Zombie Wars

I've often wondered why people have such an instinctual dread of cancer. It can't be simply because up till recent times it was pretty much always fatal. Tuberculosis, for instance, was just as much a death sentence and people didn't go around talking about it in whispers. My grandfather's first wife died in her 20s of consumption and from their letters I know they both knew she was doomed even before they got engaged. Everyone around her knew she had TB. Everyone was open about it; it was a fact of her life until she had no life left.

And I don't think cancer's basic horror is that it involves your own body turning traitor on you. Auto-immune diseases do that, too. So do infections. I remember a line from a Bill Cosby routine where he's recreating the scene when his mother took him to the doctor to see about getting his tonsils taken out. Doc says something like, "Kid, your tonsils are like sentries that're supposed to keep the bad stuff out. But in your case, they're fighting for the other side."

True, there is a mystery to cancer in that its cause is often so hard to trace. Otherwise perfectly healthy people (like me!) can pop up with it. It's not like you catch it from Aunt Martha at the family reunion-- in all due respect to an old lady I heard of, who kept the photo of a family member who'd died of melanoma securely wrapped in plastic, "Because it might be contagious."

But still, I don't think that's the font of the primal fear of cancer. I think it has to do with our dread and loathing of zombies.

Yes, zombies. Ever notice how our society's sick fascination with those monsters has grown along with our rising cancer statistics?

Anyway, I'm no expert on the Undead, but cancer cells and zombies have a lot in common. Both are mindless. Both have no "purpose" but to devour and assimilate the living. Both replicate themselves in fast and horrendous ways. Neither contribute to the good of the body (politic), but rather, feed on it and destroy it. And worst of all, both zombies and cancer cells are frighteningly difficult to kill.

Speaking seriously on cancer, I read someplace recently that that's what makes cancer, cancer. Ordinary helpful healthy body cells do their jobs then die off and are replaced. Cancer cells have mutated so they don't know it's time for them to die. They're so biologically brain dead, they don't even know they're damaging the body they infest from the word Go.

The idea of something mindless and destructive and horrendously hard to kill growing in you and taking over your system is inherently creepy. No wonder people have traditionally feared cancer and not wanted to mention its name. You don't want it to be true, and at the same time, you don't dare ignore it, unless you want your innards to be the physiological equivalent of those popular zombie-apocalypse films.

We are told on Very Good Authority (Wikipedia, right?) that the only way to destroy a zombie is by going after its brains before it goes after yours. Fighting cancer, we have a few more weapons, which is good, because this battle is real.

And I, tomorrow I'm engaging in front number two in my own zombie wars. We had the cutting-out campaign in late April; in the morning we begin the chemical warfare. I expect to be a bit battered before it's over this September: you have to expect to take a few hits when you're combatting the Undead. But fight I shall, and by God and St. George*, I expect to win.
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*You'd think I'd invoke St. David, wouldn't you, if I'm going to invoke a saint at all. But St. David isn't known for his military prowess, and St. George is. Besides (should my fellow-Reformed object), I'm being more literary than religious. 'k?

For What It's Worth

I'm starting to question the value of spending too much time reading websites and watching YouTube vids on ovarian cancer and ovarian cancer survivors/fighters.

Maybe later-- assuming I have to do chemo-- they'll be a comfort and a support to me. But right now, ya know, it really isn't useful for me to be glued, say, to the video made by one woman with Stage 1C who celebrated her five-year "cancer-free" anniversary and two weeks later found out her belly was riddled with tumors (how the hell did they miss that, I wonder?). Or to be reflecting on the implications of how "They're not talking about a cure any more; I'm now just 'in remission.'" Or gawking at another vid a 3C sufferer posted last summer noting that she's now been through six, count 'em, six major surgeries, and consequently wondering what it Means that she hasn't responded to any comments since then . . .

It's not that I'm unwilling to face potential reality. It's more that I'm taking to heart what my Lord Christ meant when He said, "Who by worrying can add a single hour to his life? . . . Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

So right now, my job is to recover fully from last week's surgery. So far, so good, and I've really glad I asked my surgeon about the self-absorbing sutures before I went into the OR. My incision is healing into something I can be going on with for a lot of years to come. I'm not saying I would have been depressed by the sight of staples; I'm pretty good at detaching about these things. But from the pictures they just look more . . . makeshift, somehow.

Then as I recover, in a little over a week, on the 10th, I have my strategy appointment with my surgeon. Yeah, I hope I find out how on earth the stupid tumor came to rupture. But beyond that, I hope to be finding out what my treatment options and strategies might be.

After that, we'll see when the time comes. There is absolutely no point in my getting bent out of shape stressing over things before I truly have to take them on.

Besides, what's the worst thing about losing time to suffering and to undergoing an early death? Besides the suffering itself-- Lord forbid I should minimize that! -- I mean. Is it not the diminished chance to experience and enjoy life? So why and how should I fail to experience and enjoy life while I've got it, especially now when I'm actually feeling rather well (all hail, Vicodin!)?

The other thing is, why should I waste my time fretting over possible death from cancer, when I will have to die of something or other eventually anyway? Why should I let Death petrify me if it should approach wearing that particular mask, as opposed to any other? Is Jesus Christ not my Savior? Has He not borne my sins and my death in His body on the cross? Did He not rise again to give me life eternal? For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain!

But I am convinced that I shall remain in this land of the living for quite awhile longer. There may come a time when reading about survival rates and possible complications and recurrances and so forth will be edifying. But right now, I intend to enjoy the life I have. And if that means watching episodes of Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares on Hulu.com, so be it.

Attitude

Last night I was at a party, a kickoff for the fall season of a choir I sing in. Sitting farther along the table was a woman who's been a member for a couple or three years, and next to her, a young (or at least, to me, young-looking) man I'd never seen before. I asked him if he were one of our new recruits. He merely grunted something to the effect of "I hope not!" and sat there with his arms crossed over his chest. The woman-- I'll call her Emily*-- said, "He's with me." He himself offered no further comment, so I turned my attention and conversation to other people.

After awhile I got to wondering if the young man was feeling left out. So I turned to that side of the table again and said to Emily, "I'm sorry, I didn't ask who this is." I addressed him, "Are you Emily's son?" I knew she has a young daughter at home, but maybe, I thought, she also has a boy who's been at college.

He was silent, but "Noooooo!" Emily replied.

"Your cousin?" I tried again.

"Nooooo!"

"Your younger brother?"

"Wrong again!" said Emily. "This is my husband. He's got gray in his hair, for goodness sake! You think I'm old enough to have a son with gray hair?"

"Oh! I'm sorry! Mea culpa, mea culpa!"

"Well, I did get carded not long ago," the husband finally put in, with some satisfaction.

"I'm sorry, I didn't notice the gray till just now. And my little sister has dark hair, too, and she started going gray when she was nineteen." I tried to make excuse-- but I couldn't offer an explanation. Because as annoyed as my choir friend is by my miscalculation, telling her what threw me off would make things even worse.

For how could I tell her I was confused by her husband's attitude? By his body language that seemed to reflect his thoughts and feelings? It was not so much young, as adolescent. He'd been sitting there the entire time with those arms crossed over his chest and a look on his face as if to say, "You dragged me to this but you can't make me have any fun here!" Even when the singing started and everyone else was easy and relaxed, his look and stance clearly and petulantly declared, "This is stoopid. Dumb grownups! I don't want to be here! I'm booorrrrrred!!"

Maybe after teaching junior high kids this past Wednesday I was on the alert for that attitude. But I didn't expect to find it in a man in his forties.

I had to repeat my mea culpa on Facebook when Emily recounted my faux pas at mistaking her husband for her son. Hopefully she is not terminally offended at me and I shall escape with being known as one who could make such a silly social error. Let the jokes rain down upon me, for I could never tell Emily what actually caused it. It's not my business to be bringing issues about other women's husbands up to them and fomenting trouble between couples.

But oh! how thrown off I was by his physical attitude! And how thrown off others may be by mine! I say I want to be respected and honored as an accomplished adult, that it's annoying when people half my age patronize me and call me "Hon" and treat me like an incompetent child. But does my stance, my physical attitude, reflect competency? Or am I slouching around like an adolescent? Am I sitting like a confident woman, or like a little girl? Do I keep my head down like I don't want to be noticed?

'Fraid so. The photographs don't lie. In fact, that's why I use the pictures I do on this blog and on my Facebook wall. They're two of the rare depictions of me when I'm carrying myself like an adult.

It's blinking hard after a lifetime of bad attitude, but I need to learn to do that all the time. Maybe I'll get it down before I qualify for Social Security . . .

Or is that more bad attitude?

Swept Away

Aye, I have given myself up to the o'erwhelming tide and joined Facebook.

I held out until this past Thursday, when, at the board meeting of a group I'm up to my neck in, it was confirmed that our electronic newsletter was going to be abolished in favor of our group's Facebook presence.

The printed newsletter will still come out, but that's quarterly, only.

So I signed up on Friday, and blew a lot of yesterday and much of today adding my real-world friends as Facebook friends.

And doing up my profile, photos, and so on and so forth.

I'd been reluctant to join, because there you are, exposed for the world to see. I mean, what if I said or posted something awkward and a pastoral search committee saw it?

But I suppose the question answers itself. It'd be easy, sitting alone at my computer in the serene privacy of my study, to think whatever I post on Facebook (or my blogs, for that matter), is a private communication.

Not hardly. Facebook is not my diary, a phone call to a friend, or even a personal letter or email. What goes there is for all the world to see. And if I have to be careful and create a persona that I'm willing to submit for public inspection, so be it. We're not totally, wholly, marvellously, abysmally "ourselves" to anybody but God.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour: Day Twenty-four

Thursday, 29 December, 1988
From Florence to Ravenna and on to Austria

Got up to catch the 6:40 train to Ravenna. I should do so well at home.

We got above the fog for a time on the way there but plunged in again as the train approached the sea. There’s a parable there . . . the clouds can be so oppressive and all encompassing, but if one can find a way of rising higher, one can find the sun still shining there above . . . and once the sun is seen the clouds no longer matter.

Definitely cold and cloudy in Ravenna. Consulted the maps posted in the train station and blundered my way to the tourist office. There they gave me a city map of my own (in French, I discover) and I walked the short distance over to the basilica of San Vitale.

The mosaics there are definitely worth the trip even with the inevitable scaffolding. They’re all in the chancel and the apse (barring those on the floor). The clever Ravennese have installed a coin operated box where you can drop in 200 lire and so turn the spotlights on. A definite improvement over the Uffizi.

The iconography of the ensemble places its emphases on the Old Testament forerunners of Christ, like Abel and Melchezedek (the first sacerdotal figures), and Abraham with the three "angelic" visitors, and the sacrifice of Isaac. There were prophets, too, in the covered up portion, but the theme seemed to be that of the Lamb of God, slain for the sins of the world. And then in the half-dome of the apse you see Christ triumphant with angels. It’s thoroughly glorious.

I noticed something interesting in the basilica. There is a baptistery pool opposite and to one side of the apse. It has water in it and people had thrown in coins. Two Italian girls there did the same. Now, Americans do that, too, throw coins in fountains (though this was not the place for me to do so), but the French do not. So do we follow the Italian tradition in the States?

The tomb of Galla Placidia is in the same compound. There, too, you feed in coins for illumination but here I could take advantage of the presence of a group of Japanese visitors (I wonder what they thought of it all?) whose guide provided the money.

The mosaics here, too, continue the Agnus Dei theme, with the evangelists and the martyrdom of St. Laurence. The pattern work is magnificent. Keble Chapel is nothing to it.

After Galla Placidia (where I had to make myself remember there’re people buried there) I went out the gate and across to what I’m sure was a tourist trap shop for some postcards. I was after all limited on time. Bought an art guide to the Byzantine churches of Ravenna and several postcards. Going through the rack, I noticed that the Sant'Apollinare with the mosaics is the new one,† in town, not the other one in Classae.‡ Well, good thing I didn’t go out there the minute I got into town, even if it is more architecturally significant. Would have run out of time for anything else.

In my spastic Italian I clarified which Sant'Apollinare was which with the non-English speaking proprietress. She seemed to be telling me I’d better hurry, because the church closed at noon (11:45 then). As I was hurriedly getting my cameras and purse slung back over my shoulder, she raised her hands to heaven and exclaimed, "Inghlesi! Mama mia!" Hilarious!

I’m not sure what she was trying to tell me would be closed, but it wasn’t Sant'Apollinare Nuovo. The apse has the usual scaffolding but the rest of it, the nave at least, was open to be seen.

That double row of saints is amazing. All of them (except for St. Laurence, whose robe is gold) are dressed in nearly identical white garments for the men and purple and gold for the women and there are no iconographic identifications. Very considerately, then, the artist worked each saint’s name in mosaic above his or her head. On one side of the nave they carry their palms and their crowns to offer Christ in majesty and, on the other, to the Baby Jesus with the Virgin Mary. The interesting thing is that the female saints all seem to be processing out of the old church in Classae.

Above them and up to the wooden coffered ceiling is more marvellous mosaic work with scenes from the lives of Christ and the saints. I don’t care what Renaissance chauvinists say. The Byzantine artists knew exactly what they were doing.

Visited Dante’s tomb after that . . . funny, but Lukas’s* father was sure that was in Florence. As I contemplated it I noted a sight typical in this country-- a stunningly-groomed, high-class Italian woman in a blonde fur coat buzzing past on a tiny little Vespa scooter. It doesn't fit, but it does, if you know what I mean.

Then I wandered around trying to find something to eat. Odd, that in this perfectly good Italian town I couldn’t find anything that didn’t look like it came out of the vending machines at [the office building where I worked in Kansas City]. Finally located some by-the-slice pizza with some guts to it at a place near the station; bought some and a can of Italian orange soda and hustled over to retrieve my bags and catch the train for Ferrara.

Needn’t have bothered. Stupid train from Rimini was forty minutes late. The Italians are almost as efficient as the Americans where it comes to trains. Then when it came it wasn’t marked, so I had to take it on faith that it was going where I wanted.


FERRARA-- I’ll say this for the Italian railways: At least originating trains start out on time-- regardless. The train from Ferrara to Venice had pulled out ten minutes before the one from Ravenna got in, and that was that till 5:17 PM. So there.

So I used the time seeing if I could get a berth reservation for Vienna tomorrow night from Venice. No, booked full. So I asked about sleeping cars. They were full, too, and it wouldn’t’ve mattered if they hadn’t been because they run to the ghastly sum of 123,000 lire, or around $100. You have got to be kidding. Just wondering, I asked about tonight, too. Same conditions. There was 2nd class seating but they’d make no reservations for that.

Well. Damn.

Found the WC (this one had paper, unlike that in Ravenna), then had a very good cup of hot chocolate at the station bar. Then returned to the waiting room to consider the options. If I'd caught the connection I wanted I would've been in Venice by 4:00. But now, I won't get there till after 7:00.

I'll decide what I want to do when I get there.


VENICE--Was able to sit in 1st class to Venice, thank God. The train from Ferrara was only ten minutes late.

Once I got here, just in case I checked to see if anyone had cancelled their berth. No such luck. But, the man told me, I could get on the train to Vienna an hour before departure (half hour from then) and reserve myself a seat.

I needed to make a decision. Do I stay or do I go? I marched to the front door of the station and stepped outside to peer into the darkness. The fog was so thick you couldn’t even see the sidewalk, let alone the street.†† I made up my mind: If I was going to sleep sitting up all night and come into Wien exhausted, better I should do it now and have another day to recover. I know San Marco has wonderful mosaics of its own but I’d rather see them under better conditions.

So I spent the last change I had on postcards and the time till 7:35 writing them. Then I found myself a seat in a second class compartment and then, hoping nothing would happen to my luggage, went back to the station for some water at least.

In the wonderfully intricate Italian system you have to decide what you want and pay for it at the cashier’s before you approach the counter. I realized it was such a place and got my ticket, then stood at the counter for ages being ignored before I was finally served. Then they have the cheek to tell me the little plastic cup is extra and I have to pay for it at the cashier’s and come back. At that point I could’ve made a famous Italian gesture but it wouldn’t’ve been Christian and it would’ve gotten me into a lot of trouble besides. So I decided to be a barbarian like everyone else here and drink my water out of the bottle.


ON THE VENICE TO VIENNA TRAIN-- I made it back to the train, ten minutes to spare. Thing started up and it came to me to see if the vestigal 1st class car had anything unreserved, now that the lights were on and I could see.

Oh, good, there was room. I settled into one compartment with an Italian family, but moved when a couple came along and asked if I’d change to a single two compartments down and let them have the two seats where I was.

The people in the other 1st class compartment were all young Americans, with one Canadian. Like me, they were all travelling on Eurail passes. We didn’t converse but still shared a mild laugh when the Italian customs man came in at the border. Only two of us had just started to hand him our American passports, but he said in Italian, "Oh, you’re all Australian," and left. One girl hadn’t even gotten hers out yet! It was the same with the passes.

The Austrians, a few minutes later, were a little more efficient. They saw and inspected everybody’s.

Worked on the journal and listened to Beethoven, Berlioz, and Schubert till after the border crossing. I seem to have lost my Extra Fine Straight Osmiroid pen. I had it with me when I went to the WC just after I changed compartments. So someone either pinched it from the car-- or it went to the Bad Place.

Skies clear and starry in Austria. Ist gut.
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†"New" to refer to its rededication to Saint Apollinare in A.D. 856. It was originally dedicated in A.D. 504 to "Christ the Redeemer"-- if an Arian Christ can be said to be a Redeemer at all . . .
‡About four miles southeast of Ravenna.
††The fact that I couldn't see that the Santa Lucia train station in Venice fronts on a canal shows you just how blindingly foggy it was.