Hey everyone! How ya’ll doin? I’m in a fairly good mood today! For one thing, a famous author (who herein shall remain unnamed) just began a paying subscription on my other Substack, “Sincere American Writing.” Wow, right???! Epic. I feel beyond honored. Let this be a lesson to you all: This is a message from God that you should all support me financially so I can write exclusively fulltime. (Totally kidding. Well not really. Kind of. Not kidding at all, actually. Ok I’m dead serious.)
Currently I am continuing to grow both my Stacks and I’m getting more free and paying subs all the time. My goal is for sure to do Substack solely and fulltime. That’ll happen over time. But if you DO feel like paying, I’d hugely, greatly appreciate it! The more money I make from Substack, the more time I can devote to the writing and creating, giving you the best, most in-depth product possible J
Three things are on my mind right now: Paul Gauguin (the famous 19th century French painter); my father’s latest cancer update; and my girlfriend’s reading of my mother’s autobiographical “novel.”
Let’s start OUT of order because…why the heck not? My dad’s cancer. Well, as I’ve said recently he has the new brain tumor and the slowly-growing lung tumor. We’re still waiting to talk to the ONE Melanoma-specialist in the state who’s willing to do clinical trials with my father; everyone else (understandably!) is scared off by my dad’s previous gnarly response a la Myasthenia Gravis resulting from immunotherapy. So once that doctor returns from a vacation in Italy (must be nice), we’ll know more there.
Meanwhile my dad was supposed, last week, to pick up an oral low-dose chemo which would hopefully stem the growth of the cancer in his lungs. Yet that chemo did not arrive at CVS. Complications arose. Long (boring) story. My dad’s cough, of course, continues to worsen considerably. He’s sleeping a lot. Low-energy. Back to what he was like during the MG 6-8 months ago. He’s still swallowing at about a 40% level (meaning he can swallow food but slowly and in small amounts, and some of it still goes into his lungs, which means we have to be very careful about the amounts and speed.) His eyes are so-so. His speech is normal, more or less. He is hunched a little, and red-faced, and looks a little haggard and old. (The man IS 77, I know, but we’re talking about a guy who was out playing pickleball and working fulltime and up walking the dogs at 6am one year ago.)
So anyway, this morning I picked my folks up at 9:30 in my father’s Nissan Leaf (all-electric, which I am currently driving since A. I sold my car while in NYC; and B. my dad can’t drive anymore) for his 10am appointment with his oncologist, a mid-forties, fast-talking Jewish doctor with a bent for wry humor and surly seriousness, which he plasters on back-to-back for dramatic effect.
The appointment was brief: Perhaps 15 minutes. Long story short: The oncologist isn’t too worried about the clinical trials or the not-yet-consumed chemo, but at the same time he realizes we need to move NOW. Dad’s cancer is growing. The doctor assured us he’d make the calls and we’d move forward. He plans to touch base with the specialist in Santa Monica ASAP. We left, the three of us, half smiling, half anxious, wondering how much of what the oncologist said was bullshit to keep us in high spirits.