Back in Basel, Looking for a Bagel

After I arrived at JFK on Saturday using a circuitous route (taking the A into Manhattan, transferring to the E, and getting on the AirTrain in Jamaica) because the A was terminating (should cancer patients be allowed to use that word?) at Euclid Ave and had no service to Howard Beach/JFK.  I then flew overnight to Dusseldorf on Air Berlin and after a layover there, I continued on to Zurich on a quick plane ride. My friends, Charlie and Sylvia were there to pick me up (Thanks again for doing this.) and we drove on to Basel and are staying at the Hotel Euler, a charming 19^th century hotel that has nice modern conveniences.  (Michele, unfortunately, is completely swamped at work and is running low on vacation days to boot.) After naps, we took a tram to the Rhine River and walked along the shore.  After our return to the hotel, which is right by the train station, we went out for an early dinner at a Swiss/German restaurant.  Jet lagging setting in we called it an early night.

This morning I slept until 8:15 after falling asleep at around 10:30 last night.  We ate breakfast at McDonald’s, discovering that a light breakfast at one of the local restaurants would cost 20 French Francs, more than 20 dollars.  (Swiss McDonald’s are more civilized than their US counterparts.)  After a short tram ride we arrived at the Universitätsspital Basel for my irradiation.  (I am amazed at how the German language developed really long compound words. The longest word in German was Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz, but Germany recently retired it.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22762040)  I, shockingly, digress again.  Ah yes, irradiation.  My second and last treatment in this cycle went smoothly today.  We arrived at 10:30 and after admittance and signing forms that made me an indentured servant to the hospital, the doctor took a few vials of blood and then began an IV of amino acids to protect my kidneys from the radiation.  At around 1:30 they took me down to a place I fondly call the Hiroshima Room and they encased my arm in lead (always comforting) and hooked up my IV to receive the yttrium 90 and indium 111.  The whole process takes about 15 minutes and that includes the brief nausea and vomiting the radiation induces in me despite the use of Emend, my favorite anti-nausea drug.  Oh well, my lunch wasn’t that good and I didn’t really want it anyway.

Since then, my nausea has not appeared and dinner was much better than lunch so I am inclined to keep it.  This time around I have a private room, which is good and bad.  Privacy is good when I want to listen to music without ear buds, but it is a little isolating since I am currently not allowed guests.  On the plus side, it leaves more time to write my blog. 

Tomorrow I have no planned activities until 1:30 when I get my CTScan to see how everything is looking inside me.  I then have my meeting with Professor Doctor Doctor Damian Wild (Germans love titles.  I am only Professor Doctor, merely an adjunct assistant professor, and have an inferiority complex because of it.  I am amused when German politicians are found guilty of faking their Ph.Ds. or plagiarizing their dissertations and have to resign.  Which reminds me why is Doris Kearns Goodwin allowed to show her face in public, let alone have a publishing contract or be treated as an expert on PBS? http://www.salon.com/2012/08/19/americas_worst_historians/)  I’ll let you know what his prognosis is tomorrow and maybe how to get Goodwin off TV or at least to say she is sorry sincerely.

In the afternoon I will be allowed to take a walk outside in the park as long as I stay away from small children and pregnant women; it’s like I am to be treated as someone of guilty of sex crimes for a limited period when all I am guilty of is irradiation.  ( I think I better understand the travails of the mutants in X Men.  The world had better hope that these radiation experiments don’t turn me into Ian McKellen, aka Magneto.)  I will then spend another night of fun and games, blogging, listening to music, reading Diane Ravitch’s latest, Reign of Error, and watching the “Phil Silvers Show” on YouTube.  After a quick breakfast on Wednesday, they throw me out of the Universitätsspital Basel to prepare for the next patient.  I will hopefully be sightseeing with Charlie and Sylvia after my release and then on to Zurich Thursday morning for a direct flight to JFK and then the A and AirTrain to Concord Village.  I hope, but doubt our government will be open for business by then.  Just remember, if default seems likely there is always Paul Krugman’s trillion dollar coin to solve our problems.   I love this idea because it is on one level totally absurd and on the other a realistic possibility to preventing default.  Dr. Evil should have his face on one side and a copper coated John Boehner, to match his skin color, on the other? http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/07/be-ready-to-mint-that-coin/?_r=0

If you have time to chat, I am on Facebook instant messaging through most of the day, although I am going to sleep soon.  I’ll probably send an update tomorrow night.  Until then keep the faith, or your lack of it.

Steve