Prepare for Impact

In life we never really know, just who is going to have an impact on our lives. Who will love us, hate us, hurt us, it's all a waiting game. This subject is on my mind after sharing a wonderful lunch with Laura. To merely call her a friend would be to grossly undersell the relationship. I met Laura through Weight Watchers, when she filled in for my regular meeting leader. I remember liking her style. Later, when I had become a receptionist for Weight Watchers I was able to work with her in a few meetings. Later, still, when I had put some of my weight back on, I started attending her meetings. Yes, she did help me loose some weight, but the impact came later, when I was diagnosed with cancer. Laura was literally one of the first people who showed up for me. A cancer survivor herself, she knew well the journey that I was about to undertake and selflessly gave of herself and experience. She introduced me to others that would become a core part of my journey that I called my survivors group. Laura also introduced me to the Cancer Support Community of South Bay, where I attend my group meetings. Laura was never asked to do these things, she just did them out of love. It was a great lesson for me. There are people out there that will just love you, no strings attached. This, I believe is true for all of us. I am grateful for her friendship and partnership in my journey. I am also keenly aware that my time to give back is here. Just holding onto love does nothing and no one any good, we have to give it back to the world, let it flow, grow and come back to us. That is the impact of true friendship.

I write about it today, because I wonder who along the way, I might have loved, learned from, had I not rejected them. We all do it, turn a blind eye to the homeless person, roll our eyes at the kids in Starbucks, change lanes at the grocery store because we think that the person in front of us is about to use food stamps and take up our precious time. But without others is our time really that precious? What if we asked the crazy kid at the coffee shop what they were drinking and discovered something new? What if we gave a dollar to the homeless occasionally or bought them a meal, or maybe sat with them and listened to their story. Wouldn't that time be well spent? For those of us (and yes, I include myself in this) who watch TV daily, wouldn't our time be more rewarding being out in life instead of watching a falsification of life? What would happen if everyone gave up two hours of television a week and did volunteer work? How would our communities be impacted?

I remember attending several funerals over the years. Some big, some small, but the one I really remember the most is my Grandfathers. The love that poured out of everyone there for him. And why? He himself was loving, and inclusive. Everyone was welcome at his house. I seriously doubt if he ever met anyone he didn't like. At the end of his life, I could see that it was a life well lived. I stood there proud to be his Grandson. His loving nature impacted me in a way that still makes me want to give back today, what more can I say.

After the battle with cancer, I got to reclaim my life, but more importantly, I got to choose the type of life that I want to live. That is a gift that cancer can give you if you are open to receiving it. The gift to finally stop what you are doing and really examine things. What is important and what you want. It gives you the time to prepare for impact. You just have to be willing to look away from the pain to see and feel the good.

The age of acceptance

We are all going to die....eventually. That is what logic tells us. As we age we see many examples of it. Family members and friends die, pets die, plants die and we know so will we....eventually. We accept that fact and file it firmly into the back of our thoughts, trying not to dislodge it. We fight off death by trying to look younger, to feel younger, to dress younger, beat our cancer and other diseases, but it still looms on the horizon that we will all travel to....eventually.

I have a birthday coming up, so as I am apt to do each year I search for the latest and greatest anti aging creams and techniques. I remember to moisturize and mask. I think about asking for Strivectin for my birthday (a sure sign that I am getting older, when I was younger, I would have been happy with a blow job). Today while shopping for something with a stronger retinol base, it occurred to me that I never once thought that my Grandmother or Grandfather needed to look younger. They were perfect just the way they were (even if my Step Mom and maybe even my Dad might disagree with me on that one). They were the closest thing to unconditional love that I have ever experienced. And no they did not always like everything I did, but they always liked and loved me for who I was. I kept thinking about this on the way home after purchasing nothing from the anti aging section, and realized that I have never heard any of my friends say God, my Grandma looks old, she really could use some work. And no one ever says "Good grief, Grandpa, you need to get your self back in the gym". It seems to me that the modern day therapy of parenting our inner child, is a generation off. What we really need is to Grand Parent our inner children. I could use a strong does of unconditional love, and I'd also kill for some of my Grandpa's "Takkas" (he was actually saying taco's, but that was the way he pronounced it. I can not bring myself to call them mere taco's now as it would feel like insulting my Grandfather's culinary genius. Sadly the recipe died with him, much like the unconditional love that I know my whole family experienced from this special man).

Back to my point, isn't about time that we all loved our self unconditionally? What would it feel like to love more than to judge especially ourselves? I don't really know right now, but this year for my birthday, this is the gift I want. Just to love. Myself and everyone that I come in contact with. I want to love the wrinkles that I have earned over the years from smiling. I want to love the frown lines that I have earned from thinking. In short, I want to embrace and love the wisdom that I have acquired in my time here on the planet.  And then, of course, I want some more time, and what the heck, I'll take some Strivectin too!

How Did This Happen?

We pray, we watch our diets, we do as we're instructed by our doctors, all in order to regain our precious health. As it returns, however, it is not uncommon for those of us recovering from any disease, to reclaim our human-ness. We forget to pray, or meditate one day and then the next. The piles of green vegetables that we have been eating go bad in our refrigerators, while we snack instead on taquitos and sweets. I walked the dogs, that should be enough exercise pops into our heads. In short we grab for the lives we once lived. I'm human and fallible. We need to remember, though, that we are human and fragile. I know first hand how easy it is to loose the connection to God, to forget daily prayers and the connection with the divine. I lived that way for years. I also, in spite of a base diet that is very healthy managed to snack on junk food. I never met a taco, I didn't love, or a beignet for that matter!

So here I have been these last several months focusing on my return to health. An amazing partner at my side, reading and studying all he can about cancer and diet so that we can live without my having a repeat episode. His badgering me with "really? Is that cancer killing ice cream?" And me just wanting to live. My taste buds have come back and ironically my sense of smell is even more sensitive than prior to the cancer and with that comes and even improved sense of taste. I stopped juicing, on a daily basis, and started visiting my local taco shop more often. In fact I started eating out a lot and stopped cooking at home. My salt intake soared. In the mornings I would wake up and my face and tongue would be swollen and  restricted. I stopped practicing my vocal exercises on a daily basis. (ok, I was never good about doing them daily, but I somehow stopped all together).

Suddenly, I was watching my body change. How could I be 150 and look fat? Then it was 155 still looking fat. Had I lost that much muscle? Prior to my cancer, I had trimmed down from 170 something to 155 and was looking good. I gained some weight prior to surgery because I was warned that I would loose approximately 15 lbs while undergoing radiation. When all was said and done, I finished my radiation at 140 lbs. Since that day I have slowly watched pound by pound my weight creep up and up. Motivated by an annual trip, I realized that I had to do something. I had to get back on my healthy eating plan. I had to accept that I was human and pretty much the same human that I was prior to cancer. I had to go within and find the strength and motivation. Like so many of us who have had to battle their weight, there is also an underlying factor. We need to do it in order to regain our maximum health. For those of us battling and surviving cancer there is also a much greater need to do it, we have to prevent the cancer from returning. You would think this last reason alone would be enough to keep all of us survivors on the straight and narrow, but it's not.

So what happens? Do we just give up? No! We start to live! Life is amazing. It feels good. Indulging feels good. We forget how good the perfect weight feels on our bones. Just like forgetting to say our prayers. Yet we find that remembering to say our prayers, to stay connected directs us to wanting to stay healthy. It just feels better. I started my healthy eating plan and in just a few days, I had the energy I had prior to cancer. I have been a white tornado around the house. Just a few minutes of meditation and some good food, can surprise you. I suddenly have enough time in the day to do what I need to do and want to do and what Ken wants me to do. Will I hit my goal weight and revert to my bad habits? I'd like to think not, but the reality is that is an option. Just as loosing our connection with God is an option. It just isn't the best option and one that we can control. So I have to set up reminders, have stricter guidelines of how much weigh gain is acceptable (the number is not 20 lbs!). Most of all, I need to remember how wonderful it feels to live fully. No food or diversion can ever take the place of that. I just have to remember. I just have to listen to the people in my life who remind me of that. Say, wasn't it not listening that got me here in the first place?

That's the Stuff!

That's the stuff is a slang term which lately seems to have been replaced by "that's the s*#t". I never cared much for this vulgarization of pleasant things. It can be used to refer to a great meal (eew!), a beer, great sex, or what ever seems to float your boat at the time. I am not apt to use the term, however, I recently had my own experience, where it seems appropriate (literally!)

Last week I got a stomach bug. Nothing big, just the run of the mill bug that most of us have experienced from time to time. It came with the cramping, aching and fever and of course diarrhea that such bugs carry. I was completely immersed in being sick for a few days, when it hit me, I hadn't once thought of cancer in that time. Odd that illness can take your mind off of well....illness, but it can. It actually became a welcome relief. No, I can't say that I was actually enjoying getting up every 45 minutes or so to run to the bathroom, but it was a break from my past nine months where everything out of the ordinary must in some way be related to cancer. And for the most part it is because almost everything is. I still suffer from exhaustion, a common side effect of chemo and radiation. The swelling and inflammation which is a side effect related to having my lymph nodes removed and radiated. Lack of appetite, etc. Almost everyday brings with it some cancer related gift.

In survival and recovery it is important to move beyond the illness. Our thoughts must be aligned with health and wellness in order to bring about the desired result. So this little bug brought with it a gift. I got to be a normal person for a week! No cancer, just frequent trips to the restroom. What a great trade off. Yes my butt hurt, but nothing like surgery. I was whiney and week and wanted to be waited on, but never once thought of my partner Ken as my caretaker. He was once again just my partner having to put up with me acting like a baby (yes, I am a typical guy when I get sick. I want my mommy, a nurse and maybe a hand full of old movies thrown in). There was no education I had to involve myself in. I already knew how to handle this. Plenty of rest, fluids and little food. Of course Ken kept telling me that I brought this on myself by not washing my vegetables properly, but I just tuned him out and was content with my illness. By the time the thing had run it's course a week had flown by. A week of no cancer. Just being a typical guy! Now if that isn't the shit, I don't know what is!

What a World

One of the best parts of visiting my Dad is the drive both to and from the airport. It's one of the rare times I get him all to my self. In spite of the fact that he isn't usually much of a talker there is rarely silence on our drives. We discuss politics, our family and one of my favorites, my dads stories of growing up in New Mexico. This weeks trip was no different. As we drove past a horse farm and I made the observation that on of the horses was on its side and wondered out loud if it was dead, dad assured me that for some reason in Texas this was common. He wasn't sure if it was the breed of the horse or what, but it was a common sighting even in winter. This of course brought up the conversation of the horses he had as a child on the farm. He mentioned that some of their horses were used as a team to pull a wagon. I listened but wondered in my head if my dad as a child ever imaged that he would be driving his own son to the airport to fly several hundred miles back home? As a child did he know that his world was about to make a major change? His world has probably made the most changes of any generation in recent memory. Once the industrial revolution hit, there was no stopping the change. His family farm would soon be sold so that they could move into town. His parents would open a restaurant, eventually close that and move to California. He lived through the great depression and served in the Korean War.

That's a lot of change especially when I compare my world to his and yet I see history repeating. We are currently in a depression yet noting like the one that grabbed and shook my fathers generation. Our revolution was technological. I have read about people protesting the power poles being strung across the nation the way people have protested nuclear energy. Amazing is all of this is the vast majority of people have not lost their faith. Most believe in God. And yes we struggle with it diagnose it, subject it to science and yet come out of all of that believing in God. I watched a show on the cosmos and listened as one of the most brilliant minds of our time, Stephen Hawking, proclaim that because there was no time prior to the big bang, there could be no God. My first thought wasn't wow, I guess that there is no God, it was that Stephen Hawking does not understand the nature of God. The other amazing thing is that I doubt if Mr. Hawking's findings  would change anyone's mind who believes in God. For those who have been  touched and changed that is the one thing we most likely won't give up.

I am not speaking of religion, but in our own personal spirituality. As a gay man, I have pushed back against much of organized religion in my life. They had rejected me so I would reject them. In spite of that in just about every place in the world I have visited my first stops were to Cathedrals and Temples. I can tell you I have a great love of architecture, but this was always something more. I find peace in the house of God. I commune with the Divine in the house of God. I find it shocking that so many people visit a church and manage to find hate. To reject their fellow humans. Yet this behavior has been going on for centuries. The belief that one religion is superior to another. That one country is superior to another. That piece of the earth is holier than another.  While I was in Texas, my Dad's Presybeterian minister spoke about the miracle of the loaves and the fishes. He used the metaphysical explanation that it was not a miracle where Jesus actually turned the meal for five into a meal for five thousand, it was a story about sharing. Because of a willingness to give what little he and the disciples had, it started a ground swell of sharing among the crowd. I was brought to tears thinking what a world: A christian and be a metaphysician! To take it farther we do live in an amazing world at an amazing time. A world where people who have done bad things can also do amazing good. A world where there is so much going on, that it should be a crime for anyone to become bored. A beautiful world, where people care about each other and the environment. A world where I can walk into a machine and fly several hundred miles and get to spend four hours in another machine driving down paved roads listening to stories told by the man responsible for my existence! What a World indeed!

The Search

It seems to me that we are all searching for something. Some of us have figured out what that something is while others of us have not. I have lived the vast majority of my life feeling like I was on the outside looking in. An observer if you will, and a willing one at that. While for some outsiders, there is a sense of longing to get to the inside, I have been content to hold my position, nose pressed to the window and wait. The problem is that I never knew what I was waiting for. Some people think that this may be a sad way to live, but it has served me well. During my career as an apparel buyer, it was because of my being an outsider, that I could so clearly see what people wanted next and stay ahead of the trends. In my career as a manager it has enabled me to read people quickly, and make good hiring choices.

Since being diagnosed, I have realized that my life is not about my career, however. I no longer receive my identity, by what I do, and rather by who I am. This shift has been subtle and yet a quick one. One of the gifts of the shift is an amazing increase in self confidence. Being my job, I was never good enough, never "ahead" enough. Being me, I am strong and can take on anything that life throws at me. I can also relax more now. Before, if I had a day off, I couldn't really enjoy it because I knew something somewhere was about to go wrong. I'd call work just to check in. I look back and see a man who didn't trust himself and therefore could not trust the world. Today, I trust that God has it all handled, so I don't have to. That in itself is a relaxing thought.

Yesterday I returned home from seeing my Dad in Texas for the second time in a month. This time I was able to stay longer which was a good thing. It feels like I have a lot of years to make up for. Just sitting around and talking, I became painfully aware of what I've missed over the years. I look back and think how many times I couldn't go back to see him because I was "blocked" during the holidays or had a set up that prevented me spending early spring with him. On and on... I listened to my Dad and Doris talking about holidays past, visits and vacations that I was not a part of. I realized with a bit of shock that I did not have cherished memories of the times I spent at work while they were gathered at the Thanksgiving table. What was it that I was searching for back then. I clearly didn't want to "fit in". I didn't want to be a family. Now I realize that I am part of a family, we all are. Sure we can choose to reject it, but that doesn't make it go away. Those people are all still there, building memories. Going home to see my Dad, it surprises me just how easy it is to be part of a family. You just have to show up. Being willing to share makes the experience even richer. Listening makes it even more so.

We search and search only to find sometimes, that we are enough, just being who we are. Home is not a destination, it is a place in our hearts. Granted sometimes that place in our hearts has a destination attached to it. For some it has a time line attached to it. Yet it seems, once again by observation, that for the truly free there are no strings attached.

Cancer: A Love Story

That's an odd title, none the less it is the title of my story. Through this journey I have learned to love myself, but that is not what I am writing about today. Today, the love that I am talking about is my love for my partner, Ken. Prior to my diagnosis I used to question our relationship...a lot! Could we make it? Would we make it? We argue and bicker so often. I make him crazy, then he makes me crazy. If it's not the finances, it's the way I put the dishes into the dishwasher. In thinking about it now, it sounds a awful lot like marriage. During my ordeal with cancer, those things revealed themselves to be petty. In fact I came to understand my doubts about our relationship were completely unfounded. Ken in short has been a rock.

While I was dealing with the physical aspects of the disease he was busy arming himself with education to ensure us both a long life. He has studied nutrition, psychology and God only knows what else about cancer to make sure that I am here and so is he. Early on, prior to my surgery, there was a day that I came to trust in us. I had always trusted God and myself. I knew that I would beat cancer, but this was the day that I knew I wouldn't have to do it alone. I've written about it before, so I apologise if I am repeating myself. I was at UCLA Medical Center oncology division of the dental center. I was told that I needed to have four teeth removed to protect me in the future. Being rather vain, that is the last thing I wanted. I even remember writing on Facebook that I pity the fool that wants to pull my teeth. At listing to the reasoning Ken pleaded with me to listen to the dentist and have the procedure done. At first I was shocked and felt betrayed. How could he act like this when he knew how important it was to me to keep my teeth? I listened as he broke it all down into bitchy cliff notes. "If you don't", he said, "and your teeth become infected, they can't pull them because you won't have sufficient blood supply in your jaw. Then infection sets in and the only thing left to do will be remove it and replace it using a bone from your leg! Is that what you want"? It felt like I was 5 and being yelled at. I caved. I gave in to logic. I got mad and blurted out "Fine, pull them". I was told that I may have to come back. I informed the dentist that if he wanted the teeth, he would need to do it now, I wouldn't be coming back! And that is what happened. I walked into the lobby, my jaw still numb from the procedure, holding bloody gauze in my mouth to see Ken slumped in the corner of the lobby with his head down. When I approached him, he raised his head and I saw the tears for the first time since I had been diagnosed. "Thank you for doing all of this to stay with me" The words were simple and quite. But they were powerful!
I understood in an instant that he had believed in us all along. He yelled about the way I put dishes into the dishwasher because he wanted us to have clean dishes. He wanted there to be an us and some of my beliefs in self healing were terrifying to him in terms of our future. Maybe I could heal myself, but he wanted to make sure I was healed what ever it took! For us. Because he saw a future for us. So bring on the chemo and radiation. Get the cancer out of my body! I became far more compliant that day, and in his own way so did he. To this day he is receiving acupuncture for his insomnia and I'm happy to say it is working. We are both learning how it give in to each others beliefs.

While my cancer was being removed, there was another battle occurring in our state. The battle for same sex marriage. I never really planned on being married. I did feel that if someone wanted it they should have the legal right, to it, however. But now, I am bothered by the ruling, not because I want to be married so badly, but when I look at Ken, I see this amazing man, who has not been just a great mate, but a care taker. If there was ever someone in this world who deserved a marriage proposal it is him. And yes, we could move to a state that has made it legal, but is that really the point? And yes, we are Registered Domestic Partners but it's not the same. We have a certificate from the state that sounds like we have gone into a housekeeping business together. He has been a model husband and even if he turns me down, I want him to have the right of me asking for his legal hand in marriage. I have never been much of an activist, but surviving cancer certainly changes things. One thing is certain to me, no matter what the law says love will endure.