Some thoughts on...BC and AD.

12/19 BC and 12/19 AD.

Life for me seems to be divided into two moments in time. Certainly finding the lump on my neck on 11/4/06 changed my life but the diagnosis on 12/19/06 confirmed the fact that the fabric of what was otherwise normal was torn in two...

There is now life Before Cancer and life After Diagnosis.

Everything falls into these two categories. Life before 12/19 was mundane and sometimes predictable. In my past life I was a hotel desk clerk who worked his way up to Assistant General Manager in six years only to leave the property level two years later and move to corporate life at the home office. I married my girlfriend, we started a family and bought the townhouse we reside in (at the moment).

In my past life I spent years trying to prove to myself that I was a cartoonist with something to say. I wanted to be the next Charles Schulz. I studied the industry, obtained the necessary documents to file copyrights, subscribed to Editor and Publisher, I read all the books and I drew all the time.

I soon realized how much writing goes into Cartooning and decided to concentrate on that side of things since I was never happy with my cartoons. Sooner than I realized I had been writing in some form or another since time began. So I decided to shift my focus from cartoons to writing all the time.

After I was laid off from Ramada Corporate I made some poor career choices. All of them were dead ends and they were clearly labeled but I ignored the signs. My last move was as a barista at Starbucks thinking I might translate my hotel/customer service experience into a management position at the coffee giant.

Big Mistake.

My new life (after Renal Cell and Hodgkin's) has provided me and my family with unexpected angles no one should have to see life from. From diagnosis to surgery to chemo to welfare.

I am working harder and more often than I ever have and we can't catch up. I have not stopped moving...and while my wife and I did our best to keep the kids unaffected by this event in our lives, I know it has left an indelible mark on my children, my son especially. If anything I hope they remember how Cancer knocked me down but didn't keep me down.

I may be in remission since May 2007, but the sad fact remains that I wouldn't need to celebrate remission if I wasn't first diagnosed

Everything is tainted by 12/19/06. Sadly I see everything as very temporary. We all know we are going to die someday, but when you have to consider your own mortality because you have a disease that can kill you, that changes you.

My new life has me moving into Emergency Services for this very reason. I can't just go back to any old day job. I can't just move paper from In-Box to Out-Box. I can't just have a job to make money. I need to DO SOMETHING important or substantial with whatever time I have left on this rock. If only because having cancer gave me purpose. Maybe I am still here for a reason...but I sometimes wonder for how long.

Life is different now.

I spend hours and sometimes days wondering (retro-actively) "WHY ME?" I am more often than not these days royally pissed off that we are in the financial trouble we are in because of my diagnosis. My wife's untimely job loss of course did not help our situation it only compounded it, but we had no control over any of it and that is why I am seething inside with teeth clenched- angry that everything is still unraveling and the damage in our lives right now is not yet complete.

As a wanna be writer I am committed to writing everything down. Mostly for my kids benefit and maybe so someone else some day can learn something from the crap we're living thru... Maybe after all the fallout has settled and our nuclear winter turns back to partly cloudy or mostly sunny days maybe then I will bang out that Pulitzer prize winning /Oprah Winfrey book club / New York Times best seller that Hollywood will be begging me to sell.

Until then, I am writing on anything that will stand still.

I am writing as fast as I can because I don't trust life not to dump more sh*t on me and my family, I want to get it down before anything changes again. I am living like I am playing "Beat the Clock" because cheating death makes you wonder when death will come sniffing around again...life seems even shorter now.

And in between it all, I attempt to balance new job changes with Honda and training in Emergency Services, with figuring out how medicaid still works for us or if it doesn't, applying for any program the state has to offer to make some parts of life more manageable... with having to deal with different levels of pain in various parts of my body on a daily basis. An unpleasant little side effect of the drugs ABVD, thanks.

I take vitamin C almost daily now to boost my immune system and when I remember fish oil and garlic on top of that. I pay attention to what I eat and do my best to make the right choices and I am very aware of my need to be active a hell of a lot more than I am. (which is not much at all right now)...

And also in the meantime I am anxiously waiting for the other shoe to drop. When it finally does, I hope to God I'm not directly underneath it.