The Ten O'clock Pills

2200
13 NOV 2008

Marks the end of my day.

0600 Marks its awakening but the pill regime is already six hours
old. Then 0900, 1200, 1500, 1800, 2100 and finally 2200, a Special
Dose of three drugs known to interact with pills taken at 2100. So we
give the 2100 pills a chance to dissipate before taking the others.
No vomiting nor cramps; a 'good' swallow.

More pills through the night: 1200/0000... your choice I prefer to
mark them as the first of the next day's regime: 0000. Then 0300 .

Lotsa pills.

Kinda like a game of chess.

Weekly trip to the lap to have them tap a sample of claret. Run it
through their machines. Data goes into the computer which compares
this vintage with those past. Up or down and by how much; recommended
minimum & maximums.

Oncologist & Internal medicine guy pouring over the reports, looking
at the drugs being used, at their quantities and their amounts. Does
changing this alter that? I'm there with my chip-sized voice
recorder, backed up by Mr. Gregg's shorthand. Changes, if any, go
into the log and all must agree.

Changes -- even small ones -- can have unexpected consequences and I
am the Lab Rat. Some changes are too much but one pill does not an
ocean make. Try it for a week if possible, to see if the lab report
agrees. Puking for Science.

To be taken four times per day. Twice per day. Once. With food.
After eating. One full glass of water. (That's 8 ounces, by
convention) Taken at bedtime. (2200 by convention) 2.5Mg but that
dosage is not available so it's 5.0Mg, split in half. But the
halving causes the brittle pill to shatter into dust. So you grind
ten pills into powder with mortar & pestle, weigh-out a precise 2.5Mg
into papers, like pharmacists of yore. The results come back, a tiny
twitch on the lab report telling us we are going in the right
direction.

We are combating a tumor, mindless but lethal. It works 7/24, a
remarkably complex organism in its effort to kill me. By killing its
host it violates the rules. A Kami-kazi tumor.

The chess game is exhausting, the outcome not a trophy but a life.
Vitals are good, so far. We are neither winning nor losing but
learning, amazed to see that the tumor adapts.

-Bob the score-keeper