One benefit to waking up before midnight and being forced out of bed: coffee and the ability to cheat on the day’s step counter. Wait, that’s two benefits … anyway, yes, coffee and cheating. The coffee needs little explanation: it’s depressing to be really friggin’ tired but in too much “discomfort” to sleep, knowing you haven’t even reached the next day yet … but the thought of a cup of coffee somehow makes everything bearable. For those of you who just said, “Coffee’s gonna keep you up, jackass!” please, just trust me, coffee ain’t an issue. There’s no need to retract calling me a jackass (guilty as charged), but when you’re awash in a tsunami of chemicals (some natural, some not) and the pain’s hovering in that legit 7ish range, the psychological upside to a half-cup far outweighs the bit of caffeine.
As for the cheating? Well, I’m trying to make a comeback (more on that later) and thus I’m back to measuring all kinds of meaningless efforts: if I walk a measly 1/3 mile on the treadmill, I record it. If I get up to pee 16 times in one night, well, that’s better than just 12 times, isn’t it? Wait, is it? Anyway, steps are an easy thing to track. No, I don’t have a watch or special ring or anything—just the trusty iPhone. And the great thing about iPhone steps is that it’s easy as hell to cheat. So, here I am, sitting at the kitchen counter, starting my day, even though it’s technically still the day before, drinking coffee and waving my iPhone in the air. Yes, this $1,000 piece of exquisite tech encased in plastic, metal and glass isn’t actually that bright—it thinks I’m walking. Does that make me smarter than Steve Jobs? I’m thinking not, which is a bummer, as he was a guy who thought he was smart enough to maybe “solve” his own cancer and tragically failed. Anyway, I’m not going crazy here with the steps, but I gotta tack on a hundred or so to get myself to an even (though altogether pathetic) 5,000 for the day (err, the day before, or whatever).
Another recent benefit to late-night, middle-of-the-night, all-night type situations like this: sophomoric humor. Many, many years ago, my 18–21-year-old male brain, like most, indulged in the finer trappings of silly, juvenile cinematic fare. The Ikenberry (dorm) boys will no doubt recall us watching Raising Arizona, Spinal Tap, and About Last Night over and over again. We spoke in a bizarre pseudo-English, hardly able to articulate a full thought without a “Son, you got a panty on your head,” “These go to eleven,” or “Red dog one to red dog squadron!” quote thrown in for good measure. For the record, yes, we did all somehow graduate with degrees. And, of course, our brains did eventually evolve. Once a jackass, always a jackass, but by my mid-twenties, I would have listed Cinema Paradiso and Kieślowski’s Three Colours Trilogy as my favorite movies. Then came middle age: jobs, careers, bills, mortgages, marriage, four kids. Sure, nothing could keep Dumb & Dumber and Anchorman from worming their way into my brain but suffice it to say I haven’t seen the killer rabbit of The Holy Grail behead an unsuspecting knight in years. Well, that’s all changed recently.
One late-night channel-flipping session landed me on The Big Lebowski, which despite my knowing a lot about, I’d somehow never seen. My God, if us Ikenberry boys would’ve had that one to put on repeat … No, I will not become a full practitioner of Dudeism or start attending Dude festivals, but damn if that movie wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered—it has to be as effective as chemotherapy and way less toxic. Then, as luck would have it, the movie seemingly started playing at all times, night and day. Whenever I turned the television on, there it was. I left it on each time. Since then, I’ve found myself re-watching Step Brothers and Superbad. I make no apologies. The laughs are magic and the vibe of such fare always proves somehow soul-calming if not always soul-lifting.
Laughter. Jackassetry. A profound appreciation for the absurd. Check, check, check. Gotta have ‘em all to survive. Many of you probably know, my dad passed away just over two months ago. I will post about this at some point when I’m ready, and ready to do him justice. In the meantime, I will tell you that, although he could come across as a very serious guy, deep down, he was a secret blackbelt in jackassetry. I was the last of four kids, so my memories of him don’t begin until he was about 40 … he may have “grown up” a bit by then. Also, I suspect that out of us four kids he probably recognized that I was the one most at risk of becoming a true idiot, so he may have been less inclined to show that side of himself to me. But I saw plenty. He had a wicked sense of humor—dry as a bone—and was just … a jackass in the best possible way. The man walked around every day in a pressed dress shirt with the front pocket full of loose snacks. Like, we’d be sitting there in a business meeting, and he’d be casually grabbing pretzel sticks from his pocket throughout (his fantasy football team was actually named Snack Daddy). He was perhaps best known amongst my friends for having incredibly long arms. He did indeed have long arms relative to his not-so-tall frame, but his arms took on mythological status. A college buddy of mine might crack a joke about Dad’s knuckles dragging on the ground right in front of him? No problem. Deadpan stare, sure, but Dad ate it up. You get the picture. He was a Marine, a wildly successful businessman, a possible CIA field asset (oh yeah, that’s a helluva story), a man of great faith and generosity, and above all a loving husband and father, but make no mistake, he had a wonderful jackass side to him.
Why the segue into my dad, you ask? Well, I was in the middle of radiation treatments to my femurs, hips, and pelvis the week of his service and he road shotgun (in spirit) with me on one memorable session. I rarely have to go to any type of treatment alone out of necessity, but many times I do just because I’m feeling fine (and sometimes it’s easier mentally to go it alone). The day after his service, I chose to drive myself. Big mistake. I should have seen it coming throughout the day—the pain was coming on—but I was too stubborn to change course. By the time I got in my truck to drive to the hospital, I was a mess. I was chanting, yelling, kinda out of my mind the whole drive, with Big Al’s spirit riding shotgun. We were laughing out loud, together, at the absurdity of it all. When I got to the hospital, I had a hard time getting out of my truck, and it took me a full 15 minutes to walk just the few hundred yards from the parking garage. When I went inside, the techs (who I’ve now seen over a hundred times the past two years or so) took one look at me and asked bluntly, “What the hell happened to you? We’ve never seen you this bad.” I just told them to get my ass in there, get me on the table, and let’s get this over with.
Getting on the table was a monumental task. I was, quite literally, shivering with pain. They asked me what kind of music I wanted. Dad was still hanging out with me, of course, so I almost said Classic Country (he was a Willie & Waylon kind of guy). But I think I went with Classic Rock or Yacht Rock? Anyway, they got me all lined up on the table and left for the secured control room (turns out no one wants to be exposed to radiation except the guy getting it shot through his body). So, I’m lying there, shaking and kind of moan-laughing out loud, and Big Al’s hovering around shaking his head and laughing with me, and one of the techs comes over the intercom. She says, “Mr. Graber … you need to … point down.” Now this tech is probably late-50s, early-60’s and a native of, I’d guess, an Eastern Bloc country, so she’s got a bit of an accent … I yell back, “What?” She comes back on … “You need to point … your thing down.” I take a moment to process this, before yelling back, “I’m sorry, did you say my thing?“ She says, “Yah, your thing. You need to point your … pahkage down.” Thick accent, maybe, but I’m pretty friggin’ sure she just said package. I’m confused and outta my mind, so I’m unresponsive. She comes back on: “The doctor wanted us to tell you that if you’re pointed up you may catch some radiation …” I can actually hear Big Al laughing his ass off at this point. I’m afraid I’m going to fall off the table I’m shaking so bad. More silence as I try to absorb this information. I finally yell back: “I’m not sure I’m really pointing anywhere! I think my thing has left the building!” Understand that the effects of severe pain are a bit like those associated with jumping into a freezing ice bath when it comes to things. “You wanna come in here and try to point me wherever you want, go for it, but I think I’m good. Just hit me!” A pause, then she comes back on the intercom with a very drawn out “Ahhhkayyyyyy … Let’s get started then.”
Like I said … Laughter. Jackassetry. A profound appreciation for the absurd. Check, check, check. Gotta have ‘em all to survive. Thanks Dad, for passing that down the gene pool and for being my wingman that evening. FYI: I taped my “pahkage” up (err, down), which is as uncomfortable as it sounds, the remaining sessions I had—oh the stories I could tell.
What about that comeback I mentioned earlier? Well, I have a plan. I have a specific goal for this spring/summer. I won’t lay out the details just yet … it’s probably unattainable. But I’m gonna try. It’ll take getting through a lot of treatment between now and then and somehow getting in some training along the way, so we’ll see. As for treatment … it’s pretty much weekly/daily still. It’s really kinda nuts. My doctors have started cracking jokes about setting records for things like radiation. And when I say something like, “Chemo sucks. I don’t like this anymore,” they say things like, “Wow, you’re really handling all this treatment well!” I’m sorry, what? Like I said, nuts. The experimental histotripsy treatment up in NYC in December was, alas, an abject failure. They just couldn’t get the liver tumors targeted well enough. So, we’re left with figuring out another plan for that particular organ. As it stands, I’m going back up there twice in the next several weeks to get a special kind of radiation delivered into the specific arteries that feed the tumors—the idea is this will kill the tumors over time. As for long-term collateral damage? Hopefully it will not be too bad … on the plus side, they say I’m starting from a great place liver-health-wise, so I guess I get a pass for all those beer bongs years ago. In the meantime, I’m still hitting the chemo whenever we can fit it in, I have radiation next week on a broken rib and big tumor in my core muscle wall, and then radiation coming up on my right shoulder and upper arm. Let’s keep rolling. Let’s keep hammering it. Let’s keep laughing.
Thanks to all, for the love, support, and prayers. Thanks again to my dad, Big Al “Snack Daddy” Graber, for going down the rabbit hole with me that one crazy session. And thanks to God for allowing killer rabbits, panties on heads, and amps that go to 11 to be a part of our lives …
Until next time, peace out!