THE BEAUTY OF STEROIDS

The last posting I did that spoke of the in-between place I wrote while in that unpleasant space where all I felt like doing was whining. Today I thought I would write from a different place altogether. It is the nature of my chemotherapy that I take five steroid pills called dexemethesone once each week. All I know is that they somehow enhance the chemotherapy which I also take in pill form but on a daily basis. One of the effects of the steroids is that I am given a boost of energy that I can only describe as making me feel more like my "normal" self. I am more energized, motivated, and gregarious than I feel on the non-steroid days.

I have chosen to take the steroids on Sunday mornings so that becomes my social day. Given my increased energy I am enthusiastic about spending time with people and doing "normal" things. The community cookouts are one of those things and the reason I chose Sundays to take the steroids. Next month we will begin our third year of monthly community cookouts which attract anywhere from fifty to one hundred and twenty people. We have over five hundred on the invitation list. It was our intention to use these cookouts as a vehicle to generate community where people could meet, connect, and communicate - without a dependence upon sex, drugs or alcohol. And we have been successful; all through unexpressed intention. People bring all the food; most of it homemade and whatever alcohol or non-alcohol drinks they choose. I know of only one couple who met here five months ago but I know scores of people who have met and become friends. I am happy to assist cupid but happier still to facilitate real community!

Following Sundays I have planned Mondays to accomplish those tasks and projects that I find more difficult to do as I begin the process of coming down from the steroids which starts to occur on Tuesday afternoons. By Wednesday, and through Friday I feel generally crappy; which is-to-say: tired, unmotivated, and somewhat withdrawn. Saturday is better and then the whole process begins anew on Sunday. The cycle itself is rather wearisome but I am very grateful for my steroid days. The biggest problem I have with this cycle is my persistent fantasy that how I feel on steroid days is my entire reality rather than only part of it. I find it very difficult to include in my thinking that I ride this wave every week with very little change and virtually no relationship to external circumstances. But that's just the way it is and while it could be better, it's truly not so bad......of course, it's still only Tuesday!

THIS IN-BETWEEN PLACE

This morning it was 55 degrees in the Olympic city of Vancouver....and 50 degrees in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I recognize that given the horrendously cold temperatures with which the north has had to contend I can expect little sympathy for my lamentations about the cold. Nevertheless, I insist upon persisting to lament these unacceptable temperatures. Yes, fifty is not fifteen but Fort Lauderdale is not Des Moines. I choose to live in Florida in order to be able to sit writing this blog outside by the river. Fifty is in-between fifteen and eighty (my preferred temperature). I don't like the in-between. It is neither one nor the other.

Similarly, the status of my health is in-between truly sick and truly healthy. It is often what I would term truly crappy! I am okay. I certainly don't feel well; or good. But on the other hand, I don't really feel sick or bad. Instead, I often feel tired, lethargic, unmotivated, and, yes, whiny! Oh boy, can I feel whiny! And it is so uncool to feel, forget sound, whiny! I don't want to be around me when I am whiny so why would anyone else want to be around when I'm whiny. But to be perfectly honest it seems to me to be the background noise of the in-between place. I didn't design it to be this way; I'm just noticing that this is the way it seems to be.

Nor am I suggesting that there is nothing that I can do about it; that I am a helpless victim of this whining syndrome. I know there are things that I can do rather than yield to this unpleasant whining. All of them are contained in the decision to re-focus my attention to something else; something that is not in-between two other things. All I have to do is focus my ever wandering attention upon something that I want or something that pleases me. I know that I can do that. I can do it at any time.

But sometimes it just seems like I'd rather whine.

AND THE UNIVERSE SINGS "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"


My 65th birthday was this past Saturday, January 30, 2010. I had been fairly anemic for the past several weeks so when Jeff asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday I wasn't very enthusiastic and left it up to him to plan something small and casual for the birthday afternoon. That enabled him to plan the following surprise for the previous Sunday. On a birthday surprise scale of 1-10, it was a 15!

My friends, John and Joyce, who were visiting me from Troy, NY were alone with me at my house. John received a telephone call which I assumed was from his daughter. A few minutes later he called me to :"come and see this thing" in my front yard. I ambled out to the front yard grumbling about why he wouldn't just tell me what it was he wanted me to see. (I assumed it was yet another giant iguana which I see on a daily basis) He obstinately kept heading for the street repeating:"You've gotta see this" but without so much as a hint as to what it might be. And then when I made it to the street this is what I saw...and heard:

Please make sure the volumne is turned up on your computer and then click on the arrows in the middle of the photos. This will start a brief movie of my birthday celebration.

When I finally realized that the chaos that was occurring at the end of my street was actually a parade of thirty-seven of my friends marching toward me wearing funny hats, carrying balloons, and blowing an array of noisemakers I started to laugh with all the glee of a six year old! It was pure Fellini! The circus was coming to visit me at my home! I don't think I have ever before experienced such laughter and joy!

And then everyone poured inside and we had an extraordinarily festive birthday celebration for the rest of the day and evening, filled with laughter, good food, and fun interaction.

Somewhere, sometime during the evening I became aware in my heart that these people were no longer simply a group of good friends... but my family! This is important because I have a family of friends mostly concentrated in the North but I no longer want to live there; I want to live here in Florida. And yet, should I become really sick I want to be surrounded by friends. Now I know that I am. I have a wonderful family here and an even larger, magnificently extended family throughout the Northeast and beyond. Even though my blood family consists solely of one brother, who has re-entered my life in a profound way, I delight in the most abundant family one can imagine.

Unpleasantness still comes my way on a regular basis but I am being completely truthful when I tell you that I don't think I have ever been happier.

What a parade, huh?!

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