Last Infusion, Not Last Battle— 77, Still Fightin’

The Shadow Of A Crêpe De Marron…Or Maybe Some Nice Som Tom

I haven’t felt anything from the cancer in my pancreas. I’m not going to bring you down by reciting the horrors of what I have been feeling though— the chemo regimen. Instead, I’ll tell you the good news: Thursday was my last infusion. Today I’m sick as a dog, but I know I’ll start feeling better in a few days. That’s been the pattern.

The plan was to follow the chemo with a month of radiation. That would’ve meant 20 sessions— five days a week, 4 weeks straight— plus two chemo pills a day. I carried on and complained so much that I dragged a deal out of them— I’m going to be treated down on their Orange County campus instead. They have an infinitely better machine down there. That means just 5 sessions, not 20. No chemo pills. And the beam is so precise it’s less likely to fry a neighboring organ by accident. Better weapon. Cleaner kill.

So that starts July 8th. Then, once that’s over, a short rest, surgery, a few weeks of recovery, and if my body cooperates, a plane ticket. Paris if I win. Bangkok if Roland wins. Either’s fine. I’m not picky about which side of the world I wake up on, as long as I’m still around to see it.

It’s strange— people hear “last chemo” and they assume it’s the end. Balloons. High fives. I did ring the bell in the hospital hallway. But this isn’t a finish line. It’s more like one of those way-stations along the Camino de Santiago, where you collapse for a night and remember what it feels like to breathe without wires or poison. Then you get up and keep walking. The fatigue doesn’t go away. It just changes shape. Right now, I feel like a hollowed-out sock puppet being dragged through a rainstorm. But there’s hope in there, too. Hope that doesn’t feel abstract or philosophical— it feels like a real thing, with weight and color and almost a travel itinerary.

The deal I made to get that upgraded radiation machine— there was a kind of victory in it. It wasn’t dramatic. Just one more patient, pushing, negotiating, knowing enough to be a pain in the ass and too sick to care about being polite. I’ve learned that the medical-industrial complex responds to squeaky wheels— but only if you squeak in fluent acronyms and talk like someone who reads footnotes. Roland and his A.I. buddy— Scooby-Doo— were my secret weapons.

Stereotactic body radiotherapy

Radiation is a weird concept anyway. Invisible beams, aimed with the precision of a sniper, slicing through your cells. You never see it, never feel it going in. You just lie there, stripped down and perfectly still, not breathing while a $5 million SBRT machine hums like a bored god and does its work. They say it’s safe. They say it’s smart. But it’s still a kind of magic. Or maybe it’s a curse wrapped in a blessing, like most things in this strange new version of life. My surgeon says she’s aiming to extend my life by 7 years. At 77 that sounds pretty good.

I’m not done. And right now I can see something out there that looks a little like freedom. Or maybe it’s just the shadow of a croissant. Either way, I’m heading towards it, determined to make the best of whatever time I have left.