A Curse

At some point in this journey it seemed cancer was a gift in a twisted way. To help me see things clearly, to help me get perspective, to see what really matters...everything was going to be ok and I was going to be afforded a second chance.
Not anymore. I had a major surgery to remove whatever the doctors could find in my body that didn't belong. Several weeks later I'm still in the hospital recovering. The surgery was successful but who knows when the cancer might come back.
Being in the hospital has turned into torture, tubes coming and going left and right. I haven't eaten in weeks waiting for my body to wake up from the shock of surgery. The cancer has finally affected my brain.
Depressed, sad and hopeless I'm now on antidepressants, anti anxiety and sleeping medication as my mind is driving me crazy. Being held prisoner in a sterile cell watching everyone's life continue and while I'm trapped in a nightmare I can't escape. When will it end???

Fear Resection

Facing major surgery this week. To once again try and destroy the cancer in my body that refuses to die. It's coming down to the end. I can feel it. Tuesday the doctors will cut out more of my internal organ to try and eliminate the tumors that are left. A whipple and a retroperitoneal resection.
In the interim, time is distorted by strong opiates that in an effort to eliminate physical pain serve also to displace me in a space shared by no one else. A space occupied by fear, hopelessness, despair, sorrow and exhaustion.
I'm 30 years old and I'm terrified that I might die of cancer, that I might die of complications from these procedures, that I might live the rest of my life terrified of dying by way of cancer, as it's not an easy death.
Not much more to say at the moment. Next time I return to this blog a new diagnosis will have been given; en extended lease or perhaps a notice of eviction.
What I wouldn't give to go back to a carefree existence right now? Where I felt young, healthy, attractive and to some degree invincible.
Those were the days.

Wash Away

Sometimes you just wanna get washed away, never to come back.

11 Wash Away (Reprise) by Joe Purdy by mullencourtney144

A Tiny Salute

Right now I’m a little dizzy. Not sure why, I suppose my body isn’t what it used to be anymore. Not after all the chemo and radiation of the past year. Turns out the BMT didn’t work and I’m just as sick as I was before. I have a big fat tumor on my side that’s already starting to make itself noticed. Oww. Not really sure what comes next, more radiation, surgery and perhaps I get to cut in line at the check out aisle.

But this post isn’t about me. It’s a tiny salute to the wonderful nurses I’ve met throughout my time with cancer.

The nurses that wake up at the crack of dawn everyday or the ones who spend the time awake by your side at four in the morning wiping sweat from your forehead as you puke up your insides or shit yourself in the bed. The men and women who bring you popsicles and take away the food when you can’t bare to breathe in any foreign odor The ones who change your soiled gowns, who give you a sponge bath because you don’t have the energy to stand up right in the shower, the ones who rub lotion on burnt skin. The ones who come and check on you after you’ve finally fallen asleep. The nurses who listen to your stories and get to know you and bring you a warm blanket when the hot-cold spells shake your body. The ones who walk you out to a cab to make sure you don’t fall over. They are the ones who pick you up when you’re lying on the hospital floor too nauseated and weak to make it back on the bed.

They are the people you never thought you might need and suddenly they are the only ones who can get you through. They are the ones who aren’t afraid to talk about death because they experience it everyday. The will to live might be relentless but so is cancer and sometimes no matter how much you want it, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

Surgeons and doctors can cut you open but it’s the nurses who heal you. They can prepare you to keep on fighting or make it ok to start letting go.

So this is for Peggy, Cherie, Jeannie, Alina, Richard and all the nurses who I’ve had the luck of meeting in the past year. I may not remember all of your names but I do remember your smile. You smiling at me forced me to despite everything, smile back. And at least for that moment I felt a little bit better. For that and an endless amount more I will always be thankful.

50/50

It also takes a pair to keep on fighting even when it seems you might lose.

Beginners

Finally saw this last week and it's quite lovely. Subtle, sweet and heartbreaking; just how I like 'em. Plus, huge crush on Ewan McGregor and Melanie Laurent.

Splitscreen: A Love Story

Really pretty!

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Where Children Sleep

Of the many lovely presents I got for my birthday this year, one of the standouts was given to me by my friend, Tina. Photographer James Mollison's book Where Children Sleep is an interesting, beautiful collection of photographs that explores children and their bedrooms. These children are from all over the world, from Tokyo to Senegal to England. The photographs are accompanied by a caption the tells the story of each child. These stories range from a boy who lives out in the open with his herd of goats to a beauty pageant contestant with a room full of trophies.
Where Children Sleep is a thought provoking exploration of childhood, innocence and nostalgia.

The Way Things Are

Now 30

Where does the time go?

With You I'm Born Again

So today I turn 30. Given the events of last year it feels like I should at least be 50. I broke out of the hospital yesterday and it was wonderful to take up in my own room and bed today. The bone marrow transplant was successful so far (it will be months before doctors can get an accurate reading as to whether the cancer is all gone or not). Regardless this is it. No more chemo, no more radiation, no more.
I'm done. Whatever the results may be.
So I may live a long and healthy life or I might live a not so long one. But the plan is to enjoy every minute of what I have. Because I am born again, at least that's what they tell all the BMT people, because of how intense the procedure is and how profoundly it changes you.
Cancer changes you, hopefully for the better. And I'm now 30, so hopefully I can start my 30's with a fresh slate. So many milestones! I couldn't have made it this far without my wonderful group of friends who carried me through a miserable year. I am eternally grateful.
One step at a time now....life.

My Room

Having been in the hospital for weeks now recovering from my final round of chemo makes me miss my room greatly. Living with 5 other people it's the only place I can truly call mine, where everything in the room serves a purpose and every object has some kind of meaning. This last year I've nested there trying to create the warmest and coziest environment.

50/50

I found about this movie a while ago, being the big Joseph Gordon Levitt fan that I am. The trailer is finally out! I'm pretty stoked about it. I couldn't have thought of anyone better to play me in a movie!



"When his friend Will Reiser developed cancer at 25, Seth Rogen thought, ''How can we turn this into a movie?'' And they did. The Reiser-penned dramedy 50/50 (out Sept. 30) stars Gordon-Levitt as Adam, a cancer patient, and Rogen (who's also producing) as his loutish friend. 50/50 doesn't downplay the disease's toll, but it definitely finds humor, like when Adam exploits his condition to attract women. ''Often with films about cancer I think, 'You made something sad seem sad for two hours. Congratulations!''' Rogen says. ''The real challenge is to make it seem anything but completely miserable.'' Entertainment Weekly

Black Hole

Black Hole
In my way I pray, black hole take me away
and if it came today and sucked me away
I would jump right in and say
"Tomorrow is here today!"
in my way I pray, black hole take me away.

Mantra bound this skyward train,
like fanning flames
and I squeal out as I kneel and
summer rain.
But with this storm comes newly
born exit mundane.
mantra bound this skyward train,
like fanning flames...

Matt Himes from Shep and Me

photo by yours truly.

It's Only Natural

"Tears begin in the heart,
but some of us deny the heart so often, and for so long,
that when it speaks we hear not one but a hundred sorrows in the heartbreak.
We know that crying is a good and natural thing.
We know that crying isn't a weakness,
but a kind of strength.
Still,
the weeping rips us root by tangled root from the earth,
and we crash like fallen trees when we cry."

Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

Hold On

...and just tell me it's all gonna be ok.

Another Chance

So I'm back from the hospital and just awaiting recovery to face my final session of chemotherapy. This last cycle wasn't as rough as I imagined it could be but the long term side effects and scars are starting to become more apparent. Small prices to pay for a possible cure.
Anyway, I had to share my excitement about this trailer for what looks like could be a really powerful movie.



As always, most interested in stories about second chances, redemption and people facing incredible circumstances; I'm pretty pumped about Another Earth. Some would say I fit the bill of one of these people, taking a step away I might agree, and on a perhaps less egotistical level I would also say that my life is no different from anyone else's and no can really imagine the pain that goes on behind closed doors even though mine might be a little bit harder to disguise.

Pretty soon I might have gotten my second chance. Time will tell if I do, the cancer could come back soon and I could have less than a year to live or it could come back never and I might live till old and gray. I suppose I should get used to the ambiguity.

Faced once again with the possibility of leading a healthy life and getting a second go of it as I face my 30th birthday more questions arise than answers.

I have found a new meaning in life and a reawakening perhaps of what's really important and valuable...but now that I know that...what comes next? What do I really want to make of my life? How do I want it to be? How I can get there, as I face a potential new chapter of adulthood?

Questions I suppose will be answered on a day to day. There is no use worrying about what hasn't happened yet. Right now I can only learn to forgive myself for irreparable mistakes made only against myself and just let go. Time will tell and I hope to be given the chance not to fuck it up.

Admit One

I'm gonna be taking a break from my blog. Anyone who knows me or has followed this blog somewhat, knows I have cancer. And tomorrow I start the mother of all treatments. A bone marrow transplant. High dose chemo being key. I have pretty good odds, although in the immediate reality this doesn't make the next few months any easier.

Chemo is poison and it will once again lay waste to everything and anything in it's path, to, in the process kill all cancer in my body. Side effects are supposed to be gruesome and from everyone that I've talked to who knows someone or who has gone through the procedure themselves, well it's pretty life changing and difficult to say the least.

Here I go. One last time.

Thank you for reading and stopping by. Hope to come back soon.

Cristian

Conversations with Cancer

To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery.

To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be.

Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of live, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew ow why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inveitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit.

So, I believed.

-Lance Armstrong , It's Not About the Bike.

Wounded Rhymes

"I'm really depressing. Some people watch comedy to relax. I watch 21 Grams. I can recognize sadness and tragedy really easily because it's been with me forever. "
Lykke Li

Couldn't have put it better myself!

So Lykke Li's new album came out today and it was everything I hoped it would be; haunting, dark, sensual, fun and just all around lovely.



Also I like this video because I like to think that she may be Death. When she finally reaches the guy she's following, even after he's been running from her, Death comes more as a consolation and solace.

Sometimes it feels like it could be that way.