Goliath and I

August 22nd results: Clean!

2011-08-30T10:14:00.000-04:00

Okay. So I have much to report to you. My MRI/checkup on August 22nd went very well. Everything came back clean and stable and there was nothing of interest to tell me about it. It was great, more of a social call than anything else. What is kind of disturbing me is that I was halfway expecting it. This is not good because I know that there will be one sunny day when those expectations will end up crumbling to the ground as a result of the earth shattering news that, in fact, he's back, and he's in better shape than ever before. I need to be thankful every single time I get news like this, but I'm slowly expecting it. I just need to work my way out of that.

I've read articles where 5, 6 years later, the tumor returns. That could very easily be me. How does a patient handle the news all over again? I don't know. I know that Doctors desperately detest giving it. I really don't want that day to ever appear my future.

In more positive news, the semester at Temple has started, and I think I have a good class. There are some talkers and trouble makers in there, so I think it'll be everything that I want in a good class. It's good because I'm anxious, but not overly anxious about teaching. I have a firm place to start which is really all I ask for. Not drowning in my own fear of public speaking anymore. It was actually kind of natural.

Well at least I have a new super power...

2011-06-16T21:14:00.001-04:00

So I'm just writing this to let you all know that after this whole brain cancer fiasco, I at least get a taste of what it's like to have superpowers. Now some of you may say that I don't really have superpowers, but that it's just from the massive doses of radiation I received to kill the unrelenting growth of killer cells in my brain, but you see, I don't see it that way. Just as the Fantastic Four were dosed with extremely high radiation in outer space, I was dosed with extremely high radiation (unfortunately, though, here on earth). Though they got cool super powers like invisibility, fire and flight, I, on the other hand, get the unique ability to grow extra curly hair in the tip of my hair at the front of my head (I was hoping that I would have a gray streak of hair growing in a la Rogue in X-Men, but alas, I did not.

I am proud of my curly hair. Like a tattoo, it's a sign of what I've been through. I just lost my list of comparisons. Actually I never really had one (I really have no idea why that was the first comparison to spring to mind).

Nevertheless, it's been incredibly difficult to get back to 'regular life'. I say this because I never realized the difficulty that I would have just getting used to barbacking again. A few weeks ago, there was a day where I had ankle pain, knee pain, and my throat was getting soar. It was killing me (that's the thespian in me in case you're wondering). So I've been wearing a knee brace for the last few weeks because the only thing worse than throwing out your back is having crippling knee pain.

My next check up's at the end of August, so if I don't write before then, you'll definitely hear about it after.

1 year and no Tumor!

2011-04-26T10:10:00.000-04:00

My MRI yesterday came back clean, and we all celebrated (Not really though. It was more of a private celebration). That being said, it's been a whole year, and I still have no Tumor. Needless to say, my whole team is very happy for me. I did kind of meander through hell to get here, and I'm hoping to stay here (rather than traversing back through the fires of hell again) as long as I can.

So I've come back to Philly. I was offered a job at Temple (which, as of right now, I'm planning on teaching). So I have to prepare the materials for that class. But before I get to that, I have to set my life back up here (by the way, I have so much junk, I think I'm a closet pack rat). Looking forward to it though. I think my laundry list of to-dos might be a summer-long list rather than a list to take care of over a few days.

I also desperately need a hair cut (I thought you guys couldn't live without that information).

OK OK this time it's for real

2011-03-16T22:59:00.000-04:00

So I know I've claimed that I'm moving back to Philly, but this time I think I may actually mean it (provided that I can find a job). The problem is that I can't find work anywhere down in Atlanta (or anywhere else for that matter). I know the economy's seen better days but is it really that bad right now?

On top of that I'm so absurdly bored that I don't even have the desire to do anything anymore. I think my boredom is sucking the life out of me. All I want to do is sit around and watch crappy action movies. I really hope this isn't symbolic of what my 30's are going to be like...

I've got another MRI appt on April 25th, so after that I'll be heading up to Philly. Alright folks, get ready for a whole lot of me.

Summing up all my manliness for this one

2011-02-20T11:30:00.002-05:00

This took a large pair of cajones to write guys because I don't really think that I wanted to admit it to myself. But I think that I may kind of be scared to get back into the real world (sometimes I feel like I am in the real world but I'm hesitant to go back to the fake one). After searching through all of these places that I could make a new home, the same fear still plagues me.

What makes me afraid, you may be asking yourself, to go back to the real world? I'm still working through this, but I think that at least part of the answer is that I'm afraid to get comfortable somewhere that I may have to rip myself out of again if (and maybe when) this tumor begins it's next ascent on my life. Can I not be comfortable anywhere then? I don't know the answer to that one.

I think that part of the problem (which I already know) is that I'm too comfortable here. I can work on music, watch TV, and read books all at my leisure (I can't find a damn job, ok!). I had trouble doing all of these in my old life (I didn't watch televised TV though, nor did I really want to). I think the problem is that I feel comfortable enough now to do those things here, and I may not feel that comfortable wherever I move. Sure, there'll be some hectic moving in nonsense to deal with, but I want to be this comfortable wherever I move. I wasn't ever this comfortable before, and I don't want to give it up.

So I'm stuck: I can't let myself get comfortable again due to possibly having to be ripped out, but at the same time, I want to be as comfortable as I am now. I don't know what to do.

I've also realized that I can't move back into the life I had before. I'm not a 22 year-old going back to Philly. I'm going to be 30 next month, and I've decided that it's now or never when it comes to growing up (I was not an adult at 22 and this little project may not work out). I've just decided that I'm too old to be moving back to a bar job (that I'm not even on the books at) that I've barely held on to for the last 2-plus years and for a band that I haven't played with much for 2-plus years.

If I end up moving back to Philly (which actually looks like the biggest possibility right now), I'll have to start everything over again. So I may move close to Drexel in West Philly if I decide to do that. If this happens, I'm of course, really excited to start playing again with Cloud Minder, I just don't think I can move back to Philly only because of an old band. I'm old enough to expect a little bit more from my life.

What the hell am I doing?

2011-01-20T14:06:00.000-05:00

I have no idea what's going on. I don't know where to live or what to do. I realized this last night when I should've been sleeping (i.e. the only time I have deep meaningful thoughts). Ugh...

Anyway, I don't think I'm going to be moving back up to Philly...not right now at least. I don't know enough to say much more. It's far too cold for me to be up there huddled in front of a heater with not much else going on. I need to be busy to live up in a frigid situation like that. I hate to say it, but I'm going to be living down here for a little while.

I am looking forward to my trip to San Diego and my road trip as well. Beyond that I don't know.

Write more when I know it.

That makes two clean MRIs

2011-01-10T23:56:00.003-05:00

Since I've been up in Philly during my move-in-two-parts, I've had tons of trouble finding someone to take me to my appointment with Dr. Q today. It would've helped had I found someone that would take me down one month before hand, but being the fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of guy I am (Actually, I felt kind of bad because whoever would give me a ride would also be giving up a whole day) and after harassing several people to give me a ride, I finally forced Cassie into it (actually she very willingly gave up her much needed shift today).

Laughing our way down to Baltimore (which was just what I needed, it kept my mind from wandering to the massively disconcerting problems that potentially lay in my immediate future), we made good time (largely because of Cassie's persistent tongue-lashings due to my unsatisfactory driving speed). Cassie's a doll though. We had a good time, and during the nerve-wracking wait for my appointment, she was there for me. I really appreciate that Cassie.

I'm excited to be moving back into the real world, but that doesn't quite remove some of the strangeness that creeps over me now and again that I've felt since being back in the real (or maybe a better word is new) world. It's almost like I don't quite deserve it (hmmm...that's not quite it though). Maybe...how can I deserve to go back to a fairly normal existence when some of my friends have died and others have been ripped out of their lives never to return to what they once knew. I may be (or probably am) over-thinking this, but here I am, after this unbelievably life-changing experience, able to step back into my old life while also being given the gift of a second chance, a second chance to do things right or, at least, to do them with my feet actually on the ground rather than floating somewhere above. I'm moving back up here for better or worse (hopefully for the better), and I'm getting back to where I was before my world crumbled.

This is also my 100th post. I don't know if that's something to celebrate or not...

1/1/11: Good bye to yet another year I've completely washed my hands of

2011-01-03T13:54:00.000-05:00

2011. I'm finally able to start a year off with the right foot rather than the badly mangled stump of one that I've started the year off with lately. It feels good to NOT be fearing for my life for once in what seems like a vast wasteland of an eternity (I'm chuckling right now because, for some reason, the first Planet of the Apes just came to mind). I still have to make an appointment with Dr. Q on the 10th, but I'm not having any of the dreaded telltale symptoms that something new is festering inside my skull for which I'm ultimately thankful.

Everything's not as nice and neat as it seems though. Brewing under my (seemingly) content exterior, something's gurgling within me that's more unsettling than not. It's something that I never really expected to happen to me. So the problem is that I'm having trouble being a part of everyone's happy, careless (not really careless just seemingly so), and carefree lives. For example at my first shift back at the taproom the other night, it started off being good to see everyone, but then everyone started dancing around having a great time one girl even danced on the bar, and though it was good to watch these people having such a good time, I thought to myself that it had been such a long time since I'd been able to let loose and just freak out for a little bit like everyone there that I began to wonder if I could even do that again.

It was so weird. Such an unexpected and altogether alienating experience, that it almost took my breath away. I almost didn't feel like I was myself anymore. I was living the life of my twin--alike in appearance and recognized as such--but I'm simply not the person I used to be. Now I'm left wondering what the hell I can do, even who I am now.

I'm hoping this is just a phase that I'm going through in this real world re-entering period and that it'll end just as quickly as it began, but right now nothing's for sure. I feel like I'm walking around upside down. Strange...

I'm Free!

2010-12-21T13:05:00.004-05:00

I'm done.

Now I can actually move on to all the things that I've been putting off for the past 3 months: book prep, actually making music (instead of longing to play my equipment in my room that's just gathering dust), devoting time to not studying anything at all...ever, not reading things that're about systemic bodily processes or the nature of how microscopic parts of our universe interact with each other. I'm OK with this.

In some way (whatever way it is, it's obviously magical), I actually got an A and B; which is crazy because by the end of the quarter, I thought I'd definitely be getting a C in Chemistry, but somehow (which I won't go into for the sake of remaining on the positive side of the spectrum), I got a B. Hmmm, well I guess that's what you get for studying your ass off for an entire quarter (because I literally had nothing else to do). At least last quarter, I had the Cloud Minder album to mix. This one really dragged it's dull weight across the boring sands of time in the last three months...but now, suddenly, it's over.

The move back up to Philly's both exciting and I think its begun its slow descent over the edge of nerve-wracking. I guess I'm getting back into it the the same way I moved up there. I didn't really know much of anything that was going on before nor do I have any idea what to expect now (other than a show and a doctor's appointment, but I also need a haircut...badly). I guess that's just how my life goes I guess.

Just another part of my honesty phase (I know...it's getting old)

2010-12-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

I've been depressed for a long time. Wait...no...I was depressed for a long time. I hated school in High School. The socialness of it, the cliquiness, the snottiness--hated it (I did have some good friends though). Then I went to college and lived with Matt my swimming buddy in good ol' Russel Hall at UGA, but alas, I couldn't stand that either. Looking back on it now (and after reading up on depression for the last few years), I've realized how terribly negative I was in my youth. I was negative about the world but especially about myself. It seemed like I couldn't get anything right. I got through the depression over time (all it took was a diagnosis of Brain Cancer and a forced positive attitude...just those two small things).

Eventually, I graduated from college and decided that I needed to see a place that exemplified what I'd been studying in college (Anthropology and Religion). Thailand and other parts of Southeast Asia had just gotten wiped out by a major tidal wave (Dec. 2004), so I decided to go to Thailand for 6 weeks. After I returned (a bit thin and distraught), I moved up to Philly (not knowing a thing about the city) for grad school (but really to play in a band. Grad school was just what I decided to tell the 'accomplished' folks who asked). Unfortunately, four years later I was just depressed as ever. Nothing had changed.

What happened was that during college I hid it more and more from my friends, but more importantly, I was hiding it from myself. I knew it back in 7th and 8th grade but over time it seemed like it slowly faded from existence itself. Looking back on it later on, I rationalized it that it was just a perfect example of the terror and horror of growing up in East Cobb. I was wrong though.

In the last two years (since I've been diagnosed), I slowly began to wake up to my state of mind. You see I had to think positively. There was absolutely no other way around it. Eventually thinking positively actually took hold of me; that's when I really began to notice what had become of my old state of mind.

What initially began to wake me up was an article that I read about depression. Essentially the article says that clinically depressed people don't express any of their ideas for what they want to accomplish in their lives because they don't enjoy anything. Apparently enjoyment precedes the discovery of what a person is good at and the desire to do something with one's life. If you don't enjoy anything, you can't possibly know what you're good at. The article goes on to say that depression causes the victim to lose a sense of what being happy even is. Clinically depressed people eventually forget what happiness feels like; they lose the sense of its meaning. After reading this, I began to wonder if maybe that's why I tried all those different hobbies and jobs. I just didn't have any sense of what I wanted to do with my life. To this day, I still notice myself wondering if people are walking around 'happy' or 'satisfied' or if they're just walking around as miserable as I was.

Now I know what being happy and satisfied actually is--it just took a brain tumor and a positive attitude, that's all. Now I know you're wondering why I'm going into this this extended diatribe about my depression (wah wah, I know). It's because now I have an excuse for going back to Philly (besides the fact that I have tons of great friends up there and a band to boot). This may sound cheesy, but I mean to start Philly over again, to start living over again.

Thanks for reading.

After six months...I can drive!

2010-12-01T08:49:00.001-05:00

This is me contentedly hugging my new car. I got my license back yesterday, and drove around all night (actually just to two coffee shops and Walgreens), but nonetheless, the world seems so big now. I can go to Athens whenever I want, or I can go down to Atlanta whenever I feel that it's necessary--on a whim, if you will. The best part is that I don't have to wait two hours to get anywhere AND I don't have to wait for people to pick me up. I can come and go as I please. Ahhhh...

Honestly, I didn't let myself get depressed about this whole ordeal (an effect of my 'positive' attitude I guess), but let me tell you something: not being able to drive in metro Atlanta is not for the weak of heart. I could've very easily lost my mind and watched clowns jumping around in my mind but thanks to my 'positivity' (I put it in quotes because I'm not entirely convinced of its existence), I managed to keep my mind focused on more beneficial items. Here's to driving!

Thanksgiving and half-way to the end

2010-11-28T14:35:00.000-05:00

This is how I spent my Thanksgiving: My family and I met with my sister's boyfriend Matt and his family at at her house for the Great Thanksgiving Meal. Now I realize that you're probably wondering why I capitalized the previous words. This is because, for the thirteen of us populating our group, we had two disproportionately large turkeys, one hock of ham, and several slices of chicken, not to mention all the dishes of fancy we had to accompany our wonderful meal. By the end, I was wondering when the next table of 13 would be coming in to finish off the meal (that we could tag-team wrestling style, of course). Unfortunately for me though, I was on chemo, and my hunger was somehow below zero (which means I didn't want the food in me, aka, I wanted to vomit). Unfortunately for me (or possibly fortunately depending on your perspective on the issue), I didn't get to eat all that much. It was a nice Thanksgiving though. I'll give it that much.

Which brings us to my second point, as of right now I'm halfway through the chemo portion of this happy little venture (which I will not look back on with anything resembling a smile in any way). My red and white blood cell levels are slowly descending so there's a chance that I may have to have some other treatment sooner or later, but that's neither here nor there.

So I booked a flight to start the move back up to Philly. Hopefully, I'll hear good news that I may (or hopefully will) receive at my doctor's appointment on Jan. 10th. Then I'm flying back here on January 12th to go to Kev Toland's wedding in San Diego, so I somehow got sucked into a road trip involving 4 friends, 2 dogs, and 1 car (I'm actually really glad. It'll be tons of fun and exactly what I need after all the craziness of the last couple years).

This whole deal still seems unreal to me, though. I haven't worked more than a few hours a week this year (I wonder if my back will get tired from standing all day like it used to when I first started working in the service industry back in High School.) I don't know if I signed up for starting life up again like I'm back in high school. Not that I didn't have some good times back then, but I'd hate to be in that angsty phase again. I'm glad those years are behind me...far behind.

All Clear!

2010-09-20T21:08:00.000-04:00

I just got news today that my MRI results came back clean as a whistle. I am so relieved. Just in case you find yourself involved in an argument with someone trying to convince you that getting up at 5am and fidgeting like a child is worthwhile is, in fact, lying straight to your face (in case you were wondering). Now I just get to relax in Philly with my friends until Saturday evening. It's strange, having nothing to do is kind of...uncomfortable (and for some reason, I really don't feel like writing right now).

Just wanted to let everyone know I was so happy earlier that I gave my doctor a big ol' bear hug!

I've finished one-quarter of this (ridiculous) race

2010-09-09T12:13:00.000-04:00

Phew! I'm glad that's over.

I just finished month 3 of the looonnggg 12 round chemo program that I'm on. This round was fairly tough too. No different in terms of quantity of the drug, but I don't actually remember much from the last week (I struck an unlucky note and won a test and a speech that I had to be studying for the whole time). For some reason, this time felt significantly more trying than the last time. Maybe it's because I knew what was coming, and, like the train traveling down the tracks to my end--I could see it coming.

That being said I feel better now; not totally back to normal, but certainly better than I was feeling. For a little while, I didn't feel any desire to talk to anyone, I didn't want to leave...ever, or do anything. I was sick and exhausted. Not so tired that I wanted to sleep all day. No...I couldn't sleep at all actually. I'd just lay there and hurt all over.

I'm complaining because it's terrible compared to normal life, but in the world of Chemotherapy, it's nothing. I can do it in my own house and feel like crap on my own terms. Everyone else with cancer has to go somewhere to have these toxins pumped through their veins...it's terrible. They get poisons pumped into their bodies and then they have to feel themselves start feeling terrible in public. Fortunately for me, I don't have to do this, but I just felt like expressing all the crap that I go through when I have these episodes.

Essentially, I think this is the way my life's going to work for the rest of my chemo program. At the beginning of every month, I'll fall off the planet for a week. Then I'll reappear as if nothing ever happened. Strange, isn't it?

Month two goes down, down the drain

2010-08-17T23:33:00.000-04:00

Here I am writing at the computer just having finished month two of my twelve month stint and I feel tired...

I wrote that just after I finished doing chemo last week, and I was tired. So tired that I couldn't finish writing this blog. In fact I was so astonishingly tired because I actually threw up after I worked out too hard. I know what you're thinking, "Wow, this guy can sure take some crap." Well the truth is that, without a doubt, I certainly cannot; I wan't even taking the chemo that day. It had been two days since I was on the chemo. I said, "OK today I can workout. I'll be fine. What could go wrong?" All I remember is throwing up on the plants outside.

...I'm actually not that concerned about it, actually. At the time I had low level nausea for the last two days of the 5 day chemo cycle and then the first 3 days afterward. That's why I have the anti-nausea wristband that I'm amazed at in the picture above. Actually I don't if I'm amazed or more amidst a taadaah-moment.

Well I'm very happy to share that I have hair growing in. It's not blonde or frizzy (though it'd be funny if it was like that...but only for a minute). I have a massive gash crossing my forehead above my left eye all the way over to my left temple. Quite impressive, I have to admit. I guess I'll always stand out in crowd now if I'm not wearing a hat.

So my current thoughts about the future are kind of ever evolving, but what I'm thinking at the moment is that I really miss playing in Cloud Minder. That being said, I want to try to get back up to Philly, but i also need to continue doing something with my time, i.e. mri technology, i.e learning it, so I'll have to apply to some schools up there. I'll keep you posted on the goings on in this realm.

4th of July in Philly and weddings galore!

2010-07-04T22:48:00.000-04:00

So I'm spending my 4th of July up in Philly mainly for Jay's (the other Cloud Minder guitarist) wedding. It was superb. Although on a side note, I did accidentally kind of miss the actual wedding...oops. You see there was an a-hole of a foreign driver that I couldn't even understand over his complaints the whole drive. He doesn't know where we're going, and I'm trying to find the place, but this guy won't shut his yapper for the fifteen minute drive that was ahead of us (it actually turned into a longer drive as his complaining got us lost). Needless to say, this guy was a jerk. I got so tired of listening to his complaining that, after his requested tip of 6, 7 or 10 bucks I gave $8. I couldn't handle his whining anymore. Oh and I wasn't even there yet. I still had to walk to get there. Jerk.

The wedding was fantastic though. It was small only about 50 folks at a wonderful house called Appleford out amidst the beauty of Lower Merion twp. After the wedding, I got there and super hydrated myself (I was mighty thirsty after walking as far as I did.) It meant quite a bit to Jay that I was there, so I'm glad that I went. I'm going to include a picture just because that's what I do.

By the way, this picture sums up the beauty of where I was (it actually doesn't at all. It was just one of the few shots of the grounds that actually turned out from my camera that needs a serious menu reset.)

Tired, I'm really tired

2010-07-02T14:34:00.000-04:00

Well one thing this seven day chemo extravaganza turned up is that I'm tired. I'm absolutely, totally exhausted. I'd be sick many nights, but thanks to the anti-nausea pills the nausea didn't really take a toll on me. But the last two days I was on that fantastic little poison pill, i started feeling exhausted from the moment I opened my eyes. I wanted to go back to sleepyland. Unfortunately-for some unknown reason-i couldn't. It's not like I didn't want to go visit sleepyland, I just think I have a low red blood cell count. So it's not like I'm tired, essentially I just can't get enough oxygen in my body to feel more energetic.

Ok I think I'm going to go lay in my bed now and drift off to that strange land between sleep and wakefulness. That's all I really want to do right now.

One day down, 364 more to go...

2010-06-25T14:21:00.000-04:00

Well I've discovered today that starting chemo makes my lack of driving ability seem less frustrating as I'm tired (even when i wake up from a nap). This isn't nearly as bad as I feared, so it's a good thing...? Hopefully my tiredness will lend itself to higher energy levels in the days and weeks ahead, but as for right now, I have no desire to do anything. My mom, my niece and I are heading over to Borders to stand around and look at books, and I find myself seriously questioning whether or not I can actually do this.

So I think I need to back up first for a minute and explain some things. I've convinced my oncologist to put me on a dose-sense plan of Temodar. It would seem (according to an informant who is a long-term survivor of Glioblastoma (GBM) that people with negative values on their MGMT tests (done to test the effectiveness of Temodar at Mass. General) actually seem to respond better to Temodar when on this plan. So my plan goes as such: I take 250 mg/day for 7 days then I take 7 days off, repeat. So this schedule will have me on a smaller dose for more days/month. Instead of being on a 5 days of 28 schedule I'm on 7 and off 7.

Well now that I look back, I'm sure I could've stated all this info much more concisely (and probably much less boringly).

So I think in the coming months ahead, it remains truly important that I'm not totally out of it for half the month every month (especially when I'm in school). Though I'm sure that many people have been through much worse, it's still not a very pleasing thought.

Seizures: can they cause anything good?

2010-06-23T16:48:00.002-04:00

So...I'm stuck in the Atlanta suburbs with no way to drive. It's just me and my bike avoiding terrible traffic, trying desperately to get around. I wish, I really wish that I never would've had those seizures...life really bites right now. I can't get around. I have to wait for my friends to pick me up, or even worse, my parents have to give me a ride. "Hey there twenty-nine year old wanna feel like you're back in high school again? Well here you go. That's just too bad." Ugh.

So I'm starting to go crazy. I have to get out, get around or do something to feel my age. I'm taking classes at a Tech School, and although it's good that I'm doing it, it's still something that people much younger than I do. AHHHHH! I just need to let off some steam, but I have no idea how, when or where (or maybe why???).

I think this is actually worse than all the cancer crap that I've been through. Is that possible?

Philly: A seizure-filled experience

2010-06-11T21:04:00.004-04:00

Well I was supposed to have a good time in Philly, but instead it turned into a terrible trip full of seizures. Well there were just two (I think that would count as two to many though). On my side, I had gotten off my anticonvulsant drug Keppra about three weeks (I think?) prior to flying up there. On the other side of things though, I did kind of ask for it by losing the Keppra, but (going back to the other side of things) I didn't have a seizure for upwards of three months. Can you expect anything less?

So we didn't play our show. The guys in the band thought that it was a bad idea to play a show the day after a seizure. With it put that way, I guess I see where they were coming from. The unfortunate side of it though, is that I didn't get to play a show...wah wah, I know.

Fortunately for me, I'm back on Keppra now, and (though it's only been a week), I haven't had another seizure. The sad part of this whole story is that at this point in time I'm terribly afraid that I'm going to have another one; so afraid that I don't know if I'm actually feeling a seizure coming on or if it's just the fear that provokes the feeling. Like I said, this is the unfortunate side of it: are the seizures entirely psychosomatic or are they a real event occurring at this point in my ever so eventful life? There's no way for me to know the answer to this question right now, so like all else that's important in my life, only time will tell. If I don't actually end up having another seizure in a few months...then I'm in the clear.

Oh yes and due to this whole seizure epidemic I can't drive right now, so now I'm stuck here in Cobb County with no car. Needless to say, I bought another bike...and the bus system's next on my list. Cobb Community Transit look out!

Oh, I can't remember if I've posted a picture with all of my hair gone, but here it is!

I'm Done!

2010-05-27T16:10:00.002-04:00

The 6 weeks (well 7 actually) that I had to spend going down to that wondrous radiation clinic every Monday through Friday are over. As well as the 7 weeks that I had to spend taking chemotherapy every night are over. In other words, It's done. (Take that radiation oncology!)

Well actually it's just over for a few weeks. Then I'll do the lonely trot (aka the incredible hulk series) meandering down the chemotherapy highway in my attempt to elude the agents of cancer, (but who are really asking for it by messing with the aforementioned incredible hulk). But at least i can just be chemo-boy and not radio-chemo-boy. Hopefully the next year will go by as quickly as the last 7 weeks have. Though somehow, I suspect that that's not physically possible. According to physics a year is always and in all places longer than 7 weeks. It just is.

I have a couple weeks to heal (please die cancer), so in the meantime, I'll be heading up to Philly. So all you Philly folks better get ready for some ultra concentrated Daveyness.

Oh We're also playing a show up there on Tuesday the 1st. Don't know where, how or with whom yet, but for the first time in over one and a half years, we're playing out. Nice. Hmmm wait...I play guitar right?

Six days and a little less hair remain...

2010-05-16T16:54:00.000-04:00

I seem to be losing more hair everyday. Today my head started peeling, BUT I no longer have the rapid headaches when I lower my head down closer to my heart. I'm so glad that I won't be dealing with those anymore; I was starting to worry.

I do have a pretty killer mohawk right now. I guess it'll be a nice thing to have during the months of waiting for my hair to start growing back. I may have to shave it off though. I don't know if I can have it for three straight months. Let's see...I've got two nasty looking scars and a mohawk. That's fairly intimidating.

SO...

I'm starting to think thoughts of next steps. Any suggestions? I could move back up to Philly, get a house close by and start a little studio in an extra room and get back into teaching (I guess kind of try to pick up where I left off)
or
I could stay down here in Atlanta for a little while and take an RT class at Chattahoochee Tech. I'd be living here for free at Ben's (my brother) house and working for my sister, but I don't know if I'd be happy with this...

I need help. Thoughts???

A new haircut and Jasmine's birthday hat

2010-05-12T16:17:00.001-04:00

It was tough, but today...I did it. I shaved it. My hair's almost gone for the first time since High School. It kind of feels good, but at the same time I feel like my head weighs next to nothing, and there're some hefty bald spots on it, but nonetheless, I don't have to wear a scarf (the birthday hat's not gonna cut it either), and for that, I'm more than pleased. Because as you see, I don't want to just be a cancer victim. This cancer's just a trial that's happening to me in my life right now. I'm dealing with it as anyone deals with anything difficult: one step at a time. The scarf would make me more of a victim, and I'm not a victim. I'm just a guy.

There are eight more radiation holes left in my proverbial radiation belt. It's come and gone rather quickly. The whole fourth surgery put a bit of a wrench in the works, but I got through it, and now here I am. Lately, I've noticed that I need to have more time to be able to get more done (I'm so glad that I actually feel this way rather than just being tired, throwing up, and having whole-body aches). Two to three hours midday really confounds the flow of time. In the next few weeks I'll be able to do much more.

Now I have to figure out how to take the next step...

Comb over of the century!

2010-05-03T16:52:00.006-04:00

I'm close to 100% positive that I looked like a Hindu priest before re-doing my hair took precedence today. If you look closely enough, I'm pretty sure that you can see the little red dot on my forehead. With the beard and the Hinduish head dressing, how could I not be mistaken for a priest? (sans that shirt me thinks)

This is what I looked like right before I got down to business on my hair today. As you can see, there's a horrific dearth of hair on the front of my head. This is from the radiation that scandalously accosts me daily. It was fairly horrific at the hospital, my hair suddenly just all fell out. It was everywhere. All over my pillow, stuck to my shirt. The first shower I took after surgery must've looked like I was being shaven, but I wasn't. My whole head of hair was in the drain afterward and I didn't even cut it. It just fell out.

Due to these affronts, I've had to manage my way through haircut territory. Being that I have very little to work with, I've decided on a mohawk/comb-over-of-the-century. It's the first time I've ever had one, so we'll see how it looks when I spike it out. I mean, it will be fairly hardcore. With the scar stretching across the front of my skull and the other in the back of my head--mohawk flaring--I wouldn't want to mess with me.

This is how I look now. The sides and back are totally shaven, and all the hair you see is combed over from the middle of my head. This is why it is the comb over of the century. It doesn't look too bad from the front here, but from the back and sides...yeah, we'll have to see about that.

Honestly though, I feel like a different person compared to the way I felt a week ago. Let no man say that hydrocephalus is for the birds--It'll bring you down without you even knowing it. You simply just fall asleep and never get up--and when you do, you throw up...a whole lot.

Today was the halfway point of my radiation therapy. One-half done, one-half to go. It feels good (now that my hair's in the process of falling out) to know that I'm through (still in maybe?) the worst of it. It's weird (kind of like an adventure that I never ever would've undertaken in the past), but I feel somehow blessed with the knowledge that I can get through this. It may be scary and it may not be any fun (for a while) sometimes, but these times always pass. Such is life though, right?

A final comment and ten days of distress

2010-04-26T21:26:00.007-04:00

So Shannon reminded me of a thought that I had regarding one of the last photos that I showed (If you go back to my last entry, it's the top image). The picture is of an all too usual looking man squatting (I think this is the best word for the picture, by the way.) It's of this all too usual looking man sitting down as St. Joe's welcomes all of their patients to take a seat...and a load off. While this gesture is all too considerate, the image that they're using is fairly hilarious, and I think everyone thought of this guy pooping on the chair (to put it nicely) when they saw it. I'm welcoming any other foul descriptions of this image too (be careful with your wording, though, my niece is on here occasionally).

SOOOO... I haven't written in 10 days because I was horribly ill with what I first thought was a hangover (off of two beers, ha!), then I thought was the flu as it persisted so long, and finally have come to find out is a fairly advanced case of Hydrocephalus--fluid accumulation in the brain. (This picture was from when I was trying out for the Perry Mason look-a-like role).

It started out rather poetically actually. I was flying down 75 South trying to get to Bob's Dirt Worshipper show on the Tech campus downtown--in time. When all of a sudden, there were flashing lights behind me. Yep. I got busted doing 79 in a 55. That hurts. I'm going to have to pay for the fee and then go downtown to see if they can reduce the mph overage on that one. One year=totaling my car + 24 mph over the speed limit. Not good.

Then I couldn't find the show, got lost, and found the place just as they were finishing. Not one note, my ears never heard. Everything being loaded up and in order, they gave me a ride back to my car and we went over to The Local for a couple of brews, then we headed home. No problem until about 10 AM Saturday morning. Then the puking began and it didn't end 6 hours later. Yuck.

I recovered from that little event...kind of...and then it began all over again five days later. Since then I've been sleeping almost constantly, eating very little, the welt on my head has been taking on vampiric proportions, AND duh duh da dahhhh...my hair's starting to come out now.

So as I feel incredibly attractive right now (and not at all like some kind of horrific looking mutated beast scouring the deep dark waters searching ever so cautiously each night for my prey obscured by its innate look of innocence) I think this is a fairly low note for me right now, so I'd appreciate any advice that you guys have for me right now or just tell me to keep my chin up. Either way, I know I'll make it through this. Maybe just not as quickly (or easily) as I was thinking before.

I'm flying up to Johns Hopkins again tomorrow to try and get this shunt in and back down here to Atlanta in as few days as possible. Missing a day of radiation is not in the radiation deck of cards so to speak. Although it happens to just about everyone, the major studies haven't been published with people that need to get a shunt put in amidst their radiation schedule. Here's to five more days sans radiation.

1/3 the way to the light at the end

2010-04-15T21:22:00.006-04:00

Yep this is the mask that squishes my face (and head bumps) into place everyday. I don't think I can even open my eyes much sometimes. Monday was really tough. I guess my head was so swollen that the mask barely fit. It was ridiculously uncomfortable. I almost told them there was no way I could handle it, but I made it through...somehow. I talked with my doctor afterward (Mondays are see-the-doc days), and she said to try squishing it down with some gauze that I wrap around my head. That would actually keep some of the fluid from accumulating under my skin. Sounded like a good idea to me (albeit rather gross, if it was happening to someone else and I was reading about it). So now I'm a gauze-wearing freak of nature. It actually does feel kind of nice though...strangely. It was the same when I was in the hospital (I can't believe it's been over a month since the surgery now). It's like I don't quite have to worry about my brains falling out of my head (I think I just reminded myself of Peter Jackson's Bad Taste). It just kind of holds it all in place. I think it's kind of my secret security blanky. Twenty-nine and still holding on to a security blanky...nice.

This is the massive radiation machine that orbits my head (literally. it can turn itself totally upside down). I get six doses of radiation each day. The circle at the top rotates around my head. There are these long lead leaves that the machine uses to administer the radiation to a very specific area. The leaves block the beam from being out of place. (In case you're wondering, it's called IGRT/IMRT). I do it for 6 weeks/30 business days. Then I take a month off and start the "maintenance" dose of chemo. The name of which I find hilarious as no dose will ever get higher (due to toxicity limitations) than on the maintenance dose. I'm pretty sure it's actually high dose chemo (let's just call it what it is). That's it. That's my all to brief discussion of the St. Joseph Radiation Treatment Program for you. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thanks.

The sub-ingeneous cotton ball predicament

2010-04-10T01:51:00.006-04:00

Dear Brains Behind Temodar,

Thank you for your ingenious new drug that can kill my brain tumor and make me all better inside. There's only one problem, though. In the wonderful little process that you guys have spent thinking this drug up, you've overlooked one...petty...but albeit entirely frustrating bit of nonsense. I'm calling it the sub-ingenious cotton ball predicament.

A la the picture above, there's simple physics to consider with these bottles. A hole slightly larger than the size of my pinky finger doesn't really allow for a massive wad of cotton to be pulled through it very easily. What would make this more sensible??? Hmmm. AHA...a bigger hole! You see if you made the hole a bit bigger, say the size of the rest of the bottle, this whole mess could be entirely avoided. I don't want to have to ask my niece to use her little fingers to get my cotton ball out of the small-dose-of-poison container for me. (Is that even legal?) You see, this is just a tiny bit of frustration on top of a mountain of inconvenience. First we get the doctor bursting through his/her office saying, "OH...yeah, you have a brain tumor...and it's rather large." Then we get the brain surgery, and on top of that we get the news that it's cancerous: chemo and radiation...forever! Then we have to get six weeks of high dose radiation (that will probably shorten and severely change the rest of my life) and the cherry on top is this damn sub-ingenious cotton ball predicament.

So please, with your next batch of Temodar pills, just make the mouth of the jar the same size as the jar itself. That's all I ask. Thank You.

Truly Yours,
David Sommer

Cutting out steroids may be worse than radiation

2010-04-07T23:59:00.005-04:00

Today I felt SO much better than I did the last two days. Get this to, it was just because I was trying to get off this dexamethasone (a corticosteroid) to a) let me sleep longer than 4 hours a day b) see if it has anything to do with this massive bump sitting on my forehead since the beginning of time (is it ever going away?) c) get rid of the acne that's creeping up on my face and d) get off the damn drug! Unfortunately, my body literally started to crumble when i cut down from 4mg to 2mg (that's how potent this drug is). I literally lost every ounce of energy. I couldn't help but sit around and watch TV and had annoying headaches. Sounds great, huh? (at least I don't have to worry about the tumor returning right now...?)

Now I'm feeling good again. I don't think the Temodar (chemo) pills are creating much of a problem yet, and I haven't started losing any hair from the radiation. That will happen though. It'll kill everything in it's path by mid 4th week. So I guess I'm either going to have to get a very strange looking haircut or shave it all off. Hmmm which one should I choose? I could kind of go for the odd haircut. I mean there's no time like the present, right?

One session down, twenty-nine to go

2010-04-05T17:59:00.008-04:00

It's been a rough day. I took those two little chemo beauts in my hand last night and decided that it was time to cut back on the steroids I've been taking. Hopefully, this will give me a reprieve from the incessant hunger I've been feeling (The chemo has to be taken on an empty stomach which I've found increasingly harder to do post surgery for whatever reason.) Anyway, the whole combo of drug reductions/additions and then throwing the whole radiotherapy thing on top hasn't made for the most smooth transition from healing-from-surgery to being-killed-in-small-intervals. I've had a headache and felt out of it from cutting back on the steroid, and I was feeling sick earlier which I can only guess was from the chemo having it's way with my stomach. Then I got radiated! Yay! (ummm...opposite of yay actually.)

Here I am ready to get my brain blasted by high beam radiation. Contrary to how it appears, the mask is really uncomfortable actually. I can't really see anything or move my head, but I can hear these arms moving around me sounding off an alarm when the radiation beams begin to penetrate my skull. It was really comfortable in there (that's a big joke). I couldn't wait to run at full speed out of that place. I think my heart was racing the whole time thinking about all the radiation my poor little brain had to bear.

I need to stay positive though. This is just another step in this whole damn battle that I'm waging with my brain right now. I've got the surgery bit down, but this...this is a different story. I'll have to stay strong to stay on top or I'll simply float away.

Twenty-nine more sessions to go...

Stitches removed, Philly friends, temodar dread

2010-04-02T22:16:00.014-04:00

This is my daily dose of pills...it's quite a bit. Munching them down, I can ingest them rather quickly, so that's not really the problem. Actually it just takes a while to count them out each night. That's all, and it's just something else to have to break out at meals when I'm out on the town (which rarely ever happens by the way), and I wonder what every pair of eyes that glance at my pill stash (equivalent to that of an old man's) thinks when they see me pull the massive container out. Maybe I really am the equivalent of an old man now. I mean I like the way they dress, so...

This is how I got my sutures removed (the doc who did it was Portuguese and a bit on the hilarious side). It didn't hurt that much, but it did take a while. Josie was there to document the process through photography (somehow, someway it makes me feel like the whole thing is happening to someone else, and it's my job just to record every bit). He had some rather hilarious surgical tales, though (I don't feel right repeating them here. They were rather confidential). I know I'm sorry. Let's just say it involved older men having their foreskins removed and a doc passing out during the surgery. It kept me laughing the whole time to say the least.

That being said, it was a bit unusual. I feel like I've gotten so used to having these surgeries that it's happening to someone else. The fear and dread I felt before have vanished into this vague sense of comfort that I truly question during my hospital visits. I mean I'm almost friends with my neurosurgeon now (the picture of the interview below), and I don't really know how I feel about that. Life is so different now than it was before. I have a focus. I have something that must be done in order for me to continue my existence. It's almost comforting...in a really bizarre sort of way. I really don't know how to make sense of it all. I feel like I was kind of searching for some bizarre sort of tether to the ground, and this has fixated me to it. I'm no longer vaguely meandering through life. I have a new list of things that need to be done, that I need to accomplish before the end. I didn't feel like that before. It was all just...meaningless?
This is my interview with Dr. Quinones. It went so well (and I had coffee made from this futuristic coffee machine that made a perfect cup one cup at a time. I'll probably never taste that again, but then again, who knows???) I felt great afterwards. Goliath and I is up and running now, and I'm feeling good about it. Rachel's excited about it (she's a writer that's helping to guide me through the writing process), and I am too. My next interviewee is Sarah, but first I have to transcribe my interview. That'll take a while, a long while. Hopefully, it'll go as smoothly as possible.

After my interview, Josie drove me up to Philly where I saw some friends (many of which I haven't seen in a ridiculously long time), and Cloud Minder finally got our album entirely planned out. Now we're in the final phases of editing and mastering. We're expecting the release sometime this summer. Almost 2 years without a show...I feel like I need to add some kind of explanation to the album. Needless to say, its has taken on a much more meaningful feel throughout the last 2 years. It's almost like a story of the whole experience now. I don't know if it'll ever actually be complete.

Now I just have to get through the next 6 weeks of radiation which starts tomorrow. Tonight is the first time I have to take chemo (Temodar) which I'm rather uncomfortable with, but if I can do 3 surgeries in a year and walk out of the NCCU, I guess I can do anything???

Back to Philly pre-brain blast next week!

2010-03-24T07:01:00.002-04:00

So I'm flying back up to Baltimore on Mon. and Tues. morning next week, then I'll catch a bus or drive up to Philly through early on Friday morning. The Baltimore fiasco will take place for two days as I'm having my sutures removed, getting the docs notes from the surgery....and getting the pathology report (let's just hope this thing hasn't turned itself into a snarling beast of a GBM yet). So I'm rather nervous about getting the path report. I may not open it until I get back home to be in the caring environment of my family. If Josie can make it down though, I may just suck it up and open it up with her around. I just don't want to open it alone.

Then I'll be heading up to Philly on Tuesday morning after I interview my surgeon. It's for a book I'm writing tentatively titled...Goliath and I (shocking, I know). It'll outline all the wonderful people I've met and a kind of parallel telling of their stories with my own throughout this terrible adventure. That's as far as I've gotten with it so far, but I'll keep you posted, and if you have any super ideas for it, I'm open to any and all of them.

I'm looking forward to getting back up to Philly for a bit. I haven't been up there in months it feels. Well I guess it has been months now that I think about it. Life's crazy...

Well that just about rounds out my 3rd brain surgery

2010-03-16T23:21:00.004-04:00

Well I've finally gotten done with my 3rd brain surgery (Hopefully my last, though somehow, I don't really want to have to hold my breath on that one. I may not make it). It actually didn't even feel like a surgery at all. Besides the fact that I was ready to go in to get it done 2 weeks prior, it just felt as basic as breathing this time. I've been through it all before: the pre-surgery tension, the stresses, the what-fors and why-nots and finally the acceptance, but this time it was just less. So much less that I almost forgot that I had a major operation. I just wanted to escape the hospital under the cover of night and get back to...something else. I don't know what that else that would be right now, though. This has been all I've been dealing with for the last year. Therefore, I didn't escape the hospital.

I just stayed, but I did walk out. Out of the Johns-Hopkins Neuro Critical Care Unit, the step up from ICU, I walked. Three surgeries down, 1 year, bring it. I don't mean to sound self-absorbed here, but I was very proud to be slowly shuffling my dizzy feet down the hall out of the hospital that day. I felt like I wasn't back at the beginning where all of my fears lie as I've been worried. I was here, now with my whole future in front of me. It felt good.

So here's a picture of me when I finally got back to my room at the best of westerns. It ain't pretty but dammit, it's me.

Take that tumor!

2010-03-08T17:49:00.011-05:00

I've been pontificating on the most effective way to cause the tumor to question the necessity of it's own existence (the theory behind this is that it would get sad and lonely and simply off itself), and I've decided that the most effective means would be to denigrate its most highly rated personality attributes. These features are (not appearing in any proper order):

1) Its ability to multiply at a blinding pace
2) Its tendency to manifest such crappily built venous structures
3) Merely its own existence (this one shares my personal favoritism)

The theory here is that by making it feel flawed for even existing, we may be able to coax it into not existing.

For example, treatments such as, "Look at yourself...," or vomiting profusely upon one's first attempt to make obviously superficial conversation with it. These treatments should cause the tumor to question its ability to coexist with beings of such superior intellect and possibly rescind the establishment of its own existence. The trick here is to take off-putting references to the tumor's own attributes and wholly blow them out of proportion. Crying to itself, the tumor will hopefully jump off the closest unsuitably tall object in my head.

Thank you.

A temporary stay of incision in the OR

2010-02-28T10:47:00.001-05:00

Ok so my surgery's been rescheduled for March 12th. The reason: garlic. Apparently, it behaves much as aspirin does in the blood; it thins it out. I was using a (high quality) garlic supplement that actually does thin out the blood. (It's called Garlinase Fresh and it doesn't cause odors to emanate from your breath. You never would've known that I was taking a massive garlic supplement. Oops) Anyway, for those of you facing cardiac problems blood-thinners are right up your alley. Give it a shot; It helped (or hurt) me (Depending on the perspective you take on this).

Anyway, so keep those prayers and well-wishes up for another...oh..two weeks? Well I'm half kidding here, but I'd like it if you just kept me in your thoughts and prayers to get me over this little hurdle. ok take care now.

My 3rd stay at the furthest operating table

2010-02-04T18:50:00.006-05:00

Ugh...I've been dealing with a rather interesting Doctors' debate over the last several days. All in all, I've got to have another surgery...then radiation and/or chemo...then possibly Antineoplastons. I need to back up though. I need to pretend like I don't know what's going to happen after this surgery. I just know that I'm going to have to get through the first step, then I can deal with the rest.

My surgery's set for Feb. 25th, and I'd love to hear from all of you guys around that time. I'll be up in Baltimore again, so anyone that has the slightest bit of time on their hands should feel more than welcome to come and visit me. It'll be a glorious time of wonder and enchantment (not guaranteed).

Well...so here I am, back at the beginning. It feels kins of terrible, but I know that I'm much better off now than where I was last year. I think that actually being there last year at this time would be far more terrible than this. So on that note, I'm going to go sulk for a bit. Then I'm going to stand up and brush myself off. What else can be done?

Right now I'm officially aboard the terminal patient freedom cruise liner

2010-01-18T12:02:00.007-05:00

I think I finally decided that today, this day, i hopped on board the boat of terminal patient freedom. First of all, you get the swinging Sword of Damocles hanging over your head. If that's not enough, you have to deal with the unbridled bs of the insurance industry questioning why I decided to let my "experimental" treatment (remember: though it's not standard yet, it is in phase III clinical trials). I guess that's not good enough in a period in which High Grade Glioma patients have a hilariously short period of time to live. How does three more months matter if my hair's gone, I'm a skeleton with skin, I'm throwing up regularly, and worst of all, I live the dreaded existence of a poor little cancer patient. Three more months of that? No thanks. I'm good with what I've got.

"Why would he say that" you may find going through your mind, but the important fact that I've left out is simply that no known chemo or radiation treatment is a cure. If the docs could tell me, "Hey we'll do this and you have a 50% chance of being cured." I'd say, "Sign me up." They can't say that though. What they can say is that there's no cure. None of these treatments are curative. If I was in a business office and someone was selling me a device that couldn't even offer me a 50% chance of fixing my problem. In fact, there was no chance it would fix my problem. It would only worsen my life while lengthening the problem. Why in the hell would I buy it? Well I'm not buying it right now. What I will offer them, though, is the fact that I will do the fractionated radiation route, if it comes down to it. I'm far from ready to throw in the towel yet though.

Unfortunately, this notion comes with loads of insurance problems. It's all crap, and it's the last thing anybody actively battling a terminal illness needs. Cures are possible, especially with something as poorly understood as brain cancer, so why not let me try some possibilities out before relegating me to a pitiful five-year existence destined for the grave? Seems somewhat unfair if you ask me.

Where I stand as of today

2010-01-15T21:25:00.003-05:00

Well it's been a rather stressful week (to say the least). I got to Houston thinking I knew everything that would happen and very little of it actually materialized.

In my first meeting with Dr. Joseph and Dr. Burzynski, we were essentially blown away with the suggestion that I essentially had to do some form of radiation. I wasn't prepared for that at all, but then we talked about it further (and after my blood pressure went from meandering turtle speed to the speed of a rabbit on meth), i actually gave some consideration to doing gamma knife surgery. It's a localized one day outpatient ordeal, and it leaves little to no side effects. "OK," I thought, "I'm gonna do it. I'll just have to go to MD Anderson, and they'll take care of it all. Right?" Wrong. They wouldn't do Gamma Knife without me first doing the much bigger, much longer, much scarier form of fractionated radiation (which I'm just not ready for...yet).

So then my stress levels sky rocketed into the Earth's orbit...again. I had no plan anymore, and furthermore, Burzynski didn't have much of a plan for me either. In short, I had nothing; back to the drawing board (which, by the way, is not where I wanted or expected to be so quickly). Then I met a very kind nurse named Rebecca through Email who heads up the St. Joseph Gamma Knife department. After relating to me that she fully understood what I was going through (one of her family members had had a brain tumor already), she assured me that although she couldn't guarantee anything because she wasn't the consultation doc, she could guarantee me that they would do the treatment without having done the fractionated stuff first. "What a relief," I thought.

From that point on, things have kind of slid on a much smoother plane today, but it was a rough week for sure. I thought my trip to Philly would be ruined. I thought about having to give up this class. I thought about lots of scary things, but for now, I think it'll all be ok...for a bit. I shouldn't let my guard down. You never know what could happen or when. Everything can be just fine, then BAM! your whole world is reeling. I think it'll all be OK. I just have to remember to breathe...

Lessons learned:

2010-01-14T08:59:00.006-05:00

When life knocks you down, all you can do is brush yourself off, and stand back up--straight. No cursing or questioning's going to do much good. Just stand up straight. That's all we've got.

Like a rolling stone, I've got nothing to rely on

2010-01-12T17:56:00.005-05:00

I've been in the pits today.

Life is rather bitter-sweet down here on Houston's watch. I love to see some of the folks at the Burzynski Clinic--but only so much. Everyone's SO nice and SO positive until I have to sit down and discuss my ACTUAL plan with my ACTUAL future. Then the niceness tends to give way to the realism (albeit a nicely expressed one) of my future (not quite so positive in the docs' eyes). It's always happiness tinged with the tension of not knowing my future. That and the assumption that there is no cure for this illness can be gleaned from just about any statement at any time; it's rather depressing. So much so that I've been in a rather dingy emotional place for the past 24 hours, and unfortunately, I don't really know what's caused it.

They're recommending that I do radiation now. With that "under my belt," I could be open to a much larger sea of salvation (so to speak). Avastin is rather risky business done sans radiation, opening up a person to some rather serious blood-vessel breakage, and I could also then do Burzynski's treatment du jour, Antineoplaston Therapy--but that's still two steps in the future, though. I have many other bridges to cross before I get there.

All in all, my future doesn't really look that bad; it's just not what I was expecting. I made plans to go to Philly that may have to be broken now--200 bucks down the drain. And I'm signed up for a course at Kennesaw that lasts a measly 2 months. I'm not breaking that off though. Not only is it expensive, but it's my damn life. A person can't just be a walking cancer patient forever. Even if I have to come back here in a few weeks, I will not be quitting that class.

What sucks the worst is that I feel fine. I come down here, and everyone's joyfully exclaiming, "Oh look at you. You look SO good." Inside I'm thinking, "Yeah, of course I do. I feel just fine dammit." Of course, I have to respond more politely than that; they're just being nice people. I DO appreciate that in the end (though after some serious reflection sometimes).

If Tuesday's going to be my day in the dumps, then I'm going to buy some hats. So that's where I'm left today. Life gives you lemons, so buy a hat. And that's what I did.

A momentary lapse of awareness

2010-01-02T18:25:00.008-05:00

Well I guess it finally happened, or more precisely, damn it, it finally happened. I had a seizure yesterday. Of course it was the first day of the year (and my first seizure...boo), so I've already started it out with an extraordinary bang of sorts. I was in Athens for two nights seeing lots of old friends and meeting new ones all in the same go. Of course I had a few drinks both nights, got little sleep, and missed some of my medications, so I can't really blame it for happening to me. We were there for three total days and on the morning of the third, I got up to take some medication and went to the bathroom. Staring at myself in the mirror, I felt odd: light headed and like I was on the verge of losing consciousness. I put my hands down to brace myself then felt my legs give out. That's all I remember. When I came around my roommates, Josh and Max, eventually said I had had a seizure not long ago, and my best buddy Kevin was on his way down to help out as much as he could (he's a medic in the Navy, so that makes sense to me). I think it rather freaked them out, but natural to that state, I couldn't really help it. We got down to the hospital, and the doctor said everything looked really good (other than the gaping whole in my brain of course). Then we headed out and began our journey home.

For some reason that seizure had a rather profound affect on me. I didn't feel it, didn't experience it, but somehow, I feel different now. Strangely enough, when I was in the hospital, somehow I knew that's where I needed to be at the end of the day. I guess that's the path I'll be taking now. I'm going to start off with a brief Phlebotomy class and work my way up from there. In the end, I'd like to be an MRI tech. It's good money, and I'd have lots of other time to do things that I'm interested in. More than anything else, this plan has actually stuck with me for more than a fleeting moment (which is more than I can say for most of my other hair-brained schemes). Hey, they hospital's one of the few industries that's actually really growing right now, so I guess that's good.

While the plans a long way from coming into fruition, and I still have two more college courses to take, it seems pretty solid to me. Somehow as I was lying in the hospital bed that day for the umpteenth time in a few months, I realized that's what I wanted to do. I can work wherever I want, however I want, I can travel, or just work when they need me. It sounds like my ideal job...so far. There's more I'll have to learn about it as I dig into it further, but I'm fairly excited so far. Hopefully, I can convince these hospital folks to take me in with all this brain tumor business going on.

With friends like these...

2009-12-21T15:21:00.010-05:00

Carolynne (Rarebirds trailblazer and Mew co-owner) and I urging more folks to bid on the delightful work that Mew Gallery was offering for next to nothing

A room shot from Dan's camera

My benefit last Friday was an absolute success. My bandmate Bob and my friend Carolynne were largely responsible for gathering all the parties involved. We even had a nice turnout. Who could ask for more? I had great support from the Mew Gallery, Village Green Productions, and Anthropic Records. We had artists displaying their glorious (and ridiculously inexpensive) work, and performances by some stellar bands: Inperfect Silence, Controlled Storms, Monolith, Rarebirds, Grammar Debate, and Adam and Dave's Bloodline. I'd say my friends are all pretty great folks to say for sure. I couldn't leave there without a smile on my face and a bit of a tear in my eye.

This is Joe, one of the Village Green guys, in his band Grammar Debate

I had to add this one after seeing it. Bob, part art curator, part swell guy, and I amazed at the shocking vibrancy of the show.

Philly bound...again.

2009-12-14T20:20:00.006-05:00

I've hastily decided to head up to Philly in order to show my face at a little benefit that's been worked out by some of my fantastic friends. If you want to read the official news on it, click here. All these people really are just wonderful, I really couldn't ask for anyone any better. Really.

So I'll be heading up there on Thursday. By Friday, I'll be able to park (hopefully) my brother's gigantic boat of an automobile up on those narrow city streets. We'll see how this works out in the end. Gulp. Ben'll actually be meeting me up there on Tuesday, so we'll be able to go out on the town that night. Then I'll be able to move much of my necessities back (like my bike, yay!). It should be a fun time. It usually is.

It's official: Goliath's back in his 3rd carnation

2009-12-08T17:12:00.004-05:00

After a painfully long series of MRIs and PET scans, I've unfortunately discovered that the tumor is back for sure. It was uncertain in the MRI stages (which I guess is good considering the tumor should be VERY obvious on an MRI), but in the PET scan the contrast was definitely there. This giant's back to wreak a consequentially large amount of havoc on my life again. Two months go fast, huh?

Thankfully I have the best Doc squad on my side as of yet, and I'm planning on utilizing their efforts as much as possible. If my MGMT test comes back positive, then I could pull up some Temodar from the bottom of the Chemo barrel, and I should also be able to scrimp from a VEGF drug sampler that keeps tumors from sucking in arteries from it's surrounding area. There're other things that I can do yet, and if that doesn't work, then there's always the Antineoplastons. Let's just hope that this will work this time. Here we go again...

How do I love thee, let me count the ways

2009-12-04T10:22:00.005-05:00

Well I have the flu...again.

It's just about the same thing that happened last time, too: full dose of Tarceva, bad facial rash, mouth sore(s) and an achy feverish flu on top. Though it may be the second time in just over a month, I'm wondering if I could be visited by the flu fairy just once more in the next month. Ah, how nice 'twould be. Alas, the doctors don't believe me, but as this is the 2nd occasion of the very same instantiation of this event, I must persist.

I think the Tarceva brings my immune system down at it's full dose. I mean I DO have like 4 different drugs, 2 prescribed vitamins and a slew of other assorted health keeper-uppers. Who knows what's going on with the massive chemo-cocktail my body's partaking in at the moment. I may just be morphing into another form of life; I may not even be human anymore (when the antennae appear, that'll get a blog). I'll keep bridging the gap between water striders and humans while you keep reading about it, ok?

Between a rock and a hard place

2009-12-01T17:22:00.004-05:00

I heard back about my MRI today, and the radiologist who examined it said it was still rather inconclusive, but he was siding with a recurrence. He didn't just feel it out either. He used a series of large sciency-type words which I had little understanding of, and he said that though he couldn't say for sure what was happening up there, it looked to him like it was returning.

That's the bad news.

The good news is that at this point before my last surgery I had a significant increase in tumor activity. Now I have no actually visible tumor, just signs of its return--or so I think (this is all so damn complex and individualistic). So the radiologist informed me that I should definitely go ahead with the PET scan tomorrow. That'll reveal the hypermetabolic activity going on inside my broken head revealing the presence of the ill-fated tumor. In the end, I'll have to wait a few more days for more certain news.

That being said, I'm not through with this treatment program yet. Even if the tumor has recurred, then I can still add Temodar (standard primary brain tumor chemo) to the mix. It seems to have a synergistic relationship with the Phenylbuterate. In addition, I can add an anti-angiogenesis agent to the mix (which will require an injection every couple of weeks). We still have some more aggressive actions that we can take against my cerebral intruder. So I don't have a smile on my face at the moment, but I do have hope. I guess that's all that matters, too.

Say Cheese!

2009-11-25T11:38:00.007-05:00

Since I've been back in Atlanta, I've been trying to comprehend the science of the camera flash, and I've come to realize that a truly good flash is one that can't be seen. It just fills in the dark areas. I've been utilizing my niece as photo centerpiece (she really doesn't seem to mind one bit). It still shocks me as to how permanent a fleeting moment can be in a seemingly random piece of fleeting photography. The image is there forever (or a much longer time than the moment at least). I can kind of understand how ancient peoples think you're stealing their soul with the camera. You kind of are, or at least a piece of it.

Now I'm back in Atlanta for a few months. Most strangely, it's my new (old) home again. Philly's usually a fantastic (and equally as terrible) place to live, but I'm going to miss living there. The last 4 and a half years have been a wild ride to say the least, but I love my friends there. Even though at times it does just feel like no more than a complex adult playground. There are important things going on there obviously. I guess I just need to stay more tuned into them than I have been wherever I may be.

Back in Philly...

2009-11-14T16:31:00.002-05:00

It's so weird to keep leaving and coming back here. Sometimes I feel like I never left while simultaneously feeling like I haven't been here in ages. I don't think I've seen the Taproom folks in quite some time now--maybe like 3 months or more. It must be my fate to have this curse of a mass of perpetually growing cells in my brain, though. Time just seems to slip away as my priorities keep changing. Enjoy it while you can, c'est la vie.

Pills, pills and...more pills?

2009-11-08T22:43:00.005-05:00

I realized that it had been a while since I posted last, so I thought I should post as an ever living record of my newly won cancer indebtedness to pills, i.e. taking lots of 'em. My pill times are with meals, one in between lunch and dinner and once before bed. I've done some of the math, and it seems like I'm taking about 50 pills/day which is actually not that bad compared to some people I've heard about. This older man that I met while in Houston who was actually heading down the Antineoplaston route (by the way, his tumor was just reported to have shrunk 27% which is so great for him) had a pair of shelves just for his pills. He set timers for when to take them AND had his wife recording and administering the entirety of his therapy. Now I can see why Cancer's such a strong supporter of the American medical system. How else could you sell people secondary drugs to relieve them of symptoms resulting from primary drugs that fight off their cancer. Pure genius! Now we just have to figure out how to get them on tertiary drugs... I don't have to deal with all that though, all I have to do is remember to take the pills at the proper time during the day, and I've done my job. This version is SO much better than the Antineoplaston version. I'd have to have a buddy for that one, but we'll see how this goes.

Which reminds me, everything I've been doing for October and November comes to a head on November 30th with my MRI/Oncology appointment in Atlanta. I'm already nervous as Hell about it, and we haven't even had turkey yet. I'm starting to sweat as I type, so I'm going to avoid thinking about that as long as possible again. So as I was saying, life's fairly easy right now. Just take the pills. That's it.

course correction

2009-11-03T18:31:00.002-05:00

Well apparently because of my lack of foresight, my flight back up to Philly has to wait until Friday the 13th. I should've gotten my flight earlier. Great. Now I have to fly on Friday the 13th. I hope I don't sit next to a guy in a hockey mask or with a really big metal claw. I'd be really uncomfortable if that happened.

Anyway, sorry guys. I'll see you soon.

The road back to Philly for a bit...

2009-11-01T17:28:00.007-05:00

This is Jay pondering the flight of the road, but you should just pretend that it's me. Believe me, it'll fit the context better.

So the headaches are still with me, and as some of my most friendly of folks have been telling me, it's just the same feeling as medicine working on tumor cells rather than tumor cells growing. So that's what it is, I just have to think it and stay far away from return-of-the-tumor territory. It's a nasty place to be.

I'm heading back to Philly on Nov 10th. i can't believe i haven't been there in over a month. The road really flies by me..still. It seems that there's nothing i can do to avoid it, like it's merely a product of the years slowly accumulating. Ok see you soon...

Never been so glad to have a headache

2009-10-26T15:58:00.006-04:00

Just as soon as my Swine Flu/Thrush epidemic passed me by, the next one had already taken me over. Daily mild to moderate headaches have been my latest encounter. A guy can't really catch a break here, can he? I wasn't very worried at first. I figured it was flu leftovers or something else mundane. Unfortunately by this morning, I had become concerned that it was a bad sign--a sign that the tumor was coming back. Needless to say, this notion was not a happy one.

Fortunately though, I talked with my doctor this morning and she put my fears at ease. Apparently, mild to moderate headaches can actually be a good sign. There's a good chance that it's actually tumor breaking apart or shifting around. The problem with brain cancer (and maybe all cancers, too) is that swelling accompanies any physical changes that occur. Cancer growing, shrinking or even just shifting causes swelling. Basically it's too bad for me as I have no idea what's causing the headache, but I'm hoping that my docs are right, and it's due to shrinking or shifting. Anyway, it's just more Tylenol to get rid of the headaches. Hopefully, that's all this will take.

Blisters fleeing, food I'm eating

2009-10-19T14:49:00.004-04:00

It's been for about two days that I've been able to eat anything not suited to a blender, and it feels really great. I had a fairly normal lunch, and I'm looking forward to the solid food of my days ahead. Who knows what dinner may bring?

Anyway this message is just to let you concerned (and so sweet) folks know that I'm doing much better at this point in time. It was a long week, but we got through it, eh? I do have to admit that mouth sores are a nasty bunch, and I hope I don't have that experience again for quite a while. I don't know when they'll have me back on the Tarceva, but it'll be in a half-dose to start working up to a dose that I can handle much better than the last one. That was a rather terrifying dose if you ask me, hopefully we can find something a bit easier to handle than that.

Oh and by the way, I didn't draw that pic of the blender. I would've chosen a much different (better) color scheme.

You see, this is what I wanted to avoid

2009-10-16T10:42:00.004-04:00

Well I awoke this morning feeling a bit better again, less symptomatic, no unusual noises emanating from my body, but most importantly, my mouth sores were slightly better. I can swallow with little pain today, yay!

Now here I am monitoring my heart rate and taking my blood pressure because my heart rate is 135. I noticed it when I first woke up that my heart rate was higher than usual, and now they want me to go to the ER. The problem with this situation is that I hate ERs, and I really don't like being in hospitals more than I have to be. So should I go then? They're just going to give me more drugs. On top of my towering regimen of drug consumption, I don't need any more of that crap. I'm tired of drugs. This is the whole thing I wanted to avoid in the first place. Once you put one foot in, they take your whole body and tell you that, "Its for the best."

I have brain cancer and all I get is this stupid case of Swine Flu

2009-10-15T11:57:00.011-04:00

So let me start at the beginning. Houston has a problem that us non-Houstonians are unfamiliar with. They keep things ridiculously cold. It'll be a hot, humid summer day and everyone's walking around in pants and jackets like it's crisp fall weather (I must say that, as Atlantans, we felt like Yanks for not being familiar with this). The problem with this situation is that upon entering a building it was absolutely freezing inside. Not expecting this as a city-wide behavior (at first, we thought it was just a few of the wealthier thermostat happy buildings), we didn't learn to expect it until shortly before we left.

So the reason why I'm writing about all of this is to inform you about the extensive temperature interior/exterior variation differentials occurring among Houstonians in their dwellings. Kidding, that sounds really boring. Its that I don't think it's healthy to have so much extreme hot/extreme cold change per day. I think this may be where the trouble started. Sweating in the sun, then freezing for a few hours in an office aren't the most appropriate ways to maintain a healthy immune system.

After getting on all my medication, the last one had the most side effects. Rash--like the beautiful one I'm exhibiting above--was basically guaranteed. So after taking all the medication for a few days, the rash began to appear around my shoulders. They said it was a good thing that I was getting the rash, and I should just sit back and enjoy the ride. So I took that as a good sign and within a few days, we were heading back to Atlanta.

I noticed the sores in my mouth shortly after the rash showed up. But they got worse and worse, and now they're so bad that I can't speak, eat or swallow anything without enduring tidal waves of pain. Now I just answer yes and no questions to everyone as much as possible. But I've gotten ahead of myself here. So yesterday my Dad and I discovered that Oral Thrush is fairly common in people in my situation. Then we discovered that the sores were white and of course, so were mine. So we needed to go to the doc-in-the-box down the street for a quick medication prescription that I desperately needed. The doc said that the sores in my mouth didn't look exactly like the ones that he was accustomed to seeing. So they jammed an elongated q-tip up my nose then scraped some of my sores with a separate one to get test results. When they came back, it turned out that I had Swine Flu compounded by a horrible Oral Thrush outbreak. I got to leave that building with a nice little facial mask on.

Positive Note: I won't have to deal with any mouth sore crap with the future use of this medication, which is great because I'm getting really tired of it by now.

Back to the dramatic storyline...

2009-10-12T11:24:00.008-04:00

This is a picture of from the left, Dr. Joseph, me, Dr. Burzynski, Dr. Weaver, and my dad. It was roughly my last day, and its a great little souvenir regardless of the outcome here. I'm really glad I took it, too--just us and the docs.

This program has been far from easy, though. I've developed a rash all over my face and chest. It looks kind of like a seriously bad case of acne, so unfortunately I'm taking an unwanted trip back to the dredges of 8th grader-dom. It's pretty bad though. I'm losing skin on top of that, too. Don't ask me why. I'm pretty sure my body hates me. With my vast array of medicinal products, I won't need to eat anymore, just take more medicine.

Why have I been so behind on everything lately?

2009-10-06T23:50:00.017-04:00

OK so my Aunt wrote me an email recently about my terrible lack of updating on this blog. I don't know what happened. I used to be so good at all of this...?

Unfortunately, I do know what happened. Reality set in. You see, the reason that I've been virtually non-existent (in many different ways) is that the reality of my situation has set in. Before I relied on the principal that this tumor was an accident of sorts. Of course, I never intentionally had the tumor. It was an accident. I just had to get through the situation, then everything would be normal. Of course, this wasn't the situation...

Then it slowly set in, beginning with the tumor's recurrence. At that point, I realized that this was no mistake, it was real and really deadly. One thing that I've always avoided averring on this blog is the numbers I'm facing. Whenever I've said that the doctors weren't giving me very good numbers, what I've meant is that, in their eyes, I only have three to five years to live (and that's with their radiation and chemo treatment program). I'm dead; there's nothing to be done. That's rather sad, I think. Having children and settling down would have been nice at some point.

So this is why I've been a big ol' loner lately. One thing I've learned here is that I'm not dead, like the docs would have me to think. There are things that I can do to survive this. I just have to find them. Unfortunately they're hidden amongst other things that won't work for me. So I have to develop a plan of action. Finish Burzynski, if that doesn't work, go elsewhere, if that doesn't work, go somewhere else. I will beat this thing, but it may take a bit more time than I was originally thinking.

(Oh and by the way, if you take a look at the picture above, take a closer look at the little quote underneath the sign. These little things help.)

More surgical comics!

2009-10-03T17:42:00.002-04:00

So I believe that this masterpiece was created not too long after I started the first. Probably sometime shortly after my major surgical operation. You know there's really nothing to do in a hospital except sleep for many a day (which I did, in fact, do).

Finally. And here's some pleasant news

2009-10-02T22:54:00.005-04:00

So I finally got the word from my kind team of docs at the Burzynski Clinic today. They had the final word from my MRI that I got two days ago as well as the PET scan that I got yesterday (a word of note: the PET scan is equivalent to forty x-rays. Docs don't usually relate this info to their woefully uninformed patients either.) The MRI showed little to nothing in terms of new growth. There were a few questionable spots but things are pointing to post-surgical changes rather than any new growth. Then I got a PET scan to check the metabolic activity of the cells. That too looked like any possible growth in the questionable areas was post-surgical change. So things are looking on the up right now.

As great as this sounds, it doesn't in any way mean that I'm in regression yet. I know the tumor's in there. After the word I got from my last pathology report, this is fantastic news, but not quite so good for my treatment plan, though. Because I'm still not showing 5mm of growth, I remain unqualified to do any of the rigorous antineoplaston lifestyle right now, but I can still do the targeted gene therapy. So that's what I'm putting my money on-literally. I got the first drug today, and I'll be adding them in over the next few days. Then I'll be heading back to Atlanta late next week. I don't know what'll happen after that, but I'll post it as I think of it...

(I've) grown tired of all this cancer mess

2009-09-30T18:42:00.008-04:00

It's been a little over ten months that I've been dealing with this load of cancer crap. Ten months down; ten months to waste. Well...if that isn't a terribly negative thought, then I'm forbidden from accessing such a thing.

Actually contrary to what I said in the last paragraph, I'm doing much better than I was. After being fairly slumped over for the past few weeks, I think things are looking better than the last few weeks. Sometimes I get bogged down into negative trains of thought such as the infamous statement above, but I'm slowly regaining my will to keep my head held high. Hopefully, I'll be keeping things on this note for a bit.

An additional blog for an exhausting day

2009-09-29T22:04:00.005-04:00

This was it. I thought that today would be one of those early to rise, early to bed type of days, but alas 'tis not the case. Why would it not be? (Wow, thanks for your heightened personal opinion of this writing.) Today was going to be a bit much from the start: an 8am phone call with an expensive researcher immediately followed by a trip unawares to the local Burzynski clinic. It turned into a full day, though. I didn't get back into my room until 10pm. Now I know you busy folks out there may be pontificating, "That's not so bad, I do that most days." I know I used to be one of you. Oh and I took 10mg of Melatonin the night before. That'll keep you asleep all day.

Anyway, not to be totally vindicating myself (although I don't want to come off as a total wuss either), today was an interesting albeit somewhat disheartening day. So what's the deal then? I essentially have two options here. The first option is targeted gene therapy. It's essentially a treatment plan involving my own blood and several cancer biomarkers.

The treatment goes like this: My blood is taken (Yet again. I don't think I even feel it anymore), and it's tested for several markers that determine the specific oncogenes (those little cancer-promoting rapscallions) that my particular tumor expresses. Then if I do have a tendency for over expressed oncogenes, they'll scientifically formulate a proper list of ever-efficacious drugs for me to take that would ideally kill off any remaining tumor cells. I take some pills, and I may have to go get a shot each week. Oh and this is the easy way.

If I don't over express any oncogenes, then I'd need to do things the hard way. I'll need to turn to the Antineoplaston lifestyle. This is no simple drug, it is a lifestyle (albeit one that could save my life). Let me explain it to you. First, I'll have to have a catheter inserted into my sub-clavicle (for those of unexposed to bone speak, it's your collar bone). Then I'll be essentially taught how to be my own nurse. There will be a small 4lb. pump that will require a constant 24 hour connection. Connected to this pump will be two bags in a convenient little case that holds my synthetic pee residue. (Really. It's derived from human urine. Don't worry, it doesn't smell like it anymore...much.) These are two large liter-sized bottles. I'll go through three of those in six of my four-hour episodes. On top of this, I'll have to learn how to spike my own bottles to avoid pumping air into a major artery of mine, sanitize my catheter every time I reconnect the tubing, clean it out every three to five days, and draw my own blood via catheter every two days. This will be analyzed and faxed to Burzysnki to be interpreted by his hi octane staff of Houston docs. Oh and on top of all that, this will be a process that could take up to a year. Yay!

Surgical comics!

2009-09-18T13:41:00.009-04:00

I started drawing this comic shortly before my last surgery amidst intensive foot traffic at 30th street station.

I think I finally finished it a couple nights later. Sadly, that whole time is rather elusive for me to think back on. I don't know if it was the fault of the anesthetics or what, but I feel like I'm having someone else's memories. Very bizarre. Only lately do I even feel remotely normal again. Sometimes I think I forget how strange this whole brain surgery operation makes me feel. I just want it to fall away from memory behind me. The quicker the better.

A word about this conundrum

2009-08-30T17:01:00.000-04:00

Hi guys. I'm doing well, I promise. Though none of you would probably know it right now. I've been feeling rather self-absorbed of late and have had absolutely no mind to really hang with anyone. That being said, I do miss seeing and hearing from all of you, but I'm simply rather content to focus on myself right now. That's all.

This whole brain cancer scenario just doesn't seem to carry the hope of life-exercisation like I'd hoped, so I'm a bit on the depressed side right now. It's not that I'm horribly depressed just a bit bummed out. Hopefully this whole train of thought will fade into the distance in the next couple of weeks.

I've kind of been stuck in between which way to take things of late. Go with one more alt method, or stick with the no-cure hospital approach? It's a tough decision to make, but I'm supposed to make it soon. Really I should have already made my decision. Everything has to happen so fast in this game, and I'm not very good at thinking and acting quickly. Oh well. No time like the present, eh?

TIme for the stapels to come out, finally...

2009-08-21T17:14:00.002-04:00

Well it's been a little over two weeks since the surgery. (Though I don't feel like I can hardly even recognize that it's been a week since then. I actually feel like this whole ordeal has happened to someone else, and I don't know why or how it happened to them. I feel fairly removed from it all oddly enough.) Anyway, so here I am with a train track style of staples going on around my head. Of course, I'm certainly ready to have them out. It seems like this round of razors on the head would be undesirable (which of course, they are), but this time it seems like the staple line is less within my perception than it was before. It doesn't seem to really bother me quite as much as it did before.

I guess it's kind of weird, but I guess I'm just thinking about other things more than the surgery right now. It's kind of a moot point, I guess. Surgery or not, I should be moving on from things right now. I guess my whole problem with this thing is that the craziness of the surgery should ideally be gone by now, but it's not. Surgery's just another way for me to get into the same boat that I should've originally gotten into. The only problem is that I didn't ever get into that boat, so now I feel like I'm sort of stuck here getting pointless surgeries that just keep putting me right back where I was a few months ago.

Certainly though, the most important thing is that I am OK right now. Until the point when my health begins to fade, I will always have that to have utmost thanks for. Hopefully, I can keep that terrible day on the horizon as long as possible. Until then, I'll always have tomorrow to look forward to for a possible cure for this terrible illness.

A week and some change after the fact

2009-08-14T09:33:00.002-04:00

I think it's been a week now? Hasn't it? Well regardless, it's has been a very different experience for me this whole time around. Maybe it's the whole, "two brain surgeries in 6 months" ordeal, but i feel totally different right now. For the first week after surgery, I LITERALLY didn't do anything. I think I woke up occasionally, moved around a little, then passed back out. Wasn't very fun. Nor did it really engender any important meanings into my life at the time. Now for the last few days, I've been up more, although not a whole lot, and just kind of meandering a bit. Thankfully, I 've been eating more since that whole episode was a bit uncomfortable to watch, but I think it's over now. Now I just have to get back to working out, living like a usual person, and learning how to kick some cancer butt.

I started taking Melatonin the other night. Wow. It really hits you hard, too. I haven't had this low energy for some time now, but it's really supposed to be useful in some form or other, so I don't really have a choice about whether or not to take it. Here goes to days on extremely high doses of low wakefulness.

So as of right now, I'm looking into doing a treatment camp at Upitt for a year or so then also maybe Germany/Mexico, too. I'm not sure which one's will actually turn out, though. The only thing that may work for me is the standard chemo/radiation which I'm not one for at the moment, but we all saw what just happened, so I can't really go on to NOT do anything right now. I gotta keep hitting it hard with everything I've got right now.

And so, for all of you lovely folks out there, I will keep up with you. I just need a few more days to get life back into some kind of recognizable role here. Of course, I appreciate all your care as well. Talk soon.

Update

2009-08-11T20:00:00.003-04:00

Hi All, a friend of Dave's here.

I just got to talk to Dave for the first time since his surgery! He asked that I post something here to let everyone know that the surgery went very, very well. He has been extremely tired since, so he doesn't quite have the energy to post anything yet, but he will soon.

He says he is very appreciative of everyone's thoughts and prayers... and he will be in touch soon.

Yay, Dave! We love you!

Ok, so now I have to wait two more days

2009-08-03T12:50:00.002-04:00

Well, so I got a call from my doc this morning and he requested that my surgery be postponed until Friday. He said that he wanted to ensure that he could have his A team at hand for the surgery. Now there seem to be a few different ways that I can interpret such news:

Perspective A:
This surgery is so much more dangerous than the average brain surgery that the surgeon fully requires his top staff to feel utmost comfort with it. Other brain surgeries can get by with the B and C tams, but mine of course, only works with the A team.

Perspective B:
This was really an elaborate ploy devised to get me to move my surgery date to make room for a more time-sensitive case. Now this isn't so bad. Certainly, if I desperately needed surgery, I'd hope that someone would give up their slot for me.

Perspective C (the most likely interpretation):
Dr. Quinones really dislikes operating without his top staff on hand. Maybe someone's sick that day...I don't know what that means for anyone else having surgery on Wednesday, but I think it's probably the best for me.

Anyway, this was all an elaborate way to tell you that I'll be having surgery on Friday rather than Wednesday. Thank you all for your heartfelt messages and please keep me in your thoughts. I'll see you soon...

The worst week ever...

2009-07-31T18:54:00.004-04:00

This has been the worst week on record, I do believe. There have been so many of my worst weeks ever, but I do think that this one clearly takes the cake.

First, I lost my little kitten, Don Caballero, aka Mr. Man, aka Manny. That's the adorable little rascal above. So sad. He apparently was born with a virus that destroys white blood cells. At the time that I took him into the emergency room, he was convulsing and barely breathing. He didn't stand a chance. He was a cute little guy though. At least I got to be there when they put him down. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it.

THEN the next morning as I was on my way to get some bloodwork done in Jersey, I managed to total my car. That's right, no more than 24 hours after my kitten dies, my car goes, too! I wish I had a picture of it, the poor guy was pretty mangled in the front.

So let's see, where am I in all of this? Brain tumor in December, dead kitten and totaled car in July. I hope this isn't going to be the trend that the rest of this year follows. If so, you may want to keep your distance from me when you see me out lest you spontaneously burst into flames.

The beast is back and what I plan to do about it

2009-07-27T19:21:00.002-04:00

This is my personified conception of the rogue rascal running around in my brain causing God knows what kind of havoc wreaking destruction on all. He's a mischievous little rapscallion with no good on his mutated mind and malevolent shenanigans up his sleeves. Oh and I officially hate him.

So unfortunately today's the day that I solidified the date for my next brain surgery confrontation. Next Wednesday, August 5 is D-day part II: the return of the scalpel. I'll be getting this, the next in the series of my lobotomies, at Johns-Hopkins Bayview. For a hospital, it's pretty nice i guess...for a hospital. Wish me luck, send me happy thoughts, pray for me, dance around a fire or whatever you do in lieu of physically efficacious actions, but do it for me. I'd also really appreciate anyone's phone calls or happy-themed emails as well. This can get rather lonely.

By the way, I hate hospitals. I don't like being confined to cold hard beds, I guess. Being confined to a cold, hard bed isn't exactly my idea of a hot date, and the feeling of waking up after being throughly gassed and knocked out cold for five hours is just about the worst thing I can think of. So really, It'd be great to hear from you guys during all this.

Well, here I go...

The return of Goliath

2009-07-02T16:27:00.004-04:00

I really didn't want to hear the words, "Well it looks like it's back," nor did I want to hear, "Roughly about 40%." Crude words. I can think of some other crude words that I'd like to retort with, though I won't be posting them here. It's true, he's back. The struggle must continue. The diet didn't work as I'd hoped. My neurosurgeon is recommending another surgery, to remove as much as possible, followed by the standard of care—radiation and chemo. Not good alright.

It looks like I may just have to change my game plan—or at least the smoldering remains of what once was.

So where does that leave me? What do I do? Where do I go? Honestly, I’d really like to take a road trip. Ah, the great American road trip—it’s one of my favorite things ever. I can see my hair blowing in the wind, my charred skin—burnt by the sun—on one arm dangling out the door, windows dropped, music blaring but only the shrillest vocal bellows and tinniest cymbal crashes can break through the deafening roar of the wind storming through the windows. Nowhere to be, and nothing in particular to do—that’s what I’d like to be doing right now. Not this. I’m tired of dealing with this nonsense. I want off this ride; it’s lost its appeal, if it ever had one. Now I just want to go, to run, to hide, to find a place untouched by human hands and intentions. I want to be alone, yet I want my loved ones with me, but no more of this. No more doctors or physicians assistants, no more radiation or drugs, just sunlight and trees and a gentle uplifting breeze. I know it’s a no place—a utopia—but it’s where I’d like to be ideally. My vision of heaven, if you will.

Here's to indecipherable medical jargon

2009-06-17T09:44:00.003-04:00

Well thanks to some indecipherable medical terminology, I find myself back in the proverbial hot seat. Dr. Re, my kind-hearted neurologist, hasn't been able to say whether my MRI shows any new growth or not--something about around the edges of the resection cavity. He said it could be "insert technical mumbo jumbo here" or it could possibly be necrosis, but he wasn't fully able to say, "no sir there's no tumor."

So he sent the Radiologist's notes up to John's-Hopkins, and hopefully, they'll be calling me back in a few days with their own thoughts on the matter. They'll probably want to see the original scans which I'm fully prepared to send them. Most important though, is that I keep myself from freaking out this whole time.

You see, hospitals operate in two worlds. First is the urgent world of medicine where everything should happen smoothly, flawlessly and painlessly. Everything also happens exactly one day in the past in this world. So as soon as a Doc orders something he/she comes to find out that it did in fact already happen yesterday. The second world is the REAL world where things get lost, people get pissy because they were up all night arguing with their boyfriends or wives, scheduling errors occur more frequently than should be permitted and so on. Necessary events and procedures occur exactly two weeks after they should. So when the Doc says, "You should've had that scan yesterday," it actually happens two weeks from yesterday.

Since the real world tends to rule the roost in hospital land, I'm actually probably going to have to wait about two weeks before I even hear anything from these folks. Well, I guess it's time for some of those mental conditioning exercises all those religious leaders have been going on and on about over the last several millenia...

Just a smidgen of good news

2009-06-11T23:22:00.004-04:00

Well I'm still waiting to hear back from my Neurologist down in Marietta, but I'm hoping that the scans will come up clean. Psst. You wanna know a secret? I have the CD with the scans on it, but I'm too afraid to look at it. Besides it only works on Windows machines. Who uses one of those infernal virus-sucking contraptions anymore anyway? (HA!)

But the real good news is that, after speaking with an Oncologist up at Mayo, I've come to learn that I'm not the only young bearer of a brain tumor to forego chemo and radiation and move on straight to expectant care. (Which is so called because Doctors are 'expecting' the tumor's arrival back in my body, so they test with MRI's rather frequently. Nice.) He said that he had a hand full of patients that were, like me, young, and diagnosed with a completely resected grade III tumor, and get this, they were doing just fine! Apparently, I'm not the only one who fears that Twelve cycles of chemo and a continued dousing of barely sub-fatal doses of radiation may not be the best route for a body desiring to continue with life.

Anyway, it was a HUGE relief to see those words coming from a renowned Oncologist at the top of his game. Before I felt like the only idiot stupid enough to disobey Doctor's orders; now I realize that there're a few of us out there. Knowing that a group of like-minded folks is out there makes me feel like I can beat this thing, and if there's a group of people out there that can beat this, then I know I certainly can too.

Two days and counting...

2009-06-07T19:33:00.002-04:00

Here I am back in Philly. Sometimes it feels like I'm dreaming a dream about my doppelganger living my life in an alternate universe. It's kind of surreal but kind of really real at the same time.

So I'm settling in, but this time I feel like I have a goal, a very real goal--to keep myself grounded and focused. I guess I never really had that before. Always striving for the next thing, stressing over this then that, I never really gave myself much leeway in the pursuit of peace. I had to succeed, had to strive harder. I just knew that I could handle anything that I threw at myself. In some ways I did. In other ways, I failed miserably.

Now here I am, back in the City of Brotherly Love, but with a mission of health and wholeness. Unlike the fractured, jagged and ultimately unfullfilling life I once led, I now have to chart a new and different course...

Awww...my first follow up MRI

2009-05-27T14:47:00.003-04:00

Well the time has come to test my wits, bite the bullet and see what's been going on for the last few months in this noggin of mine. I have my first MRI since the day after my surgery coming up next Wednesday. I'm won't say that I'm not afraid; sometimes I think I feel twinges of a headache or a little dizziness and I think to myself, "Oh that's it, it's growing. Everything I've done so far has failed." This is what I have to live with for the rest of my life. Not a fun prospect but one that I'll have to figure out how to deal with nonetheless.

Anyway, as long as this next MRI comes out clean (and we all hope it will), I'll be heading back to Philly for the Summer and the remainder of my lease. I don't know what'll be happening after that. Things seem to be constantly changing, and I can't seem to make up my mind about anything. Oh well, there'll be plenty of time for that. Keep your fingers crossed/pray for me/keep me in your thoughts on Wednesday...

The headlights of the mac truck in front of me...

2009-05-16T18:52:00.000-04:00

In continuation of the previous rant that I was aimlessly meandering up to, I've been thinking of just leaving this whole brain tumor mess as it stands for now. I'll probably head back to Philly to finish out my lease through the next few months and then figure things out from there. I may head back toward the Atlanta area or I may just move outside the city for a year until I feel like things are truly wrapped up. I don't know, though. I can't seem to commit to anything right now, and I certainly can't seem to make up my mind about anything; that would require knowing what I want in the future, and I cannot seem to see anything clearly on other side of this foggy mess right now.

It would seem like my ideas for my life and future plans have to either take a backseat vacation or take an interminable interlude in a back-alley dumpster. I can't necessarily plan on living a long life like I did before. Now I know there are those of you out there saying, "Oh for shame, that's such a depressing thought." Let me explain, though. What I actually mean is that I can't put things off until the ever indistinct 'one day' of my future--there may simply be no time for that anymore. Things that I've always wanted to do--such as living in a simple cabin far removed from the dregs of society and taking a road-trip out west--need to be actualized in my present situation. I have to start taking action now if I'm ever going to get to see and do some of the things that I've been putting off since I was a young lad.

A consultation with my next step toward the exit door

2009-05-06T12:23:00.004-04:00

Well I met with Dr. Voloschin, the Emory Neuro Oncologist, for the first time yesterday. After a brief introduction to his PA and nurse (which consisted of the one hundred twenty-seventh neuro-functionality test that I've been administered since Goliath popped up). They were both really humane, which has been an extremely rare trait to encounter on this little journey, but the PA was the nicest one of all (I secretly wish that she was the doctor instead of Dr. Voloschin, but don't tell him that). As I've noted before in this little blog, these consultations typically scare the crap out of me, but I think as the weeks and months progress, I'm getting better prepared to handle them. I wasn't nearly as anxious this time, and I wasn't riddled with fear and general anguish afterward either. That's progress, right?

So the doc's prognosis is that since the most recent scientific medical data that we have is based entirely on stage IV tumors, he can't, in all good judgement, really recommend whether I should do the chemo or not. So basically, it's up to me to make that decision. Now I know this is a nail-biting cliffhanger at this point, so I'll just tell you that I have absolutely no desire to do chemo right now. That doesn't mean that I'll never have to do it though. So I'm left with this little peep of a voice in the back of my head quietly murmuring to me that I may one day regret avoiding the chemo, but I just don't like the looks of it right now. I'd really like to be able to return to some semblance of a normal life in the near future. Maybe that's not an advisable way to go about this, but I feel like I've literally ate, drank and slept this thing since the end of December and, dammit, I'd really like to have a life again. Maybe that's too much to ask, but I'm growing tired of being stuck in limbo in suburban Atlanta. Yet I know I have to make the best of a situation that I didn't ask for or deserve in the first place, so maybe I need to pay more attention to that rather than focusing on all the negative aspects of my situation.

Now my only problem is deciding when to start the radiation which, surprise surprise, I'm not too happy about. Any form of radiation carries with it the cumbersome weight of late effects (i.e. permanent changes in the brain as a result of dangerously high levels of radiation demolishing perfectly healthy cells). These can come about anywhere from months to years after the radiation ends. There's no way to know when and the degree to which it will happen to me, but some degree of it will happen nonetheless. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to this joyful process. My only other option, then, is to do nothing at the moment and wait and see what happens (not advisable albeit strangely appealing) or to find other clinical trials that i may not be aware of. So I'm opting for the clinical trial investigations. It may turn up nothing, but if so, then I always have my beatific radiation bed kept warm for me by the hospital (that and the dangerously high amount of radiation regularly emanating from it).

Top 10 Psuedo-Horror Flicks of the '80s

2009-04-28T17:34:00.018-04:00

So I've been spending my days of late thinking hard about what the most memorable (somewhat scary but usually just plain silly) '80s pseudo-horror films are. I'm quite happy with this list at the moment. If you have any comments, suggestions, or uncalled for criticisms of me on a personal level, then please, leave me a stabbing remark.

1) Gremlins (1984)
I always wanted a little Mogwai of my own (sans Gremlin potential, of course). I always thought that whole no-water-after-midnight bit sided towards the absurd as well. I mean how could you not give those cuddly little creatures a reprieve from their thirst. Oh my god! I just blew my own mind.

2) The Blob (1988)
A classic of it's genre, I think the original was from the 50's, but the 80's remake successfully captures all the fantastic stereotypes of the decade that we all grew up loving and hating. You know, besides the flashy fashion and high-strung hairdos, I do miss shoes that require pumping. What a great idea.

3) Evil Dead 2: Dead Till Dawn (1987)
This cinematic masterpiece solidified a love of silly horror movies for me. I've never had the patience or the stomach for serious ones, but when the director and actors aren't taking their own film seriously, hilarity ensues.

4) The Lost Boys (1987)
What are the two greatest things ever to occur in the history of existence? Kiefer Sutherland and vampires. Need I say anymore?

5) The Fog (1980)
This one's actually successful at being a little bit scary. Creepy fog and expired pirates from the past. I'm in.

6) *Batteries Not Included (1987)
What if all your coolest toys suddenly came to life?

7) An American Werewolf in London (1981)
This is actually a really good film. Two American tourists travel through the UK and one gets bitten by a werewolf in a desolate part of Scotland and goes on to terrorize the residents of the Isles. Film making genius!

8) Critters (1986)
This movie scared the crap out of me as a kid. I don't think I ever actually finished it, but it's from the 80's and the cheese-factor is through the roof. All I remember is some guy having a critter burrowing out of his stomach. Yeck! Hmmm...maybe I should watch it again.

9) The 'Burbs (1989)
Tom Hanks discovers that his odd reclusive neighbors are actually murdering people in the night. Like most influential 80's films, it stars one of the Corys.

10) They Live! (1988)
Three words: Rowdy Roddy Piper. This has to be the worst film of all time. It contains like 20 minutes of story line and one hour long fight scene. It does include a washed up wrestling star and poorly (i.e. cheaply i.e. NOT at all) disguised aliens, though.

A new direction for this (seemingly) old hag

2009-04-25T16:14:00.005-04:00

Ok. So I must admit, this blog is getting a bit boring. To remedy this, I've decided to spice things up a bit with some of the hilarious top 10 lists that my friend Rachel and I have been steadily devising over the past couple of weeks (besides, the cancer bit's all washed up, isn't it?). She's really good at coming up with adjuvant details (so you end up with 30 items on your not-so-brief top 10 list), but that just makes it all the more fun.

Just to keep this blog a bit more on the entertaining (rather than terribly taxing) side, I've decided to sprinkle some of these in. Otherwise, I may just have to bore myself to sleep or become morbidly morose, and no one wants that now do they? I've already got one on deck, so keep your eyes glued to your computer screens (don't really. I hear that there's a good chance they--like everything else in our world--can cause, guess what, CANCER. Yay!)

A day trip to my old stomping grounds twice removed

2009-04-18T22:54:00.004-04:00

Today my friend Jenna and I road-tripped (a loose use of the term actually) out to one of our old favorite places. A park not too far from Athens, the home of our Alma Mater, but far enough to make me feel truly out in the boonies, away from it all. Known for possessing the longest covered bridge in all of the great state of Georgia, Watson Mill State Park has it all (I also use this term loosely). It does contain the ruins of an old mill, though, which, if you're a fan of ruins at all (and who wouldn't be), are borderline super fantastic.

There's also a dilapidated old driving bridge that spans one of the many small tributaries to the great Broad River. Time has stripped it down to its most enduring parts: support beams. Spanning the creek roughly 40 feet above the ground, I spent many an hour up there battling my life's (seemingly) insurmountable confrontations and challenging myself to overcome my fear of the (im)possible. (Really, all I got was a healthy dose of vertigo and a bit of a scare.)

Living in Philly: Past Reality, Present Dream

2009-04-12T19:50:00.000-04:00

Today we played Bocci Ball in South Philly. It's a great little game who's closest relative is probably sitting in a chair (in terms of energy expending physical activities). Really. If you can stand up in lengthy tiresome five minute intervals (sometimes even less), then you possess the uncanny potential for Bocci greatness. That's why the Philadelphia Bocci Ball courts are always crowded with aging Italian men (if anyone's even there at all). That's all they've got left in this world, so let them have it alright?

Anyway, my roommate Dan, my neighbor Candace and I went to the nearest sizable park and set up shop (unfortunately, we came to the sad conclusion that the set we were, in fact, holding in our very hands was a croquet set albeit one trained in the fine art of deceptive Bocci set-ery. Neither were the balls weighty enough, nor were they appropriately colored. The nerve of some people drives me straight off the cliffs of insanity sometimes. How could they deceive me so carelessly as if they weren't smashing my ever-beating heart against the wall. It's all lies, I tell ya.

It's been good to see all my old friends (again, with the use of the word "old"). Unfortunately, I didn't even get a chance to see them all. There were broad swaths of them that I simply didn't have the time to see. (If I didn't get to see you, I apologize again and again. There were simply too many people that I hadn't seen in close to four months. They had to sustain the warming radiance of my shining personality first. I'll hang with you guys next time I'm up there though) They're all so caring and awesome. Where would I be without them? Probably in the worst place in the known universe--a South Philadelphia gutter (Adam, sound familiar?). Clogged with trash, used needles and other unmentionables (use your imagination), that's where I'd be stuck for the duration. Caring friends certainly do make hard life experiences much easier on the ol' ticker.

Update: Life on the Road and Other Tormenting Tales of Travel

2009-04-08T21:39:00.008-04:00

Good lord do I hate doctor consultations. I mean really; there's only so much up and down, heart beating in my throat, shaking hands and general roller coaster-like activity that one meek person can handle. Here's a thought: maybe I'll just give up now. I mean (statistically speaking), I'm fighting an indefatigable enemy. The doctor told me today that there is a one-hundred percent chance that this relentless foe will make a comeback. No matter how much chemotherapy and radiation we douse him in. No matter how many blunted scalpels we throw at him; Goliath will return. It's just a matter of time. Three years, seven years, ten years (maybe), but he'll be back.

So what are the months of my life spent in cancerous isolation all for then? The intricate scientific complexity of chemotherapy and radiation are really more like hulking blunt objects that doctors, behaving much like ancient cavemen or as the participants in a fancy Biblical stoning, can blindly and rashly hurl against my head and body. Some people live and some people don't: that's what happens when blunt objects are hurled at human bodies with reckless abandon. It all comes down to what the body can handle. If it so happens that we can handle the damage inflicted by hefty pointed objects, then we heal and eventually recuperate. If not, then we return to the dust of the earth.

Chance. That's all we're left with. Like a game of roulette, probability rules the day, and the meaning of my life boils down, in a precise and quantifiable manner of course, to numerical relationships. Everything is a number. A statistic in someone else's study (and that's if you're lucky): that's the inherent scientific value of a human life. Well I don't buy it. Neither is my life so easily quantified, stripped of its subjective meaning only to be lost to the ages. Time is the only agent with the power to strip my life of it's meaning. No fragile mortal coil possesses this ability: to draw meaning, as blood is drawn from an artery, from my life.

I will only breathe free in the air of my fire.

Happy Birthday Me!

2009-03-31T23:25:00.008-04:00

Well, I've made it this far. Twenty-eight years and all I've got to show for it is this silly little blog. March 31, 1981 12:07 AM: my exact moment of birth. The witching hour, what an eerie moment to pick to be born. You'd think I'd be more discreet than that. It's no wonder I have this latent dark side brooding within me. Being born at such a late hour is to blame, right?

In case you can't tell, these pictures are from my birthday party. My mom's parents and my cousins all came to celebrate the inauguration of my twenty-eighth year. We had boat-loads of kid-friendly fun which mainly consisted of running in circles and waving our hands in the ear like crazed little Macauley Culkens (guess the movie), watching Spongebob and eating far too much cheescake and soy ice cream (c'est tellement delicieux). Of course, it was so good to see my grandparents (By some miracle of nature at twenty-eight, i still have both sets of them. Go figure). Of course, they put both trick candles and sparklers on my cheesecake. I was so confused and intimidated by all that tricky illumination. I didn't know whether to douse the cake in my half-full glass of water or run away screaming. Those candles were determined not to go out without a fight. In the end, the cadre of cousins, nephews and my niece took care of it with blowing galore (and even some spitting). Those candles didn't know what hit 'em.

I just heard coyotes howling in my backyard. Maybe they were trying to mimic the police sirens that were echoing through the night air, or maybe they just thought they were other coyote howls. They sound just like you think they would. I imagined the typical image of the coyote howling on the cliff silloutted by the larger-than-life moon. It's pretty cool that my parents live in a place that has coyotes. It just makes it that much more exotic.

Rummaging Through My Forgotten Past

2009-03-30T15:40:00.006-04:00

You'll never believe what I've found stored for the past geological age in the drawers of my desk, lurking in the deep shadows of my past (hmmm, that sounds much darker than I really meant it to). On it's own, these pictures are in no way threatening, sinister or deceptive (unless you interpret them likewise. This would place the fault squarely on your shoulders reflecting in no way upon my most innocent of intentions.) They do make for great fodder for those of you out there considering kidnapping/ransom or blackmail in the near future (although the fact that these pictures are already available to anyone with an internet connection does somewhat foil these plans--somewhat). Don't let it deter you though, keep that chin up champ.

This is Mittens. Mittens was one of my best friends back in 1989 (from whence this picture came). We had all kinds of fun together, too. (I get the feeling that he was generally ignored at the home of my neighbors. Now that I think about it, their dog was kind of the devil, too; I don't think they were very good with pets.) I was 8 years old at the time, plaid was OBVIOUSLY all the rage, as were my Nike kicks, and green was (and remains to this day) my favorite color. When my neighbors moved away, I heard that Mittens ran away from their new house. I never heard what happened in the end, but I always secretly wished that he missed me and was trying to find his way back here. I never saw Mittens again. That made me sad.

This is Friskers. We got him from our music teacher when I was in elementary school. If I remember correctly, he adopted us shortly after the Mittens years. Friskers LOVED it when my mom would get home from the grocery store. The pile of empty grocery bags was like a cavernous kitty maze; pure fun. It was like the cat version of a great party, only there were no other people, just lots of plastic bags. Ok so maybe that was a bad comparison. Friskers met his end one day rather suddenly, but I'd rather not dwell on that. He was a loving and eccentric cat (aren't they all?), and he certainly loved lying in closed-in spaces.

This is Jay the Stray. He just graduated from the school of cuteness (with honors). I think I was in 5th grade when I found him. Biking home from my friend Nick's house on the other side of the neighborhood, I noticed him just wandering around in the grass. As was my nature, we hung out for a bit. It must've been because I didn't shoot him with pellets that he decided to follow me home (he had 20-something pellets lodged in his skin. Let's not discuss what I'd do to the individuals responsible for such neglect). I can still remember riding down the hill to my house and glancing at him behind me just trotting along happily. Once we got home, we sat in the backyard, and I convinced my neighbor to feed him some of her dog food. Jay's currently in the running for sweetest dog ever. To this day, maybe a decade later, I still occasionally dream about him. If I ever get another dog, he'll/she'll have to be like Jay. It would only be fair.

This is the last page of a comic that I made back in 1993. Back then I was really into all things superhero, oh and ninjas, too. Anything that I could even remotely relate to Japan was just so exotic (and therefore the coolest by proxy). Being the budding 12 year-old comic book artist that I was, I fashioned characters out of regular household items--gone horribly awry! The Nail, Machine Master: these are all characters that any 12 year old boy could easily invent by rummaging through the house on a typical summer day. If you'd like to see more of the exciting adventures of Phantom X, it's too bad for you; they're limited editions, and only I have access to them. So sorry. If you play your cards right, one day I'll clue you into the story line.

Bad News from the Land of Goliath

2009-03-23T18:32:00.004-04:00

Well that wasn't what I wanted to hear.

I just got off the phone with Raven, and apparetnly Goliath was officially dignosed as a mixed Glioma stage 3. Stages 1-2 are considered low grade and stages 3-4 are considered high grade. So Goliath (or at least a small portion of him) was a bit more aggressive than we were hoping he would be.

So that means that they're recommending Chemotherapy and Radiation, and if I'm to start this protocol, it would begin in the next two weeks roughly. If I do pursue this course of action, I don't know where I'd stay either. If I stay in Atlanta, I'm near my family, but I leave myself subject to all kinds of infections that my totally compromised immune system will have no chance to combat. I don't know if I'd be able to handle Philly in that state either. It's too early to say, I guess. I'll have to wait until after I meet with both of my new oncologists (Yay!).

Obviously, the picture's still a bit fuzzy at the moment. I sent an email to the resident Doc at Hippocrates to get the alternative perspective on my diagnoses. Hopefully, I'll hear back soon, but you never know with busy people...

And so the saga continues. I may not be battling Goliath anymore, but I guess you could kind of say I'm battling myself at this point. This isn't the news I was hoping for, and I'm really bummed out about it at the moment. I'm not looking forward to 6 weeks or 6 months of lethargy, body aches and nausea not to mention sporting the 'cancer patient' look. You know what I mean. The thin, wiry frame topped by a bald, shiny head. Like an escaped abductee from an alien probing experiment gone wrong, I'll be almost unrecognizable as a healthy human being. In fact, I'll look more like an alien. Great just great. I'm REALLY looking forward to this.

The Utter Joy of Life in Limbo

2009-03-17T09:36:00.004-04:00

Well that was nice.

I just finished a three day stint, a hiatus in hell if you will, that unfortunately didn't involve any enjoyable extracurricular activities--just the opposite. You see when a currently-drug-dependent individual (Hey, what're you looking at me for? This is a hypothetical case.) tries to quit a drug cold turkey, basically his/her body responds by shouting (in a New York accent, of course), "Hey buddy, whachya doin' ta me 'ere?" The drug-deprived body can respond in any number of ways: sweats, chills, fevers, hot/cold flashes, pain, nausea, profuse vomiting (that's all I can think of at the moment). But mine responded with abundant swelling (every place on my body that was injured in some way swelled just enough to make me uncomfortable; really intense pain is a better descriptor). It was everywhere, too. Yesterday, I talked to one of my docs, Raven (named after the Baltimore Ravens?) on the phone. She suggested that I revert to a previous point on my drug taper schedule. Apparently, it may not just be the withdrawal; it could also be the timing. Many times, there simply hasn't been enough time for the swelling affected by the drug to reduce in size. Ooh, maybe it's both!

So now I have to wait until next Monday (March 23rd) to find out the status of Goliath. The doctor responsible for identifying the status of my tumor had to send a sample of it out for genetic testing (I wonder if I can get some of that in a jar of formaldehyde. Would that be gross?). I know it sounds scary and complicated (not to mention super hi-tech), but Raven allayed my fears as it's apparently very normal for such a rare and multi-faceted tumor (Yay! I may just make it into the history books yet). They just want to be sure of it's status before they risk their reputations on a concrete diagnosis. Sigh, I guess I can continue to wait and wait and wait...

In the mean time, my extended family came to visit me a couple of days ago (that's my grammie and me up top). Unfortunately, it was during the last few days. It was good though to see everyone after all I've been through the last few months. As we can see in example 2-A, all the kids had a good ol' time running around, break dancing, screaming, and sitting calmly on the bench (Gwen's gonna do something cool, she's just waiting for the right moment). Somehow I still have both sets of grandparents. I'm about to turn 28 years old, and I still have both sets of grandparents. I'm really super lucky; I don't know anyone else my age that still has both sets of grandparents.

The frustration of a phone call

2009-03-13T17:06:00.002-04:00

Here's how the cycle's been going lately: stress out over a phone call, make said phone call, receive no news whatsoever, cry. I guess it's better this way, though. Today is Friday the 13th. For all I know, they could tell me that my tumor didn't in fact get removed, and that they actually took out healthy brain--just on the opposite side from where the surgery was supposed to happen. That development would be less than stellar. Ok so I'm really glad that's not the case. So I'm supposed to find out the final results on Monday, but there's just no telling what's going to be the case here. It's just such a rare tumor. I hope the delay is just from having to check so many different sections of it. That or they lost it.

a brief pause for my cute niece

2009-03-11T20:19:00.003-04:00

Now it's time for some shameless promotion of my niece. I can't help it. I mean look how cute she is. Would you do any different? Today we went down to the swing set. She played; I photographed. What a perfect day.

Yesterday, when we got back from Baltimore (we spent almost a month cooped up in that Best of Westerns with the best of maids, Marie), this was the glorious sight before my eyes. My sister and niece spent many hours slaving over it. It feels good to be home alright...

Goliath's Stats

2009-03-10T16:24:00.004-04:00

Size: 8cm x 8cm
Ok, Goliath is at least borderline, well, gigantic. I guess that’s why I named him accordingly. That’s roughly 3.14 inches (or Pi inches, if you will)—a 3 in.x 3 in. fragment of festering flesh that was surgically coaxed out of my head into a hermetically sealed formaldehyde-free container. How did Dr. Q remove such a rare reality from my head you ask? With his superior surgical skills silly! (He said that he’d only seen one other tumor of the same variety in all his years of neurosurgical specialization.)

Weight: 3 Pounds!
A pretty weighty tumor, Goliath has left big empty shoes for my brain’s many types of fluids to fill. They say that neurological cells don’t reproduce, but I’ll show those highly accomplished and credentialed physicians the meaning of neurogenesis. Seriously though, that’s a relatively weighty tumor; it’s like my brain’s experiencing it’s own personal renaissance.

Age: probably years old
Dr. Q couldn’t say for sure (currently, nobody can know this), but he thought that due to the amount of adaptation that my brain had undergone, the tumor had probably been growing slowly in it on the scale of years rather than weeks or months. It was only the more aggressive part that had triggered the symptoms that I started experiencing around Thanksgiving.

That's all he told me for now. Wait until Thursday for my super all important release of the Goliath's official prognosis. Hopefully it'll be good news all around.

A post-op fantasy

2009-03-09T21:18:00.000-04:00

Well today was a bit of a let down. Sadly, I didn't get the official word on my tumor, yet (muted trumpet sounds). I did get my staples out, though. I also met with Dr. Q again (He's so likeable. I just want to squeeze him). Now I'm in another hotel (Yay!) an hour outside of Durham, NC. Honestly, it's such a unique experience, this hotel that is. Seriously though, I can't wait to get home where I can actually get some much needed R&R. I'll do some biking, eat some raw food (and some regular food. If you think I'm gonna stay totally raw, then you've obviously gone completely nuts, which is actually fine with me.) Anyway, I've got until Thursday to wait for the official word now. I have to call back up there, so hopefully I can have a more official update for you then. Bye now!

Visitations and ramifications

2009-03-08T10:33:00.014-04:00

Last night my friends Evan and Shannon came for a special visit. Well it wasn't so much special as absolutely conventional, but that's to be expected from a bunch of snarkers like them. It's too bad, though. I was a bit on the tired side when they showed up, so it totally slipped my mind to snap their photos. Drat! It's ok though, I commisioned Shannon to take a remotely developed picture of her and her beau (guess what? that's them above!). You know, it's like we've leapt into the 21st Century without even taking a step into the 20th (yes I know, that makes no sense).

It felt so good to laugh with them; I'm serious. I'm talking full-body laugh here. I guess I've just been taking things so seriously lately that I forgot my sense of humor. I mean, I thought I kept my sense of humor healthy and radiant, but I guess there's a difference between a hearty chuckle and full-body laughter. The only problem is that it makes my head feel like it's gonna split open when I laugh that heartily; a strange albeit satisfying feeling, I guess.

Record huntin' was next on the list. I didn't feel very good when I woke up this morning. I'm coming down off the Dex so every few days when I have to reduce the quantity I take, I get a bit of a headache. Nothing that an appropriately placed dose of Extra-Strength Tylenol can't take on, though. We scouted out two different hole-in-the-wall record stores. Dan and Adam loaded up on records (Adam in particular). We got lunch, coffee, saw the building from the Wire. What didn't we do? One thing's for sure, Baltimore's got nothing else for us. Well that may be a bit of a mis-statement. How about: Baltimore's got a whole lot more to offer us and we're probably not gonna get to see it. I think that sounds better, don't you?

Tomorrow morning at 8:40 is my post-op appointment with Dr. Quinones. Then Jay and Bob are coming by for their final visit, too. Having friends come visit really helps me on the road to recovery. I don't realize how much I need the interaction (though it's really tiring), but it helps me to feel like I'm a normal person again. Ok well, wish me luck tomorrow. There's no telling what my fortune will bring...

Goliath's toll

2009-03-06T12:10:00.002-05:00

I don't know what Goliath's final toll on my life will be, but I do know that I can never go back to the way things were. This experience has been rich, to say the least, but something about referring to my brush with cancer as an 'experience' makes me feel terrible. To put it bluntly, I could have died. I could have had neurological or physical complications from the surgery or one of a million other possible conditions, but I don't. The fact that I've come out of this so similar to the way I waltzed in--as a fully feeling human being--is frankly astounding. I don't know who to thank or how, but I feel like I've just won an award for living and it guarantees me a new lease on life. The only problem is that now I have to live with a new lease every waking moment. I can't slip up and get jaded and bored like I did before; that just doesn't seem right--at all. Of course I'll have bad days where I feel next to terrible, but I can't let myself fall into the pit of darkness that I emerged from in late December. It just wouldn't be fair to myself.

So now I'm left to recover from this situation. If chemotherapy/radiation is needed then I'll have to take that step in the course of time, but as for right now, I don't need any further thought about whether or not to get surgery: it's done. I've bought myself one thing that I just wasn't sure if I had before: time. Goliath's gone, and hopefully he won't be returning, but only I can ensure that he never returns. Because if he does, there will be some serious hurdles for me to tackle. Though I feel like this experience has prepped me for those hurdles, a second bout with cancer (which some would say is inevitable for the survivor) would send me into the throes of a battle from which I may never return. It's scary, I know, but for now, I can claim a certain degree of victory over Goliath. We'll see what the doctor says on Monday (the day of my post-op appointment), but I've got my fingers crossed for a clean bill of health. Wouldn't that be fantastic?

A band visit and other sordid tales

2009-03-05T17:49:00.008-05:00

Well today most of my band came down to visit me. The elusive fourth member, Evan, and his girlfriend, Shannon, are rumored to be planning a surprise visit on Saturday. Ha! I know what their plans are now. Anyhoo, Jay and Bob came down for the day, and we ate a delicious lunch at Ze Mean Bean Cafe. We had some pretty fantastic albeit moderately portioned meals (damn the European meal sizing differentiation, have you seen how skinny I am?) Overall, it was an intimate place with an actual European atmosphere. A great place for Happy Hour or an un-rushed meal. This is beginning to sound like a restaurant review, isn't it? Ok I'll stop, then. Oh wait, I have a pic. That's shocking, I know. Usually one person doesn't make it into the picture because they're taking it. Most of the time, that's my dad. It's unfortunate, I know, but one of the sad realities of the physics of photography.

Now for some more serious discussion. A member of the Hippocrates crew, Don, was rushed to the hospital due to complications from his cancer. Now he's on an oxygen machine and the doctor has given him 2-4 weeks to live. Apparently, the symptoms he's exhibiting are common for the end times. This is not good. Anyone who wants to send Don some good thoughts or prayers or whatever it is that you do, please do it. Don's a really great guy, and he's always been there for his friends. For Christ's sake, he was in the emergency room, and his concern was with how my surgery went rather than his serious condition. Now it's time for me to be there for him. Here's a pic of ol' Don with us down at Hippo. I mean it guys, please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. I'd hate to see him go.

More delightfulness in the snowy City of Charm

2009-03-02T18:52:00.007-05:00

Yes. Today was a good day. I had some trouble last night coming down from the Dex. 16mg to 8mg requires quite a leap of faith, if you will (and I'm sure you will). It's a nasty drug, and I'd like to be off of it as soon as possible. The number of side-effects and complications that this drug causes make my head-spin (literally sometimes), so that's all I'd like right now. No more Dex, please. Oh yeah, that and my old clear way of seeing the world, and everyone's shiny happy faces. That would be very nice, thank you.

My room mate Dan and my work mate Adam came down to see me today. We went to Panera with my parents, who generously donated our lunches to us. We had a good ol' time sittin' around talkin' bout nothin'. Seriously though, they're really good guys, and we may go record store/cool museum huntin' next Monday. That would be fun.

I'm looking forward to getting back to a more traditional type of existence. That means one in which I work for my money, and I, yes I, pay my bills. Actually... I do that now, but my Dad has payed my rent for the last couple months and considering the amount of money that has been spent on this little conundrum, I'm sure that he'd like to get me back to self-sufficient as soon as possible. Not that he's in any hurry, but times aren't so good in this little country right now, are they?

So I digitally edited a pic I took of Baltimore earlier (I have nothing to do here, alright? Sitting around editing these pictures is seriously all I have in the world right now, well that and Cartoon Network). I thought that I'd leave you with that and a picture of my nasty wound, if you can stomach it. If you can't, that's just too damn bad. If you have any problems with it, you can come down to Baltimore, and we can take it outside in the snow. You wouldn't hit a guy who just had brain surgery, would you?

Pretty crazy, huh? It must've hurt like all get out, but I was nicely anesthetized the whole time. That's good. I can't handle that much pain; that and my face being peeled down. Have I grossed you out, yet?

Alas, Goliath is gone...

2009-03-01T09:18:00.007-05:00

Unfortunately, there's some very sad news that I have to report: Goliath has been captured and resected; in other words, he's gone, forever hopefully.

I'll find out for certain what's going to happen next Tuesday when I discuss the results of the pathology report with Doctor Quinones. He truly is a miracle worker, and I'm so happy with the way things have gone. I mean really, he totally cut out Goliath and is one of the nicest men on the planet. It's exactly what I was hoping for, exactly. I don't know if things could have gone so well otherwise. I need to hold off on the praise until I can say for sure, but I'm just so pleased with the way things have gone so far.

Yep, I'm pretty happy with the way things have gone so far. I'll have more news to relate as things progress, but I just want everyone to know that my perspective on the world and my friends has been forever changed. I mean it. I seriously can't tell you what this experience has done for me. It has totally opened my eyes to the absolute compassion that people can have for one another. It brings tears to my eyes, it really does. Thank you.

The Anatomy of a Migraine and my Contact Info

2009-02-23T15:12:00.009-05:00

You know how it all goes down. The pain that makes your eyes feel like they're getting wrenched out and squeezed at the same time. Actually, most of you probably don't. The sad fact is that most people don't know exactly what happens during a migraine. Well my friends, I'm here to tell you exactly how a migraine goes down. There are a couple of different kinds of migraines actually: some people actually get them upwards of 15-20 times a month! That thought of that much pain makes me want to vomit incessantly. Most migraines start out with these weird little visual accouterments, if you will. They're kind of like little kaleidoscopic elements that randomly appear in your visual field. They start out small and gradually widen out to take up your whole visual field. Then the horrible pain sets in. It'll last for a few hours; slowly draining the life out of you. Then it'll slowly grant you a reprieve and you can remember where your will to live went. Not a fun process, but I can say, once you've been through a migraine, what else could possibly trigger such happiness once it's done?

So surgery tomorrow, huh? That's a bit on the intimidating side. You guys all need to get on board with my physical and email addresses here in Baltimore. The physical address goes as such:

David Sommer
Best Western, Rm. 717
5925 O'Donnell St.
Baltimore, MD 21224

My email address is onceagainandagain@gmail.com. Hey! No funny stuff either. Ok well maybe just a little bit. Funny stuff makes me laugh, and laughter's good, right?

A day-trip to my old stomping grounds

2009-02-22T18:21:00.004-05:00

Today I went to grab my car from Philly. I was only there for a brief time, but I got to see a whole bunch of my old (old? I thought they were new?!?) friends. It just so happens that I really like all those guys; maybe even more than I realized before. I’m kind of pissed off at my self, though, because I forgot to bring my camera. There were plenty of fantastic opportunities for tantalizing pictures that I missed. Unfortunately, it’s just not something that one thinks of doing when one visits home. I never really thought, “Hey, on this trip home, I should bring my camera to take lots of pictures of all that stuff that I used to take for granted.” It’s not really the kind of thing that I’d ever really consider while pondering a day-trip to Philly.

Like I said, though, it was a good trip to Philly.

My family and I didn't do too terribly much, but we did venture over to the Whole Foods (which I had honestly only been to like twice but will now probably be frequenting on a much higher scale than before due to my aforementioned raw diet.) The prepared foods there are pretty seriously awesome, it's actually probably the best Whole Foods that I've been to so far (that's not really saying much either. I'm pretty sure it's probably the fourth Whole Foods I've been to. Maybe not even the fourth: one was a Harry's.) But we hung with Dan my roomie and Kennedy a good friend of mine. It was really a good time.

This is my word-based image for the blog. I decided that it would be a good idea to sweep out underneath my tires. Yeah, there were tacks. I'm really glad I did that. My car might be stuck on I-95 getting run over by Mack trucks and pissed-off Philadelphians.

Finally, last but not least. Saturday night was the big Mardi Gras party here at the ol' Best Western. All of the 270 women that were here over the weekend had a big Mardi Gras party. So I leave you with a woman that had a minnie me replete with matching teeth. Ha! 'Nough said.

My Hands Felt Like Two Balloons

2009-02-21T09:14:00.011-05:00

If you can guess the classic track that I hand-culled this title from, then I'll personally guarantee you a high five--feet flying and all. I think that's a pretty sweet deal.

OK so I decided that this post would pertain entirely to all the little oddities that the hulking Goliath has produced in my head. They're really hard to describe for the most part, but I want to try to explain them to my loyal audience as much as possible. Starting with some hyper-sensitivity that I've been dealing with my whole life, I'd like to delve into what I experience (in a hushed voice)--usually at night when I'm trying to sleep. I've never really had a reason to try to explain any of this stuff to anyone, but now I do.

I've tried to reproduce the text that was so horribly ripped from my grasp this weekend. I don't know what happened, but it was wrested from me alright. Tsk tsk. Alright so the first thing that I want to explore is this whole balloon hands thing. It's been going on for years, and I mean years, but it seems to be happening at an increasing rate since I've had this Goliath lurking around my brain. It's weird though, it feels like my hands--and only my hands--get this weird hyper-sensitivity going on. Simply put: they feel huge! But I know they're not huge, they just feel as if they were that way. It's so bizarre--like they're some kind of uncanny semblance of a hand that doesn't really resemble a hand but is still attached to my wrists. Uhhh what? I don't really know what else to say about it other than: weird.

Ok so the next thing is something that my friend Alison, who came down to see me last Saturday (she's such a super sweetee!) So she told me that there's more hyper-sensitivity going on in my little mind than meets the eye, er, Goliath. She called it Exploding Head Syndrome. We can just stop there. I mean, what a fantastic name. I wouldn't even need to know what it was to fully appreciate it. Anyway, it's a condition that is essentially like my balloon hands condition except it's in my ears. Anyway, the Exploding Head Condition--I love saying that--feels like or gives the quality of really loud noises to what are actually really quiet noises. So if you have, say a noise from the heater in my hotel room that is essentially really quiet, it will actually have the same quality as a noise that is really, really loud. It'll sound like the noise is screaming in my face, when it was really just a little peep in the background. It's really bizarre...

By the way, it's not like I'm freaking out with all of this stuff. It happens very rarely, but now it happens just enough more that I think it might have something to do with ol' Goliath. There's a few other things that I want to divulge to my loyal audience, too. I've found that there were a couple times over the last few years that I would find myself wondering--this is gonna sound weird by the way--when I am. There was this time at a school dinner, and the thought occured to me, "When am I?" It stuck with me for a few minutes, then I realized, "Oh, I'm so silly, I'm now." Honestly, though, that's how it happened. I went through this whole phase of history, seeing my neices and nephews in the future, and then it hit me, I'm now. Again really bizarre.

The next thing that I found to be really weird is one time I was biking up through Fishtown (a newly hip part of Philly) all on my lonesome, and I found that it was really hard for me to figure out how to get back to South Philly. Now it wasn't like I was in a bizarre part of Fishtown; I was right on York! So what occured to me was that my brain was having another one of those little episodes where it says, "Dude, I don't know. What do you want me to do about it?" Then I went back to normal and just felt like my usual self again. It was just so strange. You never know how your brain is going to trip up when you're on your bike amidst a warm dusty Philly evening, do you?

A new haircut and a raw food chaser

2009-02-19T19:09:00.011-05:00

I must say that today was a much better day than yesterday. Days that I have bad headaches don't even feel like days rooted in reality. I'm seriously a different person on those days: rooted in my own wretchedness!

Today I did get a haircut, though. It's so great that I don't have to lose my hair for this operation--you know the one where I basically get scalped and my brains scooped out--yeah, no head shaving. So I decided that I should at least cut my hair shorter than usual (there's a picture of me post-haircut below, you probably wouldn't have guessed it). Apparently there's gonna be a bunch of goo all over it during and after the operation. That doesn't go well with long flowing locks, now does it? Anyhoo, the barber I went to is called The Beatnik Barbershop. He's no Michelle (she's my Philly hairstylist. Here's my plug for her at Ground Zero South located in the lovely Sweat Gym on Passyunk--go to her) but it was damn close and full of character. I just remember staring at a painting of a big black boxer who obviously had it out for me and me alone. I was scared. What? He was punching the air. How was I supposed to feel?

After the Haircut, we ventured down to a cool little raw food shop for lunch. It's called the Yabba Pot Cafe, and there was some delicious Kale and Spinach salad (what the H are we gonna do with me and my newly acquired vegan tastes?) My parents got some really good cooked Indian curry, rice, plantains and black beans. It's so sad. Even that looked really good. I think my ability to appreciate food has somehow migrated from the lower eschelons of food craving to a place that exists on some kind of higher plain. For example, instead of craving ice cream with chocolate syrup (which is still enticing by the way), I just want some fruit. I haven't had fruit in months. Tomatoes are my new fruit; a friggin' raspberry would be incredible.

With a little help from my friends

2009-02-18T21:34:00.002-05:00

From the lyrics of the great Beatles tune, the title says it all. I don't think I'd be here today, if it wasn't for all the great well wishers that have doggedly persisted in well, wishing me well.

Well the big day has been scheduled at Johns-Hopkins. Dr. Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa (Check out his info. He started out in this country as a migrant worker. Now he's one of the foremost brainsurgeons--'nuff said) will be doing the slice and dice on my frontal lobe on Friday, Feb. 27th. I'm a bit on the nervous side; it's not too bad right now, though (I'm also trying not to think about it). I'd love it if some of you friendly folks would call my hospital room and tell me about your non-surgery related days or send me an appropriately placed text message--that would also be great. Anything to know that someone else is out there that isn't having to deal with brain surgery. I won't be admitted until that day, but I'll post my room info as soon as I get it.

Quinones really impressed my family and I with his steadfastness, faith in himself and his 'A' team. I thought that was incredibly reassuring to say the least; we hadn't really encountered a surgeon like that yet. We'll be up here in Baltimore for a bit, but I think it'll be worth it in the end. It could be two-four weeks, when all's said and done. It will be expensive for my family, but we'll figure all of that out down the road. I guess for now, all we can do is just explore Baltimore really well. You should expect this blog to be a bit of an all-things-Baltimore blog for the next few days. That's fine. I like travel blogs.

Recap: Oh, the places I've been.

2009-02-17T18:52:00.006-05:00

It's been a wild ride thus far. I can remember what seems like tens of weeks ago (although it was actually in the range of ones of weeks ago) getting my first MRI at Piedmont Hospital in Atlanta. Then taking that very MRI over to the first doctor consultation in which he proceeded to scare the absolute crap out of me. My response to this was a simple one: jet out of Atlanta at top speed. We headed down to the Hippocrates Institute in Florida to locate some non-scalpel oriented therapy (AKA: alternative therapy) and leave our reeling minds to figure out what the hell had just happened.

Then there was back in November, when I had my first real Migraine. Yeah, that was weird. Laying on my couch with the kaleidoscopic version of reality going on in place of what I would have previously called my usual eyesight--and not much else. Just trying to focus on the TV screen to keep myself from freaking out was next to impossible. Then came the cold sweats--akin only to what I can imagine would be a hot flash--and the nausea. That wasn't very fun at all.

Now here I am in Baltimore, having yet another consultation. Fortunately, I'm not nearly as phased by it as the first three. The only difference this time was the lack of sleep that I suffered as a result. There was no sense of impending doom; no drifting alone through an empty vacuum. That's good, right? I think I can actually feel my skin thickening. Cancer, psssh, who cares? You'll have to dish out more than that if you want to take me down thank you very much.

I leave you with a lovely picture of my parents smiling before my consultation. Such great support. I don't know where I'd be without them. Well, maybe I do...

Carrot juice and all the sweetness that comes with...

2009-02-16T13:20:00.013-05:00

My parents and I just went down to a sweet little juice bar called Liquid Earth down in Baltimore's Inner Harbor neighborhood. Both of the photos I posted are from there. I emphasize sweet because, as long as I've been on this diet, I've come to realize that almost everything that we consume is as sweet as sugar--seriously. We put the stuff in everything we eat. I have no idea how we got by before we put sugar in everything, but it's no wonder our teeth our rotting out of our heads!

Wow! My last post got kind of intense there at the end. I apologize for all of that business, but what are you gonna do when staring down the barrel of your own demise? What else can I say about it?

Tomorrow I'm meeting with the doctor at John's-Hopkins. Dun Dun Dun. It's the prelude to the big day, I guess. I find out what to expect from this doctor and what to expect from the whole process.

I've also decided that I'm going to thoroughly document this whole proceeding both with photos and the beautiful written word. There'll be a whole lot of John's-Hopkins Bayview related pics and words. If you really want to see a ton of pics of me with bandages around my head, staples falling out and whatnot, well my darling you've come to the right place.