rock me like a wagon wheel
fed and watered, i just took up a spot on the couch for an afternoon snooze and my head just won't stop going in so many different directions. i find this is often the case when i am feeling better after a couple days of chemo hangover. all the thoughts and feelings i couldn't quite summon late last week manifest themselves in a long freight-train like line in my head.
this boxcar is devoted to travel. daydreaming about next week's trip to SFO that won't come soon enough. i know better than to spend precious time wishing it was already next week, but i can't help doing it just a little bit. i want to see some sunshine and maybe feel warm. smell the ocean, taste some food, laugh with some friends, and get some dirt under my feet. i'm also daydreaming about ireland. a friend recently returned from the emerald isle and it has me thinking it just might be time to go commune with the ancestors' home and soak up the green. airfare isn't too pricey (with chemo at $8k a pop, what's a little plane ticket? if only the insurance would cover it as palliative care) and it is getting to be time to visit. and a couple of mix CDs that have found their way to me have lit the summer road trip fire under me. where to? a long trip to new england? hiking, visiting friends, lazy mornings, hazy sunsets, lonely cabins or tent sites, warm air through the windows, cabot cheddar on fresh bread, stars, and afternoon swims. it all sounds so fantastic to me. go go go. now now now.
this boxcar is devoted to last week's article in the NYT and beyond concerning a study into CT imaging for early lung cancer detection that was found to be funded by a cigarette company. [cigarette company wants to be able to say, look, we can catch lung cancer early and save more lives! keep smoking! we can keep the ship from sinking as long as we get you in the CT machine sooner rather than later.] there is indeed a need for better imaging practices when it comes to lung cancer. most cases are not identified until the disease is in a later stage, when it is more difficult to treat and yes, more difficult to survive. the problem is, CT scans can turn up confounding images. this looks like it might be cancer, but it might not be. let's do a needle biopsy, or a wedge resection, to see... risking pneumothorax and potential other lengthy hospital-stay-requiring difficulties. take me for example, no real risk, no real reason to think it would be lung cancer, images on the original CT scan looking a little fishy - we just didn't know to look any sooner. with lung cancer patients numbering in the hundreds of thousands each year, imaging is indeed expensive. but catching it earlier could save some lives and some money in the long run. guess what? i probably would have paid a little extra for a CT scan had i known to go looking. we're getting younger, we're healthier, and so many of us never smoked in our lives. we need to be able to look for it sooner, more effectively, and take the risks we need to in order to start thwarting this disease. it is suspect that a cigarette manufacturer funded the studies. but with lung cancer carrying such a social stigma leaning heavily toward the smoker being evil, the cigarette causing the cancer, and the patients therefore somehow flawed, the funding just isn't there like it is for other types of cancer. it needs to come from somewhere. it just needs to be for a better reason than establishing we can catch it earlier so more people can keep smoking. fucking lung cancer. drives me nuts. go figure.
this next boxcar, it is full of food. delicious recipes for cakes and dinners. i want to eat. all the time. tasty fare that fills my stomach and makes me smile. every single meal. every single snack. i'm sad when food isn't satisfying. for the first four days following chemo tuesday my stomach is like the cesspool garbage pit in Star Wars. the walls are closing in and nothing can help. panic kind of sets in, like for luke and han and chewey. this could be the end. then suddenly it isn't. there's a pack of wolves in there, and they're hungry, and they haven't been fed for days. maybe weeks. unreal.
and so it goes, what rolls around between my ears. well, what is in there now. i'm also thinking of riding my bike tomorrow, maybe it will be warm, like they are saying. and of running, i haven't done that in a while. can't wait to get out. i'm itching for it.
this boxcar is devoted to travel. daydreaming about next week's trip to SFO that won't come soon enough. i know better than to spend precious time wishing it was already next week, but i can't help doing it just a little bit. i want to see some sunshine and maybe feel warm. smell the ocean, taste some food, laugh with some friends, and get some dirt under my feet. i'm also daydreaming about ireland. a friend recently returned from the emerald isle and it has me thinking it just might be time to go commune with the ancestors' home and soak up the green. airfare isn't too pricey (with chemo at $8k a pop, what's a little plane ticket? if only the insurance would cover it as palliative care) and it is getting to be time to visit. and a couple of mix CDs that have found their way to me have lit the summer road trip fire under me. where to? a long trip to new england? hiking, visiting friends, lazy mornings, hazy sunsets, lonely cabins or tent sites, warm air through the windows, cabot cheddar on fresh bread, stars, and afternoon swims. it all sounds so fantastic to me. go go go. now now now.
this boxcar is devoted to last week's article in the NYT and beyond concerning a study into CT imaging for early lung cancer detection that was found to be funded by a cigarette company. [cigarette company wants to be able to say, look, we can catch lung cancer early and save more lives! keep smoking! we can keep the ship from sinking as long as we get you in the CT machine sooner rather than later.] there is indeed a need for better imaging practices when it comes to lung cancer. most cases are not identified until the disease is in a later stage, when it is more difficult to treat and yes, more difficult to survive. the problem is, CT scans can turn up confounding images. this looks like it might be cancer, but it might not be. let's do a needle biopsy, or a wedge resection, to see... risking pneumothorax and potential other lengthy hospital-stay-requiring difficulties. take me for example, no real risk, no real reason to think it would be lung cancer, images on the original CT scan looking a little fishy - we just didn't know to look any sooner. with lung cancer patients numbering in the hundreds of thousands each year, imaging is indeed expensive. but catching it earlier could save some lives and some money in the long run. guess what? i probably would have paid a little extra for a CT scan had i known to go looking. we're getting younger, we're healthier, and so many of us never smoked in our lives. we need to be able to look for it sooner, more effectively, and take the risks we need to in order to start thwarting this disease. it is suspect that a cigarette manufacturer funded the studies. but with lung cancer carrying such a social stigma leaning heavily toward the smoker being evil, the cigarette causing the cancer, and the patients therefore somehow flawed, the funding just isn't there like it is for other types of cancer. it needs to come from somewhere. it just needs to be for a better reason than establishing we can catch it earlier so more people can keep smoking. fucking lung cancer. drives me nuts. go figure.
this next boxcar, it is full of food. delicious recipes for cakes and dinners. i want to eat. all the time. tasty fare that fills my stomach and makes me smile. every single meal. every single snack. i'm sad when food isn't satisfying. for the first four days following chemo tuesday my stomach is like the cesspool garbage pit in Star Wars. the walls are closing in and nothing can help. panic kind of sets in, like for luke and han and chewey. this could be the end. then suddenly it isn't. there's a pack of wolves in there, and they're hungry, and they haven't been fed for days. maybe weeks. unreal.
and so it goes, what rolls around between my ears. well, what is in there now. i'm also thinking of riding my bike tomorrow, maybe it will be warm, like they are saying. and of running, i haven't done that in a while. can't wait to get out. i'm itching for it.
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