Happy Half Nekkid Chemo Therapy

Hi Everyone.

Sorry for the delay. It’s been a bit hectic around here.

Well, it happened again. I left town and C landed in the hospital. I was sitting in the back seat of a Buick Lucerne in the middle of Cobo Hall in downtown Detroit when the phone in my pocket started to ring. We were lucky that the call came through when it did because if it had been a minute earlier or later, I never would have heard it amongst the din of the ever-present techno beat music and the blond, buxom model “persons” that were shilling for the major auto makers in one, unending stream of marketing spin, delivered with an “oh so sincere”, 24-carret, gleaming grin.

When the phone started calling for attention, I was in a state of exhaustion. It was now about hour-six at the largest car show in North America. My eyes were past the glazing state. My feet would have been numb if they didn’t hurt so much. My knees felt like Nancy Kerrigan’s after a backstage encounter with Tonya Harding. I had taken to sitting in the backseat of any car that J was investigating (which turned out to be just about every one).

So, I was sitting there, enjoying the relative silence (the car was surprisingly well insulated) when my pocket started making shrill noises. I knew before I even hit the “talk” button that this was not a good thing. It was C and she was calling from the hospital. High fevers, violent chills, admitted Sunday morning, receiving tests and conflicting opinions from the shamans. Not to worry though (yeah, right), she said.

Well, worry I did for the next twenty-four hours. J and I had flown to Detroit on frequent flyer miles that had us leaving the Twin Cities at 6:50 on Saturday morning (meant getting up about 4 AM). We spent Saturday touring the Ford Rouge River plant before going on into the heart of Detroit to our hotel. We were staying at the Marriott in the Renaissance Center which is this amazingly confusing complex of glass towers with a regular rat’s maze of elevated walkways, escalators, elevators, and galleries. Often you could see the spot you wanted to go, but you couldn’t figure out how to get there. We wandered around like zombies for quite a while. We were informed apologetically that our room was not ready (even though it was now about four in the afternoon), so we aimlessly wandered the surreal landscape of GM’s corporate headquarters for an hour.

Still no joy on the room front, so we wandered some more and eventually found a restaurant willing to serve a couple of tired travelers. We finally did get a room and one with a view at that. We looked out on the adjacent glass tower into a window that had been boarded over on the inside as near as I could tell. We were so tired that we both fell asleep watching some dumb show that J had selected before the sandman bagged him. As luck would have it, he got his second wind upon waking later and was disappointed to learn that his old man was not so quick to recharge.

Sunday was car show day. This was J’s birthday trip, so we did what he wanted, and that was to see a couple of thousand cars all in one place and to try to sit in every seat in every one. I have never seen someone so single minded, so determined, and so adept at disappearing into a crowd. If I took my eye off him for a second, he was gone. All I could do was stand in one place and wait for him to realize I had lost the scent again and for him to come back to me. There was no way I was going to find him amongst the thousands of red-blooded, car maniacs that were roaming Cobo Hall.

Fortunately, he was pretty good about keeping track of me, and we made it through the day. As tired as I was at the end of all of this, I spent the night tossing and turning, gripped in the half-awake terrors of my own making. I was trapped in a distant city while C was trapped in a hospital at home.

Monday, we headed for the airport early and began the effort of getting on an earlier flight home. We got lucky and were shoe-horned into a 575 along with half of the Detroit airport and transported home. C got out of the hospital on a three-hour pass and was able to join us all at home for J’s birthday dinner. Aunt P fixed J his favorite thing – steak, and boy was it good. It was even better that C was there to share it with him. I had to take her back down to the jai, er, hospital afterwards, but only for one more night as it turned out.

I was able to bring her home yesterday and so far, no more fever. What caused it? No one knows. All the tests came up empty. So it goes.

Speaking of going, I went through my second round of chemo today. I am on a weekly schedule where I go in for three to six hours of semi-conscious nodding while tailored proteins with mouse parts tacked on slowly drip into my arm. The first session is the longest and usually the most interesting because it is on that visit where most patients get their most severe reaction. It’s the mouse parts that get the body all hot and bothered. This time, it sent me into severe chills and shaking which lasted about an hour and left me all wrung out. Today, there was no reaction, which is typical. All the same, I start things out with a dose of IV benadryl, which pretty much knocks me out.

Anyway, enough for now. We are all doing well here. We now have two teenagers in the house. It’s official.

D. (where’s my cheese)