I’m about to undergo my fourth and final infusion of oxaliplatin. This is hardcore stuff. It’s a “platinum agent” that goes directly into my arteries through a medical implant called a “port”, like I’m some kind of electronic device. What does ox do? Well, aside from making me feel awful–anemic, fatigued, nauseas, and sick–it kills fast-growing cells in my body. Those cells might all be benign cells, such as bone marrow, digestive tract cells, and hair follicles. Or they might be evil cancerous tumor cells. This aggressive chemo treatment is meant to reduce the chances of the cancer taking root elsewhere in my body.

I’ve learned a lot on this journey. To catch you up: I had concerns for more than a year before I was diagnosed with cancer. I thought I was having sudden and severe food allergies, severe enough for me to make multiple visits to my primary care physician. She assured me “It’s not cancer.” Her reasoning was that my white blood cell count was normal, so therefore, I guess she thought the pain was all in my head. I am still angry about that misdiagnosis. The takeaway: Pain is not something to be dismissed, even if your doctor tells you it’s nothing. Always pay attention to random pain. It means something.

The pains became worse and more frequent. Intestinal cancer is hard to find or diagnose, and I was misdiagnosed at two different Urgent Care centers. When it became unbearable for a week in December, my husband figured we should skip the medical centers and go straight to the ER at the nearest major hospital, Baylor Scott & White. The staff there kept me overnight, ran scans and so forth, and within a day, I was told that I had a cancerous tumor and needed emergency surgery to get rid of it. That was shocking. A colectomy is major surgery with risks, and I was asked to agree to it ASAP. I was otherwise healthy–no co-mormidities, I exercised daily–and I am relatively young. I never expected anything like this. But I am grateful to the gastroenterologist and surgeon at that hospital. They gave me the news straight without any sugar-coating.

So. The tumor was removed, along with 21 lymph nodes in order to stage the cancer. Recovery from that surgery was very painful and rough. But within two months, I was more or less back to normal. I went to an oncologist, who strongly recommended this “cap-ox” chemotherapy regimen, which is standard for colon cancer beyond stage 1. I sought a second opinion from an expert at MD Anderson, which is a major cancer center in Houston. The oncologist at MD Anderson strongly recommended the same thing.

Which brings me to now. I began the cap-ox treatment in April. It’s really no joke, as far as side effects go. And the effects are cumulative. They get a little worse each time. I am astounded that some people endure this chemo regimen for years, or even for their entire lives. I am very, very lucky in that my cancer has not metasticized. Otherwise I would need to be on chemo for much longer.

What side effects, you ask?

Well, right now I have a rash on the soles of my feet which makes walking difficult. It gets worse if I walk any distance. That’s an effect from the capecitabine pills, which are the “cap” part of the cap-ox regimen. So never mind my daily walks. I can’t do those. Nor can I go swimming, because chlorine will exacerbate the rash. I’m not exercising much these days. Also, I’m anemic. I feel weaker than usual. There are gastro effects which are somewhat mitigated with pills. I’m immunocompromised. So I’m not traveling. My hair?  Every time I brush it, the brush comes away with a bird’s nest of hair. So it’s falling out a lot more than usual, yet no one can tell, because it was so thick in the first place! I guess it might all be gone if I was on this chemo for 2+ years. But that isn’t the plan.

The worst part of chemotherapy happens 2-5 days after each oxaliplatin infusion. That’s when the mitigating drugs wear off while the ox infusion is still working its cell-killing magic. On those days, I get so weak and exhausted, I can barely walk up stairs. I have to stop and rest every few steps. It’s really a pronounced effect. Keep in mind that I am a person who typically goes for brisk hour-long walks on a daily basis.

Oxaliplatin also causes sensitivity to cold. That means no ice water, no smoothies, no reaching into the freezer, no running my hands under cold tap water.  If I do those things, I feel an electric shock sensation. Also, it worsens the neuropathy in my fingers and toes and lips, which is another terrible side effect. So far, the neuropathy has been temporary. It goes away after 8-10 days. I really hope it never comes back. I’m an artist and writer who needs to be able to type. But I have learned that it is permanent for some random unlucky patients.

Okay! That’s enough complaining. I just wanted to de-mystify what chemotherapy entails. There are different chemo regimens for different types of cancer; my experience is not universal to all cancer patients. But it is standard for colon cancer. It is also known as an aggressive treatment. There are slightly gentler treatments for patients with health complications.

On the happier side, this will be my final infusion! I expect to feel fully healthy and back to normal by mid-July. It takes a while for all this stuff to wear off.

And yes, the medical professionals will scan me and check up on me for 2 years on a regular basis. It’s important to monitor me, because cancer is evil and can be sneaky and recur. I am told that the chances of recurrences are 10%. I really hope I am a lucky one who never sees it again.

I’ve learned that cancer runs in one side of my family. My grandparents on that side both died from intestinal cancer–but they were in their 80s and 90s. Same with at least one of their siblings. One of my aunts on that side has defeated lung cancer and breast cancer. My parent on that side also has signs of blood cancer, and has defeated skin cancer. So… yeah. It lurks in genetics. I hadn’t known how widespread it was on that side of the family until this happened, and the family stories came out.

Wishing you all a healthy and cancer-free life!

I am becoming loud & proud about my self-pub procrastination. I was ashamed of it for a long time. I was constantly making excuses, and assuring friends/readers that yes, I will have the books for sale soon.

No.

In reality, here it is: I hate the concept of turning into a marketing machine.

Once I set the ball in motion on Amazon, I will have to transform into some kind of savvy businessperson if I want my epic series to have any chance in hell at being noticed. The fate of most self-pubbed books is that they drown in the ocean of obscurity. There’s a new book published every minute on Amazon. The self-pub success stories pour a ton of ad spend and marketing efforts into their series. This article about the failure of the long tail  says it well.

Instead of diving into book marketing, I’m very comfy serializing online. Readers kind of show up without me having to deploy ads or pour effort into newsletter swaps or study the dark arts of email campaigns. Readers say wonderfully nice things to me. It fulfills the part of me that wants acknowledgement/recognition for the magnum opus I’ve created.

So I’m admitting that I am procrastinating. I am freely telling people that I’ll get around to publishing and marketing my Torth series eventually… but I am enjoying the serialization life for now.

Also, I am probably going to do one more Hail Mary pass with literary agents. Yeah. Masochistic, I know.

At least this time, my expectations will be so low they’re subterranean. I’m aware that my series has no accurate comps, it does not match hot trends, it does not have a gimmicky angle that can be summarized in a sentence, and oh yeah, it’s not a stand-alone with series potential. It’s a full-fledged epic. Book 1 is an eternal problem. I was never able to make it behave.

But a few adventurous readers did take a chance on it, and some kept reading. So Book 1 does work for some people. I just don’t think that most literary agents are adventurous readers. They’re looking for “the same but different.”

Ah well. Why not collect at least 150 rejections, amiright?

Meanwhile, I have the excuse of chemotherapy for being lazy and not turning into a self-promotion marketing machine quite yet. I’m halfway through treatment. Hair is falling out, blood pressure is low, and I get very fatigued every third week due to oxaliplatin infusions. The other two weeks I can function pretty much normally. Hopefully there will be no trace of cancer after this.

Oh yeah! My new stand-alone novel-in-progress is a BREEZE in comparison to the Torth series. I’m not zooming ahead with passion on it. But dang, it’s easy and enjoyable. I think it may be easier to market, as well.

I’m also having a lot of fun creating 3D low poly art assets for my husband’s indie game. It’s his magnum opus, in the same way the Torth series is mine. His abilities with programming are blowing my mind.

It was time to check out and head to Val Calmonica. This was going to be most offbeat part of our trip, in an obscure mountain range, to see neolithic rock art. We packed up our stuff, checked out of the Verona apartment by 10 AM, and proceeded on the two hour drive through Brescia and past Lake Iseo, to Breno.

Lake Iseo, Italy

All of the Alps and alpine lakes of northern Italy are beautiful, but I think Lake Iseo might be one of the most stunning. It’s cradled between green mountains, like a volcanic lake, with a huge mountainous island in the middle. We took a winding highway along cliffs, past the lake, through a series of long tunnels. Some of these tunnels have archways that offer glimpses of a mountain panorama, but you can’t stop, because traffic moves fast and there’s no shoulder on the roadway. My GPS began to look like the cave level of a video-game. There were roads and towns on top of tunnels. A few of these very long tunnels slope downward, so it feels like a roller-coaster into the center of the Earth for fifteen or twenty minutes at a time.

Lake Iseo, Italy

We arrived in the picturesque town of Breno. Hotel Giardino was easy to find, and it looked lovely. However, when we checked in, I couldn’t find my passport. This was a severe problem, since my flight home was in two days!

I emptied my purse and my backpack. I searched the car. It was nowhere to be found. I figured it couldn’t possibly be in my suitcase—why would I put it there? I never put important things in my suitcase, just clothes and gifts—so I figured that checking the tightly packed suitcase would be a waste of time. As far as I could remember, I only ever put my passport in one of two places, and it was simply gone. And my backup credit card was also missing!

Missing U.S.A. Passport in Italy!

It seemed impossible, since I keep a close eye on my stuff while traveling. Neither of my friends were missing anything, and they had left their passports in the Verona apartment during day trips, just like I thought I had.

So I had a mini-panic attack. I couldn’t begin to guess how I had lost the passport and card. We spent the rest of the day trying to figure out how to obtain an emergency passport. Only the hotel lobby had Wi-Fi. I downloaded Google Voice and proceeded to try to get a hold of the nearest U.S. Consulate in Milan, which was closed that day, since it was a weekend. I called the apartment in Verona and asked them to search the room for my passport. They did, and when I called back, they apologized, saying they did not find it.

Then I followed government website instructions and reported the missing passport to Italian police. This needed to be done in person. The report can be made to any police station in Italy, and the local one was an 8 minute walk up a hill. Amy kindly offered to come with me.

I was wary of entering an Italian police station, especially since it had a locked gate and barred windows (albeit a gorgeous view of the Alps). But at least I wasn’t alone, and the desk officer seemed nice, and he expected me, since the hotel manager had called ahead. He filed a report. This took longer than I expected, maybe half an hour, and involved some paperwork. His office was decorated with interesting pictures of police doing good deeds, and also a large wooden Jesus on a cross. Finished, he handed me a paper and said, “This will help you at the Consulate.”

Breno, Italy

Breno looked like a beautiful place to spend a day, and I was sorry to miss touring the area. Apparently there was a Renaissance Faire going on at the local castle—the king and queen came downstairs in our hotel—and I am super curious as to how an Italian Renaissance Faire differs from the silly merchandise-fests we have in North America. But I was too worried about my missing passport to enjoy anything. As far as I could tell, the only way to get an emergency passport would be early on Monday morning at the U.S. Consulate in Milan. I needed to be in Milan by 8 AM the next day.

So we packed up again, and the hotel kindly offered a discount, since we had only stayed a few hours. We drove 2.5 hours to Milan and checked into our final hotel of the trip, one day early.

And guess what? Once we settled into our rooms, I methodically unpacked everything from my suitcase … and there it was. My passport and my credit card were both at the very bottom of my suitcase, buried under a lot of stuff.  I think that traveling causes me to be less organized and more forgetful than I normally am. My daily life at home can be such a routine that I never make mistakes like that; I know exactly where my stuff is.  I swear, I’ve never lost a credit card or a passport or anything like that in my life! This was embarrassing.

We tried to get a good night’s rest in this large hotel; a snazzy high-rise in the middle of a suburban area. For me, it was difficult, with hard beds and barely functional air conditioning. At least I didn’t need to wake up early to wait in line at the Consulate!

A Day of Exploring Milan, Italy

The next day—our final day of vacation together—we explored Milan, and the weather actually cooled off a little bit. First, we explored the canal, which the desk receptionist recommended as a nice area for shopping and food. This involved a bus ride on the tollway, and then figuring out the underground Metro rail. The bus was more difficult to figure out than the subway. We had trouble finding the pick up area, and we learned—by sheer luck, due to the kindness of an Italian stranger—that the return bus would depart from a different street.

Anyway, after some navigational confusion, we found ourselves in the canal area, populated by outdoor restaurants. Most of the shops were closed, since Italians tend to take off Mondays. We had a delicious meal, listened to thunder, and went back to the Metro before a downpour started.

Canal of Milan, Italy

We emerged at the Duomo of Milan; the enormous, ornate, pink marble Gothic cathedral which is the city’s icon. Of course, there was a line of tourists wrapped around one side of the building, so we decided not to go inside. The outside of the cathedral is impressive enough; more beautiful than Notre Dame in Paris. The spires look like drip castles, each one topped by a statue holding some kind of instrument or weapon. The whole front facade is crazy with statues and reliefs, and the iron doors are all embossed with scenes as well.

Duomo of Milan

We strolled through the grand hall nearby. The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II has high-end stores, impressive marble floors, wrought iron balconies, and an arched smoky glass ceiling that evokes the 1890s. We passed Armani shops and explored the bookstore, interested to see which popular American authors have been translated into Italian. I was pleased to see books by a couple of hybrid authors (traditionally published, but originally independent authors). Then we had some expensive and fancy gelato, waiting for the storm to pass.

Galleria of Milan

At a break in the rain, we reentered the Metro and emerged at the Sforza Castle. The interior museums were all closed, since it was Monday, but the outer grounds and inner courtyards are open to the public. We passed an outdoor polka concert and proceeded over the drawbridge and into the impressive interior. Hey, I’ve watched “The Borgias” by Showtime, so maybe I know a little bit about the Sforza family!

There seem to be dozens of stray cats and kittens that live on the castle grounds. People were petting them. I wonder how they get into the grassy moat area, and how they get back out. We took a few kitty photos, pondered some ancient sarcophagi and Roman pillars, and then headed back to our hotel.

Sforza Castle in Milan, Italy

Dinner was at an Italian shopping mall next to our hotel. This mall seemed to be mostly devoted to a cinema, a playland for kids, and a floor full of restaurants, with very few stores. The restaurants were arranged like plaza restaurants, with outdoor seating, except it was in the mall hallway instead of in an outdoor plaza. The night before, we had eaten at one of these restaurants, and it blasted loud Italian pop music. So this night, we decided to explore the cinema floor. We discovered an American-themed restaurant called Old Wild West. Cute! It had bench seats designed to look like covered wagons. The menu featured dishes named after Western states (and a few not-so-Western ones, like Mississippi and Kentucky).

That was our goodbye meal. We clinked our wine glasses together, and prepared for our flights the next day. Brian was heading to Vienna, Austria for a week. Amy had a morning flight back to New England. I had an Emirates flight to JFK in New York, with a JetBlue connection back to Austin.

Milan-Malpensa Airport

There isn’t much more to recount. With help from Brian, I found the airport without any trouble, although we both got a little confused about the rental car return. We accidentally entered a long-term parking lot. Fortunately, we figured out how to get out of it, and into the WinRent garage section, on our second try. second try. They sent me a bill for the final half-tank of diesel, and it was a bit more than I would have wanted. Oops.

I went through a long mob of a line at the Emirates counter, and Brian had to wait a long time for his Austrian Air counter to open up. Once we each got our boarding passes and checked our luggage, we had a delicious meal at an airport restaurant called Rosso Pomo Doro. Then we had to say goodbye at the security checkpoint.

The Milan-Malpensa airport is weird (at least, to me). The airport seems small by U.S. standards, but the gates are spread far apart, so it can be a 25 minute hike to your gate even if you speed-walk (the monitors helpfully show walking times). Everything is glitzy and glamorous-looking. I figured I had some time after I went through security, but it turned out there is an extra “passport” checkpoint after the security checkpoint for overseas flights. There were no signs to forewarn people, so families were panicking, cutting through the slow-moving passport line so as not to miss their overseas flights to Dubai or New Dehli or Melbourne. I shuffled through this long line with everyone else, and managed to arrive at my gate with probably twenty minutes to spare.

The Emirates flight from JFK to New York was overbooked and crowded, but the plane had a nice interior design, with plenty of USB and electrical outlets, and recessed lighting. This is the largest Airbus possible, with two floors that run the length of the plane. It requires three separate gate tunnels to board all 500 passengers. And then there was the usual confusion at JFK airport, with rechecking luggage.

I downloaded the U.S. Government’s mobile passport app, but it was useless without an internet connection; I guess the overseas flight jacks up AT&T or something, because I was unable to get connectivity even after restarting my phone and restarting the wi-fi.  It works fine now, after a few hours.

Glad I built in an extra day of vacation to account for jet lag!