Ray’s Blog

It’s true. I took an 8-hour nap yesterday and a four-hour one today and haven’t really been out of bed for two days. Not sure I’ll be able to get to work tomorrow. These are some of the crappiest days.

I just received my shot of Neulasta and just waiting for it to kick in and knock me out for the next two days. I was able to drive and get it myself which indicates some normalcy. The chemo knocked me out this time too. During it, I had to take major four-hour naps. The fatigue is my worst side effect which I guess I’ll take considering some of the other alternatives. But for the next two days, possibly more, I’m not going to be able to get out of bed.

For those who choose to watch:

Incision Flip Book

29 images from 8/9/2008 - 9/18/2008
Surgery was on 8/4/2008

Well, my statistics show that things are slowing down on this site. But that’s to be expected, considering all the big hubbub is over, like being on chemo is nothing, but usually things are exciting at the beginning and kind of peter out soon after. That’s OK. I know people just aren’t visiting as often, especially if I don’t keep up my end of the bargain and produce content at a good pace.

But the stats showed some other activity. From a google search I can be found using many different keywords. The top search is “ray schwartz” which makes sense but those who use it have to persevere because I don’t show up until the fifth page of results (not too bad). Then, the second most used search term is rayschwartz.com which brings me up as the number one result (yay!) but that’s a little weird, searching for what you already know it is. Google also asks “Did you mean: jayschwartz.com?” But when you search for, Jay his search doesn’t say did you mean Ray? So, somehow, Jay is more important than Ray? I don’t think so, but Google does.

There are all sorts of variants on ray schwartz like “ray schwartz blog”, “ray schwartz cancer”, someone even used “ray schwartz christina.” One of the strangest ones of that ilk was “ray schwartz dance.” I don’t think I’m dancing away my cancer and that person was probably very disappointed once he got to my site. Now, you know that on a lot of these keyword searches I’m down in the depths, maybe on page 10 pr 15 or 20 of their results and they still are getting to my site. That is determination. I thought attention spans were short with the young folk. Maybe not. But here’s the best one. The picture speaks for itself.

I don’t know. Go to the vet. So, this guy witnesses his dog yawn EVERY TIME and, somehow, knows the dog is in pain, in his jaw. Yes. Definitely the jaw. How the heck does he know that? Did he ask his dog? Probably.

The other great thing about those stats is that I can see some people are hopefully getting something out of my blog who have or know someone who has cancer. There have been quite a few searches where I come up that have to do with portacath and pictures. So I’m hoping that this blog is answering some questions that some may have. I’m number two for a search on “portacath installation.” That’s fantastic.

I’m fartin’ up a f*ckin’ storm right now. Luckily, Christina is asleep already.

Shawn’s family has a tradition at Christmas of coming up with the most unintentional, tacky gift. I have one suggestion I found on eBay. If anyone has others, please let me know. Just trying to help.

The other day I had had enough. Everyone is whirling dervishing around me and I’m just slouching around. I thought I could contribute by putting all the storm windows in. Let me explain what that means. Our house is old and still retains many of its original acutriments (which is why we like it). One of those are the original screen and storm windows that are wooden framed and are actually swapped out for one another. We have some windows that have been updated to aluminum screen/storm sliders and those are pretty easy - you just slide the screen up and the storm down. The others - not so easy. They’re all unique and not all are well marked so you have to guess where they go, not to mention all the screens were painted in when all the trim was painted. Thanks to Bill for getting those screens in for us - we needed them!

So, I did that. Put in all the storm windows on two floors that needed to be put in. Then I started hauling junk from the basement to the 20-yard dumpster in our driveway. After all of that, I had to take a two-hour nap. I really have limited amounts of energy. It didn’t help that the night before I was up between 1:30 and 4:00. I need to take that ativan maybe every night just to be sure I can sleep. Finally did something and paid the price. But man, it was good exercise.

Christina just came up with the best idea I’ve heard in a while. With all the vile gas I’ve been producing, she thought it would be an improvement to put something in my rectum that would serve two purposes - one: neutralize the smell; two: turn my ass into a room deodorizer. Brilliant! Now all we need to do is snag that guy from Kaboom!

One of the lovely side effects I’m experiencing is, I don’t really know what to call it, but instead of my nose containing snot, it’s more like blood clots. Which reminds me of one time, on my ride to high school, waiting to pay the toll on the Whitestone bridge, the guy driving the van I was in cut someone off because he felt they cut him off. It was really aggressive and soon after he was finished doing his maneuvers, we heard the crash of a bottle breaking on the roof of the van. Someone threw a bottle at the van. Then, while we were still digesting that information, a woman came up to the van (this is on the approach to the toll booths on a highway, you understand) opened the sliding side door, and started yelling at us. She was I think from the Caribbean and the only thing we understood her to say in her rant was “blood clot.” I’m assuming that is some strong derogatory phrase but, obviously, that woman was really upset and really scary. Luckily we were able to shut the door on her and get the heck out of there.

But I digress. My blood clots are in my nose - not people I dislike. I remember when I was younger being told not to pick my nose but it was never specified that that meant not in public - I thought just don’t pick it. I never understood that and for years picked my nose in secret at night in my bed. I thought I would be found out since the shear mass of material I was digging out would start to pile up and eventually fill my room and my entire house. But that never happened.

Maybe I’m wrong but that’s the only way to get that crap out of there - to pick it out with your fingers. So, being a nose picker, I now have the pleasure of removing bloody masses from my nose which then causes my nose to bleed and gets blood all over my fingers, and, I guess, my nose. This isn’t good for me since my low platelet count means I don’t clot my blood very well. Blood clot! But so far the nose bleeds haven’t lasted for very long.

So a dirty job just got a lot dirtier. And every morning, I make sure to rinse the blood off my fingers.

This is what I have been predicting. I couldn’t make it in to work on Monday because I still had not recovered from this last session of chemo. This is when I need to stay strong, as the good days get taken away from me. I made it in to get my last neumega shot and I did still go to my therapy session but I was kind of a mess. In fact, on the way home from my therapy I almost got into an accident around the bridge which is a bad spot for anyone but apparently especially for me now since usually I’m fine there. I’m not even half way through and at this rate I’ll be dead before it’s all over. I’ve heard that they want to bring you to the brink of death so they know it’s working. So it looks like I’m well on my way towards reaching that goal. Before leaving the cancer center this last time, I was making my usual appointments and, after I had finished, the receptionist asked if that was all I needed. I said why don’t we do some extra chemo this week, I love this stuff. It brought a laugh but underscores that no one if they had a choice would ever do this therapy except if it meant life or death. And it does.

Most people see me when I’m feeling well enough to be out. That’s not to say that I’m squatting down in a rice patty, dropping a baby, and getting on with it, but I’m functioning at a relatively healthy level. Most who see me say I look good and that’s good for me to hear as well as feel. Some ask why I still have my hair, some wonder how I can work, some surprised ones probably think I’m already dead. The thing is what people don’t see. It’s not quite like an iceberg but you get the idea - when you don’t see me and why you don’t see me is because I look and feel like cancer. And the more I’m on chemotherapy, the more I am cancer. I was told today that my hair looks good, which is good to hear and relative to many cancer patients it’s really true. But my hair has probably thinned by 50% so to ME that’s not so good. And hair will grow back so what’s the big deal but, as a demonstration, to prove that my hair isn’t that good, for a small audience, I grabbed at my beard, gently pulled, then released half a dozen hairs onto a napkin. That’s not normal. That’s cancer. And I have it no matter what I look like.