3 hours

They say that women forget the pain of childbirth, which is the only thing that enables them to have another child. The ability to forget pain must be in all of us though. We fall down and go on walking, although maybe a little more cautious of the potholes. We get hurt by a lover, yet dare to love again. I was reading over early segments of my own blog and completely was shocked by my surgery. It is only a foggy memory to me now. The ability to forget pain is a gift. Life brings many gifts to us if we are prepared to accept them as gifts. One of the gifts of cancer is the "membership". You can read every book on the subject, you can have relatives or friends going through cancer but until you are a card carrying member you will never see or hear what we do. The sad thing to me is that most people will never hear how life affirming the experience really is. When we get together, hair comes down, Wigs come off (literally) and there is almost no subject that is taboo. As a gay man, I can honestly say that I now know more about breasts and what can happen to them than just about any straight man on the planet. I have absolutely no idea what I will do with that information, though, unless Trivial Pursuit comes out with the "Boobs" edition. If that ever happens, trust me you don't want to play against me, because you are going down!

One of the interesting things that I have noticed is that women never ask men about their cancer in fear that it is prostrate cancer. Apparently no man wants to talk about this. On my shuttle (I take a shuttle locally to WEHO for my daily radiation treatment) the men either make jokes about traffic or sit quietly while the women talk about blisters on their boobs caused by the radiation and what the best types of aloe vera jells are to relieve them. The women also talk about life. Theirs, their kids, grand kids, celebrities. I was accepted by the girls on the bus because it was rather obvious that my cancer was not in my man parts. My  tongue is still swollen and I have a visible scar on my neck from the surgery which I guess made me fair game. They seemed relieved to be able to ask a man, so what kind of cancer do you have?  I was glad though. I feel sorry for the quit guys on the back of the bus when clearly the gaggle of gals (and 1 gay) are having all of the fun up front. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by men being quit about their cancer. The majority of men choose not to open up much anyway. For me though, I feel like they are missing a rare opportunity.

3 hours. That is what it takes to make the round trip from my local Kaiser to the one in West Hollywood. For 3 hours a day you can say anything. It is a gift. I think that if all of the people of the world set aside even 1 hour a day where no subject was taboo and you could talk about yourself and others with a group, we would all be much healthier. I've seen it work in the form of 12 step programs and Weight Watchers. Why not just have global group therapy. We all have fears and insecurities. Why pay a therapist for years when in a few weeks we could lay it all out on the table? You might not get answers, but somehow just being free to admit that you are afraid out loud can be enough to get your own spiritual connections working and you can answer your own questions therefore fixing your own life. (just like in therapy). I have seen it so many times in my friends eyes who are survivors. There is a little extra light that makes you wonder what they know or what they are up to. In such a short time I have come to understand that light. It come when you are no longer afraid to live. So many have seen what could have been their demise and choose another path. I think that the light has been put there to help guide others along the way.

Thinking about the people in my life who are survivors (and were survivors before I had ever met many of them). I now understand the attraction I initially felt for them. It is said that each level seeks its own. Life may have many levels but the joy of living seems to be truly understood by so few. Of course in this country where we tend to discard our elderly who can blame them? I still remember my Great Grandmother Kelly though, she lived to be 102. She seemed to know the secret. She lived her life and then one morning went to take a nap after breakfast and left this world. I have always believed that her death was on her terms. Now it is true that we  have no children and most likely won't have much family around to take care of Ken and I in our old age, but it is also true, that we have years to talk about it and discuss our fears and come up with a solution.