Episode 1.5: Coping with bad news at Gen-Con

As it turns out, Gen Con may be one of the best places to be when you get bad news.  There was plenty of activity going on to distract me long enough to get my head straight before I needed to go home and talk to my kids about this.
(This entire post is just anecdotes of me coping at the con.  I you are reading for more detail on the cancer, you will not find it in this post.)

I go to meet Jake, Kurt, and Drew for dinner and drop this on them like a bomb...  and start drinking.
I have not drank any alcohol for over 2 years, and for more than 15 years before that, nothing more than a Champaign toast at a wedding or new year's, but this felt like a good time to break that trend.  One of the things I find out right away is that a side effect of my Gastric Bypass from 2 years ago is that alcohol hits me hard and quickly.  I go from 0 to a strong buzz about 2 minutes after the first shot.

That night I do a lot of behaving irresponsibly, but since it is me, even my irresponsibility is pretty tame and well contained.
To put it in perspective, here is me "behaving badly" and blowing off steam:

• Drinking, but not to the point where I "get drunk" or even to the point where my walking becomes shaky. (I actually discovered that the Gastric bypass side effect i mentioned earlier helped my very accurately control how tipsy I was. )
• Going to a Strip club but taking special care to make sure that I wasn't "getting all handsy."
• Crossing the street against the light with a smirk on my face (after looking both ways)

I think my biggest offense of the night was my loquaciousness. I was basically telling everyone I talked to for more than five minutes about my new news.  Including an exotic dancer at the Red Garter by the Stage Name of Destiny, who then made it her goal to distract me for the evening, even if it meant that she didn't make her nightly goal/quota.  Who but me goes to a strip club, befriends one of the girls and spends most of the night chatting about comics and movies and music?  Thanks for being an instant friend when I needed one, Destiny.

Anish and Zeb tracked me down at the club to make sure that I wasn't being too self destructive, paid for a couple of my drinks, generally offered me their support, and made sure that I went back to the hotel at a relatively reasonable hour.  (thanks guys)

By the next day, I was actually in a better head space and was more willing to wait until my follow up with the specialist before I act all panic-y, trying not to borrow trouble until I know more. Also at this point, I was only talking about it with friends who sincerely wanted to know how I'm doing or friends that I feel I owe an explanation or apology to for my uncharacteristic emotional distance. Also: I was actually able to really enjoy the convention.  I made a lot of new friends, won a lot of prizes, and generally had a lot of fun.  It was a very helpful multi-day distraction that helped me get the time I needed to put some things into perspective.

I was even able to make light of it with some of my friends. One morbid but hilarious example: I was asking my friend, Vic, who was running a game, for a not-strictly-in-the-rules-game request. Another friend, Brian, added later that I should phrase all of those requests like, "Don't let my new cancer affect your decision, but can I do this in the game?" I'm surprised how funny I found that.

There were a few other moments that were awkward at the time, but 80s sit-com funny if you were on the outside looking in and are funny to me now.  I'll not post those, because a couple of those folks are embarrassed to be a part of them.

As a result of all this, I was able to go home and talk to my family about this and talk to my kids and convincingly tell them that we need to wait until we see the specialist before we decide that things are really bad or not.