Cancer: A Setback

The girls, chillaxing, taken a few years ago.

There is that old expression, "God doesn't give us more than we can deal with." I saw the following on a T-Shirt, years ago, and I've never forgotten it. "Lord, I know you don't give me more than I can handle. I just wish you didn't have so much confidence in my abilities."

We hit a snag. Cathy didn't get chemo yesterday, because her white blood cell count was too low. Not a biggie, but while Cathy was at the clinic, she complained about her leg being swollen. They sent her to get an ultrasound, and the results were immediate and serious: she has a blood clot in her artery.

She's probably had it for some time, but it could very well have developed from the Skittles-like array of drugs and chemicals she has been swallowing for months, now. There is a drug she can take that will thin the clot down and dissolve it safely. That's good. The drug works over a three to six month period. See if you can guess where this is going.

Cathy's surgery has been postponed until her clot is gone. They can't risk that clot breaking free while they are operating on her. It would kill her. So, until such time as we can be sure the clot won't be a problem during surgery, she's going to take even more medicine and keep taking weekly chemo treatments.

We are disheartened, frustrated, and confused. That's putting it mildly. More than anything I'm frustrated for Cathy, because I know this treatment is working, but it's doing a number on her. We may not be able to go out of town for our anniversary. She's got to stay mobile on the leg while she's taking the meds. A six hour car ride isn't what she needs right now.

More on this later. I'm tired and irritated. I hate this. I just hate it.

Top 5 Favorite Long Form TV Series

This is a new category, brought on by the fact that we are certainly in the midst of a Television Renaissance as the medium has grown and expanded to now include shows that are longer than a mini-series but still have an ending, however nebulous it may be. These “Netflix” shows are really just the next phase of what cable networks like HBO and Showtime have been doing for twenty years now. The difference is that, instead of willingly placing oneself apart from the rest of the content providers (“It’s not TV…it’s HBO”) now everyone is on a level playing field thanks to a more egalitarian distribution system. This competition has been the best thing for show creators, the networks, and the fans, as amazing shows with oddball premises that wouldn’t have found a voice in 1998 are now among the most eagerly anticipated events of 2018. And a lot of these shows are horror and fantasy and science fiction and sometimes a mix of all that and more.

Cancer: Gearing Up for Phase 2

This is an old picture of Cathy's Wall of Strength. It's got
a lot more on it now. And she's still got more cards to add. 

On Tuesday Cathy will have her last chemo treatment before surgery. To say that we are both thrilled about that would be an understatement of gross proportions. Lots of you have been asking how it's been going, and I've been just a little bit too busy to update like I'd want to, and I'm sorry about that.

As Cathy's needs have intensified in the midst of her treatments, my own mental health took a dip and it took me a couple of weeks to recognize it. I'm making corrections and adjustments now, and as a result, I feel better and more alert, so here you go.

The change in the weather has helped, too. Autumn in October? In TEXAS? Pinch me, I'm dreaming. We haven't had actual Fall weather in the Fall for years. I'm so excited.

In Defense of Bad Movies Part 2: FLAAAASSSHH!

Check out the muscles
on Blonde Conan!

In Part 1 of  In Defense of Bad Movies, I outlined the disconnect between film critics and the general public. If you want to read it, you can certainly do that. Now that I have made this particular bed, I’m going to lie in it by taking a pipe wrench to the skull of a film most beloved and personal to the Geek Nation. Let’s all watch some people’s heads explode. Fun!

Since I mentioned Flash Gordon (1980) in Part 1 as an example of a bad movie, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain why I think this is so. Before you start typing your hate mail, there's some objective criteria below that you ought to look at. I put pictures in the post, so you wouldn't have to just take my word for it. If you make it all the way to the end and still feel triggered, just follow this link over to my Facebook page and let fly with your invective. I'm bracing myself for impact. Okay, enough of that; let's go tip some sacred cows!

In Defense of Bad Movies Part 1: Somewhere Between High Art and Cult Classic

I’m writing a lot about old movies at the moment on both of my current blogs. Finn’s Top 5 is happening over at the Finn’s Wake blog, and my biased look back at the fantasy films of the 1980s that informed our Dungeons and Dragons games is happening over at Confessions of a Reformed RPGer. I like writing about film; I have been a professional reviewer and critic for many years now, and I’ve been named one of the top movie reviewers in Texas by the Associated Press Managing Editors several times. You may also know that I am co-owner of a movie theater in North Texas that plays first-run movies on two screens, which is kind of like a unicorn in today’s market.

Top 5 Favorite Stephen King Movies

It really says a lot about a person when they are their own genre of storytelling. Think about that: Stephen King is one of those very rare—as in, maybe four or five authors, tops—who have such consistent draw that they are household names. Not just any household, either, but every household. Try this: next time you’re at your grandparents’ house and they are regaling you with the saga of the latest bunion on their foot, wait for them to finish and then say, “Jeez, Grams, that was more horrifying than a Stephen King story,” and see if they don’t immediately know what you mean by that.

King’s prodigious output also accounts for a list of movies nearly as long, and while the quality of the aforementioned movies and books varies greatly, both subjectively and objectively, there are a number of great Stephen King movies that have been accidentally made out of their literary counterparts. Granted, there are also some god-awful ones, too, but we’re not here to talk about Maximum Overdrive…or Firestarter…or The Tommyknockers…or…you get the idea. For the purposes of this list, we’ll focus on the ones that cleaved most closely to the books and were also scary or horrific in some way. That’s why you won’t see Stand By Me or The Shawshank Redemption on this list, as great as they are.

Top 5 Favorite Kaiju Movies

Kaiju is one of those terms that has been around for years, used primarily for fans of Japanese pop culture to sound smarter than the rest of us when they wanted to talk about big honking monsters. Unfortunately, thanks to three decades’ worth of importing their TV to jaded American audiences, “kaiju” has entered the pop culture lexicon. It’s a word of Japanese origin, that, loosely translated, means “big honking monsters.” Way to move the discussion forward, folks.

Specifically, the term as it applies to movies is considered a genre, though what monsters are considered kaiju are hotly debated. For the purposes of our discussion, I’m going to break it down like this: King Kong (1933) is not a kaiju movie. King Kong vs Godzilla (1962) is. Simple, right? Also, I’m going to give it my best effort to pick the scariest kaiju movies I can, knowing full well that these movies aren’t anything like what’s on the other Top 5 lists. However, I am a Monster Kid, so neener-neener, we’re doing this anyway.

Cancer: Surgery is Nigh

Cathy at chemotherapy, doing her best
to distract herself from the process. 

We were summoned to the Metroplex last week for a consult with the surgeon that is going to operate on Cathy's ladybusiness. He confirmed the initial results that the cancer was responding to the chemotherapy and everything was going according to plan. However, due to his crazy schedule, he wouldn't be able to get to Cathy's surgery until the end of the month at the earliest. So he ordered one more round of chemotherapy and we penciled in a date for surgery on November 2nd.

Independently of that, I've also got a tentative schedule for my surgical procedures, and that is December 3rd. There will undoubtedly be some overlap for our recovery, and Oh Brother, won't THAT be fun. All kidding aside, it's actually a relief for both of us to know that these things are going to happen. They are on schedule and real to us now, instead of some nebulous "down the road" kind of thing.

The Return of Finn's Top 5 Lists

You asked for it! You demanded it! You threatened my dog If you didn't get it!

Okay, none of that really happened. But it might've. You don't know for sure, do you?

Over the years, I've done a lot of Top 5 Movie Lists for various horror films, usually around October. It's been a while since I did them, and I decided to go back to some fun stuff here on this blog since lately it's all been real life and seriousness. We need some fun.

So, for October, I'm dropping five new Finn's Top 5 Movie lists! They will be added to the already illustrious pedigree you see splayed out below.

And just because I wanted to, I went back through all of the lists below and updated them, adding new movies and eliminating redundancies, as was my original intention in breaking out all of the sub-categories, anyway. I also eliminated all of the bonus movies and either worked them into the existing list, or shunted them off into another list completely. Again, now there's more movies that before, each one occupying a single list. Am I thinking about this waaaaaay too much? You bet! But who benefits? You, the faithful reader and horror movie fan. After all, more movies listed is more movies to complain about, or wonder aloud why it's on the list so high, or point out that it really belongs on another list...

If you're new to this blog, or these lists, here's the complete run-down to date. And if you're interested in fantasy films, I'm doing a smaller series of reviews over on the sister blog, Confessions of a Reformed RPGer. Part 1 of the series, "The Movies of Dungeons & Dragons," can be found here.

My Top Five Science Run Amok Movies
My Top Five Horror-Comedy Movies
My Top 5 Creature on the Loose Movies  
My Top 5 When Animals Attack Movies
My Top 5 Mummy Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Frankenstein Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Horrors from the Deep Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Killer Doll Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Horror Anthology movies

My Top 5 Favorite TV Horror Shows

My Top 5 Favorite Dracula Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Lovecraftian Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Haunted House Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Movie Maniac Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Killer/Creepy Kid Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Devils and Demons Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Ghost Story Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Monster From the Void of Space Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Zombie Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Vampire Movies
My Top 5 Favorite Werewolf Movies

Friday Night Flight or Fight

Some people have a monkey on their back. I also have
a monkey on my front. Basically, I'm all monkeyed up.

I know I’m not the only person that struggles with anger management, depression, and anxiety. Many of you have shared with me your own stories, either recently or throughout the course of our friendships, and I confess, I haven’t always completely understood your struggle. I have sympathized, of course, but it was difficult for me to really empathize with what happens in your brain until I found myself on the other side of it.

I had a meltdown recently. It came quickly in a barrage of incidents that piled up too fast for me to deploy any of my practical tactics. I wanted to share what happened so that those of you who maybe don’t quite understand yourself can sneak a peek behind the mask and get an idea of how things can quickly escalate.

Bullet Journaling is Saving My Ass

This could also be my Trapper
notebook from 1984 to 1988. 

One of the ways that I’ve been dealing with the last few months is with measured distraction. I started drawing again, after a decade or more of inactivity, and that's been very pleasant.Of course, I’ve also been blogging like a helicopter mom in an unfamiliar school district. I even started a second blog for discussing my lifelong relationship with tabletop gaming, if you haven't seen me mention it yet.

But I started doing something else that I have been reading about for a while called Bullet Journaling, ostensibly to help me keep track of all the appointments and scheduling we needed to do. However, I found out that there’s a lot more I can do with bullet journaling, and quite frankly, it has saved my ass.

Cancer: Some Good News

Last week, out of the blue, Cathy’s Oncologist sprang a CT scan on her. This was a surprise because we thought she had two more weeks to go before they would take a picture and look at stuff.

Cathy was, understandably, shaken and excited and nervous and all of that. There were a lot of ways that the results could go, such as “Well, the tumors don’t seem to be responding to the treatment,” or “there’s not much change, I’m afraid.” Or it could be the answer we actually got:

The tumors are shrinking. Every one of them. Her blood counts are good, the markers for tumors in her blood are down by two-thirds. Other spots way down or gone. It’s good news.

Granted, we haven’t heard from the doctor who will perform the surgery, and he’ll be the final arbiter of what constitutes an acceptable amount of shrinkage. It’s almost certain that Cathy has another round or two of chemo while they hem and haw over her CT scans.

But any way you look at it, it’s a win. Cathy got actual confirmation that all of the hell she’s been putting her body through has paid off. The meds are working. The treatment is working. She’s not just spinning her wheels.

We’re going to take a brief pause as we gird our loins for the second leg of the World’s Crappiest Triathlon—the surgery phase. All of that is still up in the air, but it’s a profound relief to know that we are on the other side of the chemo and almost through with this part of the treatment.

Have I mentioned yet how grateful we are? We are. There were a few days where the only thing that kept us going was a card in the mail, or a funny text message or something like that. It only takes a few seconds to be kind, but those few seconds can mean the difference between a good day and a bad day for someone. We thank you all, for every second. 

Cancer & Obesity: an Up and Down Update

We are casting for the part of Zu-Zu.
Must love dogs.

Before I get into the nuts and bolts of it, I want to take a minute to recognize all of you who reached out to me with your own stories, your own struggles, and offers for advice and more information. Also, the sheer volume of unflagging support for both of us continues to give us whiplash. I say that in the best possible way. Thank you all for being in our corner. It's Bedford Falls every day around here.

Okay, it's been a rough week, and we're in the middle of it, but I wanted to update everyone on what's going on. Read on, if you dare.