That's The Way It Works

Most likely no posts from me tomorrow since it's my admitting day to DF. Getting there in the AM, getting platelets, then getting my Hickman catheter in the OR. Then recovery, then chest x-ray to make sure the Hickman is in right, then at some point moving into my HEPA-filtered/secure air-locked pod. Chemo starts on Thursday.

I am a walking soup of contradictions. I'm psyched to get it started, but not psyched to be doing it. I'm thrilled to have family and friends around, but not thrilled to have to be social if I'm not feeling like it. I recognize that people want to spend time with me at the hospital, but I also recognize that there is a certain amount of mental solitude required for anyone getting their head in this game. I'm in awe of the people I've known who've done things like this and still managed to remember things like friends' birthdays and grandkids' names. I'm in awe precisely because I'm not one of those people.

What this means is that you will, over the course of the next few months, probably consider me to be some combination of impolitic, antisocial, forgetful and too tired to care. Lest you think I'm a complete a**hole, I apologize in advance, and I also offer felicitations in advance: Happy Birthday, your baby is so cute, tell me all about your trip again, mazel tov on your bat mitzvah, and good luck with the appendectomy. I swear I'll be an involved and gracious friend again when this is all over.

In the meantime, to answer the question that everyone is asking me (and which I appreciate, btw)--how are you doing?--I'll reprint my favorite piece of dialogue from the movie Three Kings (Clooney, Wahlberg and Ice Cube in Iraq War 1):

Archie Gates: You're scared, right?
Conrad Vig: Maybe.
Archie Gates: The way it works is, you do the thing you're scared shitless of, and you get the courage AFTER you do it, not before you do it.
Conrad Vig: That's a dumbass way to work. It should be the other way around.
Archie Gates: I know. That's the way it works.

That is indeed the way it works.