Friends,
I cannot sing, but I am hearing Mitzi Gaynor singing Rodgers and Hammerstein's Wash That Guy Right Out of My Hair. I know the feeling, but it is about cancer, not a guy.
Eventually, I plan to update you on my surgery on August 13 and its aftermath. At this juncture, I’ve lost 18 pounds and continued to be anemic. Nevertheless, I feel healthy. This write-up begins the day I had a port installed.
On September 9, Janice and I arrived around 10 AM at the Surgi Center in Owings Mills, Maryland. Sitting in the waiting room, I received a call from Charlie, a peace activist and a fellow basketball player at BYKOTA Senior Center in Towson. He called to express his concern about my situation. However, he is recovering from shoulder replacement surgery and symptoms related to glaucoma. I am just suffering a bit of discomfort, as the five incisions in my stomach heal.
I am called. I remove my clothes and put on a surgical gown. While my vitals were being checked, there was a question. Where was the insertion of a subcutaneous port to be?
I remarked that my oncologist said it should be by the clavicle. The two nurses laughed and said I have two. The presumption on my part was to do it on my left side, away from my dominant arm. Once the IV was in place, I walked over to a hospital bed. I was questioned about my medications. I stopped taking Eliquis, a blood thinner. I finished the Tylenol prescribed after the August 13th surgery and did not take my blood pressure or cholesterol medications that morning. I was fasting from food and water. Electric blankets were placed on each lower leg to prevent blood clots.
A physician came over to check on me. I found out she was born in Nigeria but has not visited her family there since 2017. I mentioned that I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana from 1977 to 1981. I had a layover in Lagos, Nigeria, and customs officials pulled me aside and took me to a room. They wanted a bribe, but before departing for Africa, I pledged I would pay no bribes. I asked to see the U.S. ambassador and was eventually allowed to continue my journey. The doctor indicated she was born in Lagos.
This request for a bribe occurred three other times during my African sojourn. I was on another flight heading north, which landed in Kinshasa, Zaire, a notoriously corrupt country. Fortunately, I was allowed back on the plane despite my unwillingness to pay up. One time, another Peace Corps volunteer and I hitchhiked from Botswana to Lusaka, Zambia. There we boarded the rail line, built by the Chinese, to travel more than a thousand miles to Tanzania to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. We ignored the pressure tactic from the conductor and did not pay a bribe. Finally, I was in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and a guard requested a “donation.” He had the wrong pigeon.
Just before being taken to surgery, I met different members of the team, including the surgeon, Arthur Affleck. He is a colorectal surgeon who specializes in installing ports for cancer victims. I informed Dr. Affleck that I was told he was the best.
He mentioned that his partner, Dr. Joshua Wolf, did my surgery at Sinai Hospital. I told him I called my colon cancer trump and was thankful that Dr. Wolf removed the malignancy. He laughed, so I told him that just before going into surgery at Northwest Hospital for a scoping of my sigmoid colon, I was asked about my dream. I said my dream was to walk into the White House to tell Trump it is time to go.
During this odyssey, which started in November 2025, very few members of the medical community would discuss politics. So, it was refreshing to know that Dr. Affleck recognized Trump as a fascist.
He informed Janice and me that during residency in Texas, the good old boys would want the port installed away from their shooting arm. We informed him that, as peace activists, we had no guns in the house. I suggested installing the port on my left side.
I was then wheeled down the corridor to a room packed with electronic equipment. There, a nurse placed an oxygen mask over my nose and mouth. The surgery team used sedation, not anesthesia, which allowed me to recover much more easily. I remember someone saying Give him 140 something or other. Maybe an hour later, I started to reach some form of consciousness. Dr. Affleck let me know that he could not insert the port on the left. So instead, I have a very secure bandage covering the port on my right side.
Since it took a few hours for the sedation to wear off, Janice was the driver. We stopped to purchase Tylenol. During breakfast around 4 PM, I experienced some discomfort just holding up a coffee cup in my right hand. Soon thereafter, I slept for several hours. Tylenol presumably is helping, as I am only experiencing discomfort.
My chemotherapy will begin on September 23 at the Maryland Oncology Hematology in Eldersburg with an injection of XELOX [oxaliplatin] through the port into a vein. The next day, I will begin a fourteen-day regimen of first taking three capsules of CAPOX [capecitabine] 30 minutes after a meal, and later two capsules 30 minutes after a meal. This treatment is being pursued to prevent cancer cells from dividing and growing and can cause the cancer cells to shrink and die. Then I have a week off to recover before the next XELOX injection.
I will get anti-nausea medication from my pharmacy, but the heavy-duty drugs will be mailed to me. I do not know how long the procedure will continue. Presumably, after every three weeks, a blood test will be ordered to determine the efficacy of the process.
One supporter just told me that his brother’s wife is going to get chemotherapy and radiation before the surgery takes place. It seems her malignancy has broken through her colon. When I hear or read about others going through such traumatic situations, I realize how fortunate I am. Through all the procedures and the surgeries, I have had little pain. My support community is from Erie, PA, down to Key West, and from the East to California, and places in between. What comes next is another adventure. How will I handle chemotherapy? Stay tuned for another report. Kagiso, Max
Donations can be sent to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206, Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph.: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at] comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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