Punk Rock Friday - To Save my Soul

I am having a crappy day.  LBS was a terror this morning - fighting about what pants to wear - even though he picked them out.  Same thing every day this week. I am really just done with dealing with.  Beautiful Wife is under a galaxy-load of stress from work and was not a pleasant women this morning.  This irked me more than usual and we fought.  I was a complete jerk - she reciprocated my kindness.  I only got about 5 hours of sleep - I was working until midnight just like I have every night this week.  I am tired, drained, and feeling a bit thin in the soul.  I feel simultaneously like I need a good stiff whiskey, a gallon of coffee, and twenty nights worth of sleep.

So to try and soothe my soul a bit I thought I would pull Punk Rock Friday out of the dusty corner I put it in.  Here we go:

Ducky Boys - For the Underdogs:


Flogging Molly - The Worst Day Since Yesterday:


Dropkick Murphys - Bar Room Hero:


Rancid - Fall Back Down:

Cancer and the Sword of Damocles

PreScript - buy this shirt - band back together is a great website and cause. 
Plus, Aunt Becky rules.

Let me just say, cancer is bullshit.

My wife is a cancer survivor.  You can read more about it on my first blog (re)post here: Horror Show.  The short(ish) story of it is thus: 8 months or so after we were married, my wife was diagnosed with malignant melanoma (a typically deadly form of skin cancer), the same cancer her father died of 6 months before.  Very scary. She had surgery and has been cancer free for 5 years now.  Unlike cancer, being a cancer survivor is awesome.

Sword of Damocles, 1812, oil painting on canvas. Richard Westall

But, the trauma of having cancer takes it toll.  I liken it to the parable of the Sword of Damocles.   Damocles was a bit of a brown noser back in Greece in the day, and was sucking up to his king, saying how lucky the king was to be surrounded with so much beauty, wealth, and wisdom.  His king asked him if he wanted to change places and Damocles jumped at it.  The king gave up his royal throne to Damocles.  The catch was that the wise king hung a sword above the throne, suspended point down by only a thin hair.  Damocles soon begged the king to trade back.

So, kicking cancer's ass is great.  But that nagging feeling is always with my wife that it will come back.  That sword is always hanging over her.  Every day.  Anything that is out of the ordinary for her body results in an evening of worry and a trip to the doctor the next morning.  She is worried about leaving me to raise 2 kids alone.  Leaving her kids motherless.  It is hard on her.  Really hard on her.

For me, it is stress.  She gets worked up, I try to remain calm, try not to worry.  Just last night, she found a lump in her shoulder.  It was like a big, inflamed lymph node on top of her shoulder.  Crazy lymph nodes is a sign of cancer.  My wife was freaking out.  All last night.  I was freaking out, but I couldn't show it.  Plus I have to be the voice of reason and try and tell her not to worry, we don't know what the hell it could be.  Also, I usually need time to digest things and understand where I fall with them and how I want to deal with them.  When things are sprung on me, I typically am not very comforting.  I usually need to sleep on them, let both my conscious and subconscious minds gnaw on it for a while, before I feel at ease to talk about it and deal with it.

So, Beautiful Wife went to the doctor this morning.  Well, it turns out to be a very normal thing.  A Lipoma - a fatty, benign tumor.  About 1% of the population has them and they are typically not treated unless they start to cause problems or start growing rapidly.

So, the sword hasn't fallen, but it is sure still hanging up there...

Domestic Enemies of the Working Dad

I am a working father.  Worse even, I am a postdoc and a father.  A postdoc is like a graduate student - chained to their work, but worse - you don't get any points just for trying anymore.  You have graduated - it is time to get RESULTS!  Nothing matters but results - and journal articles.  Really, only journal articles.  Actually,  journal articles where you are first author.  Nothing else really matters.

Except, I am married with kids.  Little people who fawn over me, adore me, loving me to the bottom of their souls.  Little people who just want to play with their dad, sit in his lap, have him pay attention to them.  And you know what, I love them so much.  I adore every little drawing they make, every rock they give me, every silly story they tell me.  I love that they love me.  I love that they love to be with me.

So, in honor of them, I write this piece.  This is inspired by the hilarious women over at Rants from Mommyland who have a whole series of Domestic Enemies articles.  They are awesome, hilarious, and truthful.  You should read them!

I present to you the domestic enemies of the working dad.

Daycare Mommies
I am the primary parent who handles daycare.  I get them ready in the morning, I drop them off, I pick them up,  It is the situation our family is in.  BW works across the bridge-tunnel.  Yes you hear right - it is both a bridge and a tunnel under the water.  Yes, it gets annoying to be the one 'on call' all the time.  But I also get to be the one to get that last hug and kiss, to be the first one to see them after daycare.  But what annoys me are the Daycare Mommies.  You know, the ones who think it is just "so CUTE that Daddy is in charge of doing the daycare thing.  And oh my, you even did your daughter's hair, well isn't that just so special?"  You know what, just because I have a penis doesn't mean I am not a full-time parent.  Yes, I dress them and do their hair.  I have a daughter and that means I have to do the pigtails or braids or whatever she wants that day.  (Or what I decide is feasible with the nanoseconds left before we have to leave).  Why does it matter if it is Mom or Dad who does this?  And no, their mother is not sick or taking the day off - I do this 5 times a week, 52 weeks a year.  Just shut up already.  Please.

Daycare Parties
I love my kids and if I could, I would not send them to daycare.  Or let me rephrase that.  I would not send them to daycare everyday.**  So, when you the daycare teachers schedule a party every other week along with a freaking field trip every month - I get annoyed.  Yes my job is flexible.  But no, I don't get vacation time.  Sorry, not in the postdoc world.  So, I REALLY don't want to hear how EVERYONE else's Mom (or Dad) is going to the circus.  Why the hell am I paying you to take me and my kid to the circus?  So, no, I cannot always just drop everything and stop by in the middle of the afternoon for an hour or two for your special "Springtime Under the Sea" party.  If I had extra time at work - I would LEAVE EARLY and take my kids home to hang out with me and play hide and seek or something fun...

Oh and nevermind trying to leave after the party to go back to work.  Talk about extreme meltdown...
 
Car Service People
This is a big time pet peeve of mine... no, you cannot keep my car overnight.  No, it is not possible.  My wife works an hour away and I have to pick up the kids.  If you don't fix my car we are stranded.  Didn't I just tell you my wife works an HOUR AWAY.  It is already 4pm.  Nevermind traffic.  GIVE ME MY CAR BACK.



Bosses
If you are going to call a meeting, at least accomplish SOMETHING. I don't have time to waste chit-chatting about your weekend.  Let's get to work.

And sorry, no, I cannot stay late EVERY day this week.  I have to pick up my kids.  No I cannot come out to dinner tonight to enjoy an adult evening with our latest guest speaker - I have to feed the kids and make sure they don't throw their whole dinner off the end of the table or spill the whole gallon of milk.  Yes, I would rather have some great chef prepare a 3 course meal than to ask my 2 year old daughter for the 20th time to please CHEW AND SWALLOW THAT BROCCOLI!.

And yes, I know you cannot even fathom having two kids and being a postdoc... because you don't have kids...  and no, I don't know how I do it either.

Well, yes I do know how I do it.  With lots of help from my wife, lots of laughter and a good sense of what matters to me, and two giggly little kids who make all the stress disappear every day.


**I think daycare is a great thing.  Firstly, kids get to hang with other kids.  BW and I don't have a ton a friends with kids the same age as our kids.  Our neighborhood is filled with old people, so the kids get their peer interactions at daycare.  That is an important thing. Second, it teaches children to take orders from someone other than their parents.  This is important also!  Kids are going to have to learn to listen to a teacher at some point so starting early is good.  Oh yeah, there is also the parental sanity point to be made.  Getting some time away from the kids is good too. 

Haiku Monday - Marriage

Marriage

It's hard to explain

But you can't marry your sister

Nevermind, you are 4...

Know thyself

This blog has made me become quite introspective. Which, I suppose, is to be expected since the first incarnation of this blog was a way for me to deal with my wife having cancer.

Mainly, I have been able to take a look at what I really want out of life and if what I am doing professionally is really lining up with those goals.  I have thought a lot about what drives me and what makes me happy.  These types of things have changed over time.  Especially since I had kids.

Here is a quick run down of the things that have driven me over my life:

Pre-pubescent Berserker: Being good at soccer and school, pleasing my parents, having friends, doing what's right. Hey- I was a kid.  I was a good kid (I think).  In reality, my world was very small.

Friedrich Nietzsche.  Sweet 'stache!

Adolescent Berserker: Sex, girls, punk rock, independence, art, music, deeper questions of life, rebellion, fun, friends. Extreme change here.  I was insane as a teen.  The onset of hormones drove me completely nuts.  But I also became, in some ways, more introspective.  I would read Nietzsche during my calculus class in high school (no I still don't really understand him... but his essays on nihilism really spoke to the adolescent me).  I really wondered about and explored the meaning of life... well between trying to someone to buy me beer and trying to find a place for my girlfriend and me to have sex... you know... priorities.

Time for me to grow up? I don't want any part.

Early College Berserker: Sex, girls, punk rock, aggression, independence, rebellion, beer. In some ways, my first couple of years in college were much simpler than high school.  I went to a really big college compared to my tiny suburban high school where I knew every single person.  I met a ton of great people in college who still mean a great deal to me.  I had a lot of fun without any parental oversight.  I played in a punk band that toured the midwest - playing crappy clubs and basements.  I worked for a living and lived in squalor.  At one point I worked 3 jobs to pay the bills and beer tab and tuition.  I was still young, stupid, and invincible.  I also cultivated a violent streak.  In college I filled out.  I was no longer a tall, lanky string bean.  And I had a chip on my shoulder. If a guy wanted to be all macho and try to show off by making fun of the weirdo punk kid, I would pop him in jaw and kick him in stones.  I took a few nasty beat downs too.  I was dumb and young and lucky to live through it.

All cool people have mustaches right?

Late College Berserker: Sex, my girl, science, physics, learning, the future of my life, punk rock. I met my wife in college and looking back it was a major turning point in my life.  She gave me an anchor rope to hold onto.  She made re-evaluate how I made decisions.  I was also maturing and starting to think before I acted.  About damn time.  Also, I realized that I should start really applying myself in college. This happened right before I met my wife.  I was always a good student.  Things came easy for me.  I didn't have to work hard for good grades.  But, I was paying thousands of dollars for this education, I should probably make something out of it.  In addition, I rediscovered my love of science, specifically physics.  So I focused on physics.  Started doing research.  I loved it.  I won a few scholarships and research fellowships.  Hey, I was actually GOOD at this.  And it was sure better than working at subway.  I also started teaching physics.  I liked that too!  Maybe I could actually do this for a job?!?  Science actually became more important to me than punk rock.  It was a weird time.

Early Grad School Berserker: Sex, my fiance, PHYSICS, punk rock, camaraderie  It was grad school.  You can't judge me... I lived and breathed physics.  60 hours of quantum mechanics and electrodynamics a week.  Cool.  Sleep is stupid anyways.  I also got engaged and married  My poor soon to be wife...  My band also broke up.  We all had kind of grown our separate ways.  Man, that was fun!  Playing shows that is.

Late Grad School Berserker: Wife, child, sex, physics, GRADUATION. While I was in grad school, my wife was diagnosed with cancer.  She is fine now, thankfully.  We were living together, 1000 miles away from our families and she had cancer.  We really only had each other.  It is the kind of thing that defines a relationship.  It also helps put dumb things in context.  As for school, everyone in grad school eventually gets sick of being poor and stuck in grad school.  So you bust your ass and finish your research.  I just did it with an infant strapped to my chest.  I actually wrote an entire chapter of my dissertation from 2-6 am with my infant son strapped to my chest.  We had our first kid while I was still in grad school and it was not as horrible sounding as it seemed.  I was on a fellowship, so I worked from home 3 days a week (really worked nights) and my wife worked from home 2 days a week.  We couldn't afford daycare, so we made it work.  Luckily she had a great boss!

That pretty much brings us up to date.  Well kind of.  So, what drives me today.  Sadly and gratefully, much of the same.  Wife, kids and sex probably at the front.  Yeah, I had sex on every list but never mentioned it.  I think sex and a sex drive are sort of a constant in a young man's life.  Always there in the back of your head...

There are some things that drive me now, that I would have never thought would motivate me.  Money is important to me.  Not that important, but I need to clothe and feed the little monsters that are my spawn. Plus, I like to buy them things.  Just admitting that money is a driving force in my life, even a small one, makes my punk rock soul rage and spin inside me.

Be true to thyself.  I am a wild dichotomy of social rebellion, punk rock scientist, father and husband.  I am often at odds with myself about anything as mundane as what grocery store to shop at (small, local expensive vs. corporate sell out) to as complex as how to handle talking about death with my kids (easy lies vs. truthful pain).

Know thyself.

No matter how difficult that may be.

Looking Back

After posting the old blogs from what seems like a different life I am amazed at how much has changed in the 4 years or so.  The biggest difference - we have kids now.  But there are subtler differences too, I think.  Both Beautiful Wife and I are so different after the whole cancer thing.  She is more of a worrier now - both about her health and the kids health.  She doesn't like to be in the sun.  For my part, I worry about her and her worrying.  Sounds dumb when I write it out.  I wish she could just relax outside without having to slather on sunscreen.  I never used to worry about her.  She was the sane one.  I was the crazy physicist punk rocker who could lose himself for days in video games or work.  Only coming out into the light of day when Beautiful Wife could drag me out for something to eat.

I never thought I would change much.  I don't think I have changed much, but I think I have changed enough to make me wonder about it.

I won't wonder for too long, though.  I am too overtired for that much introspection!

More Old Blogs

Here a few more of the old blogs.

Old Blog 2:

After
Well... My wife is home and doing very well. She is not in a lot of pain and is in very good spirits. We have to wait about a week for the pathology to come back on the lesion. Now we wait... and hope.

Old Blog 3:

24 hours later
It has been 24 hours since my wife came out of surgery. She is doing well- not in a lot of main and in high spirits. She is still very, very scared that the cancer has spread and she would have to go through chemotherapy. Unfortunately, unlike my wife, I cannot get sick leave from graduate school. So, if she has to go through chemo, I don't know what we will do. She will be very ill for a long time and I will have to be the caretaker, house keeper, cook, student and husband. Our lives have already changed so much. Atleast we have the next couple days to adjust to this new phase, before we find out if our lives will become more chaotic. We are both very excited to go home this weekend to Wisconsin. We are going to see our brand new neice. She was born Thursday, April 13th. I should say something sly and prophetic about the circle of life... but it is a cruel notion and my heart aches too much as it is. I hope all of you who read this are well and that you take the time each day to do something that makes you truly happy. This has made the world of difference to me in the past couple of weeks. Regards.

Old Blog 4:

RAWR!
Well on top of the saga of my wife's illness and her recovery from surgery, my Ph.D. advisor recently left the institution that I am at. I originally moved to Massachusetts last year to follow him when he decided to take a job here, out of the blue as far as he told any of his students. It was follow or find a new research area since there were no other particle physicists at my old university. So I asked my wife to leave her high paying job (she took a major pay cut coming out here) and leave her family and dying father. She did for the betterment of my carreer and our family. Then, after living here in Massachusetts for 6 months, my advisor decided to leave his job, since the institution here would not give his wife a job- a prerequisete for him taking the job in the first place. So I woke up this morning to find an email from one of the graduate commitee members saying that they were screwing me over for the upcoming year. Let me elaborate: When I came to this institution, I had just received a NASA fellowship. The deal I was given was, since the fellowship is not enough to cover my tuition and gave any money left to live on, the school was going to cover whatever was left between what a Research Assistant was paid and what would be left after my tuition was paid out of my fellowship. Now that my advisor is gone (he was the Physics Department Head), they have decided that I have to teach to cover what the school is not getting from me for my tuition. So, since I have no patron to watch over me, they have decided that I am fair game. On top of it, all TAs will have to take 2 mandatory teaching courses. My plan was to graduation in about a year. My research is going very well. I am publishing a couple papers. Once I reach the credits needed (about a year) I should be in a position to graduate. By forcing me to teach and take these crappy classes, they will be essentially doubling the time it takes me to graduate since these classes and teaching will take about 20-30 hours a week of my time. I am furious. I feel emotionally thin. My wife is very ill, my school has decided to **** with me. I have considered leaving with my Masters, which I can get at anytime since I have met all the requirements, but my wife is the one with the insurance and I really want to finish my Ph.D. quickly. In order to finish my Ph.D. I would have to move and she would lose her insurance and we would not be able to afford her healthcare. All I have to say is: Something has just got to give.

So that is a bit of our old clan saga laid bare.  Things worked out in graduate school.  I didn't have to leave, I finished with my PhD.  I got a job, well kinda.  I got a postdoc.

Horror Show [Old Blog]

My first blogging attempt was during the scariest time in my life.  My wife was in surgery to have her cancer removed and I was very anxiously waiting to hear from her doctors.  I think to understand either Beautiful Wife or me (mainly me), you have to read this (quoted below from a previous blog I kept):

Horror show
So I decided I had to vent a little about the things life has decided to throw at me recently. I am currently sitting in the atrium of a hospital as my wife is going through a surgery to remove cancer (melanoma) from her body and I need to get some things off my chest. Since no one on this site really knows who I am, I feel a lot more secure ranting a bit. I am 26 years old and my wife has cancer- I am angry, scared and very uncertain about life. But I have to be a rock for my wife, show her that nothing can harm her as long as I am vigilant. Just so she can have a little stability and shelter from the this horror show.

To start the story out, let me give you a little background. In January of 2005, my soon to be father-in-law was diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma. My then fiance and I were in the midst of planning our wedding for the upcoming June. We struggled daily with trying to plan our future lives and all the happiness that is supposed to surround a day as important in ones life as the wedding day. When in the background, like a sickening green backlight, my wife's father was slowly dying. The cancer had spread to almost every system in his body by the time the diagnosed it. To make matters worse, the cancer should have been caught 6 months earlier. When the initial cancer spot showed up on his neck, his dermatologist misdiagnosed it as basil cell cancer. Basil cell cancer is a very slow moving, usually non-life threatening condition, that when removed, usually poses no more risk. 5 months after seeing his dermatologist, he began to have back aches and went to see his usual doctor. This doctor surmised that he was getting some arthritis and assigned him a prescription of pain meds. When the back got worse and worse, they decided to x-ray it. They found a tumor that had completely destroyed his vertebrae and he would live (for as long as he had) with a broken back in constant pain. After many second opinions- it was determined that it was melanoma and it was very advanced. During the months leading up to our wedding, we watch him become more and more ill.

He eventually decided not to try to treat the cancer- in order to be able to function and enjoy our wedding. By the time our wedding had come, the cancer had started to spread to his brain and you could see tumor protruding through his clothes. We went on our honeymoon to Ireland dreading the call that we would have to hurry back home, to try and be there before he passed. Then 3 weeks later, we moved from Wisconsin to Massachusetts. My Ph.D. advisor had started a new job as a department head out here, and we decided, before everything happened, that we would follow after our wedding.

So my wife left a very good job in Wisconsin, left her family, left her dying father to follow her husband 1500 miles East to a place where we knew no one. Her father died 3 weeks after we moved, on my wifes birthday. She made it back that night, to hold him as he died. 8 months after her father died, my wife got a call from her dermatologist saying a routine biopsy came back malignant.

She had cancer.

After 10 days of trying to get her scheduled for surgery and complete insanity, I sit her in a very nice, sun lit atrium hoping that the doctor calls and says everything went well. That it has not spread. That I won't lose my wife before we even have children together. That I won't have to be that pitiful man who has to bury his wife before he even gets out of (expletive) college- before he can show her that he can earn a decent wage- before he can buy her a new car- a house- a home.

I am angry and sad and hopefull and scared.

I just got the call that the surgery went well. (it is 4:37pm on Tuesday, April 18th) Amazing Grace is playing on the speakers in the atrium. The surgeon said they removed two lymphnodes and the lesion completely. I have to wait for the pathology to come back on the lymphnodes to be get my hopes back. Now there is crappy elevator music playing on the speakers... I now await the call to go and see my wife... I am still uncertain, but I am less scared. I really wish I didn't have to deal with all of this so early in my life... At least it is not worse, the horror show still has a chance for a second act with the pathology.