Dream it all up again

I’ve tried really hard tonight to come up with a great literary device to frame this update. But my mind is all over the place, my health has been all over the place, and my spirit has been all over the place.Let’s start with the easy stuff… cancer.

PHYSICAL HEALTH: Just days after the last update I wrote for the health blog, my side effects really, really kicked in. It began with some cold-like symptoms the week of 9 March, and then on the weekend of 14 March, it got RAW. I had a headache that pierced from temple-to-temple, and behind the eyes. I had tremendous joint pain, and aches up and down my spine from the base of my skull to the pelvis. It was really, really unpleasant.

    The docs put me on 60 mg of Prednisone to deal with what they rightly believed was inflammation of the brain and central nervous system.Transitioning onto the Prednisone was no joke. My emotions were all over the place; well, maybe not ALL over the place. Most of the time they were between“WHITE HOT RAGE” and “IRRITABLE LIKE SOUP NAZI.” As Vincent Vega would have described it, I was a “race car in the red,” and you do NOT want to keep a race car in the red, Jules.

    The Prednisone did its job, and the side effects really decreased, tothe point where I ran 15 miles in one week for the first time since the marathon. Throughout that time, I had some weird side effects pop up, then pop back. A lot of them had to do with my vision, going blurry, spinning, etc. I ended up in with neurologists, neuro-opthamologists, and on, and on.  Mixed in with that, my beloved ’96 Volvo, Ingrid, had some serious front end work done. Sometimes the vision spinning was bad enough I got nauseous, and then dealt with that. But,inevitably, they had to wean me off the Pred to get back on the treatment. The phasing down was a real treat; and then on 2 May I had infusion 3. I have been on the very low level of Pred since then, and it hasn’t been a ton of fun. Lots of headaches, some vision problems, and such. This Friday, I will (pretty pretty please) have infusion4, and then we’ll be out of the induction phase and into the maintenance phase of this experiment; supposedly, that’s when things will get a lot better in the side effects department, insh’Allah.

    The good news from the last check-up at Cleveland was that one of the tumors appeared to be smaller. They don’t do that on their own. And that’s the one piece of news I am holding onto for dear life right now.

MENTAL/SPIRITUAL HEALTH: I've found myself 'stuck in a moment, and I can't get out of it' at work. The state teacher evaluation system is an absolute nightmare, and if I was younger and healthier, I really think I’d be seriously considering a different occupation. As it has been said around the state, “I love teaching, but I hate my job.” The relentless focus on numbers means we’re focusing almost exclusively on things that can be counted – and smarter people than I have commented intelligently on what you get when you do that.

    With where I’m at in life, I think a lot about legacy. You really can’t help it; once they talk to you about Stage IV cancer, it’s a bell that can’t be un-rung. No matter how positive you choose to be, when push comes to shove, if they even hint that death is a possibility, you really do start thinking about the legacy you’re going to leave behind, and what you can do to influence that.

    This has brought me to a career crossroads in a lot of ways. I know that teaching is one thing I’m pretty good at, but to what ends? Getting kids to pass a test that seems increasingly meaningless? Or to actually equip them with a toolbox with which they can seize life by the throat? Next year I’m reinventing a lot of what I do to try to address the most fundamental things my kids need to learn: Break big projects into small tasks. Decisions have consequences. Get off Reynolds Road and see the world. Figure out who you are, and where you come from. Develop a sense of place. Honor your predecessors. You get out of things what you put into things. Maybe those lessons will match up with the state standards,maybe they won’t.

    All of these legacy decisions have been made even more emotional for me over the past week as we prepare to say goodbye to my favorite senior class since 2008. One of the greatest things about being a teacher is that it’s a cyclical job. Every year has a cycle, every year has a rhythm. The two biggest parts of that are saying hello, and saying goodbye. Some years it’s easy to say goodbye. REALLY easy.  Other times, it’s rather difficult.

    This year is one of the difficult years. This year’s seniors were freshmen when I got sick. With no notable exceptions, they were the angels on my shoulder every step of the way; in my corner when I went off to IL-2 treatment in '12,on my side through the watchful waiting of '13, and they’ve had my back throughout the treatment this year.  They’re also a group I’ve had in class more times than any other group. Five of the seniorsI’ve had in class for four courses. Another 12 I’ve had three times.  Ten of them I had twice. All that means is that I’ve had a chance to get to know them, as kids, and now as young adults. Especially over the last semester, I’ve gotten to know a handful of the core group better as writers, and editors, as they clean up their research papers, and learned some more of their backstory, some more of their work ethic. I’m really going to miss being part of their great successes, their personal tragedies, their near-misses, and their lucky moments.

    All of the senior week and graduation stuff has had me really reflecting on what I’m *doing*, what my legacy is at Rogers, and what my professional future is. Have I done what I'm gonna do? I think all of this would be a lot easier if I was 100 percent sure I was going to be,you know, alive, five or ten years out. (That statement, of course, is for me and every other human who ever lived…)

    I’ve thought since mid-March about a speech Bono threw out there, off the cuff, on the last show of the Lovetown tour in ’89 – the famous Point Depot concert in Dublin. He says, “I was explaining the other night, this is just the end of something for U2, and that’s why we’re playing these concerts, and throwing a party for ourselves, and you. It’s no big deal, it’s just that wehave to go away and… just dream it all up again.” Do I have another ‘next act’ left? Or if I figure out a next act, do I forsake what legacy I have created?  I suppose none of usreally know the answer to that question, so we just muddle through as best we can. This is the gift and the curse of a serious illness; you gain such a respect and awe for life, but you can’t just shove the thoughts of mortality away.