With Apologies to John Malkovich and Carly Simon

If you have never seen Being John Malkovich, the joke in this blog's title will elude you, but don't worry because it's a stupid joke that maybe only I think is funny anyway.  I'm a little weird; if you know me, you know it's true.  I'll get to the joke in a minute.

Parodying Carly Simon's lyrics is a bit more understandable.  I mean, if you have a blog, and that blog is about you, what else can one say?

So why start a blog?  Well, I thought it seemed better than Caringbridge (a wonderful site, by the way) at this moment in time.  I like to write and I thought  this might be the best way (and more fun) to keep my friends and family updated on how I'm managing the disease with which I was diagnosed in August: Atypical Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS), a cancer of the blood.  Atypical?  YEAH!  Now I can be distinguished from those poor Typical blokes.  Sorry!  Seeing a silver lining where there isn't one is sometimes just that exciting.  We should all manufacture silver linings now and then.

Seriously, it's not something I wanted to deal with, but it is what it is.  I know quite a bit about the disease now, but my main game is low white cell counts, low red blood cell counts, low hemoglobin, and low and immature platelets with physical manifestations that include extreme fatigue, shortness of breath, nausea and being light-headed.  I've been visiting Camp Dracula (Andreas Cancer Center at the hospital) for weekly transfusions since August.  I start Vidaza, one of three FDA approved drugs, on September 19.  I'll have at least 4 courses of this drug therapy, 7 days once a month for 4 months, after which time I'll have another bone marrow biopsy to see if the treatment is working.  If it is, Whoo-hoo!  If not, we can consider another treatment.

So, now about that little joke...On September 16 (2 days from now) I will have a port/catheter implanted surgically into my chest so all transfusions, chemo, blood draws can be done through the port, sparing my poor veins from yet another needle stick.  Still don't see the humor?  Well, in the movie, Being John Malkovich, there is a portal through which the characters must travel in order to get into the head of John Malkovich.  I know!  Who would want to?  But, I confess, the movie's so quirky that I smile when I think of it.  So when I heard about the port in my chest, I thought, "Wow!  A portal into the mind, heart and soul of ME!"  Now do you see why I'm so vain?  Then I realized it's a perfect metaphor for trying to make some sense of life and death.

So, if you are so inclined, please stop by once in a while to see how my journey's coming along.  My intentions for this blog are not only to document successes and setbacks, but also to try my hand at some reflective wisdom with a little humor thrown in for the hell of it.