Worst. Vacation. Ever.

While I am absolutely not interested in the first 24 hours or so of my "vacation" to the Baltimore/DC area, I am very happy to be going somewhere, anywhere, after four months tethered to Southeast Michigan.  I'm probably going to be on that "YEAH COLLEGE!!! NO PARENTS!!" high for most of the trip.  This is what happens when you get cancer and don't leave the house much for a third of the year. 

Anyway, I'm able to get treatment earlier this morning so I don't have to miss a day, which is awesome.  Flight heads out at 11:55, lands at 1:30, and I'll have to hustle to try to get to my interview by 2:30.  Of course, none of this will matter because my flight is being delayed, but it's always fun to make plans. 

I didn't feel like driving back to DC and then back to Baltimore on Saturday, so I'm staying at a Baltimore hotel on Friday night.  If you're in Baltimore, come visit me.  Emily will be joining me whenever she is done teaching shapes or whatever it is she does with 5 year olds.  (I'm KIDDING).  We have plans to go out to dinner at a TBD restaurant, but it seems the most convenient option is the Hooters right across the street from our hotel (I've already explained that I enjoy Playboy for the articles.  Likewise, Hooters wings are fantastic).  No, I did not know the Hooters was there when I booked the hotel.

Saturday is the big day.  I'm looking forward to getting my interview out of the way on Friday, and it shouldn't take too long, so that's no big deal.  But Saturday...oh man.  In all honesty, I'm anticipating this Saturday the way I've anticipated the last 12 Saturdays of Michigan Football:  I'm not quite sure exactly what's going to happen, but I know I'm going to witness a magnificent opera of awfulness that will make me laugh, cry, and possibly vomit. 

I mean, I know the course is on "Professionalism."  But there are so many possibilities there.  First of all, I'm not sure what the 5-hour(!) course will add on top of various ethics classes, the entire professional responsibility exam I took last year, and the year-and-a-half I spent doing actual legal work (subject to all the rules and responsibilities of an attorney).  My guess is: $65.  Second of all, we were required to study the Maryland Rules of Professional conduct for the bar exam, and "Ethics" is the only question that is required to be on the Maryland portion of the exam.  So I'm not sure what the class will add to what we already studied, which is Maryland-specific.  My guess is: $65.  Finally, word on the street is that character committee interviewers are actually quizzing people on the Maryland Rules of Professional Conduct during interviews, so it doesn't make sense to quiz people on things before you teach them to people.  So I'm not sure what the point would be there.  My guess is:  $65.

So I figure this thing is either going to cover very redundant information, or information that falls under the umbrella of "professionalism," which...I don't even know what that would be.  Some Q&A form I received says the course will cover "the Lawyer’s relationship with other Lawyers, the Client, the Court and the Community."  That...isn't helpful.  That's like saying the course will cover "Being a lawyer."  I'm actually really excited to find out what this thing is.  Maybe it's something really cool that I don't even know about.

My biggest fear is that this is going to be a logistical nightmare.  Remember, when I took the bar exam, Day 1 was delayed over an hour because the acoustics in the room were so bad, nobody could hear a single instruction.  They eventually brought in more speakers (which didn't change a thing).  But here, we're looking at about 600 people who have to give Maryland $65 in cash or check at 8am on a Saturday morning.  Do you know what that says to me?  That says "600 person line."

Come to think of it, I might get to fulfill my wish of being in a Walmart stampede after all:

Baltimore Convention Center, 8am Saturday

Anyway, provided I survive the Convention Center stampede, Saturday afternoon/evening should be significantly more awesome.  I will get to see my apartment in person for the first time, grab dinner with friends, then hit the town with some MLaw and MUndergrad friends.  Of course I'll be doing all this after getting up at 7 and sitting through a mind-blowing course on why you shouldn't spit on a judge, so I'm interested to see how I hold up.  This weekend will be a big test.  It will also be another big step toward regaining some sense of normalcy in my life. 

I'll post if I feel like it or if I get the chance to post something from the queue.  Wish me luck. 

Things that always made me angry make me more angry now that I have cancer 3

The end of the year is near, and that means that it's bonus season.  I'm sure a lot of companies aren't paying bonuses this year.  Some never pay bonuses even in good economic times.

But the legal profession, by and large, does.  And Above the Law - a legal blog that I've mentioned here before - covers such things.  It has its own tag:  "Associate Bonus Watch 2010."  When Generic "Prestigious" Firm X releases the first bonus scale of the year, that's big news.  The first firm to announce bonuses usually sets the scale for the rest of the "top" firms. 

Long story short, one major firm released their bonus schedule last week, other firms are following suit, and people are PISSED.  Here's the bonus scale:

Class of 2009 – $7,500
Class of 2008 — $10,000
Class of 2007 — $15,000
Class of 2006 — $20,000
Class of 2005 — $25,000
Class of 2004 — $30,000
Class of 2003 — $35,000

And here was the reaction, when firms started following suit:

Early reaction seems unfavorable. See the comments

Some early reactions from SASMF tipsters: “Ugh,” “Boo,” and “Skadden just matched Cravath — cheap bastards.”

You're free to read the comments if you really hate yourself.  I don't recommend it.  Here's the gist: people are angry.

This really sent me through the roof.

I mean, I get the argument.  People work hard.  They have expenses.  They have loans.  Young associates work very hard for long hours.  It's not the most glamorous life.  And partners at large firms make a hell of a lot more, and maybe you think it's just not "fair" for partners to be pulling in that much money while doling out smaller bonuses than they did three years ago.  I get that salaries have been frozen and bonuses have been reduced.  And I know that I'm not yet working, and that maybe my views will change by 2012.

But here's what else I know:  I know that there was no gun to my head when I chose to go to law school, or when I took on my student loans, or when I accepted a job at a firm.  And I know that I was fully aware of the cost of law school before I went there, and the interest rate on my loans before I accepted them, and my salary before I took the job.  I was well aware of the young associate lifestyle before I ever set foot in a law school.  I am not expecting to stroll into the office at 9 and duck out around 5 every day for the next year.  I was aware of the concepts of "billable hours" and "billable hour targets" before I began my job search.  Everyone likes money.  I get that.  But we're not exactly resigned to a life of eating ramen noodles in a studio apartment underneath the train tracks.

Here's something that's not going to surprise you:  I despise law students.  I actually rather liked the vast majority of people I met at Michigan.  I think Michigan does an excellent job of selecting individuals with interesting life experiences and backgrounds, sometimes sacrificing raw scores (and their ranking) to do so.  But there's a certain subset of people - present at Michigan, but not prevalent - whose lack of perspective and sense of entitlement bother the hell out of me.  Especially now. 

So I would tell these people who react to making over three times the average household income with "ugh" and "boo" and "cheap bastards" what I told myself when I felt crappy and depressed after four cycles of chemo:  Man the f--- up and quit whining.  Life owes you absolutely nothing.  I get that you're unhappy with the life you now have (even though you spent at least four years deliberately working toward that life), but tough shit.  Oh, you worked really hard and don't think you got paid enough for it?  Congratulations.  You have now joined the club of "everybody on earth." 

I'm wary of the "be thankful for what you have" command because there's always somebody on earth who has a hell of a lot less, and different people work for and deserve different things.  And I'm not telling people to quit whining because they don't have to deal with the things I have to: Virtually nobody has to deal with this stuff, so that's not a very good comparison.  I'm just hinting that complaining about a five-figure bonus on top of a six-figure salary at a job you spent half a decade working toward in the middle of a recession is pretty far down on the list of "things people are justified in complaining about."  Relax.  You did not get a one-year subscription to the jelly of the month club.

The good news:  I made it through law school without losing it on one of these types.  I'm pretty sure I can make it through most of my career as well.

The Breakdown: 60% sweatpants, 40% suit in a very productive week

I have been so productive the past three days, I've forgotten some of the productive things I've done.  This includes an entire day of wearing a suit and playing lawyer downtown again.  But here's some of the relevant stuff:

RADIATION:  Is fabulous since we built the mold.  My left arm/chest area is quite sore, but I imagine part of that is because I'm actually lifting things again.  The skin is holding up pretty well, although I'm starting to see some discoloration now.  With five days left, that's not a huge deal.

I'm actually supposed to use my shoulder rather than rest it.  This is to break up scar tissue and reduce the chance of long term problems in that area.  I'm pretty sore, so significant lifting isn't really an option.  But I'm able to do enough to maintain movement.

Speaking of that, I recorded consecutive 7-minute runs on the treadmill on Monday and Tuesday, my longest uninterrupted periods of running since I started chemo.  Those seven minutes were much more of a battle than I'm used to (I don't run much, but I can usually go at least a mile without any issues) - it's especially noticeable in my shoulder and lungs.  Maybe I should stop training like Vince Vaughn in Old School.

SLOAN-KETTERING:  Had a talk with the people over at Sloan-Kettering this week, with moderately positive results.  In short, they're going to wait for the results of my next PET scan before offering any recommendations.  Which is fine with me, because it means their decision will be based on that PET scan.  And that PET scan, according to Dr. Anderson, has a "98% chance of looking excellent."  Which, given my recent track record, means that it will probably show a spatula embedded in my lung or something similarly absurd.  But in any event, the mutterings out of S-K indicate that they will not look at a presumably excellent PET scan and then recommend I go hibernate in the hospital until the spring.

To that end, I'm really not searching for people that will tell me I don't need to do more treatment.  I'm looking for people who can provide a comprehensive recommendation and make sense of the three different diagnoses I've been given and the two different treatment recommendations doctors have made.  Whatever that analysis is, it is.  I would prefer clarity and consensus over the answer that spares me more turmoil. 

STANFORD: SUCCESS:  To a lymphoma patient with a mystery diagnosis, Stanford was like the hot girl you've been trying to get with for months, but she's been blowing you off.  Well hot girl just texted me back.  A lucky break on Monday got me in with a Stanford doc, so I'm now working this angle.

I'm really trying to seek out places that see a lot of difficult lymphoma cases, particularly Burkitt's lymphoma cases.  Through conversations with my doctors, it seems both Sloan-Kettering and Stanford see a great deal of cases, and that provides me with the greatest chance of finding a place where they have some experience treating something similar to my mutant cancer. 

So with Stanford and Sloan-Kettering in the fold, I think I'm pretty much done with docs.  We'll see what these folks say, and decide from there.  Since those decisions will rest in part on the results of my next PET scan, no decisions will be made until the end of the month. 

[Emily:  Please don't send me concerned texts about "the hot girl from Stanford."  It was all figurative.]

[Emily:  Also, please don't send me angry texts about the previous sentence.  Or this one.]


CRAB CAKES, FOOTBALL, AND BUREAUCRACY - THAT'S WHAT MARYLAND DOES BABY!  More semi-good news out of Maryland:  They have approved my request to swear in by proxy.  Apparently, "cancer" was a good enough answer to avoid traveling to Maryland to swear in, but not to avoid a fifteen minute interview.  Amend your cheat sheets accordingly.  You wanna get out of that interview, you're going to have to come up with something more serious than cancer.

Anyhoo, there's still some sort of qualification applied to my swearing in by proxy approval, as I "have not been cleared by the State Board of Law Examiners."  I assume this means because I haven't done Important Interview that is Very Critical and Important yet.  But apparently the Court of Appeals is handling the swearing in, and the Board of Law Examiners is handling the other stuff, with the Character Committee handling the interviews.  All of these committees ratchet up the bureaucracy level a bit more.  Fun times.

Also, the fact that my interview is scheduled for a couple hours before the "deadline" means that my 11:55am flight on Friday is a very important flight.  So what do you think are the chances of my flight being delayed?  80%?  85%?  I'll put my money on "absolutely no way that flight leaves on time." 


THE DISTRICT: IN THEATERS DECEMBER 18TH:  Back in the "Metric Tools" post I mentioned that my grandmother was hyperventilating about the couch delivery situation.  So of course, the universe vindicates her fears by delivering two left-armed couches to my house.  Which is awesome, except if you want to build a reasonably functioning L-couch. 

This is ridiculous.  Not the couch thing, although that's ridiculous in its own right and I'll get to it in a second.  But I mean my over-worrying grandmother being bailed out by shoddy furniture delivery.  This is like government officials who repeat over and over that we're about to be attacked by terrorists.  That way, when it happens, they can say, "See, we told you so!" and force us to remove our underpants before boarding a bus. Anyway, new/correct couch piece should be showing up today, and couch crisis will be over.

The other move-in stuff is going well.  I'm really glad I started handling things when I did, because even though I spend most of my days doing very little and wearing sweatpants (I do things.  I just can't remember what I do), there's a ton of stuff to get done and a ton of stuff to pack.  So many stupid little things.  Oh and there's the cancer bit on top of all that, which doesn't simplify things.  

COMCAST APPARENTLY CARES:  A few weeks ago I took a shot at Comcast in a post:

This was the worst news I received in a while actually:  Comcast is the only available cable provider for my building in DC.  That news hit me like a ton of bricks.  I'll be able to handle the whole cancer thing - they have treatment for that.  But there is no known cure for Comcast.  And that is depressing.

I'm still not thrilled about the Comcast-only situation - I could sustain only so many "Cable's out!" moments in college/law school before I switched.  But Comcast is apparently taking steps to remedy their legendarily abysmal customer service reputation.  After that post, a Comcast rep e-mailed me offering to help me out (along with some encouraging words on my fight against cancer), and since then, multiple Comcast people have been calling/e-mailing me to get things set up.  So, not bad Comcast.  So long as the installation tech doesn't steal all the cheese out of my fridge or something.

Carl Levin goes to Rick's in his Chevy Volt

This one time, I went to Rick's.  Rick's is an Ann Arbor bar. It's gross.  It's like a house of sin buried in a basement.  But this particular trip to Rick's occurred in the Spring.  Which meant it was pipe sweat season (when temps warm up, condensation forms on the exposed pipes in the ceiling of Rick's, and the pipes "sweat," dripping fluid on you and in your drink and stuff.  Really adds some flavor).  And it was a rainy spring night.  Which meant lots of mud outside, and, accordingly, lots of mud being tracked inside Rick's.  Which meant the pipe sweat combined with the mud on the ground to create a nice, soupy surface on which people could grind on strangers.  And then I went to take a leak.  Rick's bathroom is what you would expect a bathroom in a house of sin to look like.  But on this particular night, one of the toilets was overflowing.  Which meant you now had pipe sweat combined with mud combined with overflowing toilet inside the bathroom.  And it gets even better:  I was wearing sandals (and you wonder why I'm now fighting cancer).  So yeah.  Not clean.

Anyway, that whole sequence that I just described?  It made me feel about half as disgusting as I felt after reading this short Detroit News article:

Washington— Sen. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, a future Chevrolet Volt owner, said General Motors Co. has answered its critics with the launch of its extended range plug-in hybrid.

GM launched the Volt — a vehicle that the EPA says goes 35 miles on a single charge — at a ceremony at the company's Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly plant today.

The extended-range electric vehicle has a gas engine that runs the Volt when the battery is depleted.

Levin and members of Congress couldn't attend because of action this week. But Levin wrote a letter to GM CEO Dan Akerson — that hasn't been made public — praising the Volt.

"We've always known there would be doubters. Congratulations on answering them so well," Levin wrote. "Today is a great moment in automotive history."

Last month, Levin told The Detroit News he was in talks to get a charging station installed at the Capitol so he could charge his Volt.

"With the delivery of the first Chevrolet Volt from the assembly line, GM has demonstrated that the domestic auto industry is at the forefront of innovation," he said.

Levin said the Volt "is testament to the notion that industry and government can work in partnership to advance the complimentary goals of strengthening our industrial economy and protecting our environment."

GM was rescued with a $49.5 billion government bailout. The government shrunk its 61 percent majority stake to 33 percent following GM's IPO and the sale of $13.6 billion in government stock.

So let me get this straight:  Carl Levin votes to "loan" $50 billion of other people's money to a particular company that he likes.  The company then produces a product that the government wants them to produce.  Carl Levin then praises that company in a bizarre letter (it really is bizarre - read it) that declares, "We've always known there would be doubters. Congratulations on answering them so well."  Levin - a "future volt owner" - is apparently planning to use his taxpayer-funded salary to buy a product from the taxpayer-funded company (a product that, according to Levin, is "not affordable").  He's also trying to install a charging station at the US Capitol - with funds from the Department of Energy, of course - so he can charge his car (although he says the proposed charging station is "not for him"). 

And the Detroit News - the "conservative" paper in town - reports on all of this without a hint of irony.  Or any analysis, really, beyond lifting quotes from a letter from a government official praising a government-controlled company.

Listen, I get the arguments for all these things: the auto bailout, electric cars, charging stations, even Carl Levin.  I've heard them.  There are reasonable arguments to be made (except for Levin).  I don't have anything against GM or electric cars; I just bristle at using government funds to prop them up.  You might feel differently.

But there's something pretty vile about the message here:  Accept $50 billion, do what the government wants, and you will have "answered your critics" and be worthy of congratulations.  

The Decision

[This was going to be a bit in yesterday's post, but it got too long so I decided to make it a separate post.  It's probably the closest thing to a "diary entry" that I've written.  Also, I'm completely bipolar about this issue these days, and this post reflects that.  My mood is very inconsistent.]

It's sort of like this.  Except not at all.

The Decision over whether I'm going to do more treatment after the New Year is still pending.  I still get a lot of questions about this.  Most everything you need to know is contained in this post. 

Honestly, this thing hanging over my head is really sapping the life out of me.  I'm honestly not that excited to finish up treatment because every time I do get excited about that, my mind invariably wanders to the possibility that I'll be in the hospital until March.  Every day I feel better and better and I start to think about going back to feeling worse and worse. 

To clear up some confusion:  The decision about whether or not to do more treatment is mine and mine alone, and there is absolutely no right answer.  I will not be "told" whether or not to do more treatment.  No doctor will give me anything that resembles a definitive answer.  I will only get recommendations from doctors about what they think.  And so far, a couple doctors think I'm fine and that doing more treatment is too dangerous, and a couple doctors think I'm not fine and that not doing more treatment is too dangerous.

Which just leads to a situation where I could potentially second-guess myself forever.  If I don't do more treatment and I relapse, I'll beat myself up for the rest of my life.  If I do more treatment and don't relapse, I'll always wonder if I just shaved years off my life for no particular reason.  This "decision" crap is quickly becoming the worst part of this entire process.  I can handle whatever I have to do to beat this thing.  I'm having a more difficult time handling having absolutely no clue what I should do but having my life depend on it.

I just can't get over the fact that I screwed this up.  I thought I did everything right.  We did all the tests, waited, took our time - even with an insanely aggressive tumor in my body, we took our time to get it right.  Everything was debated, everything was discussed, we got a second opinion, which led to more debate and more discussion.  My doctors conversed, explained everything to me, and gave me the reasons for their opinion.  And then we began treatment.

And over two months later I find out that all of that might have been completely wrong.  Wrong diagnosis.  Wrong treatment.  And then came the dreaded term, "clinical judgment."  And the doctors conversed and discussed.  Sent my tissue out for more analysis.  And then I went to another hospital for yet another opinion.  And soon enough, I had three different diagnoses and three different opinions on treatment.

And then nothing.  And nothing.  And more nothing.  Wait for this.  Wait for that.  Then "this" and "that" happen, and surprise, everyone still has the same opinion.  Dr. Al-Katib shows me a journal article and says, "Look, two of the four cases were treated with CHOP, and they had good outcomes.  You should be fine with R-CHOP."  Dr. Li looks at the same article and says, "Look, two of the four cases were treated with more intense regimens, and they had good outcomes.  You should do more treatment."  Henry Ford looks at my tissue and says I have DLBCL (Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma).  U-M looks at my tissue and says I have DLBCL with features of Burkitt's.  The NIH looks at my tissue and says I have a subset of Burkitt's that might be able to be treated like DLBCL.  Henry Ford looks at my tissue again and says, "We respect the NIH, but this is DLBCL."

And all the while, people are congratulating me on the end of treatment.  I'm preparing to move to DC.  People ask me when I'm moving, and I have to give the awkward answer, "I hope to move back just after the New Year.  But I might not move and just go into the hospital instead."  And if I do move, I'll just spend most of 2011 terrified of relapsing, because I've been told that if I don't do more treatment, the chances of me relapsing are good.  But I've also been told that that statement is bogus, and if I do more treatment, the chances of having complications increase.  It's a little like choosing if you want to be shot or stabbed, but with uncertain probabilities attached to both options. 

You can say, "Come on Nick.  You didn't screw anything up.  You did everything right.  Sometimes, these things just happen."  And you'd probably be right.  But really, what does it matter?  It doesn't change the way I feel.  It doesn't affect the decision I have to make.  It doesn't change the fact that I've gone from "cancer patient," which I can 100% handle, to "one in a billion cancer patient (quite literally) with rare type of cancer who is facing the possibility of going chemo-radiation-chemo (which I assume is rare)."  I can handle winning the world's worst lottery at 100,000 to 1 odds.  I have a tougher time winning the 1,000,000,000 to 1 lottery without wondering if there's something out there that is out to get me. 

And that's all I do now.  I pack up my stuff to move it to DC and wonder when I'm going to move myself to DC.  My friends ask me if I'm having a going away party; I tell them I don't want to jinx anything.  I watch my hair grow back and wonder if it's just going to fall out all over again.  I work out and wonder if it's even worth it because I'm just going to be bedridden for another couple months.  I go out with friends and wonder how much long I'll be able to do that.  I put down payments on things expecting to have a steady paycheck in a little over a month, but staring down the prospect of a financial disaster if that doesn't happen (or a second financial disaster if I start work on time and then relapse).  My enthusiasm is tempered, my statements are qualified, and I'm honestly terrified of jinxing things to the point where I refuse to give in to demands to have a party to celebrate the end of my treatment. 

For all intents and purposes, I just throttled cancer.  I felt pretty damn good while doing it, and I feel great just three weeks out of chemo.  I passed the bar with a cancerous tumor under my arm.  Emily and I found an apartment we love for a pretty good price in DC.  I found out that I have the best family and friends on earth.  And all the while I've maintained the internet's most popular cancer blog (I mean, it's gotta be, right?). And I'm not really excited about  any of that.  Because I feel like I'm staring down the barrel of a gun and playing a three-month game of Russian Roulette.  This.  Is.  Not.  Fun.

***

I try to keep things in perspective though.  It's tough.  It really is.  But I've always looked at everything else rationally and logically, and doesn't make any sense to stop doing that now.  I've always said that I'm not going to "think positive" about things unless positivity is warranted by the circumstances.  Well I'm not going to "think negative" about things either.  You have to take the bad with the good, and the good with the bad.

So I try, really hard, to remember the good stuff in all this.  And honestly, it's not that easy to remember the good.  I just listed a bunch of things two paragraphs ago.  Basically, as a cancer patient, you ask for two things:  good prognosis, and good treatment.

I have a good prognosis.  No doctors disagree with that assessment.  Even though nobody can agree on my diagnosis or particular type of lymphoma, the options are "curable" or "very curable."  Everyone says this is something I can put behind me. If I had a different type of cancer, I might not have a difficult decision to make, since I might be a dead man.  You really can't understate the significance of this.

And then there's treatment.  You know those weight loss commercials that tell you about a person who lost 200 pounds in 3 days and then tell you, "results not typical"?  Well that was my experience with chemo: results not typical.  (Not the weight loss).  The more I talk with my doctors and nurses and other people who have had to deal with cancer, the more I realize that, for whatever reason, my body tolerated chemotherapy better than virtually anybody else who goes through that type of treatment.  During our last meeting, Dr. Anderson used the phrase "breezed through" to describe my chemo experience.  He mentioned how "everybody around here has been talking about how well you tolerated treatment."  And so on.  It's not to brag (except that I am awesome), but rather to highlight how well things have gone.  Relatively, of course.

And the cancer itself got crushed, at least according to the PET scans.  The first PET scan I had on August 5th was bad news.  That was two days after had an 8cm tumor removed, and there was still a tremendous amount of activity on the scan.  And I didn't begin treatment until August 23rd, which meant that things were probably a little more intense by that point.  And by scan #2 on September 30th, the thing was 95% dead.  I didn't get sick, didn't have any serious complications, and felt good the majority of the time.  You can't really ask for a better course of treatment.

And the other stuff.  The intangibles, if you will, like "the rest of my life."  I'm not sure what I have to complain about there.  No regrets about my past.  No complains about my future.  Other than the cancer, life is good ("Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?").

***

Things will get better in time.  Probably.  Most likely.  I think.  Or at least I'll try to believe that.  I have a reason to believe that.  I'll get it figured out in time, and then I'll move on.  And if more treatment is the best option, then I'll do that.  I'm just having a very difficult time dealing with the uncertainty and the pace at which this is all (not) being resolved.  And the lack of information.  And the lack of a right answer.  And the potential for second-guessing.

But I can't really change all that.  I can't change the situation or turn in the cards I've been dealt.  There's not much I can do about things.  I just have to wait, make a decision, and live with it.  I guess I can kick and scream and look over my shoulder all I want, but like many other things I want to do, it won't do much good in the midst of all this.

For now, I remain frustrated.  It is what it is.  It's not what I want, but none of this is.  The ability to call the shots went away a long time ago.  Cancer takes that away from you, along with many other things.  And I guess you can focus on that.  But I'm going to try to think about what it hasn't taken.  At least for the moment.

The Proliferation of Massive Conversion Vans Idling Down My Street at Odd Times and Its Resulting Impact on Property Values and Crime Rates

Well, Eastland Mall had a busy weekend.  On Saturday:

A gang dispute at Eastland Mall Saturday evening that left two men shot had many shoppers on edge the following afternoon.

Followed by the least surprising line in all of local journalism:

After a verbal altercation between two groups, shots were fired sending shoppers ducking for cover.

You can throw "about a girl" or "about shoes" after "two groups."  You would probably be right.  It doesn't even matter.

And Friday:

Harper Woods officers responded to Eastland this evening on reports of shots being fired. Officers were informed that a group of young men were acting disorderly on a bus and the bus driver ordered them off.

One of the group left the bus and shot a handgun at least three times at the bus as it was driving away. No one was injured in the incident, the bus did sustain damage from the bullets that were fired.

Do not confuse these with September's murder at the mall.  

Eastland Mall is about a mile from my house. It is 300 yards from where my mother worked for over thirty years. I spent a fair amount of time there over the course of my life.  On top of a decent array of stores, the mall sported two movie theaters, a ticketmaster in the basement (for picking up $8 Pistons playoff tickets when the Pistons did things like "playoffs"), a decent food court (for quick lunches during our 15 minute lunch period in high school, and the all-purpose Macy's.  My grandmother went (goes?) there to walk the mall from time to time. 

Now, two human beings and a bus have been shot at the Mall in two or three incidents over the course of 24 hours.  I'm not even sure if it has a food court anymore.  I believe it, like the two movie theaters in the mall and a third movie theater across the street, has closed because it became the scene of too many fights, and people didn't want to go anymore.  I'm not sure what stores the mall currently has, but there's nothing I'm particularly interested in.  As one of my friends put it, "I don't even know what's there.  I haven't been in the actual mall part since at least 2005."  The mall isn't a casualty of the economy.  The decline started before the tech bubble burst and was basically finished before the housing bubble burst. 

***

I left home in 2003 and returned in 2010 with plans to stay for a month or two, and then flee this state like everybody else who values their life.  Those plans changed, and now I've spent the overwhelming majority of my time over the past few months in my old hometown.  Over the course of my four months here, I've realized more and more how much things have changed.

And it's really depressing.  It's depressing to watch places you spent a lot of time at as a kid become uninhabitable.  It's depressing to watch the houses of some old friends sit vacant year after year, but I guess that's less depressing than seeing them turn into drug houses. 

I'm not alone in noticing this.  The Saturday shooting (awesome that I have to specify which shooting I'm referring to now) touched off a conversation with a couple of my friends.  We all had stories.  One woke up one day to find four out of five bolts removed from his tires, saved only by the lock bolt.  Another was told by a police officer, "If people knew exactly what went on in this city, there would be a mass exodus."  Stories of weird goings-on were shared, like the time a buddy was leaving for work at 5:30am and stumbled upon a guy walking down the street screaming into his cell phone, "I'm on the second block from the freeway! The second block!" 

I guess the whole thing doesn't bother me that much, since I'll be outta here soon enough.  But it's sad nonetheless.  My dad grew up on the east side of Detroit. I wonder if my experience with my childhood home is going to mirror his. My mom grew up in this city.  I wonder how she feels watching all this happen.

But I feel bad for other people as well.  I feel bad for the decent people who moved here to get away from this sort of crap.  I feel bad for the people who were just trying to do a little Christmas shopping and ended up dodging bullets.  Like this woman:

"I won't say that it scares me, but I guess I have to be aware of my surroundings," said Betty Jean Chapel, a 40-year-old Detroit resident who was squeezing in some Christmas shopping Sunday. "I will have to come to the store - not just here, but any store - get what I need and leave."

And this guy:

Calvin Turner, a 64-year-old Vietnam veteran, said the incident was unfortunate and showed young people are willing to commit violent acts for "no reason at all." The Detroit resident said he thinks the malls in his city need to increase their security presence in general.

Who must feel terrible about risking his life to for a country and then having to watch a bunch of idiots have so little regard for life that they start shooting at will inside a mall.  

Although he is a little off base with his second sentence.  I'm sure he was misquoted, but if he is a Detroit resident, then he needn't worry about the "malls in his city" because there are none.  I think you can figure out why.  And his plea is rather sad:

"I think there should be more uniformed officers on-site that you can see," Turner said. "More visibility will deter the crime."

So that's what we need now?  A small army to protect us when we shop?  This guy feels that's what is needed. And I can't say he's wrong after this weekend.  

But I know I'm done with Eastland and pretty happy that I'm getting out of here soon.  Yes, I know, "violence can happen anywhere," which is something both absolutely true and absolutely BS, at least if you pay any attention at all to frequency, probability and trends.  But I don't want to beat cancer just so I could get hit with a stray bullet aimed at somebody else.

Rehab Weekend

LIVER REHABILITATION PROJECT:  Just as I've been gradually increasing my activity level since the end of chemo, I'm gradually increasing my drinking level (keeping it all within reason, of course).  It's really good to be back.  To, at the very least, not be "that guy" when I go out anymore.  It sounds stupid, but little things like this really help restore a sense of normalcy that has been missing from my life for a few months.  Hair, you are next.

But the funny thing is, I have no real desire to drink anymore.  I enjoy having a couple beers when I go out, but heavy drinking - shots, drinking games, etc. - I just find myself not interested.  Odd really.

Overall, I'm feeling more normal than I have in a long time (including bar exam study time).

FIGHT THE ESTABLISHMENT! DRINK LOKO!:  Turtle brought over some poison for me on Saturday.  Given the game we were about to watch, it was sorely needed:

My thoughts on the beverage?  I only had a little, but it has a hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of hard liquor, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a beer.*  It actually looks like a witch's brew and/or that which was in my chemo bags.  It tastes like poison cough syrup.  I'm not sure how anybody drinks that stuff, but the people who do deserve whatever happens to them.  Think of it as Darwinism in a can.

Now I know why Chuck Schumer wanted to ban this stuff so badly:  If it remained legal, there would be nobody left to vote for Chuck Schumer.   

*Stolen from Thomas Jefferson's characterization of John Adams. 

RADIATIN' HALFTIME:  Hard to believe it, but I'm halfway through radiation at this point.  I met with Dr. Robbins (Dr. Kim's resident) on Friday for a bit, and radiation is going well.  The new mold thing has cut my treatment time down significantly, and I'm not getting blasted with five x-rays a day.  I have a little bit of swelling in the treatment area, which is normal, and my shoulder and arm are sore, which is also normal.  The skin is holding up well.

Dr. Robbins recommended getting another PET scan 6-8 weeks after I finish treatment.  Dr. Anderson recommended getting another scan about two weeks after I finish treatment.  Since I want to get this figured out before the end of the year, I'm probably going to get another scan right around Christmas.  I have a meeting with Dr. Anderson set up on December 28th.

Other than that, nothing much to report.  Radiation is boring compared to chemo.  Which is awesome.