Cancer Selfies

Converging on Hospice

I don't have a lot of answers, and have even less energy to share what I do have, but increasingly all roads are converging onto hospice care. Thank you all for your love and support these past years, I couldn't have made it this far without you.

From the comments

Eva Bowering: Love you James. My heart has been with you on your long journey and I will wish you nothing but peace as you transition onward to hospice care. Thinking of you and your closest loved ones.

Janet Dorion: Oh James. We love you more than you know. Miss you so much 😢 💔

Lan L.: oh my dear, we all love you too

Ross Keith: Love you man. We’re all here with you

Cynthia Davis: Hugs James, my thoughts are with you. And geese, geese are with you too 🪿

Park Parkison: Thinking of you, James. ❤️

Emily Hutchinson: Thinking of you. Hoping for a peaceful move into hospice and whatever the future brings.

Dawn Gildenmeister: Thinking of you. We love you. 💗

Holly Kay: Love you so much! Big hugs.

Monica Bell: Sending love your way, and cat pictures ❤️

Sherri Lynn Singer: We are all thinking about you; we are with you.

Beverley Singer: Hugs my brave nephew!💕

Sarah Baggs: Love you, buddy.

Brennan Moline: Sending so much love to you. You are an amazing friend.

Katie Schaefer: Despite only knowing you through shared fandom FB groups, I am sending you all the love. I wish we could hang out in person to discuss the wonder that is Geese, how silly cats are, and debate about which squishmallow is the cutest. ♥️

Jack Cuellar: Love you, pal.

Joe Patrick: Sending love, James. I’m so happy that our paths crossed.

Aaron Lyttle: Love ya James

Jon Muggleton: Oh, man, I was just thinking about you. Love you, man, and hope this gets you some peace.

Julie Campbell: Hugs, my friend

Sarah Snider: I’m sorry, friend ❤️

Elysia Yardley: Sending you so much love right now, James. Zoey getting a kiss ♥️. I’m here if you need to talk

Katie Tremblay: We are thinking about you and sending so much love. 💜🩷

Gail Coulter Cyr: Hugs my friend/cousin, you have been a real warrior!!

Anthony Daley Di Poce: Thank you for sharing all of your adventures with us.

David Richman: I am so sorry.

Mica Richard: Love you James, thanks for the update

Alex Schroeder: We love you and thank you for everything

Ashleigh Latimer: Luv you ! If I can do anything let me know!!

Peter Tremblay: You've been a real inspiration Jimmy. We love you and think of you all the time. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

Lara Baker Whelan: I have so admired your candor and bravery as you shared your journey. I wish you peace and love on this next stage. Even though we never met in person, I know I will think of you always.

Kevin Q Gray: Love you James, thank you for sharing your journey, it has meant so much to many and continues to do so.

Charles Meier: See you on the other side

TeJay Wonch: Sending you love from Minnesota

Cindy Claussen: Wishing you all the comfort of these two snuggled together.

Laura Brzezinski: ❤ and 🫂 🤗 Will always be part of the "dream team" (Target). Lols. I hope you will be allowed to see your kitty in hospice. ❤ Sending you thoughts and geese maybe a few raccoons too

Ivy Clark: You are a witty and lovable person and I love hearing your perspective. ❤️

Sam Selby: Ah jeez. Sorry it's taken a bit of a turn. We love you 💖

Dayna Normand: I'm hanging out on my porch, with a cat that I don't own but I think you would enjoy him. Sending you all the positive vibes James

Domino Bay: I love you so much, James. I am so honored to have been able to be part of your life in our little internet circle.

Helen Herbst LaStar: Fuck. Sending love and my invisible dog. We wish you comfort.

Jeremy Simington: You're a graceful warrior, James. Peace, brother.

Rina Haenze: Garak and I send love (along with his blep).

Cecile Tremblay: Love you Jim, you'll always be my baby cousin. Xo

Malcolm Nygard: You are wonderful. Let me know if I can do anything, or if you ever want to talk.

Becca Simmons: Love you, friend. Tina sends slow blinks.

Kevin O'Leary: Knowing you, even if only online, is an enriching and wonderful experience. I hope the hospice transition is as smooth as ot can be

Melodie Younce: hugs ❤️

Lilly Hill: The beebs, almost as cool as you but not quite, hope the pain fucks off for the most part ❤️❤️

Lina John: Thinking of you James ❤️🙌🏾 sending you love and balcony pigeons

Jenny Maurer: Jesus ❤️

Beverley Singer: Love you James! I have travelled this way, along side of you. Let them rid you of this pain.

Kris Lin: Knowing you, even through silly internet posts is a joy. I hope you find peace and a release from the pain. Sending love ❤️

Heather Reller: Little Buddy says hello and hopes you feel ok soon!!

Margaret Miller: I have only known you through the flop house group and what you've written on your own page, and I want to thank you for all of it. It has felt like an honor to get to be a witness to your life and your dying. I will never forget you.

Juha Heikkilä: Love you. You are so so loved.

Sarah Hendricks: Thinking of you

Laurel Ivy: I wish things were different. Sending you good vibes, my friend. 🫂.

Katie Tremblay: So many touching messages. Wow - you are so loved. ❤

Jenny Lou Santoro: 🦆 Thinking of you .... hugs hugs hugs 🦃. I couldn’t find a goose. Hope a duck and a turkey work. 😻 and a cat of course!

Wendy D Hooving: ((~hugs~))

박선재: Hi James. I am your cousin John McKenna’s wife Sophia. We have never met, but I’ve heard about you. Sending our love and prayers to you❤️

Emergency, again

Another day, another trip to emerg

From the comments

Grace Tomczak: At least you’re a cute seven.

Claire Ohrling: Grace Tomczak haha I came here to make the same joke 😄

Emergency

This photo is supposed to be with Winnie the Poo in White River, Ontario, halfway to the Manitoba border. The first leg of my grand cross country adventure.

This photo is instead in the hospital in Elliot Lake. The pain is immense. I don't know what's wrong. I do know there is no trip.

From the comments

Grace Tomczak: At least you’re a cute seven.

Claire Ohrling: Grace Tomczak haha I came here to make the same joke 😄

Body Horror

I think that scene in Annihilation where the guys intestines are writhing like snakes captures how I feel a lot of the time

From the comments

James Petrosky: Cancer is living body horror. There are constant new and grotesque violations. You always know the ultimate cause (those immortal detector cells), but your never sure what devious plot they're on now.

You know how the movie ends, and what the last few minutes look like. But you'll never predict that third act bear monster / the loss of the ability to feel comfortable when your sitting or lying down. The violations do not stop.

Heat Wave

It's a heat wave! I'm using a heat pad on high! What a wondrous time to be alive!

From the comments

James Petrosky: No, I don't have AC. I don't even have particularly good fans (job for tomorrow). But at least I'm on the edge of the hear wave, and we're down to 25, which is what I kept my apartment at all winter

The return of belly button pain

I'm experiencing an awful lot of belly button pain for someone who hasn't had one in over a year

From the comments

Mica Richard: A phantom navel could be a good Halloween cocktail

James Petrosky: Mica Richard features an olive without pimento

Cancer is Biphobic

As part of my pain prevention and management routine, I have to sit like a regular person at all times. Which means that in addition to a handful of other very bad things, cancer is also fucking biphobic.

From the comments

James Petrosky: This is a very silly joke that is also 100% factual

Ëmmy Smäll: welp I just almost horked the water I was drinking out my nose

Justine Wiesinger: Oh no, with your feet on the FLOOR? 🤢 I have been struggling with this over the past week

James Petrosky: Justine Wiesinger I can't even cross my legs for very long (but also can't make myself stop doing it)

Justine Wiesinger: James Petrosky Yes all week I felt unable to do crafts like cross stitching because I couldn't pull my feet up onto the couch so what's the POINT

Justine Wiesinger: UNCOZY ❎DISRESPECTFUL TO QUEER CULTURE 👎👎

Mareile S. Håland: The dreadfullest cancer fact yet 😮 /lh

Christa Pace Martin: That’s just rude.

Stefanie Culp: That’s just disrespectful of it and during pride month too, how dare

Ross Keith: I fucking knew it

**Rebecca Liddle Blair: Nooooooo…whyyyyy… I have spine issues that also don’t like that I bi-pretzel, but I do it anyway!

Sarah Baggs: Ugh when I’ve hurt my hip and need to sit up straight to avoid the pain it is like TORTURE

Reflecting on HIPEC

There are a lot of times in my life where things didn't go quite as planned. Today is the one year anniversary of she they went nearly as far from planned as possible. This day in 2023 was HIPEC surgery day.

I expected to be a lot more emotional about it. Expected the past week to bring some dread or excitement, but instead I've only broken routine for my little adventure yesterday. I want to say I got the buttertarts or lemon squares to celebrate, to mark time, but I wasn't thinking of any of that.

So here's to surgery day, the day we all lost hope for a cure, or long term treatment, and the start of when I stopped letting that bother me.

The following was originally posted June 9, 2023

Months ago I expressed my distaste for the cancer as a battle or fight metaphor. It might represent some people well, especially those with stage 1 illness, but it doesn't reflect my experience. For me, cancer has been a seige. And today, friends, the relief forces have arrived, and we're going to do our damndest to break that seige. We done everything we can to ensure success, and now it's all in the hands of the fates.

The variaties of lower back pain.

Another day, another exciting new pelvic/lower back pain preventing me from living my life (doing laundry, going to Blind River to try a chip truck)

From the comments

James Petrosky: T3s work on most pain pretty well, except this one. Nothing works on this one. Maybe a round of chemo will, but that's just trading bad symptoms for bad side effects.

A stronger pain killer might help, but history tells me I'd be too stoned to drive all the time, and I'm already feeling pretty trapped at home.

James Petrosky: I had a few more days worth of pride posts planned, but I don't have the energy anymore. I hope everyone has a good time, and that bigots get some sense knocked into them by a giant magic goose, but that's all for me.

Northeast Cancer Centre

When I moved a month ago, I left my old health region. This means finding a new primary care physician, palliative care physician and oncologist. I'm still working on a GP and waiting on a referral for a local palliative care doctor, but today I met my new oncologist.

In the past month, my symptoms have gotten noticibly worse. The pain in my kidney is more severe, and more common, and the other one has joined in, too. Plus, lots of random pelvic pains. Codine is controlling it well, but this is the first time since diagnosis I've needed regular pain control.

We'll be restarting chemo as soon as we can because of this. There are tests and paperwork to get out of the way first, but my doctor would like to have it going in the next couple weeks. Between the first and second rounds of chemotherapy, I had six months (most of which were spent recovering from surgery), this time I'll have around two. I'm doing well, given the situation, and am in good spirits, but the disease is progressing, it cannot be stopped, and the outcome has never been in question.

And as a way to show how completely this experience has changed me, I confidently, and completely without anxiety, asked how much time I have left. And the answer didn't phase me. Human beings can adjust to, and become skilled at, anything.

A year.

Which is an upgrade over what I thought this morning.

From the comments

James Petrosky:I share a lot, but also don't talk about a bunch of things. January and February were very hard for me, having a birthday that was poorly marked (chemo's fault, it was celebrated eventually) when you know, with low but significant, certainty that it will be your last is one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. I'm not excited about doing it again.

No, you (everyone) couldn't have done anything to help, or I'd have asked. I almost never talk about it, but the cancer centre does have some mental health support. I've made extensive use so far.

The weird way pain manifests

I think, through culture and experience, we all understand that cancer brings a lot of pain. Friends, they don't lie, but I've never seen anyone talk about how weird that pain can be.

This message brought to you by my body interpreting skin stretching, of the regular sort that might happen if you were laying on your side, as somewhere between discomfort and pain.

From the comments

JamesP: In some people and cases, constipation can register as back or hip pain. For me, it's every time I need to use the washroom.

JamesP And, just for fun, I get random stabbing pains throughout my pelvic region. I suspect this is an impacted nerve. It can happen any time, but generally comes in clusters and usually with other sources of pain

Christine Otterman: I guess it's got to be an all around unnatural experience. It would be hard to not be suspicious of what it is and what it means. It's probably difficult to articulate, therefore no one talks about it!

Janet Dorion That sucks. I can't imagine. You are so strong!

James Petrosky It's a bad situation, but I'm usually feeling okay much of thday, although the evening is devoted to pain management so that I can enjoy the next day as much as possible.

Brennan Moline: Susan Sontag, in writing about her own cancer, once discussed how pain tests the limits of human language. That it becomes incredibly isolating because it's impossible to truly explain to someone else.

ADHD, Again

Anyone else find that opening and closing curtains is one of the most surprisingly mentally taxing things you do daily?

This post brought to you by ADHD

From the comments

James Petrosky: I have no choice here, my apartment faces the enterence and I have no desire to flash all the retired people, but at my last place I think I touched them once every few months, more to track the sun than anything else.

Boil water over!

After eight days the tap water is officially safe again!

From the comments

James Petrosky: Which is great for us, but a week is not a long term advisory, and at least 28 First Nations communities are still under long term (over one year) advisories. A week sucked, a month is unimaginable to me, and I have no words for what a long term advisory would be like.

Boil Water day five

We're on day five of a boil water order and it's rough on regular people, but between my kidney and the cancer I need to drink so much more, and the whole process is exhausting.

From the comments

James Petrosky: 5 days is a lot, but it's also fucking nothing. Neskantaga First Nation has been doing it for 29 years pretty much only because we suck and are racist.

Partial Bowel Obstruction, Redux (Forshaodowing)

Was up half the night trying to decide if I should visit the hospital because of a new, exciting and particularly spicy pain. Thankfully I don't remember much, but I fell asleep eventually and woke up with regular levels of pain.

From the comments

James Petrosky: It didn't feel anything like another obstruction. That was distinct. I think it sometimes just really sucks to be conscious for no good reason.

James Petrosky:I have chores and hotels to book and I just can't get enough give a fuck going to do any of it. If I don't soon I'm going to ruin my whole trip and I just can't care.

A day off with Thomasin

We've given up on unpacking for today, and are going to take tomorrow off to lay around and do nothing. We've earned it.

From the comments

Brennan Moline: How is Thomasin adjusting? She looks comfortable

James Petrosky: Brennan Moline she was overwhelmed the first day of packing, and at the hotel during travel, but has been excitedly exploring and plotting escape into the hallway for days now. She's probably doing better than I am James PetroskyIt helps that the bed and bedding are the same, and she still has her cat tree. The constants are safety when overwhelmed

Unpacking

It's hard to unpack when whenever you sit down, anywhere, a cat is almost immediately on your lap.

From the comments

James Petrosky: It happened again

Sadie

Did a lot of work today, and am very happy with progress, but the best part of the day was the 15 seconds I got to pet a golden retriever

From the comments

James Petrosky: His (her?) name is Sadie and I've been trying to pet them for years, but they've always preferred to play with the poodles, and honestly I can't blame them

Lying in bed

It's hard when you're condition makes you need to lie down so much that lying down itself is uncomfortable

From the comments

James Petrosky: Starting with chemo, I've spent 12 days mostly in bed (including one night in a gurney that was really bad). But I just don't have energy

Moving Day! Part 3

Moved into my new apartment! Lots of unpacking done! It's a very nice place, except there are no overhead lights and my phone charge socket is switched.