Penultimate
My grandfather was an amazing man. Well, both of my grandfathers were amazing men, but in this context I am thinking specifically of my maternal grandfather. He was one of the smartest people I have ever known and my parents and sisters and I all lived together with him and my granndmother in this amazing 1020's mini-mansion so he was very involved in my upbringing. He called me young master and I loved him more than words can describe. He was also a linguist and a librarian and as such he shared with me a love for languages and even individual words that has stayed with me forty years after he passed away. And one of the words that he shared with me was penultimate.
Okay... great. Touching and heartwarming story but... penultimate? Really?
This is just one example of many memories I have about my grandfather but as I sat in the comfortable reclining chair at the cancer agency yesterday I remembered him and I sitting at his workbench as he taught me how to solder components together for one of his many, many electronics projects. I think this particular project was an FM transmitter that we could use to listen to visitors at the door of our house. That detail isn't important though; the real salient memory for me here is my grandfather educating me on the word penultimate.
"That's the second to last resistor," he said patiently as he watched me solder the little brown cylinder with coloured stripes on it to the small Bakelite board he had cut to build the project on. "Or, in simpler terms, it is the penultimate resistor."
I was probably ten at the time. But my grandfather always respected - and expected - that I was able to comprehend far more than most people imagined a ten year old boy should. Ten or thirty, he felt like I should know what the word penultimate meant, and I took his teaching seriously.
"So... penultimate means second last?" I asked him, taking my clues from context as he had tought me.
"Almost. It comes from two Latin words - paene meaning almost and ultima meaning last. Technically it means almost last, but second last is close enough. So... how are those solders coming along, young master?"
I won't pretend that the words I have quoted above are verbatim, but they are close enough to the truth of the situation to still be valid and they show the sort of relationship I had with my grandfather. Plus, this little anecdote is a segue between the emotional journey I am on as I approach the closing of this chapter in my cancer treatment.
I received my second-last dose of chemotherapy yesterday.
Penultimate is sometimes used - incorrectly - by people that think it means beyond ultimate. But for me, being done my second-last cycle of chemotherapy really is almost ("paene") more than ultimate. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, and I only have to endure one more cycle of chemo and then I can get my PICC removed and work toward living a more normal life. Things like taking a shower without cling wrap, a tube sock, a bagel bag with the bottom cut out, and elastic bands around my arm to keep the water off my PICC dressing. Things like being able to pee in a toilet and not worry that the poison in my body will pose a threat to my wife or family who also use the same toilet at some point after me. Things like kissing my wife freely, or going to the gym, or not having to keep track of adverse effects from chemo, or taking a dozen different medications to counter the adverse effects of my chemotherapy, or...
You know... a normal life.
It's safe to say that my life this year has not been normal. It has definitely not gone according to plan. I have had major pelvic surgery that, not to go into too great detail, has left me with more than just scars. "When you start messing around with things around the rectum, there are a lot of nerves and blood vessels that sometimes have to be sacrificed. There are a variety of things that might not work properly after your surgery..." This was part of what my surgeon told me as he obtained informed consent from me, and he went into a lot of detail about all the things that could go wrong in my bladder, my rectum, my anus, and... well, you get the picture. Just imagine all the things in your pelvis and imagine that pretty much anything could go wrong with all of them. Any or all of those organs and systems could have lost their connection with the rest of my body and started to work poorly or given up completely and just failed to work at all. But I have always subscribed to the notion that I'd rather have 70% of something than 100% of nothing. I am happy to report that nothing south of my waist has completely checked out, but there are a few... ahem... changes in my pelvic region that will likely be life-long. But that's okay - I'd rather that than pursue the 100% of nothing variable when it would have too good odds of coming to fruition.
So I underwent 25 days of combined radiation and oral chemotherapy. At the time I thought I would have the balance of six months on the same oral chemotherapy which made me fatigued and possibly a bit of a radiation burn on my not-so-delicate backside. Well, I have the radiation burn - which my dermatologist has made a note to follow over the next ten years because of the many-times greater chance of developing a skin cancer there - but what I now know to be very mild fatigue caused by the oral chemotherapy I was taking was not in the cards. I was "too robust" from a medical perspective and so my oncologist obtained more informed consent from me to swithc me over to intravenous chemotherapy instead.
You only have to read my past few blog posts to know that this plan has also not gone so smoothly. I have had three rounds of dose reductions due to intolerable - and, to be perfectly frank, potentially lethal - adverse effects from every component of my chemotherapy. As I write this, my penultimate infusion bottle is running and will be disconnected tomorrow.
And that just leaves the ultimate cycle of my chemotherapy. But my grandfather never had any wise conversations with me about the meaning of ultimate so I don't have any heartwarming stories (at least to me) to share with you.
And after that last dose... what? I've already hinted that I can start to lead a more normal life. But right now I get winded walking through Costco. I stumble around like I've had a few too many drinks - yet I have only had two glasses of wine in the past eight months - thanks to the nerve-damaging properties of the oxaliplatin that I am receiving. It could take three to six months for that to recover, or I could be in the lucky subpopulation that recovers in a few weeks after my last dose of oxaliplatin. I'm hoping for that one, but I have to face the fact that I may instead fall into the other end of the population - the ones for whom balance never returns.
Without a fully-functioning middle ear, how do I ride my motorcycle like I love to do? How do I fly my airplane? How do I convince people that I'm not drunk, my middle ear has just been damaged by a poison I willingly received for nearly five months? I will find a way - I know that I will - but this is another example of the potential life-changing impact of my diagnosis.
What about other life-changing impacts though? More positive ones, I mean.
Well, I have become far more appreciative of my wife, my children (whether by birth or by marriage), my sisters, my mother, and all my family and friends. I think I have become more patient even if there are days or moments when all the crap I am going through make me just a little testy. I have definitely become more honest but have learned to take the emotions out of that honesty. I am learning - it's going to be a struggle for me - to practice self-compassion instead of simply trying to be compassionate to others. And I'm not going to take for granted that all of these people and all of my abilities will be there forever unless I work hard to maintain the positivity.
So I will tell the people that matter that I love them. It might embarrass a few of them, but that's OK. I will go to the gym to try to keep my body as healthy as I possibly can. I will engage with counsellors when my thoughts and emotions are squabbling like angry teenagers in my skull. I will be VERY honest with myself about limitations where safety is concerned - if I cannot fly or ride my motorcycle safely, I won't do them. Instead I will simply have to look back on the times I could do those things with joy, knowing that I did something I loved doing.
Of course I could focus on the negative life-long impacts my diagnosis has brought with it. But just like I didn't want this year to be the way that it has, I definitely don't want the rest of my life - which I plan to have measured in decades and not months or years - to be one of regret, remorse, and bitterness.
The people that matter to me are too good to deserve that. I'm too good to deserve that. And that is why I am fighting this battle and will continue to fight it for the long and happy rest of my life.
You see, my diagnosis is not the ultimate stage of my life. I'm not even certain that it is the penultimate stage - ongoing life-long medical follow-ups will eventually decide that - but I want to live my remaining decades as if it is the penultimate stage.
Looking back across five and a half decades, my life looks pretty good. But it also looks pretty short if I'm honest. Looking forward another three or four decades looks frighteningly short, and that's another reason I don't want to waste that time on remorse or regret about what I've lost. The things that matter - my family, my friends, my angels, my heart and soul and mind - are still with me. I aim to keep it that way.
And that truly is the ultimate reward.
Okay... great. Touching and heartwarming story but... penultimate? Really?
This is just one example of many memories I have about my grandfather but as I sat in the comfortable reclining chair at the cancer agency yesterday I remembered him and I sitting at his workbench as he taught me how to solder components together for one of his many, many electronics projects. I think this particular project was an FM transmitter that we could use to listen to visitors at the door of our house. That detail isn't important though; the real salient memory for me here is my grandfather educating me on the word penultimate.
"That's the second to last resistor," he said patiently as he watched me solder the little brown cylinder with coloured stripes on it to the small Bakelite board he had cut to build the project on. "Or, in simpler terms, it is the penultimate resistor."
I was probably ten at the time. But my grandfather always respected - and expected - that I was able to comprehend far more than most people imagined a ten year old boy should. Ten or thirty, he felt like I should know what the word penultimate meant, and I took his teaching seriously.
"So... penultimate means second last?" I asked him, taking my clues from context as he had tought me.
"Almost. It comes from two Latin words - paene meaning almost and ultima meaning last. Technically it means almost last, but second last is close enough. So... how are those solders coming along, young master?"
I won't pretend that the words I have quoted above are verbatim, but they are close enough to the truth of the situation to still be valid and they show the sort of relationship I had with my grandfather. Plus, this little anecdote is a segue between the emotional journey I am on as I approach the closing of this chapter in my cancer treatment.
I received my second-last dose of chemotherapy yesterday.
Penultimate is sometimes used - incorrectly - by people that think it means beyond ultimate. But for me, being done my second-last cycle of chemotherapy really is almost ("paene") more than ultimate. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, and I only have to endure one more cycle of chemo and then I can get my PICC removed and work toward living a more normal life. Things like taking a shower without cling wrap, a tube sock, a bagel bag with the bottom cut out, and elastic bands around my arm to keep the water off my PICC dressing. Things like being able to pee in a toilet and not worry that the poison in my body will pose a threat to my wife or family who also use the same toilet at some point after me. Things like kissing my wife freely, or going to the gym, or not having to keep track of adverse effects from chemo, or taking a dozen different medications to counter the adverse effects of my chemotherapy, or...
You know... a normal life.
It's safe to say that my life this year has not been normal. It has definitely not gone according to plan. I have had major pelvic surgery that, not to go into too great detail, has left me with more than just scars. "When you start messing around with things around the rectum, there are a lot of nerves and blood vessels that sometimes have to be sacrificed. There are a variety of things that might not work properly after your surgery..." This was part of what my surgeon told me as he obtained informed consent from me, and he went into a lot of detail about all the things that could go wrong in my bladder, my rectum, my anus, and... well, you get the picture. Just imagine all the things in your pelvis and imagine that pretty much anything could go wrong with all of them. Any or all of those organs and systems could have lost their connection with the rest of my body and started to work poorly or given up completely and just failed to work at all. But I have always subscribed to the notion that I'd rather have 70% of something than 100% of nothing. I am happy to report that nothing south of my waist has completely checked out, but there are a few... ahem... changes in my pelvic region that will likely be life-long. But that's okay - I'd rather that than pursue the 100% of nothing variable when it would have too good odds of coming to fruition.
So I underwent 25 days of combined radiation and oral chemotherapy. At the time I thought I would have the balance of six months on the same oral chemotherapy which made me fatigued and possibly a bit of a radiation burn on my not-so-delicate backside. Well, I have the radiation burn - which my dermatologist has made a note to follow over the next ten years because of the many-times greater chance of developing a skin cancer there - but what I now know to be very mild fatigue caused by the oral chemotherapy I was taking was not in the cards. I was "too robust" from a medical perspective and so my oncologist obtained more informed consent from me to swithc me over to intravenous chemotherapy instead.
You only have to read my past few blog posts to know that this plan has also not gone so smoothly. I have had three rounds of dose reductions due to intolerable - and, to be perfectly frank, potentially lethal - adverse effects from every component of my chemotherapy. As I write this, my penultimate infusion bottle is running and will be disconnected tomorrow.
And that just leaves the ultimate cycle of my chemotherapy. But my grandfather never had any wise conversations with me about the meaning of ultimate so I don't have any heartwarming stories (at least to me) to share with you.
And after that last dose... what? I've already hinted that I can start to lead a more normal life. But right now I get winded walking through Costco. I stumble around like I've had a few too many drinks - yet I have only had two glasses of wine in the past eight months - thanks to the nerve-damaging properties of the oxaliplatin that I am receiving. It could take three to six months for that to recover, or I could be in the lucky subpopulation that recovers in a few weeks after my last dose of oxaliplatin. I'm hoping for that one, but I have to face the fact that I may instead fall into the other end of the population - the ones for whom balance never returns.
Without a fully-functioning middle ear, how do I ride my motorcycle like I love to do? How do I fly my airplane? How do I convince people that I'm not drunk, my middle ear has just been damaged by a poison I willingly received for nearly five months? I will find a way - I know that I will - but this is another example of the potential life-changing impact of my diagnosis.
What about other life-changing impacts though? More positive ones, I mean.
Well, I have become far more appreciative of my wife, my children (whether by birth or by marriage), my sisters, my mother, and all my family and friends. I think I have become more patient even if there are days or moments when all the crap I am going through make me just a little testy. I have definitely become more honest but have learned to take the emotions out of that honesty. I am learning - it's going to be a struggle for me - to practice self-compassion instead of simply trying to be compassionate to others. And I'm not going to take for granted that all of these people and all of my abilities will be there forever unless I work hard to maintain the positivity.
So I will tell the people that matter that I love them. It might embarrass a few of them, but that's OK. I will go to the gym to try to keep my body as healthy as I possibly can. I will engage with counsellors when my thoughts and emotions are squabbling like angry teenagers in my skull. I will be VERY honest with myself about limitations where safety is concerned - if I cannot fly or ride my motorcycle safely, I won't do them. Instead I will simply have to look back on the times I could do those things with joy, knowing that I did something I loved doing.
Of course I could focus on the negative life-long impacts my diagnosis has brought with it. But just like I didn't want this year to be the way that it has, I definitely don't want the rest of my life - which I plan to have measured in decades and not months or years - to be one of regret, remorse, and bitterness.
The people that matter to me are too good to deserve that. I'm too good to deserve that. And that is why I am fighting this battle and will continue to fight it for the long and happy rest of my life.
You see, my diagnosis is not the ultimate stage of my life. I'm not even certain that it is the penultimate stage - ongoing life-long medical follow-ups will eventually decide that - but I want to live my remaining decades as if it is the penultimate stage.
Looking back across five and a half decades, my life looks pretty good. But it also looks pretty short if I'm honest. Looking forward another three or four decades looks frighteningly short, and that's another reason I don't want to waste that time on remorse or regret about what I've lost. The things that matter - my family, my friends, my angels, my heart and soul and mind - are still with me. I aim to keep it that way.
And that truly is the ultimate reward.
That was one of the most amazing and endearing qualities of Grandad - I can’t think of a time when he ever talked down to us. And yet, I always felt that he respected the fact that we were children, and did not expect us to do much more than learn. Every day, in every way. From every experience that came along, good or bad.
ReplyDeleteI think we were all very lucky to have him in our lives. He left us far too early, but the time we had with him was both precious and incredibly formative.
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