Tag Archives: bladder cancer

Longview

Feeling Thankful

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Thanksgiving is a time when one is supposed to feel grateful.  This year, though, I believe my gratitude is far more abundant than at any other time in my life.

One particular cause of such supreme gratitude is our condominium unit and the community we now live in.  Alice and I thank my cousins, Margaret Johnston and Carolyn & Jeff Levin, for investing in our vision, transforming us into stewards of a beautiful property overlooking the mountains of Washington.  If it were not for them, our place would not be as spectacular as the view.

24-unit condo community with a view

We love Washington!
The hills of Washington underneath a sullen sky.

Take a peek outside my second-floor writer’s office window.  That’s one of several mountain ridges in the distance where a few developments punctuate the landscape.  Frequent rain events during the fall/winter obscure their top-of-the-mountain view more than ours, which encourages a certain personal, snobbish feeling of superiority.  And during an occasional burst of heat during the summer, a smaller ridge to the southwest shades our valley community an hour before dusk.

Inside the Loika/McCormick home

What an ideal surround room.
After DishTV installed our TV on a wall mount, the workmen insisted their sound system is better than Bose. I turned them down, and I’m glad I did. Check out the stonework for the fireplace.

Our living room has become an audiophile’s wet dream.  The television is mounted on the wall and the audio connected to my Bose surround-sound system.  Before we moved in, Reid Rasmusson, a local Longview painter and stalwart resident who has knowledge of our building’s architectural history, applied several coats of paint to the entire apartment.  What stands out is how Alice directed Reid to reinvent a cranberry-red wall into a more-aesthetically pleasing olive-brown accentuation to an artistically constructed fireplace.  An added attraction, thanks to Bose: the acoustics are outstanding.

Great colors, eh?
Instead of watching MSNBC, Alice now loves quiet time early in the morning before I awaken.

Therefore, one wouldn’t blame Alice for reclining on our six-month-old sofa toward the entertainment center.  But that’s not her usual position.  Alice lies in the opposite direction, sharing my outside view, but the downstairs window position aligns her 6-foot frame next to a riot of greenery.  Already, Alice is adding her creative touch to the outside backyard.

(Our cat, Millie, complains loudly every day of wanting to go outside and explore.  But we hear that bobcats, cougars and coyotes prowl about, so we admonish Millie for expressing reckless desires and keep her inside.)

After Reid finished painting, the carpet people showed up to execute our carpet and flooring plan.  Every old piece of carpet was discarded in favor of a tan-colored replacement, with a luxurious feel and look we enjoy today.  The carpet installers were finishing up barely moments before our movers were scheduled to arrive.  The movers?  That’s a different story, and a future post will detail the story of that near-disaster.

Light streaming from above.
Never before saw a light shaft like this.

One particular view of the upstairs railing reveals light shining through the upstairs bathroom.  (We have 1½ bathrooms, by the way.)  That’s sunglare coming through the bathroom skylight.  That’s cool, isn’t it?  A skylight for the bathroom?  Oh yeah, try to get that in a condo in Portland!

A feeling of community

Never know about the legitimacy of people you meet.
If you get accosted in a Mexican restaurant, can ICE deport you?

Our digs are so splendoriferous that I hesitate to include the generosity of spirit from our neighbors.  Nevertheless, I’m dutybound to report our next-door neighbors meet two criteria: quality and congeniality.  Terry and Carole Sumrall introduced us to a restaurant they favor: Fiesta Bonita Mexican Grill and Cantina.  Of course, our journey turned out to be a late afternoon on Halloween, so the tradition in town conjured up a wannabe for the Village People instead of a waitperson.

Other neighbors are equally generous with their time and talents.  Already, Longview is full of revelations, and the history of this town is worthy of more national attention than it gets.  This is a true community, and my future writing here may reveal what I call “living in a Gentile kibbutz.”  I only wish I didn’t have to drive to Portland to buy whitefish salad, a proper bagel and latkes.  Or cheese blintzes!  A full story about Longview, Washington will appear in a future post, or perhaps be contained in the book I committed to when moving West.

Teri’s Restaurant is what’s happening

Music on Friday nights.
Teri’s restaurant, 3225 Ocean Beach Highway, Longview.

The photo at the top of this post was taken by one of the employees at Teri’s Restaurant in our newly adopted hometown.  Besides a continuous dedication to provide restaurant fare a cut above the standard, Teri’s is a hubbub for local musicians and their groupies.  (No age requirement to become a groupie.)  We met a dean from Lower Columbia College (in Longview, naturally) who got on one knee in front of us to encourage Alice to return to work for child care.  How is that for a welcome?

A quick apology

Please excuse the delay in getting this post written.  There were plenty of chores for me to take care of, not to mention the time I wasted while being hooked on DishTV during this college football season.  Yes, I am still functioning, sometimes badly, on the aftermath and life after a bladder removal surgery.

But I am far more than just alive, and I’m married to an Amazon woman who sets a pretty high standard for how she looks after me.  That’s why every time she allows herself a genuine smile, my heart continues to go pitter-patter.

Dr. Seuss said, “You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep, because reality is finally better than your dreams.”

I agree.  Life is grand, ain’t it?

Cancer

Completely Cured!

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As Alice and I prepare to celebrate Christmas Eve with my cousin Margaret Johnston, here’s a Christmas tale of good fortune and considerable divine providence to share:

On Monday morning, Dec. 12, after having my bladder and prostate removed, I met with surgeon urologist, Dr. Daniel Janoff.  When Janoff walked into my patient room, he looked directly at me, beamed and uttered two words summarizing my pathology report: “Completely cured!”

Omigod!  Am I hearing correctly?  Then, like a proper surgeon, he muttered, “Well, unless something microscopic gets through.”

That’s as good as it gets, and the insurance I bought into by undergoing major surgery seems to be worth this post-procedure pain and rigmarole.

Cancer Affects Everyone Differently

The elation I allow myself to feel adds to the joy of this 2016 holiday season and causes me to count my blessings.  How many cancer sufferers endure the diagnosis of a malignant body part without years of heartache, excruciating pain and mind-numbing self-doubt?  For many of them, they’re always looking over their shoulder dreading the day when it’s confirmed that cancer has made its way into other vital organs.

On the other hand, what are the ramifications to a cancer patient when he or she loses a reproductive organ?

At an art exhibit opening in Bucks County, I once became attracted to someone related to one of the most famous show-business families in America.  We were so instantaneously enraptured that we began making out passionately on the second floor of the Lambertville, NJ gallery next to the Delaware River, in full view of everyone there, and I entreated her to see me again.

Upon calling her for the first time, though, she expressed inconsolable shame at having contracted ovarian cancer, saying she was no longer a real woman because her ovaries were being surgically removed.  She asked that I never call her again, and hung up the phone.  What horrible expectations some of us have while fighting cancer!

Other friends and relatives have faced the “Big C” diagnosis with far worse implications and over a far-longer period of time.  Therefore, it makes sense for me to be stoic about sacrificing certain body parts.  After 73 years of life in this state of consciousness, I rationalize that some organs can be regarded as irrelevant.  Considering I was diagnosed with “high-grade” cancer – somewhere between Stage 3 and Stage 4 – this was no time to play coy with life choices.

Earlier This Year

My cancer ordeal started in March, after Providence primary care provider, Dr. Mathew Snodgrass, confirmed another in what was a series of urinary tract infections.  He referred me to Dr. Janoff, a master urologist/surgeon.  Janoff, one of the busiest surgeons I ever met, ordered a CT scan, and in May diagnosed my urinary problems as being caused by bladder cancer.

The wicked carcinoma, he said, was caused by the chemical additives U.S. cigarette manufacturers put into their products to enhance addiction.  Throughout life, I always concerned myself with lung cancer.  But bladder cancer?  No way, I thought!

That’s why I recoil whenever I see anyone smoking a cigarette, and I retreat as far as I can get from the sweet seductive scent of tobacco smoke.

Looking back, I am grateful.  My ordeal lasted only nine months.  How many other cancer sufferers can say the same?  My late uncle underwent years of deteriorating health from Lou Gehrig’s disease.  How can I put my health challenges on the same plane as his?

I am one lucky guy.

Undergoing Chemo

Janoff recommended that before surgery, I undergo four rounds of chemotherapy, and oncologist Dr. Daniel Gruenberg at Compass Oncology kept an eagle eye on my changing blood work.

Three-and-a-half months of intense chemotherapy – consisting of Cisplatin and Gemzar – followed in July through early October at Compass’s location adjacent to Providence St. Vincent Hospital.  When my white blood cell count dropped precipitously in September, an injection targeted my bone marrow to precipitate increased white cell formation.  The stratagem – although quite painful days later – worked, enabling me to finish the course of treatment.

The surgery followed, and its results are now a matter of record.

Alice has been my confidante and partner throughout, although she would have preferred to see if cannabis oil alone would cause me to turn the corner.  I decided otherwise, and she shares this victory without mollycoddling me through the rehabilitation process.

The future ahead, she declares, lies in writing my own book, and she asks that I focus more on such an effort.  She is right, because we cannot continue our lives without seeking some semblance of adequate compensation for my creative work.

But on the eve of another Christmas Day, it’s time to spread some holiday cheer with my personal accomplishment.  It’s no accident that Hanukkah begins on Christmas Eve this year so whatever Jewish blood I inherited simultaneously shares season’s greetings with Christianity everywhere.

Merry Christmas, and Happy Hanukkah, everyone!

Cancer

RELEASED!

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“They say ev’rything can be replaced
Yet ev’ry distance is not near
So I remember ev’ry face
Of ev’ry man who put me here

“I see my light come shining
From the west unto the east
Any day now, any day now
I shall be released”

Bob Dylan

This photo was taken two days ago after I walked into Alice’s and my apartment on Portland, Oregon’s west side.

I am a post-operative rejuvenated human surviver after Dr. Daniel Janoff, an eminently qualified urologist, removed my diseased bladder, prostate and a nearby lymph node in an operating room at Providence St. Vincent’s Hospital on Tuesday, Nov. 29.

I am left to wonder what life will be like without ordinary manly attributes.  Will my creativity be compromised?  Will I be a shell of the man I once was?  Will I be fun to be around?

Well, the true relevance is being able to contemplate essential questions.  That’s a gift.  No matter my mood, at least today I ponder such questions in my Mason Loika way.

I am alive.  And a team of doctors and nurses in one of this nation’s great hospitals is responsible for that mean feat.

So let’s bless today and every breath I take.  I have been RELEASED.

Cancer

The beast within

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If Uncle Richard could see me now.

Frankly, it’s good he cannot; otherwise, he would be crestfallen.

I have bladder cancer.  And, according to urologist/surgeon Dr. Daniel Janoff, who specializes in this aspect of cellular malignancy at Providence St. Vincent Hospital in Portland, my 40 years of cigarette smoking – which ended on Nov. 14, 2000 because of an inspiration while visiting my now-late uncle – is to blame.

How could that be?  People who smoke are at risk for lung cancer – not this – right?

Wrong.  In my case, almost dead wrong.

But I’m lucky.  My cancer was caught early, due to a urinary tract infection (UTI) that required over two months of antibiotics.  Since I had a history of UTIs over 10 years in Pennsylvania – relegated by a urologist there as prostate-related – I underwent a standard surgical procedure here, known as a TURP.  While under the non-invasive laser, a tumor was detected and sent to pathology.

Janoff was quickly direct.  “You have cancer,” he announced, as a matter of fact.  I appreciate the news wasn’t sugarcoated.  And I am planning on following doctors’ orders and the road ahead.

Bladder cancer exposed

This particular grade of cancer is aggressive and vicious.  I write this post as a warning to anyone who smokes corporately manufactured cigarettes.

It’s not the nicotine that causes bladder cancer, Janoff says.  The chemical additives purposely put in cigarettes to enhance their addiction are to blame.

I credit the use of cannabis in 2000 for enabling me to quit tobacco products.  I even wrote a poem about it in 2006 dedicated to my uncle (the poem needs further editing to develop a more consistent meter, but it’s time for these preliminary lyrics to see the light of day):

“Muir Woods”©2006
by Mason Loika

I hugged a redwood tree and smoke came down,
His brother, the Devil, issued warning sounds,
So I gotta experience my epiphany
And declare myself tobacco-smoke free.

Redwoods been ’round since time began,
Way before the first human,
Poisons can kill both trees and men,
The question’s not if but rather when,

I hugged a redwood tree and smoke came down,
His brother, the Devil, issued warning sounds,
So I gotta experience my epiphany
And declare myself tobacco-smoke free.

Light up a monster and breathe deep the scent
How deep shall it go till the intrusion is spent
Enough is enough, how sick must you get?
Blocked windpipes and cancer are a good bet.

I hugged a redwood tree and smoke came down,
His brother, the Devil, issued warning sounds,
So I gotta experience my epiphany
And declare myself tobacco-smoke free.

Next time you light up, better think again,
You won’t feel better, cigarettes ain’t your friend,
Wheezing and coughing, hear my point of view,
Smoking’s no good if it takes something from you!

I hugged a redwood tree and smoke came down,
His brother, the Devil, issued warning sounds,
So I gotta experience my epiphany
And declare myself tobacco-smoke free.

The road ahead

I began the first of four rounds of chemotherapy on June 29; it continues Wednesday, July 6.  Each round consists of three weekly injections through my blood stream.  After the final injection, I am given a week off, preparing for the next round to begin.  That means each round takes four weeks.

Needless to say, chemo can get old in a short time.  But I will persevere, and eventually undergo a major operation in Portland.  How appropriate, eh?  Was I a real pisser growing up?  Irony serves as my dearest companion.

I sense that Creator became impatient with my lack of written copy for a book I had set my sights on producing.  This way, I am being given a divine deadline to meet.  Deadlines are a writer’s curse – as well as a blessing – because they force a writer with a work in progress to eventually say, “It’s done.”

Well, the work needs to be done, before I am done, right?  And so on Independence Day 2016, I announce that I will charge ahead – into the wonderful world of oblivion – because that’s how we were meant to live life.

As someone once wrote, “Growing old is not for wimps.”

Photo above by Spitzi.