Rocco Maiolo's Ramblings and Musings

This is my last Fall semester of teaching.  Barring a miracle change of heart or an unforeseen event, I will retire on June 30, 2016 after 30 years of service. So after making this monumental decision, this has become a year of lasts: the last Remembrance Day Assembly; the last time I’m in a room full of grade 10’s; the last time I teach The Merchant of Venice ; the last time I mark a set of Media Studies exams; the last time I have a semester turnaround day (because the next time I have a turnaround day -- in June -- I won’t be turning around.  I’ll be retiring). I had a thought this morning: I’ve taught grade 12 University English every year except in my first year and in this, my last year.  I’ve come full circle.  In my first year, I was rookie guy.  I was given the dog’s breakfast, as it’s called in the business: 2 Maths, 1 Science, 2 English and 1 Accounting. Café/Bookstore in Gorey, Ireland (not a book room:) ) The Science was lots of fun. Try/de...

The super short version: I'm still in near total remission :)   I had a scare about a month and a half ago when my blood test -- one day prior to a scheduled maintenance treatment -- came back with a dangerously low neutrophil count.         In normal people, the count should be between 2.0 and 7.5.  In cancer patients, they like it be between 1.0 and 2.0, especially in order to give you treatment.  Mine came back 0.1.  The long and short of it was that a) it was too low for treatment and b) I was in danger of picking up an infection (which I did and which landed me for a three day stay in the lovely Kindcardine, Ontario hospital while on vacation). My neutrophil count has been fairly low since originally being diagnosed a year and a half ago.  After my 0.1 count, my oncologist suggested that it might be time for another bone marrow biopsy.  That happened several weeks ago.  It came back negative -- which ...

At Barnes and Noble in Norlfok reading Louise Gluck and The Walking Dead Absurd companions While my wife -- fifty today -- buys clothes at Kohls Lymphoma on hold Military jets fly in distant blue Grateful to be alive  Living in a Spring trailer Ireland in the Summer read Seamus Heaney soon Poets must suffer from love and loss (Like a psalmist's cup overflowing) I know I do, but I'm not a poet

February 10, 2015 I'm sitting in a hospital waiting room -- waiting for my oncologist to visit me.  My thoughts are all over the map.  I'm back at work after six months of chemo plus another two and a half month safety/recoup net. So my thoughts are of work, family, faith, IV, blog, fellow sufferers and then some. I tried to hotspot my phone to my iPad to get some work done. Failed. I tried to purchase a day of Internet here at the St. Catharines General. Failed. Shouldn't there be a free internet perk for cancer patients :) ? Maybe it's a sign that I shouldn't be working. The problem with my line of work is that as a consultant solely responsible for my domain, what I don't get done on a day like this doesn't magically go away -- it'll be waiting for me when I go back to work this afternoon. Blood pressure is high. I can't figure out if that's a systemic bad thing or an occasion-specific thing (I don't have a pick line so I have an ...

Hello Friends & Family: For some of you, this might be brand new information; for others, you are intimately aware of my journey in the last 6 months.   And then there are others who are somewhere in the middle. At the risk of being impersonal, I thought this would be the best way of getting out my most recent update regarding my lymphoma. Last week I had a biopsy of a mass in my back that showed up on a CT scan.   Contrary to what I was told, the mass turned out to be the same kind of lymphoma that I was already diagnosed with – low grade, follicular.   Since it had only grown by a few millimeters, I was given the option of keeping an eye on things and doing another CT scan in 3 months with the hope that things wouldn’t change. The doctor, however, was concerned that this mass is too close to my spine.  Option 2 was chemo.   I asked what she would recommend if I were her uncle.  She asked if I had anything against chemo. When I said no...

(June 2, 2014) I was in a waiting room today.  Waiting for a pre-op appointment for a procedure I’m having this coming Friday – a biopsy on a soft tissue mass along my spine.  I drew this picture.  I’m not much of an artist (that’s being kind to me). I had an appointment with my family doctor this morning and this other appointment in the afternoon, so I took the day off.   But I’m working anyway.   I can’t not work because it piles up and then I have twice as much the next day. The family doctor is nice, but, admittedly, she doesn’t know much about follicular lymphoma or soft tissue masses.   She’s not an oncologist. She suggested they might want to remove my affected lymph nodes.   I told her I don’t think that’s how it works with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She said she prays that the growth in my back is benign.   She asked how I’m doing emotionally.   And if I had people I could talk to.   Like a pastor. The answers ar...

I’m in between light and dark day and night birth and death departure and arrival I left but I’m not there (not even sure where there is) somewhere between non and infinite there is finite looking back (for a quick check and then forward again) gives the illusion that the horizon has moved closer in the grand scheme it hasn’t it’s always one twilight away I think Tom Waits would understand I’m in between there and there then and then grey and grey and sea to shining sea (please remove your hats) somewhere between Wordsworth and Blake and Eliot there is the splendor of the grass and infinity in the palm of your hand as you lay etherized upon a table I’m in between waking and sleeping the cliché and the ineffable in a world where you could Google it and your first hit would be: “God is ineffable, a beautiful word” in between east and west there is Eden the word was after all in the beginning and the word was with God and ...