another oncological update and that time i got beat up at the fair
i’m nine days back on the immunotherapy and so far so good with my guts. the bummer right now though is that last saturday morning, i woke up to a blobby blind spot just to the right and down from center, in both eyes. it wasn’t huge and i could still read, but it was concerning and annoying. since it was in both eyes, i knew it was a defect in my visual cortex for the right side of my vision. which lined up well with the most recent pesky tumor in my noggin which is in my left occipital lobe, the spot that houses the processor for the right side of your vision. i was pretty sure that the tumor was getting bigger and pressing on stuff. so i got an appointment with the radiation oncologist to see if that changed the math on waiting to do another gamma knifing.
the doctor got me an appointment for a head ct scan and on wednesday we went over the results. yep, the stupid tumor was much bigger than it had been just two weeks earlier. my hope is that it is due to the immunotherapy and it’s not just getting bigger, but without a biopsy it’s impossible to know. either way, i am now on yet another steroid and having insomnia. next friday, marsellus wallace is going to open up another can of whoop ass and gamma knife this stupid tumor (and maybe another one if they come to a conclusion about whether it’s real or not)
while this seems like a setback, after two days on the new steroid, the blind spot is much diminished. or maybe even gone. it’s amazing how well the visual cortex can fix small aberrations in our vision. we all have a very small blind spot in each eye due to the connection of the optical nerve to the retina, but we never really notice it because our brains perceive it and basically apply a content aware fill on the missing area. brains are pretty cool. i’m also happy to have an action to take, re: getting gamma knifed. in retrospect, i should have just scheduled the procedure when the oncologist gave me the option. i just really wanted to give the immunotherapy time to do it’s work, but with this dumb new symptom, there’s no time to give.
beaten, bloodied, and humiliated, but unbroken.
when i was 15, i got beat up at the henry county fair, right in the middle of the midway, in broad daylight, and it was pretty humiliating but ended up being very enlightening. i was at the fair, milling around and wasting money on unwinnable games and poorly made tchotchkes. i was with the usual suspects, chuck, taylor, todd, gerald, and about half the rest of the henry county football team. at some point, i see some dude from school smiling from ear to ear and frantically motioning me over to him. so i leave my buddies and head over his way.
i didn’t really know, let’s call him mr such and such, that well. we’d hadn’t had many interactions. he was kind of a bully and, if i recall correctly, always getting suspended for fighting and being a knucklehead. i was friends with his girlfriend though. i made it over to him, he was all smiles and let out a hearty “hey lance”. i gave him back a friendly “hey mr such and such, what’s” and before i could get the word up out my mouth, his smile was gone and he had sucker punched me twice, right in the mouth. i was stunned and in no mood to fight, so i took a step back. he looked surprised that the little guy was still standing. instantly there was blood everywhere and, spitting blood, i asked him “what the fuck was that about, mr such and such?” his reply was “i don’t like you talking to my fucking girlfriend on the phone!”
oh good grief, y’all. i have been the other man exactly once in my life and i can assure you this was not the time. i’d been friends with his girlfriend, let’s call her ms so and so, for a decade. our friendship was never even remotely romantic. we did talk on the phone, like friends do. we talked about music, we gossiped, we talked about ideas for some of the school clubs we were in, whatever. after telling me his idiotic reason for making me bleed, i went into full rage mode, but i wasn’t going to get into a fight over someone i had no romantic interest in. when i am enraged, i cry. so i am crying, spitting blood while yelling at him, telling him that he’s insane, that he’s usually in the room with her when we talk on the phone and he knows exactly the kind of stupid shit we talk about, that he knows he’s full of shit. finally i throw out one more tearful and bloody bon mot, that he shouldn’t take it out on me just because he feels like his girlfriend might like me more than him. at that point i realized i’d closed within inches of him, that i’d spit my blood onto his face, that i was really pushing my luck. so i left him with a “fuck you, man!”, got the fuck out of there, and back to my gang of friends.
none of my buddies had seen any of this go down. the whole episode lasted less than two minutes. when i got back to them, i was still raging, still crying, still bleeding. chuck saw me: “what the fuck happened? are you ok?” and then everybody was looking at me, and i felt this deep humiliation. i just got beat up at the fair, and i am balling my eyes out in front of my friends. they’re all, “what happened” and “who the fuck did this” and “let’s go get him”. i told them who did it, about his idiotic paranoia, and to just leave it alone. i looked around for him and he’d already moved on, i’m guessing he realized what might be coming his way and that he had probably fucked up.
to make my humiliation even worse, paul junior, one of the older bethlehem kids, had run over to the tractor pull and found my brother ricky and told him what had happened. at least i had stopped crying by the time they rolled up. ricky was already in a rage by the time he saw me and the blood doubled it. unlike me, a raging ricky was all business and just needed the facts: who did this and where are they now. i told him to please just leave it alone. i was fine. it was over. but he wouldn’t have it. he asked paul junior to point out the bastard. and off they went. mr hchs 1978 and mr hchs 1985, off to avenge the wrongs committed against future mr hchs 1988.
chuck said i needed to clean my face off, so my friends huddled up around me and escorted me to the bathroom. i cleaned up as best i could, took a big swig of early times, and when i came out, they we’re all still there. they huddled up around me again and we spent the rest of the night walking the midway like that. i felt like i had a secret service detail and had never felt so protected in my life. i quickly realized that these guys always had my back and that i was lucky that my friends didn’t see the incident go down and that ricky and paul junior never caught up with mr such and such because the last thing i needed on my conscious was my brother or one of my friends catching a murder charge over some idiotic kid’s paranoia and eager fists.
earlier that evening, i had my heart set on winning an ac/dc mirror from the balloon pop game. i ended up a winning a pretty cool led zeppelin tee shirt and realizing that i had great friends who loved and protected me. the zeppelin tee fell apart after two washing, but that sense of love and protection has lasted a lifetime. i am lucky to have been able to continue to foster those kinds of relationships in my life. and that’s how i feel right now, going thru stupid shit that no one should have to, but knowing i have so many protectors out there watching my back, praying for me, sending me good vibes, casting healing spells, making me soup, doing research for me, letting me know i am not alone in this world, that i am not on my own. i am so thankful for all of that, for all of you.
epilogue: the humiliation deepens
if i thought my humiliation was bad at the fair, i was in for a big surprise when i got home. mom was on me the second i opened the door. “what the fuck happened at the fair? are you ok?“ oh good grief, have you ever had an overprotective parent? i told her i was fine and really didn’t want to talk about it, but she wasn’t having any of that shit. she said she’d gotten a call from ms so and so, “that little fucking bitch” (her exact words y’all, not mine) who told her what had happened, that ms so and so felt responsible. i told her that the responsible party was a paranoid young man with no control over his emotions. i showed her my fat lip and my new zeppelin shirt and she thought it was pretty cool, the shirt, not my lip. she hugged me, ignored the smell of early times on my breath, and told me to get into bed, that i’d feel better in the morning. i sure do miss my mom.
the adventure continues
paul junior accidentally hit me in the head with a rock one time when we were little. i've never seen more blood in my life. a fat bloody lip is nothing.