Surgery update, plus gobblin' the Batknob

Nothing has much changed since I wrote my cancer update post a couple of weeks ago, but I do now have a firmed up date for my surgery: December 16th. Surgery will probably kick the shit out of Christmas; I may even be in hospital through the holiday. Over the next eleven days, I need to get all my Christmas prep out of the way, shore up a supply of movies to entertain me while I am useless, get another COVID test (a regular feature of surgery), and wrangle all the other instructions they give you (we still have half a bottle of the antiseptic soap that I'll have to wash in, leftover from last surgery. They don't tell you when to arrive - or when to start fasting - until closer to the date). I guess I could lay in some more fluids - Yop yoghurt drinks and Boost for Diabetics and things like that. I wonder if there's a way to ask them to give me my pain meds in liquid form, given how painful swallowing pills will likely be? (They'll be giving me a tracheotomy this time, wonder how THAT will affect my taking in fluids and pills, compared to the throat-ratching intubations of September...? I don't imagine it will improve matters much...). 

I do have a couple of cool pieces in the works for the next week or so, but there's probably gonna be a long pause in blogging after that. If I have more stamina than I anticipate, maybe I'll blog about the movies I see. 

It was fun to have gotten out into the world for a couple of shows this last month. Glad I did it - I am going to go back to the plan of staying around the house, mostly, until the surgery is done. Don't want to pick up anything that causes the operation to get delayed - since delays just mean more time for the cancerous cells on my tongue to spread. I can feel them, I think - there's a sort of tingly, raw, burnt feeling on the surface of my tongue that I don't think is about the recovery from the surgery so much as it's about the squamous cell rebellion picking up steam again.

And of course, if the material they remove this time has the wrong indicators on it - if there is cancer in my lymph nodes, say - then the radiation therapy that they're trying to avoid with one more operation comes back on the table regardless.

Tired of this. Starting to feel some emotional echoes - you get a bit freaked out, and it comes out of you in strange ways. Like, if it wasn't for the impending surgery, I probably wouldn't have followed up this FB post ("the shadow looks like Batman staring at his boner"):

With this one that Erika helped me take ("I have always been fond of Batman"):

...which kind of raises the question of what the hell is going on with me psychologically, eh? ("Last call for oral sex!"). After some reflection, I removed the second image from Facebook. Wonder what other weird little explosions of stress and anxiety will happen before I go under the knife again? 

If I'm well enough, I guess I'll see you at the Bowie Ball. Some friends of mine will be playing who have never played the Bowie Ball before. I got a little stack of Bowie CDs, finally thinking I should get a sense of which of his albums I care about. Low is just boring - still just sounds like bad Eno to me.  Heroes, by contrast, I like a lot. I should get Lodger and Station to Station, still. And XTC's White Music. And...

January might be a bit soon for me concert-wise. I gather LA Witch, who I liked opening for the Black Angels awhile back, are going to play the Fox in January, but it's not likely I'll make that. Then it will be Frazey Ford in February (if I'm up to it). Then Sparks and EXTC in March (Gang of Four and the Circle Jerks, probably I am going to pass on, having seen both before and doubting I'll be in shape; I sure won't be buying advance tickets). My Sparks interview (done with the participation of David M., the most natural stoic I know) will be coming out in the new Big Takeover soon... along with Part Two of my Paul Leary piece...

Wonder if I'll be able to speak a little by March? How awful will it be? How will the new tongue - the armtongue, the Frankentongue - feel in my mouth? Will I have anywhere near the same level of sensation? Will I be able to taste things in even remotely the same way, or swallow solid food? What will the removal of muscle do to my right arm - to my typing, for example? 

Even though it's a bigger, badder operation than any previous, my anxiety is still nowhere near at the level it was in 2017. But it's a little worse than it was in September. And yet still I keep telling myself... buy the ticket, take the ride... just gotta keep on truckin' forward...