Down and Up

It's come to my attention that some of you think I'm amazingly upbeat all the time--you can't imagine how I manage. The truth is, I don't. And last week was a fine example. Thanks (or no thanks) to the pneumonia, I was not only tired and short of breath, but I also felt extremely sorry for myself. After the weekend, which had been about as gloomy, weather-wise, as Madison gets (no sun at all for two days), Monday and the rest of the week were gorgeous. But I could barely walk as far as the coffee shop on the corner--and my summer-long goal of riding my bike the twenty miles of the Capital City trail one of these September weekends was totally out of the question.

The two antibiotics I am taking were working, I could tell, but much more slowly than the levaquin I had last time, to which I am now allergic. Several wonderful friends called or e-mailed at the beginning-middle of the week to see if I could come out and play, and I couldn't. Poor, poor me. Not even the knowledge that Facing Fear had finally gone to the printer was enough to cheer me up.

Then a nurse called to talk to me about taking part in a clinical trial of sunitinib, a drug (a pill, actually) that acts to inhibit angiogenesis--the proliferation of new blood vessels that are essential for tumor cells' growth. I had heard and read about sunitinib, which is already approved by the FDA for kidney cancer (for which there is no other treatment) and one other solid tumor, a stomach tumor of a kind I don't have. The trial I expect to be joining looks at whether sunitinib is effective against other kinds of solid tumors. It actually compares two dose protocols--one group takes the pill for two weeks, has one week off, and then repeats that cycle; the other group takes it for four weeks and has two weeks off. But both groups do take the sunitinib--there's no placebo control involved.

Of course, I can't start this until the pneumonia is resolved. Suddenly I realized I'd be quite happy to go to the hospital to get a stronger IV antibiotic, if that was necessary to get into the sunitinib trial. But I doubt it will be necessary; I'm feeling remarkably much better, and I still have another few days on the oral antibiotics.

Even this news (which came on Wednesday, I think) wasn't quite enough to pump my spirits back up to their usual level, though. That required feeling better physically, which happened gradually, and finally really took hold over the weekend sometime. My breathing seems almost back to normal (what passes for normal for me), and I have much more energy, though I can't say I'm actually doing very much with it other than hanging out with friends, drinking green tea or coffee. Which is, of course, great fun.

On Saturday I did get myself deputized to register voters, but the local Obama campaign is really focused on canvassing and phone banks, not registration drives, and since those activities are pretty difficult for me with my lack of much voice, I'm not sure what I'll be doing. Something, I hope. Though I confess to having gone to the gym this morning instead of to the rally with Michele Obama.

Come to think of it, there are a lot of things I'm not sure about! For instance, I still don't know whether Facing Fear will be available in time for my appearance at the Wisconsin Book Festival on October 19, but if you're interested in knowing what that's all about, check out the Book Festival web site :

http://www.wisconsinbookfestival.org/schedule/events.php?eventdate=2008-10-19

Living in the Moment

I already knew it was a good idea to live in the moment, but today was an excellent lesson in the necessity of doing it. But before I explain why--let me offer the best moment of the past week: seeing the cover design for Facing Fear. (I was going to include the image in this post, but what I have is an Adobe Acrobat pdf, which apparently doesn't work on blogspot. Ah well--this is part of living in the moment! Instead, here's a photo of me, taken at Olbrich Park in Madison this past summer by my friend Bonnie Weisel after we biked to see the butterflies. No, there are no butterflies in this photo.)

So now-- about today. My plan for the day was to go to the gym for my strength-training class in the morning, then come home and work at my desk until I went down to the county clerk's office to be deputized as a voter registrar. But then late yesterday afternoon I spiked a fever that seemed all too reminiscent of the pneumonia I had in late July. So I scrapped the gym plan, called the clinic, and ended up going there at 3:30. Where I learned that I do indeed have pneumonia again. I managed to avoid hospitalization because there are still two oral antibiotics to which I am not allergic, but between the clinic visit and the trip to the pharmacy, I also managed to miss the 5 PM deputization.

Well, no matter. The reason I was going to get deputized today at the county clerk's office was that I had planned to go to a dragon boat festival and race in Oshkosh on Saturday, which was when someone comes to the Obama headquarters to deputize registrars. But with the pneumonia--which does make breathing a bit problematic--I'm not going to be racing on Saturday. So I just stopped at the Obama hq en route to the pharmacy and signed up to be deputized on Saturday.

Other plans for the week are similarly affected. I have to see the doctor for a follow-up appointment on Wednesday at 1 PM, so I can't introduce the domestic violence survivors who will be reading their work at a fundraising luncheon that noon. I probably won't go to dragon boat practice Wednesday evening. On the other hand, I might finish the two excellent books I'm reading, Beijing Coma by Ma Jian (a novel) and Anti-Cancer, recommended by Fred B in his comment on last week's blog post. And maybe I'll also watch some more episodes of the first season of The West Wing. As I learned this summer, pneumonia's an excellent excuse for lying around, doing only what one wants to!

In fact, my next task of the evening is to place an order with the Willy St. Coop so that they will deliver some groceries tomorrow. A real luxury!

By the way--when the picture above was taken, I was only a few weeks past my last bout of pneumonia. I know my immune system is strong: Dr. Holen complimented me on my white cell count two weeks ago. And best of all, one of the two antibiotics is my favorite color, rose, and matches both the turtleneck and the fleece I am wearing today. So I figure it's just a matter of time before I'm in the pink of health, as they say.

Picture Me.....

Today you get stories in pictures. The first (actually illustrated by the photo below) is a story I told a couple of weeks ago, about the wonderful bike ride I took on Mackinac Island the day before my biking friends headed out on their Upper Peninsula loop. Angie Mayr took this picture. It shows Janet Zimmerman (on the left) and me, and a tiny part of Lake Michigan.

Since that day (which really was a high point in the annals of my biking history), I've done two more short rides. As I think I reported, on the last day of the UP ride, I did the first 11 miles, into a headwind, not knowing that I had pneumonia. And this past week, on Friday, my friend Bonnie Wiesel and I rode from my house to the Olbrich Botanic Garden on Madison's east side (6 or 7 miles one-way) to see the butterfly exhibit. We saw quite a few butterflies emerging from their chrysalises--an amazing sight, because it happens literally in the blink of an eye. But really, I thought the people watching outdid the butterflies. I haven't seen so many babies and toddlers in decades! Plus little herds of day care kids and day campers, each herd wearing t-shirts of a particular identifying color. After we'd had our fill of butterflies and children, we walked a bit in the outside gardens, ate our Power Bars, and rode home. It was a beautiful day, and a lovely ride, for which I have Bonnie to thank, since it was her idea.

The other picture is more recent--from last Tuesday's reading in Chicago. Six of the contributors to the anthology Fresh Water: Women Writing on the Great Lakes read at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, part of a summer-long Read Green, Live Green project sponsored by the Chicago Public Library. The participants: in the front row, Alison Swan, who edited the book and lives in Saugatuck, Michigan; Gail Louise Siegel, from Evanston, Illinois; and me. In the back row: Judith Arcana, who came all the way from Portland, Oregon (she used to be a Chicagoan); Susan Firer, currently Poet Laureate of Milwaukee; and Donna Seaman, of Chicago, who initiated the reading. Not shown in the photo: the great blue heron, the V of geese, and the rat who joined us as we read in the courtyard behind the museum. (To be honest, I didn't see the rat, but others did.)

The reading was an amazing event, well attended by an enthusiastic audience, including many people who were taking part in a workshop on the Great Lakes. The library provided an elegant reception spread of delicious hors d'oeuvres, and in addition to paying us honoraria, put us up in the Talbott Hotel downtown. I'm not accustomed to staying in hotels that provide terry cloth bathrobes and turn down the covers (leaving little chocolates on the pillows) before bedtime. But I could get used to it!

I had been concerned that, because of the pneumonia, I wouldn't be able to go to Chicago. But I was--and am--feeling much better, and the driving was a breeze, especially because my friend Janet lent me her I-Pass and I just whizzed through the innumerable toll plazas on I-90.

Now, on to the next adventure: getting together with my sons and my daughters-out-law at a cabin in the Boundary Waters (northern Minnesota). More on that next week!

Modernity: Blessings and Curses

Well, first the blessings. The "minor virus" I reported on last Monday turned out to be pneumonia. I know, that doesn't sound like a blessing. And when the x-ray revealed that the afternoon fevers (102+ when I finally got to a thermometer on return from Michigan last Sunday) were caused by pneumonia in "three places" (lobes?), the doctor wanted to lock me up in the hospital. That struck me as a Bad Idea and I refused. So she put me on a strong antibiotic (levaquin) and a short tether, telling me that if my breathing got any worse, I should go to the ER immediately and get myself admitted.

But in fact my breathing was no worse than it has been all summer (ever since the June blooming of the Japanese lilac trees, to which I am allergic), and it is distinctly better than it was a year or even six months ago, though it is by no means what I or anyone else would consider "normal." This particular doc, who was subbing for my primary care guy, had never met me before, so she was shocked by my impaired breathing, and I think didn't believe me when I said it was no worse than usual. And apparently the first couple of days of pneumonia are the most dangerous. But I started running a fever on Friday, and I didn't see her until Monday--I was already past the first couple of days. And in fact on Saturday morning I'd felt good enough to bike 11 miles into a head wind.

Anyway, I started popping pills Monday afternoon, and they worked just fine. By Tuesday, I didn't need to take Tylenol in the afternoon; by Thursday, I didn't have a fever at all. I saw the doctor again Thursday morning, and she was much reassured--even embarrassed because she couldn't hear anything problematic when she listened to my lungs. She said that it takes 6-8 weeks for pneumonia to completely resolve in someone who has no underlying lung disease, which of couse I do have. So we'll see what happens. They can check on the pneumonia when I have my next CT scan, soon afer Labor Day.

I was supposed to take the levaquin for ten days, but yesterday morning I woke up with hives on my legs which I suspected was an allergic reaction. Went off to Urgent Care, where my suspicion was confirmed by another doctor who said to stop the antibiotic. He also said that the drug does most of its work in the first two days. I'd taken the drug for six days and he wasn't inclined to prescribe a substitute unless I relapse. I'm now allergic to four different classes of antibiotics, so that was fine with me. He did write a prescription for something I can take with me up to the Boundary Waters in a couple of weeks, in case I get sick up there where there are more loons than medical personnel.

So there you have a blessing of modernity: you contract a dread (and formerly fatal) disease, pop some pills, and are miraculously cured. Would that it worked that way for all dread diseases. Stomach cancer's a little more recalcitrant.

And then there's the saga of my new laptop, sterling example of modernity's curse. Well the laptop, which I picked up on Monday (between getting the x-ray and learning the diagnosis), is lovely. But I can't get Thunderbird, my email program, to work, and even if I could, all the addresses are stored somewhere on the old computer, not this one. What's more, I can't get the laptop to communicate with my old, reliable laser printer. Maybe this is a cable problem; maybe not. But I had to order the new cable on line, and the only way to determine if it's defective, I think, is to order another one on line and wait for it to arrive. Of course as some snippy young man at the UW IT help desk suggested, I could just buy a new printer. "They only cost $20 or $30," he said, rather impatiently. But why would I junk a perfectly serviceable, indeed wonderful, old friend? I'm afraid this was a case of generational disconnect. I guess that like my printer, I'm operating on a parallel connector, and this unhelpful and wasteful "support person" is, like my laptop, only conversant with spiffy new USB connectors.

And of course, while I was trying to get the printer to work, the word processing program, which had been running just fine, crashed, permanently, I think.

But hey, all this is just the usual curse of technology, and we know that a little time and money solves that sort of problem. So I'm not as aggravated as I might be. I'm feeling fine, and that's what really matters.