It's not a glorious way to enter the final years of one's life but so it goes and I'm grateful for it. Because my cancer is so weird, with no known treatment other than surgery, I've been accepted into 23andMe's first ever drug trial, testing the viability of infusion therapy to treat cancer. It's in phase one, so I/we, the small group of people who are also in the trial, are the fatted rats, following our poor rat brethern who had no choice to but live, be tortured, and die for human-unkind.
Infusion therapy is the new hope of the 21st century. It's not poison like chemo. The Covid vaccine is infusion therapy. It doesn't directly attack the cancer. It's like sending Switchblade drones or TB2 Bayraktar drones to Ukraine. The drone unmasks the orcs tanks hiding in the trees so soldiers can bomb them. In the same way, infusion therapy unmasks the cancer cells hiding behind their own camouflage alerting the body's own immune system to get to work and blast them.
Behold the Good Vibe Solar Collector. Even in the worst of times, there is always something to be grateful for. If I can do it so can you, and I'm doing it, so do it. If you can't come up with anything to grateful about, take all you want from the Good Vibe Solar Collector. It's free!
Passed Eleanor do Antiga Jardim and one of her peachicks on the street the other day. She honked at me when I photograph them which is totally understandable. Also saw a black rabbit in a nearby park the other day. She was also, understandably, suspicious of me, not that I meant her any harm but how could she know that? I'm worried she's there. Probably someone "dumped" her there. It's not a suitable place for a lone rabbit. I need to call the animal shelter. And on a lighter note, I saw one of the peacocks was standing alone on the sidewalk in the sun this morning. Didn't photograph him.
The mysterious "wild" Black Bunny
Doctor Miguel texted last night about 11 PM regarding the
results of my recent lung biopsy. It does not appear to be a
re-occurrence of the myoepithelial carcinoma
so they are recommending watchful waiting. This means, another CT scan
in three months and, if that's clear, we'll go to semester scans.
I am now an official resident of Portugal and actually for about a month already. I forgot to mention it but it is something of a milestone. It took over a year, a lot of paperwork, getting health insurance, renting a place, etc but it's official. And it actually does, or did, feel a little different at first. The idea has since settled into its mundane context but I'm glad it's done. The next step is that I must now start learning Portuguese. It will have to be, as a friend in Florida used to say, "little by slowly".
"Today is today, the only day there is, this day, today, so live it and love it"!
- Juan Carlos
It's been open for a long time, five or ten thousand years, give or take a few thousand but, most importantly it is open this morning. In the words of Juan Carlos, "Today is today, the only day there is, this day, today, so live it and love it"!
I can think of no better place than here at the Pigeon Cafe and I use that word "here" lightly because pigeons are everywhere. In fact, the way I see it, it's their world. I just live in it. So, I'm having coffee this morning at the Pigeon Cafe and what better place to start the day?
This morning during civil dawn, the time before the sun peeks over the horizon, as we humans while away in contagion . . . humankind's second oldest friends after dogs, the pombos (poem-boos) aka pigeons, resumed their cooing. Today they chose to begin the day with an old favorite doot DOOOO doot
. . . doot-DOOOO-doot / doot-DOOOO-doot / doot-DOOOO-doot here . . . do-do DOOT / do-do-DOOT / do-do-DOOT/ do-do-DOOT there . . . doo-DOOT / doo-DOOT/ doo-DOOT over there . . . and DOOT-doo-doo / DOOT-doo-doo / DOOT-doo-doo from across the way.
And, during civil dawn, the peacocks, roosters, and hens resumed crowing and clucking. Once the sun was fully above the horizon, a couple of parakeets zoomed past flashing their bright green wings, seagulls glided by, and little birds of various descriptions twittered songs in the trees.
After dawn, Blacky the cat made an appearance and Barkie the dog added her comment. Bird Park East, the place I call home these days.
M. Lee finally officially became a Portuguese resident today. It shouldn't have taken so long but we happened to apply for our visas in San Francisco last June just when the Consulate was changing systems. Our paperwork got lost in the shuffle for awhile. They were especially slow issuing my visa so my appointment at SEF isn't until next month.
We've been traveling for a long time and have always kept half an eye on where might be a good place to move, to make a base outside the US. In 2015 we settled on Bangkok but it's so polluted there that M. got a terrible lung infection and nearly died. After that, we made our way back to Europe but didn't get serious about Portugal until 2017. That's when we decided it could be the place, and by extension the EU. A lot of questions had to be answered, problems resolved, and a lot of changes to deal with. It's been more like changing lives than just moving somewhere and today is a long awaited plateau along the way. Well, not exactly. I'm not there yet. We'll see if SEF accepts my application. If they do, it's one more thing we can check off the list. After that it will still another five years until we can actually apply for Portuguese citizenship but this is a milestone. Between now and then, we'll have to learn Portuguese, which I'm not looking forward to, but it will be a good mental exercise to become at least transactionally literate.
Had a hell of a time focusing on writing today. My end goal is to get a few more things submitted for publication but I tend to get lost in the details. The last batch of poems I sent out was rejected but with a personal letter from the editor inviting me to submit something again for their following issue. I probably will. In the meantime, I'm looking for other journals that sound interesting but what usually happens, and it did again today, is that I end up muddling around with edits instead. At least today it lead me to finally making peace with a poem I wrote some years ago and have been arguing with ever since. It was always my idea to squeeze it into a haiku but it was never right. Finally, today, I surrendered to the fact that it is just not willing to cooperate. Words have a mind of their own.
For my future reference, what follows is the timeline regarding
my diagnosis and treatment for Myoepithelial Carcinoma ----------------------------------
On 25 Jan. 2019, during a yearly physical in Nevada, I mentioned it felt like I had a sea serpent in my belly. Ok, it was a wild exaggeration, but in the US most doctor's attention span is controlled by insurance companies, not people's concerns. My old doctor spent about five minutes per patient. After the allotted time, if I had a question, I had to physically plant myself in front of the door to block his exit. This was a new doctor so I wasn't sure she'd listen but she did and was very gracious about it.
Yes, gracious as in "pleasantly kind, benevolent, courteous". Dr. Nguyen was seven when she came to America from Vietnam. "We were boat people", she said in an interview for Carson Now. Her father was a doctor but, with the fall of Saigon, her parents had to leave the maternity hospital behind they'd opened together and were able to do so because of the sponsorship of a gracious church in Michigan.
Anyway, Dr. Nguyen scheduled an ultrasound for Feb. 15. I got the results on Feb. 27. They indicated a mass on my kidney so she scheduled further tests. On the 7th of March I had a second ultrasound followed by a CT scan with dye. Those tests clearly showed an 8 cm mass on my kidney. I met with a Nevada urologist on March 18. He wanted to do a biopsy.
However, at the same time, we were nearly done sorting through, tossing, donating, giving away or selling most of our possessions, selling our house, and relocating near family and friends in Oregon. Furthermore, we had plans brewing well over a year to move to Europe part time. We had to go.
The Nevada doctor gave me a referral to one in Oregon. I met with him on 8 April. Our flight to London was on 14 April. He tried to schedule the procedure before that but couldn't until 17 April. M. Lee and I decided he should still leave as planned. The plane fare and lodging was already paid. I had the biopsy on 17 April and two days later left for Europe.
I was told I'd get the results in five to seven days. After a week, I called them but they could tell me nothing. Another week went by but still no word so I called again. The receptionist didn't know anything and seemed irritated by my question. A third week passed and still no report—so I called again. This time she said the Oregon lab couldn't identify the mass and sent it to a lab in Indiana which hadn't finished their analysis yet. On 9 May, the Oregon doctor called me in Portugal with results, myoepithelial carcinoma, a very rare form of cancer generally occurring in a salivary gland. We discussed me returning to the US for surgery as it is currently the only known treatment for this form of cancer.
On 10 May, as we were in Portugal, M. Lee emailed the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown, a private biomedical research foundation here in Lisbon. They immediately assigned us a personal representative we could contact at anytime and made an appointment with Dr. Miguel Almeida for 13 May. On that day, Dr. Almeida scheduled five tests, all completed the following week.
Not wanting to do a second biopsy, Dr. Almeida wanted the slides from Indiana. In Europe your body parts belong to you. You want them, no problem. In America, no. I called the lab several times, signed and sent various requests to no avail. Even Dr. Almeida personally called and spoke to the head of the lab and sent signed forms requesting samples. By the time he finally received the biopsy we had returned to the US to apply for a Portuguese visa.
The process of applying for Portuguese citizenship is many stages, very backed up, and incredibly tedious. We had an appointment in San Francisco on 10 June. It required delivering a massive amount of paperwork, including an FBI background check, Portuguese tax number, bank account, and residence address in person. We had to go.
July 1 we returned to Portugal. While we were gone, Dr. Almeida put together a "dream team" including Dr. Christophe Assenmacher who flew in from Brussels. The surgery was 12 July and was done using Champalimaud's da Vinci robot which the surgeon controls from a console. This is a minimally invasive form of surgery, capable of greater accuracy and, if all goes well, reduces recovery time. The da Vinci made six small incisions in my abdomen for its "hands". One held the kidney while another carefully cut off the infected part and, before removing it from my body, still others slipped the tumor into a plastic bag, sealed and compressed it and yet another hand pulled the bag out through the largest incision which was about an inch and a half or some 4 cm long. They also removed a second tumor from the back of my neck which appeared last year. I remained in ICU for three days as bleeding can be a problem. It wasn't. I was discharged on the fourth day and have been feeling fine.
Oct. 8 I had a follow up CT scan of my entire body and tomorrow, Oct. 24,I will find out if I am, at this time, cancer free or not.
Oct 24 met with Dr. Almeida. The CT scan did not detect any cancer at this time. I didn't get elated when he told me. I felt grateful and have had moments of well-being and belonging, rare anytime for me and very welcome.
Several years ago I went through a very bad time. I was living in the hills of West Virginia and would come into town now and then to open my then husband's tiny electronic repair shop. He was a whiz that way. When I got to town the first thing I'd do was buy a bag short dogs, sit in the alley beside the shop and drink a couple. Then I'd open the shop. I didn't go in very often but as I recall we never had any customers when I was there. I played a lot of country music real loud those days. It helped. Marshal Tucker's "Can't You See" was a special comfort. I'm listening to it tonight as I write this. I don't live in West Virginia anymore. I don't even live in America anymore but it's another bad time and that song is still a comfort. This coming week I start a round a tests to determine if I have cancer.
Packing, sorting, pruning and letting go of almost two decades of my life has been overwhelming but mostly it's done now and what's left tucked in boxes and ready to go. We move at the beginning of next week and then what? A new phase of my life? The last phase? I'm saying good-bye to friends. We assure one another we'll meet again but will we? Every door closes for the last time.
And then there are my beloved friends in the Bird Park. They made Nevada livable for me, even delightful . . . Maggie the 7 o'clock Magpie (7 o'clock because in the beginning she always came at 7 AM, before everyone else) and her tiding . . . the charmer Chatterbox Charlie along with beautiful Minerva and the rest of the crow congress . . . Plonk, his girlfriend, and the ensuing band of pigeons who followed them here . . . the bevy of doves with their screechy, forever melancholy call . . . the drifts of quail, generations now . . . the hilarious, head-banging quarrel of finches with their ridiculously comical, but oh yes, very serious fights . . . the tiny, mild-mannered sparrows . . . the flock of grackles with their most mellifluous song . . . Babette and Mr. Fancy Pants . . . the pool parties and dust baths . . . Old Man pigeon who came and stayed to spend his last days here and after whom we named the pile of torn out lawn turf where he rested Old Man Hills . . . Penny Robin who came for her apples so many springs, even this one . . . I will miss them all terribly but always and especially—Maggie.
Maggie and a bit of apple
There is no way I can tell them that I love them but I'm going anyway, no way to say goodbye other than remove the little white table where, every morning I've been here for the past seventeen years, they have come for breakfast. The Bird Park was a haven most of that time, until the hawks showed up. At least that part will also end.
Today is the Equinox, the beginning of spring here in the northern hemisphere, autumn in the south. May we all enjoy, if only briefly, this moment when light and dark are in balance.
I'm finally on the downside of packing. We move at the end of the month. It feels like a death, but not just because we've been in Nevada for 17 years. It's something deeper. Sorting through the memories, stones, and mementos I've collected along the way . . . the skull of a horse I found near a dry water hole, a horse killed in a brawl with another, head kicked in, jaw broken in several places . . . a whole mummified eagle's body . . . the half-billion-year-old trilobites I found in the Great Basin left from when this now desert was a vast, warm inland sea under the equator . . . the night coyotes sniffed our feet as we lay naked on our makeshift bed in back of the truck . . . the petroglyph of a pony express stop carved in nearby stone sometime in the previous two centuries . . . this is not just the end of a chapter, it is the end of a journey that is now a time gone by.
April 14 we leave for Portugal to apply to their residence program. This, of course, if I get my passport back in time. I forgot to sign the renewal application. When I realized this and called they assured me I'll get the new one before April 14. We shall see.
In more soothing news, the magpies, crows, and starlings have devoured their breakfast and moved on with their day. The little birds and quail are strolling around nibbling seed. Even Jimmy the squirrel put in an appearance.
The family, dogs included, came over tonight for lasagna and a movie.Very nice evening. Thea is spending the night. M. Lee and I leave Wednesday for southern Oregon, a couple of weeks there and then back to Nevada to begin dismantling our world. Not exactly sure where this road is leading. What I do know is that it's time shed another layer along the way.
Thunder and rain all night and now a cloudy, humid morning. It's almost feels tropical but this is Portland Oregon so I'm not counting on seeing a blue sky today on this, the official beginning of Summer now duly noted.
With over 2500 children currently imprisoned in internment camps by Trump and the Republicans and no end in sight, just fuckwad's useless magic marker scrawl on yet another impotent "executive order", I feel hypocritical and sad even mentioning summer as it calls to mind childhood and the golden days of summer but it is the beginning of summer so somehow make it count for good.
Finally . . . 19:30 GMT (7:30 PM) . . . and I have managed to crawl out from under the crashing sky of America one more time.
Seems I get sucked into that shit show at least once a day . . .
... US Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III claiming he's doing "god's work" ripping children from their parent's arms at the border ... and Trump pretending Democrats are making them do it.
...Trump saluting North Korean generals and praising murderous dictator Kim Jung Un as a "pretty smart cookie" with a "very good personality"...
... lies swarming from his mouth are like great gray clouds of terminates rising from the foundation of a rotting house.
It's exhausting.
Through the glass
The South should just secede from the Union, erect a wall around itself and be done with it. They could have all the guns they crave ... machine guns, cannons, bazookas, ground to air missiles, bombs, whatever ... replace science class with bible study, deport anyone with skin darker than a peanut and worship Trump as the divine messenger they know him to be.
But I did go for a bike ride today. That helped. We're in Portland, Oregon at the moment. We rode down to the Sellwood bridge and along the way discovered the Portland Puppet Museum. That was a bright spot in the day. Swami would love it. Closest people to his friends at Artist's House in Bangkok.
The little birds are eating as fast they can and the quail just arrived. Soon snow will cover everything and everyone will have to wait out the night tucked as best they can out of the wind. "In like a lion, out like a lamb" mother always said of March but who can be sure anymore? At least the hawk hasn't made an appearance yet this evening.
First day of summer. All the mysticism and high holy aspirations aside . . . do yourself a favor. Pause. Yes. Take a moment or two today to breathe, look around, start fresh. Pass it on.
The neighbor is rockin' the country tunes. That means he's outside in his hot tub. Trump rages on. He and Kim Jung Un are in a dick measuring contest. This in Trumpie's first 80 days. We knew that was going to happen. These guys are twins. As for me, I'm sick . . .food poisoning, flu or whatever. Whatever it is, I haven't felt this bad in a long time. I must be getting better though. I've managed a glass a water and this. Now on to the tea.
