Black October

It just can't end fast enough.  This has been a horrible month—the fires, my mother's illness, the progression of my friend's lung cancer (she found me through Vox, and we're Stage IV sistahs, moving from one treatment to another), my friend getting scammed by Disney…we could really use a respite.

Life is swirling about me in a most confusing array of events and circumstances.  I feel numb, too afraid to give in to emotions for fear of being swept into despair.  I'm sure I can say this only because I feel well right now—well enough to actually feel deeply something other than fear, anger, or emptiness at the uncertainty my condition has foisted upon my future.

I want to help, yet feel so helpless.  I can hope, but how can I give my mother the will to live?  We are hundreds of miles apart, and my father's part of the problem, rather than the solution.

I'm sure I can't imagine the despair of those who have lost their homes in the fires.  Christopher, Dave, Donna, Dawn, Tony, Cheryl, Susan, Vicky, Joan, Sammy, Judge Dest—-I hope your homes and families were spared.  Somehow I get the feeling some of you weren't that lucky.   Keith, good thing you moved from Stevenson Ranch to Catalina Island. 

In a strange way, it would almost be easier for me to lose the stuff I care about in a fire than trying to figure out who to give it to when I go.  I guess it's not a huge burden if you give someone something worthless to them.  They just get rid of it.  I once worked at a nursing home where a mother and a daughter both resided.  When the mother passed, her daughter invited me to her mom's house to take anything I wanted.  I took 4 things—I still have 2 of them (the bowl broke and I foolishly left the painted cart in SF and never retrieved it).  I cherish the painting and the lamp, and have often wondered who would cherish them as much as I.  I've had them for 20 years. But I'm weird that way.

Well, the leaves are turning, the pumpkins line my porch, Dungeness crab season approaches…and the holidays are upon us. 

I am grateful I've made it to another Halloween.  If I can make it just a little longer, my husband and I will have been together a decade.

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Blazing inferno

Fire.  Fire, fire.  Heh heh.  Fire.

What am I evacuating from my parents' house?  My student films.  Imagine that.  I guess I should be trying to find those photo albums with childhood pictures….

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QotD: Well, I Never!

Finish this sentence: "I am glad to say that I have never ___." 
Submitted by chl*.

…shot up heroin.

Although at the rate I'm going, perhaps I should've.  I see strung-out homeless people who seem healthier than me and have thus far lived to a ripe old age I will most likely not get to see, so hey…maybe there's something to those opium dens!  I've been such a health enthusiast all my life—a lot of good that's done.

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Deathproof (Grindhouse)

Grindhouse Presents, Death Proof – Extended and Unrated (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Well, this is a gore carnival and full of laughs to boot.  One seriously twisted film.  Apparently there are 19 others?  I keep revisiting scenes in my sleep, causing me to bite down hard on my tongue.  I had to buy a mouthguard today, as my mouth is so sore I can't stand to eat.  My husband just didn't know what to say about this movie, except, "What's got into you?  All these weird movies you make me watch!"  (The last one was The Lives of Others, which I thought was tremendous.)  Kurt Russell still looks good, albeit creepy.  He winds up looking like a p—y in the end.

Fantastic soundtrack, awesome muscle cars, great art direction, and it features Zoe Bell, who won the best stunt award for the fight scene in Kill Bill 2 (she was Uma Thurman's stunt double), as herself.  Lots of hommages to Kill Bill and cult films (typical QT).  The film is also arty/french-new-wavish.  It has the old, positive film stock appearance, scratched, saturated color, jump cuts…all the time-honored film school devices, namely, using all manner of film stock, color and black and white, because that's what's on hand and it looks interesting.  But it's a straight narrative, none of that elliptical storytelling stuff.  And it's short.

I was hoping to see Terror Planet but it appears unavailable through Netflix.  Will have to buy the 20-film set I guess, and have bad, bloody nightmares for weeks.

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Poster child

Kaiser Permanente Thrive

This is the healthcare I have, and thanks to the State of CA Judicial Council, it's been a decent plan.  I can criticize, but never in my wildest dreams could I imagine the horrors of having Stage IV cancer without health insurance.  My entire 20's was spent with the barest coverage, and during the crazy mountaineering years—no coverage at all.  We all truly believe we're invincible when we're young and able to stay up for 3 nights and still function adequately.  We eat and rest poorly, we beat the crap out of our minds and bodies, and we probably brag about being able to do it.  Like it makes us a god.

I posted this ad because it does seem like my "team"—my oncologist and clinical trial nurse and the chemo nurses—really do strive to give me a good quality of life.  It is propaganda, of course.  But I really haven't seen any patients at Oncology who were angry at the standard of care they're receiving.  At my facility anyway, which is in Walnut Creek, CA.  I transferred there in an effort to get away from the indifferent oncologist at the Oakland, CA facility.

I won't go into the politics of why I'm receiving palliative care, rather than something that may resemble a cure—something that might be too expensive and fail, something I would have to pay out of pocket for at some place like the Mayo Clinic.  I'm sure it's all business and all that.  But the genius of Kaiser's new president is tapping into the whole northern California yoga-organic food-farmer's market-be proactive-exercise mindset.  I just wish there were Kaiser hospitals in other places other than the West.  Apparently there are clinics, but not big hospitals.

Of course, what this ad doesn't tell you is, to receive the stellar healthcare that I presently have will cost you about $1k/month for 2 people. 

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A way you’ll never be

I think I keep to myself because, in the end, no one can really understand what I'm going through, unless they have/had cancer also.  And even that brings with it a range of experiences, the worst of which I'm sure I haven't even touched.

I don't expect anyone to understand, but I don't have the energy either, to convey anymore about it, nor do I think folks really have the interest or attention span.  As an example, my friends in southern Cal think I'm flaky, because I may say I'm coming down to visit, and then I don't.  It's always been touch and go for me, I was always more mobile than most people I know, but the touch and go of the present has more to do with an illness that manifests differently each day, and the fact that I need to work around my husband's impossible schedule.  His schedule in the military was more predictable.  I have an aging pet in a house we've been in for merely a month.  Someone needs to be around.  Or, I could wake up and feel crummy.  Not a good incentive to make plane reservations.  The will is there but the body rebels.  Lest anyone forgets, I still have responsibilities.  Having cancer does not equate with being footloose and fancy free.

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