Fuck Cancer (this time I mean it)

SARATOGA JAZZ FESTIVAL 2013

Jazz fest seasoned veterans Jim Quinn aka JQJQ, and Allan

with Pappy and MonkeyME

For the past 14 years, during the last weekend in June, we have been attending the Saratoga Jazz Festival in Saratoga Springs, New York. This year was bitter sweet. It was my last hurrah before beginning my cancer treatment.

Jim Quinn, Allan and his crew - friends since grade school - have been attending the fest for over 30 years. We met them about 6 years ago when I spotted Allan's necklace - green Mardi Gras beads with a single wooden parrot earring hanging from the center. He wears that damn necklace every year.

The only present my father every picked out for me, was the exact same wooden parrot earrings that he bought at a sidewalk sale. What made his gift even more unique was that he deliberately avoided that sizzling summer, sidewalk sale and the crowds of impatient, impulsive shoppers that clogged otherwise unruffled streets.

I remember the smile on my fathers face as he handing me the earrings - tucked between layers of delicate, cloud-like, cotton fluff and encased in a small white box. "Open it," he ordered.

Every year, during spring cleaning, I search for those cherished, misplaced earrings. And at every fest, I try to talk Allan into giving me his. This year, I didn't try. Let's face it, I'm tired. This cancer crusade is exhausting and I was just happy to see them both, smiling.

And now, after one Jazz Fest, one colonoscopy, one endoscopic ultrasound, one sigmoid ultrascope, two CT scans, one PET scan, two biopsies, three MRI's and nine exams from four different hospitals, I am submitting myself, willingly, to the uncertainties of science. 

"You'll feel better once you have your plan in place," is advice seasoned cancer recipients will tell you (searching for a better word than "survivors" or "sufferers"). And it's true. For me, I didn't like any of the treatment options that were available until I discovered a study being conducted at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

I held off telling you about it until I knew I was accepted. Turns out, due to my past melanoma's, I wasn't. However, my timing turned out to be perfect. The FDA approved the study less than two weeks before I walked in the door, so it is now considered acceptable treatment for advanced rectal cancer. But there was still one more snag - would my insurance accept this treatment as standard care? Turns out they will.

Now, instead of the "standard pre-surgery treatment" which consists of 6 weeks of external radiation, 5 days a week, combined with chemotherapy, 24/7 for 6 weeks, I will be undergoing something called HDRBT - High Dose Rate Endorectal Brachytherapy.

After weeks of preliminary probing and prodding, I am back in Baltimore to begin my treatment. Yesterday was step one - the insertion of (sing it with me) FIVE GOLDEN SEEDS (followed by four calling birds, three french hens, two turtle doves and a ....). These seeds are placed around my tumor and will guide the radiation. I want to know if I get to keep the seeds. Maybe mold them into something resembling a parrot earring.

I slept for almost 24 hours after yesterday's procedure. Today is my day off. Tomorrow I undergo more scoping and an invasive simulation to prepare me for four consecutive days of intensive, internal radiation.

I do not use the term "invasive" lightly. This procedure will involve the insertion of a vessel the size of an EXTREMELY well endowed male appendage, up my ass, for three hours. (Yes, you read that correctly).

Because my circle of friends are rather eclectic, I understand that half of you are cringing in horror at the thought of it, while the other half are wide-eyed and salivating.

I will be awake during this procedure but I will be packing a double script of valium. Even so, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out what I'm going to do during those three hours.

I'm told that while I'm lying there alone, with a non-vibrating vessel the size of a big mouth bass up my ass, I can listen to music.

So...what I need now is an UP MY ASS playlist. If you can each give me a tune, I won't feel so alone.

I'll be like, oh, Knocking on Heaven's Door, Froggy, suggested that. And then I'll think of Froggy's smiling face. Maybe I'll pretend to do a slow dance with Froggy. Maybe I'll imagine us laughing at how ridiculous this all is.

Thank you for loving me...

xo, MonkeyME

To get your very own FUCK CANCER shirt visit letsfcancer.org.

For my complete cancer journey visit CATSTIR.