12/19/06 Taking my life back.

Another title, I know. I get restless.

My last few days have been the best I have felt since this whole thing began. Unfortunately I have to go back for chemo this Friday. I have four days to live it up! I plan on hunkering down and writing some. (or a lot)

I focused my new title: "1219 taking my my life back" on the idea that prior to being diagnosed I was just working a job (or jobs) trying to pay the bills and keep things afloat. I had abandoned dreams for responsibilty a long time ago and would occasionally struggle with finding time to make art. Usually I would end up doodling and getting no where but...I would at least satisfy a craving with those doodles.

I have age old sketch books all over the place. They all contain half baked ideas and cartoon sketches and titles and mildly amusing gags I never developed.

But in the time I have spent (and lost) being tested on, poked, cut open and now chemically treated for a couple of sinister diseases I never saw coming, I have had some time to re-think about how to use the rest of my down time to MAKE ART.

I found a long forgotten notebook tonight that had pages and pages of bad ideas, sketches and scribbles in the margins that made little or no sense. Incomplete ideas that never saw the light of day. I was dated from 2005.

I found a nugget of an idea I jotted down one night in '05 that struck me as a good one tonight.

The idea I rediscovered is art related, not exactly "gag cartoon art related" but it touches on what I do accomplish most of the time; line drawings, doodles, cartoons and absract patterns, etc.

Ultimately I saw potential and with that I realized that this blog was started as a chronicle of my life after a rogue lymph node went a little berserk on me. But it stands to reason that I will keep this blog going long after treatment and it won't need "Cancer" in the title after that.

So...I took the date of my diagnosis, the day I finally knew what was going on inside my body that changed the course of my life, my wife and kid's lives and took it back.

December 19th 2006 will always be "the day I found out". The day that finally allowed me to adjust to the idea that I had two cancers and they needed to be dealt with. The day that the fight started and damn it the day everything and I mean everything was re-prioritized.

I suddenly didn't care about the little petty BS things that the rest of the world cares about.

I still don't. I learned a lot about life that day.



It's too short.



Life is too short and we're wasting too much of it on crap. Unimportant, material, insignificant CRAP.

I have wanted to be a professional cartoonist since the 8th grade. I did my homework, I read nearly every book on the subject, I went to (the wrong) art school, I drew and drew and drew.
I killed my fair share of trees in the process. (or somebody killed them for me, I just bought them in art supply stores with a sturdy cardboard backing glued on.)

But then I learned how hard it is to write cartoons, especially gag cartoons. And before I knew it life got in the way, I shuffled my priorities after high school and art school. Eventually settled into a "real job" and got busy living. Wife, kids, house...etc.

I never forgot what I wanted to do, I just got further away from getting there. And as you get older sometimes you can live with that. Sometimes you have to.

Basically, to paraphrase Forrest Gump: "Life is as life does" and then it sucker punched me.

So "1219" is mine. I'm taking it back. I am going to use the next 4-5 months of treatment to work on this again. Most definately the writing, maybe the cartooning and if anything at all the 2 year old idea I uncovered tonight buried in a marbled composition notebook I forgot about.

I have noticed that when I feel better like I have these last couple of days, I'd swear there is nothing wrong with me. But then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I'm reminded by the lack of ANY hair on my head that there is. I'm thinner than I was a year ago, I can see it in my face that I'm tired of this already.

I think this has aged me a little bit. the worry, the initial fear and new experiences in hospitals. The prospect and reality of two killer dieases in my body at the age of 37. One of which probably developed in less than 6 months time, just like that.

The prospect and reality of two killer diseases in my body at the age of 37 AND I have a wife and two kids to worry about.

Then there is the insurance issues, money problems, endless disability forms, the idea of being labeled a "pre-exisiting condition" and not qualifying for insurance someday, bizarre side effects, charity care, hospital bills, COBRA payments...the list goes on and on.

The only thing that keeps me sane is writing.

On the days I feel better this whole situation sometimes feels like a second chance.

Lance Armstrong wrote about his bout with cancer and as bad as his was (and it was baaaaad) he described his victory as being "pitched back".

Pitched back from the jaws of death.

Maybe everyone who beats cancer has a responsibility to do something with their "second chance" or "third chance" or whatever it is. They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

What do you do with your life after bungee jumping into the jaws of death (or the possibilty of death) only to snap back just in time (thanks to God and chemotherapy)?

I can't see just returning to the rat race, competing for better pay and corner offices and traffic jams and bad coffee. I didn't care for that mess to begin with, although I did put up with it for a while. I can't see returning to the status quo just because chemo and radiation are over and we get to go back to our boring mundane lives trying to re-adjust to our lives BEFORE cancer.

What did I do before cancer?

I was a lemming. I followed the rest of the working class losers biting and scratching at each other, fighting for a better position in the life boat. Trying to prove their value and worth to a superior who couldn't care less, just to keep up with the jones because we think it matters.

(I actually wiggled out of the rat race almost a year ago trying to cut my own path when the cancer showed up) but I digress...

I'm not just going back.

I can't. I see no point in it. Life is too important to go back to the old me. If I'm going back, I'm going back different.

12/19/06 changed my world view. Everything is changed.

These are the cards I've been dealt, I didn't plan on getting sick, no one does. But when I come out of this clean and free of Cancer I will hopefully have figured out where I am going next. I can only wait on God for this since no one is promised tomorrow, I don't want to get too bold with plans I can't follow thru on.

In the meantime I'm gonna write and figure it out.