Week 3, Days 3 and 4

friday 30 january & saturday 31 january 2015

friday is the first day of feeling really sick instead of just afflicted. i don't want to venture into the cold to the pharmacy to get that cream for the rash, but a call confirms that it's there and i itch too much to let it slide. with the rash spreading to the upper thighs and raging on the puffy right arm, i wonder how long one bottle of the stuff will last. 

and as long as i'm out, i can pick up more chicken soup at the lexington co-op and meet a friend i haven't seen for a month for a late lunch at panera bread on elmwood. happy addition to the panera menu: broth bowls. soba noodle with chicken hits the spot in many ways.

but after lunch, the only spot to hit is bed. a slather of cream and the next three hours are hibernation, with the usual hop-ups. still feeling like a bear when i arise, i wonder how well i can weather the play we have tickets for at the kavinoky theater -- a. r. gurney's "family furniture," in the last weekend of its run. 

a generous shot of saline nasal moisturizing spray for the sinuses and, for the first time since chemo started, a couple extra strength tylenol for achy hip and arm and leg bones, and we're out the door. the play is a bit of heavy sledding, but a fascinating picture of buffalo's upper middle classes under stress in the late 1940s, with bountiful local references. it's the kavinoky at the top of its form. i feel better by the time the actors take their bows (bravo, tylenol), good enough to join friends broady and janine at broady's house nearby for wine tasting on janine's distributor samples. wine for the others, rooibos tea for me. when we get home, i'm too bushed to write.

there's something of a sleep breakthrough in the middle of the night. i wake up from a longer than usual doze in such a sweat that i need to peel off my wet T-shirt and exchange it for a dry one. off with the electric blanket and i'm asleep again in 15 minutes. next thing i know, it's two hours later, i've slept more deeply and once again i'm soaked. another new shirt and on with electric blanket again. my hands and feet are cold. this time i'm awake for 45 minutes, until scott simon's voice shows up on the radio for weekend edition and sends me back to neverland.

the phone wakes me up, drenched in sweat again, at 10:30. friend chris is coming over to check out the old cathode ray TV in the living room -- a wonderful 20-year-old 27-inch sony which weighs a ton (well, ok, 60 or 65 pounds). he wants it. his autistic son destroys flat-screen TVs, but old-style units seem to resist his punishment. however, it's too heavy for chris to handle alone, especially on our snowy walks and steps. and with my bad right arm, i can't help much. the old TV stays where it is, peeking out from behind our big new 55-incher.  

when chris departs, i take some more tylenol and set out on a few errands. a visit to the horsefeathers indoor market (packed with people) secured a dozen of those fabulous ginger molasses cookies and a recommendation by Carla, the cookie lady, of a couple verses from the Good Book which she says cured her of ulcerative colitis -- Hebrews 11:11 and 1 Peter 2:24. just looked them up and think some Psalms might be more restorative, but you never know.

i set out intending to go downtown to the office to write the tuesday reporter's notebook column i didn't finish thursday night, but the prospect of what would certainly become two hours there made me realize how tired i am. i turn back, buy a saturday paper and head home for lunch, followed by a nap that lasts until it's time to leave for tonight's movie -- the oscar-nominated live shorts out in the second-ring suburbs at the cinema in the eastern hills mall. 

terrific shorts, all five of them -- it's hard to pick a winner -- and once again i feel better at the end (thanks again, tylenol), good enough to join friends dan and susanne and jack and shelley for pizza and wings at rocco's nearby. not that i start out with any intention of eating pizza and wings, but there's pizza without red sauce and the wings are oven-roasted and dry, not deep fried and drenched in frank's hot sauce. there's a family-sized caesar salad too. guess all that's ok. three hours later, the stomach has no complaints.