Perhaps a Litttle Procrastination

On Thursday I had a CT scan of the abdomen in order to determine the source of an issue I've been having with my large intestine. My doctor found that my intestine kind of folds just before it exits my abdomen, which keeps things from moving as well as one would like. The options to correct it are
1) have surgery on the surface of my abdomen to straighten out the intestine (either outpatient surgery or an overnight stay)
2) have my abdominal cavity opened up and straighten things out from the inside (five hour surgery)
3) to do nothing and deal with it.

Opening my abdominal cavity, is definitely out of the question. I've had my abdomen opened enough for one life time - perhaps two. And not dealing with it doesn't work for me. So, I sit here thinking to myself, "I should think about this for a while," as if thinking about it for a while is actually going to change anything. Maybe I just feel better not rushing into it, which seems so silly but at the same time, it works for me right now.

Moving Forward

Last week I had a colonoscopy and it was clear. I kind of expected it to be clear since I've received regular scans for quite a while now. Yet it was still nice to hear. I honestly don't know how long it will be before I am excited about being told I'm in the clear. As I've said before, my confidence was rattled when I was diagnosed with this recurrence. And my emotional state over the many months is still not something I recognize as familiar.

Over the last few months I've been up & down, going from being really blue about my health and having to rebuild my life, to feeling good and creating the life I want to live. The blues seem to be less frequent, but they still hit me pretty hard when they come. Honestly, I thought I'd be in a better space by now, but I'm not and I guess that's okay. I still have a lot of fun doing the things I love. I guess it just takes more for me to get motivated lately. It's obviously not a permanent outlook, and for that reason, I look forward to feeling more and more myself as time goes on.

Another part of it has to do with my doctors and nurses having told me, now that I've had a Stage IV diagnosis, a recurrence sometime in the future is highly probable. Of course I like to focus on the possibility of my being in the healthy, cancer-free side of that probability. Somebody's gotta be. And yet I am not going to pretend I don't "look over my shoulder" and wonder what's coming down the pike. I definitely do. I am still quite rattled from the recurrence not to mention all that preceded it. I really want to be past it all, which I suppose is a good sign. And perhaps I've forgotten how hard it all was. And maybe the impact is more than I anticipated.

So, I look around this apartment which we've been in since May 15th and continue to try to think of it as home. It is "home" in the sense that it's where I return for sanctuary from "the rest of the world," but something is missing. Cuddling with my boy on the couch and watching a movie this evening made the place feel a bit like home. Perhaps once the snow sets in, we'll feel like we're in our little den. I've also been thinking about having a house warming party. It didn't interest me upon moving in since I was receiving chemotherapy and waiting for the scan results. Perhaps it's time.

Good News - Negative Scan

I happy to say my scan came back negative and I feel a sense of relief. The knot of tension has been unwinding for the last couple days. Perhaps I will be joyful about it once many more come back that way. Next scan December 17th.

Quarterly Scan Tomorrow

I'm going in for my quarterly scan tomorrow. Fortunately at Memorial Sloan-Kettering, we get the results presented to us in a matter of hours, which I very much appreciate because I am definitely a bit anxious to hear the results.

Second Time Through

So it's been almost six weeks since I completed my chemotherapy treatment and was told the cancer is gone. It was June 25th that I was given this great news and on that day I was incredibly happy. But then the days that followed were very different. I found myself feeling down & depressed.

Lately, when people stop me and ask how I'm doing, and I say "I'm ok," some folks are surprised, which is certainly understandable. The most accurate way I've found to describe how is feel is to imagine what it might have been like to have been rescued from the Titanic as it was sinking, delivered safely to shore and told to "Take care" & "Good luck." "Now it's back to business." So I stare at the people in the world as they go through their daily routines, wondering where I begin. Like if someone you love has passed away and you watch people who casually stroll down the street and enjoy their day, and you wonder, "How can they be so happy when I'm in so much pain?" It's not logical, but it's not uncommon either.

So, this second time through I'm not so quick to jump for joy. And in the moments I do feel somewhat confident about my health, I look at what's happened in my life in the last couple of years and I hear, "We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming." That program being the other pains in my life which I couldn't give a whole lot of attention to, because I was too busy trying to escape death for a second time.

It's not like other people don't have it worse than me. There's always someone who has it worse. I see people now and again and think to myself, I'll take what I've got because I sure as hell don't want what they've got. And yet, each person's hardest thing, is our hardest thing.

Music was one of the key pieces that lifted my spirits throughout my treatment and before that, it lifted me through the pain of my wife's sudden departure. But lately, I feel like I'm on a short hiatus from the performance part of music. I think we'll do a show in September up in the Prison City. Perhaps by then I'll feel somewhat myself. And in the mean time I still write what ever songs show up for me. Not exactly the happiest songs in the world. But I did recently write an upbeat song. And it's just about done. It just happens to be a sad upbeat song. Ha-ha! One step at a time I guess. And in the interim, I'm going to wander aimlessly for a while. Everything still seems a bit strange to me.

Preventing the growth of blood vessels that feed a tumor

Of all the conversations I've heard connecting what we eat to the prevention and treatment of cancer, this one from Dr. William Li, of the Angiogenesis Foundation, which points to stopping the growth of blood vessels that feed cancer, seems pretty compelling.

Thanks Maria!

Click on the image below to watch the TED Talk.

In the Clear or Perhaps Not So Clear

On Monday June 25th I had a post-treatment scan and the results were NEGATIVE! No sign of cancer, so no more treatment and the next scan is in three months.

I am greatly relieved. The day of the good news I was moved to tears, I was so overjoyed. And a couple of days later I was actually feeling depressed at the idea of returning to "normal" life. And a day after that, being the recipient of a good coaching session, I was back to feeling as normal as one might expect to feel. It became clear to me that without being clear about the direction I am headed, the mind will wander and create its own version. And the mind left to it's own devices, is not always a good thing. Considering all the concerns I have, it helps to now have some pretty clear direction. So now I am back to figuring out how to be a single father, how to manage my disappointment about being one, as well as how to deal with what I can't control when my boy's not with me. So it's back to that and all the other day to day things there are to manage.

After the good news, the friend that joined me for the trip celebrated with me by taking me to a ballgame at Yankee Stadium. It felt good to be in a stadium (relatively) full of people excited and joyful. I can use as much of that as there is to go around.