You Leave Me Breathless

When your lung doesn't get the memo; My cancer memoir, "Acknowledgments," continued

For new readers: More than a year ago, at the beginning of 2025, I told myself that I would finally write my cancer memoir. I had saved my posts and notes from the 15 months I went through treatment, and I was going to put it together into a book, even if only to prove that I could.

As a way of pushing myself, I’m posting chapters on Substack. The goal is to have a complete memoir, eventually. Each chapter will begin with one or more posts I made during treatment, followed by commentary. You can find earlier chapters at blockheadchronicles.substack.com, though you may have to hunt a bit, because I’ve gotten lazy about continuing the cancer story, instead writing about music, movies, baseball, and politics. You know: things that matter.

(Also: Cats.)

As with any project of this type, the writing is loosely edited and baggier than I’d like (and I’m someone who writes lots of baggy parenthetical interruptions, like this one). In fact, consider it a … second draft. Or a 1-1/2th draft. Something to keep in mind if you’re expecting a polished reading experience. This is more like a crusty lump of coal.

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III. Pneumonia

Update, 11/18 a.m. (Facebook, November 18, 2021):

You know what they say: There’s no place like hospital.

Yep, here I am again. Over the weekend I was getting a bit short of breath and occasionally running a mild fever. Tylenol helped the fever but not the breathing. My oncologist ordered a blood panel to rule out things, including a “PE.”

What’s a PE? I asked.

Pulmonary embolism.

You couldn’t get me to the lab fast enough.

Results were inconclusive, so I was sent for a CT scan yesterday afternoon. That showed no PE, but some pneumonia in both lungs. I expected to be sent home with pills, but now I’m a cancer patient with damaged lungs and this is really serious. So I was admitted and they’ve been giving me heavy-duty IV antibiotics.

Hope to get out tomorrow afternoon. Oh, and kids: always pack a phone charger. I did not, and I’m now at <30% until S— comes back later today.

I should say my phone is at that level. I’m probably in the 70s. Hope to be over 90% next time I check in.

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Update, 11/19 a.m.:

Not much apparent change this morning, from my perspective. Breathing feels about the same — fine when relaxed, more labored when exerting myself — and it feels like there’s a bit of a wall inside my chest when I breathe deeply. This is, unfortunately, not an unfamiliar feeling, as it’s kind of been the way things have been since I first started having problems last winter. Then it was the fluid; after that it was chemo; then it was radiation; now pneumonia.

It’s been a hard year for my lungs.

I want them to get fully well. I’m trying to focus on the positives — most of my vitals are fine, and the ones that aren’t don’t seem completely out of whack — but it’s frustrating. I’m at the mercy of the antibiotics. I’m looking forward to getting information from a doctor.

Many people have commented on my upbeat attitude, and I appreciate that, but in some ways I’m more scared now than when I was in the hospital in April or going through chemo. At least then I felt like I had a path — drain the lung cavity, get the chemo, hope the cancer is killed, reinforce the process with radiation. I was generally passive — I mean, chemo is literally sitting in a chair for 5 hours — but just going through it felt like a victory. Here I just have let things work internally. I can’t DO anything, as much as I’m going, let’s go, antibiotics.

So this time I’m part angry — REALLY? Pneumonia? — and frustrated, and part frightened. Hoping to see/feel some tangible improvements. Then I can be more of the Zen absurdist.

Thanks, as always, for your kind messages.

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Update, 11/20 p.m.:

I am not a morning person.

In college, I was capable of sleeping past noon (as were my roommates; SP, upon hearing the alarm for his relatively early physics class, would groan “Fuck it!” and slam it silent). Even today, when long training in the capitalist world has me up around 7:20 — and that’s only because I’m working from home — I’m happy to turn over for another 20 minutes.

In a hospital, however, you’re up with the staff. And they have meds to give and vitals to take by 6:15.

The view from my room (which is huge!) faces east. So I’ve literally been up with the sunrise the last couple days. It’s quite beautiful.

I’m almost certainly going home later today. I still have viral pneumonia, but it’s finally eased. I took a walk around the floor with a respiratory therapist a couple hours ago. I was a little winded by the end, and my PulseOx was borderline, but in general it was OK. I’ll be sent home with oxygen as a precaution, but should only need it for a week or two. (Don’t tell the cats.)

As a friend noted, cancer doesn’t let you go after primary treatment is done. This was a curveball I didn’t see coming. There will likely be others.

I plan on sleeping in tomorrow. But I also want to be around to view at least some of the next few thousand sunrises. They’re a gorgeous reminder of all that is good: a bright, colorful new beginning.

Thanks for your kind words, your prayers, and your support.

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Update, 11/21 a.m.:

Back home to a rough night. Too much stress at a time I least needed it. First was having to wait for oxygen machine delivery. Then to a different CVS because the pharmacy at mine had closed. Then a 45-minute wait while they filled it. By the time we returned, I was truly exhausted. Felt like I’d lost my momentum.

Started trying to sleep with another fever — I was hoping I was done with those — and much coughing. A little better this morning, but naturally I’m wary.

So today I’m going to try to do very little, just read in bed and clear out minor stuff from work.

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Update, 11/24 a.m.:

Been a few days since my last post, but there’s not much to update. Home health nurse came by yesterday and told me to stay on O₂ all the time to give my heart and lungs a break. Lord knows they were stressed every time I walked up our stairs — I won’t tell you the numbers, but they were BAD.

Speaking of the stairs, I’m trying to stay in the bedroom and not go anywhere except the bathroom. S— has been amazing. I’ll never be able to make this up to her.

I wish I knew when I’ll be (substantially) healed. Nurse said my right lung sounded pretty good — at least air was smooth all the way through — but the left definitely has problems. That poor lung. First the fluid, then the chemo, then the radiation, now this.

I’m feeling ok. Not great, but not no-strength-to-get-out-of-bed, either. Still worried, of course.

Thank you for your prayers and words of support.

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I never smoked.

I grew up in the 1970s, when smoking was still a thing. The FDA had gotten rid of broadcast ads and the surgeon general’s warning was cigarette packs, but it was a time when my father could hand me a ten-dollar bill and tell me to run down to the store to pick up a carton of his brand (first Camels, later Salems). I’d grab one at the cashier and hand over the money. No ID check, no side-eye.

I was maybe 11 or 12 when I did this. I was still riding my bike to the store. Those were the days.

But I never wanted them for myself. When I was around 6, I asked my father — who smoked until he was in his 40s — if I could try one of his cigarettes. Why not? I couldn’t stand the smell, but they seemed to be enjoyable, to him and to his friends, all of whom had as many ashtrays around their houses as we did. So he handed me a cig and lit it up.

I don’t need to tell you it was awful. And, to this day, I don’t understand why people smoke.

It can look cool, and I imagine the nicotine rush is powerful (an actor friend told me this is why so many actors smoke — it calms their always twitchy nerves), but the smell. And the expense. And the lung cancer.

The lung cancer.

Before I was diagnosed with lymphoma, I wondered: Why was I wheezing? Why was I straining to climb stairs? Could it be Covid, which was running through the population? Could it be lung cancer, though I had never smoked? Could I be one of those unfortunates who got lung cancer for apparently no reason besides cosmic irony, like Andy Kaufman?

It wasn’t lung cancer, but my lungs still suffered.

By the time I got pneumonia, I thought my lungs could finally heal. The amount of fluid in my pleura had gone into sharp decline. They could expand again. I could breathe.

Or not. Such was pneumonia.

To this day — now almost five years later — none of my doctors have come up with a definitive reason why I got pneumonia. One suggestion was a decline in eosinophils, a disease-fighting white blood cell. Another was simply bad luck — a weakened constitution, something in the air. Viruses, you know. There is such a thing as walking pneumonia.

Whatever the cause, by the time I was sent home, I was feeling better. I had prescriptions and a caring spouse and cannulas and an oxygen concentrator that ran 24 hours a day. A temporary necessity, we thought. It was Thanksgiving week and a good time to be recovering.

I had never smoked. The oxygen concentrator would be gone soon. Still, it hummed away, indifferent to my fate.