(If you're unfamiliar with the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang/James Bond connection, consider this: The original book was written by Ian Fleming. The screenplay was written by Fleming and Roald Dahl, along with two others. Albert Broccoli produced. Desmond Llewelyn has a minor role, who also played Q. The story features a magical car, an improbably named female love interest, a shadowy Eastern European dictatorship, and some weird sex. Yes, in a Disney movie. With Dick van Dyke as James Bond. Not to mention Benny Hill as a manic depressive toymaker and Phil Collins making an uncredited appearance as a child actor. Watch the movie with all this in mind and prepare to be amazed. It's like all the James Bond plot cards turned 15 degrees out of true.)
Yesterday afternoon, the Neulasta pain came on. In a weird place — my upper arms and upper back. (This is not consistent with my own historical experience of this drug's side effects.) I felt if I coughed or choked. This morning it is also in my lower back. What causes this is bone marrow growth blooms placing pressure on the bone from the inside. It expresses as a sharp, intense pain that can approach crippling, though in truth this is more annoying that crippling.
Ah, cancer and its discontents. I'll always have Dick van Dyke. Sometime soon, we're going to watch Mary Poppins [ imdb ] with a similar revisionist eye. That movie also rewards such scrutiny.