The Okapi Rides Again!*

From time to time I have shared my story with a colleague and said, "I don't understand why I am not dead yet."  They always respond, "oh, don't be ridiculous."  They know bupkis** of which they speak.  This time, I have a giant tumor all around the inside of my skull.  Why the swell am I not dead yet?  Even the experts don't know. 

However, things are kind of looking up.  Because even as those miserable antifungals didn't seem to be working, proving to me it was untreatable cancer or an aggressive benign tumor that would choke me; even as I got my affairs in order; even as I shopped outrageously humorous gravestones, the story took another wild turn.

Basically, the infectious diseases team in my area and Ski Buddy at Wicked Famous Cancer Center told me I was being an idiot, a shmegege, a dura'k, a pendejo, an idiote, a shagua.***  The antifungal drugs take months to kick in.  

Then the oncologist told me that the pathologists at the Johns who saw "cancer cells" may have pressured by the mafia. There is a serious likelihoood that what they called cancer cells were some weird-looking cells that would clearly have been cancer had they been clustered together, but, as they were spread here and there, they could be just my usual irradiated weirdness. There is just not enough evidence to decide there is cancer there. We have to assume fungus until proven otherwise.

So, am I going to live, or am I going to pop my clogs, s--- the bed, join the choir eternal?  No one is even guessing on the odds, but I am feeling pretty good about another hair-raising escape.****  (I could always die of the regular stuff-- falling off a cliff, bungee jumping with a loose cord, playing in traffic, etc.*****  But the same is true of you, dear reader.)

Assuming an antifungal works, it will take at least six months to clear out this giant mass of yeast and mold (kind of like beer and blue cheese put in a blender together).  The next month will be the hardest.  They will either have to figure out how to reduce or eliminate the really exciting side effects of posaconazole, or possibly try yet another drug in hopes of allowing me to resume my 'normal' life.

But things are looking up.

Be well,

Tom

P.S. This still counts as Tumor 5 no matter what.  That which grows uncontrollably from whatever cause is a tumor, as evidenced by the Three Stooges of the Infectious Apocalypse, Rubor (redness), Dolor (pain), and Tumor (technically, swelling or uncontrolled growth of inflammatory tissue like I have).   I continue to get more Tumoriffic!

*Common diseases happen commonly.  Unusual symptoms are most often due to common diseases.  So there is a saying in medicine: "when you hear hoofbeats, think horse, not zebra." With me, though, they have to think okapi.  

**Yiddish: nothing

***Yiddish: idiot, Russian: idiot, Spanish: pubic hair, French: idiot; Chinese: stupid melon.

****No, I do not mean that my hair will fall out.  I mean that it is sticking up like I just stuck my tongue in a light socket.  So is K/BWE's, my parents', my aunts', my uncles', my friends', and my dogs'.  The Professor and the cat, are just sittin' there like, "whatever.  Seen this opera before.  We knew that was gonna happen."

*****I actually don't plan to bungee jump ever again.  That time in 1993 was enough.

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Awaiting appointment with one of the great heroes of 2005, The Coach.

"Alas, poor Yoric.  I knew him, Horatio.  A man of infinite jest and excellent fancy--one of my inspirations for this blog.
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