Tuesday, January 27, 2009

On Food, and Blagoeviching

My last post began "quite a day." Well, I shall begin this post with "quite a week."

The last night I posted (Thursday) I was feeling great. I posted, got ready for bed, looked at Katie and said "why don't we go to Lazy Jane's (a cafe in my neighborhood) tomorrow morning." Now, most of you need to understand that with a lack of white and red blood cells, just leaving the apartment can be an adventure...

I went to bed and for the first time in weeks was sleeping well. Then at 2:35 in the morning I woke up and thought to myself "boy, I feel good. I can't wait for those eggs, toast with jam and seitan hash with hot sauce." I rose to go to the bathroom which is about eight feet from my bed and at step number two thought "hmm, my stomach doesn't feel quite right."

At step number four I thought "yup, here we go," and proceeded to drop to knees in front of the commode and Blagoevich so violently that I pulled a muscle in my back and stomach as well as gave myself a bloody nose. Then, I went back to sleep feeling sore, but overall just fine. One half hour later I woke up and repeated the process all over again. Never once was I nauseated, I would just wake up and think "yup, here we go again."

In the morning, I began eating timidly, a bit afraid of what might come, but by lunch was back to Amy's organic black bean and vegetable enchiladas smothered in cheddar cheese (God I love Mexican food). I'm still not sure what brought on the episode 'o vomitus, but I'll tell you this much -- I'm not going to eat a pulled pork sandwich 20 minutes before a spinal tap again. Well, I guess I can't promise that, I do love pulled pork.

I seem to be writing an awful lot about food and the funny thing is i'm not even on steroids -- I just love food, always have. To quote Jim Harrison "Small portions are for small and inactive people." I may be small, but it's not by choice and I've never liked small portions.

This weekend was great. Katie and I cooked, cleaned the apartment, and watched Star Wars. She enjoyed the movie as I bored her with drivel about the archetypal importance of certain characters, as well as the theories of Carl Jung and Joseph Cambell. It felt just like old times, and it was great.

Yesterday brought rougher seas. I was worn out and having a bit more trouble, but made it through, and today was another great day.

I'm back to the clinic on Thursday for another spinal tap and a blast of Vincristine. Any mental energy you can send my way to destroy those pesky lymphoblasts would be much appreciated.

Tonight all of my good vibes are going to Dick Bowley a leukemia fighter who had a bone marrow transplant in Atlanta today. Let you're new immune system come back like the light of Spring.

All right, to the fun stuff. Comment question of the Day:

I challenge you to come up with a better verb for vomitting than "Blagoviching"

Shout Outs:

SO to Scott for the e-mail -- much enjoyed
SO to Salmo for recommending "Sneakers" on the Netflix challenge -- laughed my ass off.
SO to Jesse for almost killing me by making me laugh so hard on a comment with the headline...
SO to the red-wrist-band-wearing colleagues at Clean Wisconsin (try saying that ten times fast)

Raising a glass to this adventure that is life (unfortunately it's water),

Sam

4 comments:

Candace Smartt said...

Hey Sam!
Candace here.
Thinking of you - so sorry you had such a bad thurs. night.
Can you send me an email address for Katie?
When u get a good replacement word for vomiting, let us know what it is!
Love to you and katie,
Candace
smartt.candace@gmail.com

Stuart said...

I know that "well, here we go again!" feeling all too well! Sucks.

Did they give you Zofran (ondansetron) for your stomach? I am on that, as needed, as well as pepcid.

The vincristine was fairly kind to me, but I think it may cause constipation so you may want to take a Colace or OTC softener.

I was going to suggest "letting go" for your synonym inquiry, but Blagoeviching is pretty darn creative. I just know when you are feeling queasy, the last thing you want to do is utter a word that has sounds that make you wanna... well, you know, Blogoevich.

Funny you like Amy's organic vegetarian meals... I love those things and the Mexican ones are soooo good. I like the Mattar Paneer one, too.

I am impressed that you even leave your homestead when your counts are so low! I basically hole myself up and don't let anyone come past the door threshhold! I would like to look back on all this and not have any stories about septicemia or infection!

Hang in there and talk to you soon...

Anonymous said...

Awesome. Glad you liked them. *raises Guinness* To life.

Sam's Mum said...

I agree with Stuart. That's a pretty good way to describe it. I like Blagoeviching or Blagojeviching. I think you've come up with a new verb. You'll have to tell sister Sarah to try it out the next time she comes in contact with a bad bowl of clam chowder.