Me + The Window Guy = Akwardness

A couple of years ago I had some windows replaced in my old house and got an estimate for a few others that were on their last legs. At the time I thought the sales guy was a bit of a creep but I thought: “Who cares? He’s here for ten minutes and then I’ll never see him again.”

After the windows were installed I thought: “Boy that creep sells a great product, and they got the work done quickly!” So when a little gap – big enough for a chipmunk to sneak in – appeared in the remaining windows, I knew just who to call!

Jason* returned my call in a timely three weeks and said he had to come in person to remeasure the windows. Do windows change dimensions with the passage of time? Maybe, it’s not my area of expertise. So Jason shows up and measures and gives me a long explanation about tariffs and materials and I practiced the art of chit chatting while leading people toward the exit.

We were standing at the front door and I said “Well Jason thanks for your time, let me know when you have the new pricing and I’ll drop off a check.”

Jason said “Ok sounds great. So how have you been?”

“Great.” I said

“Well you look great,” said Jason. “You look like you lost weight.”

“Oh yea,” I said. “I have cancer.”

“Oh no.” Said Jason. “That’s not good.”

“No,” I said. “I guess that’s why they say you shouldn’t comment on people’s weight.

“Yea!” Jason said. “Well have a good day!”

“You too!” I said as I pushed his dumb ass down the stairs and ran him over with my car. I mean as I opened the door for him and watched him walk out.

Is there a moral to this story? No, because this will not stop this man from commenting on another woman’s body. But it did feel good to use my cancer to humiliate a creep, even for just a few moments.

*Name has not been changed because fuck that guy

What Do I Make of a Bad Day

I’ve run out of things to say when people ask how I’m doing.

I’m fine. It’s manageable. I’m bad. I feel sorry for myself. I feel lucky. I am brave. I can do this. But it sucks. And most of all? I’m god damn tired of talking about myself. Just kidding, all I want to do is talk about myself but even I think it’s boring. My life feels teeny tiny. And it’s still the very beginning of the cancer. In fact it’s barely started.

For about ten days I’ve been shuffling around. I’m in pain, I have fatigue, and I just let it happen to me. That felt like real old school depression: I couldn’t use my tools. Yesterday I decided that I can make time for those days – but they need boundaries. Like two or three days wallowing in pain and fear is ok, then I have to get back to living. I know I can fake it til I make it. I know that my brain doesn’t know the difference between forcing myself to socialize and wanting to socialize – once I’m there I’m there.

I did not understand the mental gymnastics that a chronic illness requires. For instance: can you imagine how good it feels for people to constantly be praising me for just showing up? I mean people have the lowest of expectations of me and when I meet those expectations I am a hero. Someday, probably in the near future, that’s going to trickle down. Very soon people are not going to think I am superhuman because I differentiate between day pajamas and night pajamas.

Meal Train Update:

To The Best Team In The World,

A quick update for you: Tom G, Tommy Mulroy, and I met with the oncology team on Tuesday August 5th.

We did labs and they think the immunotherapy is causing liver inflammation. They’d like me to stay on prednisone and skip my infusion this month. I’ll continue on the targeted treatment, which is a daily pill. In the past that medication has caused pretty rough side effects but the steroids have really helped this time around.

In September I’ll do another infusion and scans a couple weeks later. They want to see all the tumors and lymph nodes get smaller. This round was more of a mixed bag – some shrinkage in some spots but some growth in others.

Overall I feel ok about this news. It would be nice to just be able to stay the course and not feel like I’m playing wack a mole with side effects, but it would be nicer to not have to deal with any of this bullshit at all. Here we are.

And I get to ride the prednisone wave, which is a wild drug. They upped my dose this week and some days it feels like I’ve been shot out of a cannon. Then when I do too much I crash out, which is also like getting shot out of a cannon but straight into the ground. While farting continuously all the way down.

There’s a surprising amount of farting involved in cancer treatment. Every day is a damn good day to be alive. I’m stretching my days out long and slow and I’m appreciating all of it. I don’t feel like a cancer warrior, I feel like a cancer Buddha.