homeward bound

The paresthesis, for lack of a more accurate term, has got substantially worse and is now accompanied by burning sensations on?/in? my right hand and foot along with the previously-reported pins and needles. The good news is that it’s become so bad that it’s passed (more diffused) to my left side as well – strangely, but logically, considered a positive sign in the topsy-turvy world of neurology.

Diagnosing me via SMS (I was in Spain, she was leaving for the States), my neurologist blamed the usual suspect, the chemo culprit, for my new-found numbness. Seeing me in person on Tuesday, my neurosurgeon, Dr. Klener, gave me a slightly more thorough exam and concurred with her diagnosis. I will have an MRI on October 7th just to be sure. Forgot to ask whether or not this kind of nerve damage is permanent.

I went over to Will and Irina’s for dinner and the traditional bestowing upon of the winter coat on Wednesday - my Mother got last year’s. My first leather coat! And boy is it stylish! But here’s a picture of violins instead:

¡Me lo pasé dpm en Madrid! ¡Gracias a todos! Despite the fact that I lost another molar - this time to a potato chip, which I shouldn’t have been eating anyway. My dentist patched it up yesterday and will replace my chewed-up Terminator-(1)-looking crown, busted since February, a week from Monday.

The big Bulgarian beach barbecue is off (not only for the obvious health implications of ‘beach’ and ‘barbecue’, not to mention ‘Bulgarian’); and although they were practically paying us to go there toward the end, the grapes were really a bit sour: -20 degrees and hail the size of soccer balls or something. I did, however, get my ticket to the States after a protracted struggle with the delta.com booking UI, which has no back button and expects both decisiveness and perfection at every screen.

I’ll go up to Rügen Island for Henny and Florian’s wedding weekend on the 24th of October, apparently, and fly out of Berlin nonstop to JFK on the 30th. After about two weeks in the tri-state area, my other intended ports of call include: Baltimore/DC, Denver, San Francisco, possibly Austin, Miami and then Fort Myers, Florida for Christmas.

Tickets are surprisingly reasonable, pretty much regardless of the order of the aforementioned cities, so let me know if there are any potential conflicts or preferences. Nothing’s set in stone, I’m still flexible, but need to be fast. I should get the ticket early next week at the latest.

After Christmas, I’ll either go back to NY (for more), to Seattle or Bethesda (for clinical trials), Argentina and Brazil (just for kicks), or any combination of the above. I’m to return to Berlin on February 17th - hopefully to good news from the Embassy. I still need to get my papers in order (all over again), sublet my apartment and find someone to take care of the šlupers.

Some of my friends from the Northwest Territories took umbrage at my characterization of Sarah Palin as “Canadian-sounding”. If only she were Canadian, as Mary points out, she would have more to recommend her. I’d take Anne Murray or Robin Sparkles over Palin any day. Unfortunately, it’s specifically forbidden by the American Constitution. Wait a minute... that never stopped Bush!

So apologies to my brothers and sisters both to and from the North and, if you haven’t seen it already:

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

Vrat's birthday tonight.

la vuelta de españa

Sorry it’s been awhile, but I’m in:

And don’t have a lot to report, medically, that is, but hope to make up for lack of text with some visuals.

I got the part as ‘housepainter extra’ or something from that casting after all. I guess dude must have been: too drunk to remember, overcome by remorse, completely desperate or most probably just some low-level flunky who happens to have a laptop and hang out with film people while trying to look important.

Fortunately, I had already bought my ticket to Madrid and therefore had the perfect excuse not to get up at 5AM for three days in a row and go all the way out to boondock Barrandov for full-day pretend house-painting and crap money. Maybe next time.

I arrived here last Friday, pretty much without a hitch - plane was late, food was terrible, but I was not immediately deported :-) Paco and I went straight to the hospital from the airport (his appointment, not mine for once), so I could feel a little more at home - shop and compare, as it were.

I’m floating between Pensión América (Paco’s Mom’s place downtown, where I used to live) and his beautiful new apartment in the near-burbs of Coslada from whence I’m writing now.

Been travelling around a lot: Chinchón, some town called Ear, up to the source of the river Manzanares, etc. and on Tuesday, we went to Salamanca to see Paco’s sister and pick up his nephew for school in Madrid. Here’s a picture of Paco, me and Rebe (his beautiful bird) in the Plaza Mayor in Salamanca:

Having a really great time, eating unbelievably well and healthy - no chorizo for Mikey this time, but lots of fish, fruits and vegetables:

I’ve been experiencing some paresthesis (numbness, tingling) in my right foot and hand, which has had me a little worried. I’m going to try to order a brain MRI when I get back to Prague, as it’s about time for one anyway.

Although it would be a greater risk than coming here, I may go to Bulgaria with my Prague peeps next week. I’ll let you know. Going to see the Senator DJ in Lavapiés (Footwash) tonight – should be wild.

As always, thanks for your patience, comments and continuing support. ¡Hasta muy pronto!

working in the garden

I had my last dose(s) of radiation today (I had mistakenly miscounted in the last post, apologies) and couldn’t be more pleased. The red areas are redder and I’ve lost a bit of hair in the pit and, aside from the: seemingly indelible, inscrutable, ‘out, out damn spot’, unscrubable, stigmatic welts of crosses from the dye, I’m fine.

Went to my good friend and former prodigy’s cottage up in my old rhinoceros stomping grounds of České Středohoří on Friday to help him with some gardening:

I unfortunately got called back on a callback for a commercial much earlier than I had planned on Saturday afternoon, only to find out that the casting director was the selfsame schmuck I had a bit of a ‘disagreement’ with last Tuesday at the karaoke of all places. With my recently-acquired arch-nemesis calling the shots, I doubt I have one. Prague is really too small.

So I bought a ticket for Madrid. I have some time before my next CT scan on the 25th and need to get the hell out of here for a bit. I’ll have a PET scan some time in late October and then plan to go to the States in time to vote.

If melanoma ever makes me crazy enough to pick a gun-toting, creationist, pregnant-teenage-daughter-having, small town politick, Canadian-sounding (no offence, but c’mon), right-wing whackjob as my back-up, just pull the plug.

My mother fractured both her tibia and her fibula playing golf with a baby this past weekend, but is recovering nicely.

Happy (only-in-America, gotta be different) Labor Day! Go Obama!

something rotten in iceland

Jon left Thursday at 4AM and Mark took off yesterday morning. Jon and I went to see Sigur Rós last Tuesday amidst all the hype, hyperbole and hooplah over Britain’s #5 band. Jon and I have probably seen close to a hundred concerts together and this show was no exception, since we saw it together. What made it exceptional was that it was the worst, most expensive (@$50) concert either of us had ever seen. Not that we saw it, really, as there was a very bright spotlight trained on our retinas for the duration of the show.

From the inane rambling falsetto bilge of their made-up language to the droning dirge of the pompous, yet uninspired instruments, these guys (and their PR machine) did not fail to disappoint. Their cookie-cutter formulaic cheese coupled with the unlimited freedom of arbitrary, meaningless strings of phonemes make them a better business plan than a band, as the duped hordes of post-gothic whitey that filled the stadium rapturously attested. They spared us a second encore, but replaced it with pretentious histrionic curtain calls. A sham of a mockery of a farce of a scam. The emperor is stark naked and we felt like we’d been mugged.

My blood results were good last week: white blood count: 8.5 and platelets: 202. Thursday’s sonogram revealed a very enlarged (by 13mm) and damaged gall bladder, most probably a direct result of the chemo, but no stones, sort of thankfully. The damage (chronic cholecystitus), I’m told, is permanent, since it’s chronic. My prostate continues to be enlarged as well, but that was all the bad news. My liver, kidneys, pancreas, bladder and even my spleen, all check out fine.

Radiation again tomorrow – just five more sessions to go. I’m starting to get pretty red around the radiated areas now, but was expecting this, as I’d seen it on my fellow radiatees in more obvious places.

Had a great but exhausting time with Jon and I landed a lot of unexpected work last week, so I haven’t been able to post. I went to Efka & Scott’s wedding out in the middle of nowhere yesterday and had a blast. Here’s a picture of the bride blushing along with her bridesmaids, the groom and the preacher:

Looks like we’re off to Crimea if we can get there before the Russians invade (again). Still no visa.

the paper curtain

I met with my radiologist on Monday. She looked at my chest, declared an improved case of shingles, cancelled my medication, filled my other prescriptions and sent me on my way to the radiator. A whole three minutes! I think she’s warming up to me.

I threw up a whole lot of nothing yesterday morning before heading off to the hospital for blood tests and round #4 of radiation. Radiation sickness is pretty different from chemo nausea – not as bad really. I feel OK today.

After weeks of amateur repainting of my tattoos by just about everyone from a few aspiring Modrians to mostly wannabe Pollocks, the Chinese whispers had caused a drift in my markings of several centimeters in seemingly random directions. This didn’t go unnoticed by the professionals and they had to start from scratch by taking more chest x-rays and realigning me with my original CT.

The subsequent over-painting left my torso a messy mass of religious and runic symbols:

Mark thinks that they’re not really giving me any radiation, but just painting crosses on my body and hoping that will work.

I get my blood results back on Monday along with more radiation and have a sonogram on Thursday of my gall stones and then again more radiation.

The Russian invasion of my intended beach vacation and my ongoing visa limbo has left September’s travel plans unclear to say the least. We’re now thinking Bulgaria. I’m going to have to bring some stronger pressure to bear on my visa situation if I ever hope to get out of the country alive (pun intended). Jon gets back from Germany tomorrow morning with news from beyond the paper curtain.

visa: it’s everywhere you wanna be

They weren’t kidding when they came up with that slogan. I still don’t know what’s going on. The woman at the consulate gave me the number of the law that I was ostensibly breaking last week and it turned out to have something to do with the division of assets after the break-up of Czechoslovakia or something. I spent an entire week thinking that they were trying to pin the split of the country on me somehow. I had nothing to do with it, I swear. I even thought it was a bad idea at the time and still do. “So you’re the reason we lost the Tatras,” one friend said to me. The shame.

I found out today that one of us (I still think it was her) got the year (of the law) wrong and it actually does refer to the latest long-winded list of reasons that one can be denied a visa to the Czech Republic without being specific at all, however, as to which I am guilty thereof, violation therein, nor compliant nonwith. Oh well.

I bowled a 192 on Saturday - not my best, but a hell of a lot better than my last game in December before my diagnosis (I was kinda paralyzed), which was a miserable 40: lower even than the 68 I got my first game at the age of 8.

We had a motley-crewed barbecue blast at Jirka’s on Sunday. Here’s a picture of a man with breasts who was at the beach – I thought I had it bad:

Radiation on Monday was around 40 seconds (I counted - silently to myself) of low-pitch dentist drill buzz in the radiator for each pair of tumors. I then met with my radiologist for my first check-up with her. She said hello, looked at my chest, declared a mild case of shingles, cancelled Thursday’s radiation and prescribed a lot of heavy-duty medication. "See you on Monday. That is all."

It’s clearing up fairly nicely already and I should be ready for Monday’s session. Tim left yesterday morning and Jon comes tomorrow with his wife, Annette, so Mark had to redo my tats today.

the radiator

Apparently my 11AM Monday radiation appointment was only ‘orientační’ or ballpark for 12:30PM, which is now my newly-established ballpark time – every Monday and Thursday until the 28th. The procedure itself is quick, painless and kinda weird if you think about it too much. I got a blister on my chest the day after my first treatment, but feel fine now after the second.

Tim and I got up yesterday morning just after six for a big day at the hospitals and went to see my oncologist shortly after the blood test. My platelets are up to 180! That’s at least 30 to spare and still be barely healthy! WBC steady at 3.2. The ‘official’ CT results are riddled with spelling mistakes in Czech and close to incomprehensible otherwise, but here goes:

I have four tumors, not three: two in the left pit nodes and two in the mediastinal lymph nodes – very near the lung, but not actually in the lung, after all. All four are ‘slightly’ shrunken when compared to the May 16th CT, according to the report’s conclusion. If you look at the actual numbers, however, or listen to my oncologist for that matter, the shrinkage is a bit more significant. Example: the largest tumor near the lung has gone from 38mm to 26mm in diameter.

I asked my oncologist, since all of my tumors are now purely lymphatic, if we could take her down to DEFCON 3, as it were, (or ‘orange alert’ for those of you who didn’t grow up during the cold war) from Stage 4 melanoma. She tapped her head (indicating my former baseball brain tumor) - “But, that’s been long gone since February!” I protested. She said that it really didn’t work that way :-(

They’re also a bit worried about my gall stones and will do a sonogram on the 21st. Between the morning sickness and the sonogram, I should give birth sometime in October – to an enlarged prostate.

We passed the time between appointments hanging out at Homolka and playing with a lucky, limber scarab who impressed us with his acrobatic feats of fancy:

Then off to get zapped again. The lab assistant asked me:

“You’re the guy who took that mole off himself, right?”
“Yeah, that’s me, some hair and string, yeah...”
“That’s not a very good idea.”
“No, not really, no.”

She took this picture of me in the radiator:


We got up this morning to go to KV, only to find out that the buses were sold out until night time. Oh yeah, and my visa was rejected today - more on that (hopefully) in my next post. Stay tuned!