Chronicles of a
Cancer Patient

Ok, I know this flies by harmless self-absorbtion and lands squarely in exhibitionism, but come on! You know you wanted to see it.

This is a photo from the PET scan I took. That black thing is not my heart, that black thing is the problem.

UPDATE: See also, PET Scan Before and After Photos

My friend Katie is a nursing assistant in a hospital’s radiation department and teaches patients to knit hats for their cold heads. She sent me two of her finest creations. Thanks Katie!

Now that I’m diagnosed, and now that I’ve put on a little weight, some friends are starting to shyly admit that, actually, I wasn’t looking all that good in the past few months. Well, I guess it’s more like “You’re looking much better!” This caught me by surprise the first time few times, as I hadn’t realized I was looking that bad before. But I guess you can see from these pictures that I had started to wither quite a bit. They call cancer a “wasting” disease.

My friend Chris gave me tickets to the Chicago Jazz Fest (thanks Chris). I felt really well yesterday and I took the train down to the city to check it all out.

It was the first time I’ve felt well enough to go down to the city in a long time. The city seemed so much more alive this time. I seem to have become one of those slow-walking, fresh-air-smelling, happy-to-be-alive optimists since I joined the Cancer Club. I was stoked to be able to walk all the way from Union Station to Grant Park without having to sit and recover every few blocks. It has been so long since I’ve felt this well.

Slide Hampton and his Trombone Choir played at one of the stages while I hossed down the chicken satay I bought with 10 festival tickets (10 festival tickets = $6.36). It was worth 10 festival tickets, but I don’t think it was worth $6.36. It’s a good thing for the vendors that I have the math skills of a 5th grader.

Drummer Matt Wilson played with a piano trio on the main stage, followed by The 911 Mambo Orchestra, which was excellent. The weather was beautiful, and I enjoyed the smell of the water, the view of the giant skyline and all the mambo. (Thanks again Chris.)

And, as if that isn’t enough, my friend Trish is taking me downtown on Monday for a rooftop view of Jimmy Buffet’s concert at Wrigley Field.

My friend Trish took me to the Jimmy Buffett concert today at Wrigley Field (thanks Trish).

They were the best free seats in town. As you can see from the pictures, the stage was specifically facing *away* from our rooftop, so really, instead of watching a Jimmy Buffett concert, we were watching the large group of crazy, drunk, fashion-challenged Parrotheads that had actually paid to see the show. We took our cues from the crowd though, and we yelled when they yelled and we danced when they danced.

Now and then the wind would blow the music towards those of us in the cheap seats, but this did not distract us from the real reason people come to these rooftops. Food. Free food. Brats, burgers, beer and Buffett. All the free food you can eat and all the free sunshine you can take. I didn’t see a thing, but I probably gained another 10 pounds. It was fantastic.

My hair is just not going to fall out. I’ve mentioned before how totally unlikely this scenario is, considering the fact that my hair started to jump ship around age 15, but somehow I’ve managed to be the Richard Gere of chemotherapy and keep what was left of my hair.

Damn! I was really looking forward to seeing what I looked like without any hair. I’ve never had the guts to skin my own head, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to see what it would look like – and then if it looked really bad, I could just blame it on chemotherapy and triple the sympathy!

As that didn’t work out, I decided just to take matters into my own hands. While I used to be shy, or scared, of doing something as caustic as shaving my head, I am no longer scared of such silly things.

Tito was the big black thing on left that’s not there anymore on the right. Good riddance you worthless freeloader.