The $5,000 question

My friend J.R. sent an email to me on Wednesday with the subject line "Congrats!"

J.R. is my Cycle Buddy in the AIDS/LifeCycle office. Even though J.R. has several hundred other ALC riders and scores of roadies to keep tabs on, he has been staying in touch with me throughout my Annus Horribilis (and no, that term is not dirty. I learned it from Queen Elizabeth.)

"I wanted to be sure to send you a congratulations on reaching your minimum," J.R. wrote. "That definitely guarantees your spot on this year’s AIDS/LifeCycle."

J.R. was referring to the $3,000 sum that all registered AIDS/LifeCycle riders agree to raise for the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center or the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in order to participate in ALC 8: next month's 561-mile ride from San Francisco to L.A. I'm raising money for the HIV services of the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center and last week, the sum given by donors to my ALC fund hit $3,000.

"As soon as you raise money for AIDS/LifeCycle, it goes to work for the people that need it most," J.R. wrote. "On behalf of AIDS/LifeCycle, the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, and our clients, thank you."

My fund-raising for ALC 8 isn't over. The goal I established last summer was to raise five grand for the Center. As of this morning I have $1,219 to go, and 30 days to get there.

When I got sick last fall, I told myself that I'll make a decision about whether I'll ride in ALC 8 when the ride got closer but fulfill my promise to the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center regardless of that decision.

In November, it seemed like I had plenty of time to figure out what was going on with me, get it treated, and then resume my training for the ride. Now, ALC 8 is only 32 days away.

My bike is still standing in the same spot in my living room where I parked it last November, the last day I rode it. I swear I'm going to keep my options open about riding but even if a miracle occurred and my tongue snapped back to normal, I'd still have to whip myself into shape so I could handle pedaling up to 107 miles a day for seven consecutive days.

I like looking at the bright side of things. But I probably have a better chance of being part of the Endeavor's crew when the space shuttle is launched in June. I'd be the astronaut drinking Tang through a G-tube.

I would still be thrilled if you visited my AIDS/LifeCycle page and checked it out. You can see a list of the donors who have pitched in to help the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center –they're the ones that J.R. should really thank instead of me– and you can make a donation yourself.

Nothing would make me happier than shutting down this blog for the first week of June so I could ride my bike from San Francisco to L.A.

Well, make that almost nothing would make me happier. What would make me happiest is seeing my ALC hit $5,000 and knowing that the Center is putting that sum to work to help people in Los Angeles with HIV/AIDS.

Betwixt and besotted

It's a beautiful spring day and I'm feeling light in my loafers. So forgive me if I don't get around to mentioning the C-word in today's post.

• In the window of a juice shop down the block from my office hangs a sign that reads "Sorry! We're OPEN."
  
  
• PR Week announced this week that it is shifting from being published weekly to monthly, but the publication is keeping the name PR Week. That tells you everything that you need to know about the public relations business.
  
  
• If GQ magazine started publishing every month, would its name change to GM?
  
  
• I really wished that I had a voice on Sunday when I heard L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez speak as part of a panel discussion at L.A. Times Festival of Books. Lopez tried to make the case for value of his newspaper, saying that each edition was well worth the 50 cents it costs. I wanted to shout, "It costs 75 cents, Steve!" (The panel's moderator corrected Lopez, after he repeated his error.)
  
  
• Someone being interviewed on the radio the other day described something as a "double-edged sword." Aren't all swords double-edged? One dull, one sharp.
  
  
• After five months of eating only through a G-tube, I've started to eat through my mouth in my dreams. A few nights ago I dreamed I ate an entire three-tiered wedding cake. And it was at a reception that I hadn't even been invited to.
  
  
• That reminds me: I haven't opened my refrigerator since at least Christmas. I should have unplugged the thing in observance of Earth Day.
  
  
• Does it really make a difference if Phil Spector decides to become a Democrat?
  
  
• Bob Dylan released his second album in only six months on Tuesday. It feels like 1965 all over again.
  
  
• My Annual Passport to Disneyland expired in February, and the House of Mouse has been desperately trying to woo me back. I feel directly responsible for the recent layoffs at Disneyland.
  
  
• If I were Robert Iger, these are the Disneyland cast members that I would lay off: Jasmine, Ariel, Max (Goofy, Jr.), Lilo, Stitch, Mrs. Incredible, Pocahontas and Timon.
  
  
• A friend who follows this blog complained on Tuesday that the L.A. Times used "Betwixt, between" in a headline twice in just a few days. Well, the Times says right on Page 1 that its pages are partially recycled.
  
  
• What is a "betwixt," anyhow? Isn't it something that's for kids –not silly wabbits?
  
  
• Back to the juice shop I mentioned at the top of this post: I wonder if the other side of that sign says "Welcome! We're CLOSED"? (Update: I was close. I checked it out today and it says "Come In! We're CLOSED.")
  
  
• Do they still write sit com theme songs as cool as the one that began each episode of "Maude"?
  
  Lady Godiva was a freedom rider
  She didn't care if the whole world looked.
  Joan of Arc with the Lord to guide her
  She was a sister who really cooked.
  
  Isadora was the first bra burner
  And you're glad she showed up (Oh yeah!)
  And when the country was falling apart
  Betsy Ross got it all sewed up.
  
  And then there's Maude!
  And then there's Maude!
  And then there's Maude!
  And then there's Maude!
  And then there's Maude!
  And then there's Maude!
  And then there's . . . that old compromisin', enterprisin', anything but tranquilizing,
  right on Maude!
  
  
• Bea Arthur and Bob Dylan could have cut a killer album together.
  

A new centurion

Jeez Louise! Has it really been only 100 days?!

So much has happened in such a short period of time. It's been action-packed, wouldn't you say? If there has been even one dull moment, I certainly can't put my finger on it.

No, I'm not talking about the first 100 days of the Obama presidency. I'm talking about the first 100 days since I got my cancer diagnosis, which by comparison make Obama's hundred look downright placid.

Technically, I arrived at the 100-day marker last Saturday but it wasn't until today that I counted backward and realized that I had overlooked the milestone.

It's been quite an adventure.

No, I haven't traveled to Europe, western Asia, Mexico City and all over the United States over the past 100 days, and no, I haven't made lame cracks to Jay Leno on the Tonight Show or paced up and down the South Lawn with a pooper-scooper. I haven't danced on any ballroom floors, shot hoops in Kuwait or landed on the cover of MAD.

But I have covered a lot of ground in 100 days of being a guy with cancer.

I've completed a full course of radiation and chemotherapy and endured a battery of side effects that I thought would never clear up. My tongue has swelled to the size of a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon, contracted almost to its normal state and now fluctuates in size from day to day and hour to hour. Not a single calorie has passed my lips, but I have managed to eat heartily by pouring almost 900 cans of Isosource down my G-tube over the past 100 days.

I haven't seen my cancer cured.

But I think that would be a lot to ask for in just 100 days.

I'll be hitting the double-century mark in this cancer odyssey sometime in early August. Till then, I hope to keep pushing toward my goals: to talk, to eat through my mouth and most of all, to leave cancer behind in the dust.

Rush Limbaugh isn't taunting me or telling his listeners that he hopes that I fail. But that doesn't mean that it's going to be easy.


Advances elusive in the drive to cure cancer, a report in The New York Times by Gina Kolata

Letters from Times readers on the above article

Memories of Maude

• Maude Findlay: [Answering the phone] Hello? No, this is not Mr. Findlay. This is Mrs. Findlay. Mr. Findlay has a mustache.
  
  
  
• Maude: Francie, this is Florida. My dear, dear friend, probably the best friend I have in the whole world.
  Florida Evans: I'm the maid.
  
  
  
• Maude: How can I have a party for a black guest of honor and not have one single black guest?
  Carol Findlay: Maybe you should've invited two black couples, Maude.
  Walter Findlay: That's right, Maude, you should always have a back-up black.
  Maude: [Skyward] Please, if you really do exist, get him soon.
  
  
  
• During Florida's interview for the maid job
  
  Florida: Now, the first week'll be on a trial basis.
  Maude: Oh, Florida, don't be ridiculous, you're not on trial.
  Florida: I know - you are.
  
  
  
• Dr. Arthur Harmon: No offense, Maudie, but I wouldn't touch you with a ten-foot pole.
  Maude: No offense, Arthur, but that's the only way you'd EVER touch me.
  
  
  
• Arthur: [Looking at Maude's black eye] If the "Our Gang" comedies ever come back, you could be the dog.
  Maude: And if Mister Ed ever comes back, there'd be a part for you. I'm not talking about the part that talks.
  
  
  
• Walter: Maude, did you wreck the car again?
  Maude: Did you hear that, everybody? DID YOU HEAR THAT? Not "Maude, are you sick?" Or "Maude, are you unhappy?" Or even, "Maude, are you pregnant?" No, "Maude, did you wreck the car again?"
  Walter: You're right, darling. You're absolutely right. I'm sorry. So tell me, are you sick?
  Maude: No.
  Walter: Are you unhappy?
  Maude: No.
  Walter: Are you pregnant?
  Maude: Yes.
  
  
  
• Maude: [to Carol] To think I bought you your first training bra. Look how you've broken training.
  

Bea Arthur, who starred in "Maude" and "The Golden Girls" on television, died of cancer at the age of 86 on Saturday. May she rest in peace.

More hard luck!

Welcome, Reader. You've arrived at this blog just as another episode of "The Perils of Paul" is about to begin.

Just when I thought that my streak of bad luck was winding down, I stumbled into a fresh pile of doodoo.

I was sitting at my desk at the office on Thursday when I saw a co-worker heading my way. Figuring she had something to say to me, I reached for my hearing aids and plugged them into my ears.

The right hearing aid began to sputter, meaning that it was time to replace the battery. So I removed it from my ear and tried to open the battery carriage but instead of opening on its hinge, the carriage –a crescent-shaped piece of plastic about the size of a nail clipping– broke off.

I scoped my desktop to see if it landed there but I couldn't see it.

Maybe it fell in my lap, I thought, but I didn't see it there, either.

I dropped down to my hands and knees to hunt for the piece on the floor, gently moving the palm of one hand along the tips of the carpet fibers. No luck.

Then I stood up and took one baby step toward my desk, and that's when I heard the sound of crunching plastic.

I lifted my right foot, and there was the battery carriage –what was left of it, that is.

Now in addition to having lost the ability to speak, my hearing ability has been reduced by half.

I know it's my own fault. Just call me Paul the (Artificial) Organ Grinder. And I suppose you could say that the price I am paying for this is the deaf penalty.

Just can't shake the feeling that somewhere out there is a witch casting spells on me by removing pieces from a Mr. Potato Head. The mouth was the first to go, and now one of the ears.

I'll start looking into getting the aid repaired or replaced today.

Meanwhile, if you leave a comment on my blog, use ALL CAPS.

Keep the customer satisfied

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a pile of coupons that entitle the bearer to a $2 discount off any used item at Amoeba Music.

I didn't see any sign saying "Please Take One," so I scooped up as many of the coupons as I could stuff in my backpack.

Later I read the fine print of the coupons and learned that they are "Void After 4/31/09."

April 31 is a date that will never arrive. As long as the Gregorian calendar remains in effect, those coupons are like a wad of $2 bills direct from the U.S. Mint.

So lately I've been spending more time at Amoeba than many of its employees.

I popped by Amoeba again on Wednesday night. Sure enough, within minutes of entering the store I found a used CD I simply had to own: "Skeletal Lamping," by the band Of Montreal.

I walked up to the counter and handed the CD, a coupon and a $10 bill to the clerk, a young guy with curly hair and a bright smile.

At this point in the Amoeba shopping experience, the clerk often validates the customer's selection by saying "Cool choice" or something similar. (That doesn't happen when you buy a Liza Minnelli album, however.) This time, the clerk handling my purchase stared at my neck and asked "How long have you have the trach, man?"

I felt my neck and realized that I left my scarf behind in the car, leaving my trach tube and collar visible.

I made a gesture to the clerk that indicated I needed to write down my response. He unspooled some blank paper from the register and handed it to me.

About three months, I wrote.

"How come?" the clerk asked.

Cancer, I wrote. Can't talk or eat through my mouth.

The guy's eyes widened. "Wow!" he said. "That sucks."

I nodded.

"Is your cancer caused by smoking?" the clerk inquired.

I shook my head. No, I wrote. I never smoked. Just luck of the draw, I guess.

He looked at me silently for a few seconds, then said "I hope you get better."


Me, too! I wrote.

He then rang up my purchase and handed me my change. "I'll meet you at the end of the counter," he said.

He and I both walked to the spot where Amoeba clerks hand over purchases to customers.

"Good luck to you, buddy," he said, before giving me a salute to send me on my way.

I looked at my receipt and saw that the clerk's name was Trevor.

Chances are that Trevor forgot about his interaction with the guy with no voice and a hole in his neck as soon as the next customer stepped up to his station, but maybe not. Maybe he smokes and will take another look at that warning label on his pack of cigarettes the next time he lights up. Or maybe he never came face-to-face with someone with cancer before, and our exchange will stay with him a while.

I'm sure it won't be long before I see him again. I have about 40 $2 bills in Amoeba funny money to spend, and the way I see it, I'll be expiring long before the coupons do.

A day of no prizes

In the make-believe world in my head, I bit my nails all morning on Monday and waited for the Pulitzer committee to announce their prize winners for 2008.

In the far less glamorous real world, on Monday afternoon I sat in an exam room biting my nails and waiting for the doctor to tell me if he knew whether my cancer treatments succeeded.

OK, make that gumming my nails. I forgot that I have no teeth.

Monday's visit to Kaiser's Radiation Oncology Department was my third follow-up appointment since radiation and chemotherapy treatments concluded last month. But it was my first visit with Dr. Chen since he and the rest of the Cancer Board examined me in January and approved my course of cancer treatments.

The visit began on a clumsy note, before Dr. Chen even arrived. One of Dr. Chen's assistants pulled up a chair beside me and read from a chart on her clipboard.

She said that her chart showed that my treatments ended in November. No, I scribbled in my legal pad; my treatments ended March 25.

Then she said that her chart said that I had my trach surgery after my treatments were over. No, I wrote, I got the trach on January 14, before I even was aware that I had cancer.

A perplexed expression rose to the doctor's face. She flipped over her clipboard and held it up to my face.

"Is this you?" she asked, pointing to the name on her chart.

NO, I wrote. I lifted my I.D. badge from the office off my neck, and let her read my name.

She studied my badge, then looked at her chart, and looked again at my badge.

"Oh, I am so sorry!" she said, before rushing to the door and leaving me alone in the exam room.

Some time later, the door creaked open and she stepped inside again. "Good news, Mr. Serchia!" she announced. "We found your real chart!"

For a moment I wondered if my "real" chart might had gone missing in January and everything that has happened to me since should have happened to another Kaiser patient.

Then Dr. Chen's assistant snapped on her latex gloves and got down to the nitty gritty. First she stuck a tongue depressor in my mouth, and then her fingers went in.

Dr. Chen walked into the exam room just as I was beginning to drool. I hope Dr. Chen didn't think that I was drooling at him, but maybe word has gotten around the Kaiser campus that I cast all my doctors in an imaginary daytime soap opera that plays in my head.

Within seconds, Dr. Chen's fingers were in my mouth, too. It must be a rare treat for a doctor to examine a toothless patient's mouth and not need to fear being bitten or eaten.

In comparison to his assistant's slender digits, Dr. Chen's fingers felt like tree limbs in my mouth.

Then Dr. Chen said, "Let's go to the exam room next door." I knew what that meant.

The exam room next door was where the heavy artillery in the Radiation and Oncology Department is kept. Dr. Chen wanted to perform a nasopharyngoscopy.

A nasopharyngoscopy is a procedure where the doctor inserts a flexible fiberoptic scope up your nostril and keeps pushing it into your nasal cavity until you feel it bumping against the lining of your esophagus. While the nasopharyngoscopy is under way, a monitor displays video of your innards in live, gruesome color. And after the doctor is finished probing your innards, he slowly pulls the scope out of your nostril.

Dr. Chen's exams on Monday showed that it's too soon to draw conclusions about my cancer, but I am definitely still a big baby when it comes to have fiberoptic cameras shoved into my nose.

The swelling of my tongue has gone down, but it has a ways to go yet, and there are no guarantees that will happen. Dr. Chen ordered another MRI to get a closer look at what's going on, and wants me back for another follow-up in a month.

I drove back to the office not knowing if my cancer was caught by my treatments, and I still have no clear idea about when I'll be able to talk again and eat through my mouth.

When I sat at my computer, I went directly to the Pulitzer website to read the list of winners for 2009, which had been announced while I was seeing the doctor.

In the Pulitzer Prize ceremony in my head, I took top honors in three categories, was finalist in two others, and my editors and fellow journos celebrated with me by pouring Champagne down my G-tube and sticking cigars in my trach tube.

Back in the real world, I still have cancer and a tongue that swells. Well, there's always next month to look forward to.