IPMS

The IPMS (International Plastic Modeler's Society) is having its national convention in Phoenix this weekend. One might argue that early August is a rotten time to be having a convention in Phoenix, but since they built an air conditioned pedestrian tunnel from the main hotel to the convention center, the guests from Minnesota and other temperate climes won't be cooked to a crispy golden brown as they try to walk across the street. (I once saw a woman wearing high-heeled shoes get stuck in a crosswalk when her heels speared into the pavement that had softened in the mid-summer sunlight. Cars waiting at stoplights routinely press dimples into the pavement with their tires, and the crosswalk markings actually move, migrating in squiggly lines as cars move the hot blacktop around.)

I first heard the convention was coming to Phoenix was back when I was going through chemotherapy, and in fact when all I had to look forward to was more chemotherapy. You learn not to look too far ahead when you're going through chemotherapy, because the short prospects are ugly (Hmm, what shall I do next week? How about have more poison pumped into bloodstream that'll make me feel like complete crap?) and the long-term prospects aren't so hot either (Assuming this works, I could come out of this with damaged heart valves, oxygen toxicity, hearing loss, cognitive deficits and a greatly elevated risk of leukemia. And assuming it doesn't work, I'll still have cancer. Those are lovely options).

But looking forward to the IPMS convention seemed safe. It was far enough out that I'd be more or less over chemo by the time it happened, but not so far out that I'd be dead if my cancer wasn't defeated. Plus it's such a generally innocuous thing, just a bunch of guys who like to build scale models getting together and generally enjoying their geek-nature.

Only, my family rented a cabin in the mountains and scheduled a sort of family reunion-ish sort of thing for that same weekend (through no fault of their own, naturally - they didn't present me with this scheduling problem out of spite, or even knowingly). So for a long time I struggled with the choice. Go to the mountains with my family, or go to the convention as I always promised myself I would once the hell of chemo and bone marrow transplants were over with? I had to go with the convention, in the end. Thinking about going to the convention isn't what got me through four courses of chemotherapy, three bone marrow biopsies, two courses of chemotherapy, and one course of radiation therapy, but it was part of it, and for the last eighteen months I've promised myself that if I could go, I would go.

But boy do I feel guilty about it. I'd feel guilty about it either way. If I go to the convention, I'll feel guilty about not going with my family. If I go with my family, I'll feel guilty that I didn't follow through on going to the convention as I promised myself. But my family will understand (I hope!), while the convention will probably never be back, and I'll probably never get a chance to go to another one.

Sigh. Why couldn't the IPMS have come here in April, for crying out loud? Oh, because in April my bone marrow was still growing back and I wasn't allowed to be in public places, that's why.