My quarterly shot

For those who haven't been paying attention, or perhaps just don't care, part of my cancer treatment involves getting a needle in my stomach every three months. I received my second one today. P.S.A. tests are done in conjunction with those quarterly shots, to monitor my levels and ensure that the treatments are still working.

The perfect scenario with the drugs that I'm on is that my P.S.A. level comes down to zero. A zero result means that my cancer has become inactive, it has stopped growing and essentially just lays there dormant. My levels have dropped from 164 to .059! It's on it's way to working perfectly! My Doctor would still like to see that number at zero, but he is happy with the obvious progress and confident that my next result will be zero, based on how it has worked thus far. It's an amazing relief to know that I have been given this "second chance" at life, so to speak. That I can almost certainly now measure my remaining time in years rather than months, it does however create a small predicament for me.

I am compelled now to examine the question, which was asked so poignantly by a certain penguin that I know in response to one of my earlier posts; "now what?", on a very serious level. It's a question that I never considered too much previous to the knowledge of cancer because I was pretty much just living my life the way I saw fit, through the eyes of a person who was comfortable in my false sense of immortality, always thinking there will be tomorrow to "do that". The cancer changed that perspective but because I was still so unsure as to how much time I actually have, I never really examined it much. I have been living day to day, considering what my future could hold, but never really believing that I had much of one. Now the treatment, and it's positive results, have given me the opportunity to live with that new perspective intact. I do have some tomorrows. So what do I do with them? Where do I go from here?

Am I in danger of falling back into that "comfort zone", now that I am feeling healthy again? I don't think so because I still have so much appreciation for the fact that I feel better now. I still say out loud how glorious it is to be able to pee normally every time that I do it. (I get some funny looks when I'm in a public washroom, but I still do it. It just comes out, I can't help it.) I still remember what it was like to be sick but I re-read my earlier posts the other day, the ones that I wrote while I was sick, and it brought me back to it on a level that I had not felt for a long time. It made me wonder if someday I would just "forget" and start living my life the way I used to; taking things for granted and wasting my time with vapid activities designed to do just that, waste time. Again, I don't think that's going to happen to me, but the thought did cross my mind.

I love my life, and all the people who are in it, the ones who allow me to be a part of their lives. As I said in a previous post, I have a new appreciation for everything and everyone, however, as I examine the question "now what?", I find some of the answers I'm coming up with are going to disappoint some of those people, and that hurts me.

The words of John Lydgate come to mind; “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. Wise words. I need to truly take them to heart, and realize their veracity, so that I may move on with my life in the direction that I want it to go (irrespective of what some other people may want) with a clear conscience and no feelings of guilt.

I know that it won't be easy, but I guess that's life, isn't it?

The ride.

I started writing this post quite awhile ago. I left it unfinished, then came back and finished it, and then didn't like it, so I just left it. Well, I'm sick and tired of looking at it labeled as a draft. It was either post it or delete it, and since I don't delete anything...

I find that a bike ride can be a useful analogy for life. (Yes, there are myriad of others, but I'm familiar with this one, so humor me.) Here you are, traveling down a road with lots of twists and turns, potential dangers heightening your sense of awareness, mixed with immense joy, beauty, and the thrill of new experience. Discovering and navigating new roads that will ultimately take you to the same predetermined, and anticipated, destination. There are some bumps, sometimes rain, or other technical difficulties but we persevere, (it's all part of the adventure) ever mindful of our goal.
Yet, once that destination is reached, as rewarding as it may be, there is an overwhelming sense of melancholy; the end of a good ride. The smells, the sounds, the sights, the invigorating feelings of power, freedom and control, finished. The satisfaction of having had a wonderful experience, mixed with sorrow at the knowledge that the experience is over now. Yearning for it to continue, but knowing that it can't, we begin to make ourselves feel safe in the knowledge that there is always tomorrow and we can do it again.

But there isn't always a tomorrow, is there?

We placate ourselves with a false hope that opportunities missed can always be made up for later, or good experiences re-experienced at some time in the future, comfortable in our perceived sense of immortality, and even if we don't get around to it that's okay because some all powerful imaginary being deems it so, and will make it up to us later. By not acknowledging our mortality we are short changing ourselves in life, and if we hold fast to a belief that there is a next life, and that it will be better than this one is, are we not then anticipating death? Religion is the greatest bullshit story we have ever thrust upon ourselves as a species. It actually causes some people to look forward to dying (to ignore their natural instinct) because when they do, they think they will go to a "better" place. A brilliant stratagem for relieving the fear of death. Too bad it's all bullshit.
We waste all kinds of time here with banal, worthless actions that amount to nothing more than time wasted doing something, because; "when we're done wasting all this time, our creator is going to give us the life he wasn't willing to give us in the first place."
The grass is always greener on the other side... isn't it?


So, what is more important; the quality of the trip or the value of the destination? I guess it depends on your mode of transportation. In life, we all have one ultimate destination. Death. Since I don't see any realistic way of improving the value of such a reward, I've decided to put more focus on improving the quality of the ride. Death is a part of life. It needs to be accepted as such so that we can be properly motivated and endeavor to improve the ride because, in the end, the ride is all that we really have.

I know that none of this is new, it's just how I'm feeling right now. I once heard a man say, "It's not that life is so short; it's just that death is so long." and that quote has been ringing in my head a lot recently.

Another update, sort of.

I feel like talking about me for a minute (imagine that) so I'm just gonna spew out some of what has been on my mind lately.

I love life! I really love it. I appreciate it more than I ever did before. Even the "bad stuff". I equate it to the old axiom "there is no such thing as bad press". Any time is a good time to be alive.
I have been given a gift. The gift of appreciation of life and all of it's various dynamics. It's all good. The passion that I notice in other people that I never noticed before, the passion that I am beginning to notice in myself that I had previously suppressed. I'm writing songs now. I was never able to do that before because I was always too self conscious about my own thoughts and creativity. I no longer have those restraints. In fact, I have come to the realization that if I feel the need to "get it out" than I had better do it now because soon it will be too late and my passion will pass, unfulfilled and unnoticed.
I have very few regrets, but one of them is that I allowed my musical creativity to be stifled for this long. I'm not an exceptional musician, I can "carry a tune" and it always sounds better when I'm drunk, but I truly love music. I love listening to it, I love imitating it, and now I love creating it. I used to hold back when it came to writing songs because I was worried that nobody would like them. Now I don't care. I do it anyway, just because it feels good.

Speaking of feels good; tomorrow I go for my first P.S.A. test since starting the hormone therapy. I'm not too worried about it because I feel so much better now, but, like any "test" there are standards which need to be met. If the drugs are working the way they're supposed to be than my levels will be at or near zero. If they are not, than that means the process is not working exactly as it should and my prognosis changes accordingly. Given that I am feeling so good right now I can't imagine that it would be very much one way or the other but because of my new found love for life it would really suck to lose any more time than I have already.

It's ironic actually.
In some ways the cancer is the best thing that ever happened to me, it's opened my eyes to a life that I previously took for granted, but now that I've come to cherish that life so much I feel an even greater sense of loss at the prospect of it ending anytime soon.

But, in the meantime, I'm still loving it. If I were to do otherwise, then I might as well already be dead.