All results / Stories / Kenneth B. Lourie
Column: Derive to Survive
Now that I can taste food again, or rather have food taste like normal again, my attitude is much improved.
Column: Definition of “Slippery Slope”
Figuratively speaking, of course. That definition being: a late stage cancer patient/survivor previously characterized as “terminal” awaiting the results of their most recent diagnostic scan. A scan that will indicate whether the tumors have grown, moved or God forbid, appeared somewhere new. If your life hung in the balance before the scan, waiting for results of this however-many-months-interval-scan will most assuredly loosen your figurative grip on your equilibrium and your most literal grip on your sanity. This is a domain, unlike the one referred to in one of the more infamous Seinfeld episodes, that one cannot master. To invoke and slightly rework Dan Patrick’s “catch” phrase: You can’t stop it, you can only hope to contain it.
Column: Writing What Four
As far as anniversaries go–and I hope this one “goes” a lot further; acknowledging, dare I say celebrating my four-year survival anniversary from “terminal” stage IV (inoperable, metastasized) non-small cell lung cancer, a diagnosis I initially received on Feb. 27, 2009, along with a “13-month to two-year prognosis” from my oncologist, is certainly column-worthy.
Column: “CanSir”
When it comes to being a cancer patient, even more so a multi-year cancer survivor, I have always erred on the side of caution. And by caution, I mean being respectful to the disease, courteous of its comings and goings, mindful of its potential damage and afraid of its intangibles. And by intangibles, I mean the unexplained and the inexplicable, and most fearfully, its power and unpredictability. Therefore, my behavior toward it has been intended to be as polite as possible; never to be perceived – in any way imaginable – as arrogant, presumptuous, in control, all-knowing and most especially, victorious.
Column: ‘Shrinkage’
Not exactly “like a frightened turtle” as “similed” on a long-ago Seinfeld episode by Jerry himself; this shrinkage is the good kind, the kind you hope a radiological oncologist characterizes when viewing your CT Scan (computed tomography).
Column: Traffic Caught
If I were writing this column in Massachusetts – where I was born and mostly educated (K-12), and had a thick Boston accent, that’s how court would likely be pronounced; changing a noun into a verb.
Column: ‘Scantsy’
It’s becoming increasingly difficult to characterize the feelings I regularly experience during the final few weeks leading up to my every-three-month CT Scan, and even more so the feelings I experience waiting the following week or so to see my oncologist to discuss the results.
Column: Real-Time, Really Late
I’m not a night owl. More of an early bird, worms notwithstanding. But given the contents of last week’s column, “Scantsy,” I find it difficult to write about anything else while waiting for the results of my CT Scan.
Column: Health Matters More
I realize money doesn’t buy happiness, although I wouldn’t mind renting it.
Column: The Fact Is Not Yet The Matter
I don’t know which is worse: the extra-special, extra-expensive, dental cleaning (the kind that requires Novocain and involves the actual dentist, not merely the hygienist) that I have scheduled for April 8th – or my next hopefully-not-do-or-die CT Scan, moved up a month from my usual three-month interval because of a suspicious formation seen on my most recent scan back in mid-February.
Column: Pins and Needles
Commentary
This column isn’t about acupuncture or knitting, any more than last week’s column was about nausea.
Column: “CT Looked Good”
Commentary
Cryptic? Hardly. Words I can live with the for the next three months until my next CT Scan? Absolutely.
Column: In Contrast
Commentary
Even though my previous CT Scan “looked good,” nonetheless I am already, two months out, thinking about my next scan, scheduled for July 15. I am not nervous or anxious about it yet. But I am something.
“Shrinkage”
Not exactly “like a frightened turtle” as “similed” on a long-ago Seinfeld episode by Jerry himself; this shrinkage is the good kind, the kind you hope a radiological oncologist characterizes when viewing your CT Scan (computed tomography). Specifically, the exact kind of scan I get every three months to assess and evaluate the tumors, and fluid, in my stage IV, non-small cell cancer-affected lungs.
I Scream
…for ice cream; from Brigham’s in Boston, the local New England establishment of my youth where I spent dollars – although it was likely cents back in those days – many afternoons, evenings and weekends.
Column: Something New – or Old, to Consider
And therein lies the anxiety. Although, all things considered – and as you regular readers know, I like, maybe even need, to consider all things – the medical assessment of the most recent CT scan of my upper torso and thorax/lungs showed a new object in my left lung, “approximately the size of a silver dollar,” according to my oncologist. What this object is, exactly, cannot be determined at this juncture; technology prevents such clarity, unfortunately. Nevertheless, its appearance and location are possibly cause for concern, possibly not.
Column: A Victim of My Own Circumstances
Outliving one’s prognosis leads to all sorts of twists and turns and treatment conundrums: the longer one lives, the fewer the treatment options.
Column: Circumstances Be Damned
If only it were as easy to actually live it as it is to write it. As much as I believe what I write, it’s still difficult to ignore certain facts (“the underlying diagnosis,” as I often refer to my diagnosis) and the feelings associated with it.
Column: Team Up
Just as “everyone knows Geico can save you 15 percent in 15 minutes,” that is, if you watch television, listen to radio, access the Internet or even sit on the beach at Ocean City and watch the single-engine planes flying by pulling banners; so too do people know that when your primary care physician tells you that you need to meet with an oncologist to discuss your recent medical results, you should bring along family, friends, advocates, doctors, lawyers, etc. (your presumptive “team”), because, well, you know why: your life may depend on it.
Column: Off Topic, Almost
If only it were that simple. And as much I’d like to turn the cancer switch off, finding that switch has proven to be extremely challenging.