Good News, Cautious News and My Last Beer…for a Little While

By Donovan Wheeler of Indiana On Tap

Next Sunday I’m going to enjoy my last craft beer…for just a little while or so.  The day after that, I will begin a non-alcoholic, liquid-only diet, and on the day following that, I’m going to take a long nap while a very experienced surgeon removes part of my colon.  I have already written about my initial reaction to the news I had cancer on my own blog, and I see no need to rehash that here.  Since posting that piece, however, I have received some good news and some cautious news as well.  The good news: the mass hasn’t spread into any other organs, especially those vital ones.  Only ten minutes before that phone call, I was wading around the swimming pool in a seriously high-quality inner-tube (the boating kind, complete with snazzy cup-holders and a comfy head rest), and I was savoring a Red Hook IPA (sorry fellow Hoosiers, but a good friend bought me some craft goods from Washington…very good beer, too).

When I hung up, I was more emotional that euphoric.  The Thursday prior I had just taken my joy-ride in the CAT Scan, and then I found myself spending the next four days wondering if I was facing a mostly routine procedure or a full-blown fight for my life.  It created limited sleep and long, internal conversations.  When that poolside call ended, and I put away my phone, I was standing in front of Wendi and two of our kids (one in high school the other heading to IU this fall), so of course I had to choke it all down, grunt a little bit, let out a throaty-sounding masculine “Yeah, baby!” and pound my chest.  I think I pulled it off…mostly…sort of…probably not.

The next day, however, my conversation shifted from the “good news” doctor, the one who initially probed my very nether regions with his funky snake-camera (great for party tricks) to the “cautious news” doctor, the one who was going to open me up and play Mr. Goodwrench on my gut.  In his thick Italian accent he let me know I would probably have to sit down for a round or two of chemo because, as big as the mass was (between a golf and tennis ball) it was probably in the colon wall.  In wall means maybe in the fat cells and in the fat cells means maybe in the lymph nodes.

All told, I’m looking at a month to six weeks…maybe less if I need no chemo and I heal well (fingers remain solidly crossed), maybe longer if I do need a couple hits of the magic go-go juice.  While I am looking forward to whatever my body will allow me to do as I recover, heal, and eventually roar back into action, I’m still a little bummed as far as the timing goes.

It’s funny how the smallest pleasures life offers take on a sort of powerfully aromatic sweetness to them when we know we have to give them up, even if that loss lasts only brief time. I teach high school English in my home town, and the normally snarky, smart-assish curmudgeon who lives inside me has become a bit of a whispy, sentimental fool.  I have great kids in my classes, and this week will be the only full one I share with them until I return.  By the end of the school year, I will have hung out with them much more than I will have missed, but missing a month or more so early in the year…? Stinks.

I’m also going to miss what was looking to be a great music scene this fall as well.  After all, the best side-element of the craft beer milieu is the music that always accompanies it.  Actually, I should change this casualty to the past tense because I’ve already missed two great acts at the Rathskeller: a band called nelo and a multi-talented Texas crooner named Bob Schneider.  But when your bowels are on the fritz, you’ve got to play the bar/clubbing experience with the caution of a plumber at a nuclear power plant.  You see, one of the major side-effects of colon cancer is the near-constant need to “do a number two,” which has produced a virtual Odyssey of dirty one-holer adventures (remind me to tell you the doozy about the Mexican restaurant in Chicago that had no toilet paper nor paper towels).  

Besides missing those gigs, I’ll have to sit out WarmFest, which was a blast last year.  This is a bummer because I was bound and determined that I was going to get one of the fellows from Red Wanting Blue to pose for a schmaltzy “thumbs-up” Facebook pic.  Compounding the woe was the news from my son that they’d lined up a September gig at the Bluebird in Bloomington.  The agony.

But I’m not taking my seat on the bench without at least a salute to craft beer: the phenomenon that has not only proven that supply-side economics can one day be beaten back into the slimy cave it came from, but also the marketing bonanza that transformed the bland rice brews we all thought were awesome into a much more vibrant collage of liquid art.  

And my pre-hiatus choice?  Upland’s Bad Elmer’s Porter.  It was the first craft beer I really liked, and it’s still the six-pack I grab when I walk into my local store and move unconsciously.  I don’t know who the fellow is who posed for that label (the masterpiece original label, not the silly cartoon character they have on the bottle now), but I look at him, with that shotgun across his lap and that “F*** you!” look in his eye, and I’m glad he’s with me on my last day before I take this journey.

I’ve been through a divorce and a bankruptcy.  Neither of those killed me, and this thing’s not going to, either.  When I sign back on in a few weeks, me and Elmer will be ready to tell you all how it is.  Until then, cheers!

Residing in Greencastle, IN, Donovan is an exclusive Content Contributor with Indiana On Tap.  To read all of his original work, click here.  You can contact Donovan via email at donovan@indianaontap.com.