Nurse: 'Doctor, Doctor the man
you just treated collapsed on the front step. What should I do?'
Doctor: 'Turn him around so it
looks like he was just arriving!'
*****
Thursday, Oct. 23 – 5:42 p.m.
Word of advice: That falling down thing? Best place
to do it is in the hospital. Especially if you are planning to smack your head
on the floor and raise a welt over your eye the size of a hamster.
As I write this lead jokes like, “You should see the
other guy,” come to mind. Or, “Went one on one with Mike Tyson – but at least
he left me my ears.” But even in my weakened state I resist adding such
groaners.
Besides, after spending the early part of the day
getting poison pumped into my system, and the rest in the Emergency Room being
treated for my falling down injuries, I am just too whacked out to put one word
after the other in any kind of sensible order.
So, after typing TO BE CONTINUED, I’m off to my bed of pain until I’m semi-well enough
to continue.
Friday, Oct. 24 3:33 p.m.
Did my second day of chemo. My left eye is swollen
shut and beginning to rotate through the usual rainbow of painful colors. I
worried that I’ll scare little children on the way to my appointment. So
Kathryn got me a black pirate’s eyepatch suitable for several choruses of “Yo,
ho, ho, and a bottle of rum.”
I’ve got just enough juice left to tell you about
Thursday’s disaster. But if I run out of steam, I promise to pick up the tale
on the morrow.
*****
It happened like this:
Just finished the first part of the chemo. The nurse
strapped the CADD Pump full of 22-hours-worth of Adriatic Carpet cleaner about
my waist and called Kathryn to come pick me up – telling her that I’d be
waiting outside.
I always take a cane with me on Chemo days – extreme
dizziness is one of the side effects, after all. So I gathered up my stuff,
clutched my cane and hobbled out of the clinic.
On the way, I thought I’d best stop at the restroom
– colon surgery gives you a heightened sensitivity about using the facilities
whenever you can.
As I approached the commode I suddenly realized that
Vertigo was settling in big time. And, WOW! was I dizzy. No way was I capable
of answering Nature’s Call in the usual guy fashion.
Tugging at my pants, I turned around to sit –
bending my head forward because I suddenly felt that I was going to fall
backward and bang my head against the wall.
And then my ears were ringing and my head kept going
down and down and down, and then gravity grabbed me by the hair and I
completely lost it - lurching across the room and crashing to the tiled floor.
Next thing I knew, somebody was hammering on the
locked door, asking “Is everything alright in there?”
Now, here I was… sprawled out face first on the
floor. Pants around my ankles. My Irish ass hanging out for all to see.
And so I replied: “No, I’m fine.”
Well, I thought I was. Nothing hurt very much. Small
cuts on my arms and hands were bleeding – but no biggie. So I thought myself
quite capable of making everything fine. I’ll get up, brush myself off, pat the
blood with a few paper towels and no one will be the wiser.
Remember, I’m lying there flat as a buckwheat
pancake, left side of my face pressed against the cold tile.
There’s more knocking, so I hurried things along.
Pushing myself up onto my right elbow. Legs scrabbling around trying to get
some purchase on the slippery tile and then my right arm gave way and my head
slammed against the floor.
It was only a few inches, I’m sure, but I felt like
I had been punched by a heavyweight. Or, more accurately – that’s I’d attacked
a heavyweight’s fist with my head.
Tried to raise my head again – and once again
smashed forward.
Finally, I shouted, “No, I’m not alright!” But the
door was already coming open and a crowd of professional medical personnel
rushed in to rescue me.
I tried to get up again, but my chemo nurse pushed
me down and ordered me to stay. Blood was running down my face now and people
were pressing cotton pads against the cuts, while someone else was speaking
hurriedly – but calmly – into a cell phone.
Then the guys from ER – which is just down the hall
– showed up and they were lifting me onto a gurney, checking my vitals and
asking questions in that quick, precise manner they have.
Cranial Cat-scans were ordered up. The rest of my
body checked for injuries. Thankfully, nothing was broken, but the bruises on
my legs and head were already ballooning to scary proportions because of all
the blood thinners I have to take.
Ice was applied. Doctors were called. First results
of the blood tests came in and there was a little bit of a panic when they saw
that my white blood count was through the roof.
Of course this was on purpose. Chemo doesn’t
discriminate. It attacks and tries to kill all cells – not just the cancerous
ones. Dr. Tomeski keeps me primed with white blood cells so my immune system
can hold the line – a sort of Nano “Horatio At The Bridge.”
Naturally, Kathryn had been notified the moment she
arrived to pick me up, so here’s my poor wife sitting next to me in ER, worried
as hell but trying to maintain good cheer.
And then it suddenly comes to me:
“The good news,” I tell Kathryn, “is that now I have
a lead for the next episode of Chemo Brain. I was worried about that.”
Kathryn, who hails from a family of writers and
journalists, wasn’t phased one bit.
She just nodded, and replied, “I knew you’d say
something like that.”
And so, hours later, when I came home I staggered
over to my computer and fired it up and typed the opening sentences that begin
this little chemo side adventure:
“Word of advice: That
falling down thing? Best place to do it is in the hospital. Especially if you
are planning to smack your head on the floor and raise a welt over your eye the
size of a hamster.”
So, if anyone should ever ask what writers will
endure to get a good lead, you can now reply with some authority:
“They’ll bleed for you, baby. Bleed.”
Thursday, Oct. 30 – 1:18 p.m.
Frankly, this has not been a stellar chemo week. I
feel as lousy today as I did last Thursday. Not from the fall. Those are just
the ordinary bumps and bruises of life that we routinely ignore after popping a
couple of Ibuprofen.
New side effects are making themselves known – like
mouth sores. Dr. Tomeski has already warned me about this and says she has
suitable medication to ease the condition. I’m also having difficulty
swallowing – even plain room temperature water is painful– so it takes a long
time to get down any kind of food. And I’m having trouble sleeping – one reason
why I was so wiped out they day of the fall.
As for the dizziness thing, at Kathryn’s insistence
– backed by the doctor – I jumped on Amazon.com and two days later they
delivered a fancy 4-wheel walker with brakes, a seat, and a messenger bag thingie
for my Kindle, audiobooks and cellphone. The walker is now my boon companion. I
resisted such devices in the past, but the latest fall has finally convinced me
to put male pride aside. I might be hobbling around like a frizzly old fart,
but at least I’ll be a safer frizzly old fart.
I was feeling a little down yesterday morning, but
then it suddenly came to me that I was half way through the chemo ordeal. Six
of the bi-monthly treatments have been completed. And only six more to go. Or,
in Short Timer’s Calendar speak – five and a wakeup.
And I started wondering about when we might be able
to go back to California to see our families – it’s been a long, long time. The
treatments will end in late January, early February. Naturally, there will be
more tests and further screwing with the body.
We’re both thinking that I ought to be strong enough
to travel by next Spring. Around Kathryn’s April 15 birthday would be perfect.
Then new worries crept in. You know how it is. Even
after getting a reprieve from the Grim Reaper, it is only human nature that we
then hunt down new things to trouble our sleep.
You see, when they cut out the cancerous tumors they
also took most of my colon. Stuff goes through me like bacon through a Canadian
goose.
In other words, with a drastically foreshortened
gut, I’m kind of limited on how many hours I can fly and how much time I can
spend in lines at the various airports.
Bummer.
Then Kathryn stepped in.
“No problem,” she said, “we’ll take the train.”
Am I married to a brilliant woman or am I not?
After some research she has it all worked out. We’ll
take the Sunset Limited from New Orleans to Los Angeles. Kathryn pointed out
that to make sure I’m rested on each leg of the trip we can stop over in New
Orleans for a couple of days each way. A major bonus.
But the train! Ah, the train with the exotic name,
Sunset Limited running round my brain.
Think about it.
No long lines. No baggage hassles. No snarly transportation
employees who have your fellow travelers so pissed off they are on the edge of
Major Freak Out.
I mean, you even get to keep your shoes on, baby.
Plus – and this is huge - you get a private room
WITH a toilet. Room service. No stressed Stews. Settling back in wide seats
watching our fabulous country go by as we follow the sun home to California.
And the nights – ah, I love nights aboard a train –
curled up in your berth looking out the window as mysterious lights in the
distance swoop down upon you, only to be whipped away and then replaced by more
twinkling mysteries.
Best of all – for the entire trip you can listen to
the hypnotic clackity-clack music of the train rocking along the rails. And all
the while there is the gentle rocking motion that will carry your soul far and
far away from the dark days chemo.
And so, if anyone ever asks you: What do you do when
the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train?
You can reply without hesitation: If it’s the Sunset
Limited the answer is: “All Aboard!”
*****
Here's where to get the paperback & Kindle editions worldwide:
Here's what readers say about Lucky In Cyprus:
- "Bravo, Allan! When I finished Lucky In Cyprus I wept." - Julie Mitchell, Hot Springs, Texas
- "Lucky In Cyprus brought back many memories... A wonderful book. So many shadows blown away!" - Freddy & Maureen Smart, Episkopi,Cyprus.
- "... (Reading) Lucky In Cyprus has been a humbling, haunting, sobering and enlightening experience..." - J.A. Locke, Bookloons.com
*****
NEW: THE AUDIOBOOK VERSION OF
THE HATE PARALLAX
THE HATE PARALLAX: What if the Cold War never ended -- but continued for a thousand years? Best-selling authors Allan Cole (an American) and Nick Perumov (a Russian) spin a mesmerizing "what if?" tale set a thousand years in the future, as an American and a Russian super-soldier -- together with a beautiful American detective working for the United Worlds Police -- must combine forces to defeat a secret cabal ... and prevent a galactic disaster! This is the first - and only - collaboration between American and Russian novelists. Narrated by John Hough. Click the title links below for the trade paperback and kindle editions. (Also available at iTunes.)
*****
THE SPYMASTER'S DAUGHTER:
A new novel by Allan and his daughter, Susan
After laboring as a Doctors Without Borders physician in the teaming refugee camps and minefields of South Asia, Dr. Ann Donovan thought she'd seen Hell as close up as you can get. And as a fifth generation CIA brat, she thought she knew all there was to know about corruption and betrayal. But then her father - a legendary spymaster - shows up, with a ten-year-old boy in tow. A brother she never knew existed. Then in a few violent hours, her whole world is shattered, her father killed and she and her kid brother are one the run with hell hounds on their heels. They finally corner her in a clinic in Hawaii and then all the lies and treachery are revealed on one terrible, bloody storm ravaged night.
BASED ON THE CLASSIC STEN SERIES by Allan Cole & Chris Bunch: Fresh from their mission to pacify the Wolf Worlds, Sten and his Mantis Team encounter a mysterious ship that has been lost among the stars for thousands of years. At first, everyone aboard appears to be long dead. Then a strange Being beckons, pleading for help. More disturbing: the presence of AM2, a strategically vital fuel tightly controlled by their boss - The Eternal Emperor. They are ordered to retrieve the remaining AM2 "at all costs." But once Sten and his heavy worlder sidekick, Alex Kilgour, board the ship they must dare an out of control defense system that attacks without warning as they move through dark warrens filled with unimaginable horrors. When they reach their goal they find that in the midst of all that death are the "seeds" of a lost civilization.
*****
Here's where you can buy it worldwide in both paperback and Kindle editions:
United Kingdom ...........................Spain
Also: NOOK BOOK. Plus ALL E-BOOK FLAVORS.
TALES OF THE BLUE MEANIE
NOW AN AUDIOBOOK!
 |
Venice Boardwalk Circa 1969
|
In the depths of the Sixties and The Days Of Rage, a young newsman, accompanied by his pregnant wife and orphaned teenage brother, creates a Paradise of sorts in a sprawling Venice Beach community of apartments, populated by students, artists, budding scientists and engineers lifeguards, poets, bikers with a few junkies thrown in for good measure. The inhabitants come to call the place “Pepperland,” after the Beatles movie, “Yellow Submarine.” Threatening this paradise is "The Blue Meanie," a crazy giant of a man so frightening that he eventually even scares himself.
*****
I have great memories of hanging with you and Chris in New Orleans when we were all there for WorldCon a million years ago. You two convinced me to try alligator sausage (it was great). Your description of your intended train trip makes me want to hop right on a train myself. What a perfect adventure to look forward to.
ReplyDeleteYay for fancy-walker gadget. I always envy people who bring their own seat with them to waiting rooms. YAY for train trip idea -- I didn't know we still had cross-country trains!
ReplyDelete