• It was the very first post when I re-launched Back to the Fridge in its current format back in August 2008.
• It was big news when I stepped on the scale in 2009 and my weight began with a “1″ again for the first time in five years.
• And it came up yet again last year, when even in the midst of chemotherapy treatments, I was still talking about weight loss.

Yes, in spite of all my creative endeavors in life—music, art, writing—I’m afraid I’ll just go down in history as the guy who wanted nothing more than to see the LED shapes between his big toes light up differently.

Oh well. At least it gives me something to blog about. And since it’s been a while, I might as well get right back on topic, n’est-ce pas?

Last Year

The big news last year only indirectly had something to do with cancer. It was February 2012 when I decided to give the diet thing just one more go around. By April 3, 2012 I’d lost nine and a half pounds in fifty-one days. Nothing spectacular, of course, but hey, at least it was something. Of course, April 3, 2012 is the day I went into the hospital and the worst thing imaginable happened: I couldn’t weigh in every day.

It wasn’t until Tuesday, April 17, 2012 that I got to step on the scale again. Much to my dismay, I’d actually gone up one and a half pounds: the scale said 222.0. I wrote this in my spreadsheet: “Considering I’m eating about 800 cal/day or less, I’m surprised this isn’t going anywhere.” I was apparently too drugged up at that time to remember this issue.

Though I wasn’t eating, I was getting heavily pumped with fluids. And as my innards weren’t exactly firing on all cylinders, the fluids were going nowhere. Until that very same day when everything seemed to start working again. As annoying as it was having to pee about once every forty minutes, I hopped on the scale on Wednesday, April 18, 2012 to see: 211.5.

I said to myself, “Huh. I went down half a pound.” I stepped off the scale.

Wait a minute.

I wasn’t 212 yesterday. I was 222 yesterday. I furrowed my brow. Something had to be wrong. You just don’t lose eleven pounds overnight. Was it some kind of fluke?

I hopped on the scale on Thursday, April 19, 2012 to see: 205.0.

Friday, April 20, 2012 greeted me with 201.5.

I couldn’t help but notice at this point that my balloon feet looked pretty much back to normal. And the official total? (Where “official” means “from the doctor’s visit at 3pm on Monday to the doctor’s visit at 3pm on Friday”):

26 pounds in four days.

Never before and (under the circumstances) I hope never again.

Onderland

It took six more days after that (not that I was actually trying) but one year ago today, on April 26, 2012 that I saw 199.0 again. I wrote, “THERE IT IS! I should have taken a picture. Maybe tomorrow, if this sticks and isn’t a trick.” Of course, two days later I was back at 201. But then again, I wasn’t supposed to be losing weight at this point, so I didn’t really care.

So how’d the 365 days since then go? Stay tuned. There’s lots more to write about. And I know the three of you are dying to know all about it.

A word of warning, though: this gets a bit long and boring. You might want to go fix a sandwich first or just read this over the course of a month or so.

January

I kicked off the year with the decision to put Back to the Fridge on hiatus. About a week later, a faint sensation in my chest made me think, “I hope I’m not getting bronchitis.”

February

At work, I stayed very busy. At home, I continued my vain attempts at writing a novel. My “bronchitis” remained nothing more than background noise. It wasn’t getting any worse but it never went away either.

March

Okay. Now it was getting worse. You know when a man voluntarily decides to see a doctor, something’s really wrong. I now had a full-fledged cough, accompanied by headaches and a high fever. Yet upon each examination, my lungs were inexplicably clear. I felt sick enough to stay home from work the last week of March but okay enough to still work from home (in spite of my deteriorating condition).

April

On April 2, I actually headed back into the office. Shortly after showing up I wrote, “I feel sick to my stomach. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” And about an hour after that I wrote, “That’s it. I’m bagging it.” I made my third trip to the doctor and this time they took blood. That evening she called with the results: my liver wasn’t working properly. The next morning, I found myself in the ER.

The first scans came back with a diagnosis of cirrhosis. Oddly enough, this was my low point of the year. I saw myself on an organ donor waiting list. I had this sinking feeling of, “Whelp, I guess that’s that.” Fortunately, this particular diagnosis only lasted a couple hours. They decided to do a couple biopsies. (The first of which, in spite of the use of a local anesthetic, I could very much feel. (And just between you and me, having someone thrust a knitting needle five inches into your abdomen isn’t the most pleasant sensation.)) Anyway, the new diagnosis of lymphoma was actually a relief. This felt doable.

The highlight of the year came the week of April 16 when I lost twenty-six pounds in four days. Yes, it was entirely in the form of retained fluids. And yes, it came with the price of having to pee about once an hour for eighty-five consecutive hours. But it was a sure sign that a few key affected organs were now functioning again.

May

I began to settle into what was to become my routine for the next four months. In short, it went like this: a week and a half of “normal” followed by a week and a half of “cancer.”

During the normal periods, I felt more or less like a regular human being. Apart from my inability to eat many things and getting tired easily, you’d never know anything was wrong.

During the chemo periods, I felt like crap. It’s amazing what quarts upon quarts of high-quality, expensive poisons injected directly into the bloodstream can do. Peripheral neuropathy set in (numbness in my fingers and hands). There was nausea, fatigue, sore throats, and the usual litany of symptoms. I could barely eat anything spicier than water. Going into this, I fully expected to feel drained of energy. But what I really experienced was more like being drained of will.

June

Ironically, this was probably about the healthiest I’ve been in a while. I’d lost a whole bunch of unnecessary weight. I was doing fairly well at not losing necessary weight. I was eating reasonably well. I was exercising as regularly as possible. And, thanks to Temazepam, was sleeping quite soundly. If only life could be like that all the time.

I wrapped up the month with my first PET scan. This would tell us how things were going and would determine whether I had two more or four more chemo cycles to go through.

July

I’m sure the vast majority of cancer patients are absolutely elated to get the news of “complete remission.” For me the news was tempered by the loss of two close family members. We lost my uncle Dave Garraghty just one week earlier. And about an hour after my news, we lost Laura’s mother Dorothy. Laura was en route to see her, arriving in Des Moines just forty-five minutes late. So just a couple days after my fifth chemo treatment, I was packing up the car and driving north to meet up with her. It was a difficult trip on every level and it was just good to be home when it was done. The rest of the month was a blur. My sixth and final chemo treatment took place on July 26th.

August

I went in for hydration for the last time on August 10 and remember feeling very strange. Strange that this whole thing was nearly over. Strange that life would be returning to “normal” soon. For the first time in a long time, the question “Now What?” popped back up.

It’s not uncommon (half of all patients, or so I’ve read) for some sort of depression and/or anxiety to set in after achieving remission and completing treatments. I have no data to back up my own hypothesis, but my thinking goes like this: normal sucks.

“Normal” is going to work for ten or twelve hours a day. And cleaning the kitchen. And getting your car’s oil changed. And taking out the trash. And paying bills. Lather, rinse, repeat. “Cancer”, while both a physical and mental strain, also comes with a vast outpouring of support from people both near and far, both in space and in time. As Clarence the guardian angel put it, “Strange, isn’t it? Each man’s life touches so many other lives.” And it isn’t until some life-altering event comes along that you actually get the opportunity to witness it firsthand.

Cancer’s a bitch. And then you survive.

But survive for what? For work, the dirty dishes, the oil changes, trash, and bills? Eventually the get-well cards stop, the Facebook posts stop, the bags of money stop. Life gets back to normal and normal sucks.

Ginormous disclaimer: I don’t honestly believe normal sucks. I live at the peak of human civilization and enjoy a roof over my head, meals on the table, and all that that implies. I have family, friends, and tens of adoring fans. But as Joe Walsh so wisely put it: I can’t complain but sometimes I still do.

September

Now we’re to the parts of the year no one knows about. At the beginning of September, I went offline. I stopped logging into Facebook. I stopped reading blogs. I more or less stopped checking mail. To get my mind off things, I began a pet project or two (in computer programming).

On September 17, we headed to San Antonio to talk about transplant options. This was something my oncologist told us about during my last office visit in August: that one option for people in remission is to get a transplant in the hopes that it prevents recurrence. (In general, it doesn’t, but it’s still worth looking into.) So off we went for a battery of tests, including something I hope to never go through again: drawing arterial blood. This was almost as bad as that biopsy.

In short, nothing came of it. There’d be no benefit of a transplant at this time.

Oh, and to be clear, a “transplant” means taking stem cells from my blood, killing everything in my body with intense levels of chemo, then rebooting my system from the saved cells. It takes about three weeks and is about as thorough as anything gets.

October

Two significant events happened in October: 1) I had my first beer since I don’t know when and 2) my laptop died and I replaced it with a desktop computer. Based on shelf-space, I don’t think anybody actually buys desktop computers anymore.

November

We made a trip to Chicago/Indianapolis this month for the Bands of America Grand Nationals Competition. I also got to have lunch with my sisters. I think they were happy to see me looking my usual self again after my frightening visit in July.

Speaking of which, I finally buckled on November 18 and gave myself a shave and a haircut. The hair loss period really only lasted from the end of June through mid September. I was all bushy again by mid November. Well, except for that part on top which simply refuses to grow.

December

December, not daring to break the tradition set by every other December ever, lasted all of about eighteen minutes. I had my very first “three month” checkup, and those will continue every three months for two years. If I make it out that far, I’m considered cured, as the odds of this kind of cancer relapsing after that point are extremely low.

Now What?

At the beginning of 2012 I made a handful of New Year’s Resolutions. I wanted to read more, write more, draw more, and, in general, be creatively productive. None of that really happened this year. Of course, it’d be easy to blame it on the obvious health issues, but to be honest, I’ve made these same resolutions for about three decades in a row now and nothing’s come of them yet.

Therefore, it only makes sense that I approach this whole “resolutions” thing completely differently for 2013. This year I resolve to not get cancer.

Everything else is just a bonus.

This Year’s Subject

I decided to continue my Harry Potter trend: primarily because it prevents me from having to think too much. After carving Harry and Hermione the past two years, Ron was my pre-selected choice for this year. But after spending, nay, wasting hours trying to devise a suitable pattern, I gave up. Sorry, Ron. Maybe next year.

I decided to switch to Dumbledore.

But that only raised the question: which Dumbledore? Richard Harris or Ian McKellen?

Just kidding! Hold off on the angry comments. I’d lose a lot of geek cred mixing up Michael Gambon with the actor who played Bilbo Baggins.

Anyway, after a few minutes of soul-searching (read: mindlessly eating toast and peanut butter) I opted for Dumbledore Number Two (six films beats out two). I began with this image:

My technique for converting said picture to pumpkin design remains the same:

Step 1: Reduce image to three colors

Step 2: Convert to pumpkin colors, to help visualize final result

Step 3: Clean up image for optimal carving

Step 4: Create negative image, since that’s what you have to carve

Time to Get to Work

With the final negative image in hand, I then measure the pumpkin, appropriately scale the photo, and print out the negative:

It’s then moved into place.

I then cut out the bottom of the pumpkin. (As you can see, I’m still using fake pumpkins for my carvings. This is the fourth year in a row for that and I’m still glad I made the switch.)

With the negative affixed to the pumpkin, I whip out my trusty Xacto blade begin slicing and dicing.

This takes a while. And it still kind of hurts my hand, so I try to spread out the work, taking frequent naps between sections. I also normally eat a frozen pizza and watch It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on loop while working. But I did neither of those things this year. I was hoping these changes wouldn’t jinx this year’s effort.

When all my holes are cut and other outlines made, I remove the template and begin the real work.

This is the second year I used my Dremel tool to help with the carving. I bought two new bits to help out: one to poke holes for the specular lighting in the eyes and another to carve out large areas. I then used a sanding attachment to do the texturing. This helped out immensely with the beard and hair.

My pumpkins became more elaborate when I realized I had three colors to work with (carved, not carved, and half carved) instead of two (carved, not carved). But this year I took it even further. I realized that with the right Dremel attachments, I now had a wide spectrum of “half carved”. This dawned on me about halfway during the project and I subsequently took full advantage of it.

Also, my hand isn’t this big (nor is the pumpkin this small). I think we’re seeing some forced perspective in this particular shot:

We’re getting closer! The spot on the end of Dumbledore’s nose in this shot is a flameless tea candle. This was also a new step for me this year: carving a lit pumpkin with the lights off. Being able to see the final results of my labor while carving was another immense productivity boost.

At last! The final carving:

It doesn’t look like much, does it? These carvings never do until properly illuminated. My only funny story with this project happened when Rachel walked into the room and saw the unlit pumpkin. You see, when she last left me, I was working on Ron not Dumbledore. So this thing looked really wrong to her.

So let’s make it look right. Lights, please!

2012: The Albus Dumbledore Pumpkin Carving

Here’s a close up to show some of the detail:

And lastly, three years’ worth all in a row. I didn’t have enough lighting (or room) to fit Snape into the picture. Poor Severus.

Not bad for someone half dead just six months ago. And on that note, stay tuned for my next post, entitled Now What? I’ve been working on it for three months now. Unfortunately, I haven’t actually written anything beyond just the title, but such is life. Let’s just hope it doesn’t take me another three months to finish.

In the meantime, enjoy your holiday and don’t eat all the candy.

Ah, what the heck. You only live once. Go right ahead.

We’ll start with this family portrait from 1996. As you can tell from my annotations, I hold an extreme dislike for the way I look here. I don’t like the hair on my head or the lack of it along my jaw. I’m wearing these dopey-looking glasses and sporting a goofy smile. It’s just bad all over. I’m sure most people look back wistfully at photos of themselves when they were younger. Ugh. Not me.

I couldn’t live like this forever. I knew I had to do something about it. So I grew some facial hair, got smaller glasses, and learned how to solve Rubik’s Cubes. Here’s my first solve of a 5x5x5:

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter how long you grow the beard. It doesn’t change at all what’s going on up top. Even if you live in denial.

And even if people can’t see the top of your head, they can still see that large, Chevy bumper right in front:

Sometimes when things get busy at work, I’ll go a wee bit too long between shaves. This is about as bushy as I let it get:

Here’s what it looks like halfway through trimming:

And this is the full trim. Say, that looks pretty nice. This is a much better look that goofy 1996 Charlie. I could live with this:

It looked like this at my first (and only) book talk / signing:

It looked like this as I struggled with camera self-portraits:

And it looked like this just as I was tragically struck in my prime by Bob Hoskins Linoleum:

It began falling out within two weeks but it took a while for it to become outwardly noticeable. I figured it’d be gone in no time but, no, it just sort of hung on like it still had unfinished business or something. Even as recently as five weeks ago you could still see an aura of fluff about my cranium:

I kind of figured that’s where it would stop. But July took its toll. Not only did the head thin out even more, but most of my eyelashes and eyebrows went AWOL as well. If things get any worse, I’m going to look like this:

Oh wait. I already do:

I’d actually already seen the doctor in passing on the way in. He gave me a hello-how-are-you and made no indication either way of what news might be in store for me later. I waited alone in the examination room after providing the nurse with a few vital statistics, such as blood pressure, pulse, and (for some reason) my astrological sign. The doctor came in and after a few minutes of the usual pleasantries and routine questions he finally announced, “Well, I have some good news.” I was wondering when we’d get to that, I thought to myself. The longer it took to get to the news, I figured, the less good the news would be.

But it was good. To be exact:

The previously characterized heterogeneity of the liver has resolved.

And:

The previously characterized hyopdense lesions in the spleen are markedly diminished in size and would be difficult to characterize on today’s examination prospectively.

And the big one:

The previously characterized retroperitoneal lympha- denopathy has markedly diminished in size and is not metabolically active.

Summarized: Marked positive therapeutic response without evidence for metabolically active disease. Continued surveillance is advised.

I managed to produce a smile and utter something like, “Wow, that’s great news!” Because, after all, these are the very words that I’m pretty sure every cancer patient is (if you’ll excuse the term) dying to hear. But to be perfectly honest, my brain was miles away, barely focused at all on this long-awaited positive pronouncement.

Just one week prior, we lost my uncle Dave. So I was thinking about my aunt Martha, my mom, sister, cousins, and other family members gathering together in Richmond, Virginia. It was a trip I wish I could have made. But today wasn’t just Results Day. It was also Chemo Round Number Five, and although now officially in “complete remission”, this hammer still has a couple whacks to go.

Even closer to home, my wife Laura was, at this same point in time, sitting in the Dallas / Ft. Worth airport on her way to see her mother. Her sister called the previous afternoon with the news that she was declining rapidly. Laura booked the first flight out Thursday, at five forty-five in the morning. About two hours after my remission news, sitting mid-chemo drip, Laura called to say she arrived too late. Her mother had passed less than an hour before her plane arrived.

This now meant a trip to Des Moines for the rest of us. As I headed into the Usual Bad Post-Chemo Week I was now trying to figure out how to get the remaining three of us up there. I spent a few days on travel arrangements, rescheduling appointments, packing and other assorted preparations. We decided to rent a larger car and drive up, in spite of the distance. (The bereavement fare would have knocked a whopping $23 off the total last-minute ticket price.)

Northbound

I woke up a little after six in the morning on Tuesday the 10th. Sarah and I picked up the rental unit and brought it home. Rachel had made sandwiches for the road while we were gone. We packed everything up then took the dog to the kennel. By ten o’clock (three hours after first setting out that morning) we were just leaving Austin. Fifteen hours later we pulled into our destination: Laura’s sister Karin’s house.

The chemo, stress, and travel caught up to me immediately the next morning. I basically spent the next three days flat on my back. By Friday evening I felt okay enough to venture out. Specifically, to pick up my mom at the bus station. She made the seven hour trip from Chicago to Des Moines to be with us Saturday for the funeral.

I also managed to help produce the following song for the event. It was one of Laura’s mom’s favorite hymns, so Laura really wanted it to be part of the service. I took the song, removed nearly all the vocals, then had Sarah and Rachel sing over the resulting instrumental. Feel free to listen along after the blog post:

I saw lots and lots of people at the service, most of whom I had not seen in a long time. This is, of course, exactly where you want to put a person without a fully functional immune system. I kept my hands washed all day and tried my best to avoid kissing people for longer than two minutes, especially strangers. I think I did okay.

Eastbound

When all was done, we headed back to Karin’s, packed up the van once again, and headed to Chicago. Click this picture for the full Chicago trip report:

Southbound

It was my shortest trip home ever. A mere hours after getting out of bed it was time to pack up the van again and head back to Austin. Although about five hours longer than the trip up, at least I had one more driver to help out on the way back. Plus, we split it into two days, spending the night at the crappiest motel I’ve ever personally stayed at in my life. I’m not much of a travel expert, but I should have realized that when I saw the roaches packing their bags and heading to a different establishment, they were trying to tell me something. But by that point in time I was too tired, stressed, sick, and miserable to care. (And it still took me two hours to fall asleep.)

By Monday evening we were at last home and boy did it feel good. We ordered in some food, cranked up the air conditioning, and relaxed for an entire hour before it was time to pack up Rachel for another trip leaving the very next morning. When it rains, it pours, as they say, and the past couple weeks have been no exception.

So right now, at this very point in time, I’m simply just looking forward to July 26: my sixth and (for now) final chemo session. I’m not looking forward to the week after that. But then I am again looking forward to August 6, which, if the pattern holds, I should feel back to normal again.

That’s when I’ll find myself saying, “Hey, I almost forgot. I’m in remission. Isn’t that nice!”

Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway.

In this passage from The Hobbit, Tolkien explains why it only took a few short paragraphs to describe an entire several-week stay in Rivendell. Bilbo, Gandalf, and the Dwarves just hung out, freeloading off the elves for at least a fortnight, and generally over-stayed their welcome. Everything was fine and nothing terribly important happened. So what was there to write about?

And this is the same situation I find myself in now. It seems like after my big announcement, talking about hair loss, and discussing some appetite problems, I’ve apparently run out of material. It’s been twenty-four days since my last post, and a period about as uneventful as a dwarven stay in The Last Homely House.

The usual cycle is: feel okay, get a chemo treatment, feel bad. Repeat as necessary. Last Friday I had my long-awaited, all-important PET scan, but the results are days away. About the only real change (from April) is that when I’m not otherwise horribly over-fatigued, I think I feel pretty good. My appetite is back to normal. Many foods I couldn’t tolerate before are now tolerable, and the previously tolerable foods are now almost normal-tasting. The numbness in my fingers is annoying but not debilitating. In short, I probably can’t complain.

I brought up this point at my regular appointment last Thursday. I told the physician’s assistant that all of this Feeling Mostly Better actually bothered me a bit. I framed this bit of irony with the way I felt when I first found handfuls of hair after shampooing. While I would guess most people find this alarming my first thought was, “Holy crap, this chemo stuff really works!” In other words, if my hair follicles are being killed then I bet other cells are also being killed.

But if after four chemo treatments I’m not feeling Awful All The Time, then I get worried. Because if I feel better, then does that mean the cancer is also feeling better too?

“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” the physician’s assistant explained. Okay, maybe I’m paraphrasing a little. I believe what she really said went more like this. “You don’t feel as bad as you did two months ago because you were really bleeping sick then. At that time, you felt doubly bad: because you were dealing with the effects of the illness as well as the effects of the treatment. Now it’s just the latter. And the treatment is purposefully paced in such a way so that you definitely will feel better by the time you start each cycle.”

So I suppose everything is going along just fine. The PET scan results will let us know for sure, of course, but until then there’s really not much to talk about. I’ll let Elrond know we’re done here for now. Next stop, the Misty Mountains. Hope we can avoid the goblins.

Exactly how I’m affected changes each time. I’ve had three sessions so far and so far the damage after each has been different. And with three or five more cycles to go, combined with the cumulative effect of the juice, I could be in store for all sorts of fun.

“How do you cope with that?” my imaginary friends ask me all the time. My very real answer to that is, “I can’t.”

And I don’t mean that as “Oh, I’m so overwhelmed and can’t cope with any of this!” No, what I mean is: I actually lack the wiring in by brain that would allow me to even treat any of this as something that requires anything like a coping emotion.

Leonard: Have you considered telling her your feelings?

Sheldon [exasperated]: Leonard, I’m a physicist, not a hippie.

My approach to this is most certainly what Dr. Sheldon Cooper’s approach would be: pragmatic. In fact, about the only emotion I felt when I first got news of this was relief. Because for the few hours prior to that point, I was under the impression I was almost out of liver, and that sounded like a far worse problem.

The hospital: You’ve got Bob Hoskins Linoleum.
Me: Whew!

So my view of this is very simple: I have a known issue. The medical community has a standard treatment for it. And I just show up when and where they tell me. I’m not on a journey, or fighting a battle, or anything along those lines. I’m not looking to inspire or be inspired. I’m immune to platitudes. My brain boils it all down to this: just follow the established treatment plan and everything will be fine, right?

I suppose another word one might use to describe this is “denial” but it’s not like I’m completely oblivious to what’s going on. I understand this is worse than catching a cold and that very bad things might still be in store for me. But I’m also reminded of one particular line from The Fellowship of the Ring, written as the company took refuge in Lothlorien:

The future, good or ill, was not forgotten, but ceased to have any power over the present.

At this point my imaginary friends are likely asking, “Are you some kind of robot? And if so, what kind of powers do you have? Do you use them for good or for awesome?”

Yes, I am some kind of robot. I’m a highly complex machine with quintillions of moving parts controlled by a three pound central processing unit stored safely in a nice, hard shell. My approach to this isn’t something I chose. I never voluntarily sat down with a spreadsheet and listed the pros and cons of various coping mechanisms then picked the empirically best one.

No, I just am the way I am. I can’t help it any more than I can voluntarily change the color of my hair or voluntarily get that song “Somebody That I Used To Know” driven clean from my head once and for all.

Forget all the philosophers, theologians, and great thinkers that ever lived. Popeye had it figured out. “I yam what I yam and that’s all what I yam.” And as of right now, it’s two o’clock in the morning and I yam very tired. So me and my quintillions of moving parts are going to bed.

Blog Post: Part Deux

But not before tossing in a quick status report. I’m two weeks out from the third treatment so it’s an up week. (As evidenced by the fact that you’re actually reading a new post.)

In spite of the fact that last month I thought I was a mere days away from losing the rest of my hair, most of it’s still there and patches are actually growing back already. The beard is extremely thin on the sides but I’m still left with enough of a goatee and mustache that it’s not too bad.

Of course, lots of stuff still doesn’t taste right but I’m months and months away from that changing, so I deal with it. The tips of my thumbs and forefingers are constantly numb, which is annoying and something I hope goes away eventually.

Bloodwork each week and overall progress is looking normal unless they’re just outright lying to me, which I’d be okay with too. (Helps with that whole denial thing I mentioned above, you know.) My weight has stabilized around 195 and I’ve recently discovered this new thing called “dietary fiber.” If you haven’t looked into it yet, I highly recommend it.

So all in all, I’d say more ups than downs, all things considered. Here’s hoping to continue that trend.

Oh sure, once every few years or so I try exercising. But considering that it takes seventeen hours at the gym to work off one inadvertently-consumed quart of ice cream, for the most part, simply avoiding the calories in the first place is a hundred times easier.

So it’s ironic, then, that just when my medical team tells me the thing I’ve been waiting my entire life to hear (“Stop losing weight. You need to eat more!”) I find it difficult to do so. “What’s the problem, stupid?” you ask. “Why, when you’ve finally been prescribed the see-food diet, do you have trouble complying?”

Well I’m glad you asked.

There are three primary reasons, which I like to call “the Three Ts”: tolerance, taste, aversion. (The astute reader will notice that “aversion” does not start with, nor even contain, the letter T. In response to that I offer another T: “too bad.” I like the sound of “the Three Ts”.)

Tolerance is all about physically being able to eat something. Taste is where I can tolerate it, but I just don’t like the way it sits on the tongue. Aversion is where some prior negative experience psychologically eliminates the food from all subsequent attempts. You know, like okra.

So let’s talk about my current relationship with a few select food items. These were a few of my favorite things:

Back during my low-carb days, I doubt I missed anything more than bread. While I did end up losing sixty pounds, it wasn’t without a wistful glance back at warm loaves, buttery rolls, and fresh bagels. So now it’s almost painful to have a kitchen full of various breads and me with the inability to eat it. I can’t even describe it: something about the taste, texture, consistency . . . I just don’t like it, is what it comes down to. I would like nothing more than to pop a couple slices into the toaster and then slather them with peanut butter (er, after the bread comes out of the toaster, that is), but alas, it’s not to be. The wistful backwards glances continue.

Speaking of calories and peanut butter, I could easily reach my two thousand per day quota with nothing more than a large tub of the “crunchy” kind, a spoon, and five spare minutes. I’ve been known to consume cafeteria-sized containers of peanut butter in mere hours. It’s definitely a weakness and the reason that giving up peanut butter is typically one of the first things I do when I try to dial things back a bit. Until now. While I don’t find it quite as distasteful as bread, it just has a very stale and unappetizing quality to it now. So sad.

That’s fried tofu and it actually doesn’t fall into one of The Three Ts. The see-food diet, in truth, doesn’t include soy products. I can’t pretend to understand the reasons why; and from what little I’ve read, there still seems to be a fair bit of controversy over the connection between soy products and cancer, but for now I’ll stick with the directive. And what rotten timing too, because in the last year or two I’ve grown quite fond of it being the main protein in various dishes. When they ask, “Chicken or beef?” I say, “Fried tofu!” When they ask, “Noodles or rice?” I say, “More fried tofu!”

The ultimate irony: in the two months leading up to my diagnosis, I’d voluntarily given up diet soda (actually, artificial sweeteners, but by extension: diet soft drinks) and in doing so created a craving for soda pop that I’d never before known. Today, soft drinks burn my mouth like grain alcohol, so they’ve moved into the ‘aversion’ category. I hardly even think about them any more. Which, I should be happy about, I suppose, but every time I go out and I’m asked, “What would you like to drink?” I so desperately want a Diet Coke. With lime. Just for the taste of it. Instead, I end up ordering a tall glass of fried tofu.

If a year ago someone told me, “A year from now you will open your cupboard, gaze upon bags and bags of delicious chips, and walk away in utter disgust,” I would have said, “I’m getting cancer next year?!” All of my favorites: kettle cooked, salt & pepper, or just plain ‘ol Ruffles: they’re all on the list. This particular aversion I believe is grounded in the potato itself, for I am also unable to enjoy mashed potatoes and french fries properly. (I must say, I’m very much looking forward to properly enjoying a fresh, mouth-burning, pile of fries again someday soon.)

This, of course, just scratches the surface. But it easily explains the thirty-five pound loss in record-breaking time. Unfortunately this isn’t the time to “get in shape.” It’s the time to “get well.” Fortunately, ice cream still tastes good. (Fried tofu flavored, of course.)

I mean, wouldn’t that be sweet? Just sleep this whole thing off? I’d wake up this fall. Have a pizza and a beer and talk about how none of that was a big deal at all. But that’s about as fantastical as bags of money showing up for writing a blog. So let’s return to reality.

Today’s post focuses on just one chemo-related side effect. And probably everyone’s favorite: hair loss.

Yay!

When the question first came up while chatting with my oncologist (no, that’s not him up there) he said “by the second chemo treatment.” Unfortunately, my brain heard that as because of the second treatment. I was wrong.

Sure enough, the Monday before treatment #2, I was forced to put this on Facebook:

When we arrived for treatment the following Thursday, we mentioned the hair loss process had begun. “When did it start?” the nurse asked. “About twenty years ago,” I had to answer. Because that’s the truth of it. I haven’t had a whole lot of hair to speak of lately, and I’m okay with that. I cut it myself and I actually like the way it looks. Here’s a pic from last year:

I even have, on several occasions, thought about shaving it off anyway, just for fun. I try to keep it cut it to a quarter inch, so it’d grow back in probably a week. What’s the big deal?

Well, now that it’s come to it (and knowing it will be longer than a week) I’m finding I’m perhaps more attached to my hair than I thought. Unfortunately, it’s not very attached to me. I still have “most” of it up there, but its hold is tenuous at best. And it’s getting a bit . . . well, spotty.

Though to be fair, it’s not the hair on top I’m attached to. It’s that stuff all over the rest of my head. I can totally deal with the loss on top as long as I can keep that awesome^{[citation needed]} beard and ‘stache. That, plus a new pair of heavier, black-rimmed glasses: so that the entire package screams out, “Isn’t that Charlie Hills the best-selling author?!”

But alas, even those little beardy hairs are now barely holding on. There goes the dream.

So now I’m just left with: what will the final package look like? Because there’s only two kinds of bald.

Awesome:

And not so much:

So we’ll see. (Like, within the next couple of days.) I’ll keep you posted.