How do you feel? So I have a really good hospice doc. I’m not dying right now, but I’m well in the category that you can be in those end-of-life months. And she said to me early on: When you’re dying of an abdominal disease, you’re really — you’ve got an algorithm that’s managing four variables. You have tumor- driven pain. You have cancer- and treatment-driven nausea. You’re managing a diarrhea- to-constipation continuum. And you’ve got energy and fatigue. So I was in a ton of pain early on because I had some pancreatic tumors that were essentially pushing on my spinal column, and I was on 55 milligrams of morphine as soon as diagnosed. And that’s — you’re high as a kite. And we drove down my pain a lot. But since then, the drug has shrunk the tumors so much that I was willing to dial back up a little bit of pain to get a little bit of energy back and to be able to get a little more control over my nausea, etc. So I’m down to only about 30 milligrams a day of morphine, and I’d say my pain is 80 percent reduced from where I started. So I manage nausea a lot. There’s strong waves of desire to puke. And when my face isn’t bleeding, I’m actually pretty good with the puking. I mean, I don’t like it, but you can throw up, and you’re through it. So anyway, enough whining. But that’s — so the pain, let’s say, on a 0 to 10 scale right now, sitting here talking to me? It’s not bad. Four. OK. But it was up at, like, eight? Yeah. And how do your face and skin feel? Nuclear. [Laughs.] Burning, bubbling? Yeah. I was at a — I’m in a pharmacy every day. I’m keeping a lot of that industry employed right now. There’s the drop-off part, and then there’s the pickup part, but there’s that little weird curtain in the corner that says, “Consult.” I always figured that was just a place to talk about S.T.D.s. Like, I didn’t know what it was, but I just figured they called you over if there was some — — An unusual wart. Yeah, exactly. There’s something growing here that I don’t know how to make sense of. I had a pharmacist call me over there the other day, and she pulls the curtain. I don’t know what’s going on. I’m like: Do I got another problem I don’t even know about? And she leans in, and she said, “Did they do something electrical to you?” I don’t even know what that is. But either acid or electric shocks produce a face that looks this hideous. Well, and you told her that you’d gotten on the wrong side of six different mafias and they’d all taken turns. I said, “Listen, I was at the local Walmart, and they’re going to have to get a handle on all those kids with the bowls of acid running around in the aisles. I’m a victim.” So the tumors are smaller right now. Crazy smaller. My tumors this week are down 76 percent from Dec. 29. Tumor volume in my torso is down 76 percent. So if they can knock tumor volume down 76 percent, why can’t they keep you alive for 20 years? Great question. And I have to keep answering this one for my mama. I can imagine that some people closer to you than I am have that question The way it’s been explained to me — and I don’t know squat about biology — but the way it’s been explained to me, you could look out at your lawn and say: There are only six dandelions out there. I could weed those. And they say: Yes, but look at your neighbors to the north and to the south. Both of their yards are chock-full of dandelions. Two or three or four mornings from now, that’s your yard. You’ve already seeded everything. And so, even though my pancreas tumors look on the scans like “Let’s get these before and after images blown up and put them on the wall,” they’ve already seeded so many other kinds of cancer that it’s probably just not something you can ever catch up on. There’s too much Whac-a-Mole.
