My gums feel like jelly and I have to do all sorts of odd mouthwashes, but there’s a cocktail they gave me to help me eat, made of lidocaine, Maalox, and benadryl. You swish it around your mouth for about 20 seconds and then spit it out. About 15 minutes later your mouth is numb enough to let you eat. I wonder who invented this unlikely cocktail – it works pretty well.

The hospital hierarchy is becoming clearer. I’d never really paid much attention to hospitals before and never watched the TV shows – which I’m sure are wrong anyway – so consider these as relatively unbiased impressions.

Daily I see nurses: Co, Ka, etc. They have responsibility for administering medication and finding out changes in my condition. Over time, I imagine that they get to know you pretty well and so can tell if something is drastically awry. They can add a few medications here and there.

There are nurse assistants who take vital signs (three tests from which you get four answers: oxygenation level & pulse, blood pressure (in/out), and temperature. Many of these assistants are immigrants of many years. For example, Al is Haitian and came her 20 years ago. Ro is also Haitian (she loves goat meat, by the way!)

There are the folks who transport you by wheelchair. They may also be Haitian, but could also be poorer. I talked with one the other night wheeling me down to the PET scan. He lives out in Alewife (the projects?) and has a daughter, aged 4. We talked about daughters and I showed him a picture of Miranda and Diggory. He said he would like a dog but wasn’t allowed to have one.

Many of these folks commute vast distances. For shift work perhaps its not so bad however.

There are the various specialist equipment operators like the girl who gave me the baseline ECG the other day.

Then there are the doctors. Multiple sets of them. At the top you have the crème-de-la-crème like Dr. J who is a specialist in lymphoma. Working with him is Dr. S. He does the spinal taps or intrathecals (IT). I’m due for another one this afternoon. They will do longitudinal monitoring of my case throughout the three to four months. Dr. C, my admitting doctor is also a rare breed. She has a specific interest in my type of case and works on something called mouse models.

There’s a thing to be said for having taken so many drugs when I was a kid in Amsterdam. I’ve had so many hallucinogenic episodes over the last few days that I’m not sure if I could have handled them if I hadn’t had earlier spirit guides from the sixties. I do not know where this journey is taking me, or if indeed journey is the right term, but there has been at times a comfort in the return of old friends, such as last night when I listened to an entire movement of Haydn’s London symphony and heard every individual note weigh for eternity.

A mixed day. As I said just now as Rose came in, “I’m getting used to not getting used to anything.”

Some thoughts starting to emerge fleetingly. Hard to shepherd them into any rational system that leads anywhere. I realise how much I adore Mo, and even though I’m self-centered I find there really is a human-being under this skin.

Waiting in the corridor for the PET scan this evening with my mask on, sweating, I had my delusions of grandeur that I’m sure other cancer victims have had; of writing the great disease travelogue best seller, with enough humor and wisdom that it would sell a million copies. But I’m sure this is a worked-over genre. There has to be a better angle than a collection of anecdotes.

I find it interesting about the characters in the hospital. Most of the porters are Haitian and could not afford the insurance I have.

Rough night last night excreting all the chemo. Up every half hour and peeing and pooping. Better in the morning but still short of breath. All I want to do is to curl up into bed and sleep.

Got most of my letter to Mother written last nght. Perhaps a little Nelsonian in tone, but it helped me get my thoughts together.

Not sure how I’m going to get through all of this!

After all the barrage of tests I now have some time to call my own. Had a good night’s sleep. It’s still weird waking up in the hospital — for the last couple of nights it felt like I was on the old Leopard — due of course to reading Desolation Island and I seemed to be in the role of Steven Maturin.

Now it’s time to wake up. I took a shower and they unhooked me from the tubes for a while. They’ll pump me with the first set of chemo drugs today so I’ll no doubt start to feel pretty bad.

Still have to call Mother today and break the news. Called Katy and we’ll set it up. Right now I am focusing day-to-day and doing the regimen. At the back of my mind, as always, is that this will not work and it’ll be time to call it quits. And I’ll be missing seeing Mi grow up and growing old with Mo.

Condition: lower jaw swollen, diarrhea diminishing, sore gullet from the endoscopy, otherwise pretty good.Show less