I was curious and asked Google’s Gemini to summarize the series of posts here under the banner, “The Chemo Chronicles.”
Here’s Gemini’s overview. Just click to see a larger version.
Perhaps this is the time to solicit your suggestions of matters you would like to see me deal with in the months ahead. If you don’t want to leave a comment, then feel free to email ian(at)ilind.net.
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Coming Tuesday in The Chemo Chronicles: “A weighty matter”
July 20, 2026
I’ve described most of the side effects of chemotherapy and immunotherapy drugs that I’ve experienced to date as mild or absent, at least so far after completing a single round of infusions. I feel a bit “fuzzy”, what I’ve described as perhaps 15% short of a sharp focus, along with moments of dizziness if I stand up too quickly, find myself waking up at night, and still have a somewhat depressed appetite.
Recently, though, I discovered a key limitation associated with the chemo.
It took me weeks to finish Monday’s post about former City Council member Trevor Ozawa and his past ties to the late Michael Miske Jr.—a complex investigative piece that normally would have taken a fraction of the time.
To explain requires going back to my “normal” writing routine.
My regular blog or Facebook posts are typically done quickly, usually no more than a day or two between the idea for a post and when it goes up online.
But I take much more care with longer and/or more complicated stories intended for distribution to a wider audience. These might percolate in the background for some time as I gather bits and pieces of information that might be relevant, stashing those details in a folder for future reference, and then begin to shape the form of the story, settling on the major points around which the story will be built. Finally I’ll sit down and write an initial rough draft, followed by several days honing the draft until it’s almost ready to publish.
BC, Before Cancer, I would at some point decide that enough is enough. The final step would be to lock myself and my laptop in our spare bedroom for most of a day to push through a final rewrite and edit.
By the end of a sometimes long and stressful session, I’m usually able to nail the final draft down tight before what used to be wine o’clock.
Writing a post about Candidate Ozawa has been high on my “to do” list for a long time, and I finally moved it to active status a couple of weeks ago. I selected a close-to-final draft more than a week ago. Normally, at this point, I would be ready to shut myself off for a day and wrestle the beast into form for publication.
But now, instead of a single, intensive marathon, I was forced into a relay race with myself—working an hour at a time before my focus evaporated.
So the final edit, usually completed in a day-long editing session, instead took a week of shorter writing sessions.
I wrapped up the final edit after watching the sunrise at Waialae Beach Park Monday morning, then hit publish.
It required coming to terms with the limits imposed by chemo—and, by extension, making adjustments to my own sense of self. This particular shift isn’t hard to accept, but it is a wake-up call. There will be other accommodations down the road as treatment continues.
“Know yourself,” the old adage says. I’m learning.
Just this one more, I promise!
After my stint at the Star-Bulletin ended 25 years ago, one of the names I considered for my new blog was “Ronin Reporter,” referring back to the masterless samurai in feudal Japan. It might have been a good choice, but I worried that too many potential readers wouldn’t understand it.
And so it goes.
Just click for a larger version!
We’re traveling again this week.
In the meantime, there’s so much to write about, but I’ve been stymied trying to figure out how to respond to the hostile comments on my recent posts.
It’s gotten me thinking again about either (a) requiring all comments to be reviewed and approved before posting, (b) shutting down all comments on posts that invite hostile diatribes, or (c) eliminating anonymous comments by requiring commenters to register with their names and emails in order to leave comments.
I should say that the most hostile comments come from people who hide behind fake names or pseudonyms, and often post under a variety of names (which I can identify as being written by the same person). And I do not want allow comments to be used to amplify false or misleading information, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
I went through a similar period quote a few years ago. At that time, there were other attacks on iLind.net that attempted to crash the site, forcing me to use a private service to protect against such attacks.
The worst kind of comments responding to a substantive post containing specific information but ignoring responding substantively, the commenter simply repeats a string of discredited “factual” claims without specifically responding to the data they don’t like. Smears are easier than arguments, it seems.
And it’s not worth my time to take apart a long paragraph that strings together false or misleading statements as “fact”. There are plenty of people around the country attempting to hold back the tsunami of pseudo-facts with their fact checking.
And crafting a comments policy that tries to define the line between rational arguments (which I generally welcome) from diatribes or personal attacks (which I usually just disallow and send to the trash bin).
So I’m kind of at a crossroads.
I’m reluctant to get into the general moderation of all comments, but also want to avoid being swamped by right-wing trolls mixed with a few regular readers who have diametrically opposing views of “reality.”
So I would welcome your comments on, well, how comments should be handled.
By the way, the cats were left in the care of one of our reliable cat sitters. They’ll be here tomorrow as scheduled for Feline Friday.