I just squealed. The analysts are looking at me. Fuck them though.

Well done.

From a non-drugged perspective I can confirm this as a positive piece of trivia. Still nasty, but what a damned relief. Folks I like have taken to sundry terminal mishaps lately. I'm counting on you to buck the trend.

you could have saved all the docs the bother and just used a roto-rooter on your lungs. enough cuban comfort and you wouldn't have noticed!

will you be getting some form of "body art" threaded through the rather large hole in your chest? you could put a 100 kilo loop through your body. the "hip and young" crowd of your current location would, no doubt, love it and worship the very ground you walk upon. all hail lounsbury for he has a large piece of metal shoved through him!

anyway, good to hear the halfway decent prognosis.

Afraid my dear Dr. Fir that the lung is only part of it. The tumeur is in other places as well. Sadly self surgery where it is would have been, well, fatal.

That is truly excellent news and honestly, damn sight better than I had been expecting. Good for you. I actually just toasted you with my diet pepsi ( sorry, its what was on hand ).

Though I always knew you were tougher than any mere tumor.

Fantastic news!

Now that I've come to my senses.

Is it not technically lung cancer then? A primary tumour elsewhere in the chest that began to involve the lung?

Sorry, detail-oriented. Shall not look a gift horse in the mouth.

Hrm. Suppose I owe that dead Sufi saint something now.

No, it is and never was considered a lung cancer. I only got lucky it invaded the lung system where it provoked (and provokes) bleeding.

Only yesterday were they able to confirm the precise nature, but it's a good thing. The other options were extremely nasty and not that curable. This is among the "best" to get.

Presuming I am tough enough to support chemo etc.

dear L,

that's fucking fantasmagorgic!!!

and you don't think there's a santa claus ...

ye gods, what a relief.

happy holidays!

--raf*

Presuming I am tough enough to support chemo etc.

Probably there is nobody here who doubts your toughness. And as odd as it may sound, congrats on the diagnosis.

(And are the narcotics what is making you pick odd Francophile word choices? such as do you mean "put up with" rather than "support" chemo?)

Having just come from a (several years) post-cancer checkup myself earlier today, I raise a glass of organic blackberry juice to you. With a multivitamin chaser. Kepp up that immune system!

Toughness is one thing, but the chems I gots to take are nasty. Might not be able to... put up with. As for the word choice, what can I say, I used the phrasing that came to mind. So my brain gets the vocab confused.

Eh, there are certainly more awkward word choices to make than that particular one...says the woman who once had a very earnest discussion in Russian on the dangers of preservatives, only to find out that the word for "preservative" wasn't at all what I thought it was. (Yes, it's what you think - should have known better, too.) Was just curious.

You'll be fine, just need to take care of yourself and complain if you feel discomfort. Soft toothbrush, electric razor, baby shampoo, satin pillowcases. Make sure they give you take home meds for nausea, watch for bruising and infection.

I'm going to bed. Getting too bloody maternal again.

Re: chemo. The world can handle a bald James Bond.

Thank fuck! That's the best Christmas news ever ;)

My mother's hair grew back curly. It went straight again eventually though.

Does this mean you'll be back in the Maghreb soon-ish, or do you have to have your treatment in the U. S. of Bushland? Because I could be there for a few days in January, I have some days holiday to take and it seems an ideal location (being a little too far for a single weekend, but not relative-ridden enough for me to be allowed to spend a full-length holiday there).

THe internet is weird. I am checking your blog every day hoping you are OK and have no idea who you are or what you look like and have never heard your voice. Also I would probably differ with you on many of your opinions. But I am nevertheless really happy to hear that the tumor is the kind that can be got rid of with relative ease and hope you'll be blogging about the Middle East for many years to come.

have no idea who you are or what you look like

Spectacularly handsome.

(cash to the usual Swiss bank account thanks)

Ah marketing. Although Secret is the only 'Aqoul author to have seen me in my real native habitat. She's a sporting woman, look forward to having drinks overlooking the old town again. Without the US G planes (they were still flying then, were they not?).

Bad day today, goddamned shaking again. Ciao