November 4^th, 2012                                       

 Well Hey Freaking Now, if that wasn’t the wildest 3 weeks of up and downs, mostly ups…..psychedelic baseball if I might, the kind that has perfection and guile and fantasy and amazement and the pure and simple notion of breaking on through to the other side…….superstitions coming and going, lifetime memories being crafted, joy, excitement, community, bliss and satisfaction, maybe even a dash of redemption just for good measure…..so many people seeking the same result, the same outcome, the same goal, and then coming together exponentially upon the shared and calamitous moment…..throw in a pretty much private Jimmy Buffet show at The Fillmore on 10-18, where 800 of us Parrotheads had that same notion in mind, fins to the left, fins to the right in full Fillmore Pink lighting, oh my!

The family was able to attend many games during “the run.” We used to call a pack of three or six in any one town a “run” in the ol’ GD days, why not now? The only difference is that the baseball run just dangles out in front of you, always in danger of ending, drastically and sadly, at any moment……living on the brink….the Grateful Dead simply packed up and moved on, where they ever here at all?

 

There were a lot of tears shed in the Bay Area in October, mostly of joy. The Giants were my constant when I was down and dirty this year. Day games and off days were the shits, nothing to do at night, nothing to pass the time so that I could go to bed at a legitimate hour and get my much needed rest. The baseball season takes on its own personality, and we are so good, our announcers so stellar, the park so fun, that it is hard to take your eyes off the passing of the games for fear off missing something….sound familiar?

 My tears came after final out, when the joyousness of the moment, sharing it with Kiki and Sam and some very close friends and BIG fans here in Lafayette (no driving) I knew that the year didn’t have to be known as the year I battled cancer and the ensuing treatments but perhaps more the year could be remembered more for the Giants…..it took a lot of the sting out of it. They flowed when Larry Baer, Giant’s President and CEO, when interviewed in the hallway in his still dry suit and orange tie, spoke of the life lessons that this team had to offer such as and primarily, never giving up, fighting through adversity, keeping your goals out in front of you, that quitting or throwing in the towel was just NOT in the equation. My red wristband, on since Matt Chaney gave it to me when I got diagnosed, says “Never Give Up,” on it.  I haven’t taken it off since the beginning of February, which ironically parallels the first days of Spring Training…….my cancer has done the same with the 2012 season, and if the Giants can come out on top, why not me?

 We’ll all soon find out as I have a PET Scan scheduled for Tuesday the 6^th, with results known at my Oncologist appointment on November 8^th in the afternoon. I have had two prior scans. The first was the one that determined the cancer was only situated in my throat and neck……that was a good news day back in February. The second was after my 2^nd of 3 rounds of chemo sometime in late April….those results showed that the tumor in my throat, shaped oddly like the island of St. Croix, about 1 CM long (almost an inch) had been reduced to nothingness, invisible to the unaided eye, and the two bumps in my neck were down 85%-90%.......that, too, was a good news day……I’m looking to go 3 for 3….just for kicks, let’s call them home runs, so if Pablo Sandoval can blast 3 in a game in the presence of Sam and Tom Stack, then why can’t I hit three home runs, albeit over an 8 month period. Easier still, I reckon.

 

I set myself up for a mini-fall when I counted down the chemo days in memory of famous sports heroes, only to find that the 3-6 weeks post radiation stood to be the roughest of the lot, surprising and uncomfortable, painful and limiting, burning outwardly after so many weeks of being burned from the outside in. It had nowhere else to go, so it just simply reverses field and re-cooks you. My neck peeled for weeks, my feet peeled at 6 weeks, and my neck/throat is swollen even now, making swallowing hard in the AM until I’m up long enough for my lymph nodes to drain some…..so, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, I have immense fucking respect for the cancer that took life in me, so I wait to fully exhale till after I hear the good news….no champagne till you close escrow, know what I’m sayin,?

 

I want to share one story with you before I close. It was at Game One of the World Series, and I was in our Field Club seats with Sam. Earlier in the day, I had a phone conversation with my old boss from the bar in the Virgin Islands back in ‘84-‘85. He lives in Charlotte and was a receiver on the undefeated Miami Dolphins 1972 team with Warfield, Griese (his roomie), Kiick, Csonka, Jake Scott and the rest. His name is Karl Noonan, and “tree” (VI patois) years ago he went through a bout with cancer that ravaged his back. He says the scars look like he got bit by a shark on a surfboard……I had never before heard him out, got the real deets of what he went through, even though we keep in touch and communicate…..that day I took the time to really find out, to listen…….well, after the 5^th inning of the game, everyone in the stadium including players, coaches and the umps, more than 42,000 strong stood up and held aloft a sign on which they had filled in a name. It was a MasterCard promotion with MLB that whose slogan is Stand Up to Cancer……….I looked down with tears welling in my eyes at my 8^th grader’s sign that said “My Dad.”

 

Mine said Karl Noonan.

 

And That’s What’s Up,

 

TS