I’m going to keep this post short but sweet. Today marks the one year anniversary of my diagnosis. Its been a long year but it FLEW BY SO FAST. I know that doesn’t make any sense… not a whole lot of things I say make sense anymore. So in lieu of me rambling on with analogies, I decided to leave you all with three gifts instead.

A gift for your soul

“Life isn’t only what you make of it, its what you make it with. The ingredients are just as important as the results.”

A gift for the body

When I got sick, one of the first realizations I came to was the fact I had allowed myself to become numb to the beauty of the world around me. I remember the first few days out of surgery, waking up early in the morning and having a cup of coffee in the backyard. Watching the birds fly in and out of the trees… feeling the breeze against my back and the warmth of the sun on my face. This was life. It was something I had taken for granted for so long. It was always there I just never took the time to see it. I won’t ignore it anymore, in fact, I want to see more of it. I decided to begin challenging myself to do more and explore what I’ve been missing. My first “big” adventure is hiking to the top of Mount Baldy. Yea yea, it isn’t much… but I’m not some extreme outdoors-man… it’ll definitely kick my ass. But think of it as a stepping stone, really. Once I complete that, I’ll make another goal a little bit bolder, and then continue that process. If anyone wants to go with me, let me know. (especially if you have a map and a compass… or maybe just an emergency GPS beacon…? All of the above? Anyone?)

A gift for the mind

I came across this video the other day and it brought me so much clarity. I think anyone who reads this blog will enjoy it as much as I did.

So all this started back on April 21, 2011. Being that its now April 3, 2012… I see no reason why I can jump the gun a bit and post this a little early.

April 22, 2011: One day after finding out I have a brain tumor, I’m waiting in an ER room to see my first specialist.

April 25, 2011: Just three days later, I’m discharged from the hospital after having a front temporal craniotomy.

April 27, 2011: Face swollen and loaded up on medicine, I decide to shave my head.

July 28, 2011: A few months later my surgeon finally says I’ve recovered enough for treatment to begin. I take a photo on the first day.

August 15, 2011: A few weeks into radiation and chemotherapy.

August 19, 2011: The side effects of treatment really start to show. I’ve lost over 20lbs.

September 6, 2011: My platelets bottom out and I’m in an ER getting transfused. Chemo is halted for health concerns.

September 9, 2011: Even three days after the transfusion my platelets have barely recovered.

September 16, 2011: Last radiation treatment!

September 26, 2011: I remember to take a comparison photo.

October 5, 2011: Still haven’t recovered from the effects of radiation.

October 25, 2011: Electroencephalogram (EEG) test. My neurologist wants to know more about my seizures.

December 8, 2011: Platelets finally get back to a normal level! I’ve been off chemo for 3 months.

January 10, 2012: I’ve lost nearly 30lbs so far. I take up light-weight lifting, jogging, hiking, stretching and sit-ups. I start eating healthier than ever and add lots of protein and calories to my diet.

March 31, 2012: I’ve had two MRIs with great results. I feel good, my hair is back and I’ve been back to work for 3 months now.

It’s exciting to look back and see how well I’ve recovered… but I’m far from done and my fight isn’t over. I still have brain cancer and its not going anywhere. My only chance is to keep happy and healthy; mentally and physically. I look forward to keeping everyone up to date on my progress!

TO BE CONTINUED…

Life. Is it something we experience, share or just pass through? Some people would tell you we are “given” life; its something each one of us have. Others would tell you, you are “blessed” with life; its something granted to you… ingrained inside you. A soul perhaps.

I would say life is a large, collective instance we all pass through. You don’t own a part of it and it’s not a part of you. The only thing you’re granted or blessed with, is the chance to experience it along with everyone else.

I’ve realized this more and more recently. If life was yours, you’d have more control over it; like you do with your arms and legs. But you don’t! No one does. Shit just happens and you have to react and hope for the best. Sometimes its good shit, sometimes its bad shit. But we’ll never know until that moment.

Let me start off by saying this: we’re all lucky sons-a-bitches to be here in the first place. Do you know how many millions and trillions of galaxies and planets there are in the cosmos? Like… a bunch. And all the atoms that make you who you are somehow found themselves here on this planet, this pale blue dot in the midst of The Milky Way, and were able to come together perfectly to bring you a single chance to experience life. That’s like flipping a coin one billion times and having it landing on heads every time.

But truth be told… in 100 years everyone who is alive right now will be dead. Think about that for a minute. It took billions of years for this planet to form, humans have been around for (okay lets not get into a big argument here) arguably thousands to tens of thousands of years, but your presence is a mere 80 or so years? (I’m assuming that’s like an average).

I know… I know… “GET TO THE POINT BRANDON!” I’M TRYING! The point is no matter how big or important you think your life may be, your time here is nothing in the big picture. Its like throwing a rock at a mountain. All the small parts just blend into one big figure.

But it isn’t a bad thing; you just need the right perspective on it. I’m not saying mine is THE RIGHT perspective, because that would be preaching. I’m just sharing how I feel about it all.

So imagine all of us are invited to a big get-together. This party never ends but you aren’t allowed to stay very long. Once you show up, you have a limited time to meet everyone, enjoy the hospitality and then you’ll leave. How long do you have? You don’t know. Some people longer than others; some people will pop in to say hi and leave. Everyone shows up at different times, wearing different things, bearing various gifts. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry… you’ll find people you really dislike and others you’ll want to be with the entire time.

That’s life. You don’t own it. You’re just a guest. So here’s where the cool part starts:

Lets say you find someone at the party and decide to tell them a joke. You make them laugh REALLY hard– so hard they literally cry. Then as you stroll through the house you find picture hanging crooked on the wall… and you fix it. Suddenly, someone spills their drink. You stop to help them clean it up. And when someone just arrives to the party, you give up your chair at the dinner table so they can enjoy their meal without standing.

Some people might think: “Hey! I only have a limited time here… I’m not going to waste my time with all that nonsense. I have things to do and people to see!”. Well that’s the point– your time IS limited. But what ISN’T limited is your story.

See… when you leave the only part of you that remains is the story you left behind– your ‘breadcrumb trail‘ per se. The person you shared your joke with will tell it to others. The picture you fixed will hang straight for others to enjoy. The person you helped clean the floor and the other you gave your chair to… all these people will remember you.

I know all that sounds corny, but I’m just making up examples here.

The point is, its like your entire time spent at the party is relived by the ones you left an impression on. Everyone remembers you. They even share stories of you with people who show up after you’re gone. People you’ve never met feel like they know you and have a sense of what kind of person you were. Even THEY miss you because they never got to meet you.

Everyone leaves a story behind: good or bad. Its a simple truth. So be conscience of your decisions… no one wants to be remembered as an asshole.

Reflecting back on my life, I realized I am very fortunate to have had a great family raise me. There are endless moments, breadcrumbs if you will, that will always stay with me. Stories that’ll be told countless times and still make me laugh, or cry, or remind me to be a better person.

I’ve also met some incredible friends and have had some really fun experiences with truly great people. Every one of them have made an impact on my life. That’s part of how their stories will live on after they’re gone: I’ll share them with others and the cycle continues.

But where do MY breadcrumbs start? I don’t know! I can’t tell you who I’ve impacted. I mean, I could guess but what’s that going to mean? I will say this: the last few months have been a reminder… “hey, limited time here buddy. Start doing something. Now.”

So I have been. I mean… small stuff, but everything starts small, right? Firstly, I try to remember to genuinely smile at people. Even strangers. Like someone who holds a door open for you, or a server at a restaurant. Look ‘em in the eyes, smile and thank them.

I’ve been doing little things with my children too. I started teaching Aidan to snap a few weeks ago. The snapping part wasn’t what was important, it was his lack of self esteem when he couldn’t do it at first. I told him he could learn to do anything as long as he tried. Now he’s pro at it (ambidextrous I might add). So 25 years from now, when his kids asks him how he learned to snap, he’s going to say “My dad taught me… he also taught me how to play video games. Lots of video games. Actually he taught me mostly video games… lots and lots of video games. Do you wanna play video games with me?”

I also teach both my kids about space which is one of my personal passions. They’re already curious about it, so I’m just feeding it. They ask an innocent questions like “why is the sun so bright?” I give them the real answer. Yea I simplify it a bit, but I don’t give them a fairy tale response like “because its made out of a lot of light bulbs”. I tell them “because its really big and burns really, really hot. You know its really far away and all the stars in the sky are just like the sun?”. I hope they’ll share my enthusiasm of the universe. Maybe one day they’ll end up being a NASA-space-flight-engineer-scientist-space-explorationist-nuclear-powered-professor-of-robotics-technician. Or like, at least have a telescope in their backyard. Maybe I should buy them those glow-in-the-dark space stickers for their ceilings?

[Note to self: buy glow-in-the-dark space stickers for the kids' ceilings]

[Note to self: buy one for master bedroom, too]

I know these are little things, but that’s how it starts. Like teaching them good manners, respect for people, kindness to animals (except the chihuahua). Just the other day in the hospital elevator Aidan pressed the floor number for an old man. The man said “thank you” and Aidan said “you’re welcome”. The old man looked at my wife and I and said “such a well mannered and polite young man”. We were so proud.

That’s the kind of character I want to leave with my children.

I try to do be the same way with my beautiful wife. I try to help her realize when she’s overburdening herself and just needs to relax. She works so hard taking care of the kids (me included) that she forgets to take care of herself. I say “try to help her realize” because she’s a woman and women know everything. So it doesn’t do any good. But I try

[Note to self: buy extra bandaids; your wife is going to kick your ass for saying that]

I hope this makes sense to someone. If it does, share it with a friend and help them understand it. I don’t know if I’ve done much breadcrumming thus far, so this could help me catch up.

I feel like in the recent months I’ve been living my life with my head down. I’m only looking at my feet… watching them slowly shuffle down the sidewalk. I haven’t bothered to look up to see where I’m going. You know what’s really shitty about that? I’m not that kind of person. I’ve been a person that has a task, but looks way down the road… even standing on my tippy toes and using my hand as a sun visor so I can see further, just to make sure when I finish my task it will be beneficial to the big picture. I like to plan as far ahead as possible and ensure each step takes me in the right direction.

Its like when you’re driving down the freeway and see rain in the distance. You’re driving in perfectly sunny weather but you can see that a storm is a few miles off. You think to yourself, “am I going to be driving that far? Yes I am. I’ll be on this freeway for another 30 minutes and surely I’ll be in that weather.” You look at your back windows, make sure they’re rolled up, try to remember if you have a coat and umbrella in that trunk. Check the sunroof. Glance at your wipers. Everything seems in order here.

Stop and think about that. I’ll wait.

Are you still driving? Yes. Did it take any more effort to plan ahead? No. You’re still driving just as you would have done even if you didn’t look ahead. But now you’re that much more ready for the storm. Your task at hand is the same but you’ve made minor changes to ensure success in the future. But you have to know where you’re going to make those decisions.

Walking through life with our heads pointed at our toes is easy, and if you think about it, so is looking forward. But you need to look forward.

But knowing what direction you’re moving is different than knowing where your destination is. You can’t get to the moon by aiming “up”. And shooting for the sky will only disappoint you when you realize the “sky” is just a direction. You need a goal. It has to be ingrained in your head like GPS coordinates.

So lets bring this topic full circle and back to why I brought it up. I think I might have mentioned once or twice that… well, cancer sucks. And I mean that literally and figuratively.

Cancer sucks the life out of you. Happiness, energy, motivation, that feel-good feeling. All of them whither away. I stopped looking at my life on a macroscopic level and started looking at my days in microscopic form. How do I feel this hour? How am I feeling now? Am I happy? Do I need to throw up? How am I feeling now? I was like the fucking Verizon guy but instead of “can you hear me?” it was “how am I feeling?”.

The big picture blurred away and blended in with the horizon. In my mind it didn’t exist anymore. I only cared about the “now”.

Until… now (you gotta admit that’s pretty funny… irony at its best)

I can’t tell you why or how, but over the last few days I’ve started to look up again. I don’t know if its because I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with my treatment, getting out of the house more, the fact I’m starting to feel better in general, or something else I’m completely aloof to… but something has changed.

That’s why I’ve changed my mind. The statement “cancer sucks” isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to those who don’t let it win. Let’s refrain from defining what cancer does and say, “cancer can suck… but only if you let it”.

Yes there are days it will suck the energy out of you, it will suck the motivation out of you, and it will suck the happiness out of you. Cancer will even literally suck the life out of some people. People will lose the battle. But lets honor them by not looking at our toes but by looking forward to where we are headed.

So today, cancer sucks. But way out there, on the very edge of what I can see in my future, it does not suck. And that’s where I’m headed. So I need to make changes to my today so that tomorrow I’m closer to where I want to be, and not somewhere I hate.

Making that decision isn’t easy. Shallow words and empty promises have no roots. They won’t weather a storm, they won’t last and they’re a waste of your time. You have to really want it. You have to NEED it.

Have you ever been pulled under by a wave; twisted, turned and pushed into the dark of the ocean? I have… many, many times (I think it comes from being born and raised in California). Once the wave has passed there is a quick moment of silence… followed by panic. At this exact moment your mind locks on to a single goal… “air”. Nothing will stop you. Your goal has become the single most important goal ever defined in your life. The salt water you were so worried about getting in your eyes is now nothing. Your eyes are wide open, pupils dilated and searching for a small glimmer of light. The seaweed you avoided touching earlier is no longer a threat; you press your foot through it to find the solid ocean floor and press yourself up to the surface. Kicking your feet with every ounce of energy, your muscles burning from the lack of oxygen you struggle to the surface.

In the end, when we reach our goal… that first breath… it is the single most refreshing breath we’ve ever tasted. Every goal in our life needs to share that same dedication.

Whether it be happiness, success, health, fame, fortune or whatever else you’ve set your sights on… want it like you want to breathe. It cannot be an option.

Right now my goal is to be happy and healthy. I want to smile more often. I want to be outside and smell the fresh air. I want to eat right and live right and do whatever it takes so that 10, 20, 40 years from now I’m still happy and healthy. I want to be successful in my career, which means I need to get back to work (which will only happen when I’m healthy again). Every accomplished goal is a building block for the next goal.

So right now… uncross your feet and take your hand off your chin and think about your goals. Sift out the unimportant, egotistical nonsense and focus on the goals that matter. Take a deep breath and prepare for the next wave. I can’t tell you when its coming, but your goal isn’t an option.

Reach it.

That’s kinda what I imagine everyone is thinking right now. Oddly enough, I didn’t realize how many people were following my blog at the time I stopped writing. In all truthfulness, I couldn’t figure out why people bothered reading about my shitty experiences, but then I started to realize that whatever compels people to read it doesn’t matter… what mattered was the feedback I got. Genuine, sincere caring from friends, family and even strangers.

I thought for sure my blog would fall into the out-of-sight-out-of-mind category when I stopped writing. Like… of course people say stuff when I post something new, but they won’t realize when I stop. Yea… WRONG.

So why don’t I write? Heh, your guess is as good as mine. Its not like I don’t have the tiiiiiiiime. I have too much time. Time is really all I have. Free time is sorta like candy: we all want it, we all crave it. And then when its Halloween and you get a metric fuck-ton of it, you realize how much you actually hate it and you just want to pawn it off to your neighbors and people at work. Free time starts to feel like emptiness. You feel like you’re on pause and the rest of the world is fast-forwarding passed you.

I see days go by in a blink. Life is busy, like a nest of bees. If you were to stare at it, it would look like a single, organic machine flowing in perfect, fluid motion. Like every movement belonged there. But if one bee were to stop moving, you’d noticed it. It would look out of place and wouldn’t blend in with the rest of the product. I feel like that bee. And when you’re that bee, a single blink means a hundred things have change. There are days I wake up to my son giving me a hug and a kiss before school and then I blink and he’s home telling me about his day.

I mean, I sleep a lot. I’m run down most of the time. I don’t want to get all ‘woe is me’ and that shit, so I won’t. But chemo and radiation knock you the fuck out. It takes a toll on you, man. Some days it just feels like game over, man. Game over!

But then other days are like WHOA HEY WHAT’S UP PEOPLE WANNA HANG OUT? WE SHOULD LIKE TOTALLY DO SOMETHING! And then I realize its Tuesday and everyone is like “fuck you” because its 11pm and they want to sleep before work.

I’ve explained it with this metaphor: Its like push-starting a car. It takes a lot of effort to get me going, but once I’m up, out and about, I just want to keep going because I’m afraid to stop because I know I’ll be dead in the water again.

And again I find myself writing and ranting about unimportant fluff. I could probably write 3 pages worth of uninteresting crap. I should totally get into politics.

So here’s whats going on with me.

I started radiation a few weeks ago, and on that same day a started taking chemotherapy pills. Oh and if you’re curious what chemo tastes like, it tastes like dirt. Yes, dirt. The price of a months worth of chemo is north of $16,000… and yet they couldn’t make it taste like anything other than dirt? I mean, its not like I suck on the damn things. But its a capsule and when you put it in your mouth you taste the capsule, right? And it tastes… like… dirt. Its nasty bro. For that much money they should dip the fucking pills in Krispy Kreme glazing.

So I gotta take my pills on an empty stomach, so I just do it when I wake up. Then I gotta wait about an hour before I can eat. But the chemo makes me really nauseous so I have another pill for that called Zofran. Actually its a tablet that dissolves in your mouth. And THAT tastes like Flintstones Vitamin Strawberry flavor. In other words, barely better than dirt.

Its like… everything I take has a side effect that I need to take another pill for… which has its own side effect… that I have a pill for. Its like a god damned cat chasing his own tail. That is the single, most frustrating part of this entire process. Here’s a larger picture of it all:

I have brain cancer which gives me seizures with a possibility of death. I take chemo and radiation to help with the death part. Chemo makes me sick to my stomach and kills off my white blood cells. I take Zofran to help with nauseousness. Zofran gives me headaches so I have to take Advil/Tylenol. Advil/Tylenol are hard on your kidneys/liver. To help with the low white blood cells, I take Bactrim. Bactrim makes you constipated so I have to take Colace. And whats the side effect to Colace….? Mother fucking NAUSEOUSNESS! Yay! Free parking! Do not pass go! We just did a circle! FUCK CANCER! And I didn’t even start on the seizure medicine circle of doomity doom. I won’t bother you with it, though.

So anyways. Where were we? Oh yea, so treatment. So radiation is pretty interesting. I’m doing proton radiation which means they are actually shooting radioactive protons particles into my brain. In my case, from 2 angles. One is straight through the left side of my face (kinda like directly at my left eye) and the other is from the side of my head. The hair on that side of my head fell out and my left eye is swollen, red and irritated. And its constantly watering.

Here are some pictures to help you understand what’s going on:

This is my torture radiation chamber. What you see on top is where the radiation is shot from. The entire circular part can rotate: that’s how they’re able to aim it at different angles. I, of course, lay on that oh so comfy looking flat board in the middle. In case your sarcasm detector is broken, I was laying it on pretty heavy right there.

And this is me laying on the table. Because they use X-rays and all sorts of interesting methods of lining the proton beam perfectly at my tumor, they don’t want me to mess that all up by moving around. Sooooo… they lock my head down with that mask. Its a custom made mask so it fits my face like a glove. And by ‘like a glove’ I mean holds me to the table like I’m about to get an anal implant from some aliens. I can’t move at all. Hell, I can barely talk.

Waaah waaah waaahh boo hoo! I don’t want to sit here and be Mr. Downer on the first blog post in a long time, so lets look at some of the positive stuff:

As of today I’ve completed 18 out of 28 radiation treatments. Which means I’m almost done with that part of this battle. Chemotherapy will also change from a daily pill to a monthly pill. A few weeks after radiation has finished hopefully my hair will start growing back. If not I’m gonna end up having to invent some sort of crazy new hairstyle. Also, my radiation crew is really nice. And by ‘my crew’ I mean the guys I see every weekday. I always visit the same room and see the same guys. Its cool because you kinda get to know them and they make the experience not suck as many balls as it really should. They even let my family visit the room, check it:

This was of course before I shaved my head because I was losing so much hair. It was creepy pulling out clumps of hair every time I took a shower.

I think I’ll leave it at that for now… save some words for the next time I write. But before I go I recommend everyone read this comic I stumbled across. I posted it on Facebook a while back, so it might be a repeat for some of yous guys. Clickith thy mouse here.

Also, if you can recommend a hairstyle that compensates for the left side of my head being bald, but doesn’t make me look like an MMA fighter, please advise. I might need it. And no I’m not going to shave it all off. My head is so white I’ll look like a cue ball with legs.

Before we found out about my cancer, we had purchased plane tickets to visit family in New Jersey for the week of Memorial Day. Since my surgery we’ve asked each doctor if I could still make the trip. All of them said yes and highly recommended it. They said getting out of the house would be good for me. To be honest I was a little hesitant… in fact I almost didn’t go.

Everyone knows when you don’t feel good the best thing you can imagine is just being home. You feel comfortable, you know where everything is… you just feel “right”. Anywho, my seizures is a great example of NOT feeling right (so is explosive diarrhea, who wants that shit? ANOTHER PUN!).

When I have a seizure I get really tired. Sometimes the tiredness last for just a few minutes, other times several hours (that’s where my spontaneous naps come from). I felt like I might be a burden on everyone and didn’t want to ruin the trip.

It turned out to be the complete opposite. Everyone understood my situation and accommodated me perfectly (my wife even tried to get me a wheelchair at the airports– what the hell?). Needless to say, we have some amazing friends and family on the east coast that were totally sympathetic. They had a BBQ on Memorial Day which I totally missed half of because I snuck away for a nap. It felt awkward when I came downstairs but they acted like it didn’t even happen. Or maybe I’m like a ninja and they didn’t notice me? I guess we’ll never know. *throws smoke bomb and disappears*

So during our previous trips over there we did a lot of train rides and walked a lot in NYC. This trip we drove everywhere. Its definitely not as easy but it makes for a quick retreat when I’m not feeling well. I could go on and on about our trip but to make a long story short… we had a great time. It was a healing process to me. At the start of the trip I was depressed and dealing with insomnia, but by the end I felt so much better and was sleeping through the night.

While we were there we gave my medical profile to John Hopkins Hospital. Its one of the best (if not the best) cancer centers in the US. I know its on the east coast but that’s not even an obstacle to us. If someone told you “your health is going down the shit-hole” wouldn’t you do anything to anything to prevent it? Damn straight I would.

But I’m not gonna lie, it was great to finally get home. Not that I wanted to leave our family and friends in New Jersey, and the great food, and the beautiful city view… but the plane rides were ridiculous. Sitting for 6 hours in a sardine can is miserable. Plus we had so much luggage to cram into our car; even that wasn’t comfortable. I didn’t even unpack the following week. I just slept and recovered from the flight and drive home. Plus I waited long enough that my wife ended up unpacking for me Score one for Brandon.

So lets go back and talk about the “fun” stuff. (note: use of the word “fun” might not be applicable for all context of the following information)

As I mentioned already, we finally visited the radiation doctor. So lets summarize all the doctors and what their views are about having a resection (removal of tumor… a.k.a. brain surgery):

• Neurosurgeon – Put the ball in my court about the resection, he wants me to make my own decision
• Oncology (chemotherapy) – Normally recommends resection to make chemo more effective
• Neurological Medicine – Doesn’t care either way, just wants to find the right dosage of medicine to prevent my seizures
• Radiation – Also recommends resection to make radiation more effective

Here’s something I’ve learned about brain radiation: to reduce the chance of having dementia later on in life, you can only have brain radiation ONCE. Dementia? Seriously? I mean I guess I shouldn’t be that worried about it. I mean… I’m not going to know I have dementia, my wife will be the one dealing with it . But in all seriousness, that freaked me out when he told me that. And even more scary, once you have radiation the brain creates scar tissue. Scar tissue then makes surgery later on much more difficult. What the hell? Here I am set on the fact I don’t want my noggin sliced open like a watermelon (a.k.a. bran surgery) and then I learn this shit.

Basically… if I go with only doing radiation and chemo and that doesn’t work… I’ve screwed myself. So that means I only get one shot in making the right decision. But when I told my radiation doctor that I was really hesitant about having a resection done, he recommended a Functional MRI to show the Loma Linda tumor board. Functional MRIs, or fMRI for short, is basically a normal MRI, except it takes like 5x longer and they ask me questions during it to see what part of the brain lights up. Its a nifty way of mapping out brain areas to see if resection would be worth it.

My fMRI is scheduled for this coming Wednesday. Bummer… I just finished bitching about sitting in a sardine can for 6 hours, and now I find myself going into another one for 90 minutes. And the worst part is this sardine can doesn’t have a bathroom or women serving me drinks. I guess this falls in the category of “it can always be worse”. Anyways, once that’s done the tumor board reviews it and we start the next chapter: treatment. I’m scared and excited. Like 50% scared, 50% excited. Well, more like 60/40. Maybe more like 70/30. I don’t know… 80/20 maybe? I’ll think about it and get back to you.

On a more personal note, I’ve been sorta scared to blog lately. I’m not sure if its the medicine or the cancer, but I’m having a hard time talking and writing. I’m mixing up words, saying sentences backwards or forgetting words and all kinds of weird stuff. Here’s a scary fact: since I started writing this blog post I’ve had to ask people about twelve times to help me remember a word. Scary huh? I really hate it because I’ve never been this way. I hope its just the medicine.

My medicine doctor did change my prescription recently, and I feel it was for the worse. I went from 2 seizures a day to a seizure every 2 hours. It was never this bad. When we called the doctor about this, all she did was up the dosage. I want my old medicine back, dammit! Everyone around me pretends like its not happening. I’m happy they’re supportive like that but I recognize it. I probably notice it more than them because we’re our own worst critic.

If its not the medicine then it might be the crain bancer giving me drain bamage

Just outside the sliding glass door lays our pitbull… every so often turning her head to look at me, probably wondering why I’m inside where its warm and she’s outside in the cold. To my left sits our chihuahua… the little bastard is wide awake because I’m eating left over dinner and he wants a bite (and of course its left over, I was asleep all day and I slept right through dinner). Not far to my right is my cat. I’ll be honest here… hes my favorite of the three. If I only had one ounce of energy left in my body, and I could only pet one of them one last time… I’d use that energy to slap the chihuahua…. damn I hate that dog.

But moving on…

Today we met with the Radiation Doctor. He’s a really smart man and already has a good plan of what we’re going to do. It feels like the closing of a chapter because we’ve finally met with all the different doctors. Its good to know what each of them has in mind and how we’re going to puzzle everyone’s plans into one big strategy.

I guess you’re all assuming that’s what I’m going to write about. Normally you’d be right, but I’m going to save that for another day.

Tonight I’m going to write about something a little more emotional. As I was setting up the scene earlier, I forgot to mention I was sitting here with my eyes clouded in tears. I suppose that tiny detail changes the tone a bit.

You see… I don’t know if everyone shares this same trait, but when I’m alone and the TV is off, and there is no radio and no other sounds around… just silence… I find myself thinking. I just think about anything and everything really. I remember funny stories, sad times, or maybe even embarrassing moments (those are the worst because I re-live all the feelings I had when it happened).

Right now is one of those times I find myself just thinking.

I was remembering back to a week or so ago when my dad called me. He didn’t call for any reason, he just wanted to know how I was doing. I really appreciate those calls. Not just from my dad, from everyone… it really brightens up my day. Anyways, near the end of our conversation, he said something amazing. He told me “son, if I could take this from you… I would… you know that, right?”. I didn’t even have to think twice about my response and quickly replied “I know you would”.

Ironically, a few days later, a friend and I were having a text message conversation. He said something nearly identical. In his own words: “I’m sorry bro I honestly wish I could take this one for you”. When I read this I instantly thought back to when my dad had said the very same thing.

Humans are fixers. A window breaks, we replace it. A bridge falls down, we rebuild it. When someone is struggling under the burden of a sandbag across their shoulders, we take it.

I love these people for wanting to take this burden for me, and I know there are more out there that would do the same as they would. They don’t need to say it, I know in my heart they would.

But as they would take this from me, I would take it for them. I am proud this is one sandbag I’m carrying and not anyone else.

It would literally kill me inside to see one of my friends go through this. One of my family members… my parents or siblings… my wife, my son or my daughter (or anyone else for that matter). As hard as it is for me to struggle through this, I could never handle watching one of them suffer. I find comfort in knowing that its me, and not them.

I know this doesn’t mean everyone around me is immune, but at least I’ve shed light on it a bit. So many people I’ve told my story to have all said they want to get an MRI “just to be sure”. GOOD! EVERYONE SHOULD!

This is sorta like the time I got way too drunk at my wedding and couldn’t even walk myself to my room (embarrassing moment? I think so). Since then I’ve been able to watch my friends get married and tell them right before their wedding “DON’T GET TOO DRUNK LIKE I DID!”. Its a life lesson that someone has to endure and everyone else learns from. That’s why we study history, isn’t it? At least that’s what they tell me.

The best part is, that sandbag… the one that wants to sit on my shoulders and grind me into the ground… I don’t carry it alone. Everyone I know has torn it to pieces and grabbed a handful of sand. Its not just me, nor would it be just one of them, its all of us doing it together.

Everything from a hug to a handshake to a “get well” card, it takes a little piece and helps me stand up a little more.

You hear people talk about eternal life and living forever. I don’t know about the whole living on a cloud up above thing, but I do know this: there are people that died hundreds or thousands of years ago, we read about them in history books, and to this very day their life is still discussed in our daily lives… if that’s not eternal life I don’t know what is. They are literally living forever. Life after death so to say.

Your friends and family are the people that will carry on your stories and your life; pass them to their children and tell their friends about it. Amazing isn’t it?

So never think you’re more important than those around you; everyone around you is who makes you important.

Some of you sleep deprived people reading this are probably like, “oh you lucky son of a bitch!” but then you remember I have brain cancer, and you feel pretty bad about thinking that. Don’t worry, I don’t know which one of yous guys thought that, but you know who you are!

So anyways, the question is… why am I sleeping so much? Well that’s a real good question and it deserves a real good answer. Unfortunately, I don’t have that answer. I can tell you its not by choice and it has something to do with the fact my doctors keep changing the dosages of my anti-seizure medications… which have two major side effects: fatigue and depression. Sound fun? Nope! I’m gonna go out on a limb and say it breaks the laws of physics because it both sucks and blows at the same time.

Our goal is zero seizures, which is totally possible once we get the right balance of meds. The crappy part is the sleepiness and depression that comes with all the trial and error of finding the right dosage is really freakin’ annoying. I kinda feel like one of those tired, grumpy old men living in a retirement home… yelling at the nurses because my applesauce is too thick and I want to watch the Wheel of Fortune. But as soon as they put the TV show on I fall asleep in my chair and end up drooling half eaten applesauce on my shirt. You know what I’m talking about? Yea you do.

The other problem is all the questions I have because I don’t really know whats going on. Everything is hidden inside my head and I can’t see whats going on. Its not like a broken leg or something. That’s simple. If you break a leg you look down at your leg and you know whats wrong: your fucking leg is broken and its bending in the wrong direction. There’s no questions to ask.

But what happens if the problem is inside your noggin? Then what? I wish I could roll my eyes backwards and look at my brain or something cool like that. I know that’s kinda disgusting and exorcist-like, but I really wanna know what’s going on. But since I’m not possessed by a demon I have to rely on the information my doctors give me. Shit.

But on Friday we had a follow up with my neurosurgeon, the same guy that performed my operation. We were so excited to pick his brain (PUN INTENDED!) and get some info to put our minds at ease. I’m not going to sit here and type out every question and answer, but a lot of it was really interesting so here’s a quick recap:

• My incision is healing really well. He was super happy about how quickly it has healed.
• I have a round titanium plate screwed into my head. Its about the size of a quarter.
• No, it won’t set off the metal detector at the airport.
• No, it won’t stop a bullet (dammit!)
• They took multiple samples during the biopsy procedure: 12 to be exact… all of which came back from pathology as stage 2 cancer.
• Yes, it has the potential of graduating to stage 3 or 4 without warning (all cancer can do that).
• He gave me the option of having surgery, or forgo surgery but monitor the tumor with frequent MRIs.
• He can’t recommend which is the better option. Its completely my decision.
• If I do have surgery, I could have difficulty speaking. Or even worse, I wouldn’t be able to speak at all.
• There are no studies, statistics or other information to give me any percentage of what the outcome might be. Every person is unique and there isn’t any exact science to follow.
• He is not ready to release me for radiation and/or chemotherapy treatment… he wants me to heal for an additional 3 weeks (minimum).
• During the next 3 weeks I need to decide if I want to proceed with surgery or not.
• Deciding if I want to proceed with surgery is a huge decision that I need to feel 100% comfortable with.
• If I decide to wait on the removal and start with chemotherapy & radiation, it will significantly increase the risk of surgery down the road because radiation scars the brain cells.

So there you have it… a bunch of answers to questions that… well… just created a metric fuckton of new questions! I wanted to scratch questions off my list, not add more to it. I’m running out of room in my notebook and now I don’t have any room left for poop art!

But as much as I want to hate it, its good to have questions. Its a really good thing. Yes it means more research and more prodding doctors for more answers, but knowledge is unique in the sense that the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know. Crazy, huh? The best part is that only drives us to learn more. Its like some sort of perpetual motion machine.

I think that’s why people say “ignorance is bliss”, because ignorant people think they know everything which is just a false sense of confidence. The other side of the coin is well educated people know the limits of their own knowledge. That’s an odd actuality, isn’t it?

So ask yourself this: would you rather be uninformed with a false sense of complacency… or knowledgeable with the understanding you lack all knowledge? I choose the latter.

To be honest, I don’t know shit about shit that’s going on inside my head (remember the whole cant-roll-my-eyes-backwards issue?). I know that’s crudely stated but its true! I have to admit and accept the limit of what I don’t know. I mean… yea I know I have brain cancer… but that’s like saying I know the title of a book I haven’t read. I know nothing about the contents of the book. Maybe they have a “Brain Cancer for Dummies” book. Ahhh who am I kidding… I still wouldn’t read it. I hate reading books.

I’m not sure about all of you reading this, but this life right here… the one I’m living now… its kind of a big deal. I haven’t picked up any 1-up’s along the way so I gotta make sure I don’t mess up. The next 3 weeks are going to be spent ensuring my decision is the absolute best one possible.

Now contrary to what I thought in high school, I don’t know everything. I won’t EVER know everything, but I’ll be damn sure I know as much as I can gobble up. Like Pacman… but instead of eating whatever those little white pills are, I’m going to munch up information. By the way, what the hell are those white pills? Hmm. Another question for my list.

So, anyways… is surgery the best option? Is it going to benefit me, my friends and my family the most? Shit… I don’t know. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

I can tell you the thought of some dude scooping out bits of my brain is probably the freakiest thing I can imagine… but I also don’t want this to be something I regret in the future because it turns into something more aggressive. I wonder if they use an ice cream scoop during the operation. Ahhh! See what I mean about questions? They’re everywhere!

But I digress…

Before I found out about all this, I knew something was wrong with me. There was a part of my subconscious that kept telling me something isn’t right and all these doctors telling me it was just panic attacks were wrong. That same little voice is telling me I don’t want to do surgery.

I think I like that little voice. He’s pretty cool and he seems to be right most of the time. I wish he would give me the winning Lotto numbers… that’d be pretty cool. But right now I’m content with what its telling me about surgery.

And on that note, make sure you listen to that voice as well. We all have it. It watches out for your best interest but you have to pay attention to it. How many times has something happened in your life and the first thing you say is “DAMN! I KNEW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!”?

Listen to yourself. Listen to your body. Don’t let the people around you tell you otherwise or trump what you know is best. If I hadn’t pushed and pushed my doctor, I’d be still be sitting here, completely oblivious to whats going on, and still thinking I’m just having panic attacks.

You hear stupid sayings like “ignorance is bliss” and “what you don’t know can’t hurt you”. Bullshit. It can kill you and it would have killed me.

Don’t become a victim of ignorance.

Its been a big, ugly cocktail of emotional crap and medicine changes that have made me feel generally shitty. I’m pretty sure that’s the best description I can give it.

If you gave me a sliding scale of 1 to 10 and asked me how I feel, I’d just check the “other” box and draw a pile of poop. Complete with stink lines and flies. If you’d like a detailed image, please send all requests to my personal email and they will be addressed in order as received.

Anyways… I wanted to show everyone a picture of what’s going on:

Now, lets get over the fact it looks like I have a single eyeball, and notice the glowing area in the front of my brain. I’d love to sit here and tell everyone this is a “bright idea” going off in my head… but its not. Its like the complete opposite. This is the cancer I’m getting ready to fight. Notice how it looks like a bruise? Told you so.

Also let it be noted that I do have a brain. This has now been proven by science and doctors and NASA. And a special note to the women of my previous relationships: my skull is not empty nor is it full of cocks. Thank you.

I’m not gonna lie… even now this is a difficult picture for me to look at. Its something that keeps flashing in my head… like the image is burned into the back of my eyes.

I hate it because everything reminds me of it. I can’t even enjoy my yogurt without looking at the cup and going “hey this chunk of yogurt looks like my tumor”.

Its so bad, I bet if I ate a bowl of Alphabet Soup the entire can would probably be the letters C-A-N-C-E-R. How would that be for ironic? That’s okay, I don’t like Alphabet Soup… and if I did find those letters I’d just feed it to the chihuahua. He eats anything. Stupid dog.

The truth is, right now it feels like someone just stole my steering wheel and I’m stuck in the middle of the freeway going 100mph; completely out of control. I want my steering wheel back and I want to pull this car over and get the hell out. No officer I’m not drunk I just don’t have a fucking steering wheel… the Alphabet Soup is playing an evil trick on me and the chihuahua ate my dinner. Someone give me a break!

Okay so I’m done being negative, sorry about that. Sometimes I feel like I need to vent and/or bitch and/or whine about all this shit… but then I realize I’m just wasting my own time and my wife’s time (which is the person I vent and/or whine to the most).

She’s always there to listen to me even if it doesn’t make sense. I make her go for walks with me at like 11:30pm at night and we walk around the block and I tell her about how I finally pooped or how the Alphabet Soup was making fun of me or tell her “you know what sucks? Fucking brain cancer…”.

I’m pretty sure she thinks I’ve completely lost my mind but she puts up with me. This is a shitty car ride to be taking (especially without a steering wheel) but there’s not a single person in the world I’d rather do it with. She’s amazing.

Its interesting though… venting, blaming, whining, crying, and all those other self-centered wasted emotions are huge obstacles we should avoid but end up consuming ourselves in.

If you have Stage 1, Stage 4, or Stage NONE cancer… dragging these chains around with you will do nothing more than make you miserable, tired and dead. All of which are pretty bad.

Things happen in our life: we lose our jobs, the milk goes bad, people take our steering wheels and we get brain cancer. But you know what…? Complaining won’t EVER fix it. It really won’t. Life lessons aren’t spoken loudly; they hide between the lines and find meaning between everything else.

There’s going to be a day you wake up and get punched in the face. Now, this could be a metaphorical punch or a straight up punch in the face… it really doesn’t matter. Your job is to find the meaning behind it and make yourself a better person because of it.

I can’t tell you how or why, that’s the fun part. Just don’t ask “why me?”.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some poop art to attend to.

When you’re told you have a tumor, or a mass, or cancer… whatever you want to call it… growing inside your head… you immediately start to think of it as an object. Like, a THING. I guess that’s why people always ask me what does it “feel” like to have a tumor. I had imagined the doctor would show me a picture of what looks like a Skittle or a mushroom or ping-pong ball wedged somewhere in my head. I know it sounds stupid… but you just tend to think of it like a mole or something. A foreign object.

So when the neurosurgeons start telling you they are going to go in and cut pieces of this out, its sounds freaky but you are comforted by the fact they know what they’re doing and once they get in they’ll be able to see the tumor and go ‘”yep… that’s the shit right there”… sorta like if you’re were going to have a mole removed from your arm.

Well having brain cancer is nothing like that. Its really different. The best analogy I can give is to imagine a bruise, because that’s really all it looks like. The MRI and CT scans just make it glow a little different than the area around it.

A fucking bruise.

Its PART of your body. Its not just some thing they can pluck out and dispose of… they would have to cut at the muscle of your leg to dig out all the area it contains. Okay now take that scenario and move it into your brain. I can’t help but have the breath stolen out of my chest when I think of how much of my BRAIN they could have ended up removing to try and clear up this cancer.

Think about it for a moment: how would you remove a bruise? You have to scoop out all the good with the bad. Its like trying to get food coloring out of cake without destroying the cake. Its impossible. I consider myself lucky for everything that “didn’t work out right” during the operating that forced me into having just a biopsy. I still wish it was just a Skittle or object they could grab with some high-tech machine that looks like one of those claw-games you play to win a doll at the arcade… but its not. And the reality is, I still have to fight back.

So in a nutshell: I have these brain cells that aren’t what they should be. They’re imperfect. My body shouldn’t have let them reproduce, but they did and it will continue to happen. Just like any cell in our body, we have good cells that regularly die and need to be replaced… hopefully by another good cell. Its a cycle. Cancer is basically these bad cells replacing good cells.

This is what we don’t want… bad cells. Remember though, just like the bruise, these cells are still me: they’re my brain, my thoughts, my memories, my hopes and dreams and aspirations and everything else that makes me who I am. So its something we attack methodically and cautiously. Instead of whacking away at it with a hedge trimmer, we use chemotherapy and radiation to kill off the bad cells and let my body do the work replacing them with good ones.

I can tell its going to be rough… its going to drain me and exhaust me and take every ounce of energy I have… but I’m okay with that. This experience has opened my eyes so much that it borderlines as a gift. I know its probably odd reading that, but it took something as dramatic as brain cancer to help me realize that what is free in life is priceless and what we pay for is worthless.