Life updates

[Arlos]

Welp, I had a very large bomb dropped into my life a week and a bit ago. My mom went in for a routine colonoscopy, only they actually found something. One biopsy later, and yep, malignant. Fortunately not blocking anything in there yet, and they THINK they got it early. From what the docs are saying, they are pretty sure they got it early enough that it can be removed surgically, but they won't know for sure until they remove it and get a close up look at the lymph nodes nearby to see if it has started spreading. If it hasn't, then this is quick and simple, surgery, few days in the hospital, and it's over. If not, well, this becomes a lot more complicated, a lot messier, and way more nerve wracking.

I'm not one to get overly emotional about a lot of things, but I'm sorry, when you hear "Your mother" and "Has cancer" connected together, your brain kind of shuts off for a while as it chases itself in circles going OMG, OMG, OMG over and over again. So, I've put most of my life on hold in order to be there for my parents if they need anything, though fortunately at least outwardly she's in pretty good health otherwise. Still, if I'm reacting this way, my dad is probably going even more nuts, given that they'll have been married for 49 years this upcoming September

Surgery is on the 20th. Gonna be on pins & needles until that happens, and the test results come back afterward. Going to be keeping every single extremity I have available crossed, for sure.

[Drem]

I hope everything works out okay, man. I couldn't imagine..

[Harrison]

My mother didn't tell me she had cancer until long after she was already scheduled for surgery.

I was pretty pissed about that.

Hope everything pans out okay for you, man.

[Jay]

Sorry to hear the news Arlos. It sucks that she kept it from you (as my mom did) but what's important about this is that it's not about you it's about them and all you can do is be a good son and be available and supportive.

On a lighter note, I'm waiting to get my hair cut and there's a little Indian kid ahead of me named Jaython.

[leah]

o hai

i have a new job! i left advertising for nonprofit and am now the content manager for an organization called Nebraska Children & Families Foundation. i'm pretty psyched. feels good to be doing work that has a real soul instead of adding to the coffers of gigantic financial services clients. it's only day 3 but i'm already about 100x less stressed, AND i have an office. win-win.

in other news, josh and i might be splitting up. i don't want to go into it right now (maybe never) but i'm not going down without a fight. any and all good vibes would be much appreciated.

[Arlos]

Wow, that's really awful to hear, I hope you guys are able to work it out. I wish you nothing but the best of luck. Congrats on the new job, too, though I'm sure that's pretty secondary for you right now.



Update from my end: Surgery on my mom apparently went well. Or, at least, the surgeon said he was very pleased. As part of the process, they took out nearly 20 lymph nodes from the area surrounding the tumor, because that's where they'd find new cancer cells if it had started to spread. They did find some, but it was microscopic amounts, and only in 2 of the nodes. So, that was pretty good news too. We're still waiting on the final word from the oncologist as to what happens next. It's looking like there's a good chance she won't need chemo, that removing the tumor was the end of it. But, we just don't know yet. THAT appointment is on, I believe, the 20th of this month, though they've talked about moving it up, so who knows. Still, we got the news on the tests on the lymph nodes on Friday, and Saturday was her 70th birthday, so it made for a pretty good early birthday present, that only 2 had any traces.

So, I guess we'll see. I'm less nervous about it all at this point, because everything SEEMS to be positive, but since we still don't know, we're all half fearing the other shoe will drop, as it were. I guess we'll see.

[brinstar]

had my wisdom teeth out monday. it sucked. one of the roots of my upper left widom tooth had apparently grown through into my sinus cavity, because now that the tooth is gone there's an air passage connecting the cavity to my mouth. super weird. doc says the hole will close on its own as long as i avoid blowing my nose or using straws. cooooooool.

no stitches or gauze or anything though. aside from the weird "blowhole" no complications. still sucks.

[Arlos]

had my wisdom teeth out monday. it sucked. one of the roots of my upper left widom tooth had apparently grown through into my sinus cavity, because now that the tooth is gone there's an air passage connecting the cavity to my mouth. super weird. doc says the hole will close on its own as long as i avoid blowing my nose or using straws. cooooooool.

no stitches or gauze or anything though. aside from the weird "blowhole" no complications. still sucks.

I had my wisdom teeth out when I was 16 years old and in high school. They were apparently already badly impacted, so they had to do it right away. Apparently the bottom 2 were in such a bad location they had to break back flaps of bone in my jaw to get at them to get them out. It was such an extensive job they actually did it in a hospital under general anaesthetic. Oddly enough, the anaesthesiologist was the father of one of my best friends at the time. I still remember going into that vividly. On one of those hospital gurneys, hooked up to an IV. They give me one drug, and I start floating a bit, then a bit later they give me something else and I'm REALLY floating. Then they wheel me into the operating room, get me onto the table, and get all the last few things ready. Then the doc turns to me and says "OK, you're going to sleep now", before putting a syringe into the port in the IV. I remember a brief flash of serious cold coming into my arm through the IV, and then I was gone. I couldn't chew solid food for probably a week. That was the worst Christmas vacation ever. rofl.

[brinstar]

no hospital or gurney for me, just outpatient. i sat in the chair for maybe 10 mins before the team came in

surgeon guy puts an IV in my right arm and says "ok this is gonna make you a bit woozy" and pushes the contents of a needle into the IV port. moments later a nurse puts that nose tube thingy on me and then BLIP suddenly it's 30 mins later, the whole thing's done, and the surgeon isn't even in the room anymore. it's like i time traveled half an hour into the future except some of my teeth didn't come along. no stitches. had gauze in there until i got home, then was done with that. had to lean on my gf a bit to get to the car, but once we got to walgreen's for my prescription i was walking fine

the "blowhole" still hasn't fully closed yet, but i can tell it's getting smaller. not a lot of pain. my 2nd molar on the upper right is having trouble coping with its new responsibility as the back molar now that his buddy got yanked: it's fairly sensitive to suction, which is probably normal-ish, but it's also sensitive to certain frequencies of my voice and hurts if i laugh/speak or clear my throat too loud. hoping THAT goes away real soon.

getting real tired of spaghetti-os and soup and yogurt and pudding. if i was real careful i could probably eat something semi-solid if i had to, but no sense in pushing it.

[Arlos]

This is a picture of the ceiling of the main student bar right by Santa Clara University, called The Hut:



Notice all the dollar bills on the ceiling. School tradition is for new MBA's to stick a dollar with their name on it up on the ceiling. Which leads me to the next picture:



And why do I have a dollar with my name on it on the ceiling? This might explain (2nd column, near the bottom, plus notice the header in the upper left):






Fucking done. Level: MBA, achieved. Time to go convert my brain cells into tapioca pudding.



PS. If anyone cares about updates on my mom, she saw the oncologist about 2 weeks ago, and the verdict is she needs 6 months of chemo. Bleah.

[Jay]

This is a picture of the ceiling of the main student bar right by Santa Clara University, called The Hut:



Notice all the dollar bills on the ceiling. School tradition is for new MBA's to stick a dollar with their name on it up on the ceiling. Which leads me to the next picture:



And why do I have a dollar with my name on it on the ceiling? This might explain (2nd column, near the bottom, plus notice the header in the upper left):




Fucking done. Level: MBA, achieved. Time to go convert my brain cells into tapioca pudding.



PS. If anyone cares about updates on my mom, she saw the oncologist about 2 weeks ago, and the verdict is she needs 6 months of chemo. Bleah.

And in this moment I realized I have no idea what your name is.

[Jay]

Also grats. Also, chemo is ass but its not the nightmare it once was thanks to the advancements of medical science. Also, I don't know what it's like to live in a world where you aren't in school lol. You're like a super duper duper duper senior.

[brinstar]

ya best of luck with the chemo. our gma had a cancer scare a year or two back, but early detection + a successful operation + followup chemo seems to have handled that shit.

as for my tooth odyssey:

• top right socket is nearly filled in. the tissue is no longer tender. adjacent tooth is no longer sensitive to vibrations from my voice. doing great.
• bottom right socket is still somewhat deep, but filling in quickly. tissue is no longer tender. doing great.
• top left socket is filling in. i can feel a bone shard poking through but it's not sharp enough to cause any real issue. the blowhole seems to have closed as far as air is concerned, although i have found that when i vigorously swish water around some of it still gets through into my sinus cavity - which is rather uncomfortable and has caused weird congestion issues that i'm really hoping aren't indicative of an oncoming cold. tissue is no longer tender. doing okay.
• bottom left socket is still pretty deep and it's real easy to get food stuck in there. could become problematic. i gotta figure out where i put that water syringe so i can keep it clean - would hate for it to close up around some piece of chicken finger or something. tissue is still tender. doing not-so-okay.

crazy thing is i knew the left side would give me problems. been on solid food for a few days now, though i still have to eat slowly and deliberately.


IN MUSIC NEWS (links embedded for shameless self-promotion):

band 1 (life is cool) is not playing shows this summer, as we are focusing on writing enough new material to finally make our first album. we've got almost $4k saved up from shows and we'd like to put the album on vinyl, but i think the consensus is that getting a high-quality recording is a much higher priority than the medium it ends up on so there might not be any cash left over for vinyl or even CDs

band 2 (sun day) is kinda dormant at the moment, which is frustrating. there is a bunch of new material written but nobody ever makes the time for band practice. i don't tell anyone else this, but of all the different squads i'm in, i think this one is the most interesting/compelling

band 3 (whiskey drinkers union) is inching along, we've put together 2 new tunes in the last few months and have bits and pieces of more. i mostly do this band for funsies, but nevertheless it's great to actually be getting somewhere in at least one group

temporary band 4 (black cohosh) reunited after a four-year-hiatus to play a fundraiser last month. we haven't had a conversation about whether to keep practicing/performing, but i'm pretty lukewarm about the idea. one of the other members isn't much of a team player: always plays too loud, has a terrible sense of rhythm and always argues about it, doesn't do well with constructive criticism. great person, great friend, frustrating bandmate.

temporary band 5 (all young girls are machine guns) booked a minitour about six weeks ago and immediately discovered the drummer had a conflict he couldn't get out of. they put out a call on FB to see if any area drummers were available/interested, and i had already talked to them once last year about filling in for a show (that was ultimately cancelled) so i thought heck yeah i've never toured before this will be fun. we'll be in fort collins on 6/10 and denver on 6/11 - i don't think anyone here lives in or near CO but if by random chance you're around next weekend come down and check us out. been practicing with them for about a month now and my first show is a test run in lincoln this coming sunday.


POLITICAL:

after phonebanking and canvassing etc i was chosen to serve as a precinct captain for team bernie. my precinct then chose me as a delegate to the county convention, which happened two weeks ago tomorrow. along with other berniecrats, we got some cool shit added to our county party platform (including tuition-free public university and medicare-for-all). my legislative district elected me an alternate to go to state convention in two weeks, where we hope to add similar planks to the state platform and pass a (nonbinding) resolution to get rid of the superdelegate system. i've declared my candidacy to be a delegate to the DNC in philly next month, but i am almost certain to not get picked as they try for as much diversity as possible and there's nothing whatsoever diverse about me

[Arlos]

Update:

Still in the "looking for work, and eventually breaking down and driving for Uber to pay bills" phase. So hey, if anyone's employer needs a newly minted MBA marketing guy, PM me and I'll get you my resume. heh.

My mom is handling chemo reasonably well. She's sick as hell for a couple days after a given treatment, and there's a lot of other negative aspects to it, but overall it hasn't been as horrific as I was worried.

One complicating factor in my job search is that I might be needing to go under the knife myself. For a while now, I've been having pain in my neck and down one arm, that pain meds really haven't touched. So, saw the doc, got an MRI of my neck, and got the following (in full language for any medical experts):

C5-C6: There are moderate anterior ostephytes. There is a 2mm disc bulge resulting in mild canal stenosis. Bilateral uncovertebral hypertrophy resulting in mild bilateral neuroforaminal narrowing
C6-C7: Left uncovertebral hypertrophy resulting in severe left neuroforaminal narrowing

Osteophytes are bone spurs/growths. Basically, due to age/whatever, the vertebra in my neck have decayed some and have started growing bone spurs. One of them grew inward, and is potentially pinching off my main spinal cord (that's the spinal stenosis). That obviously dramatically increases the risk of serious spinal injury should I injure my neck somehow. "Uncovertebral hypertrophy" is another term for those bone spurs, and "neuroforaminal narrowing" is talking about those gaps in the vertebra where the big nerve bundles branch off from the spine to head down to the arms, etc. The narrowing is talking about the bone spurs growing in those gaps, and it's that C6-C7 area that's causing the pain/numbness in my left arm because that nerve is effectively permanently severely pinched.

It's not something that will get better with therapy, either. They have me on Lyrica to help dull the nerve pain, but even though I'm on a lot of it, it's barely taking the edge off so that I'm not chugging down other painkillers every 4 or 5 hours. So, since I really would prefer not to be in significant pain 24x7, they have to do SOMETHING. I've got an appointment with a neurosurgeon on the 19th, but I expect I'll have to undergo spinal surgery so they can remove all those bone spurs and growths. Not sure they'd do it if it was just the pinched nerve, but when there's also an increased risk of major spinal injury from the cord stenosis...

Needless to say, I am not exactly thrilled at the idea of having to undergo spinal surgery while in the middle of a job hunt. I guess we'll see how things work out...

[Menelvir]

My father was recently diagnosed with a cancerous growth as well - in his case, it's a myeloid sarcoma that formed in the lower abdomen and is of sufficient size that it's affected blood circulation to the legs (the growth is pressing against arteries in the area). He's started chemotherapy and may at some point undergo radiative therapy as well, but that is yet to be determined.

[Jay]

My father was recently diagnosed with a cancerous growth as well - in his case, it's a myeloid sarcoma that formed in the lower abdomen and is of sufficient size that it's affected blood circulation to the legs (the growth is pressing against arteries in the area). He's started chemotherapy and may at some point undergo radiative therapy as well, but that is yet to be determined.

Sorry to hear it sir. Hope everything works out!

[10sun]

I bought a 2008 BMW 535 Wagon. It was fun to drive home through upstate New York.

[leah]

josh and i had our first marriage counseling session yesterday. it was kind of brutal. we're doing "discernment counseling" which is basically a six-session time-limited course of counseling that will help us decide whether to go all-in on fixing it or find a way to gracefully separate.

i hate all of this and i am in a sad place. ugh.

[Jay]

josh and i had our first marriage counseling session yesterday. it was kind of brutal. we're doing "discernment counseling" which is basically a six-session time-limited course of counseling that will help us decide whether to go all-in on fixing it or find a way to gracefully separate.

i hate all of this and i am in a sad place. ugh.

Obviously youre working with a pro but leave some room for the 2 of you to come to your own realizations too. We had a terrible counselor who rather than help find a place for us to begin healing spent most of her her time coaching my wife up on how to attack me. I spent the better part of a year thinking i was the cause of everything and thankfully my wife opted to switch counselors. New counselor within our first session had us laughing together for the first time in forever.

Counselors can be great but their word is not law.

[brinstar]

New counselor within our first session had us laughing together for the first time in forever.

this is p cute

[Jay]

New counselor within our first session had us laughing together for the first time in forever.

this is p cute

You have no idea how much of a milestone it was. It started with me vs her. Then we decided on counseling, then it was me vs her and our counselor for a year. I kinda gave up and took it week after week and mentally checked out. Every week was some new way that i had fucked up. 0 discussion or examination. Straight to verdict. Had a giant blow up and i just said fuck it im done. Wife decided lets just try a new person and see what happens. I think in an attempt to show me that I'm the problem and that i was crazy to lay any blame on our therapist. New therapist heard the story and was like holy shit guys im not here to take a side and im only gonna talk to you 2 together never 1 on 1 (the other one had sessions alone with her). Our 1 hour session lasted 2 and by the end we were laughing. Weve been seeing our new counselor for 4 months now and at the 6 month mark we're gonna talk about me moving back into the house. Its not "the dream" but its looking like a pleasant reality.

[leah]

i'm hopeful that this girl works out. but i also won't hesitate to request switching to someone else if things start to feel one-sided or attacky. right now i think he's really really mad at me and it's clouding any goodwill he might otherwise have been able to extend. but i need him to try.

[Jay]

i'm hopeful that this girl works out. but i also won't hesitate to request switching to someone else if things start to feel one-sided or attacky. right now i think he's really really mad at me and it's clouding any goodwill he might otherwise have been able to extend. but i need him to try.

Good luck to you. I hope this works out for you too. Its weird that you feel like one minute you're marrying your best friend and the next minute you're saying shit to them that is super uncomfortable and awkward and there's a stranger watching you the whole time as you say it. How did I get here?

[Drem]

i hope everything goes well for both of you. marriage is tough. we've found ourselves on the brink of counseling but haven't done it yet.

everyone said marriage took a lot of work and effort from both people and i never believed it until we started growing up and owning a house, cars, a business, and having kids (she's pregnant again, our boy's gonna have a little sibling!). it is really fucking hard. you have to be in it together

best wishes

[leah]

thanks guys <3 no matter what, we'll all be ok.