Cancer Selfies

Elliot Lake

In April, I finished what would turn out to be my final cycle of chemotherapy.

In April, I was hospitalized in Midland, Ontario, for the first time for a partially obstructed bowel.

In April, I finally relocated from Midland, Ontario, my home for a decade, to Elliot Lake, Ontario, my parents' home for the same time period, and a place where they could assist in my increasing care needs.

In July, the obstructed bowel reoccured, canceling my Great Canadian Roadtrip Adventure, landing me back in hospital.

Briefly, for a couple hours, I was clear of this condition. But it quickly returned, I returned to hospital, and we made the difficult decision to end most interventions and transfer to hospice.

It is now late September. I've been in hospice for 76 days. I called the apartment I moved into back in April home for 76 days. I've lived in hospice half my time here.

I don't really know what to think or make of this, but I've had some fudge procured to celebrate, for a milestone is a milestone, even when it's a confusing one.

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Mt. Sinai

It's perhaps no surprise that even though for months all I hoped for was the cytoreduction HIPEC surgery, I no longer think about it. Not burned into my brain, those most stressful two weeks of my life, when I knew it was going to happen, but before I'd submitted the forms, signing away potentially seven organs or partial organs. I remember a specific horror, but indirectly, at the days leading up. I only think of it when I see the scar, and my missing belly button, and I've learned not to look.

I suspect I'd remember things very differently had I any recollection of being told that things had failed. That the cancer was my doom. That I would leave the hospital, but that my time was more limited than we thought and I'd never really get to recover from the surgery (the only bit of luck I retained, the cancer has beat me, but it took longer than a couple months).

But all I remember is my hatred for the nasal-gastric tube (the same one that sustains me now, which I've grown to love), arguing with the surgeons about it, freezing at night (the origin of my beloved goose toque) and the greatest luxury I've ever had the joy of experiencing - ice chips on a nothing by mouth diet.

We all wish my time at Mt. Sinai went differently. It's the difference between a life and an absence. But it didn't, and that thought is one of the truly forbidden thoughts I've never, nor will ever, entertain. It's a fixed, unchanging, point in time. Like diagnosis and that final trip to emergency that put me here.

This is all traumatic. Very traumatic. My mind has clearly done things to protect itself. Had things gone differently, I'd have spent the last year working through it. But instead I've spent the social worker time working through end of life concerns, preparing for where I am now.

I hesitate to publish this, for the first time ever. I'm as okay as I can be in my state, I've made my peace with the things I need peace with, and I do my best to honour each new day I have. Like all other scrap book posts, this is about joy, and finding it everywhere, it's just harder sometimes.

When I was discharged from Mt. Sinai, my destination was sadly set, and I could have chosen any path to get there. I chose adventure and joy and life and zoo dates and fish and chips and pho and antiquing and Squishmallows and the sun hanging low for hours in the autumn sky. I chose all of you over despair and defeat and, likely, an earlier trip to hospice. Hoapice was inevitable, but writing about it is a choice and a victory

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Broth Buddy After Dark

Alcohol is a heavy subject, and this one is about my relationship with it. My relationship with it is largely positive, and my little naritive will reflect that, but I know that isn't everyone's experience.

There was a time, between dropping out of grad school and taking on the apprenticeship that would become my career, where I seriously considered bartending. I adored making cocktails, traditional sorts and the usually delicious abominations that reared their heads at juicemorn.

For years at family get togethers, if anyone wanted something more complex than a beer or a glass of wine, they were coming to me. And I loved it. Understanding how different flavours come together and balance was always a thrill.

But then came the symptoms which would eventually point to cancer. At first, the surgeon I was seeing thought it was a problem with the liver itself, and by the time we had the actual root cause determined, I was starting chemotherapy. Alcohol and chemotherapy is not only a great way to destroy your liver, it's also a good way to dramatically reduce the effectiveness of the drugs themselves.

I figured I'd never have a drink again. And while I'd have preferred to have marked the occasion somehow (a nice scotch, or Beach One Cervasa and a smoked meat sandwich down at Balm Beach Smokehouse, or both), I was okay with it. The extra time was easily worth the lost pleasure for me.

Fast forward two long years of chemotherapy and surgery and recovery and alcohol free adventure (so many fish and chip meals demanded something I just couldn't give them). I jokingly asked my doctor if I could have beer. And, more seriously than I expected, she responded that, at my disease state, it was fine.

Drinking in the hospital is a weird experience. Sharing that experience with my brother and my friends is stranger still. Should we have imbibed during Cats or Repo? Probably. Palliative care is about patient comfort,. And trying new things from the LCBO is apparently part of it for me. Especially when I can share the experience.

I really intended this to be a whimsical post about being drunk under the table by a giant benevolent ramen (how good would a ramen like that be after the party's over, just savouring the flavours) (lets ignore the canabalism implications) person. But instead you get something serious.

To make up for it, I'll share a secret. I didn't quit alcohol the whole of my treatment. I did go to the Balm Beach Smokehouse three of four times last summer, ordered my favourite beer in the world (Wasaga Beach Brewing Company Beach 1 Cerveza, it's objectively just fine, but I love it), ordered the Cubano sandwich, ordered the braised brisket poutine, ordered the Balm Beach burger, ordered the house special.

The only regret I have about this is that I never went with anyone, I felt like I was sneaking a forbidden treat. And now that I can have those drinks, I cannot eat. Which would feel like cosmic punishment if I still didn't love talking about food and drink

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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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