San and I went to clinic for round two of the all-day chemo assault on the bad guys. But unfortunately we found out after my blood was drawn that my white count hadn’t quite recovered enough to risk it. So I was sent home.

You know what? That’s fine. Ironic as it is, San and I would much rather err on the side of caution when making decisions about pouring more of that poison through the port in my chest into my bloodstream. In times like these when I pause to think about it, I often find myself onstage in an imagined Monty Python scene of my own making. Here is today’s dialogue (and when reading it, please do so aloud and use the class-appropriate British accents):

Doctor: “It is neither good news nor bad news, but I’m afraid your results show you aren’t quite well enough to be poisoned again.”

Working Class Me: “But I will be well enough soon, right?”

Doctor: “Oh yes, you will be just fine in a couple of days. Then we’ll poison you.”

Working Class Me: “Oh good! Will there be sweets, like last time?”

Tia, the oncology nurse: “We always have sweets for you, Bud.”

Doctor: “I’ve been meaning to talk to you both about that. His blood sugar is a bit high. So we must cut back on the sweets.”

Working Class Me: “But I still get the poison?”

Doctor and Tia: “Oh yes, we promise you’ll get the poison. As much as you want.”

Me: “Well, good enough then. I’ll just be on my way …”

***

Reliable witnesses – San and Nic – tell me that I am always very tired, a little nauseous, steroid sweaty, and suffer from the fog of chemo brain following a treatment. I accept their wisdom. How could I not? During these post-chemo times, they seem to me to be living in the world just outside of the one I am living in and therefore enjoy certain advantages, including no residual poison, no narcotics, or even anti-nausea agents flowing not so gently through their veins. Besides, they are on my side. They have promised to protect me from myself, should I get it into my head to do something that could turn out badly, such as using the oven.

When it is 108 degrees outside, why would I use the oven? Because – and I say this with a smile - I awoke from my nap yesterday with an overwhelming desire for roast turkey with all the trimmings. And I said so. Seemed entirely reasonable to me, until San pointed out that using the oven in this heat was a bad idea.

“Oh,” I said. By then the fog in my brain had cleared sufficiently for me to connect dots that only moments before had been swimming in a word sea of rhetorical possibilities mixed up with a desire for turkey. That is how it has been this week while I am recovering from a third chemo treatment. I stand just outside myself – my usual self - for two or three days, nodding off occasionally, saying odd things that are only odd because my brain hasn’t yet cut through the fog to see clearly the implications of it.

The good news – really good news – is that it passes. By tomorrow I should be more or less fine.

Within that context, a context in which I fully accept that after chemo I am not exactly up to full speed, I still find the world I read about in the newspapers and watch on television to be stranger than what is going on inside my body and brain. Hence, the title of this blog post: Is It Just Me?

***

The country is facing imminent fiscal default but aside from posting outrage on Facebook and withdrawing a little emergency cash from the bank, Nic and I decided to spend this particular Monday watching Captain America triumph over evil. At least in the movies the good guys win.

The tab for tickets, popcorn, nachos, and drinks did, in fact, challenge our debt limit but hey, spending a couple of hours watching a nostalgia-filled action film didn’t threaten social security or Medicaid, although I did wonder why our Defense Department needed so much money to fight wars when a few of those cool pulse weapons that were featured in the film could more efficiently wipe out the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Throw in Captain America’s weaponized shield and there would be no more trouble from right wing extremists either.

Magical thinking, I know. But given the magical thinking that thus far has characterized Congressional approaches to dealing with our economy, if there was a choice between John Boehner and Captain America to solve our problems, I bet most Americans would choose the Captain. And that is really, really sad.

As I move into the eighth week of living with the knowledge that I have stage four pancreatic cancer, I am also moving into the fourth round of an aggressive chemo treatment plan designed to counter it. Tomorrow I will spend the day in the orange chair. Today, as is true every day, I remind myself once again how fortunate I am that I am not living with cancer alone.

I am fortunate to have the love of family and friends who work hard each and every day to make this dance til the end of my time full of the good things of life. I am fortunate also to have new friends who share with me their own cancer stories, people whose enduring courage and good spirits serve as sources of motivation for me to not give in to the constant temptation to give up. And, for all of us fortunate enough to be receiving treatment at the Four Winds Cancer Clinic in Chandler, Arizona, we know how important it is to our treatment, to our motivation, to our good spirits, as well as to our stories to have such a caring and supportive professional team joining our fight and sharing our journeys into and through the ever-changing landscape of Cancerland.

***

This week my post chemo blues has had a mostly upbeat rhythm to them. Yes, there was some general tiredness. Yes, there was a round of the full body chemo sweat. And yes, there was another round or two of chemo brain wherein during one of them I accidentally killed my iPhone by failing to remove it from my khaki shorts before the shorts went into the laundry. The shorts came out clean and fresh; the iPhone came out shiny but dead. Oh well. In the larger scheme of things, no biggie. I can get another phone.

The medical update for this week includes a new needle in my treatment plan. Because my white blood cells aren’t replenishing themselves at the rate Dr. Sud would like to see, he prescribed a white count booster shot.

Cry baby that I am about shots of any kind, I faced this news with some (admittedly comic) anxiety about the shot itself, but the good news is that it was a relatively painless procedure and I didn’t die. The bad news is that this morning I woke up with body aches and a slightly elevated temperature, sort of like what it feels like when you are getting the flu.