retrospect...

I read my last blog and hot damn it's depressing. that's where I was in September, the same month that I learned things were looking good and I got a break from "treatment". so much has changed since then. I'm doing the yoga, I'm going to classes, I'm actually going to a yoga class later today. The meditating has become habitual and the insane thoughts, I can control for the most part. After my break from "treatment" I was hit with some not so good news, I'm back in treatment again. And as I type this, iTunes radio is playing a song called "you gotta get back to life." The universe is talking, screaming and has been for sometime, I was just so stuck in my own thoughts that I stopped listening.

I'm waiting for the little bit of hair that grew out during my break from "treatment" to start falling out again. But in the meantime I got an ill fade and am enjoying the follicles as they last. I welcome all the other follicles falling out, no waxing or shaving for me.

At some point and I can't tell you when exactly, more than likely during my little vacation in Haiti (that's a whole other blog) I realized I can harp on and on about what I've lost, I can smile my way through life on some ethereal shit or I can keep on living, day to day and taking it all as I would without this disease, its life.

Life goes on; your ex forgets you, friends fall to the wayside, it gets harder to find work but my rock star friends I've risen to the occasion, I'm truly over my ex and I'm meditating on getting work. I love the woman that I am, no really, I'm working on loving me more because that love gives me the strength to deal with moments of doubts, weakness and most of all fear. That love reminds me that I've been through a lot, before cancer galloped into my life, life wasn't OK or I wasn't OK with it. I'm good with it, it can be better, I'm focusing on doing better and hopefully that will help it to get better. Keep your head up not because I say so but because looking down makes you dizzy and the sky, with it's endless possibilities is so much prettier to look at.

prescriptions...

the fact that a cancer patient is prescribed a litany of drugs, should you ask for them, that can be the cause of a swift and painless death given the situation is both funny, haha and not so funny, side eye.

At a moments notice I could choose to end this whole charade, it isn't just about the big C though I must say my fuck me diagnosis doesn't leave me with dreams of a beautiful future. this illness takes a lot of things, confidence, your trust in your body, your belief in friendships and relationships, your belief in yourself but it doesn't take everything. It leaves you with bills, adds more fun ones to your plate, it leaves you wondering where and how you're going to provide for yourself given your current state of being, it leaves you with a lot of worry and it keeps on piling them on.

You learn yoga, don't do it because, well, you've had enough of life. You try to meditate but panic takes over and some days when you, well not you but I, get real zen like, you think of all those pills sitting in a draw just waiting to stop all the bullshit. Don't call me, don't text me, don't worry about me because of THIS blog. Did you really think I didn't think of this? I lay awake at night and wonder why do I keep living?  to hear more fucking bad news because no matter what the news folks, I got fuck me cancer and ain't no help me cures. But besides cancer, I'm not realistically hoping on love, kids, no, my family, I mean we're close but trust they'll get over it, so like everything else I'm living, walking around and breathing because I'm still holding out hope that a change is gonna come.

The last time I hoped for change, I got disease. So forgive me if there are days when I'm less than optimistic for the future. I had a rough weekend, in my head, in between my good days there's a host of shitty days, scary days and days when I just don't want to hang with you guys anymore. I love you all but we occupy different realities, I pray for a different outcome, I hope for a different outcome but I know it'll never be what it could have been and all in all y'all, I don't know what I'm fighting for.

hot doctors...

this weekend, I discovered hiding in the late weekend nights of my hospital, are, hot Indian doctors, very kind and flattering African nurses and despair that the things I think will make my situation better, aren't making situations better. I was in the emergency room, scared for a Milli second in Cancer time (about 3 hours) before I got there. I prayed not to get admitted, I expressed this to every warm body I bumped into and then I was admitted. I prayed I would be let go in the morning instead I was told it was the weekend and I'd probably get out Monday.

After my girlfriend went home, after I text my sisters the latest update, after I spoke to my mom on the phone. It was close to four am and I was dead tired, cold and listening to sounds that made me glad curtains separated the sight. A fever had gotten me here and I started to feel sorry for myself, angry at myself. Why isn't there anyone here to hold your hand? What is wrong with you why could you compromise like everyone else? Why aren't you eating more salads? Hope my mom doesn't find my bong when she has to go into my apt? My body has finally had enough SHUT THE FUCK UP!!! I AM TIRED!!!

Doogie Howser, staring for too long doctor: You can take the mask off your white blood cell count is good. We're going to take an x-ray. and then we'll probably admit you. Breath in. Deep Breaths. Sounds good. How are you dealing with the prognosis? 

Scrubs: would you like another blanket? 

Jewish Nurse: i was told to give you the antibiotic. we don't want to go through the port...

Ire escort: time for the x-ray ma;am 

Bald black shaft looking dude: wrap your arms around it like your giving it a hug...closer

Irie escort: no madd a wha happn' trust in Jesus. stay blessed

Seriously praying for her bunk mate: NURSE! I need my pain medicine..I'm in so much pain...why can't they just give me the surgery?! we were on the way and then we got homeless!!! I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN!! (this was my bunk mate for fucking real tho)

African Nurse: I have to get your blood. don't worry God will take care of you. You have that attitude you gonna get out of this. 

Seriously praying for her bunk mate: OH MY GOD! the pain!

Hot Indian Doctor 1:  we spoke on the phone 

Hot Indian Doctor 2: says you're a writer, what do you write?

Hot Indian Doctor 2: *sandwiching my hand between his two* everything looks good, a little more testing, the doctors need to talk and then we can get you out of here by mid afternoon, cool?

Hot Indian Scrub: Everything looks good, nurse should come by with some discharge papers, continue taking your prescribed meds, no reason to hold you longer, isn't that great?

Yup! that's awesome!

Nurse: lets get these papers signed quick, its lunch, ya know? 

Totally get it

Nurse: it was great serving you, have a great one.

before treatment...

On nights like this nothing makes the thoughts go away as far as I need them to go. I'm up when I should be asleep. I have treatment tomorrow and I thought I wasn't nervous, thought the port made it easier but I'm finding that it does and it doesn't .

Treatment, a reminder of the reality of my life. I'm thinking about work, money, how the fuck am I going to pay all these damn bills?!  I have to put on a brave face and go through the process tomorrow. The poking and the prodding, the cold room, the clinical smell, the stagnant air, the lifeless paint, the devoid doctors and hopeful smiles, that's my birds eye view of treatment.

Louis CK isn't helping, this glass of red wine isn't helping and the trees, they ain't helping. I could crawl into bed and take the Ambien the doctor prescribed, I can't sleep, didn't I mention. All this sounds depressing or not happy but it is neither of those things, it's just my life. God willing I'll wake up tomorrow, I'll do my breath work, I'll pray and more than likely cry before I get into the shower, put on my red lips, create some eyebrows and go to treatment.

I'm trying not to cry, it feels like I'm always trying not to cry. I had to be honest tonight, maybe saying all this will help me sleep, sleep, I can't sleep.

this love thing...

When all this first started, I knew for sure the one thing I could shelve, the one feeling I could do away with, was that love thing. I have the love of my friends, I have the love of my family but not that love that nuzzles into the side of your neck at 3am. A love that needn't make a sound but you hear it loud and clear, a cliche love, everything in my mind that isn't everything that I am is a cliche nowadays. But yeah, I thought I was going to lock my heart and my vagina in a box only to return when I'm well...I really fucking thought this?!!

Well ladies and a very few gents, I can't, I won't but going out here trying to date with this fucking thing is like, holy shit, as if I didn't have enough shit to spring on a dude! But I can't ignore it, I can't lock myself away. Life is beautiful, almost amplified at times and so are all of my feelings, but my soliloquy doesn't change the way that I feel about myself. I feel good most days, right, yeah. However, the bald head, the long present scar, the port, the port scar, it doesn't help in the self esteem department. If you're feeling sorry for me, go ahead, I can't tell you what to do with your feelings but this isn't my intent. I still get hit on by men, boys too and it isn't so much about getting hit on or copping a feel off of some really dense but shapely man at a bar, as it is, who wants to deal with all of this?  Doctors visits, Nuelasta days, emotional mayhem and a very uncertain future on top of all the aforementioned stuff and I'm still kind of an asshole.

But nothing has changed, I am all the things I was before and a little bit better, better in all those cliche ways that I always thought would be better for me. But I'm not banking on it, I'm hopeful but I always ask myself the same question, if the shoe was on the other foot, would I do it?  Oh Love is indeed splendid and a pain in my ass right now.

good days...

That's me!

How can you have good days and have cancer?! But there are good days, days where I get a kick out of the fact that I can run faster, longer and better than I ever could BC. Days, where I'm having a few hearty giggles with two amazing women, who happen to be my friends on a candle lit back porch. Days when the Doctor filling in for my robot doctor, off handily comments on how good I'm doing on chemo. Shall I go on?! But of course; I'm making my own ice cream, I've re cut the umbilical cord from mom, it was great having her around but I needed to do that thing, I was fighting so much in the beginning of this journey; get back to normal.

Normal, my new normal is trying to be present, taking care of myself, really take care of myself, weeding out the people that no longer serve a purpose. Yoga, running, eating right, trying to at least (A girl can only eat but so much kale) and coming to the realization that this disease doesn't have me, I have it, I'm in control of what my life is going to be. This asshole may or may not have a say so in how it's going to end but it can't have how I'm going to live.

I have great days, I've had some real good days, do I ever forget that I have this? Not really, its always lurking in the background but does it cause me the grief, anxiety and sheer panic that it once did? from time to time but not as often. We're all dying and I don't say that to be glib or morbid but we are, my shit is, how do you say, it's laid out a little more clearly and maybe it isn't. This life isn't as black and white as we want it to be and cancer has only made things grayer.

There's a lot of shit going on out there. A lot of anger and sadness, not to mention illness, we're all scared it seems, scared of what's to come. Trying to hold onto what was and forgetting what it really was, meanwhile right now is just passing you by. This is one of the "good" things this disease has given me, it's taken away those diseases from which I use to suffer. If I can be present, everyday, I think I have more great days ahead. You should try it sometime, maybe now, just think of how lucky you are and how awesome all that good shit that happened to you today was and is.  Or to quote my therapist; " I don't think humans know how to live with Good and Bad, the world has taught us it's gotta be all good or all bad that they can't be happening simultaneously, most people who go through this successfully, find that balance."

Balance my friends.

treatment...

Taken during treatment. I stay hydrated.

The other day a friend asked "what's treatment like?" Quick walk through for those who are curious but are too afraid to ask. Treatment if you haven't realized -took me sometime- refers to chemotherapy, I think someone was wise enough to realize, no matter how you say chemotherapy, you're still saying chemotherapy.

When I show up for treatment, I must first speak to my doctor, a sadist, who really isn't going to give me any helpful or productive information.

Once I've wrapped the medical probing, before which I've been weighed and asked if I'm in pain a few times, I'm placed in the treatment waiting room. Eventually a nurse will show up to guide me to the infusion area- nurses, are the angels, the saving graces that make this dehumanizing situation in the least bit tolerable-. Once seated in the recliner (oh they fancy), with a chair by it's side for my treatment date, blood is drawn, when the blood work comes back all good; the magic happens. Saline to flush out the vein, while the pharmacy draws up my liquid magic, it shows up and for the next hour to three hours; drip, drip, drip, that's it, that's treatment. Treatment in essence isn't what I imagined chemo would be but at the same time I really never fucking imagined what chemo would be.

Treatment for me sucks, before, during and after, oh shit treatment sucks for me, shocker! No, seriously, the better part of the experience for me is during; I've battled the anxiety of getting there, I've passed the fitness portion and now it's just me, my date and my fellow treatment friends. My treatment friends aren't always upbeat but I understand. My treatment friends sometimes say nothing at all, just smile. I had one creepy treatment friend, stare at my sister and I for so long and weirdly, we had the curtain drawn -who doesn't have a creepy friend?-

I see some of my treatment friends often, some I see from time to time and I try not to think too hard when I don't see one, it's scary with us being in treatment and all. These people if only having shared that space with me once or a few times are friends, we have an immediate understanding, a knowing a feeling, as my friend Denise would say, we're part of a club no one wants to be in. But don't pity my treatment friends and I, we laugh up in there, we have personal TVs, some of us have dates and for those who don't, there's Katrina, the lovely Irish nurse who sings when she speaks. When my treatment friends are done with treatment we smile and tell each other to; be well, have a goodnight, have a good one  and we mean it, at least I know I do. Within minutes of meeting each other, we're already hoping and wishing for the best for one another, not many clubs offer that.