Mark A. Kilmer (the weblog)

I did not watch the CNN/YouTube debate last night. If you managed to sit through it, God bless you, but that sort of thing does not resemble the politics which drew me toward the process.

But I suppose I owe you an explanation.

WHY I DID NOT WATCH THE CNN/YOUTUBE GOP PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE.

* I’d just completed my radiation treatment regimen for throat cancer, and I had more pressing concerns than surveying twaddle. I suppose Clean House was on Style Channel – it always is when I am flipping through – but Bruckner’s Symphony no 3 in D minor, the one Wagner really liked, by the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under Hartmut Haenchen had just arrived via USPS earlier. And there’s something to be said for our mail carrier. She’s… better looking than Rudy Giuliani.

* I had heard that Ron Paul were going to be there, and I wasn’t in the mood for a cipher. (Straight talk? Oh, right.)

* I’d heard the same of Dunc and Trancredo. I have nothing against middle-aged guys with long records of exemplary public service playing a little to their vanities, but the key modifier is “a little.” Not a lot. It’s time to move on, gentlemen.

* I don’t much care to watch a lefty blue jean heiress, Anderson Cooper, pretend to be objective or to be a newsman. (His mommy is Gloria Vanderbilt.)

Read On…

* Look, the Huckabee juggernaut would have overwhelmed me. Just the aura of the man, being in the same room… well, not in the same room, but on the other end of a TV signal… He’s lost a lot of weight, you know.

* The people who make those zany YouTube vids – the snowmen, the plants (see below), the aging hippies – intimidate me an’ my brain cell. They bring to mind the great revolutionary pamphleteers like Thomas Paine. Well, not Paine. Who was that guy who wrote the pamphlets that no one read?

* It is undeniable science-’cos-I-said-so, though not quite on the level of global climate change, that there are all sorts of plants which have important biological functions. That being said, there were just too many of them doing the YouTube thaang last night. (Start here and here.)

The main reason, though, that I didn’t watch the CNN/YouTube thing last night:

* My wife, a huge FNC fan, figured out how to V-Chip CNN off the bedroom TV.

The odds were stacked against me, but really, what would I have gained by seeing the political process turned into a combination of Deal or no Deal and Survivor?

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

At long last, my final radiation treatment took place this morning. Diane and I went through the morning ritual, the same morning ritual, with not a word spoken about this inconvenience ending soon.

She had brought the staff a plate of cookies with a note thanking them, but she was unsure whether her gift would be appreciated. I told her, in a whisper, that it was “sweet.” The nurse behind the counter to whom she gave the cookies termed Diane’s gambit: “Sweet.” You figure, these people were part of our lives for two intense months, and they were responsible for keeping me alive, so any token is a good token. And they do like cookies.

The girl came out to the door between the waiting room and the hallway and called me back. She smiled. I smiled. I knew what was up – LAST TIME! – and I’m certain she did, as well. The treatment went quickly and smoothly, and the bald, young tech took my mouthpiece. I whispered: “That’s it. It’s finished.” I looked him in the eyes and thanked him.

Turning around, the girl was smiling broadly. She had a certificate for me:

This struck me as very nice, and I bit my lower lip gently when my eyes read the words: “commitment, courage, and tolerance.” Anyone who undergoes something like this had better be able to summon plenty of all three.

I waved to a group of other techs and nurses by the other machine, maybe waiting to say goodbye to me. I left that main room, hooked a right, and floated the several feet to the door to the waiting room. And it was on air that I walked into that room. Two people sat looking up at CNN; beyond them, my wife rose to her feet.

“You’re done,” she remarked as I approached her and my coat. I nodded and opened the door.

As we left the waiting room, Diane wished the two patients inside good luck, but they didn’t respond. They had their backs to us and we’re looking up on the wall at CNN.

Dr. Shocker had indicated last week that this morning would be my 36th treatment, which sounds like the right number. It was exactly two months before tomorrow that I received my first such treatment, when I was afraid that the number of treatments I would receive was fifty. (I was still going by Shocker’s off-the-cuff estimation: ten weeks of treatment.)

Right now, what ails me most are the sore throat, the more-than-usual fatigue, and the exasperating dysphagia (swallowing). My wife bought me a copy of Max Lucado’s 3:16 – The Numbers of Hope, and tonight we finally get to watch the Kino restoration of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle’s The Butcher Boy (1917). (That is the short film we watch at intervals, when something at-the-time important has been accomplished. This qualifies, and it not become a footnote to the film.)

In two weeks, these side effects should be gone. The cancer is long gone, and if it stays away, I am a survivor. That’s what’s going to happen, and I suppose I’ve always been a survivor.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Last Wednesday, after I had finished last week’s treatments, I flippantly noted that this week’s therapy sessions do not count. I also hinted that they honestly had to. I went to one of those two sessions this morning, the penultimate one, and the verdict is in: they do count. When I awake in the morning, it was happening and it counted. When my wife fed me through a tube, it was happening and it counted. When we drove to the cancer treatment center, it was happening and it counted.

It was overcast, chilly, chock full o’ drizzle this AM, the first day of antlered deer (buck) season in the State of Pennsylvania, which meant that my currently outmoded chemo oncologist was probably out in the woods somewhere. And, after I’d scanned my card alerting the dispensers of nuclear doom to be presence, I took a seat next to my wife and listened to one older guy tell another that kids today are just not the same as they were in the day. In the day, he’d go hunting and put his empty cola cans in a coat pocket for to be dispensed with in the proper place later. Today’s kids, he argued, crumple their empty cans and throw them in the eyes of nature’s glory.

The plan/schedule was for me to be nuked at 8. The bald fellow came for me at 8:15p, I supposed without looking at my watch, and he asked how I was. My voice is a dysfunctional rasp, and that’s called dysphagia, but I told him that I was fine. He asked me to wait in the joining room which opens to each accelerator room and contains monitoring equipment, while he cleaned up something in Accelerator Room 1. I leaned against the edge of a wall which extended part way into the room, bent my knee, and tried to look as kewl as a cancer patient in this 8th week of treatment can manage.

The bald guy appeared in Accelerator Room 1 and nodded. I went in. An attractive nurse stood inside. I removed my shirt and put it on the table, and I laid on the table with the back of my head in the plastic holder, my knees up a little so they could fit the cushion under them.

After giving me the mouthpiece, hey latched the mask on. I had to lift my chin higher twice, turn my nose a little to the left, etc., but I was soon encased in this thing. And the treatment went very quickly, nothing holding anything at the point of dangerous delay.

The mask came off, and I smiled, what with being done for the morning. For the first time I think ever, I got up immediately off the thin table-like thing on which I’d been lying. On my feet, I took out my mouthpiece while the nurse grabbed something into which to put it. I put on my Super Bowl XL Champs, and I rejoined my wife in the waiting room. We had to wait for Dr. Shocker, and after a while, Dr. Clement’s nurse, as I’ve called her, came out and called us back. I’ve lost a pound. So. What.

Into a waiting room Diane and I sauntered, and I answered question after question about bowel movements and mouth sores. Rate the pain between one and ten, and dammit, use an integer. She told me that I might have to have another chemo treatment on Friday, and Diane informed her that I did not have to have another chemo treatment on Friday. (I’ve covered how the chemotherapy was given, in my case, only to make more effective the radiation treatments. The radiation will be finished tomorrow, so no chemo.)

At least she told me that I looked good today, though I felt as if I should be resting, maybe lying in the fetal position listening to Rossini or Kuhlau.

Shocker came in and looked at my chart. My wife did most of my talking for me, but she had more talking to do for herself than for me as it was. And as it was, there wasn’t much to say. Oh, one more treatment then goodbye. We will not see him tomorrow, but he did make an appointment to see the man on January 24 at 3:45p, which is after we’ve seen Dr. Howells. It’s also after we’ve seen Lieb, but Shocker obviously did care that much anent Lieb or chemo or that whole deal. As for this tightly knit group of physicians working together to coordinate my treatment, well, Shocker said that he’d send Howells a note. So much for that concept.

But the cancer is gone, and this is what matters. This sore throat bit is awful and constant, but it should be gone in two weeks. (Shocker prescribed a week’s Hydrocodone after this one, so he’s not overly concerned about this matter.) The trouble swallowing (dysphagia) also goes in two weeks, and no end date for that will be soon enough. I lamented in one of these missives that I could not pick up a bottle of Spring Water and drink deeply, and that ability was what I most wanted as a Christmas gift, and I shall probably be doing that in mid-December.

I don’t know about the fatigue. I had told Clement’s nurse that my fatigue was mild, but I could fall asleep at any time and anywhere: like on a dime or maybe even on the head of a pin. But tomorrow ends probably the least timely and most overwhelming adventure of my life. Given what is yet to come, it fits into a larger context and hopefully becomes more manageable, in that I’ll be prepared. And knowing that my throat will be better in a few weeks is another comfort.

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Fred Thompson was host Chris Wallace’s guest on FOX News Sunday, and he talked briefly of his tax cut plans. He’s also not going to retool his campaign merely because Fred Barnes and Charles Krauthammer are unimpressed with the operation and the candidate.

Also on FNS, Carl Levin stressed the need for a “non-binding goal” calling for getting our troops out of Iraq. Lindsey Graham accused Levin and his fellow Democrats of trying to undermine the war effort, going back to the old strategy for political reasons.

On TW, 2008 GOP Presidential hopeful John McCain argued that the choice between human rights and national security, as mentioned by Abu Ghraib Sanchez and Hillary, is a false one. Next on TW, 2008 Dem Presidential hopeful Bill Richardson said that our troops have become targets and we should get out in a year.

On MTP, one of Russert’s roundtables – Matalin, Murphy, Shrum, and Carville – sat around a table and argued in sound bytes.

On FTN, on of Schiffer’s roundtables — Robin Wright, Tony Zinni, Larry Wright, and Rick Atkinson – sat around a table and argued in sound bytes.

Finally, on LE, Mike Huckabee said that he’d strike into the Pakistani hinterlands without first seeking Pak’s permission. He pledged to make the United States energy independent within a decade. He and Blitzer shared stories of Team Mitt’s hijinks.

For the show-by-show review, check RedState.com…

For Sunday, November 25, 2007

Meet the Press (NBC): Tim Russert has another of his roundtables, this time with Democratic strategists James Carville and Bob Shrum; Republican strategists Mary Matalin and Mike Murphy..

FOX News Sunday (FNS): Host Chris Wallace asks Fred Thompson what is going on. Then he talks to Carl Levin and Lindsey Graham about the situation in Iraq.

This Week (ABC): Host George Stephanopoulos has John McCain and Big Bad Bill Richardson on to talk about the campaign and about the situation in Iraq.

Face the Nation (CBS): Host Bob Schieffer discusses matters with retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni.

Late Edition (CNN): Host Wolf Blitzer chats with Mike Huckabee and former Iraqi boss Iyad Allawi.
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The big news about the MTP roundtable is that Bob Shrum has yet to move to a small, South American city where he can live anonymously, just so as not to be recognized as “that guy who…” And has Mike Murphy declared himself a Rombot or a McCainiac?

What does Fred Thompson want? It was far too much to expect the mortal man to walk onto the national political stage and become Ronald Reagan over night, of course, but I would like him to be Fred Thompson and I’d like to know what to expect from Fred Thompson.

Zinni’s a surprise on FTN. I mean, he’s not on a book tour and there is really nothing left for the man to say.

Huckabee. I see him serving only one purpose, albeit a very important one, this primary season, and that should be done after Iowa, but I suppose one couldn’t convince him to quit if he wins those non-binding caucuses. Heck, maybe it’s what Blitzer will tell him to do. Don’t know what he can ask of Allawi, except to go away.