Friday, May 09, 2008

First cycle done.




Well, everyday for the last five I have gone in to the Agency and had about 20,000 dollars worth of drugs poured into me. The real innovation in Chemo is the Pre-Meds, the drugs to block nausea, and allow the treatments to not totally undermine the host. So, I am eating and resting pretty comfortably for now. The next round of side-effects are less avoidable. Within the next week my blood counts will begin to drop, leaving me tired and susceptable to infection. But so far so good.

I am on a curative protocol so that means it will be done, but they way it will get done is going to be by hitting it very aggressively. Yipee.

I have chosen the metaphor of war, as any good red horseman would do. The Cancer is the Nazi's, and the two major Chemo's are Cisoplat(Churchill) and Etoposide (Stalin), the first to control the spread (Cisoplat stops cells from dividing), and the second to KILL (Etoposide kills fast multi playing cells). Stalin's approach is that some civilians will be lost, but for the greater good. The Nazi's days are numbered, which they are just starting to find out about. The Allied forces have landed, and the battle is ON.

Photos are from the Sixth floor of the Agency.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Vancouver Poetry Slam Finals






Managed to do my first day of Keemo and fell fine for the slam finals at the wise hall. Did some provocative stuff including the ballad. MANY people spoke to me afterward about it, telling me how affecting it is, and encouraging to keeping saying what it has to say.

The event was at the Wise Hall, so we went down for a pint after the event. I didn't make the team, as well as three other very fine poets - all the white guys... the team this year does hit the demographics pretty good with Scruffmouth, Zach, Radar, and Faustus. All totally deserving of placing. The race card and gender cards were dealt from the top of the deck, and so it goes. Radar was pretty convinced that their weren't enough female judges and she wouldn't get a fair deal. The fact that her gender may of helped her is, of course, outrageous to suggest. The old feminist double standard. Now that she's made the team, she feels the right to tell me what poems I should do or not. Speaking of which, the has been fading poet, not sure his full name, Brandon something, decided to confront my about how WRONG, BAD, SHITTY the ballad is. Seemed pretty jealous about the attention I was getting. Really got himself worked up. Guess I triggered something there. Ended up calling me an idiot, which is hard to argue. I called him a Momma's Boy, which is IMPOSSIBLE TO argue. So the night ended provocatively. I do find it interesting that after some thirty poems were performed, the one that everyone talked about is the ballad.