Again with the almost-cancer

We haven’t made it to the desert with our trailer this year because I’ve been stuck in town with a series of doctors’ appointments and tests.  It takes forever to get in to see a specialist, even in ours, the greatest healthcare system in the world.  Resulta que I haven’t been able to move forward and get this thing taken care of, but I also haven’t had enough time between appointments to head south, even for a few weeks. 

(In fact, Mary and I made a break for it last Sunday and were headed to Death Valley for ten days or so, but at our first stop in Fallon, Nevada, we couldn’t get the slide to work on our trailer.  We decided to drive back home and get it taken care of at our local dealer.  Turned out to be a loose wire.)

Like my run-in with prostate cancer a few years ago, I now have an “inconclusive” test result indicating I either do or do not have thyroid cancer.  And as with prostate cancer, it doesn’t much matter.  Early stage thyroid cancer is almost completely curable, but if it turns out to be benign, they often recommend surgery anyway.  In my case, they’ll probably remove half my thyroid and biopsy that.  If it turns out to be malignant, I get a second surgery to remove the other half.  I assume there is no discount for the second surgery. 

Fortunately, thyroid surgery is considered minor and I should be out of the hospital the next day and back to normal in a few days rather than weeks or months.  This my doctor assures me.  Easy for him to say. 

This is all good news: the early CT scan and ultrasound indicated only that I had a mass somewhere in my throat, which could have been one of the bad ones.  I had to wait a month to see the first specialist, who assured me this was all about the thyroid and I could relax.  I managed to not think about it too much during the month, although I had to fight against blaming myself for my near-lifetime battle with nicotine addiction, which is generally summarized as twenty-five years of heavy smoking, fifteen years of non-smoking, and now another fifteen or so of occasionally smoking. 

Again, I blame my parents.

At any rate, the thought of losing my voice and/or breathing through a hole in my throat got my attention, and I think this time I can actually stay off the fags.  Thank you Jesus for nicotine patches during the rough patches.  Also, gum. 

To be honest, though, I did spend at least some time thinking that this could be it and asking myself if I’ve had a good life, if I have any regrets, if I could face this.  The answers were all positive, but then the question wasn’t yet real, was it?  

Is the sun setting on Midnight Sun?

 A few weeks ago I signed up on Facebook, mostly to keep in contact with some jazz fans and musicians I know electronically from around the country.  Of course, I also quickly Friended up with a bunch of politicos who mostly share my leftist leanings. 

I’m finding I love Facebook because of the rapid-fire interchanges and the frequent opportunities to jump into a conversation.  Most posts are links to something else on the web, much of which I find interesting.  I don’t really care what someone had for dinner tonight.  (I actually slow-cooked some ribs in my Crockpot with a sesame-ginger marinade last night, but I don’t consider that newsworthy.  Although, I must say, those were some killer ribs.)

The possible downside to this is that I haven’t felt any impulse to write more extended, thoughtful pieces for my blog.  It’s a tradeoff, I guess: I like to write, and the blog is a venue for getting published, although I’ve never had more than a handful of readers.  Still, that handful has sometimes been very appreciative, and it’s gratifying to spend a day or more on a single piece and then hear back from someone that they enjoyed it. 

In the end I suppose it comes down to what I feel like doing.  If I can say it in less than fifty words, it goes on Facebook.  If it takes more than an hour or so to write, it goes here.  Since I’m fundamentally a lazy person, I’ll probably be posting a lot more to Facebook than I will here. 

Sign up and let’s be Friends!

Keeping up with Spanish

No real surprise that I’ve found it difficult to keep actively learning Spanish since I’ve returned from Mexico.  I try to meet once a week with my conversation partner Leticia, but an hour a week is lame compared to the five hours a day I spent in class in Guanajuato.  Not to mention that when class was over—hello!—I’m in Mexico and almost no one speaks English.

What seems to be working the best right now is watching Spanish-language television, which is actually the place to go for many immigrants trying to learn a new language.  I can say that my listening comprehension has improved dramatically.  I thought I would never be able to understand much unless the speaker slowed down for the Gringo, but it seems that a combination of concentration and passively letting the language wash over me has its good effect. 

I try to watch one or two news programs a day, but my favorite two programs are ones I would never watch in English.  Caso Cerrado (Case Closed) is a mock courtroom where litigants come before a faux-judge and present their cases on any possible conflict they might have with each other.  These can be tragi-comic, but the program seems to bring a bit more dignity to the proceedings than some of the US programs of the same general format.  Sometimes I laugh, sometimes I cry.

The other program is Una Familia con Suerte (A Lucky Family), a soap opera/sitcom with a great cast. Here I only laugh.

My comprehension ranges from mas o menos to nada, but I find that the more I watch, the better I understand.  Fortunately, there are so many Spanish/English cognates that I can often generally follow dialogue that I would otherwise completely miss.  I could never learn a non-Romance language, like, say, Urdu. 

The other good thing about TV is that it’s fun, whereas memorizing vocabulary and practicing verb tenses isn’t.  For now, it’s the only source of daily practice I have.  The other strategy one of my guidebooks to Mexico recommended—get a Mexican girlfriend—is not an option for me.