Not So Sicko

Before I impart my good news of the day, which I am afraid to say out loud for fear of it all being taken away (can you say "extremely neurotic"), I have to quote from my favorite movie review of the day. Regarding the movie No Reservations, Carina Chocano writes that Catherine "Zeta-Jones is entirely unconvincing as a chef, an American and a human being." I have always felt that about Catherine Zeta-Jones, except maybe in Zorro. In "Chicago" I thought her head was going to explode every time she sang.

And now, on to the frighteningly good news. I had two scans yesterday, the radioactive injection one and the drink this awful stuff and then we'll inject you with something that heats up your throat and insides and makes you feel like you have to go the bathroom one. Took two hours. The hardest part was sitting in a room alone for half an hour and not doing anything while the stuff goes through your system. I couldn't read, I couldn't talk on the phone, so I just wiggled my toes and talked to myself. We had a nice conversation. Same old same old. But...the good news is that the chemo is working. The doctor told me that my lymph nodes do not even show up on the scan so the cancer is barely there anymore and the tumor, or mass as she calls it, has shrunk to almost fifty percent of what it was. I, of course, thought she was looking at the wrong chart or that I was going to have to do the scan again. It has been so long since I've had good news I am not even sure how to process it. But there you have it. So now she and the surgeon decide if I have one more chemo (probably) and then surgery or just go straight to cutting me open. So then my mind goes directly to the fact that I have been eating a lot and gaining weight and now they won't have to take as much of my stomach as they had thought and so I won't be as thin as I thought and what if I'm just this big fatty with a big scar down my middle? And once they cut you your stomach just turns into a big jelly ball. And what if I meet someone? I can't take my clothes off in front of him with a big jelly ball stomach with a big scar down the middle. Yuck. Maybe I could meet a blind man. No, I should just try and relax and enjoy good news. Jews are not taught to accept good news without a qualification. "Wonderful, you lost ten pounds. Just twenty more to go." Or, "Yes, Israel is yours, but you have to share." Anyway, today, this day, there is good news and I am going to jump in the ocean and shout hallelujah... And hopefully I won't drown. (See, as a Jew it's really hard to just be happy because you always feel that you are not worthy of happiness. It's nothing anyone did to us. It's just in the DNA. My son is only half Jewish so maybe can break the cycle. I often think that his DNA consists of guilt and a martini.)

While in the clinic yesterday I was reading the business section of the Times and one article struck me as insane. Disney is going to ban smoking in their movies so they will not influence young people. Are you kidding me? Curella Deville not smoking? That is ridiculous. Are the tobacco companies going to stop selling millions of cigarettes to the Japanese? I don't think so. As far as I can tell, everything we eat, smell or see is linked to death. Don't eat this, don't drink that, yikes yikes yikes. I think my dad's entire caloric intake consisted of trans fats. An all trans fat diet. Meat, meat and more meat. Lived 'til 91. And he was never afraid of eating this or breathing that. I mean, yes, be careful, but also...Be crazy. If not now, when?

Unconvincing as a human being. Could that review possibly apply to our vice president?