Last Post...

The oncology causeway has run its course. I still have pixels and graph paper, and feel like a detour. If you want to take a drive with me...click here.

penultimate post...acknowledgements

A host of creatures was responsible for this oncology fairy tale ending. Their calescence and companionship helped us navigate the metastatic labyrinth...and all of its twists and turns: the diagnosis, the prognosis, the abscission decision, the chemo infusions, and the silicone impressions.

I want to acknowledge the following fencibles, fungibles, tangibles, indelibles, and responsibles...

...her Praetorian Guard, for sweeping into action, and planning a campaign of emails, meals, neighborhood walks and more;
...the shoal of chefs, for sustenance during periods of withering appetite;
...the TRS support group sisters, for the serape and its metonymic embrace, a reassuring survivor's caress;
...her parents and her siblings, and my parents and my siblings;
...her zii, tante, and onkels and my tías and tíos;
...her cousins, and my cousins;
...our children;
...our neighbors;
...those who sent care packages and letters;
...a flutter of friends, close-by;
...a flutter of friends, afar;
...our soccer buddies;
...the Bryn Mawr bunch;
...the Princeton anthropology pod;
...the other former Army spouses;
...the surgeons;
...the oncology nurses;
...the oncologist;
...her nausea antagonist-Anzemet;
...the chemo cocktails;
...the blog posters and the lurkers;
...the hats that kept her warm through the hairless winter....
(You can skip the video promenade and enjoy the poses at your own pace by clicking here.)

We walked...

We walked this afternoon, in the local Relay for Life. Daniela shed her bandana and held her head up high, as she along with other survivors walked the first lap. We joined her for the second lap around the track, as others cheered. Click here to keep pace with the images.

...chirurgical cleavage...

Yesterday, she snuck back into Georgetown for a post-op double decker. The plastic surgeon was tickled by the statuesque silicone. (He asked Daniela to schedule a follow-up in three fortnights time, in order to discuss the option of garnishing each scoop with a simulated berry.) The surgical oncologist also sought sight of the spheres. She surveyed satisfactorily, and smiled.

Last week's surgical sequel was actually a double-feature, the surgical oncologist had stepped in to shave a bit of lipid frosting located underneath the dermis (the upper-right quadrant, right scoop), as an added precaution...searching for any stray breast cancer stem-cells...missed by the bilateral mastectomy.

Operating room gossip hinted of a sweet spat between the surgeons. The plastic surgeon second-guessed the largesse...of the shaving sample. The surgical oncologist, perhaps surmised he should stick to the silicone. In the end, these are just rumors, and the surgeons are still friends...their camaraderie a complicated complex of the convex.

Oh...back to the sample, that fatty post-op hors d' oeuvre served up from the pathology parlor. It was cancer-free. So I drew her with delight...a damsel in escapist dress.

Memorial Day Melee and more...

Her freshly-brewed mug of Irish Breakfast tea, half-full, toppled over this morning. The tablecloth soaked up most of the teaine. While flipping homemade pancakes on the griddle, I heard the lament. Ohhh...sheise! Keeeeennnn, can you pass me a sponge? Along with the sponge, I offered up a serving of "don't worry...so you knocked over your tea mug...." Then came her qualifier, part surrealism, part comedy stand-up routine: I didn't knock it over with my hand; I was just getting up from the table...and I can't feel them; I...I knocked it over with my new boob. After I assisted in sweeping up the tea tide, I couldn't help but imagine the warning label captions for this one. (I will spare you those rants.)

In the end, the silicone was unscathed and un-scalded. However, I did notice that the tea mug was bumped a good ten inches. Her new silicone took the last sushi outing a bit too seriously, perhaps, and shape shifted into...Sumo silicone?

Bosom brawl and all, we had a fun holiday weekend. Here are a few images of family gatherings, friendly cookouts and motorcycles roaring into town along Interstate 66, on Sunday for the annual Rolling Thunder rally. (Click here for the curbside view.)

Halogen (Blue) Headlights

She unveiled at approximately 1730 hrs shedding the complimentary surgical brazier and pillow-sized gauze pads. Her review was delicately deferred...accented by aping glances in the mirror. She wasn't sure.... (I was impressed by the symmetry and shape.) She complained, about lift and slope. I told her she just needed to make their acquaintance, perhaps even take them out for a spin, sushi perhaps. She smiled, so we did.

Hours later, she is asleep and I'm typing...still in awe at the prowess of those plastic surgeons. And, I am still processing Daniela's reluctance to celebrate her silicone. She seems indignant, unwilling to compartmentalize the silicone end game from its genealogy.

Here are seven images, life with the silicone seedlings.... (As usual, you can click here and walk through the synthetic garden at your own pace.)

Back Home... (Sounds of Silicone II)

19:14 hrs, we're back home. Daniela has faded away, resting in a deep operatic sleep...induced by a Percocet aria. She is JP drain-free, and will probably be walking around the house tomorrow, unfettered.

A few feet away, I'm staring at the second part of the surgical team's playlist, which was hand delivered to me in the post-operative recovery lounge...a few hours ago. The surgical team closed to an eclectic serenade...Metallica's Hero of the Day, Depeche Mode's Dream On, and Stratovarius' Papillon.

The surgical aperture was immersed in a melody both literal and agricultural. The opening tune was Róisín Murphy's Sow into You. Indeed, silicone seeds sown into her. An enchanting and metaphoric melody by Stratovarius (a 90's Metal band from Finland) ended the show. Papillon, a 1973 movie about an escape from an island prison. Papillon, Gallic utterance for butterfly...the final and most ornamental stage in the Lepidopteran lifecycle.

I glance over at her, a final inspection before taking a nap. Her eyelids flutter. Her oncology migration is almost complete.

In Surgery... (The Sounds of Silicone)

After a two-hour delay, which included multiple pre-briefings with elements of the surgical team, Daniela was escorted into the operating room. The surgeons began to labor at 13:55 hrs. Before her scheduled dance with the anesthesia, she told me she was bored. She made funny faces. Here is my favorite funny face from earlier today.

While I blog, the surgical team boogies. During the pre-op pre-briefings, I overheard the residents talking about the anticipated soundtrack. So, I asked a nurse to document the tracks. Dr. Cocilovo came by the waiting area to let me know that her part of the procedure went well. She also handed me part of the playlist. The first four tracks are by Róisín Murphy, an Irish voice calibrated to pop-jazz-electronica. The title of the first song speaks volumes about the surgical team's sense of duty. Tracks 1,2,3,4 are...Sow into You, Ruby Blue, Checkin' on me, Overpowered. Track five shifted to a different artist...the group Red Hot Chili Peppers...and their track My Friends.

It is a few minutes past 15:00 hrs. They should be done soon. If you are in the mood for a surgical melody...click on the video: Róisín Murphy's Sow into You. Those plastic surgeons are so hip.

anticoagulant author-ity...

Yesterday morning, she ventured alone back into the phlebotomy labyrinth...the requisite pre-surgery bloodletting. I called her during the day, at noon, and asked about the labyrinth. I interrupted her lunch at The Italian Store, an Arlington eatery. "Everything was fine," she exhaled between bites of antipasto.

Hours after the excursion she punctuated her pillow talk. "Wrote something...while I was waiting at Georgetown." I expected her to reach for a journal. Instead, Daniela skipped a few steps to her office and returned with a scrap of paper...a receipt for purchases made at Heidelberg Pastry Shoppe. 3"x 7" is an unusual size for stationery. I rotated the receipt and read.

The oncology tax is anything but regressive. Each transaction within the metastasis experience is also a tariff. Yesterday's currency was hemoglobin-based. She paid, as she has before. However, this time she did not dissolve herself in the collection spectacle. Her anthropological sensibilities surfaced and she stepped outside of the labyrinth...drawing emotions and ink atop an ounce of cellulose...basking in a re-emergent and authorial confidence. Her penmanship managed to trace, among other emotions and ideas, an outline of her old self.

(Click on the picture to peer at her prose.)

R2SiO TV

My afferent affines have dispersed...reversing their flow and radiating outward from our residential epicenter. They molted into efferent coordinates. Daniela's father and brother are back in the Big Easy enjoying a bignet or two. Her mother is nestled in Nederland. And Steffi is weighing in at a Buddhist writing seminar in California...drafting Dharmas amidst scribbling Sanghas.

Our home theater emits more routine signals, but only for a few more days. The much anticipated surgical sequel debuts Wednesday morning at 11:00, a four-hour mini-series of sorts...a sixty to ninety-minute broadcast at its core, if you edit out the commercial breaks. So I am told.

Consanguinity Comics presents...

in association with Monocle Man Productions and Crowded House Entertainment, a graphic layout of recent experiences....  (You can click on each page to zoom in and amplify the captions.)

Island Intermission...

April 19th, my grandmother...Carmen Rovira Calimano (Z"L) died. She was 93 when she closed her eyes for the last time...a remarkable life, a matriarch mourned. She lived in Richmond, Virginia these past few years, an uncomfortable expatriate. The funeral was scheduled for April 25th in her hometown of Guayama, Puerto Rico.

I asked Daniela if she wanted to come with me in order to celebrate my grandmother's life...to revisit my childhood landscapes...to escape from the oncology matrix for a few days.

She agreed. So we packed up.

We returned yesterday, refreshed...the sounds of the waves still ringing in our ears. Caribbean breezes and canvas hammocks...a combination of refreshing curative sensations, made her smile these past few days. Tropical fruits, island cuisine, and seascapes all flavored her truancy experience. We all enjoyed our time away....

You are welcome to vicariously vacation. (Click here to soak your feet up close...in larger-sized waves of pictures.)

...fidentia ex machina

Today, we motored back into Georgetown for a quick pit stop, a necessary tune-up in the lengthy oncology Grand Prix. The crew chief and lead mechanic today was Dr. Cocilovo, Daniela's surgical oncologist. Dr. Cocilovo cleared Daniela, and pronounced her fit to resume the rally. The date for the reconstructive surgery will be sometime in mid or late May. This race is lengthy. The terrain is uncharted. In order to ensure optimal performance over time, her mechanics have laid out a course of diagnostic letters...MRIs, CAT scans, CBCs, among others.

Daniela enjoyed today's ride. Dr. Cocilovo's bedside manner and candor infused Daniela with a renewed sense of adventure. She smiled and soaked up the sun on the way home. Shedding her customary cover, she became a cranial convertible. Sunglasses domesticated the springtime sunshine as she shifted gears....

Hypochondriasis Hesitation

Have you had any bone pain? Seven syllables strung together, seemingly innocuous incipiency. During our last visit to the oncologist, this was the resident physician's opening line. Suddenly, she is suspicious. Sometimes, she is silent.

I'm tired, she confesses.... A few minutes later, I think I have bone pain, she authoritatively serves up. Seconds later, How do I know if it's bone pain? Maybe I just need a new pair of shoes? This interplay of assertiveness and self-doubt...of diagnosis and indecision is a curious art form of hers...sculpted abstractions. When she dresses her exhaustion in language, she also veils other distresses...affright at the prospect of metastasis in the marrow.

A few minutes ago she chiseled again, I have bone pain...or maybe I don't. My attempt to contain the smirk was amateurish...an awkward silence. So I interrupted, A paranoid hypochondriac...well, you always were an overachiever.  She laughed. Her anxiety temporarily derailed.

As I type these last few sentences...she sleeps restfully. Now it is my turn to worry.

The Oracle at Georgetown...

Today we were granted an audience with the oncology priestess presiding over the Oracle at Georgetown. Daniela came in search of prophecy. She wanted assurances.... What can I do to prevent a recurrence? Statistically, what is the recurrence rate for someone with my profile? There were more questions, but they were variations on the same theme. Our oncology priestess spoke intelligibly. Numbers, statistics, percentages, procedures and other vapors swirled around us. A few minutes later, Daniela realized the Oracle was blind to her anxieties. The Oracle could not guarantee that her future would be cancer-free. With a box of tissues and a warm embrace, the oncology priestess tried to restore her faith. We will return to the Oracle three months from today. Maybe, Daniela will ask again...

Here your will find the day's divinations, parcelled out in pixelated visions...

Hair Haiku III & IV...

Velvet sheaths sparkle...
Lanugo fiber optics;
Chinese Gooseberry.


Wooden shaman chants...
Harvesting supplications.
Does Ceres hear her?

Supercilium Sketch

She draws herself each day. I have watched the morning routine for the past week. Eyebrow pencil in hand, she diagrams and details, completing the illusion. The outer arches of her eyebrows, culled by the cumulative effects of chemotherapy, have faded. "Does it look like a smudge?" she frowns, while spreading the pigmented plaster. "Not at all," I palter...smiling...moving towards her reflection in the mirror.

Earlier this evening, I tried to draw her. A #2 pencil pawed at the graph paper completing another illusion. My rustic rendition bore some resemblance. The eyebrows--ah, those I drafted last...slow deliberate etchings, each line a graphite incantation shrieking across the page...hoping to awaken her hibernating follicles.

Dispensing Dispositions...

Her new mood machine vends the latest vagaries. These outlooks have been organically crafted...replacements for the spent chemo caprices. (As you can appreciate, this appliance does not accept cytotoxic coinage. And, I'm glad...because we ran out.) Today, I pushed all her buttons at once, and she laughed.

Rites de Passage...

The daily drift of junk mail rested on the coffee table. Near the pesky paper pyramid, stood a smaller stack of two library books, two monographs memorializing particular experiences of life after chemo...for breast cancer cancer survivors. I glanced at the covers, and read the commentaries on the back cover. I opened the red softcover volume and peeked inside...a list stared back at me, a list of how to celebrate the end of your treatments. Walk on a beach, and contemplate the eternal by staring at the oceanic horizon. Place all of your empty pill vials on your driveway and run them over with your car. Host a gathering, ask your friends to bring tulip bulbs, and plant them as symbol of a hopeful future. The suggestions ranged from exalting the endless, to indulging the whimsical, to a botanic domestication of uncertainty. A few sentences down the page cautioned...it may take several weeks after your last chemo treatment to feel rejuvenated. The caveat is accurate.

Her circadian rhythms are still calibrated by the cytotoxic cocktail delivered almost a week ago. The usual side effects, sensing their imminent eviction, impose themselves upon the biological theater...a festive and most unwelcome curtain call. Nausea...takes a few too many bows and lingers on the stage for the past few days. Irritability and exhaustion...duel each other in an attempt to seize a few rays of the remaining limelight. Her follow-up appointment in a week or two will complete this performance...chemo closure to the tune of an oncologist's applause. No refunds allowed.

While she devoured her new library acquisitions, I dined on a different genre of recitation. Eduardo Galeano's Walking Words (1995) served up a satisfying safe harbor of fiction. Thumbing through the dog-eared pages, I reacquainted myself with traces I had left behind. One of my favorites recounts how a man "...searches in vain for the word that slipped away as he was about to say it. It was right on the tip of his tongue. Where did it go?" Galeano sews up the playful prose with a few questions. "Is there a place for all the words that don't want to stay? A kingdom of lost words? These words that escape, were do they lie in wait?"

I dissolve myself in different riddles and dwell on the currency of chemotherapy-induced irritability...a coinage minted from toxins and stamped with abrading phrases. Fortunately, this legal (un)tender speech lost much of its value with repetition...a devaluation of meaning...hyperinflation of a different sort. What will I do with all this worthless wordage? Is there a space for all the words that shouldn't have been said? What will be my ceremony to mark the transition into this post-chemo era? Walk on the beach and bury my journal in the sand? Place it on the driveway and run it over with the car? Plant it in the garden, and imagine a tree bearing rant-flavored fruit? I abhor the randomness of chemo-induced irritability...its artificiality...its poisonous prose born from the body's reflex to erupt, eradicate and expel the toxic elixir. Irritability infused by cytotoxins is indecipherable. Is there a ritual space for all the events that needn't be exalted? An ethnography of lost rituals? These rituals that abate, where do they lie inchoate?

The Great Chemo Escape...infusion number iv

A few years ago, Daniela introduced me to a new comic book superhero. She handed me a copy of Michael Chabon's novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000). "You'll like it," she endorsed. I liked the novel. And, I liked the comic books and comic book anthologies, The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist that followed the novel. The Escapist, in summary, is a master of locks, chains, ropes, knots, ties, fastenings, and fetters of all kinds. He champions the League of the Golden Key--a secret and ancient society dedicated to the principles of liberation and freedom, from oppression and slavery, physical or psychological. Following the Manichean motifs of many comic book story lines, the Escapist is constantly battling the agents of the Iron Chain, a mysterious criminal network machinating and plotting to limit freedom and curtail liberty throughout the globe. But I warn you, don't dismiss the Escapist's escapades. The comic books are replete with nuance, and self-effacingly blur the boundaries between the idealized constructions of both freedom and bondage.

Since the Escapist managed to extricate himself from Chabon's novel, and resides in a new series of comic book anthologies, I thought he may just be able to decamp once more and redeploy his skills in the Chemoscape. We were both astounded as he leapt from the page and became our accomplice in the great chemo escape.

In order to retreat into this recital of rescue and release, dissolve yourself in the slideshow. Or, if your disappearance requires a larger stage, click here, to slip into the super-sized spiel.

fiori di fuori...e gocce dell'acqua

Today it rained for most of the afternoon, an even-tempered shower...the kind you can comfortably walk in, but not for too long. I returned home and noticed that the two cherry blossom trees in our front yard had started to flower. The rain was relenting a bit and had resigned itself to intermittent sprinkles. I decided to take a closer look at the droplets deposited on the cherry blossoms.

A day and a half away, another rain awaits...a more toxic and temperamental drip...IV number IV...mimetic finality. Today's water droplets also held an intoxicating quality. However, theirs was more poetic, less poisonous. Swarming around and upon the fragile flowers these rain drops had managed to hold other reflections hostage.

Here are the images in movie format. (If your glances need to be more absorbing...click here to view the images in an enlarged slideshow format with captions.)

Chemoddity Fetishism...

Chemoddity Fetishism: 1) The state wherein social relations are transformed into apparently objective relationships between medical treatments and metastasis; 2) An illusion arising from the central role that privatized medicine plays in the convalescing social process; 3) an irrational idolization or visceral veneration...of chemotherapy treatments. (Sentence Usage: The remedial nature of medical treatments is complicated by the abstraction of chemoddities, or chemoddity fetishism.)

Before falling asleep last night, I was waxing enthusiasm over the final infusion only a few days away. In my conversation with Daniela, I anticipated an eagerness for closure, but instead was confounded by her comments. Her words tempered my eagerness. "After this last treatment, I'm going to have a crisis of faith," she disclosed. "...faith in what?" I pried. Her response amazed me: "Faith in chemotherapy... right now, I know that there is something working to stop cancer. After chemotherapy...what happens? We just wait." Her comments revealed a re-imagined chemotherapy. Her concerns transformed the treatment of toxic infusions into more abstract constructions, chemotherapy as...protector, insurance, safeguard, oasis, haven, refuge, sanctuary and shelter. (Pale shelter, literally.) Instead of an escape from chemotherapy, she wanted to escape into it. Avant-garde images began to drip from my imagination...the plastic bag of curative toxins syphoning her upwards through the translucent tubing, a corrupted version of the genie in a bottle...self-exiled into the toxic elixir...the comforts of amniotic fluid replaced by the praetorian potions of Taxotere and Cytoxan...a disturbing notion of insulating toxicity.

Daniela's anxiety about the future had crafted a reality part magical realism, part medical realism...an idealized remission nurtured by the intersection of infinity and chemotherapy. Some philosophers and social scientists have qualified reality as a social construction. Daniela had re-qualified it as a septic construction. As I meditated, I did not question her comments...the incarcerated characterization of herself within this constructed reality. I looked at her and smiled. I kissed her goodnight and asked myself a simple question.... How do I plan her escape?

Spiral Spells

Chemotherapy is fertile terrain for mood spirals. And, spirals have an irresistible seductive savor. I need to believe that there is a symmetry, an equation of aesthetics, that shapes or sculpts what sometimes appear to be random logarithms of irritation, exhaustion, introspection, anxiety, and apprehension. Contemplating this intersection of geometry and emotion provides a refuge from the arbitrariness.
The past six days have been sprinkled with spiraling sequences. Spiraling upwards or downwards, these motions of particular mind-sets have choreographed many enchanting moments. For instance, I will think twice before assessing my ability to stack a dishwasher as anything other than inadequate. Or, I will never underestimate the effects of Gabriela's contact lens, which decided to run away one day while she played in the park, for such a mishap had the ability to summon a spectral Shakespearean sermon. Plotting such moments, in a grid lined with hindsight, sketches many a smile. I smile, even when the verbalized frustration spirals around me. One more infusion awaits. I smile knowing that the chemotherapy spell will soon be broken.

In the meantime, I capture other species of spiral...ones that frame empty spaces...bursting with absence...shrouded in silence. Here is one I found today while looking up, in a federal government building, of all places.

Awedly Penned vs. Oddly Pinned

Admiration is both the title and the first word in an essay that Gabriela recently wrote in school. During a scheduled and routine conference today, Gabriela's teacher shared with us this unexpected expression of wonderment. Here is the essay:


Ari's preferred mode of narration is a bit more abstract. He often sits at the computer and crafts short poems, and once in a while he engages in mesmerizing displays of performance art. A few evenings ago, while tidying up the kitchen, I turned around and found myself face to face with a provocative portrayal...a curious chronicle of Ari's relationship with Daniela. He too was providing support, literally and in his own way. Upper incisors anchored in the retral portion of the styrofoam neck...lower incisors delicately balancing the bottom of the bust, he just stood there. I asked him to hold the pose, and quickly woke the camera napping on the dinning room table. Here is the exposition:

Cámara Lúcida...Haikus

Aporetic glance.
Camera rolls and barters,
Auras Blue and Red.


At rest, fatigue fades.
Political fevers rise;
Illumination.

[punctum]

Hypearreality...(the 3rd infusion)

Hy^pearreality (definition): 1. a reality entirely mediated by victual perceptions, especially obstical illusions; 2. an obst-ruse. (Sentence usage/Context:) Have you seen the new Hypearreality show on Chemo TV...the culinary contest where oncology chefs compete to poach the best tasting styrofoam pear? Mmmm...it's tasteless.
Last week, the wax museum pallor masked her face. In the mirror...reflections...echoed the fragmented selves, chemo split personalities of a sort. After she hosted the haunting complexion for a few days, I decided to recycle the artificiality. Today we escorted a pair of fake pears, and some other props, into the Chemoscape in the hopes of infusing the toxins, defanging the side-effects. These pulp-less pears, imitations designed to improve reality, were the most succulent of amulets. Our reliance on simulation was a necessary alchemy, a counter-alchemy to the oncological side-show. And it worked. We re-enchanted our experience...re-appropriating our time in the infusion coliseum. We laughed. Her smile returned.

You won't need a ticket to explore the carnival of authentic fakery, just click here and enjoy the real thing at your own pace....beware the styrofoam pears. They are tempting.

Sad Vibrations...

Yesterday Daniela was steeped in a sorrowful mood. Despite holding a procession of steaming tea mugs throughout the day, her hands were cold. Her feet were cold, and she shivered...a parfait in alternating layers of silk, cotton, and fleece. The fever-less trembling was unsettling. Sometime during the night, the tremors subsided and she awoke in a more balanced state of equilibrium.

While checking her email, later in the morning, she stood transfixed...gazing at the screen of her laptop. This particular email landed in her inbox at 9:39 am today...mourning the passing of a recent friend (Z''L) yesterday, a survivor who had been re-diagnosed. Daniela's demeanor oscillated between stillness and sobbing for the rest of the morning.

Later in the day, Daniela ventured again into Georgetown, another bloodletting, and a few hours waiting for the results. Her white blood cell demographics were a healthy 11.7, so the quaking and quivering were unrelated to sepsis.

Daniela's recent initiation into this community of shared experience...a localized nexus of breast cancer survivors has introduced her to both particular souls and particular stories, as well as tethered her to a cooperative sentiment. She thrives as part of this group. Today, she also mourns as part of this group. And, like innumerable matrices and associations whose constituent elements and emotions are closely linked and identified with the experience of survivorship, the departure of a member...ripples with great intensity through their social fabric, and even rips through more tangible forms.

Vitruvian Vinifera...

Today's agenda included a brief trip over the river, a scheduled visit with her plastic surgeon, and some weekly blood work at the lab.

The flow of fluids was supposed to follow a simple exchange: saline in...at the plastic surgeon's, to balance bosomy symmetries; claret out...at the phlebotomist's, to peruse platelet symmetries. Dr. Nahabedian told her that her expansion was complete...so no more need for saline. The final (outpatient) reconstructive surgery should be scheduled for the last week in April.

After enduring the surgical gaze, we meandered through the labyrinth and found our way to the lab for the required weekly blood work, necessary in order to monitor the white blood cell demographics. These donations to the phlebotomy vineyard avoid the vines running down her arm. Instead, the trained venipuncturist focused on the pulpy fruit at her fingertips. Once again, my camera intruded upon another set of symmetries, pixelated verities of a recent vintage.

Here is the series of images in slideshow presentation. If you would like a closer experience, a visual tasting if you will, de-cork and click here to view the images and read the captions at your own pace.



Salud, Amor, y Tiempo Para Disfrutarlo...[a common Spanish toast I often heard as a child]

Side Effects...

Sketching Sanity...
Pair of Haikus...

Prickly pear clamor.
Chemotherapy mood reigns.
Her words soak me dry.

Pear as antidote,
Magritte as muse, I ink fruit.
Dulcet drips; moods sift.

Metaphor, Metastasis, and Memory

Monday morning, I led the kids in an excursion to the fantasy world of Fluorides, amalgams and Panorex portraits. Shortly after our arrival in the waiting area, Gabriela's "tween" intrigue seized upon both copies of People magazine a few feet away. Their wrinkled cover pages were a stark contrast to the airbrushed youthfulness framing the facade of the pop star de jour. As Gabi turned the pages, I noticed two images within a particular array...Melissa Etheridge, the pop/rock star, and Robin Roberts, the Good Morning America news anchor. Both of the photographs captured their curvy crania in an unexpected state of undress, conspicuous connotations of their encounters with the chemotherapeutic. I smiled at the assertive display of these alopecic moments. (Gabi commented in a matter-of-fact manner, "Oh, they must have breast cancer too.")

I turned back to the graphic novel I had carted with me, and continued reading an alternative tale from Tangent Comics (1997), the Joker re-imagined as female anti-villain and chaotic do-gooder. The last page of this issue features her dark silhouette in black, staring at the ground. The silhouette is unmistakably hairless. The story's ending had revealed that this anti-villain was the daughter of survivors, survivors of a nuclear geo-political accident, her anti-villain persona a vehicle inextricably bound by multiple undercover identities...each with its own mask and wig. After the caries-detection amusement ride ended, I paid the bill and made appointments for the next dental fair in August.

Throughout the day, I kept dwelling upon the choices Daniela has made, from her patient tolerance of my C.B.D. (Compulsive Blogging Disorder) to her decision to forgo the faux filaments stranded atop the Styrofoam perch. I started to compile mental notes on the range and manner with which some women displayed, exhibited, exalted, sequestered, veiled, narrated, muted and even berated these metastatic moments in their lives, a vast expanse of experience.


Susan Sontag, one of my favorite writers, memorialized her first metastatic moments with Illness as Metaphor (1978). She qualifies her enchanting rant and tells the readers of her introductory page that she wants to describe, not what it is really like to "emigrate to the kingdom of the ill and live there, but rather the punitive and sentimental fantasies concocted about that situation." She begins her narrative with these two indelible phrases, among others.

• Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and the kingdom of the sick [...] sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.

• My point is that illness is not a metaphor [...] and that the healthiest [...] way of being ill [...] is one purified of, most resistant to, metaphoric thinking.

I love (re)reading this book. And I enjoy it every time despite my issues with her pronouncement to inoculate against metaphor. My issue with her idea of metaphoric quarantine is that those afflicted are literally creatures of metaphor...beings that communicate in language (at its core a metaphoric system). We cannot escape the gravity of metaphoric thinking. We are drawn to metaphors, and sometimes are drawn by other metaphors. We are also capable of drawing our own...in reply, in retribution, and in reciprocity, sketching our way through utterances and inheritance, language and culture.

At the end of the day, I find myself summoning that dark silhouette in the graphic novel, a powerful outline of hidden narratives. I know of a few survivors that choose not to tell their story or instead choose to ration it’s telling. Perhaps, they fear the encounter with what Sontag so poetically labeled "punitive and sentimental fantasies." Perhaps, they fear being pitied.

I go back to Sontag's words and (re)read the introduction. I go back to the comic book and (re)read the ending. Today's interplay of text and image has left me intrigued...by how metastatic moments and their experiences are minted and the currency of that experience is exchanged, or not. I am enticed by this marketplace of memories, its rules, its boundaries, its ability to elicit extraordinary encounters, as well as its ability to conjure illicit fears of certain social transactions. I wonder how she (both the literary critic and the comic book character) would have reacted to my syncretism of artifice and admiration...curiosity and consumption.

Coeur-nucopia....

This morning we stumbled upon (approximately) 2,050 cubic inches of affection nestled upon our doorstep...a Valentine bouillabaisse steaming with greeting cards, lollipops, chocolates, CD's, flower bulbs, and more. One of our friends had masterfully brewed this fusion of geography, geometery, and kinship. As we read a few of the cards, my mind meandered in an attempt to trace this greeting card spice route: Hawaii, Arizona, Michigan, Louisiana, North Carolina, New Jersey, Puerto Rico, Spain, Italy, Germany, Holland, California, Washington (State), Maryland, Virgina, and a few more.

I don't know how long this box, and its contents, sat still before they arrived this morning. Harnessing all of that sentiment was a feat indeed. When Daniela opened the box, the avalanche of kinetic energy had quiet an effect, on both of us. The layers of emotional tension gave way, breaching the surface with a mixture of brine and breath.

To all of you who flavored this experience and the ones that plated the dish...Thank You!

Hair Haiku II

Follicle Harvest...

Ballet in Steel Symmetry,

Pas de Deux; Skin Glows.

Saloon Solid(ARI)ty...

A few nights ago, during dinner, a scarf-less Daniela and I were planning for the next day. So, I offered to take the kids somewhere Saturday morning and give Daniela some free time. "You can get some work done, and we will all stay out of your hair," I tendered. My offering, framed by an involuntary metaphor reflex, caught Ari's attention. "But Mama doesn't have any hair," he deconstructed with a sheepish frown. We all laughed, and Ari relaxed. Presumably, Daniela's crew cut coiffure has made a deep impression. Ari's comment, an unexpected reification of the literal, gave me pause. I was curious, and wondered if his comment was just a fraction of more formidable fears.

Yesterday afternoon, we both purchased the finest blue bubble gum cigars we could find. In the evening, we pocketed our bubble gum cigars and headed for the local pub, The Lost Dog Cafe. We sat at the bar. Ari ordered a tall pint of Root Beer Soda, on tap of course. I ordered a pint of pale ale. We trafficked in tall tales, and delved into the drama of his seven-year-old world. During our talk, he mentioned that Daniela looks "pretty good" without her hair. We toasted to the day when it grows back. Cheers!

(Le Mon)de Graphique...Chemo Infusion No. 2

The Chemotherapy cruise has a well-known side-effect, nausea. Like all good cruise lines, Taxotere and Cytoxan don't disappoint when it comes to programming. The nausea is tolerable with scheduled doses of powerful pharmaco-wizardry such as Anzemet.

Passengers must not relax...the next activity awaits....ahhh, the Midnight Metallic Buffet. Imagine a lozenge made of pure iron, or a milkshake of iron filings. Imagine your palate's reaction, epicurean dissonance manifest in pilomotor reflex...a goose bump paté dotting the dermis. She tells me that even water has an alloy aftertaste, an unenviable mineral bouquet. Her grimace is a gesture equal parts disbelief and disappointment. (Her taste buds do eventually regain their senses, a week or so after the infusion.)

Lemons, or more accurately lemon flavorings, are a powerful citric countermeasure. Lemon drops taste great. Lemon flavored water quenches her thirst. I'm not sure why these particular papillae are spared by the chemotherapeutic assault on taste. (I recall reading comic books decades ago and one of my favorites was Green Lantern, Hal Jordan. His ring, was the most powerful force a young boy could read about; however, it was unable to affect anything yellow. Yellow escaped then, and it seems to escape now.) In order to ward off the zesty zinc aftertaste, I brought a lemon to the infusion party, my citrus version of a voodoo amulet. The lemon won't restore her sense of taste, but it did make our time at the hospital more palatable. Daniela was a great sport, as was her friend Petra. They tolerated my camera, and even joined in the lemon-play.

Here are the pictures. As usual, if you would like to read the captions or view the images at your own pace, click here.



Lemon Coda: Our favorite nurse at the Infusion Coliseum is Julie, who lost a recent Super Bowl bet with her boyfriend. (She is a New England Patriots Fan, while Mike is a New York Giants fan.) She had to attire herself in this t-shirt toga, a made-to-order outfit courtesy of Mike. She sported it well, all in good taste. Here is her smile along with the Patriots' season record.

Hair Haiku...

Capelli rain storm,
Clippers crop carefully; sigh.
Scarf and skin dance; breathe.

Cilium Delirium...

While waking up this morning, Daniela's red pillow cover stared back at me, a flannel softness punctuated by cilial strands. I kept quiet. A few minutes later, she noticed too, composedly commenting, "I want to go get a wig today."

By midday, Daniela, Ari, Gabriela, my schwiegermutter, Charlotte, and I were on our way to Old Town Alexandria, our destination...Crown Wigs, an address on the 700 block of King St. I brought my camera along hoping to conceal both my dispassion for wigs and my perceptions of the synthetic garden of acrylic willows. I imagined the styrofoam catacombs that awaited as we coasted along the Potomac river on the George Washington Parkway towards Alexandria. I kept quiet and drove.

In the end, my apprehensions about the wig store were mostly misplaced. We enjoyed our visit, especially Gabriela. (Ari was bored most of the time, and sat in protest surrounded by solemn stares similar to his own.) Here is the edited pictorial narrative.


If you would like to read the captions at your own pace, click here.

After riding around the styrofoam carousel, we strolled down King St. darting in and out of the quaint storefronts. Tourists in our own backyard, for an afternoon--a refreshing virtual vacation. Tonight, the wig-acquisition sits atop the dresser, transplanted temporarily. A few hours ago, Daniela tried it on. I watched cautiously.... "I hate wigs," she lectured her reflection in the mirror.

41...XLI...101001

41 is, among other things: the 13th smallest prime number; the number of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's last symphony; the international dialing direct code for Switzerland; the sum of two squares (4² + 5²), the sum of the first six prime numbers, and also the sum of three prime numbers (11+13+17); and the title of a song by the Dave Mathews Band.

Today is Daniela's Birthday. She is, among many other things, 41.

Post Scriptum:

Driving home from work...expecting Sinéad O'Connor, I was greeted at the door by Pat Benatar. Xuxa, Daniela's hairdresser, had vetoed the close crop in favor of 80's nostalgia. (The interim coiffure was complimentary, as was the open invitation for a date with the clippers.) Tudo Bem! De qualquer maneira, olhará bonita.