Middle-Aged Radioactive Kung-Fu Comic Book Guy

Well the big fun this week was not one, not two, no, not even three, but FOUR trips to Nashua NH –the armpit of Southern New Hampshire. All of these trips were to the hospital for one reason or another. Don’t worry, no one is dead, or even sick. We just like hospitals.

And since gas hit $4.03 this weekend, who doesn’t want hours and hours of wasteful driving?

Actually, Dorinda was getting screened for allergies –they put little stickers on her and see what happens. Well what happens is that her lips go numb and she can’t stand up, so I have to drive out and get her. Then we all have to drive out the next day to get the car I left behind, when I went to get her. The very next day I get a call from my own doctor saying that I have a CT scan (Cat Scan) this Friday and I need to pick up this goop to drink the night before. So its back to Nashua, then back again the next day for the scan.

What a giant pain in the ass! Nashua is not actually very far from us, however, it takes forever to get there. You have two routes –the back roads, which are nice, but take 45minutes, or Amherst St./Rt. 101a –which is the shortest route, but in the 14 miles from my house to the hospital there are 46 traffic lights, and NONE OF THEM are synchronized because retarded New Hampshire uses these pressure plate things to trigger the lights. Which makes sense in areas of low traffic density, but leads to hair pulling frustration, anywhere within 5 miles of the Massachusetts boarder.

Sadly, the CT scan was just something I have to do every now and then. Y’see, several years ago I got really sick. In fact we found out about it when my then-girlfriend was seven months pregnant with Widget. And so our “just got out of college, lets party like rock stars” lifestyle was crushed twice. You havin’ a baby, and you may be dead before it can say “da-da”.

It was pretty grim stuff, but obviously we pulled through. I scheduled my third round of chemotherapy for the day after the Widget was born, so I could drive back to the hospital and sleep for 24hrs with my now-wife and out 48hr old baby. I scheduled the first two sessions so I could skip those stupid “birth classes” where they teach you how to breath, and other bullshit not in anyway helpful for delivering a 10lb baby through a walnut-sized opening.

We stoically trudged through the 8 cycles of chemo and 56 visits to the radiation therapist, all the while working my bullshit job as an airplane refueler, and wondering when (if ever) I would get to finish my flight ratings and have a career as a pilot. Not that I really wanted that anymore, but at the time I could see no other options, and even if it was not something I loved, it was better than sitting at a desk in a cubicle.

Actually, at the time, a good friend and I had plans for a nighttime aerial advertising company. We had the aircraft, the equipment was ready to be shipped, and it was going to be easy money for very little actual work. That was September 10^th, 2001.

On September 11^th, 2001, all airplanes were declared “flying bombs” and we were out of business before we even had our first client.

With the teeny bit of money I had left, I got my flight instructor’s certificate, went to work for the college I had graduated from 2 years earlier, and much to my surprise found that I really enjoyed teaching. Like a lot. Though some of the idiots . . uh, sorry, the students drove me mad, the good ones were highly rewarding to work with.

2 years after that, the “cure” for the first cancer, triggered another one. We took care of that lickity split, and I lost a few chunks of flesh. While physically I was okay, mentally I was a wreck. The final straw happened on a check ride I was giving some idiot . . er, student pilot. He was a really bad pilot, and I almost let him kill both of us at a tiny airport in Vermont. What was strange was that in my mind I could see the disaster unfolding way before this kid had a clue that something was wrong –and I didn’t mind one bit.

Something made me care though, because I grabbed the controls and saved our asses. I had to check the undercarriage for tree branches when we got home, but the point is –we got home.

And that was when I knew it was over. No more flying for me. Not counting all the trips I take in the back of Southwest Airlines 747’s these days, I haven’t seen the inside of an airplane in 3 years.

The point of all this though, was that CT-scan. I was way over-due for it. And the reason I fell off the wagon was because I’m just so happy with my life right now. I love my work, and Dee was finally able to get her Master’s degree (only 5 years behind schedule!). It’s been almost two years since I started working from home and in a very real way for me, it’s been a return to the happy, semi-care-free life I wanted to have with Dorinda 8 years ago –right before everything went pear shaped. Oh sure, we have a child and more responsibility that when know what to do with, but we are happy with all of that.

And to go for that CT-scan would require me to once again seriously consider my own mortality. I would have to acknowledge the fact that I was actively searching out the little tumor that will some day lead me to a premature death.

8yrs ago I felt like we were forced to grow up way too fast –babies, cancer, financial ruin, etc. But a few weeks ago I realized that I was acting like a child by sticking my head under the covers and hoping the boogie man would go away.

Well fuck the boogie man. I certainly don’t want to die. But at least now I can say I did something with my life that I actually care about.

So who’s ever had a CT scan? They are loads of fun, let me tell you. For starters, they are really unhealthy. But doctors like to use them anyway because they are REALLY accurate. Frankly, there is a lot of debate in the medical community about the frequent use of CT scans for non-critical cases, and weather they do more harm than good in the long run. But that fact is that for people like me, you have to accept a certain level of risk in order to keep yourself alive.

The night before you go in, you get to choke down a Barium Sulfate suspension. I’ve found that the best way to handle this crap is to mix it with 36oz of Red Gatoraid. It still tastes gross, but you only gag a little towards the bottom of the bottle –where the mildly radioactive sludge has collected.

Then you don’t eat or drink anything after midnight, and then you drive back to the hospital and drink two more large cups of hospital “lemonade” that is full of even more Barium Sulfate. Try not to puke while doing this.

And then the needles come. Did I mention how much I fear needles? I’m terrified of them. I’ve split my head open, ripped chunks of my face off in skateboarding accidents, got stabbed with an aw (kind of a leather punch thing), had to have the fingernail on my middle finger medically punctured to release blood after crushing in (twice) in a heavy metal door, and ripped my elbow open to the bone in a rock driveway –I would take any of these over a needle.

IV needles are rather large. Not unlike a Bic pen tube with the writing nib and ink stick removed. Through this garden hose of ouch they pump a die that will help light up the Barium Sulfate, which itself is attracted to tumors and will light them up like little Christmas trees. For some reason this die makes it taste like you have copper pennies in the back of your mouth, and like someone is holding a lit zippo to your asshole.

Then you slide in and out of a big radioactive donut, while some fake-soothing computer voice tells you to “Breathe in. . .hold your breath. . .relaaaaaxxx.” You hold your arms over your head and try to ignore the IV line being tugged back and forth, and do your best not to imagine the catheter tube in your arm scraping along the inside walls of your vein. Or the massive amount of harmful radiation that you are sucking up with your apparently tumor-prone body. Yeesh!

And just for fun, since it’s 11 o’clock now and you still haven’t eaten or (worse still) had any coffee yet, lets go over to the lab, where they can stab you again and take 9 vials blood. Every time they replace a vile, the needle wiggles around inside your arm and you try not to pass out, cry, or wet your pants.

Then stumble out to the car and shove that entire Giant Snickers bar in your face, (which you brought just for this moment), before you pass out. Then hit the nearest Dunkin Donuts and get some coffee. With espresso in it.

God what fun.

Amid all that I managed to get three pages of Atomic Robo finished. Not quite the five or six I was hoping for.

After a week of almost constant rain and temperatures in the 60’s, summer arrived this weekend like a soggy ton of bricks. On Saturday the temperature rose into the 90’s, and the humidity is pretty high. 90 is not awful, but damn, when you jump from 60 to 90? That’s pretty awful. Today they are saying that we should reach 100 degrees. Oh joy.

Dorinda and I went to the groovy little town of Peterborough on Saturday. I say “little” but it’s at least three times the size of my town. But in my mind, if you’re not Boston or NYC, you are a little town. Anyway, we went out there for dinner, and along the way we noticed a funny thing. People everywhere were just standing out on their front lawns, porches, and stoops, looking for all the world like a bunch of hayseed hillbillies. Because they are, but that’s not the point. It seemed like collectively, the people of Southern New Hampshire had no idea what to make of the clear skies and roasting temperatures, so like zombies they just staggered out into the sun and waited for someone to show up in a rusty pick-up with a thirty-rack of Pab’s or Nattie Light.

I hope this is just a heat wave and that Spring is not truly over, because I seriously hate Summer in New England. But it probably is. The Widget will be done with school in a few weeks, and then I will be pulling my hair out, trying to get work done at Goss Park –our local ‘beach” and swimming hole. Goss is pretty awesome, and I do love it there, but it’s very hard to work. And I love to work, because I love to eat. So summer time is not the best time of the year for me. I look longingly at September on the calendar every year, when I can enjoy a few more months of nice weather that is not too hot, and not too cold, before we roll into another blisteringly cold winter.

Does anybody know of a place where it is perpetually Spring/Fall? Because I want to live there.

Yesterday, despite the heat, I hooked up with a couple members of the extended Team-Robo family down at Great Scott’s for Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School. It was fun, but after 3hrs of sketching I was all done. I think they should ditch the annoying one-minute and two-minute sketches, and figure out how to make the thing about two hours long. “Ms. Honey Suckle” was a wonderful model. She is a beautiful full-figured woman, and struck some great poses. Models at show’s I’ve gone to in the past have been pretty skinny, and while society says that is what’s hot, (this decade anyway), they’re really not much fun to draw. These are basically quick sketches, so you never have time to go into great detail. So capturing the gesture, or the curve of a hip is all you really have time for. Girls with no curves don’t give you much to work with in the time available, despite them being very nice to look at.

Anyway, we had fun. Then we tried to have Korean. But all the Korean joints were closed. So we had something from Asia that began with the letter “M”, but which I cannot remember. Malaysian maybe? There were noodles and bits of squid. I was happy.

Ronda has been a busy beaver. She’s working on the cover for Robo 2.3, and by the time I post this blog I might have a final version to show you. Also, she did a fantastic job on the wrap-around cover for the Killer of Demons graphic novel (due out October 2008 from Viper Comics). So check those out and have a good week. I’m off to install an air conditioner so that I don’t sweat all over the next page of Robo.

 

RANDOM SPLENDOR