"Naked Coffee"? Really? I Just Can't! It's Just Wrong!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I had a riveting cancer topic (Zombies:  Maybe they're just not "morning people") and then this happened:

Naked coffee?  Seems counterintuitive.  Sounds highly risky, ill-advised at best.  Naked coffee?  Why?  There's even a picture!  A drawing!  Sexy?  Nahh.  Scary?  A little!  If you need coffee so badly you're willing to drink it in the nude, maybe you have a problem.

There is just no compelling reason to hold a hot cup of joe (who is Joe, anyway?  Montana?  DiMaggio?  Mr. Coffee?) near any uncovered skin.

I love coffee, the more convoluted, the better!  Whip it, flip it, put some sparkly stuff on top, infuse it, artificially flavor it, it's all good to me.  I actually look forward to the seasonal offerings from Starbucks.  More whipped whatever?  Sure!  At home I adhere to an austere combination I never deviate from, but if a barrista is making it?  The more crazy and decadent it is, the better I like it!  It's hot.  It's supposed to be.  How does that ad go?  "Everybody knows that."  Well, everybody knows coffee is hot.  So is mocha.  Even cappucino is served with a sleeve.  No mystery there.  How on earth could consuming a steaming beverage sans clothing be beneficial to anyone?  It can't!

I realize that "naked" is popular right now. But the word "naked" is significantly more interesting than the "afraid/daters/real estate buyers/real estate sellers"  Like inserting cookie in front of some words just doesn't necessarily enhance those words (like naked, another burn scenario, yuk!) and putting naked in front of every word doesn't work either.  So just knock it off already!

PS- The Giants.  I knew they would take the trophy since last spring, I have no idea why I knew but I did.  This in no way benefits me personally, it's just another odd event along this strange highway.

What What Do the 2014 S.F. Giants and Cockroaches and Tearoses Have In Common? They Won't Go Away!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I would be completely remiss if I didn't address one area of interest that has completely captured my attention these past three years; Baseball!  I credit this game for keeping me sunny side up during what could have been a very dark time.  Patient Spouse has tried to instill Baseball's sense of scope and history in me for years but it required a brain tumor (and Ken Burns) to really make me appreciate "the game within the game" since 2011.

My PS, his father, my father and most men I knew and knew of could all speak "baseball".  It seemed to me that certain men extrapolated baseball statistics the way I could remember the closing theme to "The Beverly Hillbillies" and for some reason could detail the romantic backstory of just about any actor anywhere.  It just stuck in my brain , I never claimed it was very useful information!  It's just information that was stuck in my head.  I was a pop culture Wikipedia before there was Wikipedia.  Now whenever we have some obscure question about entertainment, we just Google it like anyone else, but my brain has an unfortunately limitless capacity for retaining popular trivia.   Before there was Wendy Williams there was me.  PS still checks with me to confirm or deny minutae in the culture.  I, of course, use my trivial powers for even more trivial tasks (The Kardashians aren't losing a lot of sleep worrying about my uncovering a possible buttectomy (that's when your rear is surgically altered) There's no denying my vast grasp of all things trivial.  If it's meaningless and you have a question about it I probably know the answer.  Or I know someone I can ask.  There's no denying this power.  It just is.  Baseball just is.  On the surface it just seems like an easy way to spend an afternoon.

It's simplicity masks an elegance that is as hard to capture as lightning in a bottle.  Baseball is accessible to anyone.  Baseball doesn't care how old you are, how your health is or where you come from.  A great play is poetry!  If you can talk baseball, you can carry on a conversation with anyone else who watches the game.

Specifically, my trials and tribulations in brain tumor mania (This Sunday at the Cow Palace; Sunday, Sunday, Sunday!) paralleled the yearly (2014) journey of the San Francisco Giants who manage much like myself to somehow stay alive and not only survive but thrive.  Is it adversity that makes them stronger?  Or is it because they are stronger they crush adversity?  I submit my one question, the only one that matters:  Is it cancer?  No?  Then who really cares?  Bruce Bochy?  I don't think so.  Joe Montana?  I really don't think so.

Three of my in-laws were at Game #3, and I wish we could have gone too!  I love that ballpark and Giants' fans are almost as entertaining to watch as the Boys of Summer themselves.  AT&T Ballpark is just a joy to go to all the seats are good and all the food is great!  So it's great to be a convert!  While my father, PS's father and my PS himself have probably forgotten more about America's Pastime than I'll ever know it's great to know the game welcomes new fans!  No matter how late in "the game" you decide to show up, you can still be a part of it.

Will they win Game #4?  I direct you to my original question:  Are you serious?  Of course, they're going to win!  Haven't you been watching?

Ventilator-Malfunction or "How I Started this Adventure Back in 2011"

Hello Fellow Travelers!

In the continued interest of remaining connected to all things healthy and hilarious I have to recount the dramatic "beginning" of this journey, the part where I was the least involved (I was in a chemically induced coma) but I still managed to scare the hell out of everybody in the Intensive Care Unit!  My Patient Spouse (PS) and Best Friend (BF) were sitting on vigil with a member of the surgical team at the hospital who was hooking me up to the portable breathing machine, which they were especially proud of because one of their doctors invented it!  So the way PS tells it, after I'm hooked up for transport just my PS and BF and me (on a ventilator keeping my own counsel) are left in the room.  Soon, my giant, tumor would be removed and all kinds of real estate in my brain would become available, just then though, The Reaper was really close to me and, as near as I could tell, he meant business.  And apparently, at exactly the same time I noticed "The Reaper" the nifty port-o-ventilator stopped cold.  PS looked at BF and BF looked at PS.

Without too many seconds going by, PS flagged a medical professional and breathing was restored!  The old fashioned way, manually!

I haven't "heard" the story from my girlfriend but whenever PS relates any part of my intubation-malfunction he doesn't seem nearly as amused as I am!  Portable breathing machines are only "medical miracles" when they work!  When they skip a beat or stop?  Not so miraculous!  Though I am like the tearose, the SF Giants and infestations in general - I just keep coming back.

Bill Murray (back in "Stripes" days) would have called me "a mutant" and he'd have been right!  I'm  mutant and proud of it!  I'm alive!  Because that's all that's important!  Nothing else matters or will.  I believe I lived for the express purpose of chronicling this adventure through "Tumor Town".

Why I'm "the patient of the future"?  I am in great physical condition.  I am, believe it or not, young for a typical patient, I'm pretty healthy and live like a monk.  I have bent pain and paralysis to my will.  I am supposed to go forward.  Give me a cookie (or 10) and I'll be on my way!

PS - In the "This Crap Just Writes Itself" column; did you see/hear the news about the Carnival Cruise that has an E Bola patient?  Belize and Mexico wouldn't allow the ship to dock.  Belize and Mexico!  Wake up cruisers!  It doesn't matter how many times they disinfect those staterooms!  Those "ships" (Germ Infested Barges, GIBs) are floating around the Gulf like cigarette butts floating around a toilet bowl!  At $1,000+ a throw!  I'd need a HazMat suit to get a waffle!  They're floating petrie dishes!  It's like saving 15% on insurance:  everybody knows that!  Everybody should!

Brittany Maynard Suicide on 11/1?: "Death with Dignity" or Terminal Quitter?

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Well, it finally happened.  A real news item intersected with Brain Cancer and now it's blowing up all over the world and everyone is asking me what I think and would I do the same.  Death, The big "dirt nap".  Only time is as inescapable.  Brittany Maynard is a lovely 29 year old who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer and has chosen to die on her own terms in Oregon, where it is not against the law to plan  your own death.  She was faced with a grim oh-so-short future and she made a decision.  Would I make a similar choice?  Frankly, no, but I have been in many ways greatly improved and tested, by my tumor and feel like  nothing can stop me!  I would know to leave her alone
My world was forever reshaped by cancer.  Remember "All t\he King's Horse's and All the King's Men"?  Well, they couldn't put old Humpty back together (and just what EMT Training did these equines and representatives of the Crown have, anyway?  I always ask when I'm scrambled next to fencing.  Is it too much to ask for a second opinion? Some Tobasco would be nice!)

Now all kidding aside Travelers I don't waste a millesecond lamenting about drama, medical or personal.  It's like plastic surgery it  sounds like a good idea but ultimately it will not only not improve a situation but plastic surgery could generate it's own set of problems.

I always start off with the same salutation, "Hello Fellow Travelers!" Because we're all travelers on the big journey called, "life"!  Everyone has their own path to navigate,  I respect that.  My journey is still unfolding.  I can't imagine the couple who moves out of their state to have access to better Health Options.  But, this is from a woman who is mostly silent.

This is my journey and mine alone.  I have never felt more alive, (Thank You! HA!)  I'm ready to take as many MRI's as they need (Thank you! Dr. Phoenix!) and I'll never stop looking for answers.  This is the time.  "Death with Dignity"? (What does that even mean?  Because the last time I checked, "Death" was still, oh, I don't know, dead.)  And to quote Charlie Brown-San in "Kill Bill #1","No, I don't think I'd like that!"

CB might be the master of the subtitled understatement, but it's my opinion of a great many things.   Like the void of neat stuff to buy past the age of 40.  It's as though after 45 all marketing dwindles to a upright bathtubs and little scooters that go very slowly.

To use another great quote, "This simply won't do!", Hannibal Lecter, "Silence of the Lambs"  So get me some cookies and a big pot of coffee it's going to be a long night!


In the crazy, spinning world  I live in, feeling terrific gives me the strength to face the "the big issues" I deal with, daily.  Cookies help too!

Pulmonary Crisis or Neuro No Brainer? Both?

Hello Fellow Travelers!

As usual, I came up with a cancer related topic (This week:  Brain Tumors and  Eva Braun.  I mean what other explanation could there be?  Hitler's girlfriend?  Clearly, to be known for all time as the "main squeeze" of possibly the worst mass murderer in history required some really poor judgement calls. )   She must have had some brain disorder, she was really into Adolph, too, something was wrong with her!  I'm just saying... 

Anyway, I was all set to go when this happened: At some point I collapsed, passed out.  My son found me and called 911.  When I came to I was covered in new cuts and bruises with no memory of getting them.

I had far too  much C02 (what your body expels when you breathe) in my blood and I was poisoned.  I woke up in an ambulance where I immediately and correctly answered several questions.  When I arrived at the hospital, the fun really got started, because a search of my home (and of my blood) revealed that I took nothing, drank nothing, haven't in years, and was exceptionally healthy.


For the next week, the valiant staff of Diggity Health (Hot Diggity!), took my blood repeatedly (and literally) ran all kinds of tests, waited for and received all negative results,  administered some other tests and received the same result.  I got the distinct impression that the doctor attempting to solve this mystery, ("why did Jan fall?  This time?")  Dr. Randy Arai (forever lodged in MY head as "Dr. Pulmonary"), had run every test on me he could think of.

At the end of Friday Dr. Pulmonary admitted that he didn't have a freaking clue why I passed out. That's a direct quote too. Not a "freakin clue!"  I loved it! I laughed pretty heartedly at that but it does beg the question, what if this happens again?  I have enough to deal with.  I'm a woman who needs answers!  STAT!  I have no idea what STAT even is but I always wanted to say it!  Dr. Pulmonary suggested bringing an endocrinologist into the loop.  I'm not even sure what that is!  OK, I looked briefly into endocrines, let's order one up!

What I did understand was bad food and PT (Physical Therapy) both of which appeared (3) times a day like clockwork.  I love everything about therapy and I never, ever eat bad food.  I make fun out of bad food and let me tell you, as far as bad-food comedy goes the hospital is a veritable cornucopia.  It gives new meaning to the term "yuk fest"  Hospital food is the Toronto Mayor of jokes:  it's the gift that keeps on giving.  I have a really discriminating palate, I'm highly attuned to pointing out any culinary mediocrity.  Commenting about crappy food?  Really? This is what I was meant for!

By the second evening the nurses were just "showing" me the plates.  The Ensure bottles were looking pretty good!  I'd rather not eat than eat something I actively dislike.  As far as any kind of PT?  Bring it!  I received (and continue to receive) compliments on my increasing muscle tone and strength, thanks to Bridgit's killer balancing exercises (thank you Ms. Moore!).

You know what happens when eating is really difficult and the food available is really unappealing?  I just don't eat!  I write more but I don't think eating for the sake of eating serves any purpose!  But what has struck me the most is how closely my actual adventures are mirroring my desired ones.  I really want my PS and son to take a trip.  I want to go to a hospital and focus solely on my restart, rehab, whatever.  It's time!  I don't care if I eat,  I'll sleep when I'm dead, I don't need a vacation.  I need to walk and all the food in all the hospitals in America won't make me walk again!

But walk again I will.  Ms. Moore and my Patient Spouse will see to that!  I will do whatever is necessary and when I fight my way up the hill just to discover a bunch of slow, motorized scooters and little chairs that creep up the hallway ever so slowly, and instantly diminish the value of your home, I'll write about that too because it's BS!

Hopefully, there is something out there that will allow me to get from point (a) to point (b).  I'll never stop looking for a solution.  So do your worst!  Serve me some "green" beans fried with jalapeno slices (yes, I said jalapeno slices.  That's beyond lazy - those two items together are just wrong (and gray).  Yet, there they were!)  I have impeccable tastes and no appetite.  I've lost all interest in antiques.  I'm only interested in things that work or look like they work or at least don't collect dust.  I no longer collect or save anything except stuff for kids.

All shapes I now find appealing (food/cars/housing) are round or oval (cookies/new Mercedes/beach houses), no straight edges I can cut myself on, no corners to collect dust.

The only decor items I look at are modern and streamlined.  I am the "Patient of the Future", this isn't the end of the road for me it's somewhere in the middle of a very big adventure.  Thanks to a few friends, HA, MEB, & Paul (NOT McCartney!), I am figuring this out.  I may have "lost my place is space", as one neuropsychologist expressed it, but I'm finding a better one.

Another Tedious Side Effect of Cancer? Just Another Log O' Stress in that Big Bonfire in the Sky!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Once again I had a great cancer-relevant topic all ready to go (This week:  Brain Tumors & Brain Surgeons-like Peanut Butter and Chocolate!  The Halloween Edition) and then this happened:  I caught a rare glimpse of the back of my upper legs that have been exercised, daily, for years, and I got another "shock of my life".  To wit, my legs appeared to be trying to escape from a small "sea of skin" and it's nothing anybody needs to see! Ever! Heck, it gives me the willies just telling you about it!  I had just sent my first WTH?  to my "glam squad" (well  really it's only one person but she's really glamorous!  She is a squad!)

Before she or anyone could respond I morphed again!  Weird skin, gone!  Weirder muscles, developed and pronounced!  Could the elusive "neuroplasticity'' be far behind?  I hope not.  Now that I finally see results I'm more motivated than ever to follow through.  I wasn't kidding about not having a "Plan B".  I barely have a "Plan A"    When you change greatly from day to day, you do begin to be prepared for anything, or think you need to be.  Frogs falling from the sky?  Sure.  Saw it in a movie . It could happen.  In SoCal!  Brain cancer?  Bring it!  MRI?  Nahhh, too scary!

I feel like I should be wearing armor and a shield,  every time I step out of bed!  Who knows what the day might bring; Mayhem, bad hair, bad cookies (no such thing, the only bad cookies are great cookies behaving badly, like if a cookie started cooking methamphetamine, like if an Oreo went all Heisenberg on you.  Pretty silly!  Would never happen!  But then if you told me back in 2011 that I'd still be in a wheelchair in 2014 I probably would have sneered something to the effect of "Run, run, run as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!" So what do I know?) You name it, I'll just try to be ready for it.

Intense "sit-bones" therapy?  Ready!  Angry Korean Water Spirit from "The Ring"?  Ready!  Focusing both eyes on the same spot?  I'm on it!  Stabbing a zombie so you don't waste a bullet on it (yes, they move that slowly!)?  I'm all over it!  You have to be ready for anything.  Because anything can and will happen! Count on it!

A couple of weeks ago the only "ISIS" I knew was a very fictional company from a very fictional animated comedy series!  Now, the whole world is figuratively "mounting up" to go "take care of them".  My cookie-baking-law-writing-best-friendo thinks she and I should saddle up, arm up (her husband has always believed in safe gun-ownership - and gun safes) and going to Iraq or wherever, "Thelma & Louise" style!  See?  Anything can happen.  Anything!