Announcement

Awright, alla you preverts, whiskey drinking gun owners, and woman chasing, freedom loving, natural born hell raisers find yourselves a cheap seat in the peanut gallery, get your beverages and snacks situated, then sit down and shut up. Don't feed the other man's dog, and don't bother the people in the VIP seats; they know who they are.

Pick one letter out of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) basic Latin alphabet. That's the A-B-Cs you learned back in school, with the little song that went along with it so you would be able to remember... nevermind. Just pick a letter.

Moving with a self-assured aplomb, I shall select the letter 'C' prior to disclosing the reason for my selection. C, as in the big Casino, as in cancer.

I've got it.

This is my second time at bat. I went three rounds with the Big C in July, 2014. It was several weeks of different and distinct varieties of hard life, but I was the last man standing. That was then, this is now.

The good new is that this, so they tell me, is a different kind of cancer. It's not caused by the same virus that caused the old cancer, which for unknown reasons is beneficial to me. This is nice, new cancer! Isn't that special? The other little ray of sunshine is that the new cancer hasn't spread to the rest of me. What it's done is taken over a portion of my tongue.

Six general types of treatment are possible.

1. Surgery. The sawbones would remove about two-thirds of my tongue, which is called a glossectomy (removing part or all of the tongue) and probably a neck dissection to remove nearby lymph nodes. Reconstructive surgery can, in theory, help restore talking and swallowing. In this case the sawbones will fashion me an artificial tongue using tissue from my thigh. My left thigh, I'd suppose, since that's the side that the cancer is on.

2. Radiation and Chemotherapy. Again, part of my tongue comes up missing, and the treatment makes the patient so miserable he wants to die, but can't because the effort of loading his revolver is too much for him to accomplish. In truth, just the thought of the racket that hand canon makes indoors is enough to make anyone reject this treatment.

3. Newer drugs target specific chemicals in cancer cells and/or help the body's immune system fight the disease. When this works, it really works well.

4. Not recommended by the doctor. Cash in all your chips, buy a .44 Magnum revolver, then head for Las Vegas. Spend your money on hookers and blow. When you're dead broke and in hock up to your ass, use the .44.

5. Decline treatment and check in to hospice. Reassure everyone who comes to visit that you're okay, and you're fine with life after death, and put up with their howling and whingeing.

I'm in pain most of the time. I take Oxycodone 10 MG TABS, Ibuprofen, and pot. The pot gummies actually work well so long as you don't take too much (Wheeee!!!).

I can't eat any form of solid food. Nope, not happening today, and tomorrow isn't looking good either. I drink... Boost, along with similar beverages.

I'm inclined to select treatment option three. In case of failure, it's option five.

Yours,

Mad Jack