Your Tuesday moment of zen.
Walking in the hospital, last Thursday. © 2009 M. Lake, all rights reserved.
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As ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) calendula_witch continues to so ably document, most recently here, I am at home recovering, I seem to be able to handle a small amont of Twitter, but blogging and email are bot very tough for me right now under the influence of opiates. But as I am up in the middle of the night with the dosage transition itchies, I thought I'd send my love out to the Intarwebs on this week of uncharacteristic post-surgical silence.
Y'all have been wonderful.
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I am doing unexpectedly well here in hospital. Per this post from calendula_witch I do believe I'm up to visitors today and tomorrow. Also, looks like I may be here til Sunday despite earlier hopes.
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calendula_witch and shelly_rae are about to take me to hospital. Admission at 6 am, surgery at 7:30, not sure when the actual prep time begins. Ah, epidurals. For what it's worth, I did sleep okay last night.
I could write a lot about fear, panic, irrationality, love, friendship, medicine, cancer, parents, children, caring, sharing. But not now. Now I go to face the knife.
As previously stated, this blog will be going dark for a while. For surgical and post-op updates, watch calendula_witch's blog, or my Twitter feed at @jay_lake, both of which will be updated by calendula_witch. I expect shelly_rae will be updating her Twitter feed as well, @ShellyRaeClift. This blog will be dark for days once I go in.
Anyway, I guess this is good-bye. Or more to the point, see you later.
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| 2009-11-25 04:57 |
| [links] Link salad goes ungently into the unsweet night of surgery |
| Public |
| books, cancer, funny, health, links, madness, personal, photos, politics, reviews, rocket, science |
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A reader reacts to my 2005 novel Rocket Science [ Powell's | Amazon ] — I think they liked it.
Cheryl Morgan reviews Madness of Flowers [ Powell's | Amazon ] — Note the comments section, she's playing an utterly lovely game with a short passage from my book.
plunderpuss finishes my medical forms — Hahahah.
joshenglish and Mrs. joshenglish drop by with a lovely parting gift — Hilarious.
SMBC on the topic of lung surgery — An odd resonance in today's comic reading, given where I'm headed this morning.
Nothing to Sneeze At: Doctors' Neckties Seen as Flu Risk — Heh. I knew I was on to something with this whole Hawaiian shirt thing.
APOD with the ice fountains of Enceladus — Wow wow wow.
Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute — Well, this is not good.
Everybody flipflops on the filibuster of judicial nominees — Ah, principled consistency in politics.
?otD: Will you miss me when I'm gone?
11/25/2009 Body movement: n/a (surgery prep) Hours slept: 6.25 This morning's weigh-in: 236.2 Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
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Surgery is in two days. Nothing like a nacho-ectomy to brighten one's holidays. Still, I think this is a good time to have this surgery.
I've been narrowing more and more. It's increasingly difficult to respond to email, and I've become almost utterly single threaded. I know from last year's cancer surgery that this is normal for me pre-op, but I have some pretty serious hate for what the whole business does to my mind and my emotions.
shelly_rae has been here since my return from California last week, being an absolute brick, and serving as my cancer buddy. calendula_witch arrived last night, bearing my heart with her. I've got an H1N1 shot today (finally!) and a therapist's appointment, some friend/family stuff tomorrow, then, well, that's pretty much it for a while.
This blog will be going dormant while I'm in the hospital, at least til I've recovered sufficiently to peck at a keyboard. calendula_witch will be posting updates on her blog, and she'll have the keys to my Twitter feed, @jay_lake, for realtime updates during surgery and my post-operative stay in the ICU.
My state of mind is about what you'd expect. A mix of dread, terror and anticipation. Two days from now I jump off a cliff and begin a long fall that won't really end before next July when I've tapered off chemo.
I never wanted this. No one ever does, I guess. Sometimes the sheer horror of it all just overwhelms me. I just hang on to the notion that I'll eventually get my life back.
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I've been receiving some very kind emails, along with cards and letters and a few packages. tamiam sent an inspiration book and DVD. Deborah Ross knitted me a fine hat. And today, a very kind and thoughtful librarian sent me a generous monetary gift.
That last gave me significant pause in an unexpected way. Yes, this cancer is expensive, and difficult. On the other hand, I'm well-insured (by American standards), and I have a good income from the Day Jobbe. Taking the gift very much in the spirit it was intended, I endorsed the check to The Clayton Memorial Medical Fund. That way the gift will be used to aid Pacific Northwest writers in more need than I am.
To that end, if you're moved to contribute money in this situation, please send it in my name to:
Clayton Medical Fund
c/o OSFCI
P.O. Box 5703
Portland, Oregon 97228 If you want to knit me a spiffy hat or send me an art project or something, feel free to do so at: Jay Lake
P.O. Box 42611
Portland, Oregon 97242-0611 I want to emphasize my profound gratitude and humble surprise at these gifts. Friends and strangers alike have been stunningly kind to me in this journey. You are wonderful.
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the_child, shelly_rae and I had a very lovely evening with frogworth and his family yesterday. We met at Powell's downtown, where I signed stock and bought presents for the Niece, whose sixth birthday is tomorrow. Then we headed over to Jake's Famous Crawfish for a ludicrously sumptuous dinner. Excellent conversation and fascinating stories were shared.
Today is Day Jobbery, then a planned birthday party for the Niece tonight, but she was running a fever yesterday, so that might not happen. Tomorrow the_child, shelly_rae and I are off to the coast to visit the wreck of Peter Iredale, and if time permits, also Indian Beach, which is my favorite West Coast beach. Sunday, a family Thanksgiving, for which I am baking knot rolls. (If you ask nicely, I'll post the recipe.)
Cancer-wise, the world keeps getting narrower as my surgery date approaches. I'm shedding commitments, people, desires, and needs. Not so much with the panic these last few days as with the sadness. I have my pre-operative screening appointment this morning. Monday I'll see my therapist again. Wednesday morning, back to the land of pain and drugs.
calendula_witch will be here Sunday, at which point my heart will be restored to me. She and shelly_rae will keep me pointed in the right direction before surgery, and keep me going after until I'm back on my feet. I'll know more about the chemo come 12/7, once we have the pathology reports in hand and meet with oncologist.
For now, I go on.
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Nice walk up Twin Peaks this morning. I'll miss it, as I don't know when I'll be back in SF in the foreseeable future. I'm likely under a travel restriction through about July, though I may be able to sneak down to California briefly over the holidays.
I'm returning to Portland this afternoon, calendula_witch will be there on Sunday, driving the Witchmobile as she'll stay for a couple of weeks. shelly_rae is heading to Portland today as well, to be my cancer buddy, and calendula_witch's, through the surgery and the hospitalization following.
Lots of busy coming up, including the Niece's sixth birthday party on Friday and an early family Thanksgiving on Sunday. This is good, as the surgery is a week from today, and by about Monday I will be an utter wreck.
Had a stray thought while walking about the difference between my business writing (Day Jobbery) and my fiction. Yesterday I executed a quick project, only a few hours, in which I repurposed some existing text from our Web site and from a handful of sales proposals. This is completely normal behavior, because it preserves brand consistency, keeps me on message, and helps the salespeople by offering predictable language they're already familiar with. I'm not required to be original every time, in fact, quite the opposite. The creativity there comes from figuring out how to meet the requirement in the first place, writing introductory, bridging and concluding text, and generally positioning the whole project. Whereas in my fiction writing, I never deliberately repeat myself. (Well, almost never, but it's very unusual.) I go to a fair amount of trouble to not repeat other people, though we all do it by accident sometimes.
This may be about as revelatory as noticing the sky is blue, but I'd never thought of things this way before. Ah, brain, I knew there was a reason I take you for walks.
Also, I've continued to write through all this. Currently revising calendula_witch's draft of Our Lady of the Islands, a book that continues to be an excellent read.
All in all, my head and heart remain unusually calm these last few days. Let us hope for more of the same.
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As my cancer surgery approaches, and the indeterminate recovery period, followed by the runup to chemo, I am closing out my commitments. Some have been met, some I am shedding. I'll deliver "The Specific Gravity of Grief" to the requesting editor before surgery next week, and I'll meet my contract commitments on Endurance next spring. Other than that, everything's being cut until I know what my resources are, in terms of time, energy and my ability to write under adverse medical circumstances.
That being said, if I've promised you a story, or I owe you a blurb, a book in the mail or something else, and you have not heard from me already, now would be an excellent time to remind me. (Among other things, stress is rather savagely robbing both my memory and my focus on follow-through.) After early next week, my ability to even pay attention, let alone deliver, will be compromised for a while.
So please, hit me in comments or via email if it looks like I'm not going to do something you're counting on. We'll negotiate from there.
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There are moments in life which you cannot take back or do over. The first time you say "I love you" to someone who has become important. Signing your mortgage papers. Birthing a child. Whatever happens, you've jumped, and there's no going back. Your life will be forever different.
I am coming to see this impending thoracic surgery as such a Rubicon for me. Not the surgical procedure itself, I suppose, but the milestone of passing from diagnosis of this second round of cancer, which has been going on since May, to treatment, which will likely go on through next June at the earliest. Over a year of my life spent on this single, deadly issue. And this surgery is the pivot point.
Things will be different. I spent a lot of time convincing myself that last year's cancer was a fluke, a one time event from which I would recover and return to the general population of risk, mortality, life expectancy, baseline health and so forth. Now we know my colon continues to produce precancerous polyps, and we have this tumor to take out of my lung, and we have the near-certainty of chemotherapy. I will never return to the general population. There is a new normal in my life, and it will always have me one scan away from very bad news indeed.
Take that sense of transition, and combine it with the usual fears of surgery, and my larger fears of chemotherapy, and invest it all in a Wednesday morning check-in time at the hospital for my nacho-ectomy, and you have my Rubicon.
Life will be different. More different than anything I've ever done, in some ways. Yet, as calendula_witch keeps reminding me, I am still me, and I will continue to be me. I seem to be living a life filled with love and madness.
Even now, I have no regrets. Only hopes and fears.
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Yesterday was a good day. calendula_witch and I got in a terrific walk up some mondo hills, spent some good quality couple time together, both got writing and reading done, then eventually went out. Our itinerary included Good Vibrations, Borderlands Books, Tacqueria Cancun (one of my favorite Mexican restaurants on the West Coast), and of course, The Make-Out Room for Writers With Drinks. Borderlands Books produced some unexpected bonus in running into Greg and Astrid Bear. I also got a phone call on the store phone, from sdn, which was surprising but fun.
We ran into Kat Richardson on the sidewalk, who was killing time before reading at Writers With Drinks, so we pulled her along. Once there we met up with maryrobinette (another reader) and Mr. maryrobinette, along with two friends of calendula_witch's. Afterwards, out with the WWD crew for crepes and fries at Frjtz. Whoever thought of putting truffle oil on french fries ought to be sanctified.
After WWD, we wound up talking to blakecharlton and therinth quite a bit. Blake's a medical student with both a personal and professional interest in cancer, Erin is a nurse. They had a lot to say, especially Blake, which was very helpful to me in my ongoing process of sorting my perspectives on my cancer, its recurrence, and my fears both rational and irrational. One thing Blake talked about was the survivorship community. The point he made, in reference to a close family member who'd survived a very bad experience with cancer (much worse than mine looks to be, frankly), was that there were conversations that Blake could not have with his loved one. There's a shared experience and an emotional vernacular which cancer survivors only find in other cancer survivors.
This of course made all kinds of sense. You see the same phenomenon in veterans, law enforcement, survivors of a disaster, or people who've shared any complex, high stress experience.
Which made me realize that one reason I'd written "The Specific Gravity of Grief" was to try to frame that cancer experience, that cancer mindset, for people who haven't taken that particular journey. To some degree, it's why I blog so extensively and thoroughly about my cancer journey, but the story (just finished, now in revision, due out from Fairwood Press next year) is a way of communicating the essentially incommunicable. Or so I hope.
A lot of streams crossed last night, and it wasn't dangerous so much as enlightening. It reminded me that while I stumble a lot, I also continue to progress. Sometimes I remember to be proud of myself, and the people around me.
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jaborwhalky with Jay Lake Dorito noodle doom mac and cheese — A recipe in honor of my cancers.
Charles A. Tan with a takedown of International Science Fiction Reshelving day — What he said. (Via Andrew Wheeler.)
Superconductors to Wire a Smarter Grid — More than you probably wanted to know about the US power infrastructure. Still, cool stuff.
Bad Science on the Iraqi bomb detection wands — This is as insane, and in its way deadly, as Thabo Mbeki's AIDS denialism. US conservatism have their global warming denial and evolution psychoses, liberals have their antivaxers, but it's nice to know that antiscience lunacy is not just for Americans.
China's fear of a black president
?otD: Which way to Pismo Beach?
11/15/2009 Body movement: Not yet, but upcoming 60 minute urban walk (San Francisco hills!) Hours slept: 5.75 This morning's weigh-in: 236.5 (!?) Currently reading: Finch by Jeff VanderMeer
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| 2009-11-13 02:46 |
| [links] Link salad flies transcontinental |
| Public |
| art, books, cancer, culture, green, links, personal, photos, politics, reviews, science |
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Call for masks — A way of sticking it to my cancer.
Strange Horizons reviews Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Borders ] — Not so much with the liking of the book. No, no, not at all. In great detail, at length with the not liking.
Mercado de San Marcos: 1890s
The Speed of Online Conversation — The Web, Twitter, and you.
Rosetta takes home some pictures — Bad Astronomy with some serious wow factor.
Backward star ain't from around here — Fun with astrography. (Snurched from the Twitter feed of @jstephenyork.)
Hoekstra Helps Al Qaeda — A Republican congressman gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Waiting for the media explosion... waiting... waiting... (Just as a thought experiment, imagine if Barney Frank had done this.)
?otD: How many dances can an angelhead pin?
11/13/2009 Body movement: n/a (airport walking) Hours slept: 6.25 This morning's weigh-in: n/a (traveling) Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox
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When I'm very stressed out, I show it in specific ways. For example, I can't work a Sudoku puzzle. I make a lot of arithmetic errors. My sleep habits get wonky.
This is to say, I've been diligent about exercising lately, and I wake up on time, without the alarm clock even now, and can still work Sudokus. That's how I know that even in the face of emotional anguish, nonstop talking about it, and comfort eating, still much of the cancer stress is me processing stuff, rather than me cratering in the face of it.
When I stop being able to wake up on time is when the shit will really have hit the fan.
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| 2009-11-12 05:40 |
| [links] Link salad, mostly science edition |
| Public |
| art, books, calendula, cancer, cool, culture, green, links, movies, music, personal, reviews, sale, science, stories, tech, weird |
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Call for masks — A way of sticking it to my cancer.
Interzone 225 ToC announced — With a novelette by calendula_witch and me. Also, she and I have sold a flash piece to Electric Velocipede.
A reader reacts to Green — At the bottom of their summary of recent reading. Some very nice things said.
Early 1970s ad for After Six men's fashions — My eyes! My eyes! Augh!
Google and realtime search — "There were five exabytes of information generated from the dawn of mankind to the year 2003," he said. "That amount of information is now generated every two days." Wow.
Mimicking the Building Prowess of Nature — Scientists build new materials using inspiration from complex biological forms. Some wild photos, and really neat materials science here.
Humanoid dinosaurs? Maybe not so much. — Some arguments about evolutionary paths from Tetrapod Zoology.
Mini ice age took hold of Europe in months — Something to think about in these days of climate change risk.
Why did HAL sing "Daisy"? — Fascinating. (Snurched from the Twitter feed of @jstephenyork.)
?otD: Why was the band on the run?
11/12/2009 Body movement: 55 minute urban walk (airport infrastructure!) Hours slept: 5.75 This morning's weigh-in: n/a (traveling) Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox
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My flight left Portland this morning in the pre-dawn darkness, and landed in Philadelphia this evening in dusk's last failing light. I spent almost eight hours sitting on airplanes, with a 40 minute break in the middle in DFW. Talk about your lost days... On the other hand, I did Day Jobbery work, got 3,900 words in on "The Specific Gravity of Grief", answered a couple of interviews, and took two naps, as well as reading a good chunk more of The Jade Man's Skin.
I did wear the stupid fricking mask. Boy did that get old after a while. I also pretended to OCD and used hand sanitizer frequently. We'll see if any of this helps stave off respiratory infection. Much like the city's alligator watch, we'll never know unless it fails. My state of mind in this regard is left as an exercise for the reader.
Dinner tonight with klingonguy, valverdi and their friend D—, who likely has an LJ handle but I'm not smart enough to figure it out. Quite nice an evening.
The Philadelphia Airport Marriott, on the other hand, is yet another Marriott property without wireless. I don't get it. For what these rooms cost, they shouldn't have any problem doing what every Motel 6 and mom-and-pop coffee house in the country can do. I'm done staying at Marriott properties, given how many other hotel chains seem to manage this minor issue just fine. I can't believe they don't get constant pushback from their business travel customers over this.
Tomorrow is a roadtrip from Philadelphia to the Pennsylvania hinterlands for Day Jobbe meetings. At least I'll see the sun tomorrow. And then off to San Francisco Friday, and my sweet calendula_witch.
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| 2009-11-11 03:27 |
| [links] Link salad thanks a veteran |
| Public |
| art, books, cancer, conventions, escapement, green, links, personal, politics, reviews, tech |
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Call for masks — A way of sticking it to my cancer.
Smart Bitches, Trashy Books gives a shoutout to Green [ Powell's | Amazon | Kindle | Barnes & Noble | Borders ] — Jay Lake’s Green has one of the most wonderful new female protagonists I’ve read in a while (Thanks to Cora.)
Foreign Service Journal reviews Escapement and Green here and here — (Thanks to my Dad.)
Google Dashboard: Now You Know What Google Knows About You — Um, yeah. (Thanks to lillypond.)
The Very Serious Paradox — The Poor Man institute calls out conservative doublethink on the role of government in society. (Admittedly not hard to do, but this one's still a doozie.)
?otD: Who will you thank for Veteran's Day?
11/11/2009 Body movement: n/a (traveling) Hours slept: 5.75 This morning's weigh-in: n/a (forgot) Currently reading: The Jade Man's Skin by Daniel Fox
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