The Things I Left Unsaid

Dead inside

2012-01-31T13:52:00.001+02:00

I haven't updated for two months because I've felt unmotivated like never before. I've been physically tired, mentally tired, haven't wanted to do anything at all, haven't cared about anything. Worst is that all this came right after I felt better than ever. Last October I felt amazing, I was on speed, I wrote tons and I worked on thesis and I studied for exams and I still had time to do all sorts of fun things like read books and play games and watch series. I wanted to do everything and I had the will and motivation and energy to do everything, and I felt amazing. Mentally. Physically I was broken. I slept badly, I kept waking up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep again, I had dry mouth and I grinded my teeth, I had constant headache, and I was tired all the time. I had to take naps to get through the days.

So then I got the thyroid meds, and for a brief moment I felt really good. And then, I don't know, I just felt like nothing at all. I could have stared at the wall the whole day, not do anything at all, and think nothing of it. I was just so physically and mentally tired that I stopped everything for a while. I thought maybe I burned myself out earlier in the autumn doing so much and trying to do even more, so for a while I did nothing. And time dragged on. And there was Christmas and New Year and January, and here we are.

I feel a little better now, but not fantastic by all means. It weirds me out when parents tell me I look and sound like I'm doing fine, but honestly, sometimes I just get this feeling that I'm completely dead inside, and that I'll never have my energy and imagination and passion back again. That I used to be full of possibilities, full of potential, but I've lost it all forever. And there's nothing I fear more.

But I'm feeling a bit better now, at this very moment. Nothing comes easy yet, I still struggle to get any writing done, not to mention studying. Sometimes it feels like my brain isn't working at all. I can't think, I can’t memorize anything. It sucks when I try to study for an exam. I just don't understand what I'm reading and nothing sticks to my mind. Reading is hard at times because the lines keep bouncing in my eyes. But sometimes I feel alright. I get stuff done, I feel alive, I have energy to do things and my brain spins new ideas and I feel passionate about writing. Sometimes.

I don't know why I keep feeling so down and weird at times. I don't know if it's the thyroid, if the meds still aren't just right for me, or if it's because of the interferon, or if it's because of the winter and darkness and cold, or if it's because I'm stressing too much about all the stuff I haven't been able to get done, or something else. I don't know, and so I don't know how to fix myself. Today is alright. I guess. Sun is shining again for the longest time and the light is doing good for me. Drinking coffee.

I'm feeling alright. It's okay, but I don't want to feel alright. I want to feel great, or at least good. It frustrates me to run on so low energy that it's barely enough to keep me awake. Just because I'm awake and able to talk, doesn't always mean I'm feeling good by my standards. Just because you're alive and breathing, doesn't mean you're living a life worth living. It's really hard to tell people what I'm feeling now, because when I say I'm feeling tired and unmotivated, I feel like a whiner. Like it's an excuse, not a reason, for not doing things. It's like my mind just shuts down at times and nothing matters anymore.

But really, the reason why I’m updating right now, is that I’m feeling alright. And that’s better than before. And I think I’ll write more about what’s happened in the last few months, later.

Stuff

2011-11-28T14:33:00.001+02:00

I was going through old blog notes and found a letter. "Dear Mr Writer, I would like to write to you about how much I admire you, but your beard intimidates me". I don't generally find beards intimidating, unless they're bushy enough to look like there's some small animals living in them.

I've been really sluggish this month. It's been hard to get anything done. Haven't worked on the thesis at all. I've made some progress rewriting the novel and am now roughly halfway through it, which is - not really as far into it as I was hoping. When I started working on it, I was thinking I'd already be done with the 10th draft by now. I'm starting to feel better now though, and am trying to get back to my writing routine and to get restarted on the thesis. I guess much of what I felt or didn't feel this month was be cause of the thyroid shit, and maybe the meds are finally fixing me up properly.

I got a letter from a publisher again, a rejection. There's some strange emotions associated with these letters. On the one hand you just try to be very noble about it and think "well, not everyone likes everything ... and you already got someone interested", but on the other hand you kind of begin to doubt yourself.

All you need for getting published is to get one person interested in the manuscript, and I've got that one person. All I need to do now is to show that I can learn from the advice I've been given and work hard and make the novel better. But still there's this tiny voice in my head doubting me. What if I'm really just so bad that no one will ever like my stories, what if I'm dreaming, what I'm no good at all, at anything, what if I'm wasting my time and energy, what if everyone who has ever complimented on or been interested in my stuff just has really bad taste. What if, WHAT IF.

And all you really can do is to take all that, put it aside, sit down and get to work. What if I'm good for nothing, what if - I don't know. But I guess it's better to do and see than give up now. Better to try and fail rather than never do anything. But damn how much effort it takes to hold up such iron trust in yourself.

About the thyroid stuff, then, last week's blood tests showed that everything seems to be alright. For my own future reference: my TSH was 2.2 and T3v 4, both of which fall comfortably in the middle of the standard reference range.

Oh. And I'm drinking coffee again. It appears to be essential in keeping me awake during the day. And related or not, I don't know, I think I'm grinding my teeth in the night. It's been going on for a long while now, while on coffee and without it. I wake up many times in the night clenching my teeth hard. I don't really know if it's something I instinctively do right after waking up for some other reason or if I really do grind my teeth while asleep, because well, I don't know much about anything I do when I am asleep. There was also one night when I had a constant headache. I should probably go to the dentist, but ahhh -

Whine

2011-11-10T11:22:00.003+02:00

Hitting a massive writing low. I've felt a bit shitty for a few days now, and it's making me really unhappy. I want to do so much and have so little energy for anything. My head aches all the time. I'm awake in the morning and start to fall asleep after noon. I start writing only to realize my head doesn't work at all. I can't think, and I feel stupider by the day. I just want to curl up and cease to exist. Whine, whine.

Two down

2011-11-07T10:11:00.000+02:00

Got a reply from another publisher. This is the first unsigned form rejection I've ever received for anything, which is surprising, because I've mailed out some serious crap before. And I mean stuff that makes Eragon look like a masterpiece. I don't blame them for the rejection per se, because I can see how the story would leave a lot of people feeling uncomfortable and/or wtf. Some people can deal with it, and others will want to torch it. Big deal, haters gonna hate, but it is quite rude to mail unsigned letters.

Actually, I just remembered, a worse rejection than that was from the publisher who didn't even reply. If I hadn't later on realized that the manuscript was actually 400 pages of boring nonsense, I might have asked if they even received it, but by the time I realized they weren't going to reply, I just didn't have the balls anymore. I'm still a bit bitter about it though and won't be mailing them anything more unless everyone else turns me down. And even then, I'm not sure. Childish, I know, but I need to have some epic struggle in my life to romanticize the boring reality of writing.

Faster, faster!

2011-11-03T09:33:00.002+02:00

I've been sleeping well. I'm still waking up a few times every night, but it doesn't stress me the least bit and I'm actually capable of falling back asleep. I've been getting up early, feeling bright and happy, which is completely unlike me. I used to be that person who felt physical pain at the sheer thought of getting up from the bed before noon and after that I felt groggy all day. I love my life. Today I experienced briefly something I haven't felt for ages - excitement!

It's November and I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo again. And not only that, I'm also committed to finishing it! If you don't know yet, NaNo is about writing a 50k word novel in 30 days, and it's organized every November. I took part in it once a long time ago, but didn't finish and only now I feel motivated enough to try again and actually do it. Yesterday I found myself writing some sort of young adult supernatural horror angst piece (with absolutely no vampires, werewolves or paranormal romance). In English. God, it's so crap and I love it. Feels really awkward to write stories in English though. I've never done that unless you count the school compositions, but it's been good fun and practice so far.

I also don't know why this genre. I don't like teenagers, I don't know anything about them, I wasn't very interesting teen myself. I also don't read horror novels, because they either bore me to death or make me paranoid for weeks. But I had an idea and November had already started and the NaNo-train was leaving, so I decided to just go with it. I started my project ambitiously by describing landscapes. I can't help it, I love weather and I love talking about it. But got to dash, I've got a ton of fun stuff to do today. Also, if you can't tell, I think my thyroid meds are working!

Shove it, nature

2011-10-30T10:50:00.001+02:00

I keep waking up in the middle of the night around 3-3:30. I can't recall having had any dreams or hearing any sounds that might have caused that. I just wake up and there I am, wide awake. The only suspect I have is dry mouth, because I'm worried it will destroy my teeth and I'm already scared of the dentist quite enough without all this.

I don't stress about being awake itself, really. What is, is. I stay in my bed, trying to get back to sleep or at least relax and rest if nothing else. 3 is a silly time to get up unless you're a baker. I usually doze very lightly until 6:30 or so, when I get started with the morning. There's a couple of hours period during which I'm alert and would get stuff done if there wasn't other stuff in the way, such as breakfast and writing.

Then I get tired. At the moment it's 10:30 and I'm ready to have a nap. I keep yawning, my head is fuzzy. Writing this works alright, I can think, but there's some mental resistance. I really don't want to waste my energy on this. Or anything, really. I don't know if I should just take that nap. I don't really know what to do at all. Options are:

1 - Bear with it until I get the thyroid meds. See what happens. (Cons: Feel shitty until then. And how will I pass time when I'm too tired to do anything?)
2 - Start drinking coffee, see if it helps. Maybe it was the coffee that fooled me for a while that I was still functioning like I always did. (Cons: Risk screwing up my system even worse. I'd rather stay off until the meds since caffeine adds yet another strain on the metabolism.)
3 - See if getting up when I wake up in the night does anything. Or alternately, force myself to stay up until midnight and see if I can sleep straight till 6 that way. (Cons: Getting up at 3 = risk losing sleep rhythm entirely. Going to sleep at midnight = how am I going to stay awake that long?!)

It's really eating me that I'm just physically so tired that staring at the screen and editing the novel feels impossible (but screw the thesis until then, I'm not doing shit before I start feeling like a human). Also I should do things like clean a little (very little) and visit the pharmacy and buy something to protect my teeth in the night. And why does it have to be Sunday and the nearest open pharmacy is a kilometer away. I can barely go to the grocery store.

I'm 27. Why do I have to think about this shit? This is like granny stuff. I missed a party because of this, because despite napping I start falling properly asleep around 18, and at 21 I'm nearly comatose. Staying awake past that makes me feel ill and in pain.

Thyroid blew up

2011-10-27T18:11:00.001+03:00

I've graduated from the Wikipedia School of Medicine, so don't use this as a reference for medical decisions.

I have a thyroid problem. I had new blood tests last Tuesday and my TSH came back 117. TSH stands for thyroid (or thyrotropin) stimulating hormone and it's produced by the anterior pituitary gland in your brain. Basically the gland is the master and thyroid is the slave, so when your thyroid starts slacking off, the whipping begins. The standard reference range for TSH is 0.4-4 in Finland, but these numbers vary from country to country. As you can see you can see, my TSH levels are way up there, and my thyroid is apparently doing jackshit. For reference, last time my TSH was measured it was 0.04.

The person who called me told me she'll write me prescription for pills asap. I asked if I need to start taking them since I don't feel any special symptoms, but she strongly recommended it. I know a lot of people around here have difficulty getting doctors to believe they have thyroid problems when their worst symptoms are "tired" and "unmotivated" (which describe my whole life) and their thyroid hormone levels are very close to decent, so I was a bit surprised how quickly she decided to prescribe them to me. Then I checked out the normal values on Google doctor, and damn.

I thought with levels like this I should be feeling, well, nothing much, I should probably be comatose or at least unable to do anything, whereas recently I've felt more energic than before. That was my own idea of hypothyroidism though. I thought it just slows you down really badly until you just lose all will to do anything at all. Also other symptoms. But turns out the symptoms vary from person to person, and people with hypothyroidism can experience symtoms of hyperthyroidism, that is, overactive thyroid. When asked if I had some strange symptoms, I said no, nothing special. But after we were done with the phone call, I started thinking -

There was some strangeness going on earlier this autumn, when it felt like the days were just passing by really fast, when I woke up and suddenly it was evening already and I had managed to do nothing. Almost literally. And lately I've been suffering of dry mouth that wakes me up in the middle of the night because I have to drink something. And last time I visited the doctor I complained about having some pain in my eyes when moving them. And then there's some general eyesight problems (random blurriness, dryness etc.) that I thought were because I read and write a lot. And I've been a bit bloated recently although I've eaten well and carefully stuff that I know shouldn't cause that.

Most importantly, I'm tired. But that's the weird thing, because most of my life I've been a low-energy person. I just thought I really like sleeping, and that I need a lot of sleep. Or maybe I've been sleeping badly, or maybe the coffee affected my sleep or whatever. The point is, although I'm sometimes alert and getting a lot of stuff done, most of the time I'm tired. For the last few weeks, I've been working surprisingly hard on the novel and thesis, but I've also had to push myself really hard. After quitting coffee I thought this constant brain fog and slight tiredness despite sleeping a lot and well is caused by withdrawal. But I didn't really consider myself an addict, because I've been drinking a maximum of 2 cups of mild coffee per day. Even friend pointed out that I've seemed quite tired lately.

I don't know the exact reason behind my tiredness and everything else. Quitting coffee probably has something to do with it, but then again, my energy levels have fluctuated a lot this summer and autumn. I thought I was recovering from the chemotherapy, and I was, but was it the only reason? Even during the chemo I went up and down all the time. Sometimes I felt better than ever, sometimes all I did was sleep. I don't know what is normal anymore. All I know is that at the moment I feel a bit foggy and I keep having this slight but annoying headache.

Weirdest thing is that during the last few weeks I've been working tons on the novel and the thesis, but sometimes I really need to push myself and sometimes it feels like I can't think at all and sometimes it feels like I'm not making any progress despite all the effort. As unhappy as I am about the idea of eating meds for the rest of my life, it's ultimately not that big deal. I'm sort of hoping they'll fix something in me, give me more energy, make me a bit sharper.

I asked if the hypothyroidism is related to the interferon-alpha I'm taking, and the answer was yes, most likely yes, it's one notable side-effect of it. I did forget to ask if my thyroid will ever go back to normal, but somehow I don't think so. The last ultrasound showed some fuckery in my thyroid, so I'm eagerly awaiting for the next one at the start of December to see if there's been any changes.

(My TSH alone is significant enough to diagnose hypothyroidism, but I also had my t3v levels measured. This is one of the several hormones produced by thyroid itself. This round's results came back as 1.3 which is below the standard reference range. For comparison, last time it was measured in September, it was 7.6 which was over the standard. It means that my thyroid really isn't doing much now.)

Tea adventures

2011-10-25T20:01:00.001+03:00

Bought some herbal tea yesterday. I wanted to try some mango stuff I had seen online, but of course they didn't carry it. They also didn't have my favorite wild berry tea anymore. I ended up buying a blend called Bengal spice. Made some, it smells like Christmas. Tried it, it's alright, but it still has that annoying round, dull taste about it, no sharpness at all. I was thinking I could maybe use lemon to spice it up a little. I like lemon, but I have bad experiences with it in tea. I'm stuck with the idea that it dries my mouth, although that's likely because I had it with green tea, which causes that as well.

In any case, I wasn't keen on the lemon. Then I thought - ginger! Fresh ginger has an amazingly strong burning, sort of citrus taste to it, plus it supposedly does all kinds of good for the body. I was too lazy to deal with fresh ginger, so I tried some shredded stuff I have for cooking. It wasn't my favorite drink ever, but I felt I could deal with it. The tea still had its own flavor and some of the roundness, but it left a nice warmth in mouth after drinking. I'm thinking a touch of black pepper or cayenne might make a nice winter drink.

Surprisingly I don't miss coffee, not even the taste. I really don't have any desire to drink it. But I have to say I'm completely at loss with what to do when I get tired in the middle of the day. I've tried napping, but I don't fall asleep fast enough and just resting didn't help much. Some mornings I feel bright and energetic, but on other days everything just seems to drag on. I keep yawning, I can't think and I'm quite literally unable to keep my eyes open at times. It's not a killing tiredness, but it really gets in the way when all I should be doing, writing and thesis, requires thinking and focusing - and I just can't do it.

Normally I would just have a cup of coffee, and it might work or not. Sometimes it just made me even more tired, but it was something I used to rely on. Maybe I'm just not sleeping enough, though I sometimes feel like I sleep way too much. Maybe I don't sleep well enough. Maybe it will get better. It's only my third day without caffeine, anyway.

Night-time encounters

2011-10-23T08:50:00.001+03:00

Computer decided to reboot at 4am, so I woke up briefly. I visited the bathroom and when coming back, I took a detour by the window. It was a fantastic clear night, and I saw Orion right there. Besides Big Dipper, it's the only constellation I recognize, so I've always been fond of it. I also saw the Orion nebula which was really cool. It's not a big town, this one, on the world's scale, but there's usually still too much light pollution or just plain old clouds here to see anything interesting right from my window. Though the moon never stops being interesting, but it's there, like, all the time.

Later, after returning to bed, I experienced exploding head syndrome. I realized I have often had it before in various forms. It was just this time I was completely aware of it, and managed to think to myself "oh, I know this thing". It started out with a sound of a crowd, hundreds of people talking over each other within my head, of course, just meaningless noise. I was awake sort of, but not quite, really. The noise kept getting louder and louder until it all melted together and there was just this great boom that intensified and suddenly burst, like a bubble. That's how I visualized it.

Basically, exploding head syndrome is something that happens when your body and mind are shifting from wake-mode to sleep-mode. It's a loud or frightening sound that fills you up from within, and sometimes manages to jolt you right back awake. You might not remember the actual sound, but you probably know what I mean with the jolt. You're drifting into sleep when you suddenly wake up with a huge jolt. It feels like your whole body is being shocked wide awake, but you might be left wondering if you actually physically jumped in fright, though it briefly felt like it (I don't really know if you actually do move, or just feel like you do). Most people seem to have experienced it at some point. Some have also had the bad luck of experiencing sleep paralysis without knowing what was going on, but that's a topic for another post. You might not be aware of having actually heard a sound before the jolt though, and perhaps that's for better, because the sound is often accompanied with a strong sense of impending doom. You just know there's something horrifying about to happen right there.

So I let the sound come and go, not very frightened because I'm familiar with it, and I realized some curious dream-thing was happening. I found myself in my bed, but the sound hinted that I might not be awake, so I got up. Normally I'm acutely aware when I'm lucid dreaming (awake in a dream, aware I'm dreaming), but this time it was a leap of faith, or, like my lucid dreams these days tend to start - a leap out of the window. I had to push hard, because the glass kept stretching before shattering. I found myself in the yard, intact, at which point I declared that yes, it was a dream. (Don't try this at home, I'm a professional dreamer.)

Nuts, isn't it? I've been thinking if there's any chance I'd sometime throw myself out of the window just for the sake of seeing if I'm dreaming. But I don't really think so. While lucid dreams can feel very real, they also have the slightest aura of strangeness. Even if it really felt like a real world, there's still a tiny bit of you, maybe some dream-sense entirely, that tells you it's alright, it's not real.

Anyway, I found myself on the yard, and uncertain of what to do, I began exploring. I ran around for a while, looking for anything interesting, but it was night in my dreamworld like in the real one, and nothing much was going on. It's like logging into WoW in the middle of the night to see if anyone's around. Boring. Also I seem to run out of ideas while lucid dreaming, so usually nothing much happens there.

Now, one thing I know about dreams is that mirrors are always interesting. They might or might not work, and when they do, they work in strange ways. My favorite action in lucid dreams is going through mirrors. I'm obsessed of it, but it apparently takes really deep dream to not break when you get sucked into the darkness. But if you manage to do it properly and continue dreaming, which I rarely do, you might find yourself in interesting places.

So I willed myself to carry a small mirror without intentions of going through this time, just taking a look. And holy shit, did I look. I could have shat myself there, because I saw myself, but at the same time it wasn't me. The figure was white and black like a photocopy, with sort of a longish face, no eyebrows and entirely black eyes. It just kept staring at me, quite blankly, but there was this awful feeling of menace associated with it that I tossed the mirror and willed myself elsewhere.

If you have never experienced a lucid dream, by willing I mean simply being there, then strongly wanting for something to happen. In this case I was willing my surroundings to change into something else. I tried the central square of this town, area that I'm not THAT well acquainted with in real life. I mean, I've been there, but I haven't looked at the details, so the whole place sort of appeared and then started unraveling. I didn't wake up, but I guess the dream pushed me out and one level up, where I was asleep but not dreaming. Same thing that usually happens to me when going through mirrors. It's really hard to stay in control of a lucid dream, especially if you go into this transition phase where everything is pitch-black, like when you try to change everything around you or when you enter a dark place. When that happens, you quickly forget what you were doing, that you were dreaming. Some people say spinning helps to focus again, but I always forget that sort of tips when actually there.

But that was a chilling thing to see in the mirror, seriously. It doesn't even begin to compare with a normal nightmare, because nightmares are like horror movies, they might be frightening, but ultimately they're just on the screen. When you're lucid, you're right in the middle of it all AND aware of it all in a totally different manner than in a regular dream. You are also in control of everything, and you know this. So what's worse than what I really saw was that I had not expecting such a thing in my dream, it was my dream, I was in charge, and seeing the mirror made me realize I was losing it somehow - losing the dream, and generally just losing it.

But of course, lucid or not, it was just a dream.

I've been up for nearly two hours now. I watched the sun rise. Saw the eastern sides of buildings light up. The horizon was pink and orange while the rest of the sky was deep blue, and there was a crescent moon hanging above it all. I can't believe I not only woke up that early to blog about dreams and the sky (which totally deserves to be blogged about), but I've also felt wide awake this whole time.

Sugar & coffee

2011-10-22T20:15:00.000+03:00

Sugar kills me. It's not normal for a person to be this tired this early without having done anything special. Except perhaps if you've eaten cake and chocolate and whatsthere. It's like all energy was sucked right out of me, and I just slowly fall asleep. I really hate it. Can't get anything done at all. So why do I eat that stuff? Because sometimes I just really want to.

Oh, and I quit drinking coffee. I haven't drank much of it recently anyway, so it was easy decision. Why would I do that, then? I just felt like it, I guess. I had some vague feeling that it was affecting me in weird ways, making me more hyper, sure, but unfocused, and sometimes just making me more tired when I expected the opposite. And coffee is expensive as shit, you know.

Well anyway, I cut down on it one cup at a time, so it wasn't very difficult and I haven't had headaches or anything that's usually associated with caffeine withdrawal. One thing I noticed, of course, is that I tend to get tired in the afternoon and previously I would have drank coffee to counter that. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, and it consistently messed with my sleep. I also noticed that another reason why I was drinking coffee was comfort. I've been drinking it for like fifteen years and recently I've had the habit of having one cup in the morning, even when I didn't really need it for waking up. I just really enjoy a warm drink in the morning, especially now that the days are getting colder.

So instead of quitting caffeine altogether, I decided to try tea in the morning. And in the afternoon if I'll need it. It doesn't seem to mess with me as badly as coffee did. I've been sleeping really well recently, save for waking up every now and then because of dry mouth. But that's another problem entirely. I'm not big into drinking tea, but I decided to give it a go anyway. I used to drink a lot of tea when I was kid, and although I don't care much for the taste, I can deal with it.

I'd really like to quit all caffeine, actually, save for what there is in chocolate and such products that I consume very little. I've been consuming caffeine so long that I'm just really curious about how I'll feel like when I'm properly off it. Will I have more energy? Will it be easier to get up in the morning? Will it be easier to concentrate? But there's the problem of needing my hot comfort drink.

I tried decaf at some point. It was expensive and smelled and tasted really gross. Some people swear rooibos is amazing, but what I had was also really gross. I really detest the soft and "round" taste most herbal teas seem to have. It's the taste of disappointment. There's one herbal tea blend that I tried and actually liked, Celestial Seasoning's Wild Berry Zinger. It had a nice sharp taste to it. I haven't had any of that in a long while, so maybe I could give it a go. Should also visit the nearby hippie store and see if they have any other interesting blends.

My day in numbers

2011-10-18T20:17:00.000+03:00

I was curious as to how exactly I use my time, so I kept track of it through the whole day. I've got a mild headache and I'm getting tired, so I'm going to sleep in an hour or two and my do-time is over for today. Here's the breakdown of one of my more active days (I made effort!).

Woke up at 7:30.
Do-time stopped at 19:10.
Total time spent, 700min = 11,6h

Creative writing/editing, 318min = 5,3h
All writing (incl. blog posts&plans*), 387min = 6,5h
Resting & dicking around, 74min, 1,2h
Eating & housework, 162min = 2,7h**
Thesis, 80min = 1,3h

* I have a lot of ideas and outlines for blog posts that will never be used here. I like taking notes and brainstorming ideas.
** At one point I found myself eating and writing blog stuff at the same time.

These numbers don't add up, because I'm bad at math and focusing on one thing at a time. Sometime after noon I felt like I had been writing a lot, but I couldn't remember what parts exactly I had been working on. It gets a bit vague, when you write less new stuff and spend more time messing around with the old (that's editing for you). Looking back, I can tell I made final touches on a new chapter that will introduce a new character and explain some things that were in need of explaining. I've been working on the chapter for over a week now, and today I finally added it into 10th draft, where it will wait for the time for 11th draft changes to come. Tomorrow I'll continue with another new chapter since I also decided to split the original new one in half. Hopefully I'll get it in 10th draft shape as well, so I can finally move on with the editing of the old.

So it seems that I got a lot of good writing done. I progressed less with the thesis, but made a breakthrough decision hopefully, to finally stop searching for theories (for that one thing anyway) that would match my needs and just pull something out of my ass. I'm tired of spending tons of time on it every day, and I'll make a promise to return to my slacker ways of doing the absolute minimum of everything I hate.

And what will I do now. Took about an hour to look through the stuff I did today and write this post, but it's all good since I like to make lists of stuff. I find strange comfort in organizing things. Now I will dick around online for a while, check some forums, get up to date with funny pictures and whatsthere while listening to music, and then I'll hit the bed, early, yet again, but I've come to realize I really do like sleeping. Also winter hibernation has begun.

Less crap, more

2011-10-17T11:55:00.000+03:00

I want to simplify my life. I work towards it every now and then by doing thorough cleaning and mercilessly ditching all useless stuff. I don't care much about items, but there's two things I feel very passionate about: books and paper.

Perhaps I would buy less books, if I didn't read in English and such marginal writers that they would be available in libraries. There’s also something strangely satisfying in owning good books and knowing they are right here whenever I want to read them. Also, libraries occasionally get rid of their older books and good books eventually go out of print. If I didn’t own them, there would come a time when I could not read them anymore. E-books might make things a bit more simpler, but there’s something strangely appealing about having an actual bookshelf and being able to touch the books.

I love touching paper, and so I love books as objects as well. Even and especially paperbacks. I also love notebooks, and only recently I've made it a habit to write them full from cover to cover instead of just having and admiring them. Most of them are full of writing that I will never use. I rarely even think about them, but I still hesitate to ditch them. They remind me that even when I feel like I’ve accomplished little, I’ve done something important - I’ve been practising. That’s valuable, even if I haven’t published anything.

But perhaps I should take more time deciding when I want to buy a new book. Perhaps I should see if I can find it in library first before deciding if they’re worth buying. And perhaps I should get rid of the books I don’t care much about.

I’ve gotten rid of much in the recent years, but there’s still more I could do. In comparison to some people, I don’t have much clothes, but I have way more than I need or ever wear. I also have more electronics things and kitchen appliances that I need or even use. Do I need three computers? Do I use the VCR? Do I play all four consoles? Do I watch TV? I cling onto some stuff simply because it is or was valuable and - I MIGHT NEED IT.

Ahh, how I hate that thought. No, I probably never will need it.

Feeling old

2011-10-09T21:58:00.000+03:00

Had a nice day, actually. Perhaps I was a bit overambitious trying to write a novel and edit another one and do my thesis and study for an exam at the same time. It drove me nuts, anyway. So today I started out by editing the novel, and then I continued studying for the exam. I have three books for this one, and tonight I started reading the third one. It turned out to be the most interesting of the lot, thank god for that, because most of my tomorrow will be spent with it, seeing as the exam is on Tuesday morning. I had to stop reading every once in a while to take notes because I was getting ideas for stories.

Book in question is "Hanging out, messing around, geeking out" by Mizuko Ito, but don't worry, I'm not going to review it. It's about kids and teens using media to do all kinds of stuff. Apart from being surprisingly interesting, it's also a pleasure to read which is a rare trait in my exam books.

What's really special is that few things make me want to go back to being a teenager, and this book is one of them. When I was a teen, all I really did was play console games, dick around in IRC and make shitty websites with HTML and umm - yeah that was it. I still do two of the three occasionally. Kids these days get involved in all the games and forums and social media and fandoms and sharing and what's there. They live and breathe media, and I kinda wish I could go back to being that enthusiastic about anything at all. I started out being there, in the middle of it all but instead of growing into the developing media, I grew out of it.

I absolutely don't get the appeal of all the social media and sharing going on these days. I've even lost all interest in playing WoW or other MMORPGs, and it was about time already. I don't have any need to keep in touch with people all the time and share every little tidbit of my life with them. I spend a total of about 2 minutes in Facebook every day, because I occasionally check if there's anything going on (isn't), and I do the same with my e-mail (not getting any). The biggest thing I do in regards of being connected to the vast world of online is blogging, and even this is not a way of keeping in touch with people or getting attention. I just shout into the night and if someone hears, whatever, if no one does, whatever. Not a big deal. World goes on.

I have a lot of stuff to do in real life, most of which I even enjoy, so I've little time to hang on the Internet hoping for someone to notice me all the time or whatever it is the kids these days do. So if I consider it carefully, I'm happy as I am, and I have little need to be actively online and do things there. Of course, keeping my PC on day and night with a broadband connection means I am online all the time. It's just that I don't really pay much attention to it. I get anxious if my connection goes down for an extended period of time, but when it comes back up, I usually lose interest and do something else entirely, read a book or so. I just like having all the possibilities I have when I'm online, like a cat. They just need to have all the damn doors in the house open, otherwise they'll get upset. The cat yowls and scratches at a closed door, but when you open it, see if the cat cares. No, it doesn't. It didn't want to go to the other side, it just wanted to have the possibility of going.

So I don't feel any need or even want to be immersed in media all the time, or get involved in online communities or keep constantly in touch with friends, but reading about it gave me the tiniest want. Just like reading some particularly funny or interesting stories about MMORPGs occasionally makes me want to hop in and experience that wackiness again. But then, when I think about it rationally, it's all a bit meh. I remember it was fun while it lasted but then it got a bit stale and it made me crazy and if I logged in to WoW, I probably wouldn't do anything exciting or even fun in there. Same with this media thing, I kind of want to be involved, but really, I don't give a damn.

It's the same when you read a great book or read a particularly inspiring interview with a great writer, and you think "Wow, I want to be a novelist too! That is so cool!" And then you get started, and you realize it's nowhere near as cool as it sounded. That most of the time is spent alone sitting on your ass typing words (fighting back self-doubt and the anxieties of being piss-poor and regarded as an unproductive part of the society). Think about your favorite hobby and idol or a dream job or whatever if you can't relate to writing. They make it sound so awesome and deceptively easy. But I guess if it really was easy, then it wouldn't be so awesome. Go figure.

Reinforcement

2011-10-07T12:44:00.000+03:00

This will sound silly, but I feel so awfully honored and slightly embarrassed for having been paid a nightly visit by a writer I admire. Of course, I was dreaming, but let's not let that little detail bother us.

There have been times when I've been a fan of things. I've been enthusiastic about movies or games or novels, but I have never been a fan of people. I haven't had any idols, real people at least. I don't give a damn about who plays the music or acts in the movies, and so, I have never had much interest in writers either. Like I said in some previous post, they are mostly really boring people, and I say that with the same fondness I say that we're ultimately all very boring. Truth is of course that we're all extremely fascinating, but that's a topic for a post of its own entirely.

And so there, just five years ago or so, for the first time (despite having written tons before that, despite being aware of certain people's newest novels) something just connected in my mind and I realized that every book I've ever loved has a writer. Since then I've fallen in love with a few of writers who seem to do everything with perfection and clarity that I can't but admire. Some of them are, high up there, out of reach, like some gods and I avert my eyes because I'm too mundane to even look at them.

Some are just so mundane that they are right down here with the rest of us. They do their thing humbly and they do it well and keep on doing it without any pomp at all. They blog about traveling to cons and meeting fans and do it quite nonchalantly. Then there's one that I've very mixed feelings about, who writes about interesting stuff from boring perspectives and keeps on talking about stuff that just doesn't interest me at all. I'm fascinated by his imagination and oftentimes frustrated by his writing.

And then there's the last one, who writes fantastic and makes me ache all over with the "why didn't I think of that", "why can't I write like that". He's a bit out there, just a bit too high for me with interests in science and poetry that I can't relate to at all, yet at times right here with us blogging about nature and food and daily life - a bit of ordinary, a bit strange, with a touch of pride, a hint of humility with a deceptively solid writing style. Who writes lines and uses words that stick to me years after reading. Tiny stabbing words.

Damn, I say. I want to do this like you. And so I found out that I do in fact have an idol.

This part could be a blog post on it's own, so I'll keep it short: The success of others can make me terribly upset at times. I'm disgustingly competitive, and though I try to suppress it to save myself from the misery of losing and to avoid being a lousy person, I hate to see others "win" especially if I don't think they deserve it. I'm bitter, even, and sometimes all my writing reeks of "I'LL SHOW YOU, JUST WATCH IT YOU - YOU!" I'm like the Incredible Hulk of writing. Eragon gets published and makes millions and I just swell out of fury and destroy anything that gets in the way of me and my writing. I'M SO MISUNDERSTOOD~ I cry. Poor baby.

"I'll show them" has fueled some of my writing, but none of the better stuff, mind you. It's kept me writing, sure, but that hasn't been worth being eaten alive by bitterness. It's the force that occasionally makes me ask myself if I'm even sane for going through all the trouble for nothing at all.

This is cheesy I know, but love is the only good reason to do anything. Love for people, love for life, love for doing itself, take your pick. I love writing, and I should remember that is the exact and only reason why I should be writing. Not because I want to show them, not because I want to win riches and recognition or affection, but because I thoroughly enjoy each and every aspect of writing. Yes, even the bits I sometimes complain about. I love the complaining as well. It's precious to have something so harmless to complain about. It's indulgence.

Today, waking up I realized that I am not an entirely rotten person, consumed by envy and bitterness. That among all the writers I have ever envied, there's a handful that I truly admire and look up to. I want to write like they do, I want to be like them. So last night, when I met my writing idol, I was horribly embarrassed and awkward, while he was all wits and compassion and inspiration. He read me a short story but I don't remember what it was about. I don't even remember what we talked about, but I woke up feeling -

What is it you feel, when someone you admire looks at you and compliments you, says you are capable and encourages you to continue? When you are that little dog yapping at everyone waiting for one of them to look down at you, notice you and tell you what a good little dog you are and give you a treat. Put like that it sounds absolutely pathetic, but when you are a little dog, getting the attention of even one of the big people is the most important thing in your life. It tells you you're doing something right and that someone noticed and someone appreciated. And of course the yapping continues, but that's probably another story as well -

It makes you swell with immense pride and gratitude. And you feel a bit choked up on tears because you never expected someone you care for that much to pay any of that precious attention to you. It's an amazing feeling to know that someone you admire is there right behind you backing up you and all your efforts. That someone whose opinion counts so much to you, truly believes in you.

It was a dream, and he doesn't even know I exist, but that doesn't matter. The feeling remains and I learned a lot. I'm not doing this to win. I write because writing is what makes me truly happy and because someone out there wants me to be happy.

Do not want

2011-10-01T21:29:00.000+03:00

Been really tired for a couple of days. Worked hard last week, most of the days getting up around 7 and going to bed around midnight. I'm writing a rough draft of a new story while I should also be working on my thesis and studying for exams. On top of that, I'm editing the previous novel which takes a shit ton of time. Or forget about that, all of these things take tons of time, and all of them are important. I figured if I just got started and got my hands dirty I could do anything. If I just skipped all lazytime and did something all the time with as little sleep as possible, I could get tons of stuff done! Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Well who would have guessed doing lot's of stuff at breakneck pace with as little sleep as possible makes you really tired.

Problem is that I can't simply prioritize some things and stop doing others. Everything needs to get done and some of the things have deadlines. I need to do the survey for my thesis this autumn, to get the whole thing together next spring. I need to do a lot of exams to get all my missing courses wrapped up. I need to continue writing, because that's all I really want to do, and I need to keep on editing the novel because I'd be stupid to give up on this now. But all of this takes a lot of time, like I said.

I could edit a chapter per day if they were easy ones, but a bunch there that require a lot more work than that. Writing entirely new scenes, completely rewriting others. I'm not even saying "per day" meaning "a couple of hours a day", I mean literally from breakfast to bedtime with some breaks in between. That's how much time it takes when you do it properly. Writing new stuff is a bit easier, I can do my daily words in couple of hours, faster if I write in English, but sometimes it takes a bit longer. I'm working on the thesis for an hour or two every day depending on how much time I'm spending on the other stuff. The real difficult part is trying to find time for reading books for the exams. I'm trying to read fast, but I can't remember shit of it, and even when reading a bit slower, I still find I can't focus, and don't understand anything, and I really hate studying anyway. Add to this all the cooking, cleaning, eating and other small tasks -

If I could just drop all the studying because this shit is not worth my time and efforts, but it's complicated. Just putting up with this now, but hating it. Though I guess I should be happy that I have time to write, even if not quite as much as I'd like.

On another note, visited dermatologist last Wednesday and she cut a few moles from my back and scalp. Said they don't look anything to worry about. Will get the results in four weeks, max. Not expecting anything interesting. I don't have time to be interested in this. Going to bed soon -_-

Working hard

2011-09-23T19:54:00.001+03:00

I've followed a couple of writer blogs that especially made me wonder why, when you get the least bit of recognition for your work, you suddenly start thinking your opinions about politics or the recent world news are somehow interesting or insightful. Beyond writing, most writers are really boring people.

On other news, I've been super-motivated to write for the last few days, so I've pushed out 11k words for the new story. My daily goal is 2k words and I've had two 4k days now. Might sound like a lot if you've ever done some serious writing and know how much that is. Like I said somewhere before, I can write about 1k words in an hour if I'm not distracted by something, and usually I am, because I'm interested in a lot of things, like dreamily gazing at the mohawk of that one guy who's fixing the roof I can see from my window. And I just have to check my e-mail every fifteen minutes because I don't even know. It's not like anyone ever mailed me anyway, and that's fine, because I can't usually be bothered to reply.

But anyway, I've written disgusting amounts. Or rather spent (deliciously) disgusting amounts of time writing. Need to mention that my writing style atm consist of "write any crap you want for at least 2k words". Every morning I give myself permission to write all the boring descriptions I've ever wanted to, especially those regarding the weather (because goddamn, weather is awesome). I also have the permission to write awkward dialogue and descriptions of food, clothes and gore. So I've produced 11k words that are relevant to the story, but because I don't specifically force myself to stick to the point at this phase, it's very long-winded, has much repetition and differing point of views, and clumsy descriptions of things. It's all one chapter too, and eventually needs to be cut down to about 3k words. I'm being way too wordy for my own good, but the best thing about writing the first draft is that that doesn't matter. It's just a place to make a mess. Anything to keep up the momentum. Editing comes later. Much later.

Another reason for binge-writing is that while editing the last novel, I found it easier to cut down and condense instead of writing entirely new material into the middle of existing stuff. It's just strangely awkward to jump into the action in the middle of a scene you last wrote a month ago. And thirdly and most importantly, writing's a good productive way to avoid working on my thesis, which I should start ANYTIME NOW, like yesterday. But obviously I can't do that just yet, because I'm busy creating my future as a writer.

Anyway, I should dick around a bit less and focus more on editing Reflections. So far I've only revised an old fixlist. I didn't fix all the items on it for the last draft, the one I mailed to publishers, because most of the changes left were really minor ones (reconsider some words, change some place names). But this time's a good one for tackling them. I've also written a very short plan about how to start reworking the novel. It's really disgustingly clumsy to handle 250 pages of text and try to figure out all the details.

Guess I just need to get started properly.

PS. Today I carefully reread the letter I got from the publisher and took some notes on the things I'll need to work on. I have a problem with taking both critique and praise (attention bothers me, somehow) so I tried to get over it by reading the letter a few times while telling myself "this here is a person who thinks I can write and I should remember that whenever doubting myself". Anyway, it was on the third read-through or so when I realized that the first line didn't say "the novel has a lot of things" but rather "the novel has a lot of merits" (just one letter difference in Finnish). I'd been wondering why someone would say that. Of course it has a lot of things, it's a novel. If it had less things, it'd be a short story. Mystery solved. And the compliment warms me strangely.

Getting there!

2011-09-21T10:43:00.002+03:00

I got a letter from a publisher just a moment ago, and I'm all worked up because of it. It was just one sheet, so I figured it was a standard rejection. Turns out it had some brief comments, suggestions and "I'd be interested in reading the revised version should you continue working on it". Interestingly this is the publisher I least expected to reply. But OH MY GOD. What am I going to do, I'm not cut out for this~

Suggestions from the letter:
Add some softness. I don't particularly enjoy writing happy things, and despite having a fondness of jokes in real life, I have never written anything (intentionally) funny and don't have any interest in trying to. I don't do happy or uplifting. The best I can do is bittersweet. But I do agree with this suggestion. I know it's my biggest weakness, and I guess I should overcome it somehow. I don't know how to accomplish this now, though. The world the story takes place in is all sorts of fucked up, and I want it to show (I'm interested in fucked up, deal with it), so where's the happy place? I want the world to be depressing and infuriating.

Too much dream sequences. I agree with this too. They're relevant to the plot and I tried to keep them to the minimum, because boring plot device and I hate them too. I'll just need to stop slacking and - cut out all the excess bits and work the rest better into the story.

Too much neologisms. Agreed. The word list with explanations that I wrote for my own reference ended up 10 pages long. I'm all excited about the world I'm building, but I should focus on this story alone, instead of plotting and planning prequels, sequels and sidequels and whatever that would explain all the stuff better. Take things that are important for this story and explain them here, leave all the other shit for other stories. And no peeking. It sounds really simple, but damn, when you just have too many ideas and they all seem amazing -

Explain the world a bit more. Yes, I should. I hate obvious infodumps when reading, and I've done them in the previous stories I've written, so I tried to learn from that and explained very little. Some writers can pull off really well that explain-nothing -thing, and it's awesome when it's done well, but I'm nowhere as good as I should be to manage that. The letter specified a couple of things that might be of interest for the readers: how does the world work, where does food and power come from, who does all the work etc. who, what, why and from where is that one faction of people, really. I'll tell, but the question is how.

Own thoughts: Simplify. Cut out all unimportant crap. There's still a lot of "stuff" there that has no place in this story, like mentions about people who belong in other stories and things and places there's no room for in this story. Some of them serve as background and curios, but some are just completely unnecessary waste of space. And on similar vein: further define and explain the stuff that IS important for the story.

Time to get to work =:D

Somewhat healthy

2011-09-18T17:40:00.000+03:00

It seems that I'm healthy for now. The X-ray was clear, and ultrasound showed nothing, except that my thyroid is slightly weird. It has some strange lobularity and gave some strange echoes, whatever that all means. There was also a cluster of tiny lymph nodes nearby, but everything is too small and too vague to be biopsied. Blood tests were mostly alright as well, but my hemoglobin has dropped and I suffer of a slightly overactive thyroid. I was a bit surprised by that, because after the radiation and meds and having hypothyroidism in the family and also feeling rather shitty for the last couple of weeks, I would have thought it was underactive. But it's nothing to worry about at the moment. Chances are it's caused by the interferon and it will be followed with further blood tests, the next one which is scheduled for the end of October. I'll also get to visit a dermatologist who'll check a few moles I have. Sometime in the future.

On a thyroid-related note, something I've ranted about before as well, I really hate it when people say "thank god it's just the thyroid, it's really easy to manage". I really do get where you're coming from - having your thyroid chopped off is not as life-threatening or cancer, and it's not as inconvenient as having your hand or leg chopped off, but goddamn. Just because there's a pill for it, doesn't mean it's EASY to manage. Just because you were lucky getting a good doctor and are happy to live with what is essentially life-support in pill-form, doesn't mean it would be the same for me. Belittling someone's condition, even with good intentions, is not comforting, it just shows how ignorant you are.

I sound like a cranky bastard, but I'm doing quite fine, actually. I'd be happier if I had a few extra hours in my day, because as it is I don't have enough time to even get started with stuff. I don't know if I'm too slow or too fast for these days, but it's really starting to bother me. I literally get nothing done and suddenly it's bedtime.

Schrödinger's cancer

2011-09-10T16:33:00.000+03:00

Oh. I guess I could update here as well. I had my first three-month imaging at the hospital last Thursday. I had thorax X-ray and ultrasound of neck and stomach. Before I went to the hospital, I visited a laboratory nearby for some blood tests. Because they're this time checking my thyroid as well, I had to go there as early as possible and couldn't drink any coffee before, because it would affect the results. So I went there dead-tired of course and waited for an hour. A woman next to me managed three times to start a conversation with other people about how she should have reserved a time beforehand. I didn't talk to her, but I totally agree, and next time I'm going to reserve a time.

I couldn't eat or drink for six hours before the stomach ultrasound, so because of shitty timing and planning on my part, I didn't have a chance to eat or get my morning coffee before two in the afternoon. But before that I went to the hospital, got to hop in front of strangers with my tits naked, got the pictures taken, got ultrasound gel all over myself, including hair and an ear. Came home, tired, hungry, stuffed myself with pizza and candy and coffee. Took a nap. Felt amazing for the rest of the evening.

My head's been stuffed for the last few days. I don't seem to be able to think clearly or even see for that matter. I feel like I was tired all the time, but I don't feel actually sleep, it's just my focus that is zero, and it annoys me because I have a lot of shit to do, I'm a busy and very important person, just let me live my life, okay. Anyway, because of this I can't possibly convey how shitty Thursday was for me and why exactly I don't really mind. This story ends in a cliffhanger. The radiologist doing my ultrasound said she's not allowed to say anything to patients, so I'll need to wait till next week before I get any results. I don't mind. Well actually I do, a little, see, on Monday I have this lecture after which we're supposed to assemble into groups for making a presentation about something boring, and if I'm dying, I would have preferred to know before Monday so that I wouldn't have to go there.

But now I'll need to wait till next Thursday, until then -

Fear of approval

2011-08-31T12:19:00.000+03:00

I changed my mind again. I think I'm going to give the manuscript a chance, after all, but..

It takes serious balls to give your pile of silly scribbles to a stranger and demand they pay attention to it and -god forbid- consider publishing it. This is the third time I'm doing this, and it seems that I've lost some boldness or whatever since the last time. On the previous occasions I never really thought about the process. I just mailed my shit off and let it rest, come what may. Now I seem to have developed some strange and completely unwelcome sense of shame and humility. I'd just like to scrape sand over the manuscript and forget about it altogether. But I've decided that this is one of the situations where I should be disgustingly shameless and just mail the shit. It's the right thing to do. The right way to end the long journey with this novel. It's like buying a lottery ticket. Whatever the outcome, I'll lose nothing but a little bit of money.

I'm hoping they won't make fun of me when they reject it though. And I'm trying to take comfort in the fact that at least they won't see my face if they do make fun of me. Actually, it's not the rejections I'm afraid of, no. I'm afraid they'll say yes, we'll publish it, just fix this stuff (list enclosed). And I'd fix it, and fix, and it would be no good. It would still not be perfect and I just would not know what more to do. But they would be happy with it and they would publish it and I would be forever unhappy for having written and published something not perfect. I want to back off, back off until I've written the perfect novel. But it takes forever to create something perfect, and I don't have forever.

Biggest pain in the ass, while feeling this embarrassed of myself and my work, is to write the letter to accompany the manuscript. The one with my contact information and a short summary of the story. It's not like I was selling a masterpiece here, or anything at all, to be truthful, like the Americans would with their query letters. My understanding is the summary is there just to pique someone's interest or possibly just so they know which department the manuscript belongs to. It's not that crucial, the manuscript will be read in any case and no one will judge my stupid summary, but it's still difficult to come up with something that doesn't make me sound retarded. I'm afraid this shit might come back haunting me.

I wonder if the publishing people ever keep awful manuscripts as a light reading on their bedside or if they just shred the stuff once they're done with it. I'd like to imagine they keep them and occasionally make fun of them in the publishing house's parties.

I feel so embarrassed I could die.

Ambition

2011-08-22T13:40:00.002+03:00

Been working on the novel, trying to finish it up. Then just this morning I had an idea, or a series of ideas. This is a stand-alone novel, but it's set in a world that I want to tell about, that deserves more time and detail than I've given it in this novel or could possibly give even if I changed things drastically.

This world was always meant to host a series of stories, but since I'm not the biggest fan of series these days, all the stories would be written as stand-alone novels. The timeline of the world is continuous though and there are themes and characters that appear again in different novels. My point is that the story I'm now finishing up is the third on the timeline of important shit happening, and now that I consider it, it's not the best part for introducing the world or the best and most unique story.

I figured that I should maybe start from the beginning and while I'm at it, I should spend more time fleshing out the world and focus on certain themes and certain places in certain stories, instead of trying to jam everything into one and give no real attention to anything. So I'm trying to decide whether to send the current novel out to publishers and try my luck again, which is very rewarding after all the hard work, even if it got rejected. Or should I simply focus on working on the world more.

I'm pretty sure the smartest thing would be to let the novel rest and continue working, and that's probably what I will do, but damn.. My greedy little mind says it's years of my life wasted, because although I don't write for publishing (I'd never get anything done if I did, because I don't get published), it's like buying a lottery ticket when you send your novel out to the publishers. There's always the tiniest chance of winning, and that makes it exciting and rewarding even if you didn't win anything. For the brief moment when you have the ticket and don't yet know if you're a winner or not, you can dream of all the things you can buy when you're filthy rich.

So now I'm pretty much considering not buying the ticket at all, and instead wait until my chances and the main prize are even bigger. But it'll take time and it'll take work until that moment comes, until I have a better novel ready and hence bigger chance of winning. My biggest worry is that I don't know if I'm just being obsessive, if I just want to get it perfect, which is impossible and which dooms me into never getting anything done despite all the work.

But I know I'm shooting myself in the leg if I don't give these stories and this world the time and attention they deserve, and perhaps I just need to be patient and keep on working on this shit, despite wanting to get stuff done as fast as possible. I mean, I can't become a best-selling novelist if I don't have any actual novels ready that I could sell. I just hate waiting. Sometimes I just wish I could get everything now and faster.

But then again.. these stories are my happy place and I feel safe and comfortable working on this world. It's not that bad thing to continue with this for a while, year, two, three, whatever. When I'm dead, people will finally discover my (still just slightly unfinished) magnum opus and they'll be all like: "man, this girl was tripping balls". But I'll probably be buried smiling.

Noveling

2011-08-15T22:21:00.003+03:00

I don't seem to be able to think fluently tonight for whatever reason, but here's a blog post about things I've been doing.

I've been avoiding watching Farscape ever since it was first aired in the dawn of time, because all the glimpses I caught of it were too silly. I guess I figured it would be just too ridiculous for me to enjoy. And this coming from a person who actually watched all of Lexx, although I'm still not sure how exactly that happened. I don't mind silly, but I'm extremely prejudiced about it. Anyway, after watching seven seasons of Project Runway last week while editing the novel, I needed something else to watch and finally thought I would give Farscape a go. I decided to sit through one episode and then just see if I wanted to watch more. Turns out it's not as silly as I expected, although some of the stuff going on has made me laugh out loud, both intentionally and not. Overall it's just tons of fun, and turns out I like fun.

I've been revising and editing the novel for two weeks. Few days ago I decided that the ending sucked and I planned and wrote a new one. I've been criticized for writing too grim endings. Everyone dies or goes insane or is permanently crippled and no one is happy. I decided to try adding some light to it and see how it works out. At first I thought there was only one ending that really made any sense, and it was difficult to come up with anything else, but I'm pretty happy with what I've written.

The new ending also spawned a lot of new ideas for the next story, and damn have I jumped on the nightmare train. The next story was originally intertwined with the one I'm finishing now, but a year ago I decided to separate them to give them both the time and space they deserve. I've been planning it for a long time and it just keeps sprawling all over the place. I can't wait to get to work on it properly. It features some awesomely interesting stuff going on and one of my favorite characters ever.

I should name the stories instead of referring to them as "this" and "that". Gets all weird.

I follow some writer blogs and somehow it seems a lot of the writers decided to go on a summer vacation. Some other writers whine and complain or muse about writing instead of actually doing anything. Stop whining and get to work.

Suckness

2011-08-06T16:41:00.002+03:00

I've been working on the 4th draft for the whole week, full days, from 10 to 10, about. I wake up, start writing and keep writing until I'm too tired to keep my eyes open. I'm simply worn out. I just - I don't even know anymore. I want to get this done so bad, I want to believe in myself, but I'm hitting some kind of strange low where I can see all the mistakes I've made, everything that needs to be fixed. I can deal with adding minor details, but there's some things there that just seem massively wrong and I don't have any more energy left to spend on this. I want to get this done and I want to spend all my time working on this and fixing the stuff that needs fixing, but I'm just so tired and bored. I need a break, a serious one. I need to do something exciting or just give my brain a rest. I feel like everything I've written is shit and I shouldn't bother this much with it because it's really hopeless and I'm wasting my time.

Post-novel depression

2011-07-29T12:56:00.002+03:00

I'm all like I dunnit, I dun an novel! Hawhaw. And then I look all smug for no reason and quietly add "kind of". I'm not really sure what to do with the ending yet. I have two options for the last chapter and then the option of no "last chapter". Currently I'm thinking I should just leave it without, because I worry about explaining too much, but I'm not sure how that would work. I'm not exactly a genius writer who could pull that shit off. But then again, if someone asks what happened with that thing that was talked about throughout the whole story, I can just roll my eyes and say "but that was not the poiiiiint!"

Feeling a bit blue. There won't be any more changes at this point to the storyline or main body of text, none that I can think of anyway. I'll need to do some minor corrections, add a paragraph here, another there, but other than that it's done for now. No need to work on it full day. It's strange to work on something for such a long time, to always have something to return to, something to think about, problems to solve, and then it's done. Feels like your safety blanket was just torn from your hands. I look outside and it's all sunny and nice with birds and stuff flying around and all I can think about is "I should be writing". Probably, but what? Anything. Nah. I'll give myself time and space now, if only just this day, before starting to think about other stuff. Still can't shake the nagging feeling that I should be writing.

This story is shorter than the others I've written, 288 pages and roughly 50k words, and yet it took me longer to write than anything else. Does it mean anything? I ask myself. I feel a bit embarrassed for writing such a short story. Is it long enough? Did I say everything I wanted? Does it even make any sense? No one writes fantasy that short! 288 pages is a prologue! It's not exactly fantasy either. I'm sorry to say I did bad things to science fiction. Very bad things indeed.

All sorts of doubts and nothing you can do about them. This is a good point to start questioning yourself though. If you do it before you start, you never get started, and if you do it while writing, you'll never finish. So I should be happy for having postponed these feelings until now. And whatever is done is done, now, and at this point I can only change bits and pieces of it.

I know what I'm writing next, but I'm frightened. It's always frightening to finish something, because then you have to start all over again from the very beginning - planning, first words, chapters. I'm excited though, I must admit. I can't wait to get started with the planning and plotting. I'm going to write about this one character I've been dying to write about for ages. I'm not sure if I'm qualified to write about that sort of stuff though, but to be honest, I hope I'll never be. This is as good time as any.

But today. Something else entirely. Good food, I hope, and no stress about writing.

Finglish

2011-07-27T11:19:00.004+03:00

Working on the last few chapters now - oh I can't wait to get to them again. I'm already worried about what I'll write next though. Once I'm finished with these chapters, the third draft is pretty much done, with only minor changes remaining. So I'll need to figure out something else to write or I'll lose the momentum.

But onwards. To other topics.

Every now and then people ask me what language I write in. "In Finnish", I say without thinking, and they ask me why. Because - and then I get into some awfully long talk about writing in Finnish because the stars were aligned in such ways on the day I was born and it's my destiny. Or whatever, really.

It's not even true. I write in both English and Finnish, and there was a time when it bothered me, but luckily I got over it. I don't even mean that I write some story in one language and then another one in other language. I can start writing in Finnish and then halfway through switch into English, sometimes even without noticing. Some things just are easier to say in one language or the other.

When I'm editing the drafts, I translate the English bits into Finnish so the end product is entirely in Finnish. For some reason it works better that way. I find translating Finnish into English really difficult, but it's ridiculously easy to just switch into thinking in English entirely and write away. My Finnish writing has a rhytm of its own, and sometimes I get stuck in writing mostly in simple sentences. My English sentences are more fluent and long-winded. So when I translate from Finnish to English, I get something that sounds really flat and boring, even with text that I thought flows in Finnish. Perhaps the change of language just shows me the truth. Oh.

I started writing in both languages only recently, with the novel I'm currently working on. Before this I made notes in both languages, but wrote mainly in Finnish. Sometimes I had to force myself to write and sometimes what I wrote came out all wrong and clumsy, and I felt miserable. Then I realized that I should just loosen up and write in whatever language I feel comfortable with. Even if I write in English and translate it into Finnish and it comes out sounding awkward, I can edit all those sentences later and make them flow. I also realized that if I get blocked or find some things hard to write in Finnish, I can go around by writing in English.

My English is far from perfect. People have said my English is good, and I think it's true and I'm comfortable writing it, but it's not novel-good. I have only intuitive grasp of the grammar and I don't feel like I know enough words. But it doesn't really matter, because at the moment I don't have any ambitions for writing in English. I make do with what I know and it works for me, and though I sometimes imagine all the people who after my death read my stuff and chuckle at the curious and frightening ways in which I've raped English, I don't feel the least bit guilty.

It's weird working like this, but then again, no one wrote a rule book for creative writing, and if I'm happy doing it like this, oh, I'll do it. It doesn't really matter, as long as I get stuff written.

I'll probably regret telling about this when I'm old and famous, and people are flocking around my stuff looking for anglicisms to make fun of me. But it's not like I cared. I'd still be famous. And old. Sigh.

Conversations

2011-07-25T11:11:00.005+03:00

It's been pointed out that sometimes I have a tendency to take apart whatever is said to me and try and answer as accurately as possible, which comes out unintentionally comical. Example: My parents were leaving, and mom said: "Do you still need us?", and I said: "Of course, but I don't mind if you leave". If you have any sort of decent parents at all, can you tell them you don't need them. That's rude.

I was trying to figure out why I sometimes just can't talk like a normal person, not analyzing, but just answering normally. Real speech doesn't have to be accurate because we as humans are normally capable of interpretation. I came to realize that some people are sometimes just impossible to talk with. It's as if they were trying to trap me into something.

For background information I'll tell that if I just can, I'll avoid arguments and confrontation till the bitter end. It started when I was a teen and realized I'm only good at arguing with my fists and not even very good at that, and later when I realized that not many people are capable of arguing coherently. Nowadays I mostly think it's stupid to argue about stupid stuff, you stupidhead, so whatever. Don't bring that shit near me.

Okay, the point is that I've learned to do this because some people speak in riddles and I need to try and decipher what they are saying or else all hell breaks loose. Like, a person said to me out of the blue: "I don't think money is important", and I said: "I find it comforting to have a home and something to eat", to which he replied: "THAT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT!" And I was like oh, well, okay uhh. In my mind I was answering with: "Let me illustrate why I think it is important".

This is not an example of my best moments. I was answering like an asshole because someone threw a blatantly provocative statement at me, trying to start a meaningful conversation when I already knew from past experiences that it would only be meaningful in his mind, and I would think it shallow and sentimental. A bonding experience, the best example of which is when someone says "dogs are better than cats" and if I agree we've found common ground, but if I disagree - you know what happens, and you should also know by now that that conversation is waste of time, and I really try to avoid that sort of situations.

It is an example of why I sometimes try to pick apart what people say and make some sense of it. The person said "I don't think money is important", but what he meant to say was "I don't think money should be the center of anyone's life, and I don't think money alone can bring happiness". To which, were I a mind reader, I could have agreed. Instead he chose to say money isn't important, and I disagree, it's really important, much more so than it should be, but that's another conversation entirely and one that I'm not prepared to follow through.

So why do I sometimes take people's sentences apart and try to answer accurately? Because I probably have no fucking clue what you are saying to me or what you are expecting me to answer, so I try to give you the most accurate answer possible so at the very least you can't blame me for having misunderstood something. If I misunderstood, it's probably because someone formed his thoughts badly and I still can't read minds.

Is this how men feel like with women? No wonder. We can barely understand each other.

Foolish

2011-07-20T19:29:00.001+03:00

Writing is ridiculous. I wrote for six hours today and finally managed to revise one difficult chapter I've been working on for way too long. It's eleven pages. Where did the time go? Today I wasn't even slacking off.

Writing is ridiculous because it takes time, hard work and perseverance to even get started and after that the good and bad writers are sorted out by talent. Who can revise better? At the moment I'm feeling miserably like I'm falling into the latter category. I can see what's wrong with my text, but I'm all out of ideas of how to fix it.

I fear the story itself is inherently too weak to be what I'd like it to be, and that's the worst fear of them all. I'm not talking about a plotline that could be changed if I saw it go wrong at some point, but the whole idea, the point of the story. It's too late to change that. All I can do is to try and ignore that fear and get things done.

I write too much dialogue and it bothers even me, and I don't know how to change it. Some things just need to be said, and unfortunately in my case, and in this story's case it seems to be a shit ton of things that need to be said.

I like writing and it keeps me happy and sane, but sometimes I still dare to hope I'll get somewhere with this, and that's when I get scared that I won't. Trying to stay positive is hard work as well. Why do I bother? Because I don't have anything else.

Derp fiction

2011-07-05T14:29:00.004+03:00

I feel retarded. I read the second draft of my novel and think "mm, this is alright" without any criticism. On some level I know it's not very good at all, but today I'm blind and can't see the mistakes, and so I can't fix them. This reads like your average fanfic. So I've written original fanfic about my own ideas. How does that work?

I've been working on these three chapters for a month now which is ridiculous, but there's been stuff interrupting me and whatever. These are difficult chapters. Much of the original text needed to be rearranged. Many things needed to happen without everything looking annoyingly obvious. The original chapters were also way too long, full of all kinds of junk, and I needed to trim out one third of the pages. Now I'm done with two of the chapters and I'm just looking at the third like "-_- it's alright".

Sometimes it's really discouraging to start working on tons of stuff that require fixing, but it's much more difficult to fix something when you can't even point out the problem.

Another thing, I've been done for good with my chemo for two weeks now and am feeling reasonably normal. I didn't write about it earlier because I've been trying to write a whole post, but still haven't managed to do that. Nothing much has happened. The chemo ended in good point because I felt massively shit the week after it. I was tired to the point of fainting and spent most of the days sleeping, except Monday. On Monday two weeks ago I had a sugar rush fit and a complete kickscreaming frustrage meltdown which ended up in me facing the mirror telling myself: "Bitch please, stop eating sugar".

Today I'm feeling stupid and unmotivated and all I really want to do is to eat candy.

Sucker Punch

2011-06-23T23:32:00.004+03:00

I watched Sucker Punch.

It's a movie about girls being oppressed and kicking ass while looking like sluts. It's about men being obnoxious slimes and pussy hawks. It's about gratuitous panty shots, bare thighs, sword and gunfights, flying machines and explosions and whatever else awesome you can think of. I don't know what you expect from a movie, but for me this was a combination of everything that has ever been awesome.

During the first five minutes I was preparing to get highly offended because I was presented with a main character who not only was the archetypal slutty schoolgirl, but was also put face to face with an aggressive male type (this is also what the movie is about). The disposition of the said man was established by showing him clear a desk with an arm sweep and drinking raw vodka from a bottle, both of which are things that angry and frustrated men are known to do. I WAS ready to get offended, but then I realized everything was so over-the-top that it was just awesome.

It was like porn, complete with the mustache, but without any actual grinding. This is the only way I can possibly describe the experience and do some justice for it. Plot was there for the visuals. The main characters were there for looking pretty and shooting guns. I'm totally fine with that. I'm totally okay with everything in this movie.

"What are you doing in the trenches? You're a schoolgirl. It doesn't even fit."

Them keywords

2011-06-11T13:45:00.000+03:00

I find it endlessly amusing that for the longest time the most common search keyword string used to locate this blog was "awesome things about cruises". It's because of a dream I posted last November, about being on a ship and meeting some dangerous people.

It bothers me a little that I haven't been remembering my dreams lately. Last night can be summed up in: I rowed over a lake in a tiny boat until I reached the west coast of Finland and found a beautiful island. I was thinking it was a shame the island was filled with Swedish-speaking people, because I don't know much Swedish, and I would have really liked to live there. I rowed back to the lake shore.

Another popular keyword string is "offensive metaphors", which is an angbarrassing post about melanoma. There's also a few interesting strings with very adult entertainment content. Let's say one of them is "big girls mouth" and leave the rest for your imagination. I don't know where THAT comes from. AFAIK I haven't written any smut, although I've often wanted to, and now am tempted to.

In case someone out there is still looking for info about big girl's mouth, I can assure you it's absolutely ginormous. It doesn't LOOK that big, but her cheeks expand like a hamster's. Things that go into a big girl's mouth: chocolate cake, stick of butter, bacon, fried chicken, hamburgers, whipped cream, chocolate-chip cookies, bag of sugar, a whole roasted pig.

Hope this helps.

The angriest buddha

2011-06-10T09:54:00.003+03:00

I've been blogging for 10-11 years now. I remember I was blogging before WTC, but I don't remember exactly how long I'd been doing it. Back then I didn't call it blogging. I called it writing self-indulgent shit on my homepage, because I noticed it helped me deal with stuff. I was sad, hurt, angry. Basically, I was a teenager.

The earliest blogs I have saved are from 2003. That was such a long time ago. I was such a different person back then. Sometimes I can muster the compassion to read the posts without feeling too ashamed. I was what I was and I've changed a lot, like we all do. It's not true what is said about people being unable to change. All my life I've seen people change their ways, and I don't mean just adolescents growing up. If you put your mind to it, you can become a better person. Wouldn't it be a sad world if you were doomed to be just what you are without a chance to grow?

There is much stuff in those older bloggings that really hurts to read. Some things are just plain embarrassing. Blog-embarrassment is still something I suffer of frequently, and I'm not even sure if I have any real reason to. Like I told my friend a while back, it's as if my whole life is governed by shame and embarrassment. I'm simply embarrassed to exist. Why? Who knows. Other things I blogged about were things that happened, what people did and said and how they acted. I was so sensitive and surrounded by inconsistent people that it's a wonder I turned out to be even this stable.

Sometimes I've been thinking about compiling all my old blog posts into one big file, but that would require looking through the posts. That could lead into reading and shamehurt. It's hard to remain compassionate to yourself when put face to face with your own childishness.

Compassion is something I struggle with every day and something I'd like to learn. I believe that if you have compassion for yourself, your kindness will naturally radiate to your surroundings. I have a decent relationship with me, but I do ask a lot from myself, and I tend to fail a lot because of the unrealistic expectations, and I punish myself. Often I am frustrated if not angry. I'd really like to stop critisizing others, even in my thoughts. It's draining and it makes me feel bad. It comes from me feeling bad about me, being disappointed or frustrated.

It's a cliche, but I'm my own worst enemy. I often feel unhappy because I'm not as good as I'd like to be. Sometimes I don't do things because I don't believe I can do them well enough. Why try when you're going to fail. At least I'll save myself from any additional shame. It has nothing to do with what other people think about me, I really couldn't care less. It's just me struggling to please me.

This post went to places, but unfortunately I have no idea what this place is.

Stuff I thought

2011-06-05T15:24:00.000+03:00

I noticed that I go through many short flashes of rage about the most random things every day, so I started to list them. I can't be bothered to write longer posts about any of these because usually when I write a rage-post I end up regretting, and I'm just that good at learning. Here are some topics I've been through yesterday and today, for your, I don't know, displeasure? Contains naughty words. I'm really fascinated by fecal matter.

-
It's a really good sign when a writer describes her story and then in the next sentence feels the need to get defensive about it. Yeah. That's probably a great idea and really sells your book.

Criticizing yourself too much in front of everyone. No one gives a shit. I also really hate people who actually do give pity to people who so blatantly ask for it. Get a grip and do shit instead of whining.

It's not usually a coincidence if someone gets pregnant. Or I suppose it is if someone's dick just happened to coincide with her vagina at the right moment.

Shitty book covers. If any small publisher or self-publishing company is looking for someone to make shitty covers for them, call me. I could use the money. I also suffer of horrible craft-pride, so I might secretly make them less shitty than you intended.

I, too, think a love interest is the most important part of any book.

Books about animals speaking and doing shit, usually killing each other. Why are the carnivores always evil? Wtf should they eat if not meat?

Awkward book reviews by teens or enthusiastic fans who can't write for shit: "It was awesome, awesome I say! Can't think of more to say, byeee~"

Paranormal romance. A treasure chest of derp. I'd read it for laughs if the hurpderp of it didn't make me want to stab myself in the eyes. And I like reading bad books for laughs!

Steampunk is not cool. Slap some goggles on that shit. Monocle.

I really don't give a shit about vampires in any form or shape. You can't even make good splatter with them.

Journey fantasy. I can't bother reading about adventures in your Generic Fantasy World filled with Generic Fantasy Monsters. Have some pride. Burn that shit.

Awkward sex out of nowhere (in novels). Exciting things happening, then suddenly, weird sex surprise. Try aliens or fucking dolphins, try rape turning into passionate shagfest halfway through when the heroine realizes all she ever wanted was some cock. Seriously, wtf. Shoot yourself in the head.

Musicals. Always awkward. The only one I can tolerate, for some weird reason, is Sound of Music. Then again, Wizard of Oz? Nuke it from the orbit.

Sports enthusiasm. Men kicking ball and other men getting needlessly worked up about it. Grow up. Though lately I've had the idea that world could be a better place if instead of waging war we could solve disagreements with sports matches. Then again, I'm not so sure how much better that would be.

Dragons. I don't know, man. I just really don't care about dragons. I'd rather read about soccer moms or whatever.

Why bother?

2011-06-02T13:06:00.006+03:00

I can see and feel myself getting smarter (writing-wise) with each project. Writing the first one was still a mind-blowing experience. It was a horrorcoaster full of low lows and manic heights. I must have been laughing and crying at the same time all the way through it. First story I ever finished in it's entirety was 400 something pages, and I felt like the king of the world. Then it dawned on me, the inevitable part of every writing project, the beginning of the end: EDIT THAT SHIT.

"Dude, what? You mean I need to write it all over again?"

Writing is easy. Anyone can put words after another, all it takes is effort. Editing is harder *. Good editing polishes your steaming pile of shit until it's a diamond. Or a pearl. Or an apple. Or something with shiny surface that can fool you for a moment into believing it's valuable or tasty or whatever. So yeah, even if you're finished with the first draft, there's still the second, and the third, and the fourth, until you manage to bring out that shine hidden in it.

Completing a novel takes a shit ton of time and patience and an unwavering faith in the facts that you can do it, you are good enough and that in the end it's all worth the trouble. The first draft alone can be soul-crushing if you approach it with expectations. Completing it after horrible emotional struggle with yourself and having to return to it over and over again for editing can be the thing that finally stops most people from even trying. It's really difficult to remain optimistic about your writing for the lengths of time required to write a novel from start to finish.

Every day is a day when you might nearly forget you like writing. And the longer you spend not writing, the stronger the feeling gets until you stop remembering why you used to do it. Every morning you might wake up asking yourself why you are bothering. Every minute of your life is spent looking for story ideas, writing them down, thinking about stories, plotting them down AND actually writing, just writing words. Hours and hours, every day. And you might ask why?

There are days when waking up I ask myself if this is it. Few people ever get published. Writing novels eats up all my time. I'm not even very good at it in comparison to many. Chances of ever being able to live by writing alone are close to nonexistent. Why do I bother? Sometimes I'm bored of writing. I don't want to put down another word. Sometimes I hate myself and everything I've ever written. I just want to burn myself on a pyre of my horrible manuscripts. Why do I bother?

I think it through. I keep asking until I get the answer.

Because I fucking love writing. It's shit at times, everything is, but when it's great, it's awesome, and I love it and I love myself for it.

There's no other feeling like working on a project, the fate of which depends only on your faith in yourself and your skills and your perseverance, then completing it. When you know, that even when you feel shitty and you hate your writing and yourself, you can finish it if you just keep on working, and in the end you will feel better. It's amazing to hold the solid outcome of all your efforts in your hands, a pile of paper filled with words you firmly believe in, a story you believe in. It's like trying all your life and then finally, completely effortlessly pushing through that solid brick wall like it was nothing. All the pain and bother of writing disappear in that moment of complete win.

Then, of course, a short while after finishing a novel, comes the crash. Suddenly, and especially if you've let someone else read it, it's the most embarrassing thing ever. You want to burn it and then stab yourself a few times with a rusty fork to make the shame go away, but hey. Nothing builds character like humiliation. Off you go to work on a new project.

Also, I become an exceptionally nasty person when I don't write. I hate not only myself but the world too. There's something caustic brewing within me, and I need to vent regularly or risk spraying it everywhere.

* Once you write a bit more, you'll hopefully come to realize that the prospect of editing is actually quite liberating. There's no pressure to get the first draft perfect or even "right". Just get it done. Everything can be changed later.

Routine

2011-06-02T12:20:00.001+03:00

Woke up tired and grumpy. Slept two hours longer than usually, and wanted to sleep even more. Didn't want to write. Everything felt boring and useless. Then I threw up some morning words on paper, found an idea, toyed with it for a while, and started to feel much happier. Continued with my secondary project "FuckYeahNecromancers!" (FYN!) and wrote 1800 words. Found out I can type 2000 decent words in two hours if I don't stop to eat pizza halfway through.

Having a noon break now. Going to watch some silly TV shows, and then continue with my primary project of rewriting LZR in the afternoon. Now I'm very happy. Life is awesome. Have a nice day, etc. o>

Dead baby

2011-05-26T00:28:00.000+03:00

Wow. I spent the whole day working on a chapter and just half an hour ago I decided to delete it entirely. I've done that before, of course, but this time around I firmly believed until the very end that the chapter was somehow important. When I was done writing for today, brushing my teeth, getting ready for bed, I realized it was interesting, sure, but it had nothing to do with the actual story. It's also ridiculously easy to remove from the story without leaving any holes that need fixing, which I suppose reinforces the fact that it has no place in this novel.

I feel somehow lighter now. It was a fun chapter in some ways, but very difficult to write. Perhaps I was struggling all along because on some subconscious level I already knew the work would be wasted. To not abandon the idea entirely, I've been thinking of making a short story out of it. It's just that even though I really want to write short stories, even more than that I want to avoid writing them. And I'm really good at avoiding.

Occupational hazard

2011-05-24T23:10:00.003+03:00

Been working on the third draft. It's hard work. Hard and slow. Made even slower by the fact that my sudden commitment of making great effort for being a writer has busted up my wrist. It aches meanly and I'm worried it's going to continue aching and then get worse. I bought some self-adhering bandage and have wrapped it up in hopes of mitigating the damage.

It probably doesn't help that my favorite writing tool is a netbook and my favorite posture for writing is something that must have been devised by the hunchback of Notre-Dame. Pretty sure that after years of sitting in the weirdest postures has resulted in me having a corkscrew spine. Any posture is fine, except the good one. If ergonomy was a superhero, I'd be the villain. I'm also starting to feel like it. I'm getting old!

Last night was awful. I spent most of it rolling in my bed plagued by dreams about writing the third draft based on a huge pile of jumbled notes. I did write late yesterday, but that's the first time I ever kept writing in my dreams. It was horrible. I couldn't stop. I hope the same won't happen tonight. My wrist could use the rest.

Something fishy

2011-05-23T17:54:00.000+03:00

There's nothing as good as waking up in the morning feeling good. Feeling like getting up and getting things done. After last week's chemo I was looking forward to that sort of days, but it just wasn't meant to be. Saturday was all fine, but yesterday and today I've had that annoying slight hangover again. I woke up with my head and shoulders aching and my head's been hurting steadily, though mildly. Also, what people with properly functioning digestation don't understand, constipation has the potential to ruin every aspect of life. Hungry? Bored? Tired? Have fun lying in bed doing nothing at all because you're feeling like shit. Literally. All of this is minor to what I could have suffered because of the chemo, so overall I'm still happy. I've only one week left, halfway through June, and then I'm free to continue Life. Once I get started with it, of course.

As a curious note, I get strange food cravings after the chemo weeks. Last time I ate copious amounts of garlic for three days. After that I was satisfied, but everyone else wasn't. This time around I craved for pickled herring. If you're from any part of the world where pickled herring is eaten, you know it's one of those foods that people either love or hate with fiery passion. It has a very overpowering taste that is a bit sweet, a bit salty and a bit sour depending on the seasoning. If I had to compare it to something, I'd say it smells and tastes rotten. It's absolutely foul and delicious.

Aside from stuffing my face, I've been going emo about writing. Like I told before I had an amazing writing week before last one. I cut myself some slack last week then, because I didn't feel like writing at the hospital and for the rest of the days I was pretty tired. I spent the time organizing an absolutely massive pile of notes related to the current story and other stories closely related. It was almost like writing, except it didn't require much actual thinking. I spent hours sorting through the stuff every day and it's still a big mess, but at least I know roughly where everything is. I was really looking forward to some writing again, and I've even done some, but none of it is related to the story I'm revising now. I should just be happy for getting Something done, but instead I'm wasting time complaining about how horrible my life is because I have the tiniest tummy-ache the world has seen or whatever.

So on that note, I'm off to write.

Happiness is writing

2011-05-15T23:10:00.001+03:00

I had an amazing day. I wrote. This week I've been writing tons, but today I wanted to get some serious shit done, and I did just that. There's still handful of bits and pieces that need to be written, but overall the whole story is done now. It's not finished though. There's all the rewriting and editing to be done before it's really finished, but that'll be a project of its own. I'm so excited! I've been writing this story for a year and half now, and mentally worked on it for even longer, creating the world, outlining, starting and scrapping stories, growing and learning etc.

It's been an exhausting trip and it'll be quite refreshing to work on something completely different next. I've already planned a complete rewrite of a necromancer story I wrote a couple of years back. I got some good feedback on it but in retrospect it was a steaming pile. I outlined a new story from scratch and what remains of the original is just the world and the characters. Can't wait to get started on it! You might wonder what happened to the vampire romance. It's not been scrapped, just postponed! I found a desire to write about death, and necromancer story offers more interesting possibilities.

Writing is really hard at times, but for me the most difficult part of it has always been coming up with a good title. I like to think I'm pretty good at coming up with titles. It's just that I'm disgustingly bad at coming up with titles for MY stories. When I set my mind onto it, I can spin dozens of decent titles reasonably fast, but none of them fits the story that desperately needs one. This story I just claim to have finished has so far been fondly called LZR after the main characters. If this continues, it'll be followed by NSA, LTD, BSTD (not a disease), and so forth.

A few days ago I took some time to brainstorm interesting and snappy titles. Needless to say, I didn't come up with any such things. I thought "Reflections" would sound nice and also be relevant to the story, but they just published a book with that name a couple of years ago. Also it doesn't sound very interesting. For interesting I should probably call it "Violence, porn and angry men", because it's, like, so accurate. Actually that would fit everything I've ever written. I blame the Internet. Also, cancer. I've claimed myself the absolute right to write the worst self-indulgent shit this world has ever seen, because cancer. You can't really argue with that and if you do anyway, you're a bad person. Shame on you.

Speaking of which, next week is toxic again. Second to last round! I'm a bit worried how well I can carry on with my current writing pace and the drug fatigue, but I guess I'll just need to nap more and stop whining. That worked last time, although with less writing and more dicking around.

What I've lost

2011-05-03T23:38:00.001+03:00

When I was younger, I thought I could do anything. Especially the things people didn't think I could or which I didn't think were that approvable. Like becoming an artist or a writer. When even one person told me I couldn't or shouldn't do something, that was exactly what I wanted to do. I was fueled by my sheer faith in my own awesomeness. Of course, now that I go back and read my ancient writings, I can see how much I've grown as a writer. Less stories about magical crystals and saber-tooth deers, and more - character development? In my novels? Impossible!

I demand a lot from myself and it's damaging me. It's hard to get things done when you expect more and better all the time. Nothing's worse for any kind of creative activity than expecting perfection. You have to get your hands dirty first, then clean up, then polish things. I know the process and I know how it should be, but I still expect myself to be better than that. I should be able to skip the other phases and produce something perfect on the first go. Because I know I can't do that, getting started is a struggle every day. My expectations are so high that I'm doomed to fail before even starting. So why start?

I'd give a lot to get back that go-and-do mentality I used to have when I was younger. I didn't take no for an answer, and failure was no option. I did what I wanted and took immense pride in it. What I made sucked, but I believed in myself. Now I'm better at what I do, but I do less than I used to. I fear I might some day stop believing entirely. Then what would I do?

I often feel embarrassed when I think about how I used to be. I liked such retarded things and acted all retarded about them. Like teenagers do, even these days. But it makes me sad when I remember that what I did, I did with passion. I've changed much from those days, but I've grown colder. I wish I could get that passion back, even if it meant being a bit crazy again. I'd rather be a bit crazy than feel nothing.

(Tomorrow I'll write.)

Things got hairy

2011-04-28T15:48:00.000+03:00

After three months of chemo, I've finally started to shed hair. And damn is there a lot of it to shed. I figured that if I start to get bald spots, I'll get rid of the hair altogether, but at the moment it's just somewhat thinner than usually. Strangely, they said my hair would fall off in 5 weeks max, so I guess I have really stubborn hair. Some people are freaking out because of this, but I'm pretty excited. If something worries me, it's that I don't know how brutal the scar on my head will look now. It has healed pretty well, but I might still look like I got scalped. I'm looking forward to the next hospital gig in case I'll lose the rest of my hair in the next two weeks. They've got a big pile of hats there that people have knit and donated for the patients. I'm going to find the craziest damn hat and wear it everywhere.

Speaking of hospital gigs, last week was the latest. I felt and continue to feel strangely good despite my hair falling off. I managed to see friends a couple of times, and this week I've been doing a little bit of cleaning. I've never been particularly fit, but the chemo has stripped me of whatever stamina I used to have. Standing for 10 minutes makes me tired, and if I go outside walking, grocery shopping, whatever, I'll spent the rest of the evening on the sofa watching TV, way too tired to do anything at all. Mentally I'm feeling amazing though. I've got tons of motivation to do stuff and it's easy to just get started instead of asking why all the time. Have to take a lot of breaks if it's anything tiniest bit physical though.

If there's something that makes me feel like crap, it's that the chemo meds make me disgustingly bloated. Last week I looked literally like I was pregnant. This week less so, but I still gained 3kg during last month. I'm not asking much. All I want is to fit in my clothes. Goddamn.

Apathy

2011-04-15T01:30:00.006+03:00

I wrote furiously for a couple of weeks, but this week I've been a bit apathetic. Wake up. Don't really want to do anything. I watched a few movies, which is quite amazing because I have a horrible attention span. Movies have to be full of awesome details and hot men and action and great music and flashing colors (in order of importance) before I'll even consider watching them. Sometimes one of these things is enough to hold my attention. Usually it needs at least two.

So somehow I managed to watch a few, but even my all-time favorite subject of men doing badass man-things and/or violence and my second favorite of men being dicks didn't really do much. I did manage to spend some hours creepily googling some particularly fine examples of male beauty, but the moment passed. Earlier today I realized what I really want to watch is ninja movies from the 80s. Well sucks to be me, I don't have any. I tried to settle with samurai movies from whenever, but it's just not the same. Apparently my wants are just so specific. For some reason I ended up watching Hellraiser. It's got shit all to do with Japan, but apparently it was entertaining enough since I managed to sit through it.

I have mixed feelings about Hellraiser. It (the first two movies) has stuck with me since way back when. For me they're the sort of childhood movies that just keep on amusing you even if they are quite awful in reality. I could complain about a lot, but what actually bothered me the most is how big a pushover Pinhead was in comparison to what I remembered. He actually negotiated with that girl! Bad Pinhead! Please be more awesome in future. Luckily it was preceded by the most awesome scene in the movie where one of the cenobites casually sticks his fingers in the screaming girl's mouth. It was a moment of such glee that I almost peed a little. I'll treasure the moment forever.

I was also reminded me of how much I hope the 80s will never make a comeback.

Tomorrow I'll have to make a difficult decision between ninja movies and Hellraiser sequels. Next week is toxic again, so tomorrow I'll also have some blood taken in the hospital laboratory. I hope the waiting room won't be full of old people who like to talk about their bladder problems and constipation. Same goes for the pharmacy visit that follows. Not that I had anything against old people, but keep that gross shit in your blogs. Or tweet about it.

No means yes

2011-04-01T11:52:00.008+03:00

There's an interesting amount of batshit teens and bored housewives who dream about getting stolen away by vampires and shit (it's only romantic if it's partially consensual, ie. in romance no means yes, even, and especially, if she doesn't know it yet). So I told my friend I want to hop onto the vampire romance writers bandwagon and make tons of money, and I sketched a story. Unfortunately it seems I don't have one particularly romantic cell in me. Judging by the outline my main interests are torture and guns and tanks. I don't know what tanks have got to do with vampires, but if I want some goddamn tanks in it, there will be tanks. They might sparkle.

I don't know how to pump up the romance when you're dealing with once-dead bloodsucking beasts who don't give shit about anyone or anything really. I find it difficult to fantasize about someone who is technically a walking corpse more interested in eating you than lavishing praise for your almond-shaped emerald eyes. I also find it hard to imagine that vampires would be capable of feeling any sort of passion. I'd figure that sort of things disappear with the rest of their humanity alongside heartbeat and bodily heat. Which leads to the question if they are even capable of shagging the token love interest female protagonist, which would be crucial for the plot of any serious romance. And should some magical shag-action be possible, is it necrophilia?

I wrote a love interest man, but he had a bit of a shitty ending. Although now that I think of it, nothing says romance quite like coup de grace. My biggest problem at the moment is that there is not enough people getting fucked and way too many people getting fucked up by vampires. I really need to broaden the target group from people who like to read about people getting maimed, to people who like to read about handsome but arrogant males being chivalrous. I'm considering adding more descriptions of sculpted marble bodies, topaz eyes and possibly make someone speak French. I'm convinced the amount of French spoken in a novel is directly proportional to the amount of romance present. He mustn't be French though, that's likely to have the opposite effect (defining examples of French men: Napoleon, Marquis de Sade).

Romance is much more difficult to write than it might seem. Also, though I'd now be tempted to cover my ass and say April fools, the horrifying truth is that everything I wrote about I have done or considered.

Still alive

2011-03-29T15:29:00.000+03:00

Meh.. I should update, but I'm tired of thinking about CANCER. I don't really give a damn about it at the moment. The biggest thing that worries me now is that I seem to be getting a cavity in my tooth, and that sucks during a time like this. The chemo drugs I'm getting do some bad shit to the better blood cells in my body, and if I were to go to a dentist, I'd have to get antibiotics to ward off possible infections. As if dentist alone wasn't bad enough. I don't really deal well with people putting pointy, sharp instruments in my mouth. It's a bit too medieval.

I haven't had any particularly bad experiences with dentists, in my opinion. I had a tooth pulled out when I was quite young and I don't recall thinking much of it. I'm pretty sure that at some point I had another one pulled too, but I can't even recall which tooth that was and why. I don't care about the needles they jab in your gums for the local anesthetic. It's just the thought of metal scraping against my teeth and the sound of the drill that covers me with cold sweat and makes me ready to throw up. I don't think I'm even afraid of any pain itself, it's just the anticipation of it that makes me all shaky.

My chemo has been going fine. How it works is that I have one chemo week followed by three non-chemo weeks, during which I do interferon, then starting over with chemo again. I haven't had any massive side-effects. I'm really tired during the week I get the drugs, and the fatigue continues the next week accompanied by slight hangover, dizzy head, weak knees, headaches or other minor pains. For the last two weeks before the next chemo set, I feel pretty normal, although weaker than before. I've never been in particularly great shape, but now just walking around for longer periods is enough to make me tired. Not to even mention such draining activities as playing games, being around people, going to movies or whatever really. I hope my friends understand why my idea of fun these days is to stay inside and watch TV or possibly read a book if I feel particularly wild, instead of going out and doing things. I appreciate all the invitations to do stuff, and hope I'm not discouraging anyone from asking by saying no all the time. It's just that even though I don't feel particularly ill or even tired at the moment, I know I get exhausted quite fast and I just want to avoid that at all costs.

I haven't had much side-effects from the interferon. There's like (literally) half a meter long list of possible side-effects in the package but the worst I've had was a fever in the night after the first shot. Nothing after that.

Some people have arrived in my blog with keyword strings "don't finish interferon alpha", "interferon bad shit", and some other interferon-related searches (god knows how), which my log has already forgotten. I know there are people who have suffered massive side-effects from it, but for those who are merely worried they will get something, I'll just say don't even think about it. Before I started taking it (interferon-alpha, Intron-A), I was quite aware of all the possible side-effects, and frankly a bit distressed about them as well. Nothing says great drug like suicidal depression as a possible side-effect. Turns out all my anxiety was in vain. The side-effects depend so much about the person that it's impossible to predict who gets what. It's just no use to get worried about it beforehand. Better just to start taking it convinced you're the one person who can deal with it without problems.

Some observations for fun:
- Interferon has a really strong and fascinating smell, like burnt plastic
- I smell positively toxic during the chemo week, my blood would kill vampires

The sentence

2011-01-04T17:10:00.004+02:00

I'll be getting a combination of chemotherapy and interferon. It's administered intravenously for five days every four weeks. For the first treatment session I'm going to be admitted in the hospital. Possible side-effects are nausea and hair loss, and I guess, if I'll be getting the interferon as well, flu like symptoms. 4-6 treatment sessions, so I'll be done sometime in the summer if there's no big delays. Delays might occur if my blood cells won't recover fast enough for new dose. After the chemo is done, I'll continue self-injecting interferon for one or two years. First treatment is scheduled for 24.1.

What bothers me:
- How bad will the side-effects be?
- How long will they persist after each treatment?
- Is there single rooms in the hospital or will I get a roommate?
- Hospitals are boring and the food is bland.
- Is there Internets in the hospital?
- Will I get too tired to write?

What doesn't bother me:
- Losing my hair. Again.

Seriously, what's the deal with women with cancer obsessing over their hair? If it bothers you, wear a hat. If someone asks, tell them. If no one asks, nevermind it. No one gives a shit about your hair or the lack of it. In the rare instance someone actually does give a shit or gives you shit about your lack of hair, bask in pride for not being as shallow as they are.

Judgment day

2011-01-04T12:16:00.000+02:00

I have a doctor's appointment and the second to last radiotherapy treatment today, in an hour. I know I'm going to hear about the drug treatments, possibly the options and what the doctors have concluded would be best for me. I don't know what I'm going to hear exactly.

There are so many horror stories about chemotherapy, but truth is that you won't know what side-effects you'll get before you know what drugs there is in your cocktail. At the worst, it could be utter shit with nausea, fatigue and side-effects from drugs that counter the side-effects of other drugs that dampen the side-effects of the chemo drugs. Interferon is shitty in different ways. It doesn't necessarily make you deadly nauseous like some chemotherapy drugs, but it can - and likely with the massive doses I'd get - will make you ridiculously fatigued and afflicts you with the flu from hell. It also has a damn long list of other possible side-effects which I can write about later if necessary. I don't expect to get chemotherapy, so I'll have a few questions to ask if that's indeed what I'll end up getting. As far as I know it's only used if the melanoma has metastasized in internal organs.

I can deal with the treatments. Both options have possibly horrible side-effects, but people have survived them before me and continued normal life. As bad as the treatments could be, they don't kill you. Cancer kills. I'm not worried about the treatments themselves, but I'm worried I'll get so sick I won't be able to write. I don't care about anything as much as having a clear mind and energy to write.

I could deal with that too, if I didn't happen to be in the middle of the first draft of my newest novel, right in the goddamn middle of it. I'd prefer to have written it till the final editing phases, but I'd be just happy if I managed to even finish the first draft by the start of the treatments. That with the notes added to it would be a good base for continuing writing later.

I thought I was bothered by missing the deadline of the fantasy novel competition, which is in three months from now. If I had all this time for myself, I could whip out a not-so-embarrassing manuscript and mail it, but I know the treatments won't be postponed for three months. I don't have enough time for that. I'm not even sure if I have enough time to finish the first draft, but I so hope I do. Quitting writing in the middle of the first draft spells doom. It's so difficult to get back to writing after a long break, and the longer you work on one story, the stronger the lure of other stories grows. I've been working on this story for so long and so hard, and I really don't want to abandon it.

The competition is not a once-in-a-lifetime chance, but close to it. It's a priceless chance to become a published writer if you win or if your manuscript is brilliant enough to get noticed, but to be honest, as much as I trust in my story now, I don't think I'm cut out for that yet. Win or lose, I know I would continue writing. I don't write for the competition. I write because I want to grow as a person and as a writer.

So missing the competition is not the worst of my worries now. All I worry about is not having enough time to finish the first draft of the story. I can do that in a month, and I can fix major items from my checklist in another. The third month I could spend polishing it, but I'm sure I won't have that. Just let me have January and I'll be fine.

Halfway

2010-12-14T22:29:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow will be my 15th radiotherapy treatment, and I'll be halfway through the whole set. Had a doctor's appointment this morning. A new doctor once again, a woman, someone who signed my sick leave papers but whom I've never actually met before. When I told the social worker, who I met last month about money stuff, that I've no idea anymore who is my doctor and who is just a doctor, she said there's a whole team of them who are my doctors. So I suppose I shouldn't think much of meeting different people all the time, and it doesn't really bother me either, it's just weird, I guess. I never know how much they know about me and what's happened so far.

She was alright, except that she stared at me, like I've noticed many doctors do. Proper eye-contact does not mean staring. Intense staring without blinking doesn't make me feel comfortable and trusting, it creeps me out. It makes me feel like I'm expected to reveal some deep, dark secrets OR ELSE. The appointment was mostly for talking about side-effects, but I haven't had anything notable, so it was a short visit. She reminded that I'll most likely have some side-effects from now on and they'll keep getting worse towards the end, but it's a good sign that I'm doing well so far.

She also asked if there's been any talk about the drug treatments later on, but there really hasn't. So far I've only heard I might or might not get something in addition to the radiotherapy. She told me I'll definitely be getting something, but the doctors haven't yet decided if it will be plain interferon-alpha or interferon-chemotherapy combination. I don't know which one is worse, they're both shit, depends on the duration. Interferon is a naturally occurring some-shit-or-other that boosts the immune system to fight cancer. The plain interferon treatment regime, as far as I know, consists of 1 month of extremely high doses of interferon administered intravenously every weekday, followed by 11 months of self-injected high doses three times a week. I might or might not have to be admitted to the hospital for the first month, I'm not entirely sure about how that works yet. As a fun fact, interferon-alpha is also used to treat chronic hepatitis C.

I've no clue how long the interferon-chemo would last, so I can't really compare the two in terms of shittiness. All I know is that chemo alone is likely to be so toxic it makes you sick like dog, so I'm pretty sure it's shittier even if it wouldn't last for a whole year. The side-effects of interferon-alpha are many, warying from common fatigue and flu-like symptoms to rarer suicidal depression, but usually people get adjusted to it in time. I'd like to believe, that if I had to choose, I'd rather take a month or even few months of being death sick over a whole year of being moderately sick all the time. In reality I'm not sure if I have quite the warrior spirit for that, although I imagine the amount of punishment I can take is directly proportional to the hotness of the doctors involved.

After the hospital visit, I took a bus to the city center and visited some stores while walking back home. The center is about a kilometer from here, and I went through the stores quite fast looking for a humidifier, which I didn't find, so overall I didn't strain myself that much. Nevertheless, when I got home, I was exhausted and had to collapse into bed for a nap. I couldn't sleep though, so I just lied there for a couple of hours before getting up again. Rest of the day was okay, although I was still too tired to even consider doing much. When the doctor had asked if the treatments made me more tired than usually, I just said I don't know because they're mostly in the evenings, but I guess so since I've been going to sleep earlier than usually. Now I know for sure they make me tired.

I'm fighting back massive guilt because I've been doing so little to finish my novel. I don't have much time left, considering the final draft's deadline is the end of March, and it's likely I won't be able to write while on the medication. It would be easy to blame all this on being sick, but it's not about that. I probably wouldn't write even if this was just another year, and I'm not exactly sure why. What am I scared of? I keep asking myself if this is the best I can do to realize my dream, because if it is, my best is something really miserable.

You're about to die

2010-12-02T13:39:00.000+02:00

Let's open this can of worms.

Me and death, we get along well. We acknowledge each other's existence and for now that is all we do. I don't consider myself a particularly morbid person. I'd rather say I'm realistic, quite more so than many others. I might seem wishy-washy, like an unrealistic dreamer, but that all starts from the fact that I expect to die.

Logically thinking, everyone knows life is finite, we are all going to die. This truth rarely guides our lives though. People who truly live their life to the fullest are few and rare, the rest - they believe, even without admitting it, usually without admitting it, that they have infinite time to do what their heart desires. I can do this tomorrow, I can do that tomorrow, I can do this when I'm retired. I have time. It's easy to forget about the looming death, and make the assumption that you are still alive tomorrow to start the life you really want to live. We do not want to think about death, we'd rather believe we still have tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and the one after, ad infinitum.

Logically thinking, we know there is a possibility of getting hit by a truck tomorrow, there's a possibility of dying of sudden brain hemorrhage while peacefully sleeping, or some other injury that happens without warning. We know death comes at its own time, and it will come, but nobody expects it. We are never prepared for it. Unless, perhaps, we've been given a warning. When a doctor says you have this long to live - make the best out of it - perhaps then we are prepared.. or so we think. And while we haven't been given a warning, we are immortal.

Truth is, I still find it hard to admit my mortality. I know the survival rates of 5 and 10 years for this stage of melanoma. I know the percentages for the recurrence. I know how fast you can die if the disease metastasizes. How difficult it is to treat. How impossible it is to cure. This hasn't changed my view about death, probably because I've always been aware of it. I don't know where it all started, but I simply don't have that strong emotional connection to death. It hurts when someone you love passes away, but the feeling is easy to overcome. Loneliness and loss remain, but death itself doesn't matter like life does. What you did and didn't do when you were alive, how you lived and how you enjoyed it or didn't. These things matter. Death doesn't. Death is immovable, inevitable, absolute, unchangeable. It will come. It cannot be avoided. Life is what can be changed. This, right here, right now.

Our society is based on illusionary immortality. Death is an avoided subject, it is hidden from view, or made too visible so it becomes an object of fiction - so no one would realize the value of one day, the true value of the hours spent working for others, working for money, working towards having time to live. I'd really like to say that it's in a situation like this, my own, where your lifespan is likely greatly reduced, you truly realize how precious life is. But the truth is that we are all in a situation like this, we have all been given a death sentence when we were born. Whether or not we admit it, whether we have a terminal disease or not, our days are ticking away one minute after another.

This, right here, is the time to start living.

Invisible death rays

2010-12-01T13:46:00.000+02:00

At this point, with 6 radiotherapy sessions behind me, it still feels like nothing's being done. I go there, the machine rattles around me for a while, and 15 minutes later I leave the place with my neck slightly tenser than before.

While laying there under the machine, I watch the apple trees wave in the ceiling and think about Minecraft or thesis seminar or the drive back home or groceries or something else entirely. The collimator circles from the right side behind me, to above my face, to the left side behind me. The radiation is administered in doses that last about 10-20 seconds, and after each dose the machine rattles as it moves into new position or outlines a new area to be treated.

There's a spot on the right side where the quiet siren that warns about radiation being administered seems to be going on endlessly. It gives me time to imagine what would happen if it didn't stop. When it finally does stop, the collimator circles to face me. There's a square opening in the cylinder's bottom that I can almost see into. There's crosshairs on the glass covering, and behind it thin metal bars that move horizontally to form vertical patterns or openings that I suppose are there to line out the area that is being treated. When the radiation is being administered, the bars move from one position to another. I'd like to know why. Perhaps the radiation is first being given on a small area that then widens and moves slightly to the side. Afterwards the bars move to form another pattern, that once again changes while the radiation is going, and then the collimator moves again, giving me view of the trees in the ceiling.

It's not uncomfortable or scary the least bit. It doesn't feel like anything. I really wouldn't know even if they didn't do anything at all. The short moments of uncertainty come when the routine is broken, like yesterday. Yesterday I noticed the pattern in the bottom of the collimator was a strange one, and the square was slightly tilted. They also didn't take my X-rays before starting the treatment, like they have done before. The X-ray imaging system is integrated in the machine, and it's impossible not to notice when it's being used since it's pretty much two long metal arms with boxes and plates on them that reach out to you. But before the treatment started, the machine reset itself, the square straightened, and the normal treatment routine began.

When the treatment is over, I'm released from the mask. For the treatment, the table I'm laying on is raised quite high and afterwards I have to lay still while it's being lowered. It's like a ride in the amusement park. You're asked to keep still as long as the car is still moving. Some nurses begin lowering the table instantly when they step in, so they can remove the mask while I'm moving down. Some start removing my mask without lowering the table while the machine resets itself and the collimator circles back above my face. Then after the mask is removed, they lower the table and I have to lie still until it's all the way down. It's quite uncomfortable. Some of them grab my blanket away in the instant my mask is off, so I'm left lying on the table with bare titties quite eager to exit the situation as fast as possible. By now I'm quite convinced I'll never get comfortable with being naked in the hospital, but I'm pretty good at pretending.

Side-effects at this point are mostly non-existent. For a couple of days now I've had a feeling like a lump in my throat. Swallowing too big bites doesn't exactly hurt but feels very uncomfortable. I'm learning to chew my food instead of hogging it down. I'm not sure if loss of appetite is a side effect or remnant of flu I had last week.

Nuke it from the orbit

2010-11-24T14:00:00.001+02:00

Had the first radiotherapy session yesterday. I really wish I had something awesome to tell, but it was really not as exciting as I thought it would be! I laid down on the table and had the mask put on my face. It was a bit tight on the forehead and cheeks, but it didn't bother me as much as my eyelashes scratching the inside of it. Felt like I had dust in my eyes all the time. The machine itself was very cool, silvery gray and shiny. It turned around me humming and chirping innocently as it shot radiation at me. There was an illuminated picture of apple trees on the ceiling which I watched whenever the machine's collimator wasn't on me. The collimator is a big round drum that shoots science at you. I described it to my mom: "It's a huge machine that has all sorts of weird appandages and they spin around you." It's the truth!

There was radio playing in the room while the machine was doing it's thing and overall it was a very relaxing experience. I had to be naked to waist, but I got my own blanket that I can now request every time I go there! Afterwards I had a short chat with a secretary of some sort, who gave me more instructions on the side-effects and skin care. After I left the hospital I went to buy some things, completely unaware that the mask had left a red scaly pattern on my face.

I got a list of all my treatment times, and apart from few that are before noon, most of them are after 17:00. That's cool. I'm really bad at waking up in the morning and even worse at waking up and diving into a snow storm right after. Today my treatment is at 19:00. The weather is windy with powdery snow. I'm really not looking forward to going out, especially since I managed to catch a little cold yesterday.

Since I can't better describe my experiences with the radiotherapy, I've dug up a few videos for your enjoyment. The first one is about a clinical linear accelerator showing off its pimp moves. In real treatment situation the table in the front is actually closer to the machine itself, under the cylindrical collimator, and the machine doesn't move that fast. The second clip shows a man with a similar mask that I have, except that he has actual eye holes on his, and apparently he can wear clothes with it. His machine also looks pretty similar to mine! We're like sisters.

"Oh no, not the mask again, pleeease~"

Cruises = awesome

2010-11-18T11:31:00.000+02:00

A famous celebrity was in a fitting room trying on panties. We were on a ship divided by fences into many different areas. I accidentally touched the curtain of her fitting room, and she thought I was trying to get in. She dashed out and we jokingly argued for a while. Somehow I knew it wasn't serious. We could have been friends if she wasn't a celebrity. She had an alarm device that she accidentally triggered. It enabled the ship's alarms and automatic guard system. Hidden speakers all around us boomed the ship guard were looking for someone. I feared they were looking for me, and the celebrity fiddled with her device, trying to undo the damage. Turns out the alarm wasn't her fault at all, the ship guard were looking for a man with a black coat and dark glasses. Every part of the ship was sealed from one another.

I had to go to the restroom. When an area next to mine had been searched thoroughly, it was opened for the public. I had never been in that part before, but nature called, so me and my friend went. My friend went into the first stall that was along the corridor and I went into the next one. Soon after entering I heard screams outside. I heard gunshot right next to me, a scream that died soon after. I saw blood on the smudged window of my stall door. I knew my friend was dead. Through the window I saw a figure lifting a gun and pointing it towards my window. I ducked when he fired. The bullet scratched my scalp, and I hit my head against the countertop. I played dead. The stall door was opened, and a man lifted my head to see if I was dead. He pointed the gun at me again, and I begged him not to kill me.

I wake up on another ship that plows through blue ocean. The day is bright and sunny. I see the man sitting on a deck below. He sees me moving, stands up and comes to me. He knows I'm awake and he knows I know he knows, so we exchange looks but say nothing. He takes the wheel next to me. I get up and sneak behind him. A gentle wind blows me down the steps to the deck below. There are tables and benches and parasols. There's a woman sitting at one table with a couple of boys. I'm completely naked, so I lift my chin defiantly. From the corner of my eye, I see one of the boys glancing at me. The man comes down. He talks with the woman in some language that sounds like German but isn't quite pure. I want to ask if they are Swiss, but I don't. They are my enemies and what would Swiss people do on a ship anyway, they live on the goddamn mountains.

The woman tries to communicate with me. For a while we don't know what language each of us speaks. She takes out a paper, some kind of an official form, and a blank sheet of paper which she hands over to me. She has a green felt tip pen. She asks my name in Finnish, and I tell her just the first name. She's happy with it and jots it down. She asks my nationality and I tell that too. She asks my parents' names. I think for a moment, then shake my head. I see the form's title, it has something to do with ransom. I won't get my family involved in this, so I say nothing. The woman kindly asks me what's wrong. I write on my paper "I should have let you kill me" and show it to the man who's sitting nearby. He nods.

Offensive metaphors

2010-11-11T12:35:00.000+02:00

I read way too much other people's blogs these days. Melanoma is called the beast and the people suffering from it are warriors. Wait, what. This isn't war, this is oppression, a fucking dictatorship. I got shat on by nature itself and there's nothing I can do except wait for the United States of Medicine to intervene with their holier-than-thou attitude and superior firepower. I'm the Palestinians getting steamrolled by the Israelonoma (fuck off from my turf), and not even a guerrilla fighter, I'm just a nobody getting hit by the missile that was aimed at others. I'm not a warrior. I don't have skills or weapons to fight this. I'm the civilian tagging along with the soldiers who have the arms and shreds of knowledge of what's going on. I can't do nothing but trust them on this, trust my fellow humans to fight off the aliens for me.

It kind of pisses me off.

Adjective dream

2010-11-08T22:31:00.001+02:00

I like dreams. They don't make any sense.

8.11. Body count 1

We had a house, a large cottage in the middle of a vast forest. When looking out from the second floor balcony, you could see only one other house rising from the mass of trees, a strange house that looked like a towering shack, brand new, but built to look like it was falling apart.

It was war, or it could have been a game about war, with several end bosses with special abilities, because me and my friends spent time running away and hiding from bombers and electric tornadoes. Mom shouted spread out, don't stick together for this one, and a rolling stone ball came through the forest crushing everything on its way, including one of my friends. I ran away without looking, run way too far and found myself on a road surrounded by force barriers. After running down the road for a while I saw the next boss at the end of it, a wailing woman, some kind of a ghost or wraith or witch, huge and menacing. I turned around and ran back where I had come from knowing she had already seen me and I was done for.

I was in my old school, the one with black doors and dirty hallways. Saw an old enemy, shouted he was an asshole. The classrooms were full and I had to squeeze in in the middle of strangers.

7.11. Elevators

Tall, decrepit house full of asian people of various nationalities. Rooms full of clothes, suitcases, sleeping bags, mattresses, blankets. Windows without glass, wood paneled walls, no doors, nowhere. We were leaping from floor to floor through holes in the walls and ceilings, trying not to get caught. I fell to another floor, my friends continued elsewhere, I was alone. I entered a nice, clean hall, freshly renovated and decorated. A middle-aged women, dark haired and well-dressed noticed me instantly, and I sheepishly told her I had gotten lost. We weren't supposed to be in that house. She told me where to take the elevator to the ground floor. I did as she told me, although I knew it was a trick elevator and it frightened me. I had been in it once before, but at least I knew what to expect now. The elevator descended fast, ridiculously fast, until my feet were lifted from the floor. When it nearly touched the ground floor, it started ascending, now not inside the house, but next to it, far up to the sky. When it descended again, it crashed down on the ground, and I got out, shaken quite a bit. My friends were waiting outside. I told one of them that my family had once taken a vacation trip to the house, and my father had showed me the elevator.

Another house, clean, modern, tall, concrete and glass, with a paved yard in front of it, benches and bushes and small trees. It was a courthouse, and I was late for my friend's trial. I entered an elevator with a very small woman. She couldn't reach the panel to choose a floor so I had to do it. Only, I didn't know how. Instead of a panel, there was some sort of machine, like an old fashioned typewriter, except with fewer and larger keys. Some of the keys had letters, some had numbers, in no particular order or logic. There was a coing slot and a lever next to it. I screamed I didn't know what to do. I was in such a hurry I started to panic, and the short woman finally managed to reach the machine and pull the lever. We reached my floor quickly, and stopped. The woman took a small purse and started to take out coins. The elevator shook and all the coins fell on the floor. From the shaking we knew it was going to start descending again, and the doors wouldn't open before we put the right amount of money in the slot. As the elevator started descending again, we gathered the money from the floor. Next time we ascended and reached my floor, I took a handful of coins from the purse and shoved them in the machine as fast as possible. The doors opened, I got out. The woman continued towards her floor. I was already late for the trial.

In Soviet Finland..

2010-11-03T20:57:00.002+02:00

..the healthcare pays for you.

You all know how horrible it is in the USA with them dang medical costs, where you're pretty much screwed if you don't have an insurance. I haven't followed the news lately, so I don't know if they've managed to fix that already, but inspired and horrified by them, I've been keeping an eye on my own medical costs. Here's a list of what's happened to me and what the shit cost:

- General practitioner's appointment at a clinic. 13e.
- Follow-up visits free of charge.

- Ear/nose/throat doctor appointment at a hospital outpatient clinic. 27,4e x3.

- Visit to a radiotherapy clinic at a hospital, CT scan, mask making etc. 27,4e.

- Hospital stay for 6 days, including surgery. 32,5e/day = 195e.

- X-rays, ultrasound, fine needle aspirations and blood tests at a hospital. Free.

- MRI, thorax and mouth X-rays at a hospital. Free.

- CT scan at a hospital. Free.

- Stitches and staples removed at a clinic. Free.

Total costs: 317,6e.

Excluded is the cost of the painkillers I was prescribed after the surgery. They cost me about 10e, which is about half the total price. Social insurance paid for the rest.

The upcoming radiotherapy will cost 27,4e for the first visit, and 7,5e for the rest of them. That'll total 244,9e.

Social insurance covers all medical costs past 633e, but that goes only for costs that have accumulated during one calendar year. In that sense I'm a bit unlucky, having gotten ill in autumn and with my treatments reaching from one year to another. No matter how much I've already paid, I'll still need to pay 633e next year, granted that I'll need treatments that will cost that much. It's likely I will.

Slow days

2010-10-31T18:35:00.000+02:00

I know that soon enough I'll be bored and then annoyed and frustrated by the radiotherapy, but I can't help but waiting for it eagerly at the moment. I'm so curious about what's going to happen, how the people will be like there, what the machine looks like, how I'll feel afterwards on the way back home sitting in a bus full of people, who probably don't have cancer. How will it feel like to return there right the next day? I guess I should enjoy feeling so positive as long as I can. Pretty much the only thing that depresses me the least bit is that I'll probably feel terrible during Christmas and New Year's Eve. I hope next year will be miles better than this.

I finished my statistics final work last week, but unfortunately, like I said, I had to cancel my meeting with the teacher, which was to be on Thursday. I hope she can contact me next week about a new time. Now that I have finally conquered my fear of statistics, I would very much like to get this course done before the radiotherapy starts. I'm well into my Master's degree studies already, but I don't have my Bachelor's yet because of that one course. I just want to get it done, so I can feel I have really progressed with my studies.

I guess it's kind of sad, but I'm really looking forward to some mail from the hospital. I should get my sick leave papers and a report of what we discussed with the doctor last Thursday, and I'm also yet to be billed about my stay at the hospital during and after the surgery. Well, perhaps I'm not so eagerly awaiting for the bill, but hey, mail.

Next stop: Physical therapy, 9th of November.

Radiotherapy planning

2010-10-28T21:49:00.006+03:00

After I visited the social worker, I went to the hospital's radiotherapy clinic. The entrance was much nicer than the hospital's main entrance. It was surrounded by trees, and the tall walls around the doors were all windows. There was a small garden or resting place in front of the entrance, with a sculpture of a bright green apple tree in the middle of it.

I got some basic blood tests done before meeting with a doctor. Some doctor. At this point I don't know who is "my doctor" and who is just "a doctor" anymore, I've lost track of them. Anyway, he was a new guy, pretty young looking, although balding. He smiled when I was joking and it was great, because I always appreciate a person who can make me feel like I'm funny.

I told him the story of my lumpy self, and then we talked about the radiotherapy. I'm going to be treated every weekday excluding holidays, for a total of 30 times, so it'll take until mid-January before I'm done with that. We'll talk about drug treatments after that and after he has consulted a melanoma specialist about them. The first radiotherapy session will likely take about an hour, but the ones after that should only take about 10-20 minutes. Bus ride from here to the hospital takes five minutes and there's buses going all the time, so the daily hospital visits shouldn't take longer than an hour.

There will be some side-effects that will likely start two or three weeks into the treatments, most notably fatigue and skin irritation on the irradiated spot. Because the treated area is on the neck, other possible side-effects are acid reflux and pain when swallowing. The doctor prescribed me liquid painkillers and antacids and also a skin lotion that I should start using on my neck right from the start of the treatments. Makes me wonder what sort of a lotion it is if you need a prescription for it.

As suggested by the social worker earlier the same day, I whined a little and the doctor said he'll write me papers for sick leave from mid-November to mid-January. After we had finished talking, he forwarded me to a nurse who gave me some fliers about radiotherapy and talked a bit more about it. I don't actually remember much of what she said. All I remember is that she wasn't very responsive to jokes. I guess it's safer to keep a poker face in a job like that, in case you can't differentiate between a joke and genuine self- pitying statement.

After that I went to CT to have my pictures taken and a mask made. Radiotherapy is careful business. You don't want to shoot those deadly rays anywhere where they weren't supposed to go, so to make sure I'll always be in same position while being treated, I need a mask that fits snugly on my head and shoulders. The mask was made of special kind of plastic netting that was heated in water until it turned elastic. It was then placed on my face and shoulders, while I was laying down, and held down until it cooled and hardened again. The first round wasn't exactly successful. They had just gotten the mask on me and started the CT machine when a nurse came to me and said they needed to take my bra off as well. Sure, except I was pinned to the table by the mask and the bra straps were under my back. After a while of trying the nurse managed to get them unhooked, but just as we thought the imaging could proceed, she noticed the mask was much too loose on my shoulders. Needed to get another one done.

I got the mask done fast, so back into the machine I went, and it was started again. Moment passes, nurse returns to use the pump that would inject contrast liquid into my vein. I feel the tubes vibrate against my skin, and suddenly there's a loud snap and something cold splashes down my arm. I wanted to scream what had happened, but before I could panic I heard the nurse say she had forgotten to open the valve and the tubes had burst, but no worries, my hand was fine. So the tube was replaced, valve opened, they reset the CT machine and off we went again, and finally we got the imaging done.

I was released from the mask and got a chance to dress up. They took my photo and fingerprints. I asked jokingly if I'd need to give my fingerprints every time I came to the treatment from now on and they said yes, that's exactly what they were for, so they could be absolutely sure who they were treating each time. I had thought they were just in case I died and needed to be identified or something.

Before I left the room, one of the nurses warned me that it smells quite awful in the hallway, but it's nothing to worry about. It's just the scorched lunch of the guy who was there to make me the mask. Turns out he had put his lunch in the oven right after the first mask was done and he forgot it in when he returned to make the second one. Oops. I guess I owe the poor guy lunch.

I got to leave around 12:30, after spending four and half hours at the hospital. The treatments will start on November the 23rd, at 12:00, and last until mid-January or so. The daily times will vary, but the nurse who checked the time for the first treatment, said most of my times seem to be in the afternoon and evening, because I live nearby. She seemed sorry about it, but I'm just happy I don't have to get up early in the morning.

I was told I can keep the mask once we're done with the treatments. Awesome!

Get free money now

2010-10-28T19:23:00.002+03:00

Visited a social worker at the hospital today. We talked a bit about money and how to lure the government to give it to you. I got a fairly good picture about how the process works and in addition I got some fliers and the most important forms for filling. It's not exactly a simple thing, this, since the social insurance doesn't take into account students that might get ill in the middle of the month. You can't take student financial aid if you take sickness allowance, which makes sense, but the student aid is counted per month and the sickness allowance per day. That means if you want to take sickness allowance, you get it only for the actual days of the month when you were ill, and you won't get any student aid. And if you take student aid, you'd better get or have earlier gotten some studying done so they won't call you back about it. November will be that kind of month for me because of the radiotherapy that starts on the 23rd.

For me, the biggest problem is that if you take sickness allowance instead of student aid, you can't have done any studying during that period of time at all. This of course only takes into account the actual finished courses you received credits for during that time. I've been on my thesis course since last January and it's due finishing this December. I'll be on sick leave from November 23rd to halfway through next January. I'll be having radiotherapy that will begin to show side-effects (fatigue, some pains) after a couple/few weeks of it's beginning, which (in)conveniently hits December. I want to take sickness allowance instead of student aid for December because it's unlikely I'd get any studying done, but the ending of the year-long thesis course could potentially ruin it. I'll need to contact my professor if he can delay giving me the credit for the course, and the social worker about a possibility of negotiating it with the social insurance institution.

I've got decent money saved up and parents have offered help many times in case I happen to suddenly become piss-poor. At the moment this isn't exactly about my dire need for money, but the fact that I'm close to finishing my studies and I've exhausted most of the student financial aid months that I was given when I started. Even as it is, I would run out of free-money-times next March. I simply can't afford wasting my few last student aid months by being ill and doing nothing. It would be much more convenient if I got the sickness allowance now, and could save up the student aid until times when I can actually study.

In any case, god bless the Finnish social security system.

Sucks to be me

2010-10-25T12:04:00.000+03:00

I've been struggling to get my studying done, but finally last week I resolved into only doing the stuff I really want and need to get done. This means my thesis reports, statistics course to finally get my Bachelor's degree done and one exam I have this Friday. I've progressed very little with my thesis, but wrote a report nonetheless. I was in the statistics course this spring, and though I did pass the necessary exams, I haven't finished or even started the final work for the practise groups. I was supposed to have presented it to the teacher a month ago or so, and I contacted her a week ago about a second chance. We had agreed that I could come present it on Thursday 28.10. but today I received an invitation for the radiation therapy clinic. It's on Thursday and I'm asked to reserve 3 hours for it, so there's no chance I could present the statistics report on the same day. I sent a new e-mail to the teacher apologizing for all the trouble, asking for another date. I'm getting really tired of delaying it all the time too, but statistics frighten me more than cancer.

Good news, bad news

2010-10-19T12:54:00.000+03:00

Yesterday I had a doctor's appointment and the second tumor meeting at the hospital. The doctor was not the usual guy, but another one I had met before when staying at the hospital for the surgery. She checked how the scars have healed and said it looks alright. She also had the results for the removed lymph nodes. They removed nearly thirty lymph nodes from the right side of my neck, and turns out none of them except the swollen one had melanoma in them. That's the best kind of news at this stage!

I queued for the tumor meeting longer than I actually was in there. A couple of doctors checked the scars again, nothing special. I was told that I'd be called in a week or two for a meeting with an oncologist to plan radiotherapy for my neck. We'd also discuss drug treatments. I asked if the drugs were really necessary, and the answer was that it's a necessary precaution because the tumor on my neck was so big. I'm still a bit puzzled about what kind of drugs we're talking about exactly. Chemotherapy or immunotherapy? Neither of them is particularly effective on melanoma, and both are a shitstorm to deal with. Melanoma's a bitch to cure. As far as I know surgery is the only even somewhat effective treatment.

Radiotherapy is alright. The machine looks cool and the treatment itself should be quick and painless. I just wonder if I'm going to have a sore throat and if it's going to affect my thyroid which is very close to the spot where the lump was removed.

I'm healthy now, just a bit upset about the possibility of the drug treatments. It's going to mess me up massively and chances are I'll have to be on a proper sick leave later this year. On sick leave, from studying, can you imagine? Normally I wouldn't mind some extra vacation but it's not going to be fun and I was supposed get so much done this autumn.

I checked if they have a melanoma specialist in the hospital, and turns out they have one. I hope I'll be forwarded to her.

Home again

2010-10-05T23:23:00.001+03:00

Back home before weekend didn't happen, but I got out on Sunday and that's good enough. There was no wireless anywhere in the hospital, and although there was a computer with an Internet access in the cafeteria, I didn't want to start blogging there. I've been recovering well, getting by with relatively mild pain killers. I was up and off all IV tubes the noon after the surgery, and the only reason they kept me in the hospital so long was because excess tissue fluids needed to be drained from my neck. It's a routine thing. Removing the tumor on my neck left behind a cavity that would have filled with fluids and got infected without help.

Despite a few plastic surgeons warning me about it, it turned out I didn't need a skin graft on my scalp. All my hair was shaved off though, so now I look like a prisoner. A large, stitched wound goes from one side of my head to the other. Another wound goes from behind my right ear down to the inner end of my right clavicle. All the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck were removed and that side is now mostly numb and slightly swollen. They managed to spare all muscles and treated the major nerves gently, so my neck should regain the sense of touch eventually. I'm lucky the tumor hadn't grown into muscle and that I had totally awesome surgeons. The wounds have healed well and I'm going to have the staples on my neck removed on Thursday. The stitches on my scalp will have to wait till early next week.

I've been tired and felt aimless these few days, so I haven't managed to write updates or do anything else either. Not that there was that much I should get done anyway. I cancelled my thesis seminar this week without feeling the least bit guilty, but I'm feeling a bit more uncomfortable about an exam I would have this Friday. It's not something I would absolutely have to do, but something I would prefer to do out of my own free will, and those are the hardest things to put aside. But I've been too tired to study and as much as I'd like to get this stuff done now, I'm starting to give in. I have a good reason to rest now, so I might as well do that, and sort everything else out later.

I'll meet my doctor in two weeks to discuss my healing and pathological results of the lymph nodes they removed. Afterwards I'll attend another tumor meeting where I will be told about the further treatments should they be necessary and applicable. I'm not expecting much really. As they haven't found other metastases I'm not expecting to receive radiotherapy, unless as a precaution on the sites where the tumors were removed. As for chemotherapy, well, needing it would be ominous. That would mean they would have a reason to suspect the melanoma has or will spread further in my body. They would offer treatment, but melanoma is very resilient and it's likely the treatment wouldn't make any difference other than make me ill.

Anyway, at the moment I'm recovering well and I'm already rather irritated by the staples and weird sensations on the right side of my neck. Painkillers have worked well keeping the pain away and relieving the discomfort on my neck and shoulder. I've been sleeping stiffly on my back for a week and can barely tilt my head to the left. That's how tight the muscles on my neck are now. I don't really know what to do about that when I can't even stretch properly while the wounds are still healing.

I'm waiting for some papers from the hospital, mainly a surgery report, that I hope will tell me their impressions on the tumors that were removed. Of course, the real answers and conclusions will have to wait until I meet my doctor again in two weeks, but for now that'll do. I'll write later about my stay in the hospital, but now I need to sleep. All things considered I'm doing well.

See you later

2010-09-28T11:18:00.000+03:00

Today I'll go to the hospital. I was going to write a longer post about it, but now I feel there's not much to say. What happens, happens, and even though I'm anxious, there's not much I could do to avoid this. I've never had surgery before, but I'm not really afraid of it itself. If I'm afraid of something, it's that I'll wake up and they'll say "oops, we had to cut a bit more than was planned". Or that I wake up from coma and 20 years has passed (and everyone has turned into zombies). But of course I hope it'll all turn out better than I expected. I should be back home before weekend.

Irradiated

2010-09-22T22:14:00.003+03:00

I had the CT scan today. We went there 11:30 and a nurse brought me two pints of clear contrast liquid that tasted faintly like bubblegum you've been chewing for too long for it to have any real taste left. I drank it slowly during two hours after which I had the scan itself. I went in, changed into a hospital shirt and laid down on the machine's table. They poked a needle in my arm and connected it to a machine that would inject intravenous contrast at some point. The nurse told me they would warn me before it would happen. The warning was necessary because the contrast felt much like having a shot of cognac and then pissing all over myself. As strange as the sensations were, they faded fast and the whole scan was over in ten minutes.

I'm not sure when I'll get the results. I should probably be anxious about them, because they'll tell how serious and treatable my condition exactly is. Of course I'm hoping it will be clear, but at the moment I'm not thinking about it that much. I'm completely focused on the surgery. I've never been in one before, so it's all new and exciting for me. I'm not really scared of anything other than the possibility of having to pee on a bedpan afterwards. Everything else is just fascinating.

People have asked me a few times if I'll receive some additional treatment after the surgery. I haven't talked about it with doctors yet, but I know that surgery is the main treatment for melanoma. Judging by what I have read, chemotherapy and radiotherapy are usually used only to deal with metastases that can't be removed surgically. They can prolong life and lessen symptoms but not cure you. The way I've understood is that melanoma is relatively easy to treat with surgery if it hasn't spread far and wide, but if it has spread, it's out of control and the other treatments can't help much anyway. There are drugs that are supposed to help keep melanoma from recurring by strengthening your body's own immune defences, but they are badly researched and cause horrendous side-effects without any guaranteed benefits.

All things considered I'm doing pretty well. Life goes on as usual. I don't feel sick or depressed, and I rather like joking about this to make people feel uncomfortable.

Cancerous

2010-09-20T20:35:00.009+03:00

Everything feels unreal.

We went to the doctor's office earlier today, and he told me it's melanoma. It started from the lump on my scalp and spread to the lymph nodes on the right side of my neck. I asked if the scalp lump has always been melanoma, because I've had it for such a long time that it would be weird, but he said no, it just happened to develop there. I was fine for a moment after that but I don't even remember what I said or what he said. I tried to hold it back, but I did cry a little. I could have asked many things, but I chose not to. He told me I can ask questions in the tumor meeting that would be later, and I said maybe I will, I'll just need to think about this for a moment now.

I went out with mom and we sat by a fountain that's in front of the main doors. The weather's been great for the whole day, all sunshine as opposed to the rain of previous days. We talked a bit about the whole thing, but I don't remember much. I was jotting down some questions I thought I should ask the doctors. We went in and had coffee in the cafeteria. All the time I was expecting to wake up.

I was worried about the tumor meeting. I knew there would be lot's of doctors and nurses who might want to talk to me, and I was all anxious about that. Turned out it was nothing to worry about. Huge MRI image of my neck and an X-ray of my jaws were on screens on the wall. I was called in to sit in front of everyone face to face with my ENT doctor. He explained the situation to the others, but I guess they had already been prepped since it was very vague. He said we'd be scheduling the surgery asap, and if I had any questions about anything, I could ask now. I couldn't bring myself to dig out the paper from my bag and read my questions out loud. I wouldn't have benefitted much from it anyway. It's all very clear now, what we're going to do. We're starting from the first things, removing both of the lumps, and then proceed to the next things, which is worrying about possible metastases and other treatments.

The only question I could ask was if it's possible the melanoma has spread to other moles on my body and should I be worried about the ones on my face. I think the doctor said somekind of an evasive no, I got the picture that I don't need to worry about the moles per se, but I'll need a full body CT scan to find out if and where the melanoma has spread. I'm scheduled for the CT scan on Wednesday noon. The whole process will take 2-3 hours, large chunk of which I'll spend slowly drinking contrast fluid. While waiting to be called in for the tumor meeting I saw one woman who was waiting to get in for a CT scan. A nurse brought her a container full of clear fluid, and she needed to drink a bit of it every five minutes. The whole process would take about fifty minutes.

Regardless of the possible metastases that might be found in the CT, both of the lumps on my head will be cut off next week's Wednesday. One of the doctors attending the meeting was a plastic surgeon who told me there's two options to handle the surgery wound on my scalp. The lump can either be cut off in normal way and the skin replaced with a graft, which, well, would leave a bald spot on my head. The other way is to cut my scalp open from the top to my very neck and then sort of stretch the skin closed, so in the end I'll still have hair all around my head. I love my hair but needless to say the future of my haircuts wasn't the first thing I was thinking about after hearing I have a serious cancer. It was a small thing of comfort though. As insignificant as it is, it's one thing I don't need to worry about in the middle of this mess.

Prognosis? Didn't ask, don't want to know.

Wake-up call

2010-09-19T21:45:00.002+03:00

I realized I still haven't written anything about my thoughts. Mom came here earlier today and then I started working on university stuff. Been trying to look for articles for a lecture on Tuesday, but Google is fucking me up. I'm looking for articles related to social aspects of gaming, but Google Scholar is giving me results on cancer and treatments. Something I've been looking for recently, for a reason, but something I've no use for right now.

I haven't thought that much about tomorrow. I filled a form I got from the hospital, one that asked about past surgeries and my experiences with anesthesia. I talked a little bit with mom, about my expectations and hers. I've come to the conclusion that I don't care what it is, as long as it's not melanoma. That's the worst case scenario. It would be far too spread to be curable. Melanoma is a very elusive disease even when it's caught early on. Most other things have better prognosis, even if they might require chemo- or radiotherapy.

But I've been wondering. I've had the scalp lump for close to 20 years, and the neck lump for three or four, although it used to be smaller. Would melanoma progress that slowly? Do any cancer tumors grow that slowly? I don't know. I'm not sure what to expect, all I know is what I hope for. But I've been thinking..

What if it's incurable? What if I don't have much time left? What would I do?

The only thing I'm really worried about is that I might not have time to finish my novel. I was planning to send it to a writing competition that offers 5000 euros and a publishing contract for the winning novel, so it's an absolutely fantastic chance to realize my dream. Now I don't even know if I'm going to live till next summer.

What have I learned from this? Live your life like you want to, in a way that makes you happy. Never do anything you would regret later. Spend all time working towards whatever it is that you want to achieve in life. Time's precious. We're all dying, just some of us on tighter schedule.

Will I remember this if all is well tomorrow?

Hospital visit

2010-09-16T22:03:00.004+03:00

I had planned to shower and have breakfast today before heading to the hospital for the X- rays, but I got a phonecall around 10:30 asking if I could make it to the MRI at 12. Sure, I don't live that far from the hospital, and now that I got a chance I should get it done. I was frozen though. I hadn't had any time to prepare for it. No one had told me anything about it. All I knew for sure was that I couldn't wear my jeans there, so I packed sweatpants in case the hospital wouldn't provide me with appropriate ass curtains. I brushed my teeth and my hair, got dressed, packed a book and some useful papers and then I was off to the bus. Didn't have time for shower. Forgot to eat.

The hospital area is huge and filled with all kinds of buildings, but thanks to the info desk's lady I found my way to the MRI easily. After a short wait I was called in and a nurse asked me if I had a pacemaker or if I had had any surgeries that would have left metal bits in me. Then she handed me hospital green pyjamas, and I got changed. They were very comfy and very large. The pants were roughly six times my size and the crotch was hanging to my knees. Literally. I'm not exaggerating. I needed to wait for the previous patient to get his scan done first, so while sitting in the hallway, I got to wear a giant beige trench coat. Thankfully it was big enough to hide my giant pants. Incidentally, later while waiting to get the X-rays done I was reading a magazine that said neutrally colored trench coats were last spring's fashion. How humiliating.

The MRI itself was very cool. I got to wear huge headphones that dampened the noise, kept me in touch with the staff and played a radio station of my choice. They secured this white cage like thing called coil over my head so in the end I was lying there wearing a white birdcage for a helmet. They also let me hold a panic button that I could press while in the machine if I had a problem of some kind. The coil had mirrors on it, placed so that while lying down I could see the clock on the wall and the nurses and radiologists in their little work space behind a window.

I kept my eyes closed when they slid me into the machine, but when I was there, I was too curious and had to look. Looking into the mirrors was fine, but when my eyes shifted to the inner wall of the cylinder I was in, I felt a small surge of panic. The space was tiny! I'm not even claustrophobic but it was horrifying at first. I managed to calm down, and in the end the whole experience was quite pleasant. The machine went bonk bonk bonk whoosh whoosh hurr burr durr derp derp derp woing woing bonk bonk and I listened to the radio. Halfway through they injected me with some magnetic contrast stuff, I've no clue what it was. Much of the time I kept my eyes closed, but mainly because there was nothing to see. I checked the time every now and then but other than that I was chilling and listening to the music.

The whole scan took about an hour. It was split into periods of 4-6 minutes during which the actual images were taken. Between every set of images there was a small break during which I could flex my arms or relax my jaw and most important - I could swallow! You need to be very still for the MRI and they were scanning my neck region, so I couldn't swallow at all when the imaging was in process. As a curious note, my head and neck heated up when the pictures were being taken, so when the machine threw me up, I had lovely rosy cheeks. Overall the MRI was quite nice and aftwards I felt all relaxed. I can understand why some people freak out in there though.

Since the MRI took a whole hour, I was late for my mouth X-ray. The nurse at the MRI had called them about it and said they would take me in once I got there. I dashed off and 15 minutes later, after going left and right and left and up and down, I finally found - some radiology place. I asked for directions and found out that I was in the wrong place for mouth X-rays, but in right place for the thorax. They decided they might as well do the chest X-ray now that I was there. Got that done and then I was guided right and left and right and down and up and left and right until I found the mouth clinic. Before I got that done a nurse approached me and said she had received a phone call from the MRI wing, which is in the opposite end of the same building. They were asking for me. I wondered. Turns out I probably should have first gotten my MRI done, then headed to the other end of the building for mouth X-rays, and then back to the MRI place for chest X-rays.

Well, I got it all done eventually, and doesn't matter where it was done, it's in the hospital's system now. The whole getting lost in the buildings and getting the images taken took about two hours. After all that I went to meet the nurse I had met the previous week at the ENT's office, the one that squealed for my hair. She told me what happens from now on. I have an appointment with the same ENT again next Monday at 10. The nurse suggested I go eat after it, because at 12 I'm scheduled for a treatment planning meeting. I guess this is the tumor meeting the ENT mentioned before.

The papers I received say the purpose of the meeting is to plan and decide on the treatment of my condition (whatever it is, I hope they'll tell me). There will be experts of head and neck region's tumor diseases. I'll have a chance to ask questions and express opinions considering the treatment options. It's possible and advisable for a relative or a close person to accompany me to the meeting. I'm asked to reserve 4-5 hours for it.

I've been thinking about a lot of stuff tonight, but this post is already way too long, so I might write more about that tomorrow. What I'll say now is that I called my mom and gave her the option to come accompany me to the meeting. I knew she would come. She'll be here on Sunday.

Hopefully on Monday I'll hear what's going on with me. Until then I'll be healthy.

Story so far

2010-09-14T10:45:00.015+03:00

Nurse just called me I'm scheduled for mouth and chest X-rays on Thursday at 13:00. I'm not sure what exactly they're looking for in my mouth, but I'd guess more abnormal lymph nodes or something that would help tracking the possible melanoma. They haven't been able to find a time for the MRI yet, so that'll have to wait a bit longer. I remembered to ask when and from who I'll hear about the scalp lump's biopsy results, and she told me she has scheduled me an appointment with the ENT for next Monday, but it might get postponed if all the results won't be available. She said she'll call me again later this week for more news. I really hate it how this thing is dragging on. Would be amazing if you could just visit a doctor and he'd instantly tell you what's going on and how to deal with it.

For my own future reference, here's a timeline of the whole process so far:

Sat 21.8.
- Mom prods me to see a doctor about a lump on my neck. Insists it has grown.

Mon 23.8.
- Visited clinic. Nurse says "probably nothing", forwards me to a doctor.
- Doctor checks lump, neck's lymph nodes. No talk about the scalp lump.
- Fowarded to a hospital for thorax X-ray, ultrasound of neck and blood tests.

Tue 24.8.
- Thorax X-rays taken.
- Ultrasound reveals a small lump on thyroid
- Neck lump seems like a lymph node cluster.
- Fine-needle cell samples taken from both lumps, sent to pathologist.
- Blood tests taken.

Wed 25.8.
- Doctor calls. X-ray is clear, blood tests show everything normal.
- Cell samples not yet ready.

Thu 2.9.
- Doctor calls. Pathologist says thyroid lump is harmless.
- No abnormalities in cells, but neck lump sample hints at mole cells.
- Visited doctor, who checked all moles and lumps on me.
- No abnormal moles found, talked about the scalp lump.
- Forwarded to an ear/nose/throat specialist.

Thu 9.9.
- Visited ENT specialist at hospital.
- Hints at mole cells = suspecting melanoma.
- Checks moles, no abnormalities. Checks mouth, nose. Finds nothing.
- Checks the scalp lump, takes a sample.
- Mentions tumor meeting ?
- Forwarded to MRI, X-rays (again).

Tue 14.9.
- Nurse calls. Mouth and thorax X-rays scheduled for Thursday.
- Still in queue for MRI, uncertain when possible.
- Meeting with ENT next Monday, possibly scalp lump's biopsy results?

Thu 16.9.
- Called for surprise MRI, got it done.
- Mouth and thorax X-rays taken.
- Scheduled for ENT and tumor meeting on Monday.

Mon 20.9.
- It's melanoma, started from the scalp lump.
- Whole body CT scan scheduled for Wednesday. Checking for metastases.
- Surgery scheduled for next week's Wednesday.

Wed 22.9.
- CT scan done, results still unknown.
- Hospital invited me in for the surgery next Tuesday.

Tue 28.9.
- Admitted to hospital.
- CT scan clear, great news!

Wed 29.9.
- Surgery to remove primary tumor from scalp.
- Right side neck dissection to remove lymph nodes.

Sun 3.10.
- Discharged from hospital.
- Meeting with ENT scheduled for 18.10.
- 2nd tumor meeting at 18.10. for planning further treatment.

Thu 7.10
- Neck staples removed at the clinic.

Mon 11.10.
- Staples and stitches removed from scalp.

Mon 18.10.
- Meeting with doctor, attending tumor meeting.
- Lymph nodes removed from neck all clear except the original lumpy one.
- Forwarded to oncologist for planning radiotherapy and drug treatments.

Mon 25.10.
- Invited to radiotherapy clinic on 28.10.

Thu 28.10.
- Radiotherapy briefing with a doctor at radiotherapy clinic.
- CT scans taken, mask made in preparation.
- First radiotherapy session scheduled for 23.11.
- Tota of 30 radiotherapy sessions scheduled.

Tue 9.11.
- Visit to physiotherapist.

Tue 23.11.
- First radiotherapy treatment.

Tue 14.12.
- Halfway through radiotherapy, visited a doctor.
- No side-effects, nothing to talk about.

Tue 4.1.
- Final radiotherapy related visit to a doctor.
- Concluded that I'll be getting both chemotherapy and interferon.
- Chemo for 5 days every four weeks, 4-6 times total.
- Interferon during and after chemo for a year or two self-injected.

Wed 5.1.
- Last radiotherapy treatment.
- Still no mentionable side-effects.

Mon 24.1.
- First chemotherapy.

Waiting, worrying

2010-09-13T10:47:00.004+03:00

It's the unknown that frightens me, not the knowledge itself. I probably shouldn't be reading about various lymph node cancers, melanoma types and treatments, but I'd rather know too much than too little. It's good passtime while waiting for the actual results. I'm not prone to hypochondria. If anything, I believe I'm impervious to all diseases. Even now.

I hate to jump into things without knowing what's going to happen, so I've been reading a lot about the MRI too. The hospital staff, while I'm sure they are competent, are so accustomed to what they do that they might not tell me as much as I'd like to know, and I can't ask when anxiety blanks my mind. Similarly the doctors - sigh. The clinic doctor was very nice, but I couldn't get anything out of her. The nurse that I met before I went to her said "I'm sure it's nothing". The clinic doctor said "it's not 100% sure but it hints at something to do with moles". The ENT freaked out. He was a calm man, and very serious. He looked straight into my eyes and I swear to god he didn't blink once. That's serious business, you know, when even one blink can hint to insincerity. I tried to stare back, but kept failing. I don't know why people think eye-contact is appropriate, most of the time it just makes me feel really uncomfortable.

I'm sure he too was very competent, but he couldn't articulate well: "so you've been ..." followed by two minutes of silence during which I tried to guess all the things I could have possibly ever been. In the end he concluded that yes, fine-needle samples were taken from the lump. He asked if I have any questions, and I had none. I was too confused and hadn't really learned anything new. Only afterwards I thought up a few. 1) Can you get my X-rays from the other hospital, or is it necessary to take new ones? 2) When will I get the results for the scalp lump biopsy and from who? 3) Is there any other reason than melanoma that could explain the mole cells in my lymph nodes?

Third one being the most important. How would the cells get in there if it's not melanoma? I'm not really looking for other options, asking: "could it be this or that instead". I'm trying to understand if having the mole cells there absolutely means it's melanoma. Because the only other reason, that I can think of, for them to be there, is human error. Did the radiologist who took the sample poke the needle through a spot in my skin that already had a mole on it? Did the cell sample hint at normal mole cells or specifically melanoma?

The reason why I mentioned competence earlier is that I really want to believe in the doctors and the hospital staff, but I'm painfully aware that they too are only humans. I marvel at the technology, the CT scanner, the MRI, linear accelerators, the gamma knife (that shit's so cool) - we've come so far in diagnosing and treating diseases, yet I know there's so much more we don't know. Human body is a puzzle of a million moving pieces. How can I trust for mere humans to be able to control it all?

But perhaps I'm looking at it from the wrong direction. Sure, doctors make mistakes and I might come across questions they can't answer. In any case, even if they don't know everything, they know much more than I do, so I suppose I'm better off with them than without. I just wish they were able to talk to me more, tell me more, give possibilities, even guesses. There's probably a lot of people who don't want to hear speculations, but personally I can't stand this wait-and-see thing. I need to know something, anything. So I'm doing my own research, whether I have these conditions I read about or not, it doesn't matter. At least I'm prepared for something.

If I'm worried about something, it's the treatments, not the diseases themselves. Metastasized melanoma requires brutal treatment, that debilitates you without any promises of a cure. I've been wondering what sort of life is worth living, and what level of peer pressure I'd need to overcome to live it like I want. I feel so good now, I don't want to be ruined by something that likely wouldn't even help.

Doctor ruined my hair

2010-09-09T16:47:00.003+03:00

I've been busy studying so I haven't had time to blog. My adventures in the Finnish healthcare system continue from where we were left last time: I was forwarded to an ear/nose/throat specialist.

My appointment was today. I've been home just about an hour. The doctor asked all the same questions that everyone else has asked me: how long have I had the lump, how has it changed, do I have any other symptoms. He asked me what I have been told about the results of the cell sample, and I just said they hinted at something to do with moles. He said that I've apparently been explained things vaguely, and it is reasonable to suspect melanoma. Well, I thought, I already knew that "something to with moles" means melanoma, so no news. He checked my moles and my nose and scalp and didn't find anything worth of mentioning. I showed him the scar lump and he wanted to take a sample of it. He didn't want to cut it all out in case it turns out to be a melanoma thing, in which case a larger area of skin would need to be removed around it.

Hookay. He put this sheet of paper on my head, the sort that has a hole in the middle of it, to fence in the right area. The paper had sticker edges that were happy to acquaint themselves with my hair. He injected some local anesthetic around the lump and possibly in it as well. I have no idea since apparently the lump itself doesn't have any nerves in it. He cut it and I didn't feel a thing, except strange crunching, as if he was cutting thick fabric with scissors, but it could be he had to cut off some of my hair, I'm not sure. Blood trickled down my scalp and neck. He put some stitches on the wound and tore the paper sheet from my hair quite brutally. The nurse literally squealed watching it. Now my hair is all bloody, there's a large band-aid on it, the stitches itch and I forgot to ask him when and where I'll get the results for the sample's analysis.

Oh well. Concerning the neck lump, he just said that it will eventually be cut out, but for now he's going to schedule me magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and thorax X-rays. Naturally I forgot to mention that I already had my X-rays taken in the earlier visit to the other hospital. I suppose it's not that dangerous to have it done twice though. He also mentioned something about a tumor meeting, but I'm not entirely sure if that's something he's going to have with other doctors, or if it's something I'll be part of. I should start making notes of these visits and have a list of questions with me, so I could figure out everything there.

So, I still don't know what's wrong with me, but grim Dr House from frosty howling mountains thinks it's possible I have melanoma, and even without him directly saying so, I know it's a fucked up thing if the source of it can't be found. The thing affecting my lymph nodes would be a symptom, not the source, and to fix the disease itself, the source would need to be found. But like I've said, on the outside there's nothing wrong with me.

I'm still not worried though. I know I should be and I know my mom is probably close to freaking out, but this is something I can't help at all. There's absolutely nothing I could do other than wait and see. I'll get the referral to the MRI and X-rays sometime next week.

I don't believe I'll die, but I can't deny that the thought has crossed my mind. Now, all you good friends of mine will rush to tell me that's not going to happen, and thank you for that, but it will. It's just a matter of time, with all of us. It's a good thought to play with, actually. Think about it. What would you want to do before you die? What would be the best way to spend the rest of your life if you knew you only had a few more years left?

Now I'll need to study for an exam.

Thesis crisis

2010-09-05T21:15:00.001+03:00

I'm smart. I try to tell this to myself all the time, but I still don't quite believe it. Almost done with the university now, working on my thesis. That should amount to something, shouldn't it? It should mean that I'm smart, shouldn't it? Most of the time I feel worthless. I feel dumb and lazy and unmotivated.

Most of the time I choose the easiest way out of everything. Life is short and fragile and there's no need to try and make it any more miserable than what amount is unavoidable. However, I dug myself a pretty deep hole when choosing my thesis topic. I don't like numbers, I hate mathematics, I don't understand statistics. Yet my thesis is a quantitative analysis of students' perceptions and usage of Wikipedia. I should have worked on it a lot during the summer, but I didn't, and now the amount of work ahead of me is discouraging. I know there has to be some statistical magic trick that helps me find out how experiences and outside factors affect students' perceptions of Wikipedia, and how the perceptions affect for what purposes they use Wikipedia, but damn if I knew it. I leafed through a couple of books and there's some methods that seem promising, but I don't understand statistics. I don't understand how the methods work or how to apply them. I'm the monkey at the typewriter, whacking the keys without any clue, with the exception that I'm actually hoping to type out the Bible at random.

The most important thing I've learned in the university is that the basis of all my stress is my desire to do well in accordance with my own expectations. I always want to do as well as I expect to. I'm mortally afraid of failure. I've realized that if I set my standards low, the chances of living up to my expectations are higher. Now, though, I don't know what devil possessed me, but I chose a thesis topic that is rather ambitious considering my past, one that will force me to learn something I hate and eventually to face failure. I have never chosen to do stuff like this. I have never actually wanted to outdo myself in studying. Sure, I try to develop as a writer, but studying - hell no. I don't care enough. I do only what is barely necessary and often skip some of that too. I've learned to lie and to appeal to people's good will to avoid consequences, and if that doesn't work - I've learned to not care.

Now, it's much too late to change the topic of my thesis into something more manageable. I'll just have to make do and hope I'll at least receive a passing score for "nice try". If only the people knew how much I'll need to work for this since I'm starting from scratch with something that really isn't one of my strengths. I want to believe I'm smart enough to do this, but it's hard. I've been called many things, but never stupid, at least not by other people. Perhaps I've been underachieving so long that I've stopped believing in myself. That's not a bad thought actually. If I've really been underachieving, it means I'm capable of much more than I think. Now, just how to start using all my potential?

Suffering for art

2010-09-04T12:33:00.003+03:00

The deadline for the first draft of my novel was supposed to be in the end of June, but that came and went fast. It was just a personal guideline, so no worries. I haven't done any actual writing for the last few weeks, but now I'm starting to feel I'm procrastinating just because I have an actual reason to do so. I've been mostly moving my pile of notes around the room dreaming about the day when I'll feel like doing something about them. It's sad when you really want something, but don't have the motivation to work for it.

Whatever my next writing project will be, I'll need to figure out some good way to organize all my notes. I've never had this much of them. My first novel - which in some distant future, hopefully long time after my dead, will be hailed as a literary masterpiece - had enough notes to fill half a notebook. Now I'm constantly jotting down random ideas on two different computers, in various different files, and by hand on random scraps of paper and many different notebooks. The stuff on my computers I frequently print out and throw in a pile with the rest of the papers. Notes for different chapters are mixed up with other stuff, and when I'm working on a chapter, I need to leaf through all papers to find the useful bits from the pile. The amount of paper here is overwhelming, and that doesn't motivate me to write anything at all.

Now I've spent a lot of time sorting the notes out, so they would be easier to work with and I could continue the actual writing at some point. I made a single text file on my netbook, in which I write all notes, starting from small details, names, places and characters, followed by a chapter by chapter list of everything that happens - scenes, ideas, pieces of dialog. The file is already 30 pages long and still growing, but at least it's easier to locate everything on it, thanks to the index. I still have a small pile of prints that I'll just have to cope with, since they have way too much text for typing (naturally I didn't save the original files after printing). I'd waste tons of time typing them, so I've decided to simply deal with them for now. Alongside the notes I have a scrapfile in which I dump all the notes that become obsolete for the current version of the story. I might need to make a third file too, that would hold all general notes and ideas I have about the world and setting, stuff that I'd need if and when I'll write more stories that take place there.

This is such a horribly messy project, but at least I feel like I'm doing something more ambitious again. And like every other writer, I hope this mess will result in a polished novel that will seem quite effortlessly written.

I'm fine, thanks

2010-09-03T19:18:00.000+03:00

It just struck me that blogging about my various bumps and lumps might be gross, but hey, humans are pretty gross overall. And that made me think that humans are like some horribly inefficient factories. Food goes in one end, shit comes out from the other. Usually it's the other way around - raw stuff goes in, pretty and useful things come out. Aaanyway.

Doctor called yesterday. The lump on my thyroid is harmless and nothing needs to be done about it. Awesome! The bigger lump on my neck doesn't worry me that much now either, because the cell sample didn't suggest abnormal cell division, which I think rules out most cancers (trust me, I graduated in medicine from the University of Google). Strangely though, the same sample looked like mole cells. Not mole the animal, but the skin growths. I told the doctor that I'm spotted all over, but I don't have any abnormal moles. She called me in anyway and checked me herself, and came to the conclusion that no, there really isn't anything wrong with me on the outside. I even prodded her to check the scar on my scalp, but she didn't think much of it, just wrote a note about it for the ear/nose/throat specialist. I'll be called in for further examinations and/or surgery in about a week. Just waiting for a letter or a phone call for now. My doctor is still pushing my case around as urgent, and I find it both funny and comforting. I don't feel like an urgent case, but I'm not complaining.

The only thing that bothers me now is that I apparently have a mystery lump, and the only way to figure out what it is and how it came to be is to cut it out and put it under a microscope. I can only hope it's not something like a parasitic twin because I'd have nightmares for the rest of my life both asleep and awake.

Game over

2010-09-01T14:37:00.004+03:00

Last Friday I traveled back to my hometown, to attend my brother's funeral which was on Saturday morning. It wasn't a burial but a ceremonial sendoff. His body will be cremated and later the urn will be placed in the newly purchased family spot in the cemetery. I'll be traveling back there for that, but not sure when.

What to say about the funeral? It was very Christian, and as it was held in a church, that was all fine. Perhaps there were people there who were comforted by Jesus Christ and the promises of everlasting life. Personally I don't care much about that. My brother is dead, and just when I'm starting to deal with the fact, the last thing I need is someone telling me with straight face God will resurrect us in the last days. If this has to be over, if I will never see him again, I'd rather deal with that fact instead of false hope. Overall she was a pretty cool priest though. At one point she might or might not have actually said "game is over", in English, in some context that I have already forgotten but can still guess. It was funny, in a really sad way, both because it was so silly and because it was true.

It was an emotional rollercoaster, crushing sadness mixed with joy of suddenly appearing memories and whatever comforting remark the priest made of my brother or my family. His casket was graphite grey, almost black, and the florist had placed some delicate silvery green vine on top of it. We got up before the funeral service, took a single red rose each from a vase, and placed them on the casket, saying whatever needed to be said or nothing at all. When everyone was done, the top of the dark casket was filled with red roses in beautiful contrast.

Afterwards we gathered in a small café on the other side of the road. My hometown is small and the village around the church even smaller, so it was really nothing you would expect when you hear the word café. It was a normal house filled with rooms filled with white tables and chairs. On one table there was a vase with a white rose next to a black-framed photo of my brother. On the top of a piano we had a laptop displaying a slideshow of photos from different phases of his life. There were some childhood pictures, including my favorite, the one in which we are sitting on top of a snow hill on our yard - me, just a baby, and my brother, much older.

The gathering was a bit awkward. I had nothing to say to the people, but they insisted on talking to me about studying and living here. Even if my brother hadn't died, I wouldn't want to talk about studying. Now I sound like an asshole, but in reality I dealt with it courteously. I know funerals are difficult for everyone else too. On one hand you know you're supposed to say something, but on the other hand you know everything you could possibly say pales in comparison to the loss. The priest wanted to know how I'm doing, and I said fine, because that's what you tell people who are too much of strangers to share your soul with. I've been living in a shit storm for the last few weeks, but truth attracts compassion, and I didn't really want to deal with that. I would have sounded like a brat, and perhaps I am a little bit of a brat wording it like that, when most people in the world have much bigger problems, but situation considered I forgive myself. All I wanted to do is eat cake and deal with everything my own way.

I'm relieved that it's over. Burying the urn won't feel as bad. It's not the funeral itself that was difficult to face, it was the people. It really hurt to have them tell me they're sorry, over and over again. I'm not used to that sort of kindness or pain. The people were amazing though, and having my brother's friends there was especially touching.

Now onwards. I can't wait for the day when I can get back to blogging about funny and silly things.

Life lags behind

2010-08-26T22:23:00.003+03:00

Today was my brother's birthday. I always remembered wrong and thought it was in September, so I was surprised to see it today in Facebook. There were people congratulating him, mostly game friends, the sort of strangers you only befriend to play the games with. His real friends and acquaintances know by now, but these other people don't. My heart lurched a bit, like that one time, a week after his death, when my front page decided to show the last message he had sent to my mother: "Could you come over here tomorrow?"

I've got this strange choking feeling. I'm sad he couldn't live to see this birthday and all the people congratulating him. I'm sure he would have appreciated it. But I also feel this weird thing, some sort of shame or guilt or regret, when I see all the people congratulating him without knowing he's not there anymore. I can't tell them the truth - how would that be appropriate, to tell their kind words were wasted? But perhaps the feeling is just envy, because in their world he's still alive, though unreachable.

Healthy, lumpy

2010-08-25T14:45:00.006+03:00

One more update for today, to bring my situation up to date.

The doctor called me and she didn't have much news, which is alright. My X-rays and blood look good, nothing strange there. We'll need to wait for the cell sample results at least until next week and she'll call me when they are available. Whatever it turns out to be, the lymph node cluster on my neck will be removed and dissected and studied to find out what caused it and whether there's need to worry about it further. Nothing can be said about my thyroid yet, or even the cell sample they gathered yesterday. The doctor said that even if the cells show no abnormality, it could be that they were gathered from the wrong spot because the thyroid lump was so small.

I gathered that she was only talking about removing the lymph node lump, not my thyroid gland. I even asked clarification for that, because she kept saying "gland", which sometimes in Finnish can refer to both actual glands and lymph nodes. And she said she meant the lymph node cluster. So she's going to call me again next week if and when she gets the cell sample results, and then I think she's going to send me to an ear, nose and throat doctor who will arrange for the removal of the lump. The fate of my thyroid gland is still uncertain.

Mom was worried I wouldn't make it to my brother's funeral because of this, and I had promised to arrange it so that I could be there in any case. No need for arrangements, nothing will happen before next week. However, thanks to all this fuss, I'm now paranoid about all the even tiniest feelings around my neck region. I'd just like to relax for a moment.

Fallout baby

2010-08-25T12:52:00.006+03:00

There's two hospitals in this town, university's teaching hospital and another one. I think the first takes the emergency cases and that's where ambulances go and the second one is for other stuff not so urgent. Other than me, that is, because that's where I was sent from the clinic. Also, by now you must have noticed that humor is one of my ways of dealing with stressful things. The other way of coping I have is raging fury, but while both of them make other people uncomfortable, at least humor doesn't do any damage.

I know where the university's hospital is, but not where the other one is. I printed out a map of the town and the hospital alike, but I ended up taking a taxi there. It left me right at the front doors. I went in and followed both my map and memorized instructions I had gotten from the clinic. First turn to left, then through the cafeteria, then downstairs. There was a black line painted on the floor that said X-ray. I told the lady there that I had an appointment and she asked me to wait. I read a book for a while and then fifteen minutes before the appointed time I was asked to come in for the X-rays. I stripped down to the waist, pushed my chest against a stand covered with paper, got a small, heavy apron to protect my hips, filled my lungs and they took the picture. I turned sideways, filled my lungs and they took another picture. Then I could get dressed and I was told to wait outside again.

A little while after I was called in for the ultrasound. I took off my shirt, so the gel wouldn't make a mess, and stepped into the room to wait. The ultrasound machine looks like something from a spaceship, all round shapes and weird buttons. My name was already on the blank screen that was divided in many smaller rectangles. There was colored boxes on the wall, red, green, blue, yellow, filled with disposable gloves, and I amused myself by trying to figure out whether the different colors meant different sort of gloves or if the boxes were setup so just to bring some color into the room.

Nurse asked me about the lump and I told her what I had told the doctor the previous day. She was also shocked, and I hurried to add that the lump hadn't always been so big. She told me that they might need to do fine needle aspiration (I think this is what it's called in English), that is, to take cell samples from the lump. It would be done with a long needle, but it wouldn't really hurt more than a pinch. I said it's all fine. I'm not afraid of needles, and I'd like them to figure this out as well as they just could.

The radiologist came in, a kind looking middle-aged woman with black hair. She asked me about the lump, and I told her. I lied down on the bed, my head tilted slightly back. She put the gel on my neck and started poking with the ultrasound paw. She checked the lump briefly, then scanned my neck from side to side and curiously spent some time on the front side of my neck, nowhere near the lump itself. At one point I saw the ultrasound screen from the corner of my eye, and the big lump was a black mass in the middle of it. She put some lines on the image, I suppose, to mark the width and length.

After the ultrasound was done, she wiped the gel from my neck and said that the big lump looks like a cluster of lymph nodes, but she couldn't say what exactly had happened to them. Then she said she had found a smaller lump on my thyroid gland, and hurried to add that most people have lumps there, and it's likely it's nothing to worry about. Just in case she would take cell samples from both of the lumps. Alright, I figured, so be it.

I tried not to look at the needle. I'm not squeamish about that sort of things, but I thought it would be like the giant fucking huge biopsy needles I've seen on TV. It was long and slim, and the holding end of it had a plastic rectangle that had finger rings in it, like old-fashioned syringes do. My neck was wiped with disinfectant. I was told not to talk or swallow when the needle was in, and instantly after this was said I felt my mouth fill with saliva, and I started swallowing furiously.

She searched for the thyroid's lump with ultrasound and then stuck the needle in. Slight pinch, poke, pressure, horrible pressure. My mind went just totally blank. I stared at the brick wall in front of me, willing myself with all my strength not to swallow, not to move, not to anything. When it was over, I still felt the pressure in my neck. She squeezed the findings into a small plastic cup and looked at it, wondering out loud if it was enough, if she'd need to go in again, and I just hoped not. It wasn't painful, just a feeling of huge awkwardness and discomfort, and I figured it would feel much worse now that my neck was already sore.

She took another sample from the lymph node cluster. It only pinched slightly when the needle punctured my skin, nothing more, and it was over fast. The nurse pressed a piece of paper on my neck. There was a lot of veins in the lump, and I overheard that pressure might prevent bruising. Then I got two huge band aids on my neck. Before I was sent off, the nurse asked if I had a call time for my doctor, and I said yeah, it's for Wednesday, which is today, and very soon. She said the cell sample results wouldn't be ready in a day, but I could expect them in a week or so. I said sure, the doctor will probably call me about the X-rays then.

I left the imaging department and went to the laboratory for the blood tests. I didn't have an appointment there, so I had to take a number and wait in a figurative line, while sitting on a couch watching some Spanish comedy on TV. I had heard the same series playing in the clinic the previous day, but I had thought it was the radio, and wondered why they were listening to Spanish radio over there and was it even possible to hear Spanish radio this far North.

The line moved slowly. I waited for fifteen minutes before the number changed, and there was still 19 people before me. 10 minutes for the next number. Then slowly, the line started to move and in about an hour I got to meet a nurse, who took my blood and sent me off. I hurried through the hospital squeezing a piece of paper on the crook of my arm and briefly wondered if I should take a taxi home. I took the bus instead and ended up home safely even though I had never taken that bus before and I got off four stops earlier than I could have. It would have probably taken me straight to my front door, but I was overly cautious of not ending up further away.

And that completes my journey to the hospital. Now all I can do is to wait for the results, and the doctor will call me in a moment. I've no idea what she's going to say. I'm not really worried, but I really hope that what they found in my thyroid is just one of those odd lumps every other people has there. Yet I can't stop thinking that I was two years old when Chernobyl blew up and I'm a fallout child and there's a chance I might have thyroid cancer. But I read on the Internet, that only 5% of thyroid lumps end up being cancer, so I don't know. I can't really imagine myself being seriously ill. I feel so good, healthy. I don't have thyroid problems.

I'm under the impression that modern medicine doesn't really appreciate the thyroid. What it does can be replaced with pills, but nevertheless I find it a horrifying thought to have it removed. To have a piece of me taken away and replaced by something man-made. To make me dependable on other people for the rest of my life, dependent on the artificially produced hormone that would keep my system awake and my metabolism working. Bullshit. I don't deserve this. I deserve none of this.

Mutations

2010-08-25T11:31:00.014+03:00

There's been times when I haven't been able to blog because I've felt there hasn't been anything to say. Now it's the opposite, and there's too much to say. Too much has happened, and the days slide by too fast for me to put everything into words. My brother died, and I wanted to write more about it, and I did write more about it, about my feelings, about my relationship with him and death, but it was all raw. I didn't feel like going over it again refining it into a blog post. Now the time has passed and I've moved on from grieving to waiting - waiting for the funeral which is on Saturday, and mulling over the problems of the still living.

I have a lump on my neck. I discovered it a few years ago when I was sitting in an auditorium listening to a lecture. I was rubbing my neck, tired, when I felt it and fear surged through me. I was terrified. I sat through the lecture but skipped the next one. I knew I had to go to the doctor, but instead I called my mother and told her I had to go to the doctor, and she agreed. So the next day I went, and the lady at the university's clinic sent me to a nurse, who felt the lump and sent me to blood tests. She told me it's probably nothing to worry about, that it's probably just a muscle lump. The blood tests showed nothing. She told me to get it checked again should it change, become painful or grow or anything like that. It was about two finger-widths long, couple of centimeters. I thought nothing of it.

Fast forward to this year. I suppose I did think the lump had been growing this spring and summer, but then again, I had lost some serious weight during the year and I figured that's probably why it was now big enough to show. My neck is asymmetric now, the other side is visibly bumpy. People didn't point it out. I thought it was a cosmetic thing and I was bothered by nothing more than a slight distortion in my otherwise angelic figure. I defy sickness. The thought of falling seriously ill is absurd to me. So I didn't think much of it.

My parents have had this habit of visiting me every second weekend. We go grocery shopping and afterwards have coffee together. There was a period of some weeks, perhaps a month or two in the summer when they didn't visit me. It's been a busy and sad summer, with my grandmother dying and then my brother, so it was understandable. They visited me last Saturday, and mom instantly pointed out that the lump on my neck has grown and it's showing, and I'll need to show it to a doctor as soon as possible. We talked about it for a while. I tried insisting that one does not simply walk into a doctor's office, you need an appointment, and there's an actual queue with actually sick people in it waiting. But I ended up promising I'd make an appointment and go see a doctor. It was all fine for the day.

On Sunday mom called me all worried and teary and said she had been thinking about me and my lump all night. She was worried because my brother had died of something that had seemed like a common flu at first, but which had progressed into something deadly because he hadn't sought help in time. She made me promise that I'd go see a doctor the first thing next morning. There's a clinic right on the other side of the road here. I said I'd go, but told her not to expect much, because seriously there's a queue to the doctors in here.

So I woke up early in Monday morning and went to the clinic. I asked for a doctor, but I was sent to a nurse who would assess the urgency of my situation. I waited, and I was called in. I tried to explain the situation calmly, but I did end up bursting in tears. I know I should have shown the lump to someone earlier, but I haven't been sick for over a decade, other than having an infected toe. I'm as healthy as can be. I don't even get the flu these days. I don't feel fatigued or feverish or any sort of weird pains, none of that. But the nurse was worried and somewhat shocked that I hadn't talked about the lump for such a long time. I told her it had been so much smaller for years and I really thought it was just a muscle lump like I had been told.

She checked the timetables and the first free appointment times for doctors were in September, in a week or two. She asked if I knew if the university's clinic had free times sooner, but I said I've no idea, I was told to come here, and so I did. And to be honest, after the first dismissal of my lump by the nurse there, I didn't think much of the university's system. I should have probably demanded more care myself, but I'm the kind of person who simply refuses to acknowledge sickness, so it was all fine for me to be told it was nothing to worry about. The nurse at the clinic found a free time for that very day, half an hour period reserved for small procedures like the removal of moles and some such. She called a doctor and asked if it was possible to check me on that very day, and it was fine, and I was sent outside to wait. I went to pay for the appointment (13e for those curious), and the lady who I paid to was surprised to see I had gotten an appointment time so soon.

The doctor called me in some hour later. I didn't need to wait there, but I did because I didn't know what else to do either. She was shocked to see the lump, like the nurse. I had never really thought myself that it was so horrible. I tried to insist that it hadn't always been so big and visible. She checked my shoulders, neck, armpits, stomach, and no, I don't have any lumps elsewhere on my body, except a small bump on my scalp. I've had it since I was a kid, and I'd been told it's a hypertrophic scar, which is ugly but harmless.

Later people asked me if I mentioned the scar to the doctor, but if you had seen her you wouldn't have asked either. She was worried. She didn't really say it, but I heard it from the way she talked. She issued me chest X-rays to outrule sarcoi- she swallowed the rest of the word and I wanted to make fun of it and say it's not sarcoidosis and it's not lupus either. Now how inapproppriate would that have been, even when it's my body we're talking about and it should be me who's worried to death. X-rays of the chest, ultrasound of the neck, blood screen to check for abnormal cell division or something such. I love House but I don't really speak medicine.

She pushed the urgency of it. This is something I don't think I mentioned to anyone, something that I really didn't want to think about either. It's already outrageous that I even got an appointment for the day I went there, but maybe the doctors were bored of all the people coming in because of the flu. Who knows. She called the hospital and asked for a time for the X-rays pushing the urgency of it, at a few times saying that the lump is the size of a tennis ball, which was gross exaggeration. It's more like a hen egg, by both size and shape. I got an appointment for the next morning, Tuesday morning, yesterday, for imaging and blood tests. She asked me to reserve a call time for the results for Wednesday, which is today.

I went to the lady again, the one I had paid for the appointment, and asked her to reserve a call time for me. She couldn't find my hospital appointment from the computer, but then she figured out something and said: "Unless she called them directly?" and her eyes just bulged out of surprise or shock. I said yeah, that's what she did, and I thought nothing of it. I got a call time for Wednesday, today, in an hour and half.

And that's where my visit to the clinic ended. I'm going to write about my visit to the hospital next, but I've been writing stuff all morning, and it's time to have breakfast now. And don't go expecting anything shocking, because I don't really know anything more about this at the moment. I'm just waiting for the doctor's call now.

The day

2010-08-14T09:21:00.006+03:00

Today is a new day. I woke up at six like I've done this whole week, and I saw the sun rise. Well, I saw it's glow on the wall of the building across the yard. My windows face South. I've learned that the sun rises from the East and sets in the West. You laugh. I too, learned this a long time ago, but before I moved here, the words had no meaning, not before I saw it for myself. This is the case with such great many things. We think we know something, when in reality we only know words.

Death is something we occasionally think about. We know life is finite, we all must die one day. We try to fortify ourselves against the possibility of it happening to someone we love. Yet all we have is words and thoughts. They have no meaning before it happens, before we really lose someone and see the sun set. You cannot prepare for death, no matter how much you try to think it through, no matter how hard you try to imagine the feelings and ways to cope with them.

Wednesday morning I woke up with plans. I had two cups of coffee and wrote my morning pages, six pages of morning mind blabber, in my notebook. I learned something about writing. I found a way to give my characters depth. I found vulnerability in one of them, the center of his storm. I felt fierce, and I was proud of what I had learned.

I had breakfast and started working on the next chapter of my novel. The story was at a good place, it was flowing and I enjoyed writing it. I planned to work on it for a few hours, have lunch and then, like in the previous days, I would go over my thesis stuff in the afternoon. Only, it wasn't like the previous days. It was the day when my phone rang an hour into the writing, and I got excited for someone remembering me. It was the day I picked up the phone and mom told me she had bad news. It was the day my brother died.

We can try to prepare for death, but when it happens to someone you love, it will strike you down. Thousands of people get struck by lightning every year, yet it's hard to believe it will ever happen to us or even someone we know. Despite all rationality, our knowledge of the inevitability of death, we somehow feel we ourselves are exempt from the greater displays of nature's power. It always happens to someone else. We can try to prepare, but before it happens, it's impossible to imagine how it feels like to have someone dear to you simply erased from existence, to have someone you loved disappear from your life forever.

When it comes, the world will freeze and a tide of emotions will take you over. I've felt so much these past few days I cannot detail it here right now. There are as many ways to deal with death as there is people. Some prefer to talk, but I find talking hard. There is much I wish to say, but I choke every time I try to speak. Instead I've been writing, pages after pages about my feelings, about my brother and to my brother. I've been through crushing sadness and regret and frustration and found calm within me, and it makes me feel so guilty. I fear I will be judged for that, because people only see the steady shell of me, not the storm within.

I'm past crying out loud, but I haven't stopped grieving. I loved my brother. He was so important to me that I can't even put it into words. Trying to describe it would flatten the meaning. It's difficult to believe I'll never see him again, that all the times we were together are now in the past and there will be none in the future. It's hard to think that there will likely be a day when I'll be older than he was when he died. It's so wrong. He was my big brother, and he should have always been. Without him my life is less than it was before. I miss him so much.