Author Archive: Christopher Waldrop

The Flash.

Author: May 15, 2015 6 Comments

IBEATCANCERThe hot flashes started around January. I didn’t think much about them. I was still having lingering issues related to chemotherapy. My hair was still coming back and so were my nails. It was less noticeable, but my blood was recovering too. For a long time after chemotherapy I couldn’t walk long distances without being short of breath. The low blood counts started during chemo. One morning my white cell count was so low that a nurse came out to yell at me from across the waiting room that they weren’t sure I would be getting chemo that day. I thought about yelling back, “Thank you for letting everyone in the hospital know that right now a bad cold could kill me.”

Before chemo, before anything else, in fact, there was the orchiectomy, or having the offending testicle, which was on its way to becoming a goose egg, removed. I didn’t have much time to prepare for it emotionally because it happened two days after I got the news that I had cancer, but I took it in stride. I thought about when a friend of mine had his three male cats neutered. One of them was named Curly. Curly was a character, always doing something bizarre like climbing the kitchen cabinets or flipping over the litter box.

Curly was last in line to get neutered, and before the vet made the final cut my friend said, “Maybe you’d better leave him one testicle just in case we want another like him.”

After my own half-neutering there was chemotherapy. When I finished chemotherapy I thought, well, this is it! Back to life as it was before.

Then I had the follow-up work and found I had to have surgery.

When I finished surgery I thought, well, this is it! Back to life as it was before.

And then I had some other follow-up scans. These, I assumed, would be the first of my biannual, eventually to become annual, checkups. The tech who did my ultrasound had trouble finding my testicle, which had apparently retreated out of fear after it saw what happened to the other one. So she called in another tech. And they called in a third tech, and finally the radiologist had to come in and say, “No, no, no, don’t you know anything? It’s between his legs.”

The first time I had a CT scan I just felt an incredibly warm sensation in my groin, like it was being microwaved. The second time I threw up in the middle of it. The third time I just felt like I was being microwaved again. Back to life as it was before.

I met with my oncologist who told me everything was fine. Back to life as it was…okay, I need to stop saying that, because I also had to have a follow-up with my urologist. This required a blood draw first thing in the morning. Then my wife called me to say they’d made a mistake on the first blood draw, and I was thinking, did they accidentally draw phlegm or something? I went back that afternoon and had another blood draw.

Then my urologist called to say the blood draw needed to be done first thing in the morning because he was checking my waitingtestosterone and that’s when it’s highest.

So I got my blood drawn again the next morning.

My urologist told me my testosterone was between ten and thirteen.

“That doesn’t sound too bad. What’s normal?”

“Forty-five.”

Actually that’s the low end of normal. Decreased testosterone is a fact of life. It’s part of growing older. If I may speak to my fellow Y chromosomes for a moment: you may have seen advertisements for drugs intended to treat low testosterone. These advertisements may have asked if you’re feeling tired, if you have mood changes, or if you no longer get the sort of erections that embarrassed you when you were in middle school and had to go up in front of the class to answer a math problem. If you’ve experienced these symptoms chances are you’ve just got a condition known as Getting Older. The only treatment is a healthy dose of Deal With It. This is available without a prescription.

Low testosterone, the sort that needs to be treated with hormone therapy, only comes from chronic conditions like cancer or being kicked really hard in the nuts. Low testosterone needs to be treated because it can cause things like muscle loss, aches, and migraines. Migraines are typically described as headaches even though they should be called everythingaches. When you have a migraine your hair hurts.

Low testosterone can also cause hot flashes. It wasn’t my blood after all.

There are three important lessons here. The first is, there is no such thing as life as it was before. The second is, every little thing can be significant. If you’re having hot flashes and you can’t find any reason why you might be having hot flashes tell your doctor. And third, spay and neuter your pets, but if you have a favorite cat leave one testicle just in case. Once it’s gone it’s gone.

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Fun With Cancer, The Weekly Essay

There’s A There There. (Part 2)

Author: May 14, 2015 4 Comments

Seen from the car on our way through Bucyrus, Ohio. Source: Google Maps because I couldn't get my camera out in time.

Seen from the car on our way through Bucyrus, Ohio.
Source: Google Maps because I couldn’t get my camera out in time.

My wife and I were headed to a dog show at the Sawmill Creek Spring Lodge. And even though I’m not a dog show kind of person that’s okay. I love our dogs dearly, and if it weren’t for them and my wife’s hard work to make them some of the finest agility dogs in the world (this may be a slight exaggeration on my part) I never would have gone to places like French Lick, Indiana, Lawrence, Kansas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Long Beach, California, or…Bucyrus, Ohio.

Our navigator took us off the interstate, which was a little unnerving. The interstate was familiar, and, we knew, would take us straight through Columbus—and Columbus traffic at rush hour. Instead we were directed down Ohio Route 4, through farmland and small towns.

Bucyrus was not our intended destination. We didn’t even stop there, but from the car windows I got a pretty good idea that it was not your usual small Midwestern town. The first thing that got my attention was the MB Subculture Shop on the left, advertising costumes, comic books, and “accessories”. They had me at costumes, but I really wanted to jump out of the car right then to find out what the “accessories” were. We then stopped at a red light and on the right was The Pelican House Coffee Shop. A man with white hair and wire-framed glasses carrying a heavily decorated journal crossed in front of us. He looked up and gave us a little wave. That was it. By the time we passed the trompe l’oeil painting of Lady Liberty on the side of a building I was in love with Bucyrus, Ohio. The town has a website that fittingly calls it the “small city out in the middle of everywhere!”

We passed through a succession of small towns and small places that advertised good country cooking and homemade peach ice cream, and a miniature golf course and burger place. There was a succession of churches with adjoining cemeteries.

Just before we arrived at the Sawmill Creek Resort we passed a restaurant called Lemmy’s. The all-you-can-eat lake perch got my attention, but the real reason I wanted to go there was because of the large green serpent on the side of the building. I’d later learn that Lemmy is the Lake Erie Monster.

It was actually overcast when we went by. Source: Google Maps. Again I didn't have time to get out my camera. I should just take continuous rolling video of all road trips.

It was actually overcast when we went by.
Source: Google Maps. Again I didn’t have time to get out my camera. I should just take continuous rolling video of all road trips.

The resort itself is on the edge of Lake Erie. I walked down to the marina where the Sawmill Explorer was docked and resisted the temptation to jump it in and take it out onto the lake. The water stretched to the horizon like a calm ocean. A few nights later we’d go to a bonfire on the resort’s private beach where I found rocks rubbed flat and smooth and put my feet in chilly Lake Erie. The only other thing I could have wanted was an appearance by Lemmy.

The resort had open areas decorated with bits of Native American history, fireplaces, a bear rug.

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When we went off the interstate my first thought was that we’d be driving through nothing in the middle of nowhere, but then I corrected myself. No matter where you are it’s still somewhere. Every place has something that makes it interesting. Maybe I have a skill for finding it because I have such a low tolerance for boredom. Or maybe it’s because all you have to do to see something is look around.

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This is one of those displays of Native American art. The mask on the far left represents the first European they encountered, who just happened to be my great uncle Willie.

This is one of those displays of Native American art. The mask on the far left represents the first European they encountered, who just happened to be my great uncle Willie.

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Ramble With Me.

There’s A There There. (Part 1)

Author: May 13, 2015 4 Comments

“You must have a high tolerance for boredom.”

This is a picture of the French Lick Resort Gazebo from The Lyceum Magazine, 1913. It was unchanged when I was there nearly a hundred years later.

This is a picture of the French Lick Resort Gazebo from The Lyceum Magazine, 1913.
It was unchanged when I was there nearly a hundred years later.

This is what a friend said to me when I told him I’d had an amazing time at the French Lick Resort in an Indiana town of three-hundred people. I tried to explain that the resort was this amazing artefact of an earlier time when the wealthy went to spas for both treatment and to just hang out with each other. The guy who helped me carry the bags to our room, which was spacious with ten-foot ceilings, told me it was where Franklin Roosevelt first announced he was running for President, and that Al Capone stayed there. The draw was “pluto water”, which was basically just sulfur water from a spring. This is what gave the place its name. Animals would lick the minerals from the rocks, and because it was the site of a French trading post in pre-colonial times it was known as the “French lick”. People drank “Pluto water” for their health. There was a gazebo-covered spring out back that smelled a little like rotten eggs, but it was worth going in to see the waters that Al Capone took in a vain attempt to cure his gonorrhea. On one side of the inside of the roof was inscribed, “Nature’s finest laxative.” On the other: “If Nature won’t Pluto will.” In a room below the lobby I found a couple of statues of “Pluto” who, with his Van Dyke beard, horns, and wicked grin looked more like a character out of a different belief system. The statues originally stood on either side of the main doors. That tickled me. Pluto seemed to be saying, “You’ll be cured, but the price will be your soul.”

Overall the place was kind of run down—Pluto water wasn’t sold anymore, and even when it was doctors derided the claims of its healing powers. A few mornings I went for a swim in the pool which was under a glass dome, missing a few triangular panes here and there. It was also chlorinated–no pluto water there.

Some of the claims made in an advertisement for the resort in The Hoosier Almanack & Family Magazine, 1912. Source: Google Books

Some of the claims made in an advertisement for the resort in
The Hoosier Almanack & Family Magazine, 1912.
Source: Google Books

There were some modern touches. In the basement I found a small video arcade and couldn’t resist putting a few quarters in the Starship Troopers pinball machine. Well, this isn’t unusual since I can never resist a pinball machine, but that’s another story. The basement also held a small bowling alley and a pizza parlor that, even though it was closed when I was there, could be opened for parties.

There used to be regular railroad service between French Lick and Chicago—thanks Al Capone!—but all that remained of that when I was there was the “railroad museum”, an old rail station where I bought some postcards, and then took a train ride through the Hoosier National Forest to Cuzco, Indiana, a little town less than ten miles away. The conductor talked about the history of French Lick, pointed out the childhood home of Larry Bird–I’m not a basketball fan but that was fun–and shared some colorful stories about the surrounding forest, such as the one about a family of cannibals that had lived there.

The French Lick Resort has been renovated since then. Even though I thought the worn patches were part of its charm I understand why they wanted to update it.

I thought about how much fun it was visiting French Lick when my wife and I made a trip to Ohio on our way to another dog show. The story of that tomorrow.

Advertisement from N.A.R.D. [National Association of Retail Druggists] Notes, v.18 no.6, 1914 Source: Google Books

Advertisement from N.A.R.D. [National Association of Retail Druggists] Notes, v.18 no.6, 1914
Source: Google Books

Ramble With Me.

Some People Just Look Like That.

Author: May 11, 2015 0 Comments

004The bus driver glared at me. And I thought he had good reason for glaring at me. He was driving a regular bus, and I’d been standing at an express bus stop.

An express bus will only stop at express bus stops. This is true whether you’re boarding or departing. If you’re riding an express bus you might have to figure on walking a little further than usual, because it won’t necessarily stop at the stop that’s closest to where you want to go. It will, however, probably get you there faster. Express buses also run, theoretically, every fifteen minutes, while regular buses run, theoretically, anywhere from every twenty-five minutes to twice a day. At least that’s the case where I live, which is a city where public transportation isn’t a high priority.

Regular buses, by the way, will stop anywhere. According to the rules you can catch a regular bus at any regular bus stop or express bus stop or at any intersection, although I’ve also seen people flag down buses from the middle of a block, and on a couple of occasions I’ve had to weave through cars stopped at a red light because the bus driver couldn’t make it to the lane closest to the curb.

So the bus driver on this particular day was glaring at me because he was behind schedule, the bus was so packed with people it was creaking, and I was standing at an express bus stop when the regular bus stop was just thirty feet away. I felt like he was thinking, “Couldn’t you just wait for the express?”

Bus stop placement is one of those other things I’ll just never figure out. In some areas they’re a quarter of a mile or more apart. In some areas they’re ten feet apart. Sometimes I’ll be at one stop and there’ll be someone else at the one just a few feet away. When that happens I hope the driver understands why I wanted to be upwind of that other guy, but that’s another story.

As I watched the driver I realized, too, that he hadn’t just been glaring at me. He glared at everybody. I thanked him when I was getting off and said, “Have a nice day.” He cheerfully said, “You too,” but he was still glaring. I think he just had that sort of face.

Hey, my ride’s here.

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Adventures In Busing.

Dumped On.

Author: May 9, 2015 3 Comments

Dumpsters are easy targets. They’re out of the way and not really owned by the resident of where they’re usually placed. And since they hold garbage it doesn’t really matter if they look trashy. Is that a fair description of this dumpster, though? There’s something impressive about the number of artists who’ve used it as a canvas.

011 012 013And then there’s this strategically placed sticker. This is social commentary on the level of—I’m not kidding—Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. It’s ironic and kind of funny, but also sad when you think about the real implications.

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American Graffiti.

Way Out, Way In.

Author: May 8, 2015 7 Comments

physalia12At first it looked like a plastic bag tinged blue. As I got closer I could see a mass of blue-green strands gathered up underneath it like wet yarn. One thread, faintly dotted, stretched over the sand. It was a Portuguese man-o-war stranded by the outgoing tide. Up and down the beach there were more of them, some as big as six or seven inches, others tiny enough that I might have stepped on them if I hadn’t been looking. I’ve read that people sometimes do step on the “sails”, the air-filled sacs that keep the Portuguese man-o-war afloat, to hear them pop. You have to be careful, though. Even when they’re dead the tentacles can still sting for several days. It’s an automatic reaction. Put your foot in the physalia10wrong place and you’ll be in excruciating pain and have red welts. You can also get a fever, go into shock, and have trouble breathing and heart problems. And, by the way, being urinated on is not an effective treatment, although I’d be tempted to urinate on someone stupid enough to go stomping on an animal on the beach.

physalia2I’m not sure why they’re called a Portuguese man-o-war. Supposedly they look like that particular type of ship, but I wonder if the name isn’t also a joke suggesting that the Portuguese were terrible sailors and could only float where the wind took them. Then again if it were a joke I think Belgian man-o-war would have been a better name. Maybe it’s a compliment to the Portuguese, since a Portuguese man-o-war can still sting you long after the animal itself has died. It’s a purely autonomic response. Maybe Portuguese sailors were just as deadly on land as they were on water. The Portuguese man-o-war’s scientific name is Physalia physalis, so for the rest of this piece I’m going to call them physalians, which I think is a strange and attractive name for a strange and attractive animal. It comes from the Greek word for “bubble”.physalia7

As I looked at them the phrase Life will find a way came to mind. Physalians are a weird form of life. Everything’s relative, and I’m sure we look weird to them, but physalians are part of an evolutionary branch that’s weird compared to most other life forms on Earth. They’re part of the group of animals called siphonophores that started a huge fight among 19th century scientists. Are they single animals or are they colonies? Every major organ system of a siphonophore starts as an individual animal. They then cluster together. Every tentacle of a physalian was originally a distinct creature. It gave up its independence to be part of something larger. It was a bit of Solomonic wisdom that siphonophores don’t fit into one category or the other. Life will find a way, and they represent one of the many ways life has found.

manowarIt was sad to see dozens of them stretched out over the beach, baking in the late afternoon sun. As I watched one it curled a pointed tip of its sail away from the wind. At sea they can deflate to sink under the waves, then fill up with air again to rise. The man-o-war is a ship that can only sail. The physalian can be both ship and submarine.

Most had their tentacles curled up under them, but a few had one or two tentacles stretched out over the sand. I touched an extended tentacle with a stick and it withdrew. They were dying in the air and the heat, but there was still life there. The shore birds and crabs left them alone, but some were attracting clouds of tiny flies. One death would give way to another life.

Anywhere there’s life there will be death, a fact that, for me, seems so much starker at the water’s edge where two worlds meet. In the ocean and on land are countless organisms that reproduce in huge numbers. Corals spawn freely, starfish, crabs, oysters, conchs and others will each produce thousands of young. For octopuses laying and caring for long strands of eggs will be the last thing they do. Sea turtles come ashore to lay, on average, more than a hundred eggs. For all of them fecundity is their way of stacking the deck because the odds are against life. Only a small fraction will survive to have offspring of their own.

As the sun set I sat and watched a physalian directly in front of the deck. A wave came up, lifted it, and carried it closer to the water. Another wave that followed pushed it farther up onto the shore. The succession of waves that followed didn’t come close. It lay there as it got darker. Soon I could only hear the waves, and it was time to go in for the night.

The next morning it was gone. Life had found a way.

physaliansNote: All this happened on Dauphin Island, off the coast of Alabama. Here’s a video I made after our 2014 trip there.

 

The Vault

This Was A Big Hit With The Application Board.

Author: May 7, 2015 2 Comments

The following college entrance essay was submitted along with an application to Catalpa University.

Question: Describe an encounter with a famous or notable person.

Answer:

He’d been dead for a couple of years at least, but there was Vincent Schiavelli sitting on a park bench. He was alive but not well. He never looked well. Maybe he’d faked his death as a deliberate final performance, spurning the entertainment industry that used him but never seemed to want him. Danny DeVito, one of his co-stars in One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, found his niche, but Schiavelli never did. I wouldn’t call myself a fan. Maybe no one would but seeing him on that park bench, strikingly tall even sitting down, with his heavy-lidded eyes and head that resembled an ivied silo so many memories came back. First I remembered a dozen cameos. He had that bass baritone voice, but a lot of times it was just his voice that did the talking. But I also remember what seemed like every single Christmas having to watch his “Dorf On Golf” video. Schiavelli’s quiet passivity was the perfect foil to Tim Conway’s ludicrous behavior. As I passed him I said, “I never saw Venice.” He nodded, but there was a twinkle in his eye that said, “Seek professional help.”

dorf

Not Non-Fiction

The Haunted Hole.

Author: May 6, 2015 6 Comments

In the backyard there are two trees that have grown together at the base. This has formed a hole where rainwater collects. Even though it’s not a stump I wonder if this is the kind of “spunk-water”* Mark Twain wrote about in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

You got to go all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there’s a spunk-water stump, and just as it’s midnight you back up against the stump and jam your hand in and say:

‘Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal shorts, Spunk-water, spunk-water, swaller these warts,’

and then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody. Because if you speak the charm’s busted.”

Here’s a picture of the hole.

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larvaI think it’s haunted because I can’t keep it filled. Even though it’s small there’s almost always just enough water for a small colony of mosquito larvae. I have a lot of reasons for wanting as few mosquitoes around as possible, the biggest one being their propensity for carrying heartworms.

So here I am filling the hole with dirt. Hey, nice gloves!

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Here’s the hole filled with dirt.

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Here’s the hole two days later.

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It did rain during those two days, and I can believe that some of the dirt was flushed out by the rain. It didn’t rain that hard, but maybe it really doesn’t take much. Obviously I need something heavier: rocks.

So here’s a nice big rock I decided to put in the hole.

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Now this is where it gets weird. Or annoying. Or, if you don’t trust me, hard to believe. Last summer I filled the hole with small rocks. A few days later they all disappeared and the hole was filled with water again. This is why I believe the hole is haunted. Now the big rock seems to be staying in place.

Perhaps there was some small animal–raccoons, possibly, or even squirrels–that used the hole for drinking and was able to move the small rocks, but is stymied by the big rock.

That’s a pretty complicated explanation. A simpler one, I think, is that the holey ghost knows its actions are being documented. And because it has a sense of humor it’s not going to do what I want. Last year I wanted the hole to stay filled, so it mysteriously emptied itself. This year I want it to mysteriously empty itself, so, of course…

*I look forward to the traffic that will inevitably result from searches for “spunk water” even though most of the searchers will be disappointed.

Submitted For Your Approval.