Next verse the same as the first!

I am not special. Probably the most significant thing I have ever done was to beat out 6,000,000 other little spermies in that great first race! I might have cheated, fought and clawed my way to the top. The swim of a lifetime and I don't remember it!
I don't remember how I got cancer, it doesn't come like that, suddenly like a broken arm. One day I was shaving and found "the lump"! a small, pea sized bump in my neck. I did take note of it but chose to ignore it, not out of any fear, but just because I had other things to do and I have never run to my doctor over every little cut and bump. A couple months later it was still there, a little bigger and now there were three of them! I thought of "Aliens" and knew I had something in me! It was a couple months after that when I went to my doctor! I had cancer in 132 places and in my spleen and spine! Well crap!
I always try to put things in perspective. The dinosaurs lived on this Earth for millions of years and the Human Species for about 10,000, at least as we know us to be. My best friend died at 27 years old in a construction accident. We killed Christ when He was about 30 years old.
Some infants only live for one breath! I was sixty-three and already beaten the odds many times over! It is not the way I would have chosen but my thought at the time was "this will be interesting!" And it is interesting if you want to see the edge of Hell. I was like Superman embedded in Kryptonite, every day withering away, getting sicker, dieing really.
Cancer survivors often go through a "why me" experience. Sometimes, and certainly in my case, we don't wonder why we got it, we wonder why we survived it! This chemo process is done in a sort of elegant warehouse where you are never alone but sitting side by side with other cancer patients and a lot of them don't show up the next week, always new ones taking their place. It is a difficult process to say the least and I began it while very strong.
It is gone now! I would like to say, "just like that"! I am now healing not from the cancer but from this voodoo chemical cure. That too is a long process, but truely every day is better and it is a great road compared to the one I have been on. In a way I feel "born again", given another chance, raced to the top and beat those six million spermies again! I have found no revolation, nothing spectacular that I need to do and am quite happy to continue on as I was, playing in my studio, a little art, a little writing, and working in my garden always after that "perfect tomato".

Followers of Followers

I find this "followers" aspect of blogging intriguing. I think much of it is done out of politeness,
okay you followed me, I'll join, I'll follow you! In reality I don't follow that many bloggers and some that are listed on my site no longer blog. I am not clever enough to delete these. I am always curious when someone becomes a follower and always go "check them out", sometimes reading every single blog they have posted. It doesn't stop there. I check out who is following them and sometimes who is following the followers of the followers! I am hunting for kindred spirits, a tribe of like-minded individuals; I am hunting for a prodigious use of language; I am hunting for art I have never seen; I am hunting for nooks and crannies, the secret places we hide the human soul.
I am officially a "cancer surviver", but have taken to reading the obituaries in my morning paper. Yes, I am still that old-fashioned! Cancer kills a lot of us. I read once that the ancient Egyptions, as evidenced from the mummies, never died of cancer. In reading the entire article you discover that their average age at death was forty years old! There is always the "rest of the story", a huge part of our life that is never investigated, never told. I knew a lot of these people in the obituaries. We sat together for four hours every two weeks while getting these chemo-cocktails. I saw their visitors, family and friends as they grew older and lost weight each visit. I participated in their struggle. The obituaries always say, "died of cancer", three little words that bring terror to our hearts and don't even begin to tell a story.
So, in reading these blogs I am learning your stories, and reading your stories make it easier to understand my own.

One Week to Live!

No, no, not me. At least I don't think it is me. We are almost never given this option anyway
and those that do get it are mostly beyond living anyway, too sick to create a "bucket list".
Actually I think this "bucket list" should be for the young, those eager and strong enough to accomplish their dreams. The dreams of youth should be huge! I am always saddened when they are limited to getting a job at McDonalds and buying a car! I am amazed that the Peace Corps
doesn't have lines eight blocks long to enroll in their programs offering a chance to see and live
another's life in a different culture on the other side of the Earth! Too many people live and die within 100 miles of where they were born. Horizons should be expanded, our experiences broadened, our curiosity awakened at an early age.
Youth is not determined by age, of course, and excitement and curiosity can be found in some
of us "older elders"! My mother flew in a hot air balloon over the Kilamari desert when she was
a mere 84! She gave up driving on her 90th birthday! When death took her I think she was ready and her bucket list was empty. She was simply waiting.

The Human Connection

The best part of this cancer "gift" is not in discovering our strengths, I think we know those pretty well. It is in discovering our weakness, how frail and temporary, fragile and powerless
life really is. We do not cause everything, stuff happens. Traditionally you are supposed to go through a "Why me?" phase, although I skipped this step. I have been extremely healthy most of my life and hadn't seen a doctor but four times in my entire life! But I smoked for 47 years, drank a lot until twenty years ago (I have the coin to prove it!), been around all kinds of obnoxious fumes and even drank water out of plastic water bottles! The voodoo doctors don't think any of this caused my cancer, it's just a gift, they don't know what causes Hodgekin's Lymphoma.
Cancer opens a million doors. It is as if I will show you my weakness if you show me yours. except there are no conditions, we are hungry to tell our stories. This blogging world makes it so easy and I have heard stories from all over the world: "I also have cancer, have fears and tears
and struggles and dreams" We are all connected by this "Human Condition" and, stealing a quote from another blogger, "We can live dieing or we can die living" those are the options.

The Blog is for Me

Blogging is like a modern day confessional. Maybe this whole computer thing allows an opening into the soul? When I Blog I am telling you what I am concerned about today, what is bothering me, what I am doing, the art I am producing, my hopes and dreams and the way I look at life.

We are told not to put too much on Facebook, be careful of what photos we post, and are reminded that the whole world is watching! We email people we hardly know and tell them things we wouldn't want others to know. The computer remembers everything! Every keystroke is permanently recorded! We can hit the "delete" button and empty the recycle bin and wish we hadn't said that, but it is still there! Hidden in some obscure cranny. The forbidden fruit once picked can't be put back on the tree. It is not necessary to get a computer expert to fish this out of our operating system, we know it is there. We have lost the art of communication

with people, afraid of being politically incorrect or hurtful, we become milktoast, would rather be bland than misunderstood. Except for this computer that doesn't talk back, has no reaction, can't be critical, can't cry and doesn't care to. We bare our soul to this machine, sometimes forgetting that someone might read it and always forgetting that it is not real. I am reminded of an elementary school teacher who shortstops a note from a boy to a girl and proceeds to read it to the whole class!

I think we have a need to be understood in our entirety, at least a need to understand ourselves that way. I am an artist, a welder, a gardener, a father, a friend, and so much more. It is a complex road system and some aspects of self-discovery lead to dead ends. No, that wasn't me:
hit delete!

There are no secrets. I was about 12 years old when Superman shot himself and my world changed forever. When David Carradine died (we all know how THAT happened!) I lost the KungFu guru I grew up with. Both of these bring a reality to my life and that is a wonderful thing about computers and the internet. I love Wikileaks and hate its destruction on how I view the world! Both. I think the internet will eventually bring a truth to the whole world. It still remains for us to separate truth from fantacy: in the World, in our relationships, with ourselves.

This Pill or Asperagus?

When a person "gets" (like it is a gift!) cancer people from all over the world will send you remedies. Take lots of vitamin D , mega doses of this or that or go on the asparagus diet!
Probably what I found most helpful was a daily dose of laughter. Several people sent me jokes
and just weird silly stuff that I looked forward to every day. Laughter is the best medicine.
Ralph gave me my daily Taoism, always kind-hearted with a gentle persuasion, an encouragement to do the right thing and others posted their beautiful and talented art. I learned we are all in a struggle of some kind and want to survive, express ouselves and be generous as our hearts allow. All things in moderation is probably best, but always leave room for dancing late at night and a great deal of laughter!

The Economics of Dieing

It was just after my 63 birthday when I discovered I had cancer. Initially you have a lot of time to think. The doctors run a battery of tests and waiting for these results offers an opportunity for reflection. I have worked at hard physical labor all of my life. Oh, I owned the company but I wasn't an office type owner, I was always with my crew in the ditches or on the roof, always doing what I expected of them. The plus of all this is I began my battle with cancer from a very strong position. I weighed 225 pounds and could easily lift 200 pounds, almost my own weight!

My heart checked out excellent (I know I have a good heart!) as did all the blood tests, blood pressure, cell counts and whatever else the doctors tested for. Except for the cancer I was pretty healthy and ready to enter the ring! I had twelve chemo-cocktails, four different poisons.

These were given me every two weeks through a tube implanted in my chest. I was strong and I was lucky, the first six of these did nothing adverse to me: no bad symptoms at all. I continued to work, welding and building and creating and no one could ever tell that "I had cancer".

Then it hit me like a frieght train in the middle of the night with its light out! My hair started to fall out, but that was the easy part. I have never been so tired in my life. It is not describable how tired I was and sleep became my friend. I slept 16 hours a day! There was no pain throughout all of this, at least until the end when neuropathy got my hands. I never threw up but totally lost my appetite. I tried to eat and my wife would make all sorts of dishes to tempt me. My daughter came to visit and tried her best to get me to eat. I sometimes would put food in my mouth and my brain would litterly say "spit it out or die". It is difficult to describe this period and I write it down so I won't forget it. I lost 50 pounds! In two months! In two months I became an old man, with that old man gait, the clothes that don't fit, the stoop, every effort to walk was all but impossible. Oh how I hated that. The chemo was doing its job I told myself constantly. I lost most of my finger nails and toe nails, and of course, all of my hair and 50 pounds! I always told myself that the cancer was going too! And I was right, it did! I am left with this neuropathy, a constant pain in my right hand, like stirring a bucket of cut glass! Collateral damage!

Throughout all this process, for 24 weeks, every two weeks I went to the "chemo-room" at the hospital to get these cocktails along with many others. Now, here is the sad part of this story.

A lot of them didn't make it.