Requilibriating

Dear blog,

I have decided that life will never sufficiently equilibriate for me to contribute to this medium in the sense I described years ago. It has been four and a half years since I last posted, and so I must review a few things.

(voop)

After beating cancer, December 2012, I went on to walk the stage of Ohio University with an overpriced nylon master's hood that I threw away immediately afterward. I had a sense of pride in the master's which I never had with my undergraduate degree. That was May 2013, and that summer, Vivian and I trained for and rode a couple's century (100 mile) bike ride.

Vivian and I decided to enroll in PhD programs at Kent State, where I would study characters with Don White. With both of us making money, and neither of us having cancer, money started piling up pretty fast. We managed to repay family loans incurred during my sickness in just a few months. A little while after that, I decided that graduate school without fighting cancer was just too boring, and we had plenty of money, so we started making babies. Juniper was born on June 25, 2014 (her due date).

(!)

That pretty much did the trick for me. Having a newborn in my room cry at all hours of the night for the months preceding qualifying exams was almost as difficult as fighting cancer, and made it seem like a worthy task again. I would go on to score the top grade out of ten takers on the combined analysis half of the qualifying exam. I did not score the top grade on the algebra half, because I had the flu on that day and was running to the bathroom with severe diarrhea after each problem (ten problems per qualifying exam). At one point, I was actually just shivering in a cold sweat on a couch in the waiting area outside the exam room. Good times. I got a 77 on that exam, and 62 on the analysis. Three of us passed.

(four more passed a second attempt, and two passed a third)

Then I had to pass candidacy, which was a farce. One of the committee members fell asleep (though he always does, so I cannot claim that contributed much in way of farce-ness to the exam). Finally, the easy part; solving an unsolved problem, or at least part of it. I did, and the same committee plus a few computer scientists all said I could be a doctor of mathematics. So I walked across the stage of Kent State University in a rented nylon gown in, and was given the silly doctoral hood by the university, so actually less money out of pocket than the master's. I haven't thrown it out yet, because I may well find I am required to attend a function in it someday. That would be May 2017.

(car up!)

I had one of the best experiences of my life last summer, August 2016. I rode Pelotonia (pelotonia.org). It's a cancer research charity bike ride put together by the James cancer hospital at OSU (where I was originally diagnosed). For Pelotonia, the longer rides correspond to bigger donation amounts, and I wanted to ride the longest of them all, which is the 180 mile, two day ride. I raised 2550 dollars (2500 minimum for that ride). There's a thing in group biking called 'drafting' where you ride really close to a person or group of people and get a cut in wind resistance. I did that for the first time on the first day of Pelotonia. I also received more positive feedback than I ever had in just a few hours. I wore a shirt detailing my cancer story on the back, and with all the drafting, plenty of folks got a chance to read and congratulate me, or explain that I'm why they ride, or that I am their hero.

The flip side to drafting is 'pulling', where people are hot on your ass and you're taking all the wind resistance. That's the deal, whoever in front may get tired and drop back, and someone else has to take the wind. I didn't pull the first day. The second day I got in with a group of eight to ten guys, all of them on aluminum and carbon fiber bikes, with clip-ins and fancy pants, cruising about 30kph over rolling hills. I was in the back at first, but the lead kept dropping off until I realized it was going to be me pulling. I got myself as pumped as possible and kept that team moving at 30kph for about two minutes before falling back. At that point, one of them shouted "riding a '72 commuter, in tennis shoes and gym shorts! You are rocking it." I corrected them, "it's an '83." My father in law insists now that it's an '81. I don't know, but it was fun being the only person out of a hundred or so at any given pit stop with a kick-stand. One of that group patted me on the back at the end, and said, "good job, '83," and told me I made a big impression on their group.

I pass a lot of people with multi-thousand dollar, bike/gear packages when I train on my father in law's old Raleigh 10-speed, in sneakers and gym shorts. I am hoping to ride Pelotonia 18 as well.

(Cold beer!)

It is now July, so it is over a year since I began preparing application materials for the job search that began last fall around November. People have asked how it is going, the job search, periodically for the last six or eight months. Honestly, it compares pretty easily with cancer. I hated every minute of the process. The networking, the white lies on paper (oh glorious employer, oh you are the greatest employer, oh joyous and righteous whom it may concern, I am but a humble applicant, but the most emphatically well qualified applicant regardless who else may have applied!!), the waiting, and absurd amounts of rejection. I absolutely would not live a life if the entirety was fighting cancer, nor if its entirety was searching, and not securing, employment. It's a life not worth living. I gained considerable weight for the first several months, and despite very consistent effort this summer, have not made much progress on it.

(side bar)

After one very important rejection came in, I gave up on a career in academia and started learning Python on the advice of a friend in tech. I applied to about twenty positions in programming, and was rejected for all but one, which kind of never progressed. Then my undergrad called and made the offer, about a month after they stopped returning my emails on the subject, and so some weeks since I figured the job had gone to another candidate. The hiring process at Central State has been marked by nonsensical and unreasonable behavior so far, and so I'm planning to keep programming in my pocket, and picking up display projects while eyeing the market. Computer programming has advantages over academic work, to be sure.

(back to business)

My very good friend, Conrad Zagory, who I met at Central, is still there and I am very much looking forward to spending some more years with him as comrade. I call him my sensei, because he taught me the game of go after I was kicked out the college of education. Someone asked if I had a real Japanese sensei. I said he's a 6' tall jew, but he spent 20 years there, had a career, hobbies, wife and children there, so pretty good 'Japanese sensei' credentials. My go game improved considerably when I roomed with him for a semester out of dire poverty at the end of undergrad. It didn't improve very much in graduate school, and actually got a good deal worse while I was researching for my dissertation. I went from 6 kyu on KGS to 10 while researching. After I finished, it took a few months to get back up to 6 kyu, and to relearn how to play guitar.

I re-read this entire blog this morning. That chapter I wrote the second month at Central, 'The Dream' is really good, I think. I should really write the rest of that book. I probably won't. I don't really know how to play guitar. I can play three songs. I don't practice often enough to get any better. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

(back, back...)

Some things never change. Every behavior I exhibit today is drastically different from those I exhibited at the start of the blog. They are all for the same purposes; I just have vastly superior methods of achieving the same ends. I still want to play guitar, play go, speak German, teach mathematics, record music, and I still only find time for a few of them at a time. Sometimes you go back a ways, see where you started, and everything is different from one perspective, while being completely unchanged from another. A few weeks ago I reread a hundred pages of old IM chats I saved from 10 years ago. Some of the participants are still friends. They think they have changed. I am not so sure.

Your Obedient,
Ian Hogan, PhD

Learning to Walk, Seven Times

Dear blog,

This shall be the last cancer blog, pending recurrence. I, naturally, grow weary of the topic.

I am tired. Exhausted, etiolated, sapped, cut-through, zonked. I'm frustrated, near tears, near tantrum with everything. It's all coming back too slowly. I fought to learn to walk after being bed-ridden every two weeks for the last two months. I vomited, ultimately, once, after eating too fast, because I was starving from not being able to eat for two days. I struggled to eat slowly after fasting every two weeks for the last two months. I'm just not interested any-more.

I am also triumphant! Horns blasting, timpani rumbling, electric guitar squeeling and ten thousand baritones screaming their best high G. A genetic mutation lead to rampant spread of caustic foreign death through an alarming portion of my body. The only treatment: to poison it and you, and hope you live longer than it...and I did. And I got a Mother Fucking 4.0 (completing my Master's requirements) while I did it. That's right: capital letters in foul language. Sometimes it's appropriate (probably not now). Anywhat.

"What's it like having a port?" -paraphrase. It's the question I'd rather answer, anyway. It's like the Borg. It's totally alien. It's unlike any natural process, hugging, talking, shaking hands, scrunching toes, pulling hair, eating squid, nothing. They knock you out and you wake up in discomfort with a small jagged scar and a visible sub-cutaneous implant (three cheers for spelling cutaneous first try!). Later, they stab you in the chest with a three quarter inch needle, which hurts like the dickens for a second, honest Abe. Then you watch saline solution pumped in the direction of your chest through a little tube and it disappears. Intellectually, you know where it went, but you can't really feel it. The vibration is too slight to activate the insensitive chest nerves. Later than that, you watch colored liquid go through the tube and disappear through the needle you cannot feel, and you know it's poison, and you sit still anyway.

If you're human that is. I refer to Dune, Frank Herbert. I am a human. I can be sure now.

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

I have to rebuild my body. I have gained twenty pounds of fat, while losing vast strength, endurance and some flexibility. I have become addicted to sleep aids. The chemo caused insomnia. I will face sleepless nights this week as I kick the drugs. I hope to counteract the withdrawal by exhausting myself daily with intellectual and physical tasks.

I have to deal with paper-work. The insurance was kind enough to stop paying bills at some point, which problem I put off til now to deal with.

I must, and I will, slowly, and carefully, and with all the tedium and frustration inherent, grind away at the junk that's wrong in my life as a result of this dice roll. And let it be an example to anyone who thinks anything might be unfair, or that any task be too boring or frustrating to tolerate. As always, this is what I hope to be my message here. Do your jobs folks, it could be worse. You could be paid less and have to work harder and be dying while it happens.

Your Obedient,
Ian Hogan M.S. B.S. A.A.

Apple Cider

Dear blog,

Obviously, I'm not writing very often these days. This is because I am very tired just about all the time. Earlier in the semester, I would experience, perhaps, four days each two weeks where I could not do very much. Now it is easily working in to the sixth day after chemo that I don't get much done and I never stop being tired. The only thing getting me through now is that the end is in sight.

I just got done getting my fourth to last infusion Thursday. I'm still just about incapacitated. In fact, the only reason this blog is being written is that Vivian has offered to take dictation. I have been exploring potential Ph.D. dissertation advisors at Ohio University and Kent State University. It is not ideal that I should be sick and studying while exploring this but there is no other option. I have narrowed down my possible fields of higher study to topologically driven dynamical systems and characters of finite group representations. The motivation for the latter is that characters of finite group representations have applications in chemistry, which I do not know enough about. The motivation for the former is that there is a large and active research group at the university on the subject.

If Joyce Stock is reading this, Vivian told me about a cake that you make made of layers of thin wafer with some sort of cream between the layers that softens the wafers. I would like this as a get well from cancer dessert. I plan to be in the Cleveland area in late December.

Regards,
Ian Hogan B.S. A.A. C.P.Lf.P.

Dear blog,

I am quite busy, so not blogging often. There is little to note. I do not feel well, with a cold, but no so unwell that I cannot get chemo tomorrow. I am due for chemo on Thanksgiving day. I must decide whether to go short or go long. Pros and cons to each. If I go long, the whole process will run longer as a result. If I go short, I miss the break. Same for finals week. That's the long and short of it.

"...has this experienced changed you perspective on how you want to live your life? Has it affected your feelings about death or changed your opinions about anything like health ins. or capital punishment or anything like that?"

In short, no. I feel like I was living a fairly full life before the risk of truncation became more solid before my eyes. I have been impelled to read a few books I was meaning to read, but nothing other than that. So while many find God or realize they have wasted so much time or whatever, I did not find or realize anything to that effect.

And in regards to health insurance, my opinion has not changed. My personal opinion is that in an era of such abundance: that there should be produced each year enough grain to feed the world; that individuals exist who pay in property tax the net income of entire villages over generations; that even one adult has the liberty to choose to purchase a large house between his other two houses so that he need not stop at a hotel driving from one to the other; in this world, it is unthinkably immoral and corrupt of anyone to believe I should be bankrupt because I rolled unlucky at the cancer craps table. I think it unfathomably disgusting now, now that I am facing the cruel reality of sitting near people whose surplus of wealth would handily end every financial woe I possess, knowing that if I even mentioned the disparity to them that they would merely cough uncomfortably and attempt to part company. I thought it unfathomably disgusting that such pairings existed before I was in one.

Frankly, it's enough to make any upright citizen sick if they think about it long enough. So now, as then, I try not to think about it.

Regards,
Ian Hogan.

$\ iff$ X is compact

Dear blog,

Naturally the title is referring to the fact that ultra-filters converge in compact spaces. (Makes sense right? They're compact. There's no infinity to go to.)

Ok, so most of you aren't mathies. Most of you are interested, perhaps nominally, in my state of existence viz. how many pieces of bad news am I from death; perhaps aesthetically in some sort of well-structured (insofar as none of you realize I'm practically illiterate) prose. Clarification: early one morning I grunted at an old man who had said hello. He asked me if I was 'even alive yet', prolly referring to a lack of coffee. I think I said no, a clever response requiring coffee, but then pondered the question more deeply (while waiting for the pot to fill with coffee). In said meditation, I decided it was possible metrize state of alive-ness by how many pieces of bad news I am from death. The most alive is 3 I think.
1) You have cancer;
2) The treatment isn't working;
3) There's nothing we can do.
Given that I have recently received (1) I rated myself as 2 on the metric.

This is all pretty silly and I'm sure any of you with some thought would come up with far more elegant metrics. I encourage you to do so as an ice-breaker at parties. Anywhat, I think I may be back up to 3 as of today, depending how one reads the metric.

I have received a negative PET scan. (Technical language follows, please skim this bit of wikipedia) What does this mean? Roughly it means that what cancer remains is insufficiently active to make the screen light up. There is certainly still some cancer, potentially alive and weak or too small to register on the scan. Thus I must continue treatment until December as planned.

That's really all the cancer news that's important. On to more frivolous matters. Comments. I got a bunch. Splendid. Better though was that one of them had several questions. Questions are good. Answering questions is fun and easy. I will endeavor to answer at least 1 with each post. If more questions are posed, the rate of answering will increase.

"Like, what all goes on in the chemo room?" Remarkably little, though I suppose answering will end up burning a lot of space. "...the chemo room" is a little incorrect. There is an "oncology and infusion" wing or department or flat, whatever you like. It is attached the the general hospital (ER, crap like that) by way of a hall. It consists of a front desk and waiting room (for when they are full or haven't finished whatever state-mandated prep they have to do in the morning) which is shared with cardiology, and a devoted piece of building with a central, partly open, partly walled room with desks and faxes and the like where nurses sit while they do paper work and scheduling and so forth, some halls around that central room with a few private inspection rooms (or whatever, they have the padded table and that's where the doc feels you up), two private infusion rooms and at least the doctors private office if not a few more offices that I cannot look at because they might be around a corner I have no access to...and a big room with a bunch of chemo chairs and televisions. Certainly more than a kiosk, certainly less than a Sears.

A chemo chair is a well padded chair that reclines quite a lot for comfort with an IV stand next to it. The main room has 6 chairs and two televisions which typically air soaps. A person sitting in one of those chairs is first given a nominal evaluation, blood pressure, temperature and heart rate and is asked if they're feeling alright. If all that is a go, they typically proceed to put some fluids in you by some means for some purpose. Those means are limited (a stick in the arm or a stick in a port), but the purposes and fluids are many and varied. Most of them are blood (supplements to those whose counts are low) and drugs (either to treat cancer to to mitigate the effects of the ones treating the cancer). The IV stand is on wheels because you will have to pee. Not might, will. They not only encourage you to show up as loaded as possible to make it easy to find veins and so forth, but most of the drugs come blended in water which your body decides it doesn't need immediately after sifting it from the drugs.

Anyway, like I said, once whatever treatment is a go you do whatever it is you do to avoid eye-contact with the other ill people with needles leading eerily to tubes and pouches of poison and strangers' blood and such for several hours until you feel like crap and they let you go home. I personally wear ear-plugs to blot out the damn TV and try to study until the chemo turns off my brain (at which point I will continue to be as studious as a gold-finch for 100 hours approx.). The IV machines (they don't drip, they force) beep quite often and nurses bustle out to see why they're beeping. Half the time the machine is claiming "air in line" when there isn't any and the other half they're claiming they're done with the pouch and to please hang up a new pouch. Maybe half of those times they're actually done, the other half the nurse tells it to keep going.

I think that's about it. Until next time,
-Ian Hogan.

"...brown gobbets up I throw."

Dear blog,

Another chemo session over, and I feel quite ill. My blood count is low again, so I will have to go get more Neulasta tomorrow. It's time for me to get a PET scan. The lymph nodes in my neck are fairly staunchly present, contrary to expected progress of the treatment. However, the other surface-accessible nodes under my arms could not be found by the doctor. Thus, there is hope that the nodes in my neck are necrotic and things are progressing normally or that treatment is simply progressing in an uneven fashion. I am fairly anxious about all this.

Given that everything is pretty routine and some other factors there may be fewer or less frequent updates in the future. One contributing factor to this is the lack of commenting of late. At least two people have indicated that they do read but this is always of short reassurance and comments would drive up post rate.

Respectfully submitted, your obedient, in the fullness of time,
-I.

Three or Two or One

Dear blog,

Today I got infused for the third time. By the way I had been counting, I am on my third cycle. However, this is technically incorrect. A cycle is two infusions, so I have just started my second cycle. Then again, there is a chance that this treatment will not be effective, and I will have to do a different treatment. By that counting, I am on my first treatment, hence the title.

Last blog, I mentioned that I would get a port consult the next day, which was about 2 weeks ago. The consultation went fine, and I was scheduled for port placement last Friday. After the consult, I got the Neulasta injection to boost my white blood cell count. My white blood cell count had been 1.7 on a 0 to 10 scale (I have met people with AIDS with higher blood cell counts). Neulasta burns, but it must be effective, because this time my count was 8.2.

The port placement went as planned. I was very sore afterwards. They prescribed Percocet. Since they could not be sure in which side of my chest they would place the port, they shaved my whole chest. So, I shaved the rest of my torso because it looked silly. Then I had my wife shave my back, because it still looked silly. Don't worry, there are pictures.

This infusion, so far, has made me feel much sicker, much faster. Already today, I have taken a nap, which I did not on the same day of previous infusions. Also, I am between my third and fourth sittings attempting to eat some chicken ramen soup because I feel sick after only a few bites, which I did not experience on this day of previous infusions. I did, however, bike to and from the infusion.

The PET scan showed some areas of bone marrow disease. This means I am, in fact, stage 4B. This mostly just means that I am at higher risk of recurrence than otherwise.

Funny story: I'm a member of an online fitness tracking website called Fitocracy. I have been using it to advertise my cancer exercise tale. On that site, I am a member of a group called Bearded Barbell Club. One can imagine there are a wide variety of highly fit, burly men in this group, however, there are also some total wussies. Here is how I know: On the 17th, I joined a group challenge to see who in the group (who also joined the challenge (some 29 members)) could log the most points in the 2nd half of July. At the onset, I had anticipated coming in last given that I have fatigue-inducing cancer, fatigue- and nausea-inducing chemotherapy and a surgery scheduled during the challenge period. Yet, I am so far ranked 22 out of 29. I have a hefty margin over the member currently ranked 23rd, so I anticipate maintaining my rank through tomorrow (today being the 30th and second to last day of July).

Bwahahahahaha, wussies!! I tell you say, "Y'all losin' to a guy with cancer."

Full of fried chicken,
-Ian Hogan