Mick McKellar Update--Day +88
The intrepid walkers got wet today. We trekked to the world's slowest pharmacy late this morning to pick up my Dasatinib and a couple of refills of other medications we ordered yesterday. I also bought a few new surgical (Darth Mick) masks at the Mayo Store. (Insurance does not cover such things, yet you still need a scrip to get them. Go figure.)
While wandering about underground in the Mayo complex, the skies opened up and delivered on promised rain for today. Of course, we neglected to take even one umbrella with us -- how's that for hubris? We were fortunate to be able to walk at least halfway back in the subway system and only had to sprint (yeah, right) three blocks to the transplant house. Shortly thereafter, the rain stopped.
Not even NiCad...
The "quick walk" in the rain demonstrated the quick depletion feature of my body batteries. They told me that lack of energy and bouts with fatigue would be with me for the rest of my life, but I certainly hope I can get a better charge over time. After a block and a half, I was pretty much operating on emergency life support power only. It is embarrassing to arrive at our destination, with me sounding like the broken bellows on an old pump organ. Forget the hare. I am now the tortoise.
As I sat in my recliner, a puddle of pooped protoplasm, and waited for the lights to come back on, I wondered if this is what growing old is like. My hearing loss (tinnitus) and reduced eyesight (cataracts) tend to insulate and isolate me from the mad antics and chaos of the world about me. Fatigue puts a lid on each and every response to outside stimuli. Muscles I have depended on for decades appear to have left the building on some independent errand and failed to come home again.
Inside, where intent forms and from where the orders are sent, all feels normal. Yet, the execution of those orders is slow and often fails to impress. So, based on my recent experiments in simulated aging and on experiences related by older family members and friends, I wrote Senescence, a poem for day +88.
The day has gone gray, pewter-flavored light floods our room from the afternoon windows, and increased slapping of rubber tires on the pavement as cars, trucks, and so many shuttles and buses roll by, tell me Mayo Clinic is shutting down for the weekend and staff are heading home. The sky is uniform gray and is making no promises for the balance of today. It is warm, about 73 degrees, but it is the warmth under a thick blanket rather than the radiated warmth of an evening sun. Twilight and evening are hours away, and everything is simply, just gray.
I am not too far gone to remember to thank you all for your communications with us. It means so much to receive a touch of home.
God bless, and good evening,
Mick
And now, Senescence
I've been thinking about growing older, a subject not in vogue for most of the last year, considering the challenges and uncertainty of those twelve months. However, it appears that, with the aid of modern medical chemistry and the application of multiple layers of paranoia about germs, I must consider getting older a possible outcome of the transplant process.
I've noticed changes that track very closely with those experienced by the older members of my family and some of my friends. Some nights, like a broken toy doll, if you sit me up my eyes close. If you lay me down, my eyes open. Ambient temperature has finally become a factor in my life, and I cannot determine why my eyebrows are reaching out from my face, as though to grab something. Always a dependable friend in the past, stairways have become my nemesis, for the steps appear to be propagating.
Maybe it's just me and my radical, new, senescent perspective on the world around me.
Mick
Senescence
I walk outside on a warm, sunny day,
And a sudden breeze make my skin feel cold.
On the sidewalk, I'm always in the way,
And why are all my young friends looking old?
I go to bed and I lie awake, wired;
Yet, ten minutes ago, dozed in a chair.
I sleep for long hours and wake up still tired.
Is my rest leaking out of me somewhere?
The hair on my head very slowly grows,
And stops in certain wide open spaces;
Yet it grows thick and quickly in my nose,
And other very unlikely places.
And though I've seen no construction, I swear,
They've made stairways longer everywhere.
Mick McKellar
May 2011