Sunday, July 24, 2011

Something stupid about god

The quality and quantity of my blogs have gone way, way down. It's become a boring, self-centered hack-fest. Ys, it's become a lot more like me. Good thing your replies are much more interesting. It reminds me of this one time when working at Tom, Dick and Harry.

I was the creative director for Moosehead beer. One day this intern named Drew asked me if he could do an ad. I sort of laughed and talked on and on about how advertising is harder than it looks and it takes creatives years to be any good. He smiled and asked again so I gave him an assignment. I did a little work on the side on the same assignment because I didn't think he'd come up with anything. But a couple of days later he comes into my office with these great headlines. Much, much better than anything I did for that assignment or, it seemed, for the whole account.

I sort of didn't now what to say to him. So I don't think I said anything but good job. He knew he had me and walked out of the office very confidently. Since then and here the rest of his stay he gave me that look like, "You think you're so cool, but you're really an idiot. Of course, that could just be the same look he gave everyone because I see that same look on everyone of this generation. They seem to hate us more than we hated our elders

Any who, ever since that episode, I've come to accept my writing limitations. When people ask what I do, I say I'm in training for the Olympics. I never m mention what event. An intern could do better work in half the time and without really even caring when it comes to writing. I'm better off trying to luge.

Still, like most In one generation older than me, I need to blame someone else. So it is the iPad. If you've seen people at cool with one, don't worry. They're not that cool. There's no key pad so typing is difficult. There are also no arrow keys, no mouse and no screen arrow so it's even more difficulct checking over work. So I don't do it as much anymore. Sorry. Whtat's worse than having cancer? Having to read about it from guy who haw a stye more apt for power tool instruction manuals. Speaking of writing about cancer...

The constant pain I had in my chest way, way back when I wrote more interesting and grammatically correct blogs is back. Breathe in and I get a dose of sharp pain. Breathe out and I get a dose of sharp pain. It shoots up and down my arm and lef side. The average day now is back to being a struggle of ot thinking it sucks.

What sucks worse is the worrying begins. Pain is either really good or really bad. There isn't any in between in this life. It all depends on which cells are dying. I won't know which until the end of this week. Until then I will worry and breathe and breathe out.

A couple of long time hodgers have passed away in the last couple of months. Last week a doctor in Los Angeles told a mom that she should take her six year old kid home because he is going to die in one week and the doctor can't do aything else for him. Now I see two problems with this situation. First, the doctor. I was told by three doctors that I woud die in a couple of months and I think I am still alive. I could be dead but I think I'm not because I have this stupid fucking computer.

My econd issue concerns the mom. Sometimes medical people say one thing and the patients hear something else. So I can't blame the doctor completely. What went down might not have went down exactly as told. But I also have some pent up, unfair animosity toward the mom for accepting this answer from the doctor. I just don't understand it. Why accept the worst possible solution? If I was one of those criminals on death row, man, you wouldn't see me calmly walking down the aisle. I'd be kicking, screaming, struggling everything and anything to try to get away and if you want to shoot me, go ahead.

So my point is, it"s mentally tough some days thinking about that poor six year old boy and the whole situation of the adults around him. The kicker, and this is where I lose the few of you I have left, is many many people talk about how god will take care of it. No He (or She) won't. God won't do shit. God doesn't help athletes win games. God doesn't make people rich. God doesn't help six year old sick boys. Six year olds shouldn't be sick in this first place. A God who lets that happen is an asshole. If I was God (and by my writing, clearly I am not), I wouldn't let that happen. My friend Todd or my other friend Jerome both hate people and they wouldn't even let that happen. So with every sharp pain breath as I check the web for the latest news on the hodgers, I think god is an asshole. I'm sticking to that until I talk to him or her personally. But I doubt I will be doing that.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

My last bullet

I spent the airplane ride writing down a list of the resons why I need to start sgn-35. I knew it was my fallback treatment, the Alamo of my cancer. But there's only so much, ya know.

I had a lot of reasons and I was going to just rattle them off to Dr. O'Connor in the hopes of getting him to understand that I had grown almost without notice, sick. My tumors were large and can be noticed even torough my clothes. I was getting cramps in all parts of my body. The constant bee stinging of my body had gotten worse and now even a good painkiller like any of the fine oxy products couldn't mask it. I was losing sleep. I had lost my appetite. I was sleeping a lot. I had so much constant pain I didn't know I had pain.

In O'Connor's office the next day, after the usual three hour wait (I've actually waited longer. It's good to bring digital fun to any cancer doctor's office.), he walked in and without even waitng for me to say anything, he said, "it's that time."

I said, "I'm beat." And that was that.

In about one montth, doctors will be able to order sgn-35 and patients can get it as easy as a getting Tylenol.. The FDA just announced that it will have an answer to it's approval in mid august. But I didn't know that then. I had to wait until the company that produced the drug opened a clinical trial. You'd thiink that during this waiting period, I'd feel desperate. But actually my spirits brightened a bit. I knew I was at least going to have a good summer.

Even with the slightest of drugs going through my body, I get a little buzz-buzz. This time I felt nothing although I hear the real side effects start after the second infusion. And boy are they side effects. Even though the drug saves the lives of many, many patients, a percentage of them wish they never had it. The debilitation can be that bad.

Probably like many of you, at first I found that attitude was strange. Here is a drug that saves your life but you wish you had not taken it. Upon reading further and talking to them, it just gets to be too much. I undertand that. But still, I hope to never have that attitude.

A friend from college once made me aware of how impractical Bible stories were. She used the example of the Virgin Mary. So there is this girl who says she's never had sex but now she's pregnant and she says that God is the Daddy. Umm, sure. And then there's the healing of the blind and curing of the sick. What if Jesus simply had some really good drugs with him? He never really said he had special powers. We said that. He"s always been humble about the thing. He just said his Daddy is God.

Well, if he did, he had some of this sgn stuff. It's damn good. I feel better and better every day. I'm ready for my second treatment and i already want to take the step of getting off all drugs. That's quite a statement if you've ever seen my pill-popping routines. McKenna and I once tried to figure it out and I stopped at around thirty pills on a bad day and twenty on a good day. Now, just maybe, I can actually get down to zero, although I'd have a tearful good-bye with my painkillers.

From January until April, I had grown used to a different life. It was dark. It hurt. Badness was too close. Now I am amazed at my new one. I mean, I can actually get up and not feel like crap? Get out. You say that people can make it up a flght of stairs without getting out of breath? No shit. I've harped on it before but it deserves a second, third and fourth mention-- you people got it easy. You got it great. Waking up is now so so cool. I love the day. I love the morning. I love every breath. Taking a big sigh is worth another sigh. I love just being.

Let's see how far we can ride this motha.