Ned /henry January 29, 2021 · nedhenry.medium.com

9:19 AM — Rough night last night. Chemo is tough. Couldn’t get my right foot unfrozen so I couldn’t sleep. Felt like frostbite. I kept telling myself it’s the chemo and to just tolerate it. Sometime moaning, sometimes silent. I think I did nod off for a couple of hours. Watch says I slept almost 5 hours but only 29 minutes of deep sleep. I don’t think I have the settings calibrated correctly yet to accurately track sleep. I think it sometimes picks up deeper relaxation as sleep when it’s not really sleep. Of course it may be just as good for you as sleep. Who knows. The chemo effects seem to get worse some 5 days or so after the treatment and then gradually wear off until I get stronger again during the third week and then we do it all over again.

I keep wondering if I should keep this up. It feels lonely. Like folks are not nearly as much in touch because they are afraid I might write about them and well I have to admit, yeah I might. I know my “audience” is mostly family and friends. I do look at followers to see who might be listening. But I also know there is no way everyone reads everything I have to say. Most of it is meaningless anyway. It’s just me processing what’s going on with my life right now. And that’s all it is. Some it is weird to many of you. I use pot to help me cope with it. It’s just how I am dealing with this disease that could kill me or from which I could emerge with a cure. It’s this really fine line between life and death, I think I told John the other night, that’s it’s not a fine line but an increasingly blurry one. But it’s one I am looking at all the time. Never before in my life have I experienced anything quite like this. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s gonna happen. I’m just trying to put one foot in front of the other and share the process by writing about it to help me figure out my own thoughts. But I don’t know anything. I’m struggling and sometimes I feel like I’m drowning. I have to write the palliative care lady and tell her about the last 3 days of switching to Indica. Didn’t smoke much of anything last night. Sipped on some cognac. Took a hit this morning since I felt so bad. Not much on the calendar for today. Part of it is being retired and part of it is being sick and part of it is Covid. Might have a FaceTime with Liz later. Too cold to meet outside. It’s 32 now and will only get into the 40’s before the day is over but then back into the 30’s overnight. Not my favorite time of the year in Atlanta. We usually get one decent snow a year but that usually happens in February or early March as it begins to warm up and then we watch the flowers emerge. This place explodes in color for about 2 weeks in Spring when the dogwoods and azaleas bloom. You can watch it on TV every year if you watch the Masters on TV. A neighbor texted me that there a was light in my backyard last night. So I turned on the back yard lights. Didn’t see anything. But I did turn the alarm on in “Stay” mode meaning that the door alarms were activated but the motion sensors were off. Both are on when I set the alarm when I leave the house. But I rarely set the damn thing. It’s kind of just there and I forget about it. I had a friend from choir install the system. I wanted the sign out front as much as anything. It’s normally pretty mellow in this neighborhood but there are crazies everywhere. I used to watch Amanpour every night on PBS. Took a look this morning and have about 9 episodes recorded. So I looked and deleted a couple of them and listened to Rafael Nadal and Some NY Times columnist, Ezra Klein talk about politics. It was good. Took my mind off my sore foot. I wish someone could be here with me.

10:50 AM

The red and black microwave foot warmer came from Jack.

3:30 PM been a lazy day. Just moving slowly from one thing to the next. Siting out on the back deck listening to music (Dylan covers) and taking in fresh air. First time I’ve gotten outside in a few days. Looking out at the world, this is what I see from my back deck. Beautiful day today. Cold but beautiful. Not really that much to say. Kind of just an

ordinary day. Drank a smoothie, had a good shit (which I needed), Make some brown rice to have with some lamb stew I took out of the freezer for dinner. That with the rest of the swiss chard. will be dinner. have done alot of sitting around today just thinking. Picked up a Religious science pamphlet that fell off the shelf in the den. It opened to an article titled “Awakening the Soul” by Heather Dawn Clark.

Heard this song in the mix out on the deck. Pretty heavy. I ordered my full transcript from UCSC. They have it out in the mail today. Just want to see how I put this whole “Human Development” major together. And how I got it approved. I do intend to read my BA thesis into some platform somewhere and make it available. It is actually very good although the subject matter is quite narrow. I told you about it a few days ago. Emory sent an email that I am on their list but no appointment. So unless one comes up on Monday, I’m heading out to Conyers to get my shot on Tuesday. John said it might be hard to find Gavin’s gravesite. Not sure I can afford a lot of time outside with people around looking for it. Maybe another time, like later in the year when it warms up and cancer and covid settle down. John made the Lamb stew I am going to have for dinner. He had a very small party last year which I did not go to during Covid where he spit slow roasted a lamb over an open fire. And he made the stew from that lamb. He’s also gonna help me stain that new fence in the back that you see in the picture. Good friend John. He started “following” me so I know he looks at this once in a while. Almost 4. Ramon’s mother used to make flan and serve it whenever I ate lunch with them. I’m sure I could make that high protein sweet snack. I’m gonna go read some.

Just a beautiful version of this aria from Turandot that you all know. John — the other one — sent it today. He just picked up an RX which hopefully will help me sleep tonight.

9:30 — That Rx is for Schizophrenia and Bipolar. I think I just need it to sleep. It’s for Olanzapine generic for Zyprexa. I don’t think I’m delusional. Maybe I am. I just know I need to sleep. Listening to Wagner in the backgound. Flying Dutchman. I’m not gonna slug this this opera tonight. Might watch a new film bu Regina King about Ali, Malcom X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown right after Cassius Clay won the heavyweight title. They talked about it on the Newshour tonight.

12:45 AM — Well that is a good movie. Based on a play about these 4 getting together the night Cassius Clay won the title for the first time. On AMAZON Prime. Really good movie. Highly entertaining and highly educational if not historically accurate.

So I decided not to take this new drug they gave me based on some good advice from my sister and the firm belief that because I choose to open about my struggle right now, I am somehow nuts. I am looking back at my life to find anything that has worked in the past at one time or another. In the present I am adding the Course in Miracles to my toolbox. I am trying to be present and open. I don’t think that makes me crazy. My blog is open and public and Emory could be looking at it. I don’t know. I know most everybody who “follows” me but there are a few that I certainly don’t. Anyway, I have to write a kind of academic letter to the oncologist tomorrow about this. She told me the symptoms and side effects with the drug Vincristine in the chemo cocktail. This is what the handout she gave me in the beginning said:

“Numbness or tingling of fingers or toes could occur due to vincristine. Numbness and tingling of the toes and fingers will slowly return to normal after your last chemo.Tell your doctor at your next visit if you develop numbness or have trouble picking up small objects, doing up buttons or writing. Be careful handling sharp, hot or cold objects.

In my case this numbness which to me feels like frostbite is a known side effect and I have this side effect to the degree that I can’t sleep because the pain in my foot won’t let me. And now they give me a drug like this:

No mention of sleep as a reason to take this drug. They think I have Schizophrenia or Bipolar, or at least at the very least serious anxiety. I don’t feel anxiety and I tell them that but they give me this drug to calm me down and let me sleep. I may have to trust the medical community blindly on some things like chemo and vaccines, but not this. I have not lost my ability to think for myself. This is from that pamphlet of Religious Science and Oliver Wendell Holmes.