Writing things down on paper and then transcribing them in my computer has been far more of a boon than I could have ever imagined.

While homesickness burrows deep under the skin, causing me to itch much like one with scabies, and often cores out my inner workings, even the smallest communication from friends is an amazing ballast.

After four months in India I was forced to ditch my oft held claim that I could easily only eat Indian food for the rest of my days. While I clearly still love Indian food, I crave variety far more.  Also, 5.5 months in India really makes you appreciate the joys of a simple salad — which are non existent in India.

Saying hello and smiling to others/strangers is a natural thing. My refusal to do so for 30+ years was pretty much insanity.

Bus rides in India often result in disaster. Examples: whiplash, a broken axle and sparks, lots and lots of sparks, running off the road coming down a nausea inducing winding incline, etc….

Every person you meet touches you. And if you can not learn something positive from each of them, I dare say you are clearly doing it wrong. (Yes, I know, who am I anymore????)

Ten days of meditation and silence will shift your being like nothing else. I highly suggest doing this post haste.

While I have long held that my life would make far more sense if I had been born French, I now amend that to say it would make even more sense if I had been born Tibetan.

That said, French pop > Tibetan pop. Lets not get crazy…..

The US health care system is even more fucked up that I have previously understood. In fact, I am fairly certain I will never understand how effed it truly is. I am VERY VERY VERY glad I have opted out of it, as only outside of it do I feel I can exist.

As much as this really, really pains me to admit, I often find comfort in those big huge Hollywood action movies that are played all the time in Asia. I always said I was above them and would never fall for this Expat trap. But…. damn it if I am not snared.

That said, an hour listening to my music grounds me just as well and I feel far far far less dirty doing so.

The only time I have ever been sure I was right and/or correct on anything is when I honestly admitted that I did not know something.

The way we use language is often far more important that what we actually say.

Skype is often as good as holding a friend’s hand.

I think when People look back on the 21st century they will see that the largest, most pressing issue we as a civilization had to deal with was creating meaningful solutions/outcomes for refugees. Currently we are acting like ostriches to this now, but it will be larger than anything else as the world slips into far more challenging climate issues causing untold displacement. AND SO MUCH WILL DEPEND ON HOW WE DEAL WITH THIS!

Living somewhere where I can not get fresh dragonfruit is no longer going to be an option.

Durian fruit is as putrid and disgusting fresh as it is imported. Still waiting for someone to create an odor based super villain named durian.

Watermelon in Asia is at least 379 times better than it is in the States.

Still more than AMAZED that one of the best falafel sandwiches I have ever had in my life was in Delhi.

42°C is CRAZY hot!

While this is not exactly new news, trains are totally the  way to travel.

The art of meeting people and saying goodbye to them in very short order is emotionally excruciating.

The act of not asking fellow travelers their names to try and cope with the above issue is not now, nor has it ever been effective. Frankly, it is more than a little foolish, sort of like eating drywall hoping to get one’s RDA of calcium.

People who say food poisoning does not exist or is only for people that have weak stomachs have clearly never been to India.

As my body continues to shrink, I have found that I best fit into tall women’s pants. I am officially a size 4. I am sure many of you will enjoy the hell out of that.

Let me tell you why I have fallen in love with this great organization in my time in Thailand. First it was the food. I feel in love with the food at Free Bird Cafe the cafe they run to support their education center. In fact, when I first heard of the cafe while in Bangkok, I just thought it was a great sounding cafe. And it was closed when I first tried to go, but once I did make it there I loved it immediately.

But my real love for the place grew exponentially when I found out just how much great work they were doing educating Shan Refugees from Burma and local hill tribe people, along with supporting refuge camps in the area. See, in Thailand refugees have to pay for school. And without The Thai Freedom House providing education for their students, well so many of these refugees would become part of a permanent underclass. And it is just that reason why Thai Freedom House was born, to ensure these students get and education to be able to succeed.

Just recently I was invited to see how successful they are when I got to see the graduation ceremony during the Shan New Year, two weeks ago. What impressed me the most was not the smiles on the kids faces, but the parents, who it seems totally understand the importance of education (such a difference from so many of the parents of the kids I used to teach in Brooklyn). It was a joy to watch the pride of doing well circulate from child to parent. The room that night was just magical.

My birthday wish is for more funds to teach more of these refugee kids and young adults so they can escape the permanent underclass status that many in Thailand seen quite happy to let them to fall into. I feel this is totally unacceptable. I hope you can see the importance of this and help them by wishing me a happy happy birthday.

So many thanks in advance.

And to see just how great one of their students are doing, check out this video of one of their students, Konchai, who is making inroads in the Shan pop world:

Just another reason why the world should be helping all refugees, thankfully Thai Freedom House is doing this to the best of their ability here in Chiang Mai.

The original plan would have seen them over last week, but my surgery wounds took a bit longer to heal than anticipated and then I was felled by a nasty sinus infection, postponing treatment even further. When they removed my entire lymphatic system under my right arm, my already compromised immune system took a few more steps backwards, as the lymph system produces the white blood cells that combat infection. At first this distressed me, but then I realized this is nothing really new, just the old normal a bit more concentrated.

I get my treatment three days a week. They plug me into a saline drip IV and add a shot of Rituxan. I also take some sort of generic antihistamine to aid the removal of the cancer cells — here is where I really wish I had taken some college level biology/physiology course to understand this. It baffles me. But they tell me it works and from what I have read, it backs them up.

I was told that it would take about three hours per session. I liked that, as there would be three, three hour sessions, for three weeks and would most likely take a battery of three treatment sessions to convince all the remaining cancer cells in my body to stop multiplying. I really enjoyed the confluence of all those threes. Only now it is taking four weeks for this first salvo and the actual treatment takes just over two hours to drift into my blood stream.

While I have a not so hidden affection for triumvirates (here is where I should probably thank my four years of Latin in high school, or better yet since we are speaking of triumvirates, here is where I genuflect to my four years of Latin…), this way seems far more organic and less scripted, like actors spontaneously  deviating from a script making their scene resonate with a sense of real life, one that causes the audience to inately hold their collective breaths, knowing the outcome is far from prescribed, prescripted. And to be completely honest, I find this makes me feel earnestly inspired if not optimistic at the treatment’s effectiveness.

The treatment itself is fairly uneventful. I sit in a chair, sometimes in an examination room, sometimes in the waiting room. It just depends on where they have space. As the medicine flows into me, I spend my hours reading and/or trying to tune out the Thai tv shows. A little more than two hours after being stuck by a needle the bag is empty and this is when the fun begins.

I was warned to expect some nausea, so I opted not to eat prior to my first treatment. This. Was. A. Mistake.

While the sky was clear and the sun felt like a ravenous bear six meters above my shoulders swiping its large mauling paws with sunburning claws at me, I swear I heard a clap of thunder at the same time I felt a bolt of nausea hit me in the songthaew on my way back from the hospital. I liken it to a bolt of lightning as my stomach felt electric, as if someone had plugged in a blender that burst to life since it was in the churn position. I had to get off, as I was sure I was going to puke.

I did not, but felt more than queasy all day. My decision to opt for a passion fruit juice, thinking it would steady my stomach, was far from my brightest moment. Acid tossed on top of nausea is a recipe best left alone. Please, heed my advice on this one.

The rest of my day included copious amounts of ginger tea, a slow KM+ walk back to my guest house and a date with general overwhelming exhaustion. I was feeling very unwell, but knew I was on my way to getting better. This really is such a strange feeling. It does not register innately, you have to think about it and push out what you would generally think was logical, then let it sit there, next to you, till you get comfortable enough to grasp/clutch it like a dear friend.

I am not sure if it was that first day or the next day when I realized the needle going into my arm, filling me with drugs meant to confuse the cancer cells coursing though my body, was very much like a candle wick. For it to work, it dips into my energy and comes alight with a vibrant flame burning all my energy away. I knew it would make me tired. But I thought it would only effect me on the day of the treatment. This assumption was very wrong.

So far it slays my energy till well into the next day. That first time it lasted till I woke up two days later. Or you know, the day I had to go back and get treatment number two. It was much easier that second time. I still felt pukey, but as I ate beforehand it did not last as long, nor was it as severe. It still wiped out enough that walking down the street was a slow arduous process, but I was able to have a normal dinner and spend the day reading, after an initial nap.

Then on this past Friday, after treatment number five, I even went to a Thai course and then rather than take a nap, like my body was telling me to, I opted to celebrate Shan New Year (Happy 2106, by the way) with some Shan friends who live here in Chiang Mai. While I regretted it quite a bit the next day, it was well worth using the majority of my weekend’s energy quota for an experience that was unlike any other I have experienced before.

In one week this first round of Immunotherapy will be over. And I am hoping I feel far more like my normal self, as these past few weeks have left me drained in a way that mimics the worst of my Lupus flares. Needless to say, I’ve had much better months than this past one. And I look forward to better ones ahead.

Lymph node removal, no matter how simple and fun it may sound, is anything but fun.

They found another tumor growing under my arm and decided to rip out the whole lymph node system there. Now, until I can exercise it regularly, I will have to get it drained every three or four days. I will spare you what this looks and feels like. Just know you want to avoid it.

I came back to my guest house just over 24 hours after my surgery (20.10.11) and proceeded to not leave guest house till today (27.10.11). I spent 95% of my time flat on my back on strict bed rest.

When I underwent chemo, I spent three weeks on bed rest. I also had no desire to leave. By day four this time, I was erupting to move and get out. The general pain and difficulty of moving stopped this desire till today, where I went to eat and walked around the block.

The more disgusting thing during this whole time: while on my very slow walk today, I saw advertised coffee banana shake. Please note, I watched them drain lymphatic fluid from my arm this week as well.

For reasons I do not understand, even though they only removed two tumors from my groin and not the whole lymphatic system, my leg hurts a lot more than my arm. Even a week later.

I am typing this whole thing one handed as my right arm is still quite incapacitated.

Properly putting on my leg brace one handed is nearly as futile as Wile E Coyote’s pursuit of the road runner.

I am well on my way to ambidextrousness.

Combing one’s hair with one’s left hand… lets just say I really do not advise it.

Sadly, Gravity’s Rainbow is no easier to read while you are high on opiates than if you are stone cold sober. No one has really read this all, right? I will do my best to get though it all this time. But…

In fact reading anything, well the comprehension part, is fairly impossible while highly dosed on morphine. Now that I am on codeine instead, I can read with far more ease. Still, Gravity’s Rainbow… I hate to admit this, but this book seems far smarter than I.

Not being able to shower from Friday to Monday in ever so humid and muggy Thailand is something that is at least akin to Hell, if not the place outright. I also found out I will not be able to wear deodorant for a month, be glad most of you are at least a continent away — this will not be pretty.

There were many more of these that I planed to write over the past week, only they are now in a morphine induced memory hole, alas. No more opiates for me, please.

As I walked down the street to find a ride, at a brisker pace then normal, I found that Bjork’s song 107 steps from Dancer in the Dark taking over my head. Yes, the one where she counts down the steps to her execution. I was obviously not expecting good news.

I was expecting the worst news possible.

The night before was filled with restless sleep, anticipating the worst. I was sure I had prepared myself for the news, steeled myself to hear the words that would crush my spirit and whittle me away to nothing. But I was utterly terrified of just what my reaction would be. It is one thing to anticipate, to speculate, a reaction, it is another thing to have to experience it. The prior week I keep feeling my brave facade starting to crumble, my sense of optimism shifting to outright fear.

But all of this was for naught as the crippling news I was positive to receive, the one my doctors told me would be a death sentence, did not come. The spinal tap found no occurrence of cancer in my spinal fluid!

As soon as my doctor told me this my temperature dropped and a wave of relief took over my body and I shivered like a 1/2 gallon coffee can loaded with black-cat fireworks. And then the tears started. I had expected them. I have become quite acquainted with them ever since I informed of the possibility of the cancer. Only these tears were quite unlike all the others I had spilled of late. These were joyful tears, buoyant tears, rather than tears like an iron anchor trying to drag me many fathoms below. Tears that felt like I was inhaling pure oxygen as they became entangled in my bread.

I was quite unused to them. Boy were they welcome.

As I said in an email, they were like crying a stream of diamonds. But I was not exactly sure where these diamonds came from. I was just ecstatic they were there. As I have thought about it more, I think they were the fears I had been harboring inside this cataclysmically tense body. And as each one ran down my cheak it was as if they were being expelled and replaced with something close to euphoria.

I say something close, because I am not there yet. While this was amazingly welcome and encouraging news, I am not anywhere close to out of the fire yet. My lymph nodes are still polluted and corrupted with this cancer. Friday’s grand news was like winning a battle where and when the enemy fails to show up or just concedes, to fight elsewhere later.

That may sound like I am making light of it. I am not. It has fueled me with a sense of triumph that will not soon be forgotten. I just know this was a simple battle and not the war. That war begins in earnest Thursday, when they remove these damn tumors from my system. And then in two to three weeks the real fighting begins with treatment, which I will detail in another post, as the pieces are still being finalized. Chemo will not be a part of it, at least not initially. Right now it is totally off my table. I can not go through it again. I just can’t. And while if you saw the state of my hair recently you might say I was making the wrong choice here, my kidneys tell a different story.

While my walk away from my guest house was sound tracked to a song for an execution, Miss Li provided me with a delightful song for my return. And yes, I do tend to think in songs. I returned to my room, sent some emails, went and got some food and then proceeded to sleep for the next 20ish hours — apparently that nervous tension that had been keeping me up for most of the precious week finally joined me in hibernation. A very welcome development.

Finally with this amazing news, I am now more prepared to battle this thing. And win.

And well then there is the pain, as I imagine eating one‘s own tail would smart quite greatly. The pain and fear they instill in you — “if you move when the needle is in you, you could be paralyzed.” “Don’t move now!” — joins hand in hand and pretty much jointly clotheslines you. A clothesline you just can not get up after.

There is nothing that can prepare you for a wide gauge needle, think 3-6 mm wide, that slides between two vertebrae and removes this life fluid from your back. Nothing. When they take your blood it is like a pin prick and it is over. Yet, I still wind up passing out three out of four times when they take mine. A spinal tap needle feels far more like a badger’s claw ripping, boring into your spine. And unlike when they draw blood, you feel it inside you the entire time as your body turns to brick, ever fearful of moving, of that possible paralysis. Your brick body registers this railroad spike like needle acting as a lightning rod absorbing a huge bolt that would make night appear as day for those seconds it hung in the air. Every second it is in you, you want desperately to pull away, flee to another room, another country, but you can only exist as a motionless fetal mass where your only movement are tears flowing from your eyes like it was high tide. You would wail too, but that fear of moving is too strong.

It lasts for just over a minute all told, but time seems ever so fluid with a needle the size of the western suburbs of Chicago stuck deep within your spine. This minute plus feels far more like 20-30 minutes of torture. The kind where there is no doubt: you would talk, tell them anything. You might not tell them the truth, but you will tell them anything to get them to stop. Anything to get them to stop….

This was not my first date with a spinal tap. In forth grade they thought I had meningitis. They did one then. I had never cried as much in all my previous nine years as I did that evening. And for the past few days, I spent a great deal of time reliving that experience. I tried not to. I couldn’t. I am simply amazed that something that occurred nearly twenty years ago could be recalled so vividly. I remember colors, smells, textures, the nurse’s name, the way the light shined of his badge…. Very little of that day has been erased from my memory. I wound up telling myself, convincing myself, that this time would not be as bad. It would be better.

It was not.

Whenever they stick a needle in your spine it simply does not get better. It can not. It is awful. And just like before they lorded over me that movement – Any Movement – could paralysis me. I guess they have to, but this is not what anyone in such a position needs to hear.

There is no position as defenseless as the fetal position.

When it was finally over, when they unplugged the needle, I was asked to roll over onto my back, a position I had to stay in for the next six hours. Only the brick I had turned into was not dissipating. I had solidified. I had cemented myself into the tightest ball of a fetal position I could manage. I could not let go.

You would think all my tears would have lubricated my joints. They did not. The staff had to help me extend my legs and roll me over. Thankfully, I could feel their hands, or I may have started to believe I had moved inappropriately and was paralyzed. Finally, I just lay there on my back on a flat, hard, thin mattress, breathing and crying. Still a bit too afraid to wail.

After I lay there motionless, for what seemed like an hour, I finally started to move again. I also noted I was quite hungry, as I had not eaten a thing in well over twelve hours. Only they would not bring me food, just tea. They said caffeine helps replace the missing spinal fluid. Yes, I gave them the same cockeyed look that you most likely just gave the logic in that sentence. But who am I to argue against tea consumption.

For the most part I spent those six hours flat on my back meditating and sleeping.

I know there was a chance I would have to stay over night. If the wound did not stop bleeding after six hours I would have been admitted for observation and my safety. Thankfully, when they changed the dressing in hour four or five it had scabbed over effectively. I really was not looking forward to spending all night on those thin, hard mattresses.

I remember when I was nine the results were ready within hours. I did not have meningitis. Am I remembering correctly though. That day was full of trauma, from puking up a small ocean in front on my class to being rushed to out of school on a stretcher and in an ambulance to the eventful spinal tap. And while I have crystal clear images of what happened in my head, how trusting should I be of twenty year old memories?

This time it seems it will be days till results are ready. I am to return on Friday to get either crushingly awful news or news full of relief — I can not even begin to tell you…

I can not lie. I was really hoping to know now. I was hoping to walk out knowing my fate.

But fate is the wrong word. I have decided to fight this no matter what. Even though the western doctors tell me that if it is in my spinal fluid, I am as good as dead. I am refusing to see this as my only option. They can view me as untreatable as they wish. I just am not going to go along with that reductive, limited thinking.

I can’t.

My view is while it may be hard to defeat, it may be impossible, and while I may not be successful in battling it, I am going to wage war against it with every ounce of vim, vigor, and vitriol I have.

My Tibetan doctor believes she has a treatment that may work, that I can enlist in this battle. And I think I would be the largest fool ever if I choose not to try it.

I refuse to give up.

On my long ride back to Bangkok from Laos, I was speaking to an Aussie, who made the whole eventful journey with me. When I told him the reason I was visiting a Thai hospital, why I had to get to Bangkok on Friday, he said, “that is really very heavy.” I agreed with him. How could I not? But I also told him “but it is not going to kill me tomorrow.”

And just like that, I have a new phrase I will say every morning when I wake up. And even if this cancer proves me a liar somewhere down the line, it eats me whole, like a snake eating its tail, so be it. I am pretty sure no one will write liar on my future nonexistent tombstone for this slight. I have no choice to believe this if I want to effectively fight this. If I want to win.

I am waiting to find out how bad this is tomorrow to plot out exactly how I will march off towards slaying this beast. I have it basically figured out, taking into account all the possibilities. Well, I have it all figured out in my head at least. But…. How will those words that I expect to hear really effect me?

That said, three weeks ago I was deep into denial about all this. Today I am preparing my armory to take it on. Quite a shift in a little more than twenty days. But I am now prepared and shall give it my all.

He confirmed exactly what had been suspected: I do in fact have cancer.

My journey to Laos the night before, with all the twisting and mountain climbing, sort of made me feel like I was running away from bad news. That I had outmaneuvered its clutches. That was just wishful thinking.

The news caught up with me, ensnared me, left me hanging from a tree. It brought tears to my eyes and despair to my face.

After I got the news, I left my guest house and walked abut 100km and met up with the mighty Mekong river. The mattress might have been crap and the room small, but the proximity to the Mekong for the price was fantastic.

I watched the sun shine though some clouds as it burrowed beneath the horizon. And just let out a full scale sobbing. It is what it is. But what it is sucks.

A lot.

There is something about rivers. I know I need to be by water to feel right with the world, but it is far more rivers than oceans. Watching the water slowly drift by is something akin to paradise. The Mekong actually strolls, like a dandy on a promenade. Only today I felt overwhelmed by it all. Like it was my life passing before me. Like I was an immovable object and the waters floating by was everything, like trying to grasp a handful of air. Nothing. But it felt like this nothing was eroding me, from inside and out.

After I watched to sun dip below the horizon I went to find something to eat, as the last thing I ate was a crap sandwich at 6 am when they peeled us out of the bus and into the Volkswagen beetle sized bus — i am not joking, the wheelbase size is the exact same. Thirteen people in this for 20KM is god awful.

I found a charming little Frenchified Laos place and ordered a noodle dish. And a bottle of wine. Here is where I proceeded to get drunk. Add in the whiskey a bit later and here is where I got hammered.

I regretted about the first 30 sips, thinking about my kidneys… But it plugged my tears. And by the time I was shaking out every last drop of wine from the bottle I had near forgotten the shit-show Monday I was having.

Lets just say Tuesday morning was AWFUL. Reality plus an epic hangover, something I have avoided for nearly five years. That night I was sure drinking would make it better, but… yeah… not so much.

Why does this feel finite, like it is just not worth fighting? But the Lupus and kidney failure seemed something to take egregious arms against? Ever since I heard that doctor say cancer, it is like someone was playing Jenga with me, only every time s/he removed a chunk of me, it was just gone – no trying to placate reality by putting it back on top, in a desire to balance reality with a game of wooden blocks.

But I will fight, with everything I have left. I even decided that if they find cancer in my spinal column, which they say would make it incurable, I will still fight. They also told me my GFR numbers would never climb. They did. I proved them wrong. And I hope to again, if it comes to that.

I am not ready to die, now or in the near future. But still it feels finite. Or maybe I have finally run into the place where I that sense of adolescent immortality has worn off entirely. Or, you know I am rationalizing again.

This morning I woke with a phrase in my mind. It warmed me greatly, nearly as much as the Mekong has soothed me this past week: “Cancer, you will not claim me.” And I finally started to feel my metaphorical fingers wrap around the bastard cancer’s neck.

I really think this song explicitly expresses exactly how we should live: divest ourselves from the things that make us unhappy, unfulfilled, etc and embrace and invest in the things that bring us joy. I spent far to many years trying to postpone or even deny joy — going so far as to call it foolish, juvenile, and frivolous. Yeah, I know…. lets just call that my mentally ill period. Thankfully, I have moved on from that kind of madness.

So, as I prepare for the worst news possible, I have taken Paul Baribeau’s advice and created a list of ten things I want to do before I die. At first I was going to wait till I had gotten the news on the biopsy to compile this, but… I then realized this is the sort of list everyone should have as an ongoing target. Life is finite. We all know this, but when one feels that horizon speeding up, about to pounce on him/her, trust me it really makes this fact reverberate, much like a bat’s wings repeatedly smacking one’s face.

So here are things I want to do, see, and accomplish before I float away from this existence. I also challenge everyone who reads this to at least think of their list. And then to figure out ways to make the things you want, you crave, possible, or as Mr Baribeau so succinctly states: “then go do them.” Yes, I know I might never finish this list. Or, I will. But, I plan on adding another item each time I do one of these things. These are just the 10 things I want to do most before I die. And this is a public reminder to myself not to forget them and I urge others to remind me of these when times get dark. I promise to remind you of yours.

My goal is to get to all these. So here they are in no specific order, aside from number ten, I’d like to get to that one last. Please.

1. Learn to play the ukulele.
I have strummed on a Ukulele quite a few times and thanks to all the tablature charts available online I have even been able to play a few songs. But I can hardly say I know how to play one. That said, I really want to learn. I want to be able to play any number of Magnetic Fields songs and I even have a few of my own compositions I’d like to pen. I even think I’d sing them in public, for actual people, or at least post them online for public consumption, my terrible voice be damned. Perhaps someone out there is crazy enough to find it charming even.
I even went to price them the other day. They are amazingly cheap here, but the thought of carrying one more item when I travel scared me off. It seems like it is time I work to make this fear evaporate.

2. Try my hand at stand up comedy.
I am sure this causes many of you to scratch your heads? “But wait, I thought you hated comedy???” Okay, bear with me for a second. In some class in ninth grade I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up and I said, and meant it, “a stand up comic.” This got more laughs than anything else I said in that class all year. And I am pretty sure I have only said it out loud once or twice since then.
See, I have never been against things that are funny, I revel in them really. I just find that things that are written to be “funny” far too often seem forced and are the exact opposite of funny when acted out or spoken. I would love to pick out a subject and rant away about it spontaneously letting all my humor come out. I really have no idea if this would work, if my demeanor and take on things would translate to laughs, but I sure want to try.

3. Hug an elephant.
Just how much do I owe this one to my early love of Babar? I have no idea. I will say I am convinced that elephants deserve a royal status on this planet. Read into that what you will. I also quite vividly remember the dream I had a few years back where I had to arbitrate an end to a violent skirmish between Babar and Tintin. I wandered around for days floating after that one. And I have seen countless elephants since I left the states, but always conscripted into some labor and/or to please the tourists. I swear you can see tears in the eyes of these elephants.
They are such noble beasts and rightly deserve to roam free with each other in the wild. Man has made that nigh impossible for most. There is an extremely reputable elephant sanctuary a few KM away from where I am currently staying, but they frown at my cane, as elephants in captivity are often beaten into compliance with sticks before they arrive here.
Add all this together and I am pretty sure you can see why I would love to hug one. I need to figure out a way to do this. I will figure out a way to do this…..

4. See a tiger in the wild.
If you thought I would make a list of 10 things without at least one feline-centric request, I dare say you do not know me very well. Facts are Facts: cats are the best thing in the world, bar none. Nothing else even comes close. When I was a kid who would go to zoos everyone else seemed to love the monkey or snake houses. Sure I enjoyed the monkeys and would have enjoyed the snakes — if they grew legs!, but I was all about the big cats: tigers, lions, panthers, etc. I would have paid every ounce of money I had to go hang out with them. Again, here in Thailand seeing a tiger is amazingly easy. There are countless places one can visit and see tigers in cages or drugged ones you can touch, feed and even cuddle with. I am fairly certain I would enjoy stabbing myself repeatedly with a rusty, staff infected iron rod rather than do that. Seeing one in the wild though would be 100% pure bliss. When I attempted to do this in India, the wildlife park I wanted to go to was closed for the week for the annual census tiger census count. I need to plan better.

5. Visit Machu Picchu.
As I’ve said before, Machu Picchu is the single place I want to visit most in the entire world. It has been on my to do list since I was 12. Still it seems like an amazingly difficult one to accomplish, what with its elevation, and difficult to navigate terrain. But really, if I found out I only had one week of life left, I would travel here post haste and invite numerous people to take it all in with me.

6. See the Northern Lights.
I remember when I was in college in VT I really wanted to see a moose, a catamount, and the Aurora Borealis. It was not till the night before I graduated that I finally saw a moose, in one of the most amazing synchronistic literary occurrences in my life. I never saw a catamount nor the Northern Lights. The catamount seems fairly impossible to see, as they might be extinct, but the Northern Lights seems doable and quite amazingly magical at that. Also, totally random thought, but what does someone who is color blind see when they witness them? Are they even able too? Not that I am color blind, just curious?
And if I could work in seeing a polar bear in the wild at the same time I am pretty sure I would dance a one legged jig.

7. Ride a bike again.
Ever since my leg went to shit, this has been the single most compelling thing I have wanted to do. After the chemo there was hope that my bone would get stronger and upon hearing this I just thought ever so hopefully about riding bikes again. Sadly, that did not come to pass. The brace I wear every single day to allow me mobility, in fact inhibits my mobility. There is a punchline in there somewhere, I am just unable to see it. My brace does not allow my knee to bend much more than 90 degrees. Far too little needed for peddling. While I was in Pondicherry I even tried to ride one after removing my brace. No dice. Either I need a new brace that allows a full range of movement, yet still gives me the support I need, a steel rod attached to the bone in my leg that might possibly allow me to walk normal again, or some sort of bike that is only peddled from the right side.
I am thinking the first option would be the easiest. I guess I need to start pricing and trying on new braces.

8. Travel from one country to another on a boat.
I am not talking about riding a ferry from one side of a river to another here, but a boat in the ocean. I have no idea why this appeals to me so much, but it really does. When I left India for Thailand, I sought to find a way to make this happen only to be utterly scared off due to price. There is just something fantastically awesome about a voyage at sea. Perhaps I just want to connect with my ancestors who left Europe for the States and that new beginning. Or maybe I am just attracted to the idea that they were wanted criminals on the run from the law. Maybe it is just my love for Moby Dick or that I saw Mouse on the Mayflower one too many times. But traveling by boat — please note I am not saying cruise for a reason — calls me ever so sweetly, like a sirens song.

9. Skydive
This one is the absolute scariest one on my list. I actually almost left it off, due to my fear. See, I am not afraid of heights. Not at all. But… when I look straight down from anything above the sixth or seventh floor, the world starts spinning and I am captured in vertigo’s grasp. I can look out just fine, but once my glance aims down to the ground directly below, things start going screwy, the room starts spinning, and I freak the eff out. This never happened till I had a massive ear/sinus infection during my junior year in high school. Before this, I had planned to do this before I left for college. But once the vertigo started, well… I shelved my desire. It did not go away. It just seemed impossible. So even though it brings with it about a metric ton of fear, I still want to try it. Desire is funny sometimes, eh?
Who knows if they will even let me due to my stupid leg, but I sure need to at least try.

10. Not to die in a Hospital.
I mean, come on who does. But this is really wide and vivid in my mind. In high school I pushed food to patients in a hospital and saw countless people die in their lonesome beds and have never, ever wanted that to be any part of my life. This one is difficult, because unless I take matters into my own hands near the end, I do not see how I avoid this. But if I have my way I will, on both accounts. This does not mean that I plan to end it all next week — quite the contrary! — I have never wanted to live more than I do right now. But…. when the time comes I hope/plan to end things on my own terms with as little pain as possible.

And I am adding an 11th, only this one will never go away: Ensure everyone I care about knows just how important they are in my life and how much I love them and cherish their friendship. Regularly. I keep forgetting this one. And frankly, that is totally unacceptable. I will be better at this. I promise.. “Because right now all you have is time time time yeah/but someday that time will run out.”

Then for some reason I thought of my grandfather whose sole desire for nearly his entire life was to see the century/millennium change. It is what kept him going after my grandmother died. Amazingly, he did this. Sadly, it was attached to machines in a hospital. But he made it happen. In fact, he made it into the first two months of 2001.

As I was thinking about this I realized that our thoughts do not have to manifest right away to be true. Sometimes it takes a lifetime, like with my grandfather.

So I started to wonder if thoughts from years ago, when I was was far more damaging to myself, when I was pretty much a cancer to myself, were finally taking root. Or rather blooming, as the roots would have taken root years ago. “This seems quite possible,” I thought to myself as I caught myself nodding my head in agreeance.

Then I took all this a bit further and started to apply the lessons I’ve learned in meditation. The things that block us, inhibit our growth, come to the surface as they get ready to pass on, and leave our life. These cravings and aversions that we cling to, that we try and build the foundations of our lives around are ever changing and pourous; thus, leaving our lives in turmoil. So perhaps though meditative practice I engaged this tumor, the origins of it and let it be known that it was no longer nessesary, it no longer had right to claim my body, my life as home. And thus, it bubbled to the surface so it could be removed. Which basically is a direct metaphor of exactly what my life has been for the past few years — ridding it of the pollutants.

I’m not trying to suggest there is not going to be consequences from my lifestyle and general self-destructiveness from years back, but I am glad to get the chance to remove this from my body rather than let it continue to fester unaccounted for deep within me. I am still pulling for benign results, but I can use this train of thought to avoid the utter despair that has been clouding over my life these past few days. And there is something awesome about that.

Now, I have to be honest and also say that not all my thoughts while I lay there were of this level or even beneficial. For instance I also considered how Grease would have been so much better if it had been about knights rather than greasers and called Summer Knights. Yeah… I am going to totally blame that one on the lack of sleep from the past few days.

As for an update: the cat scan found a total of six enlarged lymph nodes. Thankfully, nothing as such was discovered in my organs, as this would have been pretty much the absolute worst finding possible. The news was not all flowers and juggling acrobats though, as the nodes were found in my right arm and left groin, meaning that if they are cancerous it already puts me in type 3. What this means is that it is not localized in just one lymph node area (the best case scenario outside of it being benign), but flowing about throughout my body, which is a pretty scary thought. But all this is moot till I get the results, most likely next week, but quite possibly Friday.

The way I am looking at this is I did not get bad news today. Therefore, it was a good day. Sure it might be coming, but that is not now, and I am better for it.

How did I miss noticing this all this time, I wondered, as I watched his thumb roll back and forth over the unwanted mass. I kept thinking where or how I could have noticed it earlier and why I did not. It consumed all my attention. Basically, I was ignoring his words, trying to erase the ones he had said earlier, that last one mainly.

But as the conversation and exam went on, as hard as I tried I could not push it out of my head. I just could not believe it. Refused to believe it. Even as we scheduled a Cat scan of all my glands and a biopsy, it was just too difficult to believe. Too much.

Was Lupus and Kidney Failure not enough?

I left the clinic dazed. Flabbergasted. I was in no way prepared to have heard what I did. I had an overwhelming need to throw up, but realized the bile I wanted to expel was in my arm, not in my gut. I just wanted, needed, to sit in the “courtyard” of the hospital and cry. but this is Monsoon season in Thailand and the rain was no joke this day. So, I just staggered out, forgetting the rain poncho in my bag, quickly becoming waterlogged.

Cancer.

Ever since I quit smoking 15 years ago, I have done everything to avoid this. And now, as soon as I heard the word, like Thor’s hammer crashing down on an anvil, as much as I simply could not believe it, I knew in my bones there was truth and power behind it. Just like when you slip and fall and those moments right before impact where you think about just how much this will hurt, not because you want to but because you are knowledgeable that it will, I heard this sort of truth in his words.

Up till then I assumed it was something like the ganglion I had on my wrist throughout my early years of high school. In fact, had it not caused pain to lift my hand above my shoulder, I most likely would have accepted it as no big deal.

Now….

Yeah, I’m a mess. I need to investigate glandular cancer, as the doc here was hard to understand on the subject. I am pretty sure this was more from my state of shock and utter disbelief than from his English, as it was very good up till this point, even if he did leave off endings from words, it was easy to understand him.

My mind just choose not too.

Day 2

Lymphoma

I know I have heard that word before, but I am not sure I understood it to be cancer. but it seems if I do indeed have the big C ths is most likely my curse. Cancer of the blood, which infects the glandular system. Blood. That corrosive element in my body that is so key to life in most living beings, but seems so intent on shuting me down, diminishing me, making me quit.

First my white blood cells tried to attack and eat my kidneys. Then my kidneys can not filter my blood effectively. Which, well, most likely leads to… well.. unclean blood which bursts forth with “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”.
Yeah, I’d say I have some issues with blood.

I guess I should have seen it all ahead of me when every three out of four times I get my blood drawn I pass out. Yep. That is me. The guy who has to make sure smelling salts are around before the needles come out, as once I see the needle, I start to stop breathing. And when I was a kid, I literally would have to be bound with straps, like Frankenstien’s monster, into a chair or onto a table before a doctor could take my blood. My mother even tried to buy me off with toys or comics if I would conceed without the straps. And as much as I loved toys and comics, well lets just say I paid for all mine.

And now, as I write this I am stuck thinking of a certain Concrete Blonde album, Bloodletting. Well that and I now have an urge to drain all my diseased, rotted blood and replace it with something that functions far better, like pop music.

I am certainly traumatized by all this. It feels as if something in the universe is out to get me. I simply can not divest myself from that idea. I round a corner, escaping one “trap”, only to fall into another. The standard metaphor for autoimune disease is that your body is trying to kill you, trying to commit suicide without your concent. Well, I have to say I now sort of think it is not just my body that wants me dead, but the universe. I just wish there was a purpose or meaning to it all that I understood.

I spent quite sometime last evening trying to understand lymphoma. And frankly, I am not there. Yet. There is Hodskins and non-Hodskins, where there seems to be a sympathy of possiblities, or better yet probalities. There is not easily understood cause and effect here. There is no easy “cure”. Just like Lupus, they try and force it into remission, but with chemo or radiation rather than steroids. Two overwhelmingly destructive forces that I will opt to shy away from. My body is in no state to withstand that blitzkrieg, that onsluaght, again. Will just removing the mass solve the issue? Is it just one mass? Has it spread through out my body? Is it even cancer? These questions explode in the same way the overly conspicuous fireworks danced in the sky, filling it with perhaps more light than the sun, at the hand over of Hong Kong.

And my next course of action, whatever it will be, burrows away through the rest of me. What will be called upon me. Will this diminish my 5 year sentence, the one that a few months ago seemed far, far extended — now nothing but a sick joke to me these days? As soon as I heard the word I choked. Not on the idea of Cancer, but on the notion I have entered the epilogue of my life. Even when given my 5 year sentence I was not overcome in such a way, while the weight of the words in both cases seemed similarly oppressive, I am still on the floor from this one, somewhere between the fetal position and paralysis. And have absolutely no idea how to get up.

Day 3

Rather than sit around helplessly waiting, I decided to go to the fancy, expensive, private western hospital to see if I could get a biopsy done sooner than Tuesday. Sadly, I just got stuck with a fancier, much larger bill. But I did get a little better understanding of Lymphoma. And while this was indeed somewhat comforting, that a second doctor said the same thing, that where the growth is and how it looks and feels, it is most likely cancerous, did not boost my spirits any.

They could not fit me in till Wednesday and at nearly double the expense. Needless to say, I opted to keep my original appointment at the public hospital.

Again as I left, the rain was not hesitating in the slightest. I stared out the front door and just sighed. I was just too exhausted from the past few days and the rain seemed too much to me. I just wanted to go to Wat Chiang Man and attempt to meditate, but I could not even make it out the door. In my head, I went back over what I had read the night before, that Lupus patients often get Lymphoma, and said to my self, out loud, “I guess it was just a matter of time…”

Once again bending to the will of determinism, but without any capacity, without any energy, to push back.

This time I remembered that my poncho was in my bag, but I just did not care, or I could not bring myself to care enough to put it on. I finally walked out into the rain to find a tuk-tuk back to my guest house. As the rain hit me, and beaded up on my glasses I thought to myself, at least this way I can feel something other than my despair and anger.

Anger. My dear “old friend” that seems attached to me like a shadow. Oh how I thought I had lost you in the crowds of India. Oh how I hoped I had.

On my way back home, my mind was racing and probing for victims it seemed. It wanted to lash out and harm someone. I was aghast by this. The anger permeated me, pickled me, with its corrosiveness. As it was doing this I noticed something quite extraordinary — I had not been angry since sometime in February. Now I am not suggesting that I have not been annoyed or distraught, but I have not been so furious that my body feels bloated with bile and rage. Well until now. And this is something that is 36 times amazing, as there were points in my life I never even realized I was angry because this was my total, all encompassing, way of being. I was never able to shake it off, let alone exist without it cursing and sputtering through my veins.

But as I realized this, my joy of having escaped its grasp for some six months was majorly tempered by the idea that it was eating away at me again. And really the only way I have ever found to expel this is through some sort of violent act. Nothing I am proud of for sure, but this is the way it is.

I am not talking about hurting someone though force. I have not been violent to another being for at least two decades. But I would often bare my teeth and slay someone with my words — making sure to make them feel smaller than I ever have in the process. I essentially would transfer my rage to whomever I could find that would suit my purposes, making sure the teeth and rancor of my words scratched their bones as I shredded through their skin.

Surely one of my least admirable ablities, but I learned that I could scalp someone, filet their being with a few well chosen words and then walk away and leave whatever remained for the vultures to spar over. It always made me feel better. I often felt like I could skip away from these confrontations, as I was much lighter, having transferred the decay and inner disaster to someone else. Then a few hours later, my puffed up sense of import would quickly deflate and I would turn all my remaining anger inward, multiplying it.

Starting the whole cycle all over again…

Day 4

Talking to friends about my anger and how I needed to expel it, I came to the conclusion I had to force it out before it overtook me. I also acknowledged that before I can forge of new way of dealing with it, I need to rid myself of it. So taking some advice, after a morning of failed meditation, I headed off into the hills and found some forest wilderness where I could express my rage. I decided to toss rocks at trees and yell and scream in the most guttural, primal way possible. I hurled rocks at trees trunks with my left hand, because this damn tumorous growth made using my right arm in anything but the normal resting position hurt like hell. I missed the trees far more than I hit them, but with each throw the weight of my anger decreased. Each heave extracted it like a vial filling with blood when they take your blood.

After nearly an hour of this, I was totally winded, so I sat down to rest on a fallen log, almost content. I then took the time to appreciate and apologize to the trees I might have wounded with rocks hurled at them. Then as I sat there, still, I was finally able to meditate. The first time since I got the news. It was amazing. I was finally able to put the dread of the possible, the future, away and focus on the experience of now.

I am not even sure how long I did this for, but it really took me far into the day. It was beyond excellent. I then started my return to town and touched quite a few trees, again letting them know I harbored no ill will to them and just how thankful for them I was.

When I got to town I took my friend Kim’s advice and got a bunch of short stubby bananas and then proceeded to gorge myself on them. At first, I was a bit guilty, knowing just how bad they are for me. But the bliss of enjoying them soon totally took over. I really can not express how wonderful this turned out. Though after 12 bananas I clearly had had enough. And while I sadly know bananas will never be a regular part of my life, if I ever get into such a profound funk again, I will remember just what a profound mental health lifter they are. Though, to be honest, I do sort of worry just what I must have looked like eating them…. I am sure it was far from pretty.

I was also able to have a restful night’s sleep after my day of treating myself well and siphoning out the anger. And all told, this may have been the most beneficial thing of my entire day. As I had been functioning on 2-3 hours a sleep at a time when ever my body would just quit being awake, as my mind never stopped.

Day 5 – 6

Like a pendulum striking the side of its housing, I kept swinging back and forth from my earlier despair and my newly recharged positivism. Often times the swing would occur in the same minute. I cannot tell if this is a twisted form of equilibrium or the exact opposite, but there is sure nothing calm about it. One thing was for sure, I no longer burned with that red hot iron of anger. It has been effectively transferred out of my system. Now, while I am far from happy, I feel like a pot on a stove that raged through a fantastic vigorous boil only to have had all the liquid (anger) evaporate.

So that takes me though the denial and anger stages and places me firmly within the scared shitless and mass sadness stage. I equally want to run away from my appointment tomorrow and speed up time to get it over with.

- And just this moment, a lovely elderly Thai woman came in from off the street and gave everyone in the cafe, including the workers a banana. It is hard not to view this in any other way than the universe trying to make amends. Crossing my fingers this will be very auspicious of things to come tomorrow. -

If I learn anything tomorrow, it will be of the generally awful variety, as it will be strictly from the cat scan alone. So I am hoping I come back with only a sore arm, still wondering, and nothing else. The tests will occur when most of you are asleep. But if you could spare a nice dreaming thought or two for me, I’d sure appreciate it. No matter what happens it will be an outrageously scary day.

Updates here as the develop.