Cancer Selfies

Toronto Zoo

The Toronto Zoo is one of my partner, Alicia's, favourite places in the world. And over the course of our relationship, in the various forms it's taken, it's become one of mine as well.

As friends, it was a group outing we'd almost always both attend. Alicia, because she was the driving force behind nearly every zoo trip I ever went on. Me, because I went with the flow and an afternoon with friends and cool animals was always a delight. These trips were usually taken in the heat of the summer (now, as a zoo expert, I know know that summer is a fool's time to visit the zoo, it's full of children and the animals are all asleep, but, as groups, this is the time we had together).

Years later, and after many more trips, Alicia and my first real date was to the zoo. We knew we were a thing, of sorts, the day before. We'd had our conversation, started to define the nature of what we would be (which lasted about a month, before we realized we were just another romantic couple (attached, polyamourously, to another romantic couple, Alicia and her wife, Catherine)). That was the most memorable trip to the zoo I've ever taken, although I'll be damned if I remember much of the animal content of the trip. It was late August, 2018, it was hot, and the animals were all sleepy. The parrots were entertaining, monkeys rambunctious, and we drank so very much bluraspberry slushy (because we always did). The zoo membership discount was a compelling and silly argument to always have more, while the powerful daystar beating down upon us was a powerful and overwhelming argument in favour of hydration by that delicious fruitish flavoured drink.

The big cats are still an impressive sight in the heat of the sun. They're what I remember best from that trip. Basking all together, the lions especially retain their majesty and wonder more than most other animals, although a pack of wolves (which we did not see that day) can have similar effect. The tigers are somewhat less impressive, but sprawled out in the shade of their enclosures, but still radiate their beauty. Alicia and I are fundamentally cat people (even if I'm a pretty even split on dogs), observing the big cats do anything, even if it's as close to literally nothing as possible, is still a treat for us. Its an opportunity to pretend that our house cats are like the big cats. Thomasin is a Sumatran tiger, stalking the underbrush. Nemo, Alicia's cat (a sleek black house panther if there ever was one) is most like the clouded leopard, the way they both move through the trees (or bookcases, in Nemo's case) is similarly mesmerizing.

The zoo is a place that I will always think of as an us place, maybe even The Us Place, a place where we could always just be a couple. We haven't always been able to be out, career's and religion don't always agree with polyamory (or our bisexuality, but mercifully that was rarely a concern), but the zoo was far enough away from home that it was always safe to just be us, and to be an Us.

The zoo is Alicia's natural date location. A good date doesn't have to include the zoo, but a great date is going to have a targeted zoo visit. One where you pick a section and thoroughly explore it, planning things so you get to see a feeding (ideally the otters) and maybe a zookeeper talk. The whole zoo is too big for a day, and it took me a long time to realize this. The whole zoo is for tourists and families and school outings. A zoo date visits a third of the animals, then departs before you're too exhausted to enjoy a nice dinner.

Toronto has all the dinner options one could want, and we'd generally pick some nationality of food that's harder to get to in the Midland area, often stopping for dimsum before the zoo or whatever east Asian option struck our fancy as we were leaving. I generally did the legwork picking some restaurants so we'd have an easy time dealing with choice paralysis on the way home. We always ate well.

During the pandemic, these outings became how we saw each other. Which so much outside time, we didn't have to stress as hard about transmission. This became even more true after I got diagnosed with cancer and started chemotherapy. The outdoor portions let us be close, because I was always immunocompromised and Alicia is a primary school teacher. A difficult combination any time, but especially with covid-19 still surging. These outings are where we got to play pretend things were normal, and have our dates.

After the first round of chemo ended, and my surgery failed, we started taking a lot more risks. Zoo trips became more normal and frequent. We spent more time inside the pavilions, greenhouses and other indoor spaces. At the worst moment in my life, we had a special place to visit, to spend time at, and to enjoy the big cats and fatrounds. It took months before I was well enough to make the trip, but it was a highlight of that adventuring period in my life.

The Toronto Zoo did not start as a special place to me. I grew up too far away, it was a neat commercial I'd see on TV sometimes, on par with Marine Land and the occasional cross border ad for an American zoo or aquarium or African Lion Safari or similar. But it's a special place to me now, one of the most special and important in the world. Home to most of my favourite fatrounds, all of my favourite non-house-cats, and more memories than I'd care to count.

Of all the adventures I can no longer have, it's the one I'd jump at first for a do over. Fall's nearly here, the weather is just right for the large carnivores to be active, and soon Alicia will have a small break in her work schedule, just after report cards are in (school just started a week or two ago, but that's how school does), and we could have one more perfect little afternoon.

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Cats like furry constellations lap up the Milky Way

The first time I tried coffee was a cold October morning in 2005. The natural high I had from successfully escaping from my dying town and landing in my very first choice for a university program was finally being worn down by the twin powers of first year chemistry and linear algebra. Everyone else was getting their wakefulness fix from coffee, and it made sense to give it a go.

I poured myself a medium cup of Columbian medium roast and left with it black. Maybe, if I had a guide, I'd have added some sugar or milk and enjoyed it. Maybe I'd have been too stubborn ("I know I like sugar and milk already"). Regardless, I took a sip, burned myself a bit, let it cool and decided it tasted exactly like poplar bark (a flavour I was familiar with from childhood games where we pretended to be beavers).

The next time I tried coffee was on a Taco Bell run after my April trip to the hospital in Midland. It still tasted of tree bark.

But once I entered the hospice suite? Give me every coffee treat. I have limited time and so much to catch up on.

Photos of myself follow a similar path. I used to try and remove as much trace of myself as possible, like I was embarrassed to exist. I could spend a lot of time with a social worker trying to work through those feelings. But I don't have to, because the diagnosis came, and I realized I needed to leave something behind that indicated that I existed, I lived, I thrived and I loved.

Like my new found taste for coffee drinks, I've grown to love the camera. And, in its modern form, the camera includes the whole editing and filtering and playing suite of tools available on your phone.

I'm no wizard at this sort of thing, and time is strange in hospice. Every single moment has the gravitas of possibly being your last, but you still count down until the weekend because that's when people can make time for you. So I pass the time recording videos and taking pictures and editing it all into something I hope has meaning.

I don't think these have meaning. I don't intend them to, at least. They're just four flavours of coffee drink I tried and liked well enough to share with my friends. I like them, even if they're a bit overworked. You never know what is enough until you know what is more than enough.

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Healy 2019

In 2019, I took my first real vacation with Alicia. We visited my parents camp at Healey, Ontario, near my hometown of Chapleau. As close to any place in the world ever could be, Healey is my home. It's where I spent my summers until I departed for university, and where I hurried back to when those university summers allowed. It was special to me in a way no where else could be.

Alicia and I spent the week exploring the lake (Como Creek, Grazing Inlet, the falls, the ghost town of Nicholson, packed with living Petroskys and Tremblay), fishing, hiking and exploring dead logging roads. Plant and animal identification guides in hand (soft cover books, your kilometres, or a lucky hill, away from reception) we looked at flowers and mushrooms and tried to figure out which red berry was which. At least sugar plums/service berries/Saskatoon berries, blueberries and raspberries are easy and rewarding to identify.

Chapleau is a place with little left for me, although I was looking forward to my final visit this summer. I was going to plan it like one of my central Ontario outlines, focusing on claims to fame, old restaurants, weird signs and the like. There's have been enough for an afternoon and a video. And I'd have liked to have done that.

Alicia got an informal version of they trip, the adventure that came four years before the first cancer adventure. It was nostalgic for me, and as always just a little bittersweet. Chapleau isn't the Chapleau I knew (nor should it be, I left).

The next trip I planned with Alicia was past the pandemic, past a mental health crisis or two, past diagnosis, HIPEC's failure and past this last round of chemo. On July 5th, we were to set out towards Alberta to meet dinosaurs and the ruins of Frank and accidentally be in Calgary during the stampede and none of it ever happened. Because that week the cancer won.

The cancer was ways going to win. And I don't care that it has. My capacity for adventure has decreased, but I'll wake up every morning seeking it. And these days, I'm pretty good at finding it, too.

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A trip to the zoo

Cycle 5 Day 11

I visited the Toronto zoo with my partner today ❤️ It was a good day, but I learned how much by ability to produce and retain body heat has been affected.

From the comments

Some additional photos (without me in them)

A visit with the oncologist

This was written on September 4th, 2022

A month less a day earlier, I learned I had cancer. In two weeks from today, I start chemotherapy. I don't want to rank my bad days, but these two are easily the worst of them. Its only through the power of amazing sushi (and my wonderful partner) that I look so calm here, because there do not exist words for how I felt.

Out goes the 1 Squishmellow per procedure plan, might as well just pile them on (Maggie the manta ray, Nabila the narhwal, Maurice the moose).

I never made it to work that day. So I never got to tell the people I wanted to in person. I'm sorry for that, but I can still barely function when writing this on the 4th.

From the comments

James: I have to tie my hair back to wear my N95 masks, I don't love how it looks but fashion must be sacraficed for health