“Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head…”©
(With footnotes)
♫ Raindrops keep fallin' on my head,
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed,
Nothin' seems to fit,
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.♫
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed,
Nothin' seems to fit,
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.♫
Okay, so last time I told you that the lovely Karen told me
to stop the Tarceva for five days, but not the dreaded Doxycycline, and she’ll
talk to the big guy, Dr. S, when he gets back seven days later, on Tuesday, the
25th.
Okay, so did I tell you that she calls that next Tuesday? I
didn’t tell you that, right? So she tells me she spoke to Dr. S., and to stop
the Tarceva, and that she’s prescribing a lower dose. I tell her about the pain.
Oh wait, I didn’t tell you about the pain. Friday, the 21st, I can’t
fall asleep because my back and shoulder are bothering me. Advil does nothing,
and I take a Vicodin about 3:30 AM, and finally fall asleep by 4:30. By
Saturday I’m living on Vicodin in the day and Percocet at night, What that
shit, along with the Tarceva and Doxycycline, is doing to my digestive system
is not fit for sensitive ears. And now there’s a new pain, a sharp pain in my
lower back, dead center on my spine. So, when she calls on the 25th
and I tell about her about the pain, she changes my scheduled appointment with
Dr. S. from 9/1 to the next day, 8/26.
Dr. S is not a happy camper; the pain shouldn’t be there. So
he schedules a CAT scan for the next day and tells me to stop the Tarceva AND
the dreaded Doxycycline. Immediately my spirits soar, despite my pain, and my
G.I. tract shouts “Halleluia!” I feel so
good I decide to celebrate with some ice cream. So, Toby and I go to the
nearest Friendly’s, and I gets a small Swiss Chocolate sundae with one scoop of
coffee ice cream and one scoop of chocolate, whipped cream, a cherry and
crushed almonds on top. Living on the edge, baby!!!
♫Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.
Okay, so did I tell you about the motorcycle accident? No,
right? Okay, so we’re coming home from
Friendly’s, and we go down this little side street that crosses the Rt.73
connector which is a four lane divided highway with a traffic light at this
street. I get the green light and start to cross, but guys from the other
direction are still trying to make a left turn in front of me. I slowly assert
myself, otherwise they all go nose to tail and I don’t get across. Well, after
the two cars in front of me (in my lane by the way) turn I start to go, when I
look up and here comes this big fat motorcycle. I hit the brakes and stop; the
motorcyclist sees me with shock on his face, squeezes on his brakes, but the Harley
Fat Boy just slides and boom into my front bumper. Up goes the rear wheel, down
goes the rear wheel, but shorty pants can’t keep her up, so down goes bike on
its left side. The motorcyclist (Notice, I don’t call him a biker. Allow me to
describe him. He’s about five foot five. His name is sort of Angl-ish, so I
figure he’s of English-Irish-Anglo-something extraction. And, he had short
curly sandy colored hair with a receding hairline and a similar beard. He
looked like a shop teacher. You know, the kind that knows everything, and
hardly a “biker” – lf you get my drift; if you get my meaning.) So anyway, he picks
up the bike and immediately impugns my intelligence, my mother’s species and
the legitimacy of my birth.
I, on the other hand, instead of exploding with rage and
returning the complements in spades, sit there calmly, much to my wife’s
surprise. He comes rushing up to my window and says, “What the hell did you think
you were doing?”
I roll down the window and say: “The light looked green to
me.”
“I don’t know how the hell that could be; I still had the
green arrow.”
(Oh, buddy, that ship sailed a long time ago.) I don’t get
the green light until his green arrow goes off. So he’s was poaching – seeing as how I am in my lane and dead center
across the highway, the median strip is athwart my beam, so to speak, and he
hits me on the passenger’s side.
Anyway I don’t say another word to him. And he calls 911.
I’m blocking two lanes of traffic, so I move the car across
the street where I’m out of the way.
Fortunately, there was an off duty state cop in the highway
line of traffic, and maybe he sees what happens, so he pulls up and takes over
until a Waterbury cop arrives along with a fire engine, an ambulance and a
second patrol car.
In the meantime the statey and the biker are standing
chatting. They are joined by the local PO-liceman, and they finally move his
bike to behind my car. And the old state cop wisely decides that the accident
happens on the street traffic lanes, so it’s Waterbury‘s jurisdiction and home
he goes. The first cop deals with Mr. Biker whilst the second cop takes my
“vitals”. The EMT checks to see if there’s any injury (and by the way:”Were you
wearing your seat belts?” “Of course we were.” “Very good.”) There’s no damage.
Finally the first cop comes over to me and asks my side of
the story, to which he replies: “That’s kinda what I thought.”
He goes back to “Operator #1” (He was driving “Traffic Unit
#1” – police report legalese.) They chat some more and finally “Responding
Officer” says to me that we can go. Hah! So it’s six o’clock and my ice cream
pleasure buzz is gone.
[Police
report comes in and Operator # 1 gets a verbal warning for failure to yield while making a left turn, and I,
Operator #2, am ex-on-e-ra-ted! It’s his fault. Hah! Mr. Smartass. Mr. Buzz
kill.]
♫
So I just did me some
talkin' to the sun,
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done,
Sleepin' on the job,
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.♪
And I said I didn't like the way he got things done,
Sleepin' on the job,
Those raindrops are fallin' on my head, they keep fallin'.♪
Well, I get the CAT scan on Thursday, the 27th,
and they tell me that it’ll take 24 hours for the analysis. So, Toby and I wait
all day Friday for the phone call and by 5:45 we decide to get some pizza. Of
course the doctor calls at 5:46. The message says he’ll call back in the
morning. Which he does – on a Saturday, for cripes sakes.
He says that he doesn’t like to use the phone, but that it’s
better than keeping me waiting. The CAT scan showed no change in the cancer, and
they found two new spots.
The Tarceva did nothing for me except make me intimately
familiar with diarrhea and acute post-adolescent acne. So much for false
positives. I guess I wasn’t Asian woman enough.1
So, doctor says he’ll see me as scheduled on Tuesday, 9/1
and we’ll discuss a new protocol.
♫ But there's one thing I know,
The blues they send to meet me won't defeat me,
It won't be long till happiness steps up to greet me. ♪
I met with the doctor on the first, and we discussed using a
combination of three drugs that are found to be very successful and written up
in the New England Journal of Medicine last year – Taxol, Carboplatin and
Avastin. And, we’ll start on Tuesday, the 8th.
So, I shook Dr’s hand and I was off to the Boom-Boom Room at
the Chemo Lounge for some more Zometa and Decadron. (Yea, Decadron!)
While I’m there, doctor came by and asked Holly, my IV
nurse, how my veins were. She said they’re horrible. So, he said that he’ll
schedule me for a Porta-Cath. That’s a device that’s inserted just under the
skin below the clavicle. From the Porta-Cath there is a long tube which they
insert into a large vein nearby and run the tube into the jugular vein. I wish
I could come up with something funny, so I could say: Buddumbump-kishhh! That’s
humor in a jugular vein!2
But I got nuthin’.
So tomorrow I go to St. Mary’s to have the Porta-Cath
inserted. And, I’m really looking forward to the 8th, when I’m told
to expect to be there at least five hours.
♫ Raindrops keep fallin' on my head,
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red,
Cryin's not for me,
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin',
Because I'm free,
Nothin's worryin' me. ♫
© Hal Davids / B.J. Thomas
But that doesn't mean my eyes will soon be turnin' red,
Cryin's not for me,
'Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin',
Because I'm free,
Nothin's worryin' me. ♫
© Hal Davids / B.J. Thomas
- If this is too esoteric for you, refer to Chronicles Part I and Part III.
- I’m sure this is too esoteric. Back in the day, way back, when Mad magazine was in comic book
format, they used as a motto: “Humor in a Jugular Vein”.
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