Unproven Thoughts

Greed and the thirst for power are symptoms…symptoms of a mental disorder actively cultivated by people who mistake wealth for intrinsic value and possessions for worth. Neither that mental disorder nor my interpretation of the symptoms that emerge from it will be found in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM attempts to remove judgment from the classification of mental disorders, which is as it should be. But for people, like me, who find certain mental disorders both offensive and intentional, judgments—harsh judgments—are appropriate. And those harsh judgments warrant the next phase in the assessment of people who take pride in their deviance—that next phase combines punishment with vengeance. Put another way, people who display an unnaturally powerful craving for wealth and control deserve to be rewarded with retribution. Several people come to mind when I think of extremely offensive and intentional symptoms: Donald Trump; Elon Musk; J.D. Vance; supporters of those men; among many others. I have no power to inflict retribution on any of them; but my passionate appetite for vengeance them cannot be denied. Some days, that desire is sufficiently strong that it makes me understand how otherwise decent human beings can cross the line between humanity and unrestrained, barbaric savagery. Rage can smolder for months—even years. Once the embers reach a certain temperature, though, the inferno cannot be quenched until an all-consuming fire transforms smoking wood and molten metal and living tissue into harmless ash. Imagining the fire is not as satisfying as fanning the flames, I suspect, but it is safer.

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An hour in an oncology treatment chair yesterday was enough for me, though I was not being given chemotherapy. Just IV fluids and magnesium, the latter of which continues to be perpetually lower than normal. Several other components of my blood, too, always are low; and several always are high. I assume the cancer and/or the chemo are responsible for the deviance from normal, but I just realized I rarely know with any confidence what is causing the aberrations. I forgot to mention to my oncologist that I have begun to feel mouth sores on my lower lip. I know mouth sores are among the dozens of side-effects of chemo and I have read what to do about them…to keep them from getting intolerable. I am so ready for chemo to end, but I suspect that will not happen, at least not for a good while. A normal life is, for now, out of reach. The closest I can come to it is to give myself over to dreams…and hope they are pleasant ones. But, as I will readily admit, I am for now one of the lucky ones; my symptoms can be annoying, but they are tolerable. Some people face almost impossibly unpleasant experiences. I have great good fortune in that my symptoms are only irritating, not intolerable.

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A man I have known for several years (from church) died Tuesday night after a long battle with an aggressive form of cancer. Other members of the church are dealing with broken bones and various other physical mishaps and maladies. Others have succumbed to the ravages of life during the past year or so. Time refuses to stop…even to pause…to allow the realities of the cycles of life and death to sink in. Given no choice, people simply must deal with existential change.  Or fight it against all hope that the cycles of existence will continue in a perpetually repeating pattern of varying levels of health or illness. The recurrence of my lung cancer, discovered at the end of 2023 after five years with no evidence of cancer, was unexpected but not really a surprise.  I think I am still processing that fact, nearly nine months later. The original plan to address the recurrence has been abandoned, due in part to allergic reactions to some chemo drugs and in part to side-effects. So, instead of a four-cycle chemotherapy treatment, followed by two years of immunotherapy (basically the same as chemo, but with different drugs), I am now in the midst of another four-cycle chemotherapy treatment, which will be followed by an as-yet-unknown treatment (after CT scans and/or PET scans). How long, I wonder? It depends on whether and how my body responds.  If I could erase all this from my mind for a few days, I think I would feel considerably better; at least mentally. I am not scheduled for another visit to the oncologist until September 12; I  hope nothing interrupts that hiatus.

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We had a late lunch yesterday at Waypoint Marina, a burger joint on the water not far from our house. Mi novia has a smash-burger, which she judged as very good, and I had a yellowfin tuna poke bowl, which was very good…even better than I had expected. The place was close to empty, though there was a small group of people eating outside on the deck. I hope the place survives, though how a spot designed primarily for tourists can be closed on Sunday and Monday (especially SUNDAY), is beyond me. A few years ago, I ate lunch  there after church on Sunday; I do not understand the rationale of a weekend closure for such a place.

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Today is Saturday. Eh. There’s a day like this once a week. It’s as common as Mondays and Wednesdays. I am in the mood for a bloody mary, but I won’t have one. Not right now, anyway.