Slip-Slidin' Away

"You know the nearer your destination, the more you're slip-slidin' away." Paul Simon

My apologies for the high school yearbook styled start. Honestly, I am not a great fan of Paul Simon. Although I was sentient when this song came out in 1975, I didn’t much care for it. Paul Simon’s catchy refrain dug itself into my ear last week, though, for some fairly obvious reasons.

Most of all, this process of steadily increased suffering via the hammer of Western oncologic medicine brings a certain feeling of dissolution. The values I have long held, my life dreams, images of the future — all start to waver under the glow of this incessant radiation and the defragmentation of my DNA by the cisplatin. What I might call “my personality” feels to be shrinking away.

So, too, are my tumors. This is not intended to be a downbeat post. I looked in my mouth last week and there it was: actual space between my left tonsil and my dangling uvula. My tongue, I dare say, appears a bit flatter, too. My airway has mostly stopped collapsing at night. The odd thing is, the “Me” I thought I inhabited a month ago would have predicted outright jubilation at this sight, the best possible news of a predictably responsive tumor. My actual reaction?

“Nice to be able to tell Michelle and the kids about this.” Emotionally, hardly anything at all. All that matters is the time left of this treatment. How much longer? At the time I peered into my mouth, another month. Another hard month. Now it’s three weeks. Another hard three weeks. I can’t even celebrate closing in on my finish date.

My physical being, too, is fading away. I’ve lost 10 pounds from my chronically lean frame. When I look in the changing room mirror as part of my daily routine before radiation, I see what I euphemistically term my “Bruce Lee body.” I suspect I share his 5% body fat composition by now. (It’s possible that his muscle definition was slightly more pronounced than mine, however.)

source: https://pin.it/6NDcaWL

You know, on second look, my muscle definition is pretty much right there given my 5 minutes of daily weight work with 15# dumbbells, but I won’t include a photo in support, as that would be unbecoming of a medical professional. I also notice another commonality, in that the skin at the base of my neck is starting to break down in small blisters and scabs as a response to the radiation. The overall effect, I think, were I to tear off my shirt in response to a challenge from a hospital administrator or parking garage attendant, would be pretty terrifyingly similar to the image above.

Where was I? Yes, I believe I was complaining that I am wasting away. My daily, usually hourly, wish is that I could stop eating altogether. In better times, I enjoy food and drink, immensely. I do not relish the opportunity to fast. Nothing, however, sounds more appealing right now than a lengthy fast. The constant need to dump calories into my mouth despite a near-total lack of appetite, occasional nausea in the days after my cisplatin infusion, and cycles of profound oral discomfort (strangely better this week!), painfully reminds me of the wonderful role food has always played in my life. I miss enjoying it. I despise hating it.

Today, my sister, who has flown down from Alaska to join me for a few days, and I ordered up some incredible soup dumplings from a Taiwanese restaurant. I had eaten them with friends in the weeks before starting treatment, so they were free of the negative connotations of all the foods I have gamely digested since. They almost sounded good to eat. They looked beautiful and smelled delicious. I put them in my mouth and… surprise. My beleaguered taste buds informed me that the delicate pork stuffing dipped in soy sauce was actually a vanilla protein smoothie. NOOOOOO!

Food, sumptuous, community-building, pleasure-providing food, is an integral part of my identity. Now, it is an unpleasant means to an end, the avoidance of excessive weight loss and protein-wasting.

The mismatch of calories taken in to calories required by this absurdly hypermetabolic chemoradiation process probably contributes to the feelings of weakness I sometimes experience on my daily walks with family through the nearby park. I’m a hiker and runner, not a stroller, but my kids now glide up the hill that leads us home at twice my speed. Yesterday morning, getting up in the dark to empty my bladder, I lurched a bit for the first time, my phone clattering to the floor. Some afternoons my head feels oddly swimmy; nothing a nap can’t cure, but I rail against naps and all things which sap me of my productivity.

That, ultimately, is my next lesson to embrace. I can’t accomplish everything in my ambitious self’s dreams. I’m not the man I was a month ago. I might never be again.

It’s okay, though. Three more weeks of this breaking down, and I should be well on the way to a clean CT scan in three months. I should live for a good while. I’m okay slip-slidin’ away if that’s the destination I’m nearing.