I seem to add to this blog when I get a writing assignment from one of my writing/cancer support groups. This assignment came from my on-line writing group. The prompt had something to do with hopes and goals. I forget the exact wording of the prompt. In fact, I'd forgotten the exact wording of the prompt when I wrote the assignment. Good thing this isn't for college credit:
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Hope can get you through the night, or it can distract you from achievable goals. Hope is never having to say, "Fuhgeddaboutit, I'm just going to watch TV and vegetate until I die." Be careful what you hope for. You may get it, and it may not be enough.
OK, so much for the pithy philosophoids. (Philosophoid--n. made up word signifying a concept expressed in a sentence or two that pretends to be philosophical, but isn't.)
What am I hoping for? I'm kind of hoping to be an outlier. 99.9% of people diagnosed with stage IV non small cell lung cancer are dead within five years. I got that diagnosis in the spring of 2008, and I was finished with my treatment with "curative intent" by 9/25/08. It's been three years, and so far, no recurrence. I'd knock on wood, but I'm not sure anything is made of actual wood anymore.
Goals. My wife died in Sept. of '09. I liked being married. I want to be in love again. Other than that, I want to enjoy my life and enjoy my family. We can entitle this, "The Goals of a Lazy Man."
Henry
Not your ordinary memoir
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Poem
I missed the LunchLines meeting two days ago, but I did write a poem for it and emailed it to the group. Now I'm putting it in this blog. The topic for this week was, of all things, rabies. Here's what I wrote:
_____________________________________________
Mad Dog Joe
b. 1860 d. 1884
R.I.P.
Joe Czarnecki grew up,
but he didn't grow wise.
He was a hod carrier
In Chicago.
They were doing lots of building in Chicago
Back then. They'd had a fire.
It was honest work,
But those hods were heavy.
He decided to go west,
And become a gunslinger.
It was dangerous work,
But guns are lighter than hods.
When he got to Tombstone, Arizona,
He needed a moniker.
One that would inspire fear
When he was out gunslinging.
He slung his gun
Only once.
Below the R.I.P. on his marker
on Boot Hill, it said.
Here lies Mad Dog Joe.
He slung his gun too slow.
_____________________________
by Henry Farkas
_____________________________________________
Mad Dog Joe
b. 1860 d. 1884
R.I.P.
Joe Czarnecki grew up,
but he didn't grow wise.
He was a hod carrier
In Chicago.
They were doing lots of building in Chicago
Back then. They'd had a fire.
It was honest work,
But those hods were heavy.
He decided to go west,
And become a gunslinger.
It was dangerous work,
But guns are lighter than hods.
When he got to Tombstone, Arizona,
He needed a moniker.
One that would inspire fear
When he was out gunslinging.
He slung his gun
Only once.
Below the R.I.P. on his marker
on Boot Hill, it said.
Here lies Mad Dog Joe.
He slung his gun too slow.
_____________________________
by Henry Farkas
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Another Essay for the Cancer Support/Writing Group at the Cancer Support Community Benjamin Center
Topic Assignment: What do you say, or how do you respond to those who offer unsolicited or unhelpful advice?
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Everything depends on what they say. If they tell me how good I look, I understand that they mean that I look much better than your average dead person who’s been in the ground for the past few months, but that doesn’t bother me. I just say, “Thanks.”
If they tell me that I should immediately switch to a macrobiotic diet or some other diet du jour, I smile and tell them that a person has to have priorities, and food is one of them for me. You can tell. Just look at me. I’ve had lots of hospice patients whose wives made them stick to one miserable diet or another, and they died anyway. It’s never the husbands who get insistent on particular diets, it’s always the wives.
If they tell me they’re praying for me, I thank them and point out that I’m not good at praying myself so, just in case prayer actually works, I appreciate their help. If there’s time, I point out that there was actually a controlled study that showed that remote intercessory prayer seemed to have a beneficial effect on the patients who got the prayers as opposed to the people in the control group who didn’t get the prayers. The prayers were quite remote. The people doing the praying didn't know what hospital the patients were in. They were just told the patients' first names. Unfortunately, when the study was repeated to see if it would work again, it didn’t.
So far, nobody has advised me to get a mango colonic. I like mango juice, but I'm not a fan of colonics.
====================================
Everything depends on what they say. If they tell me how good I look, I understand that they mean that I look much better than your average dead person who’s been in the ground for the past few months, but that doesn’t bother me. I just say, “Thanks.”
If they tell me that I should immediately switch to a macrobiotic diet or some other diet du jour, I smile and tell them that a person has to have priorities, and food is one of them for me. You can tell. Just look at me. I’ve had lots of hospice patients whose wives made them stick to one miserable diet or another, and they died anyway. It’s never the husbands who get insistent on particular diets, it’s always the wives.
If they tell me they’re praying for me, I thank them and point out that I’m not good at praying myself so, just in case prayer actually works, I appreciate their help. If there’s time, I point out that there was actually a controlled study that showed that remote intercessory prayer seemed to have a beneficial effect on the patients who got the prayers as opposed to the people in the control group who didn’t get the prayers. The prayers were quite remote. The people doing the praying didn't know what hospital the patients were in. They were just told the patients' first names. Unfortunately, when the study was repeated to see if it would work again, it didn’t.
So far, nobody has advised me to get a mango colonic. I like mango juice, but I'm not a fan of colonics.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Cancer Support/Writing Group Strikes Again
Assigned Topic: "I have learned that in life, there is sometimes a second chance."
====================================================
This topic seems to me to be about what you do to re-order your priorities when you get a cancer diagnosis. It’s not just that a cancer cure gives a person a second chance. It’s the very diagnosis that brings you the opportunity for figuring out what the second chance ought to be. Good thing about that, because not everyone gets cured from cancer.
Of course, there’s a downside to this opportunity for a second chance. If you die of, say, getting hit by a piece of space junk that comes down from its orbit, traveling at 17,500 miles an hour relative to the surface of the earth, and kills you instantly, you don’t get that opportunity for a second chance, but, on the other hand, you don’t suffer very much, or for very long. With dying from cancer, the process is slower and, sometimes, unpleasant.
So maybe the best option is to get the cancer diagnosis, but when the time comes that the treatment is failing, go stand outside during a meteor shower.
Woody Allen once said, “I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” But everyone has to die sometime, of something. There wouldn’t be room on earth for new people if the old people didn’t kick the bucket. The key thing is to make your life count for something, and, sometimes, it takes a bother like a cancer diagnosis to give you a second chance to figure out how to go about doing that.
For what it's worth, in my particular case, I haven't figured out what to do to make this part of my life count for something.
====================================================
This topic seems to me to be about what you do to re-order your priorities when you get a cancer diagnosis. It’s not just that a cancer cure gives a person a second chance. It’s the very diagnosis that brings you the opportunity for figuring out what the second chance ought to be. Good thing about that, because not everyone gets cured from cancer.
Of course, there’s a downside to this opportunity for a second chance. If you die of, say, getting hit by a piece of space junk that comes down from its orbit, traveling at 17,500 miles an hour relative to the surface of the earth, and kills you instantly, you don’t get that opportunity for a second chance, but, on the other hand, you don’t suffer very much, or for very long. With dying from cancer, the process is slower and, sometimes, unpleasant.
So maybe the best option is to get the cancer diagnosis, but when the time comes that the treatment is failing, go stand outside during a meteor shower.
Woody Allen once said, “I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.” But everyone has to die sometime, of something. There wouldn’t be room on earth for new people if the old people didn’t kick the bucket. The key thing is to make your life count for something, and, sometimes, it takes a bother like a cancer diagnosis to give you a second chance to figure out how to go about doing that.
For what it's worth, in my particular case, I haven't figured out what to do to make this part of my life count for something.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Yet another essay from my writing/cancer support group
Assigned Topic: Write about how an enforced discipline either made me, or didn’t make me, into the person I want to be.
The term, "enforced discipline," needs to be defined by me.
=====================================================
My definition of an "enforced discipline" is something I was forced to learn that I’d have preferred not to have had to learn.
Thinking…
OK, I never really wanted to go to Hebrew School. I didn’t mind hearing about the bible stories or the stories behind the Jewish holidays. It was the Hebrew language that I just couldn’t get my head around. And it wasn’t the fact that they write it backwards. I actually thought that was kind of cute, and the Hebrew letters were reasonably nicely designed. I just am not the sort of person who’s good at languages. I took a year of French in high school and two years of French in college, and I’m not very good at French either. Heck, if it weren’t for the fact that I was married to an English teacher for forty-three years, English would be a language that I wouldn’t be good at. Looking at the previous sentence, I still may not be all that good at English.
So Hebrew school was an enforced discipline for me. What sort of person was it supposed to turn me into? Well, a Jew. And I am a Jew so I guess that worked even if I didn’t enjoy the process.
But the topic implies that I should decide whether I wanted to be a Jew. That’s more difficult to figure out. Clearly my first experience with Judaism, the circumcision at day eight of my life, a process that may become illegal in Santa Monica and San Francisco after the next election, was probably not subjectively pleasant, but I don’t remember it well enough to know if the drop of Manischewitz wine they gave me at the time was enough of an anesthetic to overcome the discomfort. I guess I can’t actually figure out if I wanted to be a Jew or not. I just am one.
The term, "enforced discipline," needs to be defined by me.
=====================================================
My definition of an "enforced discipline" is something I was forced to learn that I’d have preferred not to have had to learn.
Thinking…
OK, I never really wanted to go to Hebrew School. I didn’t mind hearing about the bible stories or the stories behind the Jewish holidays. It was the Hebrew language that I just couldn’t get my head around. And it wasn’t the fact that they write it backwards. I actually thought that was kind of cute, and the Hebrew letters were reasonably nicely designed. I just am not the sort of person who’s good at languages. I took a year of French in high school and two years of French in college, and I’m not very good at French either. Heck, if it weren’t for the fact that I was married to an English teacher for forty-three years, English would be a language that I wouldn’t be good at. Looking at the previous sentence, I still may not be all that good at English.
So Hebrew school was an enforced discipline for me. What sort of person was it supposed to turn me into? Well, a Jew. And I am a Jew so I guess that worked even if I didn’t enjoy the process.
But the topic implies that I should decide whether I wanted to be a Jew. That’s more difficult to figure out. Clearly my first experience with Judaism, the circumcision at day eight of my life, a process that may become illegal in Santa Monica and San Francisco after the next election, was probably not subjectively pleasant, but I don’t remember it well enough to know if the drop of Manischewitz wine they gave me at the time was enough of an anesthetic to overcome the discomfort. I guess I can’t actually figure out if I wanted to be a Jew or not. I just am one.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Cancer Sucks
Acting "As if" means choosing a reaction that seems beneficial and then acting as if that's the way you actually feel. For today's essay, write about a time when you did that. How did it work out?
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Acting 'As if."
We cancer survivors experience acting "As if" all the time. Here's the first time I acted "As if."
The day I got my cancer diagnosis was Sept. 5th, 2006. It was morning. I'd just finished my night shift in the ER, and I'd strolled into the radiology suite to convince the radiologists to slip me into the CT scanner schedule because, two days previously, on the Sunday of the Labor Day weekend, one of the other docs on the medical staff had heard me cough and had gently suggested (all right, not so gently) that I should get a CT scan because my cough sounded to her like the cough you get from lung cancer.
The radiologists re-assured me that as a non-smoker, I had a very low chance at having lung cancer. I pointed out to them that in my part time job as a hospice doc, I'd cared for a few non-smokers who died of lung cancer. So, to placate me, they asked the technician to slip me into the CT schedule.
After the CT, I went into the office of the radiologist who was reading CTs that morning to get my result. He and I were looking at the various views, and I noticed that he wasn't saying anything for a longer time than it would normally take a radiologist to read a negative chest CT. So, I looked more closely, and then I saw something I didn't think was normal. I pointed it out to hem and asked, "Is that what you're looking at?"
"Yes."
"Could it be something else besides cancer?"
"Probably not."
This is where the acting "As if" kicked in. What I wanted to do was yell, "Oh shit."
But I restrained myself and pretended to be calm and rational because that's the way doctors are supposed to be, right? Right.
Well, that worked. Everyone thought I was being calm and rational because I never said, "Oh shit" until, well, just now. Meanwhile, in my head, I was visualizing the hospice patients with lung cancer that I'd been caring for during the previous twenty years.
Getting cancer really is the pits. It changes your whole life around. Some people like to say that finding out you have cancer has a few good points since you re-orient your priorities and re-direct your life toward things that are really important.
Well, that's true, but it's not worth it. Anything good that comes from having cancer is completely outweighed by the bad stuff, the surgery, chemo, sickness, death.
Cancer sucks. There, I said it, and I'm glad.
===================================================
Acting 'As if."
We cancer survivors experience acting "As if" all the time. Here's the first time I acted "As if."
The day I got my cancer diagnosis was Sept. 5th, 2006. It was morning. I'd just finished my night shift in the ER, and I'd strolled into the radiology suite to convince the radiologists to slip me into the CT scanner schedule because, two days previously, on the Sunday of the Labor Day weekend, one of the other docs on the medical staff had heard me cough and had gently suggested (all right, not so gently) that I should get a CT scan because my cough sounded to her like the cough you get from lung cancer.
The radiologists re-assured me that as a non-smoker, I had a very low chance at having lung cancer. I pointed out to them that in my part time job as a hospice doc, I'd cared for a few non-smokers who died of lung cancer. So, to placate me, they asked the technician to slip me into the CT schedule.
After the CT, I went into the office of the radiologist who was reading CTs that morning to get my result. He and I were looking at the various views, and I noticed that he wasn't saying anything for a longer time than it would normally take a radiologist to read a negative chest CT. So, I looked more closely, and then I saw something I didn't think was normal. I pointed it out to hem and asked, "Is that what you're looking at?"
"Yes."
"Could it be something else besides cancer?"
"Probably not."
This is where the acting "As if" kicked in. What I wanted to do was yell, "Oh shit."
But I restrained myself and pretended to be calm and rational because that's the way doctors are supposed to be, right? Right.
Well, that worked. Everyone thought I was being calm and rational because I never said, "Oh shit" until, well, just now. Meanwhile, in my head, I was visualizing the hospice patients with lung cancer that I'd been caring for during the previous twenty years.
Getting cancer really is the pits. It changes your whole life around. Some people like to say that finding out you have cancer has a few good points since you re-orient your priorities and re-direct your life toward things that are really important.
Well, that's true, but it's not worth it. Anything good that comes from having cancer is completely outweighed by the bad stuff, the surgery, chemo, sickness, death.
Cancer sucks. There, I said it, and I'm glad.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Thurmont on a Summer's Day (c)
Thurmont on a Summer's Day (c)
by Henry Farkas
Passing through Thurmont, Maryland
Visiting the goldfish farm.
Large breeder goldfish laying eggs on mats
Mats transferred to indoor tanks.
Fingerlings hatched in those concrete tanks.
Slightly bigger goldfish sent to the ponds.
It's a cycle of nature with regular size goldfish
Driven in plastic water filled bags
To BWI and shipped by air all over the country
While fish poop washes downstream from Thurmont.
The poop should be captured and used as fertilizer
And not sent directly to the Chesapeake Bay.
by Henry Farkas
Passing through Thurmont, Maryland
Visiting the goldfish farm.
Large breeder goldfish laying eggs on mats
Mats transferred to indoor tanks.
Fingerlings hatched in those concrete tanks.
Slightly bigger goldfish sent to the ponds.
It's a cycle of nature with regular size goldfish
Driven in plastic water filled bags
To BWI and shipped by air all over the country
While fish poop washes downstream from Thurmont.
The poop should be captured and used as fertilizer
And not sent directly to the Chesapeake Bay.
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