Merry Christmas (and/or a holiday of your choice)

The DC move-in crew, a 6' 7" picture-taker, an ATM machine, a cigarette vending machine, some Pabst tallboys, and the Christmas tree from the World Famous Kelly's Irish Times, wish you a Merry Christmas (and I am contractually obligated by the terms of my U-M degree to add "and/or a holiday of your choice" after "Merry Christmas"). 

By the way, I'm holding an Irish Coffee in that picture.  The FDA is officially more concerned about the drink in my hand than my cancer.

So go on and have the hap hap happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tapdanced with Danny fuckin' Kaye. 

Comcast, eh? Almost made it: DC trip achieves 99% success rate

1.5 cancer patients battle an Ikea bed

So, we are all moved in.  And by "all moved in" I actually mean Emily and I are damn near "all moved in" to our apartment in DC thanks to a spectacular effort by many of our friends and my (half?) sister.  I really don't think you could execute an entire move-in more flawlessly than we did this past weekend.  The stats:  13 pieces of furniture assembled, 34 boxes unpacked, and a couch, kitchen table, and futon delivered and arranged, all in about 8 hours over two days.  By Sunday night, picture hanging was the only thing left to do in the apartment.

Oh, and cable installation.  Although that was supposed to be done on Monday.  But it wasn't.  Why?  Because Comcast.  I've mentioned my Comcast issues twice here.  First in November:

This was the worst news I received in a while actually:  Comcast is the only available cable provider for my building in DC.  That news hit me like a ton of bricks.  I'll be able to handle the whole cancer thing - they have treatment for that.  But there is no known cure for Comcast.  And that is depressing.

Then again in December, after Comcast spotted my post and got me in touch with some very helpful people, who were calling me and sending me personal e-mails to set everything up:

After that post, a Comcast rep e-mailed me offering to help me out (along with some encouraging words on my fight against cancer), and since then, multiple Comcast people have been calling/e-mailing me to get things set up.  So, not bad Comcast.  So long as the installation tech doesn't steal all the cheese out of my fridge or something.

Well...the Comcast tech didn't get a chance to steal all my cheese, because they never showed.  I stayed in DC thru Monday just to get the cable hooked up (since Emily is in work when we get back and who knows when I'll be in DC).  And they stood me up like an interviewer from the Maryland Character Committee.  At least I wasn't chasing down strangers while wearing heels on a Sunday morning.

So close.  So, so close to a flawless move-in.  However, I was able to e-mail my contact, who apologized and said she would reschedule an appointment for any date and time.  So I'll let you know if that works out. 

Other notes on move-in time with some cancer sprinkled in:

DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK.  I shaved the morning before I headed out to DC...and had an obnoxious beard-type thing on my face when I got back.  I mean really weird.  It was a weird combination of a five o'clock shadow, CopStache, Sydney Crosby Peach Fuzz Playoff Beard, and the facial hair that you see on guys from "To Catch a Predator" before Chris Hansen tells them to have a seat over there.  I don't like it at all, and actually might prefer no facial hair.  But it seems to be one stop on the train back to too-lazy-to-shave stubble, which is my normal facial hair setting.

The eyebrows are really coming back with a vengeance, though.  I was wondering why, in pictures where I'm wearing a hat, I still looked like a cancer patient.  Well, it was the eyebrows.  I still had 'em, but they were significantly thinned out, and I didn't realize how much until they started coming back.

CASPER SIGHTINGS DOWN 73%.  My sister - who last saw me at Thanksgiving - mentioned how much "healthier" I looked when she saw me again last week.  I didn't really buy it because I didn't feel that much different.  But then I looked at some pictures of me taken in November vs pictures taken of me last week, and it was night and day.

I guess this underscores a couple of things:  First, how much my perception of "normal" has shifted since I began chemo.  After a while, you forget what "normal" feels like, so anything better than "awful" is characterized as "fine" or "good." 

Second, it highlights just how much chemo grinds you into the ground.  Most people are on three-week cycles, meaning the average body needs three weeks to recover between cycles.  But even then, there is still residual activity after the three-week mark.  It takes a while for things to get going again.  I guess I'm more anxious them most, but it's a very visible reminder that recovery is a long process, and why I've been given the "6 months to 1 year" range in terms of recovery. 

THE DISTRICT.  Even though the trip was 80% work, 20% play, it felt like an absolute vacation because I was no longer at home all day, in doctors offices, on the phone with hospitals, and so on.  It's so much easier to forget about the cancer thing when I'm in DC. 

That said, it really was my most interesting trip to DC.  It was my first as a quasi-permanent resident, and I was with my sister, who gave me a sort of running commentary on the city as an outside observer.  A couple things that we noticed:

• I love the area we're in (just northeast of Chinatown).  DC is gentrifying like rabbits (that's the phrase, right?).  Well my area is no different:  An area that you wouldn't want to be caught in at night 10 years ago that is now a Starbucks-saturated area filled with people who pretend to care about the type of people that used to live in that area, except when push comes to shove and they actively contribute to tearing down their things and building new shiny apartment complexes.  For what it's worth, this doesn't really bother me.  It's just the way things go.  There's demand for apartments --> new apartments are built.  But it's sorta funny to see a bunch of young "public servants" who work for government agencies aimed at helping the poor (or attended schools like Columbia) live in apartments that rest on the ground where those poor people used to have businesses.  As a friend of mine told me this weekend, "They're tearing down Latino Autos and building a new apartment complex up on 14th."  Pretty much sums up the current state of DC. 
• My sister pointed this out, and after careful review, I agree:  There are a ton of clones in DC.  Every dude has a three-quarter length black coat with manicured, not-too-long-but-not-too-short hair, nice shoes, and a scarf and looks like they are named Parker or Logan.  Every girl is slightly to moderately above average looking.  Everybody walks around with a sense of superiority that is usually inversely proportional to their actual level of superiority.  In any event, I'm either keeping my held bald or growing my shag back in a vain attempt to differentiate myself.   
• I think everybody who works behind a counter in the District of Columbia must have taken a course on "How to Avoid Eye Contact with the Customer Standing Three Feet In Front Of You While You Perform Your Job at A Snail-Like Pace."  I want to take that class.

MY MOST SIGNIFICANT REALIZATION:  IF YOU AREN'T LIVING IN THE DC AREA RIGHT NOW, YOU ARE A SCHMUCK.  Really, I should have titled this section "Thank You."  Because: thank you.  All of you.  For making my future lifestyle so awesome.  Why should I thank you?  Because I - as a resident and worker in Washington, DC - am taking so much from all of you non-DC residents and employees. 

DC is pretty beautiful.  Everyone that visits there comments on how the city is so clean.  Gentrification is spreading like wildfire.  The public transit system is awesome, and you know how I feel about public transit.  It's an awesome place to be right now, even as the rest of the country goes through a recession?

Why?  Because the entire economy of DC is based on sucking money form the rest of the country and spitting it back out in the DC area.  An entire decade of rabid presidential administrations has grown the government to immense proportions.  With Bush, you had tremendous spending increases coupled with new bureaucracies like the Department of Homeland Security that grew faster than my tumor.  More jobs, more money floating around.  With Obama, you have even more spending coupled with regulation out the wazoo.  Guess what?  Even more money floating around, especially for those asshole DC lawyers who now have jobs helping people understand what the hell new regulations mean.  Especially for those DC lobbyists who now have more jobs because those regulations need to be bent and loopholes need to be punched.  Even for journalists, who are flourishing in DC's specialized news-gathering climate.  Yes, this is Washington, DC: The imperial city.  There is no recession in Washington.  Seven of the top ten richest counties in America are in the DC area, including Fairfax County (where Emily is a teacher, although she is in a Title 1 school). 

In a recession, people stop spending money that they don't have to spend.  Well, you can't really make that choice when the government is involved.  You better send in your money, or else.  And that money goes to politicians and agencies who write laws and launch investigations and redistribute it.  And then companies hire lobbyists and lawyers and consultants to help them understand and change the laws, get some of that money funneled their way, and protect them from investigations.  On top of your daily newspaper, specialized services pop up to cover congress or the happenings at various massive agencies.  Think tanks spring up.  The entire service industry expands to accommodate all these people. And so on. 

So, on top of all the nice things you've all done for me, I want to thank you all for subsidizing my lifestyle.  Detroit died because they had to convince people to buy what they were selling, and they could no longer do that once some competition came along.*  DC will never have that problem.  No need to convince when you have coercion.

(*A note on this point:  In the interest of transporting more stuff, I drove my grandfather's car - a relatively new Chrysler Town & Country - down to DC. It was cold.  The wiper fluid nozzles froze.  Now, apparently this happens (although it has never happened to the Honda Accord I've driven since I was 16).  But this was a problem since the windshield would frequently become smeared with road salt and the like, and visibility likewise reduced.  So my sister called a Chrysler dealership along our route and asked if there was any remedy for the frozen wiper nozzle situation.  The mechanic's response?  "Take the car inside."  I mean...it's just...c'mon man.  Are you really telling me, Chrylser mechanic, that Chrysler vehicles cannot be driven in cold and snowy conditions (the wipers would not work when it was below 25)?  Anyway, not a great moment for American auto engineering). 

BACK AT HOME NOW.  And I'm terribly antsy.  I don't want to be here. That's not a knock on my family, and they all know that.  It's just well past the time I should have been out of here.  And now that I'm feeling better and moved into my place in DC, I'm even more anxious.

Tell you the truth, I'll be fine with going anywhere after the new year.  DC or a hospital, either way, its a change of scenery.  Of course, I'd much rather be fine at home than in a hospital, but that's not really the choice here: If I end up back in the hospital, it's because I think that gives me the best chance to beat this thing for good.  So that's the way I'm looking at it. 

I'll be fine through the end of the year though.  People are coming back into town, I'll get to see most of my family, and I'll be up in Ann Arbor for a bit as well.  At the very least, I'll be occupied with things.  I can no longer handle not doing stuff on a daily basis.  That was justified when I felt like hell.  That's no longer the case.

This is the "something" that is being done

A friend passed along this ominous tweet from the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (and why on earth does the Virginia ABC have a Twitter account?):

Special agents arrest individual for allegedly selling Four Loko on Craigslist.

Which was closely followed by this gem:

Individual arrested in Stafford yesterday for allegedly selling Four Loko on Craigslist. Person is charged w/ illegal sale of alcohol

Citizens of Virginia, this is what your "special agents" are doing:  Trolling Craigslist for people selling caffeine mixed with alcohol.  Oh and chatting with Miss Virginia:

I have no idea why Miss Virginia is standing in front of the Virginia ABC seal, but this seemed appropriate.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the story:

A Caroline County man was arrested Monday for trying to sell a recently banned alcoholic energy drink online.

Ramiro Diaz of Ruther Glen was arrested in Stafford County after selling eight cans of Four Loko to an undercover agent for the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, which had seen an ad for the beverages on Craigslist.

He was released on a summons and is scheduled to appear in Stafford County General District Court on Jan. 5. If convicted, Diaz could face up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $2,500, or both.

That's not the end of the good stuff.  There's a perfect example of how the feds have just created a new black market - and new business opportunities - for people:

The ABC agent paid $80, or $10 each for the drinks — more than three times the retail price for the caffeinated malt beverage before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled Nov. 17 that the combination of alcohol, caffeine and other stimulants was unsafe and unapproved for sale.

I mean, I know this isn't a problem with drugs, but it might become a problem with alcohol.  If only we had some historical precedent on this...

Oh, and the reporter quotes two individuals in the article.  Both are from the Virginia ABC.  And Diaz doesn't appear to be underage.  And he was charged with things that were already illegal before the ban (selling alcohol over the internet and selling without a license).  Woo law enforcement!

Reason TV provides a sane perspective on the issue.  It's worth watching for the Chuck Schumer clip alone. Literally made me laugh out loud.  Completely mis-executes the Bill Clinton fist-pump, and somebody hid the can of Four Loko to ruin his dramatic moment:

 

There's not much I can say that I haven't already said.  I still wonder why people who agree with me so strongly on this issue turn around and trust politicans and bureaucrats to do anything else.  But let me boil my questions down to these:

1. Do you think the OUTRAGED, SHOCKED, and APPALLED journalists shown in the video really feel that way, or are they acting? Or are they being directed to act that way?
2. Do you think the members of any "Alcoholic Beverage Commission" drink alcohol?  
3. Do you think Mr. Diaz is better or worse off as a result of this ban that was enacted to "protect" people?

The same friend who passed along the link asked me, "maybe you should specify which journalists you're talking about" when I criticize "journalists."  Ok, fine:  These journalists.  These people who get into a profession where their job is to inform and educate the public, and end up participating in which hunts and fear-a-thons and behaving more like paid actors and shills.  It's not all journalists.  It's probably not even most.  But it is certainly a significant minority, and I think you can watch any nightly newscast or read any local paper or run a simple Google News search for "Four Loko"and discover that.

Oh well.  At least I'm entirely confident that these people can figure out health care.  It's not like I'm going to need that system in the future.   

PET scan the third

Apparently I was able to keep up my pre-PET scan diet whilst making the 9-hour drive from DC to Detroit on Monday, so Tuesday's PET scan went off without a hitch. 

In theory, the scan is a big deal.  It will, at the very least, be able to tell if I'm in remission or not.  Even if there is some residual activity, it might not be a big deal because the radiation remains effective for a while after you finish the treatment itself.  I spent some time with Dr. Robbins (Dr. Kim's resident) discussing this issue.  In short, if the PET scan is clear, it's clear and there are no problems.  If there is residual activity, things might still be fine without any more treatment.

In practice, I'm not all worked up over the thing.  All of my doctors agree that I'm almost definitely in remission right now.  This is based on the fact that my type of lymphoma is typically very responsive to treatment and the fact that three cycles of R-CHOP brought the cancer cells to the brink of elimination. 

So getting the damn thing into remission isn't particularly difficult.  Keeping it there is a little more tricky.

Actually, I misstated that a little bit:  Keeping it there isn't incredibly difficult, particularly with my type of lymphoma (marked by good prognosis).  It's figuring out the most effective way to keep the thing in remission.  I think somebody this weekend likened it to the concept of "double tap" from the movie Zombieland.  I've never seen the film, but I think I agreed - the point is to make sure this thing is dead. 

The problem is that I have to absorb every bullet aimed for the cancer.  So "double tap" might not be as good a strategy for killing cancer as it is for killing Zombies.  Right now, I feel a little bit like Marv from Home Alone after he tries to kill the tarantula on Joe Pesci's chest by wacking it with a crowbar.  I don't like the feeling of being done with four months of cancer treatment and wondering, "Did I get it?! Did I get it?!"

So anyway, the PET scan is done and has probably already been read.  I don't meet with Dr. Anderson until the 28th, but I might just swing by the hospital to pick up the damn thing and read it myself.  Plus, I assume my other doctors will want to see the scan (it won't make any difference to Dr. Li; Sloan-Kettering's desire to see the PET scan before making any recommendation indicates that it might have some impact on their decision). 

I'm certainly fine with and happy to enjoy the rest of my year, but I still have to keep things moving along.  I don't want to get into a situation where it's January 3rd and I still haven't made progress with Sloan-Kettering or Stanford.  So that's my goal, unfortunately, for the Christmas season:  To try my best to get answers about whether it's hospital time or DC time.  At this point, I really don't care anymore.  I've recalibrated my thoughts and I'm prepared to not make it to DC until April.  Will this be disappointing?  I can't think of anything more disappointing right now.  Except having to do this shit again.  Which is what I'm trying to avoid. 

So that's where we stand with PET scan 3.  I'll have more details for you as I get them. 

I guess they actually save lives by preventing people from getting on the Metro

Somebody asked me this past week if I ever considered going into journalism.  Actually, I have.  Especially given that journalists are looked upon far more favorably than are lawyers. 

You all know I have my issues with the legal profession.  But I think being a lawyer actually gives me a better chance of retaining my soul.  Here's an example as to why:  This piece on police officers randomly searching the bags of Washington, DC Metro passengers this morning.  Here's the gist of what went down:

WASHINGTON - Metro Police started randomly inspecting bags at the Braddock Road and College Park Metro stations Tuesday.

The searches, which are designed to be non-intrusive, came in the wake of recent terror plots and the same morning that an explosive device was found under a subway car seat in Rome.

The searches started at 7:30 a.m. and lasted about an hour at the Braddock Metro station.

I'm glad the reporter - who apparently watched the damn inspections - informs us that they were "designed to be non-intrusive."  Instead of, you know, telling us if they actually were intrusive.  And we'll leave aside the question of whether hour-long inspections of 40 bags at 2 out of 86 Metro stations is the dumbest effing thing in the world, because I think we can all agree that it is.  Because check out the people this crack reporter decided to interview for the article:

One Metro transit officer tells WTOP's Adam Tuss that "homemade bombs often come from household chemicals."

Another woman, who did not object to the bag screening, was stopped for 45 seconds. She missed her train as her bag of Christmas presents was searched.

Metro Transit Police Deputy Chief Ron Pavlik said they inspected 25 bags in an hour at College Park and that the program would continue at multiple locations throughout the day. 

Dennis White, 59, who lives in College Park, said he was happy to find the inspections on his commute to work in Washington. 

Carol Cole, 58, of Greenbelt, said she wasn't bothered by the inspection. "I don't mind so much because you never know what is sitting next to you - the shoebomber or something?" 

Seriously?  Government officials go rummage through people's personal items without any suspicion whatsoever, and you, "objective" reporter, can't locate a single person who thinks this might be a problem, or unconstitutional, or just plain dumb to give you a one-sentence quote?  No?  Instead, you quote two government officials and three people who "did not object," "weren't bothered," or were "happy" to be searched.  But thank you for giving us this, I guess:

Similar searches on New York's subways were challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union in 2005, but an appeals court determined they were constitutional.

Oh well.  Even more awesomeness in this article on the same subject from last week:

The searches are not limited to Metrorail. Metro bus riders are also fair game.

"While there is no specific or credible threat to the system at this time, this inspection program is part of our practice of varying our security posture, and adds another type of visible protection on our system," says interim Metro General Manager Richard Sarles.

Two years ago, Metro announced that it was going to start random bag searches, but the program never materialized. It was brought up again after learning of the FBI's October arrest of Farooque Ahmed, 34, of Ashburn, Va., for helping to plan an attack on the D.C. subways.

Where to begin?  First, it's good to know that, as a frequent Metro passenger, I'm now referred to as "game."  Second, the second paragraph could be shortened to, "We're just doing random stuff for no particular reason."  Third, this stuff is SO CRITICAL that Metro officials thought about doing it and then sat on their asses and ate pie for two years.  And the last paragraph must be an example of "staying one step ahead of the terrorists" by implementing random, asinine measures several months after every bungled plot. 

A lot of the ickiness of the legal profession is built right into the system - you have a client, sometime that client is unsympathetic (a big corporation or a drug dealer or whatnot), and sometimes, doing your job ethically means representing the interests of a despised individual or entity.  It happens.  You live with it. 

But with journalists, this type of crap - reporting with your lips so strongly adhered to the government's metaphorical ass that it's hard to tell where the government ends and the "independent media" begins - directly conflicts with the fundamental idea of the journalist as a government watchdog.  It's a pretty significant betrayal of the entire profession.  (And it's not just limited to this relatively obscure DC media outlet - Reason's Hit & Run blog collected snippets from 16 major American newspaper editorials celebrating the new TSA airport procedures here and here). 

So yeah.  I don't have much of a problem with representing despised or reviled parties in a legal dispute.  Because the second you decide those parties are unworthy of representation, you give way too much credit and faith to ridiculous people with way too much power that comprise our government.  And if I wanted to do that, I'd be a journalist. 

Faking it: Part 2

[Ed: Coming back to Detroit from DC today.  Will be responding to the backlog of e-mails and such in the next 48 hours or so. Also, PET scan tomorrow which is or is not a big deal depending on who you ask.  I'm not particularly riled up for it since my type of lymphoma goes into remission easily and was damn near dead after cycle 3. I'll tell you what will not be fun: trying to find foods compatible with my special PET scan diet on the Ohio turnpike]. 

I'm pretty recognizable when I'm in the various oncology clinics downtown.  It only takes a visit or two before all the doctors, nurses, receptionists, techs, and so on know who I am and say hello.  There are three reasons for this:  1) I'm bald, 2) I'm white, 3) I'm young.  It's the closest I've been to "recognizable celebrity" thus far in life.

Anyway, because of this, people get to know me and I get to know other people in the clinics.  So when I was leaving the RadOnc clinic for the last time last Wednesday, the lady at the front desk stopped me.

"You know, you've really inspired me," she said.  "I sit here on this side of the desk and complain about things, and you come in here every day with a smile on your face and never complain.  You're always so happy.  Thank you."

I have an entire inbox and a pile of mail full of similar sentiments, praising my "positive attitude."  Telling me I'm an "inspiration."  How people don't think they could be as optimistic as I have been.

And it makes me wonder.  You see, if you know me (as many of you do), these are not phrases you would have used to describe me at any point in the past 25 years.  I made a chart to demonstrate this point:

And that "1" between '85 and '10 was actually a misfired text message.  Wasn't even meant for me.  Dude was trying to text his friend Ned.

It's not just the "positive" things.  Nick would never spend 3,000 words discussing his emotions or his religious views on the internet.  I get e-mails from people I don't know from faraway places thanking me for opening up and talking so candidly about my experience.  I mean, I've received a couple compliments in the past 25 years, but never for talking about my emotions and being positive.

So my question is:  why?  Why on earth would a cynical, sarcastic asshole come down with cancer and turn into a positive, optimistic inspiration?

I really don't have much of a clue, but I think I'll venture a guess:  Because that cynical, sarcastic asshole came down with cancer and remained a cynical, sarcastic asshole. And you're not sure you could do the same.

I mentioned in part 1 the process of determine the "proper" emotional response to a situation.  Part of the way humans do that is judging the reaction of another to what how we would expect to react should we find ourselves in the same situation.  But with cancer - especially cancer at my age - most people have no clue how to feel.  There's really nothing to compare this to.  So we take what we know about cancer - that it's absolutely horrible - and try to figure out how we would feel if something equally horrible happened to us, and the results aren't very pretty.  People generally don't like it when absolutely horrible things happen to them, and the emotional reactions reflect this fact.

But really, you're just guessing.  You're guessing as to how you would react to something like this, assuming it wouldn't be good, and concluding that your reaction wouldn't be like mine.

And maybe that's true.  But I think it's important to keep in mind something I've learned though all of this:  You can talk about how you would react with a gun pointed at you all you want, but until you are looking down that barrel, you have no clue what you would do.  Maybe you think you would be tough, but you'd actually be an emotional wreck.  Maybe you think you'd be a disaster, and actually find out that you have strength and poise you never knew you possessed.  Sure, you might not end up with a cult following of your online cancer blog.  But you can praise my handling of this all you want, and I'll still believe most of you would be capable of the same exact thing. 

***

Cancer isn't rare.  I wish it was, but it isn't.  And it happens to all sorts of people.  You see it happen to famous people, and they want privacy.  It happens to friends and family members and its mostly hush-hush.  People want to deal with this in private; they don't want to discuss all the details with the world, and so on.  I was diagnosed and I immediately found out about 10-15 friends of friends or family members of friends that had battled the same disease.  I never knew that sort of stuff before.

I absolutely understand the privacy thing.  I understand the desire to keep things close to the vest.  But I decided, after much deliberation (honestly - one of the things I struggled with most early on was whether I was going to start a blog), decided against that.  Because if there's one thing I will give myself credit for, it's for not allowing this thing to change me.  This applies across the board:  I won't be wearing pink around, I'm not going to wear any wristbands after all this, and I won't be the unofficial spokesman for non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.  I'm not going to hassle my friends about smoking or eating right.  I'm not going to suddenly jettison my views on politics or religion because something bad happened to me.  To allow cancer to fundamentally change who you are is to give that horrible thing more of a victory than it deserves.  I'm not doing that.

So I decided to be very, very open about this whole thing.  Cancer is terrible.  Horribly, unequivocally terrible.  But it is one of the most complex things I have ever encountered.  The experience is unlike any other.  The emotions and events that comprise the entire experience are absolutely stunning.

And yet the whole ordeal remains shrouded in secrecy.  You hear somebody has cancer and news travels by whisper.  Updates are given, but they are often of the "she's doing well" or "it doesn't look good" variety.  There are millions of cancer resources on bookshelves and on the internet, but they are either stale "advice" tomes that have a pamphlet-like feel, or online blogs that are heavy on events but light on experience, or whimsical "have faith, stay positive, stay strong" pieces that seem all too easy to adhere to for somebody who has never experienced cancer or is only recounting the experience in hindsight. 

I wanted to do something different.  I've always enjoyed writing, so I decided a blog could be helpful.  People needed updates, so the blog would be useful there too.  But most of all, I didn't see much out there that chronicled the day by day experience of a 25-year-old cancer patient.  Something that captured the absolute emotional deluge of the disease.  Something that went through every step of the process in sometimes excruciating detail. 

And I thought, to some degree, that people needed that.  That people needed to see that this is what happens, this is what I thought about it, and you know what, I'm fine.  I'm not an emotional wreck.  I'm not screaming, "Why!?!?" at God like I'm Nancy Kerrigan.  I'm not actively trying to be "strong" or "positive" or to inspire anybody.  I'm just writing down what I feel like writing down.  If that happens to inspire others, all the better.  At least it's something good that comes out of this whole crappy experience.

***

I think the one thing this blog has given me, and the one thing that has sustained me the most through all this, is peace.  With so much going on and so many emotions flying all over the place, peace is a very valuable thing to a cancer patient.  It goes hand in hand with acceptance.  Almost like a two-part test:  I accept my condition, and I'm ok with it.

There have been some times I have written solely because keeping the thoughts in my head any longer (this post and this post come to mind).  There have been times when I got really worked up about something and just had to post before I blew a gasket (this post).  There have been posts where I came up with some absurd analogy and ran with it, possibly successfully (here).  And there have been times when I just opened a document, started typing, blacked out, and woke up two hours and 3,000 words later (like this post and Part 1 of this series). 

But the funny thing is this:  All of this stuff has turned this blog into a sort of chemotherapy for my cancer-stricken mind.  Any cancerous thought that hangs out there for long enough and starts to become a problem ends up on here, where it ends up doing all sorts of good stuff:  making me feel better, informing all of you, making this craptastic illness a little less secretive.

And all of that stuff has one extremely significant effect:  I'm not a huge jerk to others because I'm not carrying around all these toxic thoughts.  I guess I'd be pretty justified if I was pissed off at the world, or sad all the time, or too mentally preoccupied to say "hi" or "good morning" or make small talk with nurses or crack jokes.  But if I want to be mad, or sad, or mentally conflicted, I just do it here.  And then I don't have to take it with me.  Hell of a lot easier to deal with this whole experience that way. 

***

So I end up in situations like this:  Getting my blood drawn after a meeting with Dr. Anderson, when one of the nurses tells me, "I really apologize for your wait today" (Dr. Anderson was usually 10-20 minutes behind schedule.  To which I responded, "Oh it's no problem.  Dr. Anderson always spends as much time as I need in the room with me, so I assume he does the same for all his patients.  I prefer that actually, so I'll never complain about it."

At this point, one of the other nurses who was in the room turned to me and said, "Wow, you have a really amazing attitude.  I wish more of our patients were like that."

I was incredulous.  I mean really, you're dealing with cancer and bitching because the doctor is a few minutes behind schedule, especially when the reason the doctor is behind schedule is because he talks to cancer patients for as long as is needed.

And then there were the times when I would be late to an appointment, and I'd call ahead to let people know about this.  The way I was thanked for this small act of decency, you would think I saved an infant from a burning building.  A cute infant. 

As I chatted up more and more of the doctors, receptionists, nurses, techs, and so on around these places, I came to realize that they deal with a lot of unhappy people.  And apparently, a fair number of not-very-nice people.

And I don't get it.  I mean, I get that you have cancer, and I guess that gives you the right to feel any way you want.  But damn, I've been at a doctors office at least once, usually twice a week for roughly 20 weeks, and only once - during cycle 2 downtown - did I see anybody remotely near my age in any clinic or treatment room.  And I have to believe that I have as justified a complaint as anybody about this stupid disease.  I mean, why make the situation worse.  It sucks.  I get it.  But why take it out on others, especially those who are trying to help you.  Is the standard among people really so low that I get complimented for not bitching about my doctor being behind or calling ahead when I'm late or saying "good morning" to people?

***

So if there's any validity to the notion that I've handled this in some special or unique way, then maybe it's that.  Maybe it's what I've done here since August and the effect of what I've done here.  I just know that I really, truly don't have any hard feelings about the whole thing.  Yeah, its a raw deal.  But I can name a whole host of people with bigger problems than I have.  And I really, truly don't see the need to make this ordeal more difficult for anybody else.  I like being able to write here because people who know exactly what I'm going through - or at least can read about it - worry less and understand more.  And so much fear is just the result of inadequate understanding.

So call me what you want - stubborn, cynical, sarcastic, funny, asshole, cantankerous - I'll agree with any of those adjectives.  If you want to add "positive" or "inspirational" in there, so be it.  I won't be offended. Perhaps those are just bred out of my stubbornness or cantankerousness anyway.  If you ask me, I'm not so much an optimist as I am a realist, and a realistic view of the situation does not necessitate me stomping around and snapping at people for half a year. 

But what I do know is this: I'm most proud of the fact that I've handled this like me.  I'm happy when others tell me, "Your blog is so you."  The cancer is going to have physical effects.  There's not much I can do to change that.  But I have a lot of control over the rest of the situation - the mental effects, the spillover effects on others, the way I react to the situation, and so on.  And the more I can remain myself, the less total damage cancer will have caused.

So that's one of the things this blog has been about: my struggle to remain me.  And this is my true self.  I'm not faking it.  And this blog - the thing that I spent a week agonizing over, more so than my diagnosis - has been as good a cancer-fighting tool as any other.