Outta hospital

I'm out of hospital, walking a little bit. No ochos yet :)

I am at Massachusetts General Hospital, Phillips House, room 2236.
Visiting hours 1-8 pm.

Tangoing in San Francisco tomorrow

Someone under the nickname tangocynic is posting hilarious (tango-hilarious) videos on YouTube. They are so true!

‎"I used to choose my holiday destinations according to the local sites and attractions; now it's either Buenos Aires or I check up on the Web where the closest tango festival is held"!
Well, I'm going to San Francisco for a couple days. What's my tomorrow schedule like?

• start at Bollyhood practica;
  
• move to Milonga Roja;
  
• end the night at Tango Revolution.

Quote

Teh internets attribute this quote to Friedrich Nietzsche:
"Every day I count wasted in which there has been no dancing."

Could somebody please find out where Nietzsche wrote or said it?

Quick update

Off Aleve, on my way to actually having a proper crown on my poor tooth.
Why do I need a permanent crown? Nothing is permanent. I got bad results from the latest scan, the tumors seem to be growing.

Sometimes you just can't win

Sometimes you just can't win

After the current chemorads treatment finished, I thought I can finally enjoy not having extra chemicals in my body. Then the doctor treating some of the surgery secondary effects upped my prescription drugs intake from 1 to 5 pills daily. Then I developed a nasty staph infection (the dermatologist was sure I got it at the hospital). 10-day course of antibiotics! The very next day after I took the last antibiotic pill I had a small dental surgery and now have to take maximum dose Aleve to prevent inflammation. The confusing rules -- one drug needs to be taken on empty stomach, the other with food, the third one after meals, -- and the sheer amount of pills and capsules (drugs and supplements - acidophilus, resveratrol, flax oil, turmeric, ginseng), I think I am on my way to earning the preferred customer status at the pharmacy!

I didn't really know her.
I don't know what color her hair was -- she was wearing a headwrap to cover her baldness.
I don't know what color her skin was -- the disease sucked the blood from her, so her skin appeared pale and paper-thin.
I don't know what body she had -- if she ever had any fat, it was all long gone by the time we met.
I do know she was the nicest, most gracious lady I ever met. She would always answer to my "How are you?" with "Not bad", though it clearly was a lie. She would suffer, but always manage to produce a faint smile on her face.
Last time we met she said goodbye to everybody and headed for the door. She was struggling with her steps, but didn't ask for help since she didn't want to inconvenience anybody. I offered her my hand, and she reluctantly accepted it, though she was trying not to put much of her weight on me. She was telling me how the new chemo she started managed to push her platelet count down to the fourties. I told her to stay away from sharp and prickly objects. Her ride arrived, she said "Thank you" and that was the last time I saw her.
Yesterday I was looking for her but she wasn't there. Later her husband walked in and started talking. I could hear bits "she was fond of this place; she said people here were the best" and thought "why is he speaking of her in the past tense? did something happen?" Unfortunately, he said yes, she passed away. Rest in peace, Marina! Or, as we say in Belarusian, "сьветлая памяць!"

Time flies like an arrow

Time flies like an arrow -- and fruit flies like a banana!

I stopped writing for a short while, and now almost a whole month passed.
My health seems to be better, especially that I'm done with treatments (at least for now). I'm doing Chi Gong breathing almost every day, it seems to help.

As for tango, maestro Cabral was in Boston, teaching workshops. Here's an old clip of him, demonstrating a simple tango walk. Nothing can be harder than that!

Tango for awareness - Vive la Milonga "PINK" edition

My good friend, neighbor, tango dancer and cancer survivor Eunha organizes this milonga (tango dance party) every month. Tomorrow it will honor October, the breast cancer awareness month.

For details of direction and public transportation, please check the

website or go to the Facebook event page.
All proceeds of this event will be donated to 15-40 Connection

Be realistic, demand the impossible!

I have two goals:

• Live to Alberto Dassieu's age
• When I turn 73, dance like him
  

I used to think that Osvaldo Pugliese's "A Evaristo Carriego" is both the most beautiful and the most difficult tango to dance to. But señor Dassieu makes it look so easy!

Treasuring the little things

Having a continuous-flow fluorouracil pump seriously restricts your abilities and you learn to treasure the little things. Like taking a shower. At least M hospital's protocol is to disconnect the pump on Fridays and reconnect on Mondays, giving almost 3 days of unobstructed enjoyment. At the B hospital where I was treated before they took the words "continuous flow" seriously, replacing the battery/chemo bag every week but never ever disconnecting. For over a month I had to stick to baths.

Radiating to Captain Beefheart

The radiology folks at the M hospital have Pandora radio going. They asked what I would like to hear while being treated and out of the blue I asked for Captain Beefheart. Getting irradiated to Abba Zaba is an interesting experience...

Performance tomorrow

I will be performing tomorrow at the European Talents event at Om Restaurant in Cambridge.

And despite the fact that my name starts with an S and my partner's name with an M, we will NOT be dancing to "Masochism Tango"!

Healing Tango

I am an Argentine tango dancer. I am a cancer survivor. Tango will make me cancer-free. Step by step, paso a paso. With each ocho, each cruzada, each boleo, each arrastre , and even, I dare say, with each gancho, cancer will be eradicated from my body, one malignant cell after another. Here's to HEALING TANGO!

Whatever happens, there's always hope. Never say never, or as the Hungarian actress and singer Judit Hernádi sang, "Sohase mondd".