How 'Bout a Round of Mostly Real (if Occasionally Snarky) Answers to Some Mostly Real (but also Fake and/or Rhetorical) Questions?

With the possible exception of a presidential candidate, everyone likes a good Q&A...

Can I have Kevin? 

Unfortunately (for you), no. My colleague and cat sitter will be providing Kevin with her next home. Vickie actually volunteered to take in my generic, to-be-named cat, if the need arose, before I got Kevin. And given how hard it is to pry Kevin out of the house when she stays there, I suspect she'll be thinking she got an upgrade. So it's all good. Kevin's covered.

How long do you think before you'll have to give her up? 

Well, if I was an ancient Egyptian, I'd have her mummified so that she could keep me company in the underworld. And while that seems a little extreme, I figure it might be nice to have some feline company during the, uh, erm, well <insert personal preference of weird uncomfortable words here>.  

At the same time, Kevin's new favorite game may lead to her early eviction. The way the game works is that I sit down and then Kevin tries to drape her body across my lap such that she hits as many of the "oh god, don't touch me there" spots as possible. It seems the cat "wins" -- hey, I don't make up the game, I just get suckered into playing -- when i shriek, stand up and throw her on the floor. 

In other words, the long-term duration of my cat ownership will depend almost entirely on whether or not my providers can get a grip on the abdominal pain.

Speaking of the pain, how's the Fentanyl working out?

There's only one answer that actually counts as an answer, and that's "it works perfectly and all my pain is gone." That, however, would also be completely untrue. Despite the patches, the pain is still very much present. This, then, prompts the follow-up, But is it working at all? To which I can only reply, I have no idea. My pain is, say, a seven (on the Big Hero 6 populated pain scale of 1 to 10) with the Fentanyl stuck to my chest. Would it be nine without the patch? Or even possibly a three? Again, no idea -- but there's no way I'm running the experiments necessary to find out on my own.

Any cool side effects?

Well, at this point it could be the Fentanyl, the Oxycontin , the lack of food and/or myriad other potential causal factors, but I am getting some very weird -- and very vibrant -- hallucinations in transition between wakefulness and sleep. I could've sworn some Asian woman was handing me food as I was lying in bed this afternoon, and was honestly surprised not to find a spring roll in my hand when I woke up.

I was wondering, is there a reason why your abdomen sounds like a broken aquarium, or possibly a pod of cavorting humpback whales? 

Oh, you noticed that did you? I'm sure there's probably a reason, but I can't say I'm optimistic I'll ever find out what it is. Unfortunately, I've definitely noticed that a decline in the quantity, content and clarity of communication between the provider team and I has definitely been part and parcel to this new phase of the cancer experience. 

Since we're talking about embarrassing body stuff, any chance you've found the limit to the number of ways in which your ass can make your life a misery? 

I can say this with complete and absolute certainty: There isn't one.

So should we talk about the hemorrhoids?

Oh, hell no.
Since we're talking about pain again, if there was going to be a gunfight with the weird cancery abdominal pain at one end of the street and a massage therapist at the other end, who do you think would win? 

You could arm the massage therapist a machine gun and a rocket launcher, and the weird cancery pain would still win.

Whatever happened with that clinical trial you were trying to qualify for?

I qualified. I don't -- and won't -- know whether I was randomized to receive drug or placebo, but whatever it is they'll start giving it to me on Friday. 

Any concerns?

Definitely. It's an infusion. Infusions suck. And who the hell knows what the (real) side effects might be? But in the grand scheme of things, I'm actually a lot more worried about the abdominal pain these days than the potential side effects of the trial.

Weird, context-free question: Would it be possible for the host of the American Top Forty radio show to be any more ignorant of how basic statistics, much less cancer diagnoses, actually work? 

After what I heard on Sunday, clearly not.

If it were up to you, are there any words or phrases that you would say should never, ever, be spoken to a cancer patient as if they had meaning? 

Personally, I'd have to go with, "there's always hope."

Last question: clown show or dynastic nepotism?

Oops, gotta run...