Plus ça change
The last days of the year are always bittersweet. It’s difficult to view one’s accomplishments and failures with objectivity, and the looming new year can be frightening in its uncertainty.
Two weeks before year’s end, I underwent surgery that should have been minor. There was nothing new here—I’ve had more than 15 exploratory biopsies over the last seven years and I know what to expect. I have a good notion of the aftermaths—the discomforts, gastro intestinal difficulties, and within a relatively short period of time, the recuperation.
This one was a bit more complex—tissue was taken from multiple organs—and though I’m not sure why or how, but the general Fake It Til You Make It attitude that has carried me through previous procedures, the assertiveness I mustered like an aging soldier, well, it sort of crashed and burned.
Shortly after surgery, my vital signs started going crazy. My blood pressure rose to over 220, and my blood sugar hit almost 400. My temperature went way over a hundred and nausea hit me like hurled stone. I was in increasingly acute pain and the recovery room nurse gave me a series of intravenous pain killers—fentanyl, OxyContin, Vicodan, then more fentanyl—that had no impact. A catheter that was rubbing against an internal excision was taken out. That helped a little. More painkillers, two quarts of IV fluid. There followed a quick consultation with the surgeon who told me we would have to have “a very serious talk” soon, and mentioned total bladder removal, then wished me happy holidays.
Things got interesting when I finally got home. I slept. And slept and slept and then slept some more. Over a period of three days I had two bowls of soup and a piece of chocolate. When I was not sleeping and yet semi-dazed, I entered an odd world of mental and emotional flashbacks. It was pleasant, that partially drugged state. I was warm, felt no pain, and haphazardly evaluated my life accomplishments, an action probably well-defined by a twenty-two letter German word that I don’t know.
I found my various endeavors—great and small, though truth to tell I could find none that were great—sadly lacking. I traveled through the jumble and idly picked at moments I believed were meaningful and discovered they were not. Small triumphs became insignificant tedium. I have the feeling, but I am not sure, that I may have spent 72 hours exploring the meanings of life, death, friendships, creativity, love, ambition, and detachment without arriving at a single salutary conclusion—save one: Everything I had done in my life was meaningless.
I tried to think of a solitary original phrase that might have lasting value. Over the last half-century, I have written more than a million words, several books, many short stories, some songs, and a couple of epistemological essays. Among all these, certainly, might be a thought or image I could say made me proud. I finally came up with one phrase: The sky was the color of dead fish .
That’s it.
Much later I also remembered writing a line for a song describing a cowboy’s pointed boots as pointless.
The small edifice of achievements planned for 2020 crumbled. Why write, why think, why approach old problems with potentially new solutions? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Merde alors!
I’m a little better now and have begun reconstructing the future. It remains unclear, since cancer can dictate what I can’t foresee, but then again, so can life.
There’s a book coming out in February and another scheduled for 2021. I have to figure out ways to make my works more visible. I have to continue working with writers whose works should see light. And I have to come up with at least one more worthwhile phrase.
Two weeks before year’s end, I underwent surgery that should have been minor. There was nothing new here—I’ve had more than 15 exploratory biopsies over the last seven years and I know what to expect. I have a good notion of the aftermaths—the discomforts, gastro intestinal difficulties, and within a relatively short period of time, the recuperation.
This one was a bit more complex—tissue was taken from multiple organs—and though I’m not sure why or how, but the general Fake It Til You Make It attitude that has carried me through previous procedures, the assertiveness I mustered like an aging soldier, well, it sort of crashed and burned.
Shortly after surgery, my vital signs started going crazy. My blood pressure rose to over 220, and my blood sugar hit almost 400. My temperature went way over a hundred and nausea hit me like hurled stone. I was in increasingly acute pain and the recovery room nurse gave me a series of intravenous pain killers—fentanyl, OxyContin, Vicodan, then more fentanyl—that had no impact. A catheter that was rubbing against an internal excision was taken out. That helped a little. More painkillers, two quarts of IV fluid. There followed a quick consultation with the surgeon who told me we would have to have “a very serious talk” soon, and mentioned total bladder removal, then wished me happy holidays.
Things got interesting when I finally got home. I slept. And slept and slept and then slept some more. Over a period of three days I had two bowls of soup and a piece of chocolate. When I was not sleeping and yet semi-dazed, I entered an odd world of mental and emotional flashbacks. It was pleasant, that partially drugged state. I was warm, felt no pain, and haphazardly evaluated my life accomplishments, an action probably well-defined by a twenty-two letter German word that I don’t know.
I found my various endeavors—great and small, though truth to tell I could find none that were great—sadly lacking. I traveled through the jumble and idly picked at moments I believed were meaningful and discovered they were not. Small triumphs became insignificant tedium. I have the feeling, but I am not sure, that I may have spent 72 hours exploring the meanings of life, death, friendships, creativity, love, ambition, and detachment without arriving at a single salutary conclusion—save one: Everything I had done in my life was meaningless.
I tried to think of a solitary original phrase that might have lasting value. Over the last half-century, I have written more than a million words, several books, many short stories, some songs, and a couple of epistemological essays. Among all these, certainly, might be a thought or image I could say made me proud. I finally came up with one phrase: The sky was the color of dead fish .
That’s it.
Much later I also remembered writing a line for a song describing a cowboy’s pointed boots as pointless.
The small edifice of achievements planned for 2020 crumbled. Why write, why think, why approach old problems with potentially new solutions? Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. Merde alors!
I’m a little better now and have begun reconstructing the future. It remains unclear, since cancer can dictate what I can’t foresee, but then again, so can life.
There’s a book coming out in February and another scheduled for 2021. I have to figure out ways to make my works more visible. I have to continue working with writers whose works should see light. And I have to come up with at least one more worthwhile phrase.
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