Further travels with a not-so-wild child
May. 6th, 2017 06:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
randy_byersI haven't been keeping up with my busy life on dreamwidth. Last weekend I was in LA for Corflu, where my name was drawn out of the hat as Guest of Honor, to much acclaim. I'll be writing more about that experience for Nic Farey's fanzine, BEAM, when I get back from my next big adventure, which is a trip to Micronesia. I see I've already written about the medical considerations of this trip in "Interim."
The trip itself will include a day in Pohnpei, where we will visit the mysterious stone city of Nan Madol -- the Venice of the Pacific, the Reef of Heaven. This is a place I've wanted to visit since I first heard about it many years ago (and a place that my friend Stacy Scott has visited, when she lived on the island with her father in the '70s), and now the bucket list is finally being checked off. Pretty cool!
Then it's off to Yap Island in the Federated Islands of Micronesia, where my family lived for four years in the sixties and where I've returned with various parts of the family twice before -- in 1998 and 2002. This time I'm traveling with my brother and his family. It'll be great to see our old friend Thinnifel and his wife. Thinnifel has promised to have some of the sweet little bananas I love so much waiting for me. I just hope my defrosting frozen shoulder won't prevent me from snorkeling.
In general I'm anxious that I won't have the stamina to enjoy the trip. I'll be taking 100 mgs of chemo every night. This is considered a microdose (it's a third of what I was taking during the main phase of chemo), and therefore it's not supposed to debilitate me. I took my first dose last night and don't feel debilitated yet. We'll see what it does to me over the course of three weeks. Also, I feel weak and easy-to-tire from the year of more intense treatment I've just been through. Of course, I'm also concerned that the cancer is now spreading through my brain and will cause problems while I'm traveling. Still, the hope is that the chemo will keep it in check, and since I'm not dragging the Optune with me, that will be reassuring.
I honestly don't know what I want to do on Yap. Visit old haunts, eat sweet little bananas, listen to Thinnifel's stories, smell the old smells, soak it all in for probably the last time. Maybe I'll sit and contemplate the stone money as I did in elder days.
The trip itself will include a day in Pohnpei, where we will visit the mysterious stone city of Nan Madol -- the Venice of the Pacific, the Reef of Heaven. This is a place I've wanted to visit since I first heard about it many years ago (and a place that my friend Stacy Scott has visited, when she lived on the island with her father in the '70s), and now the bucket list is finally being checked off. Pretty cool!
Then it's off to Yap Island in the Federated Islands of Micronesia, where my family lived for four years in the sixties and where I've returned with various parts of the family twice before -- in 1998 and 2002. This time I'm traveling with my brother and his family. It'll be great to see our old friend Thinnifel and his wife. Thinnifel has promised to have some of the sweet little bananas I love so much waiting for me. I just hope my defrosting frozen shoulder won't prevent me from snorkeling.
In general I'm anxious that I won't have the stamina to enjoy the trip. I'll be taking 100 mgs of chemo every night. This is considered a microdose (it's a third of what I was taking during the main phase of chemo), and therefore it's not supposed to debilitate me. I took my first dose last night and don't feel debilitated yet. We'll see what it does to me over the course of three weeks. Also, I feel weak and easy-to-tire from the year of more intense treatment I've just been through. Of course, I'm also concerned that the cancer is now spreading through my brain and will cause problems while I'm traveling. Still, the hope is that the chemo will keep it in check, and since I'm not dragging the Optune with me, that will be reassuring.
I honestly don't know what I want to do on Yap. Visit old haunts, eat sweet little bananas, listen to Thinnifel's stories, smell the old smells, soak it all in for probably the last time. Maybe I'll sit and contemplate the stone money as I did in elder days.
