music

Just another health scare?

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In June I found a small lump in my groin cos it hurt.

I didn’t want to deal with it, attributed it to walking into a tree or falling on my arse or bumping into something stupid and tried to forget about it.

Couldn’t forget about it in September when it started hurting and had grown – massively – and kept growing.

A fun side effect of cancer is that you’re more prone to getting cancer again, and the lovely Tamoxifen that I’m on has cervical cancer as a probably side effect. Fuck, not cancer again???

Couldn’t get hold of my GP so went to the ER and got an ultrasound (I know the drill by now) and tech/doctor says “You need to be referred to oncology”

Still couldn’t get hold of GP so called another doc and said “I need a referral, that’s all I need from you, send me to onco and I’ll be out of your life”

Had a lovely holiday in Lo Pagán, Spain, apart from the fact that I got some kind of weird sun rash – it wasn’t red, didn’t itch, wasn’t a sun burn, just weird blisters which disappeared after 24 hours but came back if I didn’t use sun block.

Got home to a nice visit at haemotology at Ahus. “We’re gonna do some bloodwork and a biopsy and a CT and see where we send you next”

Biopsy first. Fkn stupid surgeon. “I can only see pus, are you sure it isn’t an ingrown hair and sebacous gland?” YES we did an ultrasound so do your work and stop being a fkn twat “ok I’ll see if I can find something”

Date with a doctor at Infectious diseases was nice. “So, we’re pretty sure this isn’t lymphoma but the CT was kinda weird so we’re referring you to a gynecologist also sending off tests to Sweden for Bartonella cos I never get to do that cos it’s expensive but you’ve got the syptoms and we’re also testing you for tularemia because of your tick bites”

She called me last week. I have tularemia – rabbit fever – hare plague (harepest) in Norwegian – from a stupid fkn tick (who are all over me since chemo cos apparently I’m now irresistable). Mortality rate is pretty high in the US but not that bad here in Norway.

“We’re still awaiting some test results but at least we have a cure for that!” so she puts me on ciproflaxin which is a new antibiotic for me and the nice lady at the chemist told me that it could be pretty hard on the stomach so important I eat and take the pills twelve hours apart – as on the dot as possible – and I should really read the instructions.

Most of the instructions are “If you have this side effect, contact a doctor IMMEDIATELY, do not pass GO, do not wait an hour, get your ass to the ER ASAP”

"Ciprofloxacin is a fluoroquinolone (flor-o-KWIN-o-lone) antibiotic, it is used to treat different types of bacterial infections. It is also used to treat people who have been exposed to anthrax or certain types of plague. Ciprofloxacin extended-release is only approved for use in adults.

Fluoroquinolone antibiotics can cause serious or disabling side effects that may not be reversible.

Ciprofloxacin should be used only for infections that cannot be treated with a safer antibiotic.”










Turns out, this is top notch bad shit fucking horrible side effects. Anorexia is a new one for me but it’s actually kinda nice to not eat and not be hungry and not want to eat apart from the whole “you must eat before you take the pills”. I shouldn’t drink coffee (that’s not happening) and insomnia is kinda wild – again – ffs





The worst side effect though is probably the “your mood might turn a bit negative”. Fuck that. These pills are fucking screwing with my head in the worst ways possible. “A bit negative” doesn’t work when you’re as fkd up as I am. My mind is never in any kind of state where it can tolerate “a bit negative” cos I crash completely. If you think I’m ignoring you, I probably am. Not in a good head state right now. Actually in a pretty shitty one. Wrote this yesterday. It’s not pretty so don’t read if you don’t want to.





It’ll pass. It always does. My 80 hour Marshalls are on most of the day cos  I relly need to drown out my screaming brain but Nick Holmes is with me and keeping me kinda sane. Thank fuck for Paradise Lost. 





Gynecologist was a bit “It doesn’t look right but I’ll take some tests and let you know” so still waiting for results from a few tests. Fuckit.

			

	
		
	


				
					


		

		
					
	

	
	

		
So, how the fuck are you?


				

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No one asks me that. Ever. A couple people say it but don’t really mean it




I think it’s cos they don’t want to hear “I’m not going driving today cos tunnel walls are too tempting”




They don’t want to hear “I’m exhausted with dragging my ass out of the bottom of hell yet again”




They don’t know that as long as certain people are still breathing, I will continue fighting




Like a fkn cockroach


Prepared to survive armageddon




Again


“May cause mood swings”


Fuck that


“This all is in my head”




Self medication FTW




Paradise Lost/Host are fucking great for surviving that kinda shit
			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
Chemo brain status, 2023


				

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I’ve long since lost count of which year I got cancer and it doesn’t really matter one bit.


This might get long so you really need to listen to Host because I am madly, totally, completely, lovingly hung up on that album. I even did a review of “IX” cos I started writing reviews for puls.no at some point. Host is Nick Holmes and Greg Mackintosh from Paradise Lost and you should really check them out. “Draconian Times” has been stuck in my car for months and months but that’s not what I was going to write about.




Digressions are good.


One of the very last things I did before I decided cancer was a smart move, was participate in a medical study about “Biological predictors in memory” which was SO much fun. We’re talking mere days prior to finding the tumour. Day one was doing easy exercises in an MR machine, basically looking at loads of clip art drawings, part one was answering “Can you eat it?” or “Can you lift it?” and part two was “Have you seen this image before? Do you remember what you were asked if you could do? Were you asked if you could eat or lift it?”




Day two was loads of different tasks. Remembering series of numbers. Repeating them backwards. Remembering loads of items in two different lists, than classifying them and repeating them several times. Weird word pairs to remember. Complex drawing. That kinda stuff. Weight measurements (I think I was a whopping 132 kg then).  


Since then chemo brain has been a massive part of my life but some of the fog has lifted slightly so when I was invited to do a follow up, I jumped at the chance! I figured that my brain is functioning ever so slightly more but this would be a good opportunity to see which parts are still completely non-functioning.


MR was a blast. Full score (except I pushed the wrong button a couple times, but I did that last time, too). Day two: 88 kgs (that’s 44 kgs down). Bp 129/82 which is still really good.


Darn! That’s a third of what I weighed at the time!


Remembering numbers: kindaish, but five digits backwards nope. Long list of different items: first try was a bust, second try slightly better, third try even better, so it seems if I push I can find long lost albeit very fresh memories.


Still not functioning at all: memorising weird word pairs from a screen. I was presented with 36 word pairs (concert fur), was given a piece of paper with one of the words and was supposed to remember the second one. Ladifknhootidah. First round I remembered one pair. Second round, three. Had to draw a complex drawing (I can’t draw for shit) which was fair enough when I had the thingy to look at. Fifteen minutes later, “Please draw it from memory” yup nope, that’s not happening. I got most of the main form and then my mind was blank.




Mimi is really sweet, she’s from Canterbury and she’s going to be massive one day. Remember, you read about it here first!


Anyways. Conclusion from this medical study (and hopefully they’ll let me participate in three years’ time for another follow-up) is that I do well with images. There’s nothing wrong with my eyes or my perception of images. If I saw the image a second time, I always remembered what I’d answered.


Hand-eye coordination when drawing a mirrored image – as expected. Quite normal.


Doing computer games where the object was to remember if the image you were presented with was the same as one you had seen previously, either the last, second last or third last one. That worked, too! Most of the time. I think my “score” was about the same as last time.


Remembering a list of items that I heard – decent. Improved when I heard the list a second time and even better the third time. 




Managing to remember words I read – that’s a big, fat zilch. And I kinda knew that. Reading is still pretty hopeless most days. Good for me is that I don’t need to read and remember to proof read scientific articles and I don’t need to be able to read to write articles!


Conclusion: don’t give me books and expect me to read them. I love looking at the pictures, though!





			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
Biological predictors in memory


				

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One of the last things I did before I got cancer was be part of a study that looked at biological predictors in memory.


I loved it! I was in an MR machine doing tests and then had a memory thingy and what I remember best was that the person doing the memory tests – remembering a set of numbers – was all “I have nothing further for you. Your memory is excellent!”


Since then I’ve been struggling with chemo brain and memory and shit what did I eat today? Did I eat at all?


Then I got an email. “Since you were part of this project we’re inviting you to a follow-up…”


So of course I said YES! I WANT TO JOIN! I WANT TO SEE WHAT BIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES YOU’VE FOUND!


It took me about a week to find the old emails and realise that I was last tested when the tumour was tiny. It had just started growing. It was minute. It hadn’t figured out what to do yet. So basically, my last shot at this project was days before I found that tumour.


Am I massively excited to be a part of this project and get a chance to see if chemo brain is physical?


YES!!! TOTALLY!!!


And although they’re not looking at this specifically – this might be really interesting since my brain frazzled just after this.


No. I don’t think the testing gave me cancer.


Am I massively stoked for what they might find? That my brain might actually be working better than I think? Or not?


Or that they might actually find something physiological?


OMG this is going to be so much fun!!!


AND I have a new favourite album. Host: “IX”



			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
Do Soundtracks matter?


				

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Five years since I started this journey.


Entering my fifth year with chemo brain, and there is zilch progress so I’m pretty sure I’ll have it forever…


So I still can’t read books or articles or do stuff that requires that I actually use brain power cos it isn’t there. Gone. Useless.


Same applies for listening to audio books or podcasts or radio cos I tend to zone out completely, too much hard work to listen and pay attention and actually enjoy it.


Not that I don’t try, you never know, today might be the day that brain actually pretends to work for more than a zeptosecond at a time.


I was on a road trip with a friend, and he says “Let’s listen to Thomas Seltzer’s podcast” and I thought OK, I can try that, so we turned on the program about 80s music and woohoo! Started off with New Order’s Blue Monday and it took me all of forever to remember who and what it was (tbf I was kinda sure it was New Order but had to search the lyrics to be sure)…




It was a decent show (unfortunately in Norwegian only) and there was plenty of great music – yes, I quite agree, this is a lovely video!




But then he goes on about Michael McDonald and I was thinking I don’t recognise that name, and he plays this:




Not ten minutes before, we’d been talking about the difference between soundtracks then and now. How in the “old days” music was written specifically for a scene or feeling in a specific movie, and if it’s good, it’s perfect and that music will forever bring you back to that scene and that movie.


I’m pretty certain I haven’t heard Sweet Freedom since the 80s. However, it took me probably ten seconds to think “Shit! Movie!” and then everything stopped, except I kept thinking Gregory Hines for some reason (another person I haven’t thought about since the 80s) and suddenly I was thinking about White Nights (1985) which I loved but it didn’t make sense, so I was kinda stuck there so I had to imdb it – and I was just one year wrong. It was used in Running Scared (1986).


I’m impressed. I can’t remember what day it is nor what I had for lunch half an hour ago, I forget names and faces and just about everything – but that one song sent me straight back into a long lost era. I think maybe The Matrix (1999) was the last film where songs can trigger my neurals into happy memories about films. I miss the time when the film industry was all about quality rather than quantity.


Just for the record, since this post is about movies, music and amazing dancers, I’ll finish with this. One can simply never watch it enough.



			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
I used to be good at this shit.


				

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I used to be able to write awesome reviews with no effort at all.


Didn’t cost me a calorie.


Now I’m struggling with the first sentence of three different concert reviews, two of which I have written but f*ck knows where they are. I think they’re stuck in some kind of kittycyberspace. I must admit that writing in Norwegian might be one reason my creative juices are stagnant but it’s a crap excuse cos it’s supposed to be my mother tongue… right.


Listening to old Laibach to see if that will help. And I do mean old stuff. Enjoy!



			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
Life with a tech savvy kitty


				

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This is Lea.






Lea is my rescue cat who was hit by a car twice, survived against all odds, and is now the weirdest and cuddliest cat ever. But just to me. She hates just about everyone else.


Lea can take off for weeks at a time, but when she’s home, she prefers being on my lap at all times. Which can be rather challenging if I’m working on my computer and she’s all I WANT CUDDLES. Sometimes she’ll be satisfied with just lying here. If I go somewhere, I have to remember to turn off my computer otherwise she’ll happily chat with anyone listening or update my status on Facebook (best case) or make system changes that aren’t always easy to fix (vertical screen is one of them).


She’s also a kitty with a mind of her own, especially when it comes to music.


As I am now dipping my toes into music journalism again, it means that I have to listen to a lot of different music from my computer. Editing concert photos and listening to new music is a form of multi tasking that kinda works for me.


I’m just not sure how to read her actions on these?


Lea snoring while I edit photos from Ministry @ Vulkan arena last June, listening to Wandering Stars. Or rather, snoring but twitching her tail.


I’ve been tipped off about an interesting Norwegian band called Sølvkre, which kinda reminds me of Nine Inch Nails’ instrumental work. This is Lea’s response to Ghosts.


I left Ghosts on and this is what I came back to. Culprit had hidden.


I am slightly concerned that she’s getting ever closer to cracking the code of net shopping. When I get a parcel in the post, I never know what I’ll find when I pick it up (also because I sometimes order stuff and chemo brain blocks it out so I get surprised by someone sending me a pressie!!!!).


Does your cat order stuff? Is the whole Paypal one touch thingy a really bad idea?

			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
Bad wig choices


				

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Just because I have a perfect skull shape (it looks good even completely bald – at least there’s one good thing about this stupid body) it doesn’t mean that all wigs look good on me.


This is the “OMG the wigs that I should never have even considered buying”-blog.


They probably would have looked better if I had taken the time to brush and style them, but I’m a plug-and-play kinda gal. And I doubt if any amount of styling would have made these look good one me!!!


Red curly looks like someone butchered a sheep, let the blood infuse into the wool, and threw some of it on my scalp.


This is the only wig that was quite different from the photos in the ad… what happened to the colour???


All new and shiny. I don’t think the Marilyn-look is for me…


I don’t really have a lot to say about them. If you want one or more of them, I’m giving them away for p&p!

			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
Sometimes, my brain screams


				

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Especially now. It screams at night and it screams in the daytime and it feels like it’s trying to take over my brain.


Not all the time, of course. Just every once in a while it starts shrieking and will not STFU. And it’s a bit like the very first time you wrote a computer program with LOOP in it – at least once you would forget to write END and it would keep going until you shut it down. Sometimes you could even get it to do an exponential core dump (probably the wrong terminology but those of you who’ve played with UNIX know what I mean and the rest of you would have to have it explained) and everything would just screech to a halt veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery slowly and you’d need a complete system reboot.


I think we managed to anger a few sys.admins in the old days.


But I haven’t got a sys.admin to reboot my brain. Sometimes I just need to drown the noise and although it’s much more fun doing it with alcohol, music works just as well.


Noise, pure and simple. Real noise. Sometimes you’ll find the perfect album which won’t leave the cd player for weeks. And sometimes you’ll find that perfect song and let it go on repeat for hours on end.


You weren’t really expecting some major surprise here, were you? These two together – damn. Not often two such greats make each other even better.




Play it LOUD. Drown in the music. Just be. Feel the core dump dissolving. Play it again until your mind feels more at ease. Then play it again cos this is such an awesome piece of music.

			

	
		
	


				
					


	
	

		
One-tit wonder


				

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It’s now been three weeks since my mastectomy and tomorrow I will be getting the results from pathology. They found cancer cells in the sentinel lymph nodes, so they removed a whole chunk of lymph node tissue from under my arm as well. If the cancer has spread into that as well … 2018 could be even more interesting that I wanted.


But that’s tomorrow. And because I am so far behind on my blogging, let’s just revisit some good music.


We all know what a one-hit wonder is although we tend to disagree on the definition.


A friend of mine had this as one of the songs in his funeral:




For some of us, Chumbawamba are far from a one-hit wonder but this was their only commercial success:




Great band. I had the pleasure of interviewing them at UKC a million years ago, for KRED, and seen them a number of times.