"Nine Little Pieces"

I had a dream in which I saw Doris Campbell. We were at a YMCA that offered a funeral chapel as one of its benefits. She was made up in the fashion of someone a mortician had worked on. Her countenance was marked by garish lipstick, pasty pancake makeup, and bad rouge. In one hand she held a Pall Mall, in the other a Brandy Manhattan. She asked if I could spare a few painkillers. I said, “Doris, you don’t need any, you’re already dead.” To which she responded, “how do you know the dead aren’t in pain?” With that, Mike Roberts, Dickie Flack, and Colleen O’Hagen joined her and they serenaded me with a chorus of “Happiness is a Warm Gun.” When I awoke my feet were asleep.

Speaking of painkillers, ever heard of Suboxone? Though a wily veteran of high street naughtiness, during my trial by chemo, I succumbed to an urge to ease my existential angst. On first reporting my symptoms, pain in the lymph glands, I was prescribed Oxycodone for pain and Ambien for sleep.I use the term “existential” because for the most part there really was no specific pain. Yahoo! I mean, given that undergoing chemo puts one in a generally crappy state of mind and body, the painkillers functioned as a sedative distraction from an oftentimes stale, flat, and unprofitable existence. So, between July 07 and February 08, I hopped on the opiate express. And in no time at all, what at first was a pleasurable buzz quickly became a game of maintenance. Tic-tock, watch the clock. Take it and feel normal, or, experience the sickness of withdrawal. Count the pills and make them last. On chemo and addicted: oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh. Trouble is, you’re the horse. And that monkey you’re chauffeuring is fast becoming a gorilla. I knew I had to quit, long term, and as a part of my recovery. In early December I decided to forego the macho twenty something cold turkey plate, and treat my bad self to a helping of New Age pain management. Dr. B. looked weirdly cool, like a guy I could trust. Yeah, right. What did he look like? Imagine if Pee Wee Herman were cloned with Jeff Goldblum, this was he. After railing about the failures of other addiction treatments, methadone, etc., he launched into a paean to Suboxone, a miracle potion that, although used in Europe for two decades, has only in recent years been available in the United States.

What is suboxone?

Funny you should ask? Prick up your ears you pill hounds.

Suboxone tablets (buprenorphine hydrochloride and naxolone hydrochloride) is approved for the treatment of opiate dependence. Suboxone treats addiction by preventing symptoms of withdrawal from heroin and other opiates.

Suboxone sublingual tablets contain buprenorphine HCI and naloxone HCI dihydrate at a ration of 4:1 buprenorphine: naxalone (ratio of free bases).

Buprenorphine is a partial agonist at the mu-opioid receptor and an antagonist at the kappa-opioid receptor. Naxolone is an antagonist at the mu-opioid receptor.

Now that’s the official drug description. Here’s another kind of description I found on “Urban Dictionary”, a website.

“I currently take suboxone and I will tell you the real deal about them.…Our brains have 3 different receptors that accept opiates, delta, kappa & mu. Mu seems to be the receptor that causes the body to become dependant [sic] on different opiate substncs [sic]. Since suboxone is a “partial opiate”; it only acts on delta and kappa receptors, thus relieving the users withdraw [sic] symptoms. The Naltrex (naxolone) which blocks opiates from binding to receptors, stops them from working. Naltrex has a half-life of 2-3 hours…which means it is active in your body for 6 hours, 8 hours just to be safe. Since I take suboxone daily I know you can take an opiate the same day. For example: I wake up at 10am take my suboxone and by 8pm that night I can take an oxy and not go through any withdraw [sic]. In reguards [sic] to this drug not having a market on the street and the do not crush warning…that is all BS. I have lived in three major citys [sic] and have found markets for suboxone in all of them. Also, if you crush up a suboxone and snort it, it will be stronger than taking it sublingually and you will not withdraw that is a myth, believe me I have done it. I do not inject anything so I will not address that issue. Party safely please people.”

Having briefed you, dear reader, on what I entered into, allow me to continue my story. The plan was this, after a ½ day opiate fast I would return and begin a suboxone regimen. Two days later, after a miserably desperate night, I got to the clinic early, anxiously awaiting the miracle cure Dr. B. was so (excuse the pun) high on. With me, I had the two orange hexagonal suboxone tablets he had prescribed. He took one, broke it in two, told me to let it melt under my tongue, and informed me he would be back in 20 minutes. Half an hour later he breezes in and exclaims, “how do you feel now!” “Not much better, doc” I say. Looking disappointed, he gives me a script, tells me to take one tablet later in the day, and then ½ a tab a day for a week.

That night….
(To be continued)

Thank you Bonnie Q. for the Julia Sweeney CD’s “Letting Go of God.” I guess my eternal (excuse the pun) skepticism about the status of God makes Sweeney the perfect comedian to listen to. Actually, it’s not God I have a problem with. I like God in all of his/her ways, shapes, and forms, from the standard old white man with a beard image to the radical black lesbian re-invention model. Rather, it’s the diverse (or should I say perverse) fundamentalist fanaticism of his minions that colors my doubt.

Not surprisingly, Bonnie included some astrological material, which provides a nice complement to the religious material she sent. Since I was born in December of 1950, Bonnie kindly sent me an analysis of where I fit in the Zodiac.

“The Sagittarius born Tiger is a person who stubbornly, but charmingly, wishes to remain a child.”

“They fantasize about great adventures. But they will never go further than their own back yard.”

“This person is dealt a reckless and outspoken personality at birth. He is a victim of both Sagittarian and Tiger recklessness and swagger, hot headedness and vacillation.”

“The Sagittarian Tiger parent won’t be a disciplinarian. He thinks everybody—especially he—should be free.”

Who Was Zeke Pluto?

It was Oliver's recollections that sent Stakel to the archaic microfiche and an obscure note in the Mining Gazette's vital statistics section.

As it turned out, Lina refused to die. Yes, they had disconnected the tubes and ventilators; but horribly, and incredibly, Lina lived on!

Lina was in a deep coma; and while her treatment was not up to millennial standards, it was enough to sustain her. The local conservatives, like county prosecutor Hill Paquette and Judge Toivo Manu, were livid in their conviction that withdrawing treatment was tantamount to turning on the gas chamber. When it was found that Lina was pregnant, the heated debate regarding the moral efficacy of withdrawing treatment became a moot point. It was decided that the early development of the fetus growing inside her took precedence over the wishes of Lina's immediate family. Their plea that the Judge consider the best interests of all concerned fell on deaf ears. This appeal was dismissed on the grounds that no one could know what the child might determine as its own best interest. The fact that the child was the offspring of a murderous sociopath and a brain dead mother seemed to bother the community less than the abstract idea, the noble lie, that a fetus in its earliest embryonic stages has a set of inalienable rights.

Although the idea of attaching a sensibility to Lina's state, as she experienced it, was no doubt a flawed way of looking at things. She was fed liquid nourishment by a pump that forced food via a tube that passed through her nose down the back of her throat and into her stomach. Her bladder emptied through a catheter inserted through her vagina. From time to time this brought on infections which required dressing and antibiotic treatment. Her stiffened joints caused her limbs to rigidly contract so that her arms were tightly flexed across her chest and unnaturally contorted her legs. Reflex movements in her throat caused her to vomit and dribble. Of all of this, and the presence of members of her family who took turns visiting her, Lina had no consciousness at all. The part of her brain that enabled consciousness had turned to fluid. Her body lived, but not in the sense that the most pitifully handicapped human being has a life.

And so the child was born. The boy was christened Zeke Pluto Flately, the ill-fated and then unknown redeemer of cruelty.

Zeke had a pedigree of tragedy. Besides Lina's brother's drowning, her maternal grandmother had died in the 1913 Calumet fire stampede. Human disaster often seems senseless, but nothing quite equals the ache associated with the events at the Italian Hall in Calumet on Christmas Eve 1913. The families of striking copper miners had crowded into the hall's second-floor ballroom in a show of mutual support during an otherwise difficult holiday season.

Someone in the throng yelled "fire"! Panic ensued. The horrific crush was on. Children and adults alike surged toward the exit, which was down an enclosed stairway with doors that opened inward. Those at the fore were unable to pull the doors open before the human crush filled the narrow passageway. How did they die? Their lungs and brains were deprived of oxygen. After the grim task of untangling the bodies the death count stood at 74. 63 children were among the dead. One of whom was Lina's grandmother. Her fraternal Grandfather, Otis Flately, had died in the Ishpeming mining disaster of 1926.

Lyle Liljeroos, author of The Depths of Grief: U.P. Mining Disasters, had a grandfather, Rutherford Mills, who survived the tragedy. The Upper Penninsula's deep iron and copper mines have always accounted for their share of misery, but what happened on the morning of November 3, 1926, is particularly sorrowful. What stuck in Liljeroos' memory was his mother's telling him that she had never eaten a pasty since that grim day. According to the archives Liljeroos cites, it was on that fateful morning that workers in the upper level of the mine unknowingly ruptured the rocky wall of an underground lake. Water cascaded down the shafts and drifts, creating a vacuum that pulled walls of rock down on miners working hundreds of feet below. As the water rose swiftly in the shaft around him, one man, Liljeroos' grandfather, survived by climbing some 800 feet. Fifty-one others died. The historical documents include a particularly gut-wrenching photo of the mouth of the water-filled mine. Floating amidst the general debris left behind were hundreds of disintegrating pasties, sadly banal reminders of the miners who had perished.

These were the stories that informed the Ezekial Pluto Flately origin myth. Of the unknown sociopath who had fathered this son, not much could be said at the time. Since the child's paternity has never been officially determined, it can only be surmised that it was Guerre. What can be said with some certainty is that the boy was given over to foster care.

FICTIONS and NEWSPEAK

FICTIONS

Dear Readers:

At times you may have noticed that weird fictional entries appear that seem to have little to do with me or the subject of this blog, although the topics here are myriad and sundry. The relevance of these excerpts has to do with my attempt at writing a novel some years ago, at the turn of the millennium.

It is a long manuscript that in many ways fulfills the description E. M. Forster once gave of the 19th century novel as a “loose, baggy monster.” In fact, this was always the working title. It is the apocalyptic story of the rise of Zeke Pluto, a social outcast and autodidact who develops a worldwide cult following. It is set in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Belize, C. A., India and other places I can’t remember at the moment.

POLITICS

Spin. Spin. Spin. Isn’t it interesting how the press, as Noam Chomsky describes it, “manufactures consent.” In the send up to the Iraqi debacle/quagmire the media was complicit in perpetuating fear via phony information (where’s Orwell when we need him?). Ironically today is the anniversary of the U. N. weapons inspectors report in 2003 that Iraq was progressing towards full disclosure in the search for WMD’s. The woefully inadequate reportage on the U.N.s findings thus aided the rush to judgment on Iraq.

Now comes 2008. Shortly after the Feb. 1 double suicide bombing in Baghdad it was reported that, “A senior commander in Baghdad, said there were indications that the women were mentally disabled and were unwitting victims of insurgents”(2/21/08 NYT). This led to further reports that “Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown Sunni extremist group that American officials say is led by foreigners, has been using mentally disabled people (Iraqi officials said that the women had Down syndrome, a genetic disorder) as suicide bombers.”(2/21/08)

Those dirty terrorists! They’ll stoop to anything! Next thing you know they’ll be torturing people.

This just in, “BAGHDAD – Psychiatric case files of two female suicide bombers….do not contain information indicating they had Down syndrome, American officials said Wednesday.” Hail newspeak!

Health Topics

Curiously, when in the final throes of living the chemo, I wrote less about the side effects than early on. One of the less painful, but madly frustrating, consequences is neuropathy. What happens is this: nerve cells are wiped out and muscle atrophy sets in. In practical terms, everyday living is affected in various and mundane ways. Some examples: the resistance that must be overcome in turning over the car’s ignition is so great as to require either both hands or a fist-like grip; the quickness required in sliding the card in and out of the gas pump’s credit card reader is so compromised as to necessitate a trip inside the station; holding the guitar pick with the thumb, index, and middle fingers is only possible for brief periods; buttoning clothes becomes difficult to the point that one either leaves the garment fastened enough to slip it over the head, or enlists the aid of a confederate to button the shirt. Tying and zipping also present challenges that I’ve discussed earlier.

How long does this last? I can now perform all of the tasks listed above.

Ouch! Organ bandits. So, you need a kidney? We got em!

Naseem Mohammed, a day laborer in Old Delhi, India, drowsily emerged from unconsciousness, bewildered by the green institutional gown and growing pain in his lower left side. Looking beseechingly at the armed guard nearby, he was told that his kidney had been removed. It seems that Mr. Mohammed was among some 500 Indians whose kidneys were stolen by a gang of physicians operating an illegal transplant business, offering bargain kidneys to rich Indians and foreigners.

Like most of the kidnapped donors, Mr. Mohammed was offered work, driven to a well-appointed secluded clinic, and then secretly anesthetized (some are forced at gunpoint) to render his kidney.

“How much is that kidney in the window? The one with the waggedy tail.”

Hepatitis C

For those of you who haven’t followed my blog from its inception, I have a confession to make, long before my cancer came to the fore, I contracted hepatitis C. If the word confession seems odd, as it does to me, I use it deliberately as a way of bringing attention to a topic I touched upon in July: the idea that having a disease constitutes a moral flaw. That to be diseased is to be at fault for something, that I, the victim, am somehow to blame, at fault. Perhaps it was that house in Detroit, Faircrest off Hayes, where I afflicted myself with the shame of virulence.

Oftentimes the hep C virus silently destroys the liver. A lack of symptoms is the rule rather than the exception. The damage done, if not the needle, usually shows up decades later. In my case, I went in for a routine physical. With the exception of having slightly elevated enzyme levels, my health was excellent in every aspect. Further blood work revealed the hep C virus.

There are 6 hepatitis viruses—A, B, C, D, E, G. The worst of these being C. Long term, the hep C infection can lead to liver cancer, liver failure or cirrhosis—irreversible and potentially fatal scarring of the liver. Unlike HIV, the hepatitis C virus usually isn’t transmitted through sexual contact. Typically, contaminated blood is the culprit—through shooting up or blood transfusions.

Unlike hepatitis A and B, there is no vaccine for hep C.

FYI, 1992 is the year that improved blood-screening tests became available. Most people diagnosed with hep C contracted through blood transfusions were infected prior to that year.

Who is at risk? Intravenous or intranasal drug users, pre 1992 organ transplant recipients, health care workers exposed to infected blood, hemodialysis patients, and babies born to women with hepatitis C infections.

Good news. A hep C diagnosis doesn’t always indicate treatment. Because mine was asymptomatic at diagnosis (2006), I elected not to be treated. Treatment is often recommended if a large amount of the virus is circulating in the blood, if a liver biopsy indicates significant liver damage, or if elevated levels of the liver enzyme, alanine aminotransferace (ALT) are revealed by blood work.

In Placencia

Dawn of the Millenium

The Messiah will come only when he is no longer necessary; he will come only on the day after his arrival; he will come, not on the last day, but on the very last.
-- Franz Kafka

Seine Bight, Belize-- An overwhelming stench filled the makeshift morgue at this smoldering Garifuna village's bleak infirmary, where about 300 bodies were piled on gurneys, on the floor, even in stacks, like cordwood, after 3 days of intense religious clashes. Many more corpses--many of them charred and limbless--littered the streets where smoke billowed from torched bungalows and cabanas and the remnants of bonfires lit at the height of the riots. Hundreds grabbed what little belongings they could and took to the rain forest to escape the fierce fighting, which broke out Wednesday morning during a demonstration by local Plutonists against a proposal to impose Garifuna spiritual covenants or, Garinagu, to the Placencia penninsula.

Guns, spears and the grimly ubiquitous machete were used in the carnage, which continued into Thursday, said workers sifting through the bodies at the morgue. "The Plutonists were slaughtered like chickens and goats," said Claude Taylor, a Plutonist, who sought shelter with his 10-year old daughter at the Doctors without Borders bivouac. "I never dreamed this could happen here." Belizian gendarmes downplayed the death toll and reported few casualties.

All was quiet on Saturday, but widespread incidents of looting were reported despite a strict curfew that kept residents indoors between the hours of 8AM and 12 noon. Police were brought in from Belmopan, Belize City and Dangriga, and soldiers took up positions throughout the city to contain the violence. Plutonism has become an increasingly divisive issue in Belize. Last month, Garinagu officially went into effect in Punta Gorda, which is overwhelmingly Garifuna, Kekchi and Maya (Mopan).

Penguino Redux

1980

Diary of a Madman:
The doctor says the worst thing for me is to think about my disease. It is a disease you know. They think it's a condition, but I know it has a pathology. It comes from as of yet undiscovered gases in cigarette smoke. That's why I'm sick--from smoking. The bars here are suicidal--bludgeoning the negative space unmercifully, sacrificing themselves willingly to the space they displace.

The smell of institutional green is sweet--an aromatic vision of brave despair. No wonder the children hate it. According to Dr. Marcia, I have no pain. He feels nothing, and that satisfies him. There is a place above the urinal where the peeled off paint suggests a perfectly formed map of Czechoslovakia. But it often turns into the pupa of a Tobacco Horned Worm; viciously wriggling as if trying to writhe out of its sentence. Its absurd escape attempts are embarrassing. Up and down the steel screen it crawls as its sad, unblinking eyes fix me with envy.

But that's not the worst, there's something else--the smell! It permeates the wing; menaces the chow-line, lurks in the bedpan, hides in the mattress, lying in wait for my unguarded thoughts. I perspire its aroma. A sickly, lime-green smell. What a smell. How I've dissected it. It feels like uncooked tripe and sometimes smells more yellowish than green. I often see people through the holes where the paint is missing.

The ballerina is there, pirouetting very fast, and her spinning often wakes up the dead n****r. They try, oh how they try. They cluck their thick tongues and plot and plot....Sometimes Leslie Franklin joins their silly game. The edges are amazingly strong; but they still claw and tear at them; their fingers' static scuttle looking like a vengeful anemone's frantic search for food. The edges eventually strangle and sever the fingers at the knuckle, producing a pile of bloody weisworst that crawl atop the radiator and disappear.

“Sumer is a cumin in, lud sing cuckoo.”

-- Anonymous, and considered to be one of the oldest lyrics in the English language.

Last night I did something I’ve never done. I skimmed back through my blog. And in doing so I came across some interesting comments I had never seen.

Regarding the “Penguino” story, R.J. wrote, “Odd, oftentimes cute birds that swim but cannot fly; or blubbery, long in the tooth mammals that swim but cannot walk—oddballs of the animal kingdom either way. Too bad they couldn’t just keep it fun.”

Bonnie Q. (thank you Bonnie for your latest musical cure package and astrological healing kit) writes, “Bad timing, late notice, I have missed them [Walrus reunions] all. A loyal follower from the past anticipates the next reunion! Don’t let us down!
-- Peace

Anonymous said…
“Buddy calling, foot in mouth is one of my curious quirks, thank you very much. If I couldn’t let bygones be bygones I would be holding grudges against people dating back to childhood over perceived transgressions. I would hope that the characters in your story could rise above their perceived insults and go on for the group of friends who’ve always supported the band. Who gives a shit where they perform or under what circumstances? People just want to get together and celebrate our past, our accomplishments, our new-found loves, our various recoveries, our hopes and dreams, our foot in mouth.”

Well said, Buddy, and put quite eloquently. I think I know from whence that rhetorical flourish comes. I detect a Beantown banter in that ghost writer from Xmas past. Ah yes, that voice can skirt around the blog, but it can’t hide. Miss Julie “she’s so fine” Fine has left her scriptural, and always thoughtfully subtle, trace elsewhere in this pathography. What, you say, is a “pathography.” Pathography is the name given that literary genre that concerns memoirs of illness and disease. I too have foot in mouth disease, a horrid malady that invariably strikes when I least expect it.

Spring Time & You

Dear Friends:

Sorry I haven’t blogged in a while. The subjects on the upcoming docket include drug dealers’ patron saints, disease, politics, music, organ peddling, existential soul searching, and other mundane topics. It’s been 2 ½ months since the last chemo and I’m feeling quite chipper. Today makes 9 days in a row that I’ve been to the gym (swimming, biking, weights and stairmaster). Rather than thinking “healthy choices” I’m thinking “healthy duties.” It’s been 17 days since I’ve taken any medication (a topic I’ll write about at length in the future). What I would say is that while I am extremely happy, if not ecstatic, about this, my brain is not. In terms of the neuropathy (nerve damage), my hands, which are slow in coming along, are now rapidly improving. I can finger pick the guitar again. The little things are important. I found out that I’m not that tough and control is an illusion. I enjoy each day for what it is, a respite from the illnesses that inevitably visit us all. And what a wonderful respite it is! To all, appreciate it.

Peace & Love - Randy
PS: Keep reading. As soon as I’m done teaching this semester, I’ll have time to hold forth prolifically, hopefully with a minimum of drivel. GO OBAMA!