But First

It feels a bit like regret. I never used it when I had it, but now that it doesn't work I swear I would use it. Convenience is often taken for granted. Because we know something is there for us we don't feel the need to appreciate it. It will be there later.

I miss my radio remote control. I miss its slim, compact little body that fit right in my hand. I need to replace the dumb little wtf battery. I can never remember to buy it because there are, like, 10 different little battery thingies that look exactly like that one. The cool thing about XM radio is the replay option. This song is transporting me back to ceremony in Peru. But I am not getting up a 3rd time to play it.

I'll call him tomorrow. I'll see her again. I'll mail that card. Even though I think about her everyday I can't get to writing that card, I'll have time later. I have a few important people in my life who deserve a bucket load of cards and hugs on this very day, more than that, but I'm so wrapped up in my own life to get to it. It needs to go on a LIST. That's how lame things get.

Things are much better for me here. I was living on an island. My people are here and my medicine is here. I can have a conversation about things totally normal in my world and I'm not looked at like I'm asking for a Moscow Mule in Mexico, 2015. They will catch up, give them 5 years, it will be a real thing.

I've moved back to one of my favorite zones but I still have to miss my far flung friends. There are some really struggling right now, it feels heavy in my chest to think about it. I want to be rich so I can make them do what I want. I would force them onto planes, make them go where I want them to, to get better. The sick ones anyway. The ones who are well would also get a plane ride, and for fun a coffee enema, so they don't feel left out.

I am sorry my life is really complicated too. I feel lame and disrespectful to not be there for those who have been there for me from time to time. I see you. I do. I feel like I'm under a lot of file folders with papers all needing to be filled out and I am behind in my job. Also, Gael just pooped one of his human-sized man-poops, the house is on fire, and I left my car running, locked, with a friends baby inside. I'm standing in the middle of the living room stepping left, no, then right, no, which way, what's first, what is most important?

I could see a light at the end of the tunnel recently but now there's a new turn in it. My list is long again, but I feel good and everything is improving daily. I am formulating plan number 33. My tumor markers are coming down, I have a lot less pain, I am able to swim and bike and possibly jog a little again. Stage IV is a lame label, nobody can ever tell I'm "sick". I have low red blood cells though because of my bone cancer gobbling them up. It's the reason I got such altitude sickness in Peru. It felt like a pipe was being shoved through my chest and stomach. No more hikes at 14,000 ft. on the day following arrival (note to anyone with pleurisy or low red cells).

It's hard to answer the question : How are you doing? What's going on with you?
As long as I've been fighting this actively, 11 years, I still have trouble answering that question. I can't seem to separate how I feel, with how I am handling right now, with how the last month, or months, have been, with what my bloodwork or scans said most recently. Sometimes I give the clinical answer and sometimes I go with how I am doing at that minute. The answer: Well, I'm technically slowly dying but, Uh, today I felt good. I hit the usual wall at 3:30 but I didn't sleep last night for more than 2 hours initially, after that there was no sleep. (There's a tiny pea underneath my mattresses, I just can't sleep unless everything is perfecK)

No, I can't sleep because my legs are flogged with heat in an alternate universe, sunburn, fever, sweats. I can't sleep through that. My lady's maid forgot to bring the cool washcloth. I don't have an attendant. Any extras lying around, I'll pay you in Kannacoco and homemade coconut kefir? I make stuff. Krissy makes stuff. You want to see me make stuff? I make lots of stuff. I'm always onto some new project. Problem is, Instead of perfecting something to the tenth degree I just start a new project. I am never bored. Reading, writing, learning, teaching, doing. How can anyone ever get bored? I call being bored, resting.

To me, writing is my relaxing place, it's close to resting. It's easy and dumb, like T.V. I can switch channels, nothing has to make sense, just be entertaining. Nothing's planned, I like to zone out on the keyboard. The best things I can think to write never get written, I like it that way. It's like taking out your phone or camera every time you are doing something that might be fun, you're interrupting the flow. When in a great moment you are there, you should know it is not to be fucked with. The best way to kill a buzz is to ask everyone to stop what they are doing to hold a smile. Take a picture of your friend, why do you have to be in it too every time?  One a month, or one a week okay, not every day. My take on selfies -- making a bland moment appear fun, because if you were having real fun, you wouldn't be clutching your phone like a crackhead with a bindle, jonesing for the first opportunity to, binge - on your drug. The selfie. That's right up there with the selfie stick. You. Are. Bored.

In all fairness there are times to take them. Road trips, llamas by a fence, the sneakie selfie, meeting your idol, the moment before pulling a prank, a concert. They key here is to keep it to a minimum. Do one better and get some friends who can take your picture for you. In the old days we would ask a passing stranger to take the photo, in the process they got to feel involved in making our memory. I always enjoyed that.

I have a new treatment place with the latest and greatest stuff coming out of Swiss-land. Not many places are doing this current treatment because it's so new. The biggest moment came today when my newest doc told me he is proud of me for all I have done to manage the cancer on my own, that I have turned it into a chronic disease. I felt proud. I don't get much credit from my own cancer community, not to mention any doctors. It's weird, my path is such a no-brainer, but I still feel alienated. I have never gone with the herd, but I share DNA with the herd. To be recognized is the same thing as being shown love. I am cut off by most of my cancer community because they don't respect or understand what I'm doing. It hurts, but mainly I fear for them because they are ignorant.

Nobody, except another person who has stubbornly pursued a natural path, can understand the isolation and judgement that comes from other cancer patients. I may not outlive this disease, but I know I have made the right choices for me, I have a good quality of life mostly. If I could go back and undo the chemo I did in 2005, I would with no hesitation. I educated myself during a time when even the internet had very limited resources for people who thought like me. A few years later that would start to change, but back then, nothing, not even a young survivors support group. I was "yelled at" for promoting education and holistic medicine in online groups. The ignorance is beginning to lift more and more. I am happy. This country is the North Korea of cancer options, except most people here are brainwashed by the system while at least North Koreans know their country is holding them hostage.

On a lighter note, I have a Kangan water rep giving me free water. Free magic water. In many many ways I am held, covered, protected by the people I have surrounded myself with. To learn how to manage deep hurt and pain and not isolate because of it is a hurdle I am always being challenged to clear. I am cherished even though I talk a lot of shit-- it's all in fun, but if you can't laugh at yourself don't go to a stand up comedy club, they will seek you out and make you so uncomfortable. And don't heckle the emcee, unless you came to play. I rendered one speechless, the next second I was like, Oh shit, he's going to burn me. He didn't know what to say and instead of fucking me up, he complimented me. That was fun. If I had bigger balls, or a really large labia, it would be super fun to try stand up. You can write it all ahead of time, it's not like you just get up there and start talking. I would do it if not for hecklers, deer in the headlights. I would become an alcoholic cokehead in one week.