Back in the Saddle

This week I went back to work. The fact that it feels like it's been a week and it's only Tuesday says a lot about my experience returning.

I spend most of my day worrying/wondering about my family, especially its newest member, my nephew KJ. It doesn't really help me get anything done and generally just adds to my feelings of estrangement and being homesick.

I'm hoping for word that no further treatment for my cancer is needed and I can begin to move on. As much as I thought I needed to get away from my family (and maybe I did), I miss them tremendously.

Longer ago than I care to think about I was working on a script about a man that returns to his hometown and his family after being away for years. I even had a tag line: "What if everything you ever wanted was in the last place you ever wanted to be?"

Apparently I was just predicting my own future. Except the dude was a successful writer or some such ridiculousness.

I also watched Blade Runner 2049 this weekend. I liked it, even if it's a bit laborious and naval-gazing.

The one thing that struck me is the idea of both realizing and accepting the fact that you (we? I? whatever) are a supporting player in someone else's narrative. Naturally our world revolves around us, our wants, needs, desires, problems, etc. But recognizing that you are part of a bigger tapestry and figuring out how to make an impact that farther reaching than just your own life is maybe the meaning of it all. Lots to unpack and that's definitely an incomplete thought.

One Week

I spent most of the last week with my family, almost all of whom I hadn't seen in a month. And as frustrating as they can be, particularly my parents, it was nice to step back into to familiar territory. Pun intended I suppose.

My dad, who's had both his legs amputated in the last six months; my mom, who is now taking care of a newborn baby thanks to my absentee addict of a sister; both doing whatever they have to do to adjust to a new normal, and with generally positive attitudes. Specifically my dad. I'm not sure anyone ever had such a 180 degree personality change, for the positive at least.

It makes it pretty difficult to sit in my own situation and mope about like a tool.

Yesterday the doc took my stitches and staples out, and I got my first real glimpse and my face. It shook me a bit, but it wasn't as bad as I feared. The ability to eat more than a tiny bite at a time isn't quite there yet, but being told I have to push myself on that front was welcome. Apparently I need to work the muscles in my neck and jaw to stretch them back out so that I have as close to full range of motion as possible.

Every once in awhile I'll get a nerve or two firing in my face and it gives me a little hope that they're waking up. The doc said it could take months before I have complete feeling back. Disheartening, but maybe it's better than feeling whatever pain there might be.

I spent most of the last year at work and then living in solitude. More than anything I think the last week has reinforced that I'm just not cut out for that, as much as I thought I was.

Walls

Yesterday, in a matter of just a few hours, I was forced to reconcile the news of the Las Vegas shootings and the death of Tom Petty.

In the most scrutinizing of ways, neither of those events really have a huge impact on my life.

I didn't know anyone in Vegas at the time and other than just hoping to maybe one day see Petty play and appreciating him as an enormous talent and influence, I wasn't the biggest fan and hadn't listened to him in years.

But, I was moved deeply by both tragedies, and in different ways.

Listening to the constant rhetoric of the last few years from both major parties has been as frustrating for me as it has been for most Americans. And to have something like this happen, again, and see the tragedy become a political talking point, again, and to know in my heart that we as a country will, again, do nothing about it is enough to make me feel hopeless. Even if it was just talking, at least there might be a chance that a solution, some sort of insurance against this happening once again, could be reached. But it's just people screaming at each other.

When I saw the original announcement that Petty had passed away, like a lot of people I posted a comment on social media. Something to the effect of "If this world gets any darker, we're going to need a supernova to find our way back."

It feels very much like we're losing the light. The things that in thousands, millions, billions of years from now you would want people, or some alien race, or whatever is is we evolve into, to look at and say, "damn, they had an amazingly rich culture."

It feels more an more like what will be said, maybe just a hundred years from now, is that we couldn't stop shouting at each other long enough to realize what an amazing world we live in. What an amazing time we live in. But maybe that's the thing the poets understand that we still can't get. Maybe you can't appreciate it until it's gone.

Here's hoping 50 years from now some candidate will be running for political office with a familiar platform. Make America Great Again. Only this time he'll mean the America that recognizes the basic human rights of everyone in her boarders, the America that says love has nothing to do with gender, that a living wage for any individual is a necessity, and that the health and safety of its citizens is a priority and not a business.

It's scattered an all over the place, but it's what I'm feeling.

Humble Pie

At 38 years old, it's a little odd to suddenly learn something new about yourself. But last night that's exactly what I did.

I've always considered myself humble, sometimes to a fault even. While my closest friends will tell you that's not always the case, and I'd certainly back them up, for the most part I don't sing my own praises. I'm also pretty self deprecating, if yesterday's post didn't clue you in. Sometimes jokingly so, sometimes not.

A lot of that stems from a fear of being humiliated. It's one of my biggest fears. Maybe my biggest actually, because it's the one I've never really talked about with anyone. So if I do my best no to be boastful, and am always ahead of the curve on tearing myself down, then I'm never caught off guard.

Yes, it's laughable to think that I'm alone in that regard too. I imagine most of humanity is terrified of being humiliated.

This is also at the root of my inability to welcome help when I need it the most. Because for the entirety of my life I've equated being humble with being humiliated.

Last night I knelt over the edge of a tub while my best friend's wife carefully washed my hair. I then sat next to her as she took a wash cloth and some mild soap and gently cleaned my face, my stitches and my staples. She then spread balm over my wounds to help them heal.

My friend stood dutifully by, helping where he was able, talking to me, normalizing it all as best he could.

Still ,for so much of it I found myself falling into the familiar rhythms of shame and regret. Someone was doing this incredibly kind and generous thing, and all I could worry about was my unreasonable discomfort. That's not being humble. In fact, it's a pretty selfish thing, to want to rob someone of a blessing they can bestow.

It's going to be a difficult thing to let go of, but I'm hoping that was at least a small step forward.

My New Normal

To say I wasn't prepared for exactly what my surgery would be is an understatement of epic proportions.

I expected stitches that would inevitably give be a long scar to spend the rest of my life explaining. I didn't thin I would come out looking like Frankenstein's Monster if he was also a stroke victim.

Stitches and staples everywhere. A recovery process I just was not prepared for.

I was never a particularly good looking dude. Now it's a safe bet I never will be.

So this is me wallowing in self pity. Me putting friends in a position I desperately tried to avoid. Me, again, unable to do the simplest things for myself.

I'm tired. Tired of struggling. Tired of fighting with myself.

What do you do with a body that seems intent on killing you? Or at least destroying your spirit.

For the moment, it's succeeded. For the moment I get to feel hopeless, destitute and completely pathetic. I think I've earned that.

Days Gone Bye

The last few days have been a blur of nothingness filled with moments of huge impact.

The margins on the melanoma they removed were clear, which means they got all of that and can sew my face back up.

Unfortunately one of the lymph nodes tested positive, so tomorrow I go back in for my second surgery in 8 days.

This time the will removed the remaining nodes, as well as the salivary gland on the right side of my face.

Maybe that will be it. Maybe I'll be done.

But maybe I won't.

That's the fun of cancer. It can never come back and you still get to live the rest of your life wondering if every cramp, itch, phantom pain, headache, or bump means that it's back.

Dirty Little Secret

A friend of mine commented on Facebook that she had no idea that I was dealing with yet another cancer issue these last few months.

The truth of that matter is that no one did except me.

Once the diagnosis was confirmed I told my boss at work, and a few coworkers. I felt that was probably the responsible thing to do since I kept having to duck out for lengthy doctor appointments that I would need coverage for.

Somewhere along the way I told my brother, just in case things went real sideways, I thought someone in the family should know. And then eventually I told my youngest sister.

So, until the week of my surgery, besides myself and the doctors, the number of people that knew I had skin cancer could be counted on one hand.

"Well, it's just skin cancer," is not a response I would hold against anyone. It is just skin cancer, and in a lot of ways that's been my approach to it. Get in, cut it out. If it's not more complicated than that, then in the grand tapestry of cancers, it's pretty basic. So why turn it into anything more dramatic?

In hindsight, I'll admit to not going about informing the people closest to me in the best way possible. Considering every one of them was pretty much a phone conversation with me saying "I have a melanoma, they're going to take me into surgery and cut it out. I'll call you when I'm done."

I told my mother three days before it was set to happen, I told my dad the morning of. I told my best friend the night before, which is the one I feel the worst about (for so many reasons I won't get into here and now). There are still close friends and family that, unless they stumble upon me writing about, or have been told by someone else, still don't know. And I imagine they'll be pissed when they find out.

All I can say to that is, I'm sorry.

The first time I had cancer I didn't get to be in charge of how and when people knew about it. Instead I woke up in a bed to all kinds of sentiments ("Don't scare me like that" being a pretty common one, to which I always wanted to respond with a big middle finger). And sentiments are nice, and they're appreciated, but in the long run they don't do anyone a damn bit of good.

Just as bothersome can be the people who absolutely do care about you and just want to know you're okay, or if you need anything. Again, those are good people to know and have in your life. But unless they're single with almost zero responsibility, asking anything of them is you taking their time away from things that are, for them, just as important. Inevitably guilt will set in, and then you're left holding that.

It can be a devastating thing to see the toll your sickness has on the lives of people around you. Even if it's little things, it sticks with you.

So, I made a choice. Maybe (probably) a bad one. But it's one I'd probably make again.

The Morning After the Morning After

It's been (not quite) two days since my surgery to remove a melanoma on my upper right cheek. I'm happy to say that there's not a ton of pain in the area of that surgery, or any near the incision made to remove the two lymph nodes it was connected to.

What I wasn't prepared for was the pain in other places. My throat is a wreck from the breathing tube they use when they have to put you under, and the subsequent cough it has caused has made my nonexistent abs feel like I've been doing sit ups for days. My calf muscles ache thanks to the pads they use to help prevent blood clots during surgery. My shoulders hurt because I had to hold my arms above (not behind) my head while they traced the radioactive dye into the lymph nodes to know which ones to remove.

More than anything though, right now my biggest post-surgery takeaway has been my weight. Specifically that I've got to do something about it.

I've ballooned up to nearly 300lbs, and it is truly the heaviest I've ever been in my life. I think the biggest contributor has been my new job.

I sit at a computer all day, so exercise has become a non-existent thing for me. I get up at about 6:30 every morning to get ready for work, but honestly the last month or so that's gotten pushed almost to 7. And I usually get home around 6:30 or 7. If I'm going to make myself dinner, it means I don't get to eat until around 8, so too many times dinner has become whatever fast food I feel like on the drive home. Equally unhealthy is the fact that I usually cook a pizza in the oven on Sunday and then divide that up for my lunch throughout the week. And then I'll grab a sweet of some sort from the vending machine.

I was never a work-is-life guy, and the fact that I'm becoming one is troublesome to me.

No, troublesome isn't right. To put it bluntly it has depressed the hell out of me.

While I've never been the healthiest person, I've always enjoyed moderate exercise (especially lengthy walks and the occasional jog). The walks weren't just contributing to my physical health either, they were extremely therapeutic for my mental state, and also fueled me creatively as well.

Six months ago I loved working with the people I was working with, and it kept me chugging along at a job that was beyond stressful and I knew was negatively impacting both my mental and physical health. Now I have a new group of coworkers and a new boss, all of whom I like just fine, but the changes I've been forced into have made it easier to reassess the situation I'm in and adamantly say "This is not where I want to be. and it's not who I'm meant to be."

It would have been Jim Henson's 81st birthday today. He once put a green puppet on his hand, talked in a funny voice and gave life to these words: "Life is like a movie. Write your own ending."

Cancer 2: The Electric Boogaloo

So, several weeks ago, and for the second time in my life, I found out I had cancer. The first time it was Hodgkin lymphoma, which has been in remission for almost two years now. This time it was a melanoma, which presented (of all places), on my right cheek.

I realize WHY it is most skin cancer winds up presenting on the face at some point, if not right off the bat, but it's just so damn cruel. It's not bad enough that you spend most of your teen years (or, if you're like me, most of your life since puberty) worrying about your complexion, but if you wind up with skin cancer, hey, here's an unsightly facial growth that not only won't go away, but they'll have to go in and cut it out of you.

Death is the ultimate F-U from cancer, I know that. But this one feels pretty high up on the list.

It's been less than 48 hours since the doc took scalpel to skin, sliced off part of my face, and (as it turns out) had to go in and take a few lymph-nodes out of my neck as well. It's like a toll I have to pay the ferryman every time I get a bad diagnosis at this point. "Got cancer? It's gonna cost you a few lymph-nodes to get to the other side."

My face is puffy, my neck is swollen, my right earlobe looks like a really fatty piece of bacon and thanks to my incredibly shitty veins I have bruises up and down my hands and arms. It took a pit crew of doctors and nurses to place an IV before surgery, which they had to change twice after they finally got me knocked out. I look like I was attacked by several swarms of deadly wasps.

Even better? It isn't over yet.

They have to make sure they've cleared all of the melanoma out, and ensure that the lymph-nodes it was connected to aren't cancer ridden, then they can officially sew me back up and try to make me look as close to normal as possible. Jokes on them, I never looked normal to begin with.

Now I've got at least few more days of dealing with a somewhat-open wound on my face, which makes bathing damn near impossible. But if there's writing in the margins, or the ferryman's coins turn out to be damaged, we go to Plan B.

No, I don't know what Plan B is. In this entire scenario I'm B.A. Baracus. The cancer is the mission, and Hannibal, Face and Murdock gotta slip a little something special into my milk to get me on that helicopter so we can fight the fight. I just wake up and do what they tell me once we're there.

But I'm still here to complain about it, and for right now that's good enough for me.