Bump it With a Trumpet, But Not After a Biopsy

Today was the return visit for the three month Bone Aspiration and Biopsy.
I wish I could say that it went well.  After several tries and bottles of numbing agents on the right rear pelvis, my hipbone was apparently too dense (thanks a LOT, Mom for all that stupid milk!!!).  The doc then tried several times on the left.  She hit the root of a spinal nerve and all hell broke loose.  It felt as if I had LICKED the third rail.  I don't remember it, but I apparently I screamed and twitched around for a bit.  I made them stop.  Covered in sweat-and having ripped up the bedding, I told them that we were DONE.
So, now, I have to go to Mission Hospital and have something called Twilight Sleep induced.  I'm not exactly sure what that is, other than a Tolkein-esque title for something that will probably cause me to spill State secrets.  I frankly do not CARE what it is as long as I do not feel a damned thing when they open me up like a wine bottle.  This was freaking awful.  And I've gone through herniated discs.

On the lighter side, Gypsy opened and it is really an incredible show.  It's always been my favourite as it's more or less our history as performers.  We descend from Vaudeville, Burlesque, Music Hall, etc... Just a joy to be a part of it, and if that overture doesn't get you going you have no soul.

As One Does...

Ah, Mondays... Or--as I like to call them; The Day of The Doctor...
Schlepp to Asheville today to meet with my Oncologist (still can't get my head around THAT sentence).  The numbers are all good.  Platelets up, which means I won't go all Queen Victoria's Grandchildren if nicked... look it up...
White count almost TOO low.  We are heading toward Remission folks, I would do an Uptown Funky Walk, but it's unseemly in a man of my years.

My doc visits have been curtailed from four a month to twice a month, which is bloody marvelous as I'd like at least ONE day in my life where I can sleep in and loll with Dawg.

Annoyingly enough, I still have to have another biopsy.  This is a matter of routine, but I take umbrage at feeling like a badly stored Barollo--i.e., having a doc go at my rear pelvis with a 22 gauge needle to yank out a piece of bone with marrow attached.  Yeah... YOU do it and see what kind of mood you're in for the next two weeks.  It HURTS, people.  You feel that mess all the way down your femur like the aftermath of touching a non-grounded wire when installing a ceiling fan (Yes... that's specific.  Why?  Because I've done it.)  The drive home is ... eventful.

Still, things are looking good and tomorrow we begin rehearsals for Gypsy.  I'm the Assistant Director and assisting a Director and friend I love and respect on possibly my favourite show on this earth.  It's a love letter to theatre and to relationships.  Lots of experience with the former... still looking askance at the latter.

The Kiss My Ass, Cancer Garden is growing, although rain felled a 5'4", burgundy, "Chocolate" Dahlia.  I've staked it, but it's not looking happy.  Also, I backed over my Cherokee Heirloom tomato--as I continually moved it around to find sun, and re-potted what was left along with organic fertilizer and a cage to keep it standing tall.  It looks suprised and irritated.

Utterly thrilled with SCOTUS (I'm sorry, that still sounds rather odd)'s decision on marriage equality.  Enough dithering with bigotry... get it done.  Marry whom you love and leave archaic nonsense out of it.  I don't wanna hear biblical quotes on it any longer as that book also regulated what a man does with his MANY wives... and slaves.  Forgive me if I do not take marriage counseling from a tome that demands I be stoned to death for wearing contrasting material or planting different crops next to one another.  I tend to think that THAT particular deity had a bit of a Personality Disorder.

At any rate...

Much love to all and to all a goodnight.

Step Ball Change

Monday numbers are all good.  Fighting fatigue and dizziness like a champ.  It could be so much worse; bone pain, nausea, headaches, etc... I seem to be, thank Goddess, one of the lucky ones.
I began rehearsals for How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and we are now in Technical Rehearsals... or, as a favourite director of mine once said, When We See Who People REALLY Are.  Does separate the wheat from the chaff. 

My role is small, which suits me just fine as I come back to life after a very strange six months of insolvency, being a maid, being a caterer, being a waiter and essentially being terrified of where the next dollar is coming from.  Two paycheques have rolled in and rolled right back out again as the bills are paid.  Three car payments in one months.  Oh myyyy.

I have to dance in the eleven o'clock number and reigniting that twenty year dormant part of my brain is ... new.  All I hope for is to remember the steps, not to fall, not to fart, not to break anything of mine--or the man next to me and to SING OUT LOUISE.

It's amazing what goes through my mind as I'm step-ball changing away.  The poker face is plastered on, but it's been a LOOONG time since I broke that kind of a sweat onstage that wasn't nerve or costume induced.  Good old-fashioned activity.  It's fun, but I DO see occasional, "Oh my God, that old guy is gonna keel over", looks on colleagues faces.

The cast is excellent and brilliantly talented and the set/costumes are gorgeous.  Jewel Tone-apalooza.  Aquas... oranges (makes me miss Howard Johnsons in Times Square), greens, golds, etc... 
Reunions of actors who have been here in previous years and brand new ones.

Doctor-wise, things seem fine.  Numbers all in the manageable area.  Here's hoping this continues.

I'm hungry.

Boring, but Good

I had a doc appointment Monday.  Apparently, all is going swimmingly well.  Great news indeed.  Still existential to think this is going on, when I feel better than I have in years.  An occasional dizzy spell or a fatigued moment and then right back on form.

The interesting thing is how some folks relate to me.  I get pulled aside from time to time, with the obligatory hand on my shoulder and intent gaze.... "How are you... REALLY????".  I mean, I appreciate the concern, but it gets a bit tiresome repeating the same initial shocking, then good, news 84.000 time a day.

I do seem to care a lot less about the daily nonsense.  In reality, I just go to work, learn my lines, figure it out, come home... Dawg.

Sort of a simpler life, doing exactly what I want to do.  Heh... Could be worse, I suppose.

Zzzzzzzz....

Whoa.  WHOA.  WHOOOOOAAAAA!!!!!

Okay, apparently the drug is working so bloody well, that they are taking me off of it for four days while they figure out the next best thing.

Hopefully, since I'm responding well, it will be a much lower dosage as I am beginning to feel like an extra in Night of The Living Dead.  I wander around in a "Did I Leave the Oven On?" fog... forgetting what I'm saying in the middle of a sentence and basically wanting to lie down while driving.  Frowned upon, on most roadways.

The show that I am directing seems to be going well, which is a colossal relief, as I haven't done this before and I'm enjoying it.  Being "IN CHARGE" is an odd mind set for me, as I have always been an Indian rather than a Chief, but I think I might like it.  God... I can certainly pontificate when I need to make a point.

I'm going back to the theatre to begin and finish the season until late December, so paychecks and the applause that I whore for will return to my rafters.

Cancer World!!!! The Theme Park No One Wants to Go To

Yesterday, I spent the morning being siphoned and then the afternoon driving two hours to a "CANCER CENTER" two hours away to be siphoned AGAIN, then herded through endless examination rooms, hallways within hallways, into another windowless room, to be dealt with by caaaaaring nurses.  And finally an Oncologist who gives me more news--luckily good, that I am responding to treatment like a love letter to this new drug.  I was VERY relieved, but this is still only five weeks in, so I reserve the right to allow joy to come to the dance

Needless to say, I am happy and grateful.
I know others are going through so much more, but there is such a feeling of US and THEM in a doctor's office when dealing with disease. As if I'm being examined behind bars.  I can't help but make the gap lessen by saying something completely irreverent to make the Nurse/Phlebotomist gasp, or at least laugh.  Throwing someone off guard while they are holding needles is probably less than wise, but certainly a way to be thought of as a sentient entity, rather than a test tube.

I just have this trigger about being a number.  I insist on being a person in the damned room.  I realize that this is probably how they are seeing me, but the inner rebel-without-a-clue can't help it and out comes the rubber chicken.  Wacka wacka... (Michele Ragusa, this is all your fault :)  )

On the way home, I stopped in a one horse town at a Golden Corral and gorged--as I hadn't eaten in hours and despite the constant weight loss connected to this disease, I can't help a trough when the moment arrives.
TRULY a lesson in what I don't want to be, yet a strange feeling that I am with my people.
Southerners fresh from church in their polyester skirts complimented by their equally rayon doctrines... Acutely obese children begging their mothers for more yellow "vegetables".  I look at them with a strange aversion and recognition.  These are my people... that I DO NOT want to be like.  I will inwardly judge them, but become enraged if anyone outside my ken casts a disparaging eye their way.
Difficult to explain and I'm not exactly proud of it, but maybe Margaret Mead would understand!

Home to begin direction of a show at Connemara with our new Apprentices--that fill me with such pride and desire to do right by them.  Art mirrored by life complicated by mortality.

Time for some more wine, I think.

Brief.... almost Haiku-esque

I literally am becoming a Platinum Magnolia (equally durable, but FAAAR more expensive).
A local deli has asked me to bake and supply them with pastries, and I really love this place, so it's no problem.

In one week I'm directing a show.

In two weeks I'm rehearsing for one... all the while gardening, stirring and SURVIVING.
Take that, warped chromasomes!