acetaminophen —the same ingredient used in Tylenol— boosted with codeine. I'm leery of taking any drug that is celebrated in a Rolling Stones lyric ("Torn and Frayed," 1972), but the codeine does seem to dull the pain and make it possible to sleep.

Monday after work, I'll be taking a new step in this adventure: seeing what the Maxillofacial Surgery Department can do for me.

I know I should try to shave to look as presentable as possible for the office tomorrow. But frankly I don't have the courage to spend any more time staring into the mirror and besides, the surface of my facial skin right now goes places where no razor can follow.

Don't know what Lon Chaney would do in my situation. I'm just going to keep taking my meds and hope that Maxillofacial Surgery has a miracle or two up its sleeve.

That's mad, man

2009-10-01T19:19:00.000-07:00

All of the "Mad Men" I've been watching lately is starting to affect my behavior.

Over the past 10 days or so, I've gobbled up all 13 episodes in Season One and all 13 episodes in Season 2. I could kick myself for tearing through the first two years of "Mad Men" so greedily. Now I have to stew for about nine months and wait for the third season —now being broadcast on AMC— to be released on DVD, unless I decide to genuflect and kiss the ring of Time Warner Cable so I can watch the show on AMC each week.

I have no desire to add another monthly expense to my budget. So the best I can do to keep the "Mad Men" vibe going is incorporate elements of the show into my life.

I set up a bar in my office this week, just like all of the boys of Sterling Cooper have in their offices. Instead of liquor, however, my bar is stocked with Extra-Strength Liquid Tylenol, which I need to make it through my workday just as much as Don Draper and Roger Sterling and all of the rest need gin and scotch to get through theirs.

I have a feeling that if anyone at Sterling Cooper drank a cocktail the cherry-red color of Extra-Strength Liquid Tylenol, he would be considered to be a little light in the loafers. Maybe my co-workers think that about me at 11 and 4, when I take a pause in my day to pour myself a shot glass of Tylenol and pour it down my G-tube.

They haven't seen anything yet. This is only the beginning of the Don-Draperization of Paul Serchia. Over coming weeks, I plan to swap my backpack for a leather briefcase and get fitted for a hat. I may even start wearing ties and raincoats, dye my hair jet-black and slick it back with greasy kid's stuff and aggressively utilize my eyebrows to convey emotion.

Today I'm bringing an ice-bucket into work, so I can serve Extra-Strength Liquid Tylenol chilled when visitors wander into my office, and swizzle sticks, so I can stretch the shelf-life of each bottle of Tylenol by diluting it with water before I offer it to guests.

Extra-Strength Liquid Tylenol ain't cheap, not even when I buy the CVS knockoff. Don Draper drinks only the good stuff, but he has an expense account and would not last two days working for a nonprofit, like I do.

If Draper himself ever walked into my office, hopefully I would be able to keep it together long enough to pour some acetaminophen in a shot glass and place it in his hands.

Prodigious consumption of Tylenol wouldn't do Don Draper's liver any favors, no more than it's doing mine. But that's what keeps us Mad Men just a little mad.

Signed, sealed, mangled

2009-09-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

Family members in Colorado mailed a card to me to buoy my spirits.

They used a first-class stamp on the envelope, but the Postal Service exercised their option to treat the card to a first-class stomp. When I opened my P.O. box the other day and saw the envelope, it had been bent in half in order to fit inside.

When my family picked the card off the rack in Colorado, it played music when you opened it up. But thanks to the ham-fisted brutes at the Studio City Post Office, the gadget embedded in the card to make it sing had been destroyed.

The reverse side of the card bore the publishing credits for the apt tune that the card was designed to play:

"(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction."

Dem bones gonna rise?

2009-09-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

Maybe I need to look at replacing my bed and mattress with a simple wooden chair.

Because as soon as I sat down on the bench in the waiting area of Kaiser's Head and Neck Surgery Department on Monday morning, I fell fast asleep. That never happens when I lay down on my bed at home.

I might still be snoozing on that bench if Soledad, one of Dr. B1's medical assistants, hadn't poked me when it was my turn to be seen.

Fortunately, I had completed my homework before coming to the Head and Neck Department. Just as Soledad led me to a seat in Dr. B1's exam room, Dr. B1 walked in and I held up my notepad with a lengthy list of symptoms and questions (and a congratulatory note on Dr. B1's nuptials in Iowa a few weekends ago).

Dr. B1 read my list and then examined my face and mouth. Right off the bat, he saw that my face was more swollen than it was six weeks ago, when he last saw me. He also said that the swelling in my tongue has diminished over that span of time.

I was thrilled that Dr. B1 didn't again tell me that we need to wait and see how my symptoms develop before any action is taken. Instead, Dr. B1 said that I may have infection in the bone of my jaw and that I need to be seen by a maxillofacial surgeon to determine the next steps, which could include removing bone from my jaw.

Guess I can abandon any dream I harbored of playing the lead role in a "Dick Tracy" remake. But if my jaw does go under the knife, I could emerge from surgery as a doppelganger for one of the villains in Tracy's Rogue Gallery.

I can live with that, if it means that the pain I've been experiencing diminishes or goes away entirely.

After my appointment in Head and Neck, I hopped across the street to Member Services to resolve a problem with my G-tube.

Ten months of tube feedings have eroded the rubber cap of the G-tube to a nub. Any day now I expect the piece to break off completely, and if that happens it will be a bona fide crisis.

Sure, I could probably use a wad of chewing gum to prevent the G-tube from leaking but I can't chew so I would need to borrow someone else's gum. I just don't want to risk alienating my friends or resort to looking under table tops in coffee shops in order to retain the integrity of my G-tube.

Weeks ago, my doctor called Kaiser's Durable Medical Equipment Department to get the piece replaced, but they delivered an entire G-tube, not just the piece that needs to be replaced.

This morning, my mission was to correct that error. I showed Laurent in Member Services my G-tube —weeks of using the locker room and showers at the gym have eliminated my bashfulness about brandishing my G-tube in public— and he assured me that the piece I need will be delivered in the next few days.

I have the highest confidence in Laurent —but it's the folks in Durable Medical Equipment that I worry about.

Pray for my rubber cap, readers.

Close encounters

2009-09-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

I've always believed that I amble through life anonymously —just another schmo with one tube drilled into his neck and another dangling from his belly.

An incident last night suggests that I may not be as anonymous as I think.

I was sitting in the third row at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, waiting for the 30th anniversary screening of Bette Midler's "The Rose" to begin, when I decided that maybe I should make a quick trip to the bathroom to slam 30 ml of Extra Strength Liquid Tylenol down my G-tube.

While weaving my way through the crowd up the aisle, I heard someone shout, "I read your blog!" After assuming that someone had spotted Nikki Finke or Ariana Huffington in the mass of people, I was startled to realize that the person who shouted was talking to me.

He went on to explain that he learned about this blog from Dana Miller's Out and About column in Frontiers IN LA several weeks ago. Naturally, I was speechless —and embarrassed because I didn't have a pen on me so I could chat with this reader. I couldn't even ask him his name.

So I just shook this reader's hand, tried to contort my lips into a smile, and then made my way to the john to do the deed with my G-tube and Tylenol.

Reader, if you are out there, I hope you don't think I was being snooty. I really did want to chat with you. Heck, I could have used your assistance in the bathroom. It was quite a challenge to juggle a G-tube, syringe, container of Tylenol and a bottle of water in a bathroom stall with only two hands and surrounded by bacteria-contaminated surfaces.

After the film, it was my turn to approach someone. In the lobby of the theater, I spotted the actor who performed the voice of Oogie Boogie in Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas.

This time, I was prepared to strike up a conversation. I whipped out my note pad and gushed "Loved you in The Nightmare Before Christmas!" on a clean page, and walked up to the actor and held up the note for him to see.

He was gracious and reminded me that Halloween was coming so Nightmare would be making its annual run at the El Capitan Theater. He even sounded like Oogie Boogie.

What I shoulda done was ask him what he charges for a day's work. It would be pretty cool to hire Oogie Boogie to be my voice.

Ready for a new groove

2009-09-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

I haven't had an appointment with Dr. B1 since the middle of August, and a lot has happened in those six weeks.

Not with me —with him! My head and neck doc got married last Saturday —on a farm in Iowa, no less. Cowbells were ringing across America's heartland.

So when Dr. B1 enters the exam room on Monday morning I hope he will temporarily set aside talk of tumors and tongues and tracheotomies and allow me to ask him questions about his farm nuptials. Was the ceremony interrupted by barnyard bleatings? Did guests toss horsefeed at the couple when they departed for the honeymoon? Did they drive away in a tractor? (Actually, in light of what happened on Mad Men the other night, I hope all wedding guests were required to wear close-toed shoes and stay clear of all farm equipment with blades.)

Then I will need Dr. B1 to return to his doctor persona and tell me something to give me some more hope than I've been feeling these days.

I haven't been myself recently, Reader.

The rigor mortification of my face has marched forward over the past six weeks. I'm feeling as much pain as I've ever felt during the course of this cancer ordeal, and I've earned merit badges in sleeplessness, crankiness and pessimism. Drug stores throughout the city can't keep enough Extra-Strength Liquid Tylenol on their shelves to satisfy my need.

I've been so absorbed and depressed about my situation that while walking up the hill to the Greek Theatre on Thursday night to see the Pet Shop Boys perform, I found myself staring at the ground and managed to follow the sidewalk into No Man's Land in Griffith Park. Thank God the park authorities have been thinning out the coyote population recently, or I might have arrived for the Pet Shop Boys' performance with claw scratches all over my marbleized mug.

So I hope that Dr. B1 will have something more inspirational or instructional to say to me on Monday than "We have to wait and see, Mr. Serchia" and set up an appointment to see me in another six weeks.

If that happens, I'll probably throw a fit in Kaiser's Head and Neck Department, like one of the Pet Shop Boys' West End Girls, kicking in chairs and knocking down tables, thinking I'm mad, too unstable. "If, when, why, what?" indeed.

You guys will be the first to know what happens.

Remembering Mom

2009-09-24T05:51:00.000-07:00

Barbara Jean Serchia
July 5, 1933 - September 24, 2007

Photos from my parents' 50th wedding anniversary party

Freeze!

2009-09-23T16:21:00.001-07:00

I tripped the alarm to my office building when I arrived for work early Tuesday morning.

My work site is on a busy thoroughfare near the Beverly Center, not far from the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station. As the ear-piercing "WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP!" wailed over the din of traffic, I bolted to my desk and waited for squad cars to arrive and for the S.W.A.T. team to circle the building.

I expected to be dragged away in handcuffs, all because the code to override the alarm had been changed, and no one had given me the head's up. I wondered how I would respond when the officers read my Miranda rights —particularly the one that goes, "You have the right to remain silent."

The alarm was still WHOOP!ing 20 minutes later and still no one had arrived. Eventually the damn thing shut up and I was able to get some work done. Later in the day, I got the memo that revealed the new code to override the alarm, so it probably will be a long time before I experience that much excitement at the outset of the workday.

Still trying to figure out if I am truly disabled or if this speechlessness is just my way of exercising my Miranda rights.

Listen up

2009-09-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to talk for 10 months now, and frankly I don't know if my voice as I knew it will ever come back.

But maybe that ain't such a bad thing.

I mean, as I remember, my voice was in need of some refurbishment. For a guy, my voice was a little on the high side —maybe even shrill.

The good news is that, thanks to modern technology, I don't have to wait for my old voice to come back.

I can talk today.

One day at work last week, I stumbled on a feature on my office computer that I didn't know existed. Just by using a simple combination of keystrokes, my computer can turn text into speech!

Not long ago I learned that you can achieve this feat on a iPhone, but I had no idea that my two-year-old desktop Mac could do the same thing.

It's not an ideal way to communicate. For one thing, my computer isn't portable; for another, its speaker is somewhat tinny. Finally, it takes time to type out what I want to say and then highlight the text to make it audible. Not a lot of people are all that interested in hearing what I have to say to have to wait that long.

On the other hand, this spiffy feature does restore some of the powers of speech that I lost last year.

And best of all, my new voice is not anything like my old one. I'm not even limited to one voice. There are 10 personalities I can choose from, which almost gets me into Sybil territory.

All of the voices are somewhat robotic, and some are more appealing than others. "Alex" is a basic, functional male voice. "Bruce" make me sound like I'm underwater. "Fred" is kind of dopey. "Junior" is whiny, and "Ralph" makes me sound like Isaac Hayes.

And then there are the female voices. "Agnes" is shrill, "Kathy" is mousy, "Princess" is oddly common, "Vicki" is mature and "Victoria" is sheer annoying.

After I select a personality for my speech, I can then select a speed and one of 14 tones, including "Bad News," "Good News," "Bahh," "Bubbles," "Pipe Organ," "Hysterical" and "Deranged."

It's going to take me a while to get the hang of speaking again. In fact, by the time I get really proficient at using this new tool, my natural voice could come back. (You never know.)

But it's refreshing and empowering to hear my vocal cords vibrate again, even if it's that happening only through the miracle of computer technology. Steve Jobs, you rock.

I can't wait to spring that Isaac Hayes voice on the next telemarketer who calls.

Bells are ringing

2009-09-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

I hadn't expected to see Dr. B1, my head and neck surgeon, until my next appointment with him at Kaiser, a week from Monday.

So it was quite a jolt to spot Dr. B1 at the gym Sunday morning. While sitting on a stationary bike and reading the New York Times, I turned to Page 16 of the Style section, and there was Dr. B1's photo in the Weddings and Celebrations announcements.

My doc and his partner, Glenn Williamson, got hitched on Saturday at Dr. B1's family farm in Crescent, Iowa.

For years, I've been asking myself why I read the Weddings and Celebrations in the Times with such attention to detail. Well, all of that effort paid off this morning.

I hope Dr. B1 and his husband don't hyphenate their surnames. Dr. B1 is a convenient handle for my doc in this blog. Dr. B1-W or Dr. W-B1 rolls less easily off the tongue. Not that anything rolls off my tongue these days, of course.

Congratulations, doc!

A Poem for Henry Gibson

2009-09-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

Your Laugh-in verse sweeter than the sweetest bippy

As Haven Hamilton you were sublime

I'll remember you as a clean-cut hippie

O Henry, you left us before your time.

Let's make a deal

2009-09-16T16:53:00.000-07:00

Readers, some bloggers get all the breaks.

I've been kvetchin' and carpin' about cancer in this space for the better part of 10 months, and all I have to show for it is, well, 199 posts of kvetchin' and carpin'. No one has knocked on my door offering to turn this blog into a movie or television series or slap it between hard covers and sell it on Amazon. I just click "Publish and Post" and my musings sink or soar on their own merits.

Meanwhile, some union organizer named Natasha living in Washington, D.C., starts a blog called "The Footnotes of Mad Men" and whaddayaknow: a month later HarperCollins offers her a book deal!

Natasha Vargas-Cooper's The Footnotes of Mad Men is based on an acclaimed series on AMC, now in its third year. I've never seen the show —my TV plays DVDs only— but even if I did have cable television in my apartment, I doubt that I would be able to stay up past 10 p.m. on Sunday nights to watch "Mad Men." And I'm certainly not clever enough to operate a TiVo or DVR or whatever I would need to enjoy television shows that are broadcast past my bedtime.

I am aware that "Mad Men" is gaining popularity and probably will clean up at the Emmys on Sunday. Every time I visit Amoeba, I check the DVD bins for a used copy of the first and second season of the show. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying catching up on episodes of "Sanford and Son" from 1972. (Lamont Sanford's bell bottoms, gold chains and shirts open to the navel are starting to affect the way I dress.)

But I'm digressing. How does a blog based on someone else's fictitious creations merit a lucrative book deal while this blog doesn't?

And Natasha Vargas-Cooper is not the only blogger out there who is capitalizing on someone else's labors. Not too long ago, a New York woman named Julie cracked the spine of Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cuisine" and decided to blog about cooking all of Child's recipes, which Child and her co-authors spent years testing and perfecting.

Not only did Julie land a sweet book deal, she got her book made into a movie with that cute Amy Adams portraying her!

Can I expect to read in Variety that some studio has picked up Natasha Vargas-Cooper's "The Footnotes of Mad Men" for a movie?

I'd kill to have this blog turned into a movie. I'd even be thrilled if Meryl Streep were to be cast to play me. Barring that unlikelihood, a contract for a book — or a series of Bazooka Joe wrappers— would give me at least something I could crow about at my next high-school reunion.

Maybe I need to just get off of this depressing cancer kick and write about something else that I know: "The Footnotes of MAD Magazine," maybe.

Natasha . . . Julie . . . Girls, you gotta tell me how it's done.

Look who's talkin'

2009-09-15T16:18:00.000-07:00

I just got an extension on my Luddite credentials.

For 10 speechless months, I've been carrying a note pad and pen wherever I go, and using them as my communicating crutch. As long as my tongue and my brain are not on speaking terms, these tools help me get by whenever I need to communicate with my co-workers, friends, the lady at the dry-cleaners and representatives of the Beverly Hills Police Department.

With all of the paper that my scribbles have consumed since last fall, I probably am responsible for stripping a forest the size of Duarte of trees.

Now I learn that if I were only more technologically savvy, I not only could have reduced the depth of my carbon footprint, but I could have made things a lot easier for the innocents who strain to read my handwriting.

A report in Tuesday's New York Times tells how speech-impaired people use the iPhone 3G loaded with text-to-speech software as a means of talking —or they would if they could get Medicare to cover the expense of the gadgets. (Your tax dollars at work, folks: Medicare won't pay for devices like iPhones, which have capabilities beyond speech-generating software, preferring to cover far more costly devices that only provide speech assistance.)

I don't expect to be on Medicare anytime soon, so I should start saving for an iPhone now. Heck, if the Times had published its report one week ago, I could have applied all of the dough I've been spending on the new crop of remastered Beatles CDs and had a good head start on my iPhone fund.

Instead, I'm exactly halfway through my third round of collecting the Beatles' complete works, which is pretty impressive/crazy —take your pick— considering this generation of Beatles CDs has been out less than one week.

When I finally scrape together enough scratch for an iPhone and the tools to facilitate speech, maybe I'll find software that will make me sound like a Liverpudlian, tacking a "bloody" before every noun and a "luv" at the end of every sentence.

When that happens, our planet will be far better off, my friends will dread conversations with me much less, and I'll feel positively fab.

Just do it

2009-09-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

When I talk about my plastic and rubber body parts, I always seem to forget my oldest fake body part of all: my hearing aids.

I always carry my hearing aids with me, though I don't always have them plugged into my ears. At the moment, one of the aids doesn't work, but the other one does and I wear it at work and in some other situations.

On Sunday I went to the Laemmle on Sunset Boulevard to catch a new documentary on the advertising business called "Art & Copy," and when I settled into my seat I put the working hearing aid in my left ear and kept the other one in my hearing aid pouch. I guess I left the pouch in my lap and during the movie it fell to the floor. It wasn't until I was already heading home after the movie that I realized it was gone.

My health insurance no longer covers hearing aids, so replacing one would cost me hundreds of dollars. I panicked and rushed back to the theater.

I handed a note to the ticket-taker explaining that I left something important at my seat. She said I was welcome to go back into the theater to look for it, but the next screening had just begun and it might be hard to find anything in the dark, especially if someone was sitting in the seat I had.

The theater was pretty full, so I just found a vacant seat to sit through the film again and wait for the houselights to come up.

Fortunately, "Art & Copy" is a good film that was just as enjoyable the second time around. In it, a number of figures in the advertising industry talk about the inspiration behind campaigns for clients like Apple, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger and many others, but it became clear to me during the repeat viewing that the film is about more than simply advertising.

One line toward the end of the film leaped out at me the second time I heard it. Explaining that advertising artists and writers —or the people who hire them— sometimes make bad decisions based on fear rather than take bold steps driven by inspiration, Mary Wells, founder of Wells Rich Greene, says "I think fear is a powerful depressant."

When I heard that line again, a proverbial light bulb illuminated above my head. Lately, my health situation has kept my dreams on a short leash, and my fear about where this is all leading has kept me from taking more risks, thinking differently, living my life as fully as I should.

The message was loud and clear the second time around. Lucky for me that I saw "Art & Copy" again.

And by the way, I found the pouch with my hearing aid.

Catch ya next time, Mr. Armstrong

2009-09-10T16:40:00.000-07:00

It sorta sucks lurking on the periphery of L.A.'s cycling community.

I'm working on getting back into the spin of things, but it's taking time. Meanwhile, I missed out on participating in an event that L.A. cyclists are buzzing feverishly about today.

On Wednesday, Tour de France champion and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong tweeted this message to his followers on Twitter: "Hey LA - get out of your cars and get on your bikes. Time to ride. 7:30 tomorrow am. Griffith Park, LA Zoo parking lot. See you there."

I didn't learn about Armstrong's visit till this morning as I was scanning Facebook posts before heading to the office. If I had jumped into my cycling gear right that minute and hopped aboard my bike, I would have been able to make it to Griffith Park to join him, but I would have had a lot of 'splaining to do to my boss when I arrived late for work.

Luckily, it appears that a handful of my cycling friends did ride with Lance Armstrong this morning —along with a few hundred other riders— and will be chattering about it for some time to come. One of my friends says that she even got Armstrong's autograph on something that looks like a purse. (From the photo posted on Facebook, it looks like he signed his name in Farsi.)

Would Lance have agreed to autograph my G-tube? I probably will never know. He already has left L.A., and is tweeting from Quebec.

Lance Armstrong visits Griffith Park

Smooth moves

2009-09-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

I always get a little nervous when I shave these days.

I just don't recognize the guy in the mirror whose face I'm trying to shave. Beyond the shock of unfamiliarity, it's really difficult to get a close shave on the parts of my face that have premature rigor mortis. It's like shaving moss off of a rock. I'm horrified that I'm going to break the razor or chip part of my chin.

The night before a new work week begins, I give it my best shot. Around the middle of the week, I'll stand before the mirror again and give myself a maintenance shave but it never seems to do much good.

Which gives me another reason to admire Pee-wee Herman. Pee-wee sure is clean-shaven.

On Sunday, I went to the Silent Movie Theatre for a screening of "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," which was released almost 25 years ago and is just as funny now as it was then. If I could laugh, I would have laughed for the entire film —from the first scene, in which Pee-wee dreams that he wins the Tour de France, to the last, when he and his friend Dottie fly their bicycles, E.T.-like, in front of a drive-in movie screen.

Before the film, a few clips of Pee-wee's appearances on Late Night with David Letterman were shown. Man, how I wish I could laugh out loud. Maybe you can do that for me.

Pee-wee's humor may not be everyone's cup of tea —I get the feeling that Dave doesn't quite know what to make of him— but if nothing else, you gotta admire Pee-wee's clean shave.

It's only jock 'n' roll

2009-09-04T16:30:00.000-07:00

One nice thing about riding my bike again is that I have rescued my cycling wardrobe from a destiny of mothballs.

Up until three years ago, I was content with cycling in a ratty T-shirt and cut-offs. Then I unloaded my clunky Schwinn on a friend, invested in a new road bike for myself and started training with serious cyclists.

It didn’t take long for me to catch on that I didn’t look like the other cyclists who passed me on the road. More important, I wasn’t as comfortable riding in street clothes as they seemed to be riding in jerseys and shorts designed for cycling. So before I got a reputation among my new cycling friends for making poor fashion choices, I decided that I better grow up and start looking like a serious cyclist myself.

My first cycling jersey was a Pos Ped jersey. Then I discovered the Rockware Jockware section of the store at the Rolling Stones’ website, and went wild one afternoon loading up on jerseys for the seven days of AIDS/LifeCycle 5.

My collection of Stones jerseys grew to a ridiculous size while training for AIDS/LifeCycle 6 and AIDS/LifeCycle 7. I must own eight or nine Stones jerseys now, all of them a different treatment of the band’s tongue logo. Maybe that doesn’t sound like an absurd amount to you but these babies cost $80 a pop! For three years now, I’ve been underwriting Mick Jagger’s summer vacations in the Mediterranean and keeping Keith Richards clad in Louis Vuitton.

At the same time, I was acquiring annual additions to my set of Pos Ped jerseys, and picking up AIDS/LifeCycle commemorative jerseys as well. So by now I reckon I own 25 jerseys in all.

If this cancer crisis had turned out differently than it has, I probably would have never worn those jerseys again, unless I decided to be buried in one of them. So it’s truly a wonderful feeling to slide open the drawer in my bureau where I keep my cycling gear, and picking out a jersey to wear.

I’m about ready to slip into my red, white and blue Stones tongue jersey to head home to begin the holiday weekend. What makes my cycling excursions even sweeter these days is that those fat red tongues on my Stones cycling jerseys are now more than a corporate logo; they're a symbol of my recovery-to-come.

But seriously, I don't need to go on any more shopping sprees in the Stones' Rockware Jockware shop. No matter how badly Keith needs to buy another pair of alligator boots.

Patti is back in town

2009-09-03T05:30:00.000-07:00

Rock goddess Patti Smith and her band are back in town for a free performance tonight at the Santa Monica Pier.

I really have a jones for Smith —and have ever since I was a pudgy, pimply punk in high school and Patti released her album Horses. But I'm going to pass on her show at the Pier tonight.

Call me a fuddy duddy. But I just can't summon the patience to crawl to Santa Monica during the evening rush —that "subway to the sea" can't come soon enough— struggle to find parking and then stand for a few hours in a crowd craning my neck to get a good view of Patti and her band mates. With luck, she'll come back to L.A. sometime soon and perform at a venue where I can sit during the performance and sip Metamucil through my G-tube during the intermission.

I know I'll regret my decision once I start reading reports of tonight's show. Patti never disappoints.

Only a month ago I saw Patti at a book signing in West Hollywood for Patti Smith: Dream of Life (Rizzoli International Publications, 2008). It was the second time that I met Patti, following a signing event at Amoeba Music a while back. I handed a note to Patti thanking her for all of the enjoyment she has provided over the years, and explaining that I couldn't tell her that with my voice because I had cancer. (The signing took place the day after my biopsy but several days before my doctor told me that I no longer had any evidence of cancer.)

I was too flustered to remember the exact words that Patti spoke but she wished me the best and said something like "Get healthy," as she looked directly into my eyes. Once Patti Smith has looked directly into your eyes, you are never the same again.

In my copy of her book Patti wrote, "To Paul: People have the power" and signed her name.

Patti, I'm sorry I won't see you dancing barefoot on stage tonight but I want you to know that I am on the road to getting healthy. Have a great time at the Pier.

Twilight Dance Series at the Santa Monica Pier

Courage comes in colors

2009-09-02T05:30:00.000-07:00

When my radiation treatments ended in March, I walked out of the treatment lab toting a souvenir.

I'm not talking about the side effects from treatment that I'm still dealing with five months later, though I suppose that they are a souvenir badge of my treatments in a twisted sort of way.

I'm talking about the ThermaSplint mask that was molded to the contours of my face for my 33 treatment sessions in February and March. Each visit, before beginning treatment, the radiation techs lowered the mask over my head and locked it into place to keep me from shifting position while the rays were targeting my tumors.

At the conclusion of the final session, the radiation techs ceremoniously presented my mask to me, correctly guessing that I would be jazzed about displaying my mask in my living room.

I placed my mask on top of my television when I got home that night. But it wasn't long before the thing started to give me the creeps whenever I watched my Mary Tyler Moore Show DVDs so I found a place for the mask on the upper shelf of a bookcase in my bedroom.

I don't have any plans for using the mask again, but if you turn on the news one day and hear about a reward being offered for information leading to the capture of a ThermaSplint bandit robbing banks, go ahead and turn me in.

Well, to my surprise I learned that I'm not the only guy in the world with a fetish for ThermaSplint head gear.

A friend just let me know about "Courage Unmasked": a fund-raising event taking place next Wednesday at the American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center in Washington, D.C. One hundred artists have transformed radiation masks formerly worn by cancer patients into unique works of art, with proceeds from the event benefiting head and neck patients who are not able to afford radiation treatment for themselves.

Check out this gallery of photos of the Courage Unmasked collection. I hate to play favorites, but I love the Mr. Potato Head vibe that artist Susan Cole created for "Member of the (Medicine) Cabinet" and the whimsy shown in Raymond Van Santen's "The Magic of Courage."

Courage Unmasked just may inspire me to do something fancy to my own ThermaSplint mask, which is a spitting image of its owner, especially the nose. It would make a splendid rhinoceros.

Support Courage Unmasked with a tax deductible donation

Recovery in slow-mo

2009-09-01T05:40:00.001-07:00

Cancer has fled the scene without leaving a forwarding address, but I still have regular pit stops with my Kaiser providers to monitor my recovery.

And so the month that began buoyantly with my doctors' pronouncement that I am cancer-free ended on Monday on a flat note, with my doctors acknowledging that I'm likely to be saddled with the side effects from radiation and chemotherapy treatments for longer than I would like.

My appointment in Kaiser's Radiation Oncology Department was my first visit there in nearly two months. The last time I was in Radiation Oncology was a real downer. I learned that my Jacko PET scan –so dubbed because it took place the day that Michael Jackson died– showed lingering signs of cancer activity, despite the barrage of treatments I had in February and March.

Even though that PET scan was disproved by my biopsy in July, Monday's visit was not exactly celebratory.

The pace of my recovery from radiation and chemotherapy is stubbornly slow. At times, it seems that I haven't made any progress at all over the past five months. My mouth barely can open; the pain in my face continues; I still have no feeling at all in parts of chin and jaw.

Dr. Chen, the lead doctor in Radiation Oncology, told me on Monday that we just have to wait and see how things go. Before giving me a chance to reply, Dr. Chen added, "I know you must be tired of hearing me say that."

I am. But I knew even before treatments began that the side effects could be severe and slow in diminishing –possibly, the damage from treatments will be permanent.

I didn't walk out of Monday's visit empty-handed. Dr. Chen said that I could resume exercising the mobility of my jaw. While I already have a TheraBite mouthpiece designed for these exercises, Dr. Chen recommends that I stick Popsicle sticks in my mouth for now. He even gave me a starter set, which saves me the trouble of buying a box of Popsicles and tossing out the part you eat.

I'll start with one Popsicle stick, and then add more if I think my mouth can handle it.

By the time of my next visit with Dr. Chen, I hope to make real progress. Eventually I hope to become the Jack LaLanne of Popsicle-stick calisthenics, and then move on to complete Popsicles.

And after that? Frisbees.

A Pos Ped rides again

2009-08-28T07:28:00.000-07:00

Made yet another stride in getting my groove back this morning: I wore my 2009 Positive Pedalers jersey for the very first time.

Positive Pedalers is a group of people living with HIV/AIDS dedicated to eliminating stigma. Most, but not all, Pos Peds are cyclists, and many participate in fund-raising rides across the country for AIDS and other causes.

I ordered my Pos Ped jersey early this year, and planned to wear it during AIDS/LifeCycle 8 in June. Cancer kept me off the AIDS ride this year, and up till last week, it also kept me off my bike.

My Pos Ped jersey arrived in the mail last month, sent by my buddy Nathan, but I just tossed it in my closet without even removing it from the plastic bag.

This morning, I broke open that bag and slipped on the jersey. Then I got into my cycling shorts, put on my shoes, plopped the helmet on my head and headed to work.

I never stopped being a Pos Ped, but it sure felt great today to look like one, too.

All wet

2009-08-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

For four days now, there has been no hot water in my apartment building.

The first day that the hot water was out, I took a cold shower and I'm still not over the shock. The second day, I stood in the shower and strategically splashed water on parts of my body, and the third day I smeared myself head to toe with deodorant and hoped to make it to sundown without having to stand close to anyone.

I went to bed last night praying that Tropical Storm Danny would pay a surprise call on L.A. If my prayers had been answered I planned to get up before dawn and run naked in the alley long enough to get soaked and lather and rinse my hair.

Well, no precipitation fell in Southern California this morning, so I had planned to skip the shower altogether and warn my co-workers that I think I have H1N1 virus and to stand 50 feet away. But while feeding myself breakfast through the G-tube I suddenly sneezed and 60 ml of Isosource erupted out of my syringe, dousing my body and my living room with high-nitrogen, high-calorie, vanilla-flavored ooze.

I needed a long, cleansing shower but was too much of a sissy to stand beneath cold water again.

My only options were to call in sick or go to the gym and use the showers there.

I haven't been to the gym since well before the end of the Bush administration. Part of the reason is that I haven't really had the energy to exercise but I also have been shy about showing my tubes in the locker room.

But today I had no other choice but to go to the gym, get naked and shower, rubber tubes and all.

I just gritted my gums and pretended like no one was looking, although I did catch a few guys staring at my tube hanging from my stomach, and it's hard to conceal the tube in my neck.

Whatever. I feel fresh as a daisy and I'm prepared to have a group hug with my co-workers, if that should be on today's agenda.

If the hot water crisis at my apartment building goes into a fifth day, I'm sure I'll go back to the gym tomorrow for a shower. Heck, I may even work out.

Frozen in time

2009-08-26T05:33:00.000-07:00

I gotta stop putting off addressing my refrigerator problem.

You see, I figure if I just keeping papering the door with Keith Richards pinups, eventually the fridge will disappear behind the clutter and I'll forget that the fridge is even there.

The problem with it is that the thing hogs space in my kitchen, and for no good reason. I open my fridge just twice a day, early in the morning and at supper time, when I grab a cold bottle of water to pour down my G-tube.

You'd think that the shelves of a fridge owned by a single guy who eats through a G-tube would be bare. Since last December, Isosource has been the only substance that I use for food, and I keep that at room temperature. Oddly, my refrigerator is packed, mostly with food that I was gumming late last fall after chewing and swallowing became too much of a challenge.

I guess you could say that I'm frapathetic: I just can't be bothered to toss out the crap in my fridge that I no longer need, which is virtually everything on its shelves.

So allow me to play Carol Merrill and show you what's inside my fridge. Besides the chilled drinking water that I already mentioned, and some cobwebs, here is what's stocked in my fridge:

1 packet of Fig Newtons
1 10 oz. can of Campbell's Tomato Soup
14 packets of Quaker instant oatmeal
6 servings of Mott's applesauce
1 stick of Blue Bonnet butter
1 package microwave popcorn
64 oz. container of prune juice
1 liter of Diet Coke Zero
8 containers of Jell-O pudding
1 of package of Christmas potpourri
1 bottle of Grateful Dead Un-Wine
2 bottles of apple juice
1 jar of tupelo honey
16 oz. Skippy peanut butter
20 oz. bottle of Sprite
2 8.4 oz. cans of IZZE sparkling beverages
Several bottles of HIV meds I stopped taking years ago
1 FUJI disposable camera
1 box denture cleanser tablets

I suppose that the prune juice may come in handy the next time I experience internal plumbing "issues," and I hope that my denture cleanser tablets will spring back into action some day, if I ever am able to get my dentures back into my mouth. But barring those exceptions, there's nothing in my fridge that I expect to need anytime soon, or could not store more efficiently at room temperature.

For now, my fridge is just a time capsule from November 2008, and a surface where I can throw my magnet collection. I really should unplug the damn thing and clear its shelves.

And invite my neighbors to my place for a prune juice and oatmeal Labor Day blow-out.

Lunch is poured

2009-08-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

Queen Elizabeth II won't like me distorting her words to fit my situation, but this annus has not been completely horribilis for me.

One bright side of having diminished energy levels is that I have developed a hot-and-heavy addiction to watching DVDs at night after I get home from work.

This requires chronic shopping for fresh fixes for my habit. On a recent visit to Freakbeat Records in Sherman Oaks, I picked up a DVD collection of the first season of "Everybody Loves Raymond" even though I had never actually seen the show before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm a little slow.

At the end of the credits in each episode of "Raymond," there's a mention of "Where's Lunch," the show's production company. Each episode shows a different plate of food being set down on a placemat, while some jazzy piano music plays.

I've seen Italian food, I've seen turkey, I've seen chicken, and I've seen soup. I've seen just about every type of food you can imagine in the "Where's Lunch" bit but the food that I have for lunch every day: three cans of high-nitrogen, high-calorie, vanilla-flavored liquid Isosource.

I've got eight more seasons of "Raymond" to catch up on. It's bound to show up sooner or later.

Monday-morning spin

2009-08-24T05:32:00.000-07:00

A family member posted on Facebook on Sunday that he thinks that Cash for Clunkers is the best thing President Obama has done.

I better be careful about saying anything about politics. The last time I dipped my toe into political waters —the shallow end of the pool, naturally— a follower started hunting for the Escape key and threatened to bolt from this blog for good.

But if any of you on Facebook have President Obama in your stable of friends, please tell him that I hope he can get Congress to pump more money into Cash for Clunkers after it expires at 8 p.m. EDT today.

Giving car-buyers $4,500 rebates for trading in fuel-wasting clunkers for fuel-efficient new cars was a good idea. But it's time to remove car dealers from the Clunkers equation.

How about giving folks a $4,500 rebate when they trade in their clunker for a bicycle?

Giddyup!

2009-08-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

My poor bike has been under involuntary house arrest for the nine months that my cancer ordeal has been unfolding.

I used to ride my blue Felt road bike daily to work, and go on longer rides on weekends. But when I got my G-tube, cycling seemed to be too risky, so I switched to my car for all of my transportation.

Getting my trach the following month just made cycling even more problematic.

Well, a week ago my car began to get a bit wheezy every time I turned the ignition and on Thursday morning it wouldn't start at all. I thought about taking the bus to the office —actually, I need to board three buses to get to my workplace— or take a vacation day to deal with getting the car to the shop.

But I went back to my apartment, saw my bike leaning against my filing cabinet and decided to go for it.

It took a while to get into gear for riding. Both of the bike's tires were completely deflated; I had to tear apart my closet to find my cycling shoes; and the chin strap of my helmet felt strange on my partially numb face. The last time I wore any kind of head gear was in March when I donned my ThermaSplint mask for my final radiation treatment.

The first hundred yards or so in the saddle were a little wobbly, as I reacquainted myself with clipping my feet into the pedals, and staying upright with a heavy backpack weighing me down. But in no time at all I was cruising like a champ. It felt as if I had never stopped riding.

None of the cycling disasters that had spooked me over the past nine months spoiled my ride into work. My G-tube didn't fall out of my shirt and get tangled in my spokes. No Canadian geese flew inside my trach and forced me to dive into the L.A. river. I didn't get creamed by any inattentive motorists because I couldn't scream to prevent a collision.

And the ride home was just as calamity-free.

Once I rolled my bike back into my apartment, I asked a neighbor to phone the Auto Club for me so I could get my car into the shop. It turned out that I just had a bum battery. (There's a reason Die Hard batteries were not instead named "Immortal.")

My car starts right up now. But now that I know that having a G-tube and trach and not having a voice are no reasons to quit cycling, it's going to be hard to leave my bike behind at home every morning when I go to work.

If it's OK with Gene Autry, I'm going to co-opt his theme song as my own. Whoopi-ty-aye-oh! I'm back in the saddle again.

Now that's what I call service

2009-08-20T05:41:00.000-07:00

I had planned to meet a friend in Los Feliz on Tuesday night so we could walk together up the hill to the Greek Theatre for the Elvis Costello show.

The Greek is just a short hike from the the intersection of Vermont Avenue and Los Feliz Boulevard, but my buddy told me to make sure I was well hydrated. After parking my car on a side street off Vermont, I sent a text message to him to let him know I was going to sit in my car long enough to slam a bottle of water and a liquid Extra-Strength Tylenol chaser into my belly before meeting him on the corner.

I poured the Tylenol into the measuring cup and placed it on the dashboard, and unscrewed the bottled water. Then I opened a few buttons of my shirt and pulled out the G-tube, drawing some curiosity from a woman walking her dog on the sidewalk.

The dog yipped a few times and the woman looked at me funny. I can't imagine what she thought but a man feeding himself with a G-tube may not be the element that she wanted to see in her neighborhood. But hey, I wasn't the one pooping on the sidewalk.

The woman hurriedly moved on —possibly to ring Chief William Bratton's doorbell— and I starting digging around in my backpack for my syringe so I could get the fluids down the tube and meet my buddy.

In my backpack, I found loose change, a few unpaid bills and a packet of mayonnaise from 2008, but no syringe. I left it behind on my desk at the office.

Driving back to the office or going home to get another syringe wasn't a practical option —both destinations were at least 10 miles away and I didn't want to miss Elvis' opening act. Then I remembered that there was a service station with a small market at the corner of Vermont and Los Feliz.

Surely the service station would sell me a plastic funnel that I could use to pour my fluids into my belly, I thought.

I scampered up the hill toward the service station. After spotting my friend sitting in the grass waiting for me across Los Feliz, I shot a text to him to let him know that I needed a few more minutes.

I walked into the service station market and scoped the shelves for a funnel. There was a rack of motor oil, but no funnels to use for pouring it.

I opened my note pad and drew a sketch of a funnel. Below the drawing, I wrote "You sell these things here?" and handed the note pad to the attendant behind the counter.

He stared at my drawing, took a glance at me, then looked again at the sketch. Then a broad smile came to the attendant's face.

He took an empty Marlboro carton and tore it in half. Then he shaped the cardboard into a cone, and punched a few staples into it to hold it together.

I could tell just by looking at it that the tip of the cone wouldn't fit into my G-tube. Even if it had, the home health nurse who told me to use my G-tube only in sterile environments would be appalled if she knew I would even consider contaminating my tube with cardboard that was laying around on a service-station counter. But I was certainly impressed by the attendant's ingenuity, and I hope you are, too.

I accepted the makeshift syringe, gave the attendant a buoyant thumbs up and walked out the door.

If he had known that I needed it to shoot fluids into my belly, I bet he would have called on Chief Bratton, too.

Caruso in my head

2009-08-19T05:54:00.001-07:00

I get a little nervous at rock concerts these days. When I don't sing along, people around me get suspicious and shoot "Hey, who's the narc?" glances at one another.

Elvis Costello performed at the Greek Theatre in L.A. on Tuesday night and my seat was in the pit right below the stage, where audience participation is usually universal. Luckily, Elvis Costello is touring with a bluegrass band this summer, and he has been breaking in about a dozen songs from a new album. The new crop of songs don't yet have the familiarity of "Pump It Up" and "Alison"; even Elvis kept his eyes fixed on lyrics on a music stand when singing the new tunes.

But enough classics were sprinkled throughout Elvis' set —"Blame It on Cain," "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," "Everyday I Write the Book"— that the audience had plenty of opportunities to follow the bouncing ball and sing along.

Everyone but me, that is. I can't even pull off a decent hum. And when Elvis tossed in a surprise rendition of the Rolling Stones' "Happy," it killed me to sit in my seat poker-faced during the chorus. (Keith, don't take it personally.)

Before the first encore, I spotted a couple vacate their seats in the first row, so I couldn't resist promoting myself to take their place, right at Elvis' feet. I prayed that Elvis wouldn't scan the faces in the front row and spot my tight-lipped puss.

I don't think he noticed me, thank God.

But I better have my voice back by the next time that the Stones roll through town. The Stones audience —maybe even the band themselves— would surely turn on me if I don't join in by shouting "I said Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! OOOOOOOO!" at the end of "Brown Sugar."

My photos from Elvis' performance at the Greek

Hunkering down for the long haul

2009-08-18T05:42:00.001-07:00

Got a close-up look on Monday at the creepy underbelly of last month's biopsy results.

In Monday's visit with Dr. B1, the head and neck doctor who has had to put up with me more than any other Kaiser provider, he handed a copy of the surgical pathology report from the July 31 procedure to me.

The headline news from that report —that no more evidence of cancer was found in me— was joyfully disclosed here almost as soon as I read it in an email from Dr. B1.

On Monday, Dr. B1 shared additional findings by the pathologist.

I didn't really learn anything new, but the terminology that was used in the report to describe my condition sounded so much scarier than I imagined. (If the pathologist who wrote it ever decided to leave Kaiser, I bet he could earn a lucrative salary from the GOP spinning the Obama health care plan to the electorate.)

According to the pathologist's report, "granulation tissue with extensive necrosis and inflammatory cell debris" was found on both the left base and the deep base of my tongue, and "bacterial colonies" were found on the left base of my tongue.

I knew that there was extensive cell damage resulting from radiation therapy on my tongue —I'm reminded of that every time I try to open my mouth— but the way I had been privately describing the situation was that my tongue simply had an "owee" and just needed time to heal.

"Necrosis" sounds like an arch-villain of Spider-Man, or a death-metal band opening for Marilyn Manson. And a cluster of bacterial pup tents on my tongue would give me plenty to be nervous about, but entire "colonies"?! I only hope that those bacterial Ben Franklins don't take steps toward full statehood.

The bottom line is that if my tongue is healing at all, it is doing so at an extremely slow pace.

After Dr. B1 and I reviewed the pathologist's report, he outlined the next steps for me in my treatment plan: another visit to the Radiation Oncology Department at the end of the month, more imaging studies and possibly more surgery.

So Monday's visit in the Head and Neck Department wasn't the victory lap I had hoped it would be.

For one, my fingers had been crossed that Dr. B1 would tell me that he would agree to begin divorce proceedings between me and my trach. Instead, it looks like I'm going to be saddled with my trach for some time. Dr. B1 doesn't want to remove the tube until a clearer picture emerges about what's happening with my tongue and jawbone.

"Wait and watch" were the doctor's orders.

As far as the cancer is concerned, Dr. B1 said that the risk of recurrence becomes very low after five years. That means I'm going to be having cancer heebee-jeebies well into President Obama's second term or President Palin's first.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still kicking my heels and flashing "V" for Victory signs about beating cancer, at least so far. As Dr. B1 reminded me on Monday, the challenges that I'm facing now are annoying but they are not life-threatening.

There's a huge chasm between life-threatening and quality-of-life threatening, and that gulf is my buffer zone against cancer.

To twist a cliché, this opera ain't over until the guy with the trach sings.

Go West, young popster

2009-08-17T02:06:00.000-07:00

Michael Jackson occupies nine slots in the Top 10 of Billboard's catalog album chart this week and another wave of Beatlemania is about to break out, with the re-release of all of their albums —the freshest one was recorded 40 years ago.

But you don't need to dial back to the last century to find thrilling pop music.

For the past 10 days, I've been grooving to Go West, the brand new album by L.A. singer-songwriter Adam Marsland. Go West is a 2-CD coming-of-age epic that has more yummy delights than you'll find at a Baskin-Robbins counter and is catchier than H1N1 virus ever will be.

Go West is out officially on Tuesday, but you can order it now at Adam's website or from Amazon.

Enjoy this video of "When I Lied to Everyone," the track that kicks off the second disc of the album:

Making a list

2009-08-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

Time to pop the cap of my Sharpie and flip to a fresh page in my legal pad. Tomorrow morning I have another appointment with Dr. B1 and I'm full of questions again.

I may feel listless, but tha morning. And at the top of my list of questions for Dr. B1 is asking him if the time has arrived for getting rid of my trach.

You can see a bit of my trach in the self-portrait I posted here. It's that white plastic thingy below my chin. The trach has been a fixture in my body since Jan. 14, when I had my first biopsy. The trach was installed to facilitate breathing since the swelling of my tongue was closing off my airway.

The one you see in the photo is what Dr. B1 calls the "high-profile" model; the removable tube sticks out further than the low-profile trach I prefer to wear. The only advantage that I can see to the high-profile model is that it gives me a place to hang my car keys.

The swelling in my tongue has since diminished, and a biopsy two weeks ago apparently cleared me of cancer, so I'm crossing my fingers that Dr. B1 will greenlight the surgery to remove the trach and stitch up my neck.

I'm leaving the decision in Dr. B1's hands. It's my neck that's on the line, but Dr. B1 is the guy who has shepherded me throughout this cancer ordeal, and I have a great deal of trust in him. There is still plenty of weirdness going on with my face, and it may make more sense to wait till I achieve progress in recovering mobility of my mouth and jaw before removing the trach.

My other major question for Dr. B1 is asking him what I should be doing to regain the ability to speak. After eight months, I'm ready to bow out of this vow of silence.

But my motives are not completely selfish. It would also be good for the planet for me to speak again.

You have no idea how many trees have fallen to keep me supplied in legal pads.

My cancer makeover

2009-08-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

God knows that I've been yammering endlessly about how this cancer ordeal has affected me, but unless you have seen me in person over the past seven or eight months, you have no idea how my appearance has changed.

I guess it's time to post Before and After photos. The photo on the left is me in the summer of 2008. The photo on the right is me about 15 minutes ago.

Believe it or not, I am trying to crack a smile in the After self-portrait from today. But my mouth doesn't move that way these days; my face is more or less frozen in a permanent pout.

The After photo also reveals how challenged I am by the simple act of shaving. The lower part of my face has lumps where there was once a jawline and certain regions of my face are impossible to shave cleanly within the amount of time that I can stand looking at myself in the mirror.

With luck, I won't ever look as scary as I do in the After photo on this page. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that if I just mind my P's & Q's my old face —or a decent facsimile— may come back someday.

This face, however, may serve me well on Halloween.

Star-crossed

2009-08-13T19:29:00.000-07:00

I arrived way too early for the screening of "Passing Strange" at the Downtown Film Festival—Los Angeles (DFFLA) at the AT&T Center on Wednesday night. The movie was scheduled to begin at 8 and I was there at 6:30.

So I decided to just hang out near the entrance to the South Park high-rise and rustle through the newspaper while I waited for the doors to the theater to open.

I totally looked like a security risk to the festival organizers, who were running around in circles barking orders at one another. Because my face stings to the touch, I haven't shaved since Saturday and the high-profile trach that Dr. B1 gave me when I had my biopsy gives me the appearance of having a spear lodged in my neck, which I guess I do.

As if I didn't look suspicious enough already, I offered to serve as the designated coat rack for two friends who also arrived early but decided to get a bite to eat before the film. Their bulky coats, combined with my own vest, screamed "suicide bomber."

No film festival opening in Los Angeles would be complete without celebrities and the Downtown Film Festival was no exception. I smelled the first celebrity before I saw him. It was Seymour Cassel, puffing on a cigar.

Mr. Cassel and his date stopped just inches away from me, and the flashbulbs started popping. I should have stepped out of the range of fire, but I wanted to be first in line when the doors to the theater opened. I held my line near the red carpet and tried to look disinterested. (If this had been the Carnation Plaza at Disneyland and Mary Poppins and Bert strolled by, I would have been all over them with my Disneyland autograph book, but c'mon —Seymour Cassel?!)

During the excitement, someone snapped the picture below. I doubt Mr. Cassel was mocking my disability, but man, I would kill for a tongue with the range that his has.

Actor Seymour Cassel poses with guest Rebekka Redden at Passing Strange The Movie Opening Night 2009 Downtown Film Festival at the AT&T Center Theatre.

Another mute point

2009-08-12T16:31:00.000-07:00

I joined the protest of Governor Schwarzenegger's radical cuts in AIDS services on Tuesday at Pershing Square.

While I couldn't rouse any rabble of my own, the marchers around me more than compensated for my silence. This fellow behind me was especially passionate.

Let's hope the governor's ears were ringing last night, and that they stay ringing until he reverses his attack on AIDS services.

AIDS Project Los Angeles to Challenge California Governor Over Unconstitutional Line-Item Vetoes

Heaven on the 32nd floor

2009-08-11T05:40:00.000-07:00

One good thing that I can say about taking all of my meals through a G-tube is I'm well insulated from any salmonella outbreak.

American food manufacturers keep the FDA on its toes, as any peanut butter-eater knows. But as long as I pour my meals straight out of the tin can and directly into my G-tube, and mind the expiration dates stamped on the bottom, I feel I'm pretty safe.

Isosource is delivered directly to my doorstep, one month's supply at a time. It's been nearly a year since I have stepped inside any restaurant, and my visits to Ralphs happen only when I run out of bottled water or toilet paper.

My meals are also a tad dull. I actually can fall asleep while waiting for the Isosource to trickle down the G-tube, and I've got the stains on my sofa to prove it.

Wednesday I have a chance to break out of this routine.

A film I'm interested in is launching the 2009 Downtown Film Festival at the AT&T Center, and while trying to buy a ticket online, I got accidentally got stuck with a ticket for the film and a hoity-toity Gala dinner.

I had planned to swap the ticket for the Gala and replace it with admission to only the film. But then I read a description of the event. After the film tomorrow night ends, according to the festival's website, Gala attendees will be "whisked by high-speed elevator to the 32nd floor penthouse of the $35-million newly renovated high-rise complex [where] guests will enjoy catering by Rivera Restaurant, premium cocktails by Tommy Bahama Rum and beer by Karl Strauss."

I haven't been inside a penthouse since the '70s when I cracked one open at a newsstand. And a premium cocktail sure sounds more festive than the beige runny cocktail I feed myself out of a tin can every night. If Karl Strauss is going to all of the trouble of brewing a signature beer for Wednesday's event, why can't I open up my shirt, pull out my G-tube, pop open my syringe and ask a bartender for a splash or two?

He'd cut me off after 60 ml or so, but that should be enough for a mild buzz before that elevator whisks me back down to the ground floor and I take the Red Line home.

As for the catering by Rivera Restaurant . . . no, I can't eat any of it now, but that's why Tupperware was invented, right? Whatever goodies the catering crew is cooking up should stay stable in my freezer until I get my chops back.

So why should I go home after the movie tomorrow night and wet myself with Isosource again? Every now and then, you gotta punch the 32nd floor and live it up for a change.

-----

If you can, please join me at a protest at Pershing Square on Tuesday evening.

Pop quiz!

2009-08-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

Who said:

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."

There are two correct answers.

What's up, Doc?

2009-08-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

Sure coulda used my voice this afternoon.

I was driving along Rowena Avenue in Silver Lake when I had to come to stop at an intersection, even though I had a green light.

This guy was crossing Rowena against the red light. But it wasn't just any guy; it was The Walker.

If you spend any time at all in Silver Lake, you probably see The Walker regularly. He's a Silver Lake resident who walks 20 miles each day around the area, and an additional 15 miles each Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. When he's not walking, he likely doing push-ups (the L.A. Weekly says he does 4,000 per day) or seeing patients in his medical practice.

Usually, The Walker reads a newspaper while he walks. I don't know if this is an omen for the state of print publishing, but today The Walker was yakking on a cell phone, seemingly unaware that his decision to cross the street against the light forced traffic on Rowena to come to a halt.

Don't know what I would have said to The Walker as I waited for him to reach the other side of the street, but I'm sure I would have said something.

I'm giving this dude a new name. From this day forward, he will be known as The Jaywalker.

L.A. People 2009: The Walker - Marc Abrams

What's cooking?

2009-08-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

Is it my imagination, or have the sunrises been a little pinker and the sunsets a tad rosier these past few days?

I've been twirling my G-tube like a gold chain from a zoot suit ever since Dr. B1 announced that radiation and chemotherapy spooked the cancer out of my system.

Cancer could return for a rematch, so I'm savoring my clean bill of health for as long as it lasts, and I hope that will be a very long time. As for now, Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" is clanging in my ears.

A dear friend in Florida joins me in my happiness by wishing me a weekend of "trashy movies or a long walk up and down the aisles of Amoeba buying that rare music find."

Hey, I can do that.

The Amoeba visit is a no-brainer: Today is payday. But even if it wasn't, my car's wheels intuitively turn into the driveway to Amoeba's parking lot every night when I pass the store on the way home from work. And it won't be long before I'll be spinning into Amoeba on my bicycle again.

As for the trashy movies, maybe I have a screw loose but I'm excited about seeing "Julie & Julia," Nora Ephron's film about Julia Child, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams, which opened today.

Yes, I know that most grown men would not be caught dead in a theater showing the food porn movie of the century, especially one that is opening opposite "G.I. Joe." I don't understand my attraction to this film. I can't even spell "soufflé" without first looking it up on Wikipedia.

What's even stranger is that I'm guessing that I am the only man in America with a G-tube who will pay to sit through a two-hour movie about one woman who wrote a landmark cookbook and another woman who attempts to cook all 524 recipes in that book in the course of one year.

The only "cooking" I enjoy these days is what I pour out of a tin can. I doubt that even Julia Child could craft anything palatable from the high-calorie, high-nitrogen, vanilla-flavored runny goop that Nestlé calls Isosource.

In these post-cancer days, anything tastes good to me even though all of it bypasses my taste buds.

Now if you'll excuse me, my tummy's rumbling. One chick flick coming up.

—

10:30 p.m. update: "Julie & Julia" can wait a day or two. Found a used "Tootsie" DVD at Amoeba for $2.99.

Meanwhile, back on the HIV front . . .

2009-08-06T05:28:00.001-07:00

If I had teeth, they would have been clenched tight when I clicked on the email I received from Dr. B1 early Wednesday morning.

Results from last Friday's biopsy were promised by Wednesday and I wasn't eager to get any bad tidings from my doctor. But even as I opened the email and read the words "Good news," my reaction fell short of unbridled joy.

Dr. B1 was telling me the best news I could have possibly expected to hear, but there was a cloud beneath that silver lining.

The night before, while poking around in my online medical records at Kaiser's member website, I saw that my latest HIV lab results were available. I clicked on that email and scrolled through the numbers. They didn't look good.

As I've been grappling with this cancer offensive, it looked as if my HIV had been running amok. According to the lab results posted online, my CD4 count had taken a deep nose dive, plummeting to 80 from more than 400 just seven months earlier.

I nervously clicked out of the lab results and sent a message to HIV provider: "My HIV numbers don't look very good," I wrote. "What do you think?"

The next day brought the good news about the biopsy, but my HIV situation weighed heavily on my mind.

Later that morning, my HIV doctor sent a reply to my email: "Your HIV is perfect," he wrote. "The HIV viral load is less than 48 copies, indicating complete suppression of the virus by the medications. Your overall 'infection fighting cell' number (WBC) remains slightly below your baseline, likely due to a residual effect of the chemotherapy. This is normal. It is not by any means at a critically low level. Because of your lower WBC numbers, your absolute T cell number is lower. However, the percentage of T cells (19 percent) is virtually unchanged from the values in January (18 percent).

"In other words," my HIV doc concluded, "your HIV is exactly the same, still doing great."

The lesson here is to let my doctor interpret my lab results before I leap to any conclusions.

So with HIV laying low, and cancer apparently having flown the coop, I can concentrate on my recovery while watching the undetectables, to paraphrase that doctor of rock 'n' roll, Elvis Costello.

It may still be some time before I can shed my trach and G-tube and talk and eat and drink through my mouth again —and there remains a possibility that the damage caused by cancer and radiation will be permanent— but I've come this far and I'm prepared to go the distance.

Happy news

2009-08-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

Dr. B1 just sent an email that makes me very happy:

"Dear Mr. Serchia: Good news. The biopsy showed no evidence of malignancy. That means at this point, we cannot see any more active cancer cells. The biopsy did show granulation tissue and inflammatory cells, which is likely a side effect of the radiation therapy. We will have to continue to watch that area as it is healing."

Thank you to everyone who has been hoping for this outcome all along. More later.

Retired in the U.S.A.?

2009-08-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

My copy of the September-October issue of AARP: The Magazine arrived in Monday's mail, and sexagenarian Bruce Springsteen is its cover boy.

Based on the photo, I don't see any evidence that the Boss is shifting into geezerhood. Bruce's pants look just as tight as they did in the photo on the "Born in the U.S.A." sleeve 25 years ago. And the profile inside the magazine shows that Springsteen is as busy as ever, even if his on-stage leaps may not be as high as they were in 1984.

I'm still getting used to the World According to AARP. Once you reach the half-century milestone, you become bait for a feature in the AARP magazine, and the editors do love splashing celebrities on their cover. I'm relieved that AARP didn't hop aboard the Jacko bandwagon this month.

Still, it's a bit disorienting reading about Bruce Springsteen and flipping past full-page ads for Depends.

Lockdown in recovery

2009-08-03T05:31:00.000-07:00

So Kaiser would know that they were performing a biopsy on the right guy on Friday, the clerk in the Admitting Department asked me to show my Kaiser enrollment card and my ID, and I had to make a $15 copayment, which I charged to my debit card.

Then I was told that I would not be allowed to carry my Kaiser card, my ID, my debit card or any cash with me into the ward where I would await surgery.

My plan was to slip my wallet into one of my sneakers and stuff my sneakers in the large plastic bag that the hospital provided for my clothing, along with a biography of Woody Allen I brought along to read.

No way, José, Jessica in Admitting told me.

I scribbled a note asking Jessica what options I had. She gave me two: I could hand over the items to a family member or friend, or she would store them for me in Kaiser's safe until I was discharged.

I arrived at the hospital alone Friday morning, and none of the people I saw hanging in the waiting area to the Admitting Department looked trustworthy enough to hold on to my Kaiser card, ID and debit card for the day. So I surrendered everything to Jessica, along with two $5 bills and five singles.

Jessica fished an envelope and a form out of one of the drawers in her desk. One by one, she documented on the form what she was placing in the envelope. She saved the cash for last, and counted the bills at least five times.

I should have sensed that Jessica wasn't the type of gal I could joke around with. But I tried anyhow. After she counted my 15 bucks for the third time, I wrote "Hey, I'm loaded!" in my note pad and held it up for her to see.

Jessica didn't smile. I almost thought that she was going to dig around in her desk for a Breathalyzer.

Then I was led into the hospital to prepare for surgery.

In the early afternoon, I woke up in the recovery room. The procedure had gone well and my vitals were stable, so the nurse said that she would call a friend of mine who offered to come pick me up to take me home.

My friend was at work in Pasadena, so I cracked open my book on Woody Allen to await his arrival. I asked the nurse if she could get my Kaiser card, ID, debit card and cash out of Kaiser's safe so I could leave as soon as my friend arrived.

About 15 minutes later, the nurse returned to my bedside. "Bad news," she said. "We can't get the safe open."

I looked at her blankly.

"We're trying to get it open," she assured me. "We're thinking of calling a locksmith."

The nurse disappeared again. Meanwhile, my friend showed up.

He had already been briefed about the problem with the safe, so he told me he would go downstairs and get a bite to eat and wait for the situation to be resolved.

Some time passed, and the safe was still jammed. My friend decided to head back to his job in Pasadena to wait for Kaiser to summon him back.

I dozed off reading about Woody Allen's growing up on Coney Island. Then I was stirred awake by a woman wearing a business suit and a badge. She appeared to have some authority.

"We're still working on the safe," she explained. "But it may take till Wednesday till a locksmith can open it."

"Wednesday?!," I wrote in my notepad. She nodded. I guess Kaiser's brand-new flagship facility was a $600-million fixer-upper.

More time passed. I tried to relax and read, but I kept thinking about how agitated Woody Allen would be in a situation like this.

Hours went by. The next thing I knew, I looked up and saw a nurse, the supervisor and a locksmith named Larry standing at the foot of my bed. From the beaming expressions on their faces you would have thought that they had jointly discovered the cure for cancer and wanted me to be the first one to know.

"Good news!" the supervisor exclaimed, holding up the envelope with my belongings.

My friend had already been summoned back to the hospital to take me home, making his second trip to Hollywood from Pasadena.

As we sat in rush hour traffic, I wrote a note apologizing for all of the time he spent away from his desk. I asked him what projects he was working on and he said that he was part of a team working on collecting samples from a comet expected to be passing by Earth in 2027.

Some people think that comet may actually collide with Earth. Maybe my friend is working on a mission to save the planet from destruction, and he downplayed the significance of his work to me, figuring that I had enough to worry about as it is.

I hope that the time my friend spent away from that project on Friday doesn't put that project behind. If that comet wipes out Earth, I'm gonna feel personally responsible.

A sudsy summit

2009-08-02T06:45:00.000-07:00

Cancer wants to have a beer with me.

His invitation popped up as a text message on my cell phone while I was driving around town on Saturday. Creeped me out; it really did. Almost made me crack up the car! I pulled over and parked to make sure that I read the message correctly.

Seems fishy, coming on the heels of the fiasco in Cambridge and Obama's "teachable moment" with that cop and Skip Gates.

Does it sound like a trap? Is this some kind of clever marketing gimmick, a mass text message sent to thousands of people at the same time? City of Hope and Kaiser have been doing a lot of radio buys recently, so maybe this is Cancer's way of striking back. I imagine Cancer would have a hard time buying a spot on KNX-AM, even with the Fairness Doctrine and all.

Or maybe this text message was directly solely at me. I have been dissing Cancer a lot in this blog. Maybe Cancer wants to give me his spin on what I've been spewing.

Or maybe Cancer wants to go mano a mano.

Call me crazy, but I'm tempted to take the bait. It would be quite a beer date. I'm confident that I can handle any questions Cancer has for me, and this would give me a chance to get Cancer on the record about things that I want to know.

At the top of that list: Dude, are you still in me or not? And if you are still lurking in me, when are you gonna pack it up and leave?

Oh, and I would love to see Cancer's reaction as I unbutton my shirt to pour my brew into a syringe attached to my G-tube.

Still, I don't want to act hastily. After almost 20 years of kvetching publicly about HIV, I've never gotten invited on a beer date with AIDS.

So it just seems odd.

I sat in my car, reading the message over and over, while tapping my fingertips on the dashboard. I didn't want to blow Cancer off right away, and risk pissing him off. Cancer went to the trouble to text me; Cancer deserved a timely response. So I hit Reply, and texted back to him:

"OK with U if I bring along Joe Biden?"

I'll let you know if I hear back.

Under the knife again

2009-08-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

Maybe Dr. B1 defused bombs for the Army in Baghdad before he took up head-and-neck surgery.

Because it could not have been easy on Friday in Kaiser's operating room for Dr. B1 to get his delicate instruments past my steel-trap jaws and deep enough into my kisser to capture some of the suspect tissue that lurks there.

If you want the Cliffs Notes version of today's post, here it is: T.G.I.Saturday.

I'd been jittery about how Friday's surgery would go ever since I learned early this month that another biopsy was in my future. While I won't know the results of my biopsy till next week, the procedure went well.

I remember the whole experience with Friday's surgery in stark, high-definition clarity —all the way up to the very beginning, that is.

What I mean is: I remember boarding the Red Line in Universal City shortly after 5 a.m.; I remember getting off the train at Sunset and Vermont; I remember trying to maneuver around a cyclist on the escalator ("I can't move!" he barked, a minute before he and his bike magically regained the miracle of movement at the top of the escalator); I remember walking through the doors of Kaiser's brand-new, $600-million medical center for the very first time; I remember checking in at the admitting department; and I remember asking a pregnant woman to move a sweater so I could take one of the last remaining seats in the waiting area.

I remember getting a plastic band wrapped around my wrist; I remember stuffing my clothes into a plastic bag and donning the standard-issue cap, gown and hospital booties; I remember the nurse unfolding a blanket fresh with warmth from the dryer over my body; I remember her thumping the back of my left hand so she could get a vein for an IV; I remember being interviewed by a steady parade of anesthesiologists and others on my doctor's team; I remember being asked for my name and birth date at least a dozen times.

I remember Dr. B1 stopping by my bed to greet me and review my charts, shaking my hand to say hello and squeezing my toes to say goodbye.

And finally I remember one of the nurses telling me that the medicine that she was feeding into my IV would help me relax. She then brought up the metal rails on my hospital bed and, with help from one of the anesthesiologists, pushed me down a series of winding corridors toward the room where my surgery would take place.

That last scene I've watched a million times on "E.R.," except the irony is, I've never seen a single episode of that show. (If I had mentioned "Ben Casey" instead of "E.R.," some of you might have clicked away to a blog by a younger, hipper cancer victim.)

I remember thinking that the ride in my bed to the operating room was taking too long, but maybe the nurses just push the bed aimlessly around the floor until they know that I am asleep. Because I don't remember entering the operating room. My next conscious memory is opening my eyes in the recovery room, having my vitals taken by the nurse who still thinks I resemble Ben Stiller. Maybe it's a Jew thing; that nurse kinda resembles Julie Kavner.

Dr. B1 says that he won't know the results from the biopsy till Wednesday, so I'm looking at several days of biopsy news hanging over my head.

I have plenty to do to keep me busy in the meantime. Seems like the anesthesia is affecting my ability to pee again, so baby-sitting my bladder and taking Flomax is priority No. 1 (I've used that pun before and I'm not ashamed to use it again).

Darning socks is the next task on my list.

The next time a doctor or anyone else feels like squeezing my toes, I may not be wearing brand-new baby blue hospital booties. I better be prepared.

A not-so-close shave

2009-07-31T04:46:00.000-07:00

Dr. B1 does so much for me, and I do so little for him.

So when I woke up at 4 this morning so I could get to the admitting desk at Kaiser Hospital by 6 a.m. for my biopsy, I thought maybe it was time to do something nice for my doctor for a change.

If Dr. B1 is going to be staring at my homely mug for the duration of today's procedure, I figured, the least I could do is make it pretty for him. So I decided to shave.

Remember those Norelco commercials that ran on TV every Christmas when "Frosty the Snowman" was broadcast? You know, the ones with Santa Claus riding a Norelco razor over hills of snow?

Well, when I run my electric razor over my misshapen mug, my face reminds me of the hilly terrain in those Norelco spots. Shaving is a miserable experience —made even worse by the near-total numbness in the lower third of my face, which also seems to be hardening into concrete— and I don't do it often.

Reader, I should have left my puss alone.

In mid-shave, my electric razor sputtered out. Now my face is half-smooth, half-whiskery. I look like the front yard of a Beverly Hills estate if the gardeners went on strike in the middle of mowing the lawn.

I should have known that manscaping my mug today would lead to disaster. When Dr. B1 sees me in a few hours, knocked out on his operating table, who knows what he'll think?

I expect when I come to later today I'll find myself tethered to a bed in Kaiser's psychiatric ward.