We’ll start with the big news: McGill’s Arts Professors Union (AMPFA) are now officially certified as a bargaining unit. A little over a year after our first signed card, we have a union! I’m not naive about what will be involved in the bargaining process, but given admin’s systematic turn to “consultation” and the dysfunction …
Continue reading “Cancer Crawl 16 Nov 2024: A Union, Going Out, Staying In, Etc.”
I hate Martin Heidegger but the one quote of his that I allow myself is as follows: “there is no such thing as an equipment”. (from Being and Time). It’s 21st century America. Cancer = consumerism. Time for some product reviews. Soundcore Sleep A20 Earbuds Beyond Carrie, actual treatment, and friends, I think these earbuds …
First, the bad news. On Friday I spoke with my Montreal oncologist who told me in no uncertain terms that I am not spending Christmas in California. His exact words were “you are still in a precarious state.” This bites for several reasons. California is warmer than Cambridge. Our cats are there, whom I miss …
I’m pleased to have no doctors’ appointments and no new side effects to report since my last post. It turns out I do not have an infection, and I am back on dabrafenib and trametinib as of yesterday. Tuesday night we went to an election watching party. You all know how that turned out, but …
Continue reading “7 Nov 2024: Cancer Crawl and U.S. Election”
Yesterday was our first trip back to Mass General since my hospitalization. The place is truly massive. My oncologist here calls it The Mothership and that truly makes sense. I had to be wheeled around in a wheelchair because it would have been impossible for me to walk in my current condition. The first stop …
Since my last post, I’d say I’m living in a split reality. Every day there’s a little progress or something fun, but also every day some new fucking thing as the new chemo works its way through my body. When starting on lenvima I had a rule that a side effect wasn’t real if it …
We all know the cliches: recovery is not linear. You cannot put a timeline on bodies. You don’t understand challenges of recovery until you experience them. It is one thing to know that intellectually and quite another to live it. Coming home has been hard—I have to do a lot more for myself and there …
