motolFEST

Thanks for all your supportive comments and sorry this post is such a long time coming, but it’s been a pretty busy week.

I got up at 5 in the morning on Monday to meet Tim at the airport (I was still a bit late) and we took a taxi straight to the hospital for my blood test. Platelets up to 82 and probably much higher by now; WBC 3.2 and also likely on the rise.

I asked my oncologist about the phenylalanine connection and she was unaware of it, so I don’t feel so stupid. Going from thinking for months that I had brought this upon myself by being cheap and impatient and performing home surgery, only to find out that that probably wasn’t the cause. To realize that I had possibly been sabotaging my own therapy by being vain and wasteful is a lot to take at once. Shoulda woulda didn’t, but don't anymore.

Round two of ‘radiation planning’ on Wednesday consisted of a repeat repainting of my tattoos and another completely uneventful non-‘spin’ in the ‘simulator’ for about ten minutes. Maybe I should keep my eyes open or at least try not to nap next time. I go under the zapper for real on Monday at 11 and am supposed to bring my own towel.

We went to see the Hungarian gypsy band, Parno Graszt, that night at Rock Café, who played for an hour and a half on stage and then another hour and a half unplugged at the bar right next to our table. Excellent.

I can't make head nor tail of my CT scan results from yesterday, so I’ll have to wait for the official analysis some time this year. I didn’t have my žádanka, so we had to wait until my oncologist sent it down Stone-Age-pneumatic-tubicly. The nurse was a bit of a bitch and answered all of my questions with “LIE DOWN!” so I did, eventually. She then stuck me with the old plastic kanyla needle and pumped me full of contrast solution – pretty painful. Luckily, the whole thing lasted less than 20 minutes.

I had Dr. Wang’s reception in stitches when, after having grabbed a pair of filthy old lady fake leather sandal shoe-type things that certainly didn’t look any more hygienic than my own Nike™s, asked, “I’m not really expected to wear these, am I?” The owner of the ‘shoes’ came out moments later to the sound of muffled snickers. I fell asleep during acupuncture and dreamt that I was having acupuncture.

Am having a great time with Tim, who seems to find more time than I do to post. There are thousands of those posters left all over the hospital and the event happened well over a month ago. I felt entitled. Here’s a picture of Tim, Martha, the poster in question, and Mark:

I don't know if you can make it out, but the poster shows doctors and patients drinking, urinating and being attacked by dogs.