How Far Have You Come?

The Allegory of the Winding Road

Life moves in curves, and currents.  There are corners to be strolled or cut, and obstacles to be leaped or removed.  The path winds down through the years with unyielding certainty -- the certainty is that the bends in this road will never stop.  How far have you come, through the winding pathways of life?  

Personally, I've gotten to a place in my life I never thought I'd be again.  Not ever.  I stumbled through violent switchbacks in recent years, only to come out in a place where I figured the road only lead in one direction, and that I would just have to deal with it.  But I was wrong.  There I was, finding myself rummaging through memories of when things were different, holding dear to my heart a spark of something I imagined I'd never see again.  I thought I would never hold a job again, or have a savings account again, or live in the places I wanted to live.  Mundane things mostly, but when you take them all under consideration, you find out that what you really believe is that there's no chance for you to lead a normal life.  I thought I was banned from a normal life, resigned to standing outside the gates, fingers wrapped around the bars, peering in at others going about their business, taking it all for granted.  And looking in at all the scurrying bodies and blurred faces, continuing on down the road to their own likely destinations, I was reminded of the other things I wouldn't have -- the things that hurt the most.  I thought I'd never love again, or be loved.  I wasn't worthy of anyone's love, sometimes not even my own.  And that I'd never have a family, or live with someone, or buy a house, and have children.  For a long while I thought that was okay, and it was just the cards I'd been dealt.  I would live with my revelations and move on.  

But your circumstances, or the events in your life, or the setbacks you feel so deeply, do not define the course of your happiness.  At any point in time, you can walk around another bend, and suddenly find exactly what you've been looking for.  That doesn't mean you have to wait around for it, trotting silently into the dusk with no direction.  Although unfortunately, most tragedy brings to mind a sense of helplessness, and a feeling that it would be entirely impossible to so much as grasp at the things you once wanted most.  Even tragedy is not as strong as the continuing whims of a road that winds down through time, ready and ever willing to heal, to encourage, to mend hearts and minds, to entwine lives and further goals, and most of all, to plant love in all directions, waiting for you to stumble onto it.  

Extreme Harmony

I want so much to forget all of this.  I want that more than anything.  But I know that if I did; if I were to put this all behind me and live as if it never happened, it would be the single most selfish act of my entire life.  Just because I was lucky enough to have survived, that doesn't mean I can ever walk away.

Writing about my experience with cancer brings back painful memories with every word.  Engaging in the cancer community, and finding all of these wonderful people whose lives have been touched by the disease is both a blessing and a curse.  It brings me closer to all of you, knowing that we have this shared experience.  And it brings me closer to humanity, knowing that such suffering isn't only possible, but commonplace in the world.  It identifies and exposes the human condition in greater detail than anything else could.

This is what inspires me to act -- the fact that everyone goes through something, which is an important thing to be mindful of in the first place, but even more so when you've just been through something pretty terrible yourself.  You have the option to step back into the mainstream, that winding and disorienting wormhole of people and energy shooting off ceaselessly into the future, back into the routine, into the grind, the rat race, the series of events and reactions and self-decrees that we call everyday life.  It certainly takes a while to get back to that place, back to "normal," or what was once normal for you, but I'm finding out that it's entirely possible.  When I talked to people while I was going through treatment, people who were a few years out who had already been through the same ordeal and had left most of the pain behind them, I was exposed for the first time to individuals who had regained normalcy in their lives.  I couldn't, for the life of me, understand how they'd done this.  It was such a foreign concept to me.  And I wasn't even happy for them.  In fact, I was irritated.  I thought about my feelings, and how I'd been so miserable, so life-alteringly miserable, and knew in my heart that I'd never be where they were.  I'd never be satisfied again, and I'd certainly never be able to hold a job again or have successful and fulfilling relationships, not with the dark cloud of what had happened following overhead.  Those thoughts seem so far away now.  I've been reintroduced to levels of normal in my life that I never thought I'd see again.  And I've also realized that it's okay to embrace them.  It's okay to allow myself to be happy.  I don't have to take the whole weight of cancer on my shoulders, all by myself.  I can do my thing and help, and I can also be happy.

But that's just it; I have to help.  I can't sit by while others are dealing with this and worse, and allow it to continue without putting up a serious fight.  Which brings me to option number two.  Option two is where I was, sitting alone in my room, writing up a storm about my experience, all nicely packaged together in book form (which will hopefully be seeing the light of day soon), that I would use to garner awareness and attention, and build a platform from which I could enact change and better the circumstances of those who were not as fortunate as myself.  There are some people in this world who have no advocates, and who are lost, and who have no hope.  This is unacceptable to me.  I was going to fix it.

I still am.  And I would be extremely pissed at myself if I didn't follow through here.  The need to do so outweighs any threatening complacency a million fold, so I don't really have a lot to worry about.  I don't have to hole up anywhere and work myself to the bone, focusing on nothing but the misery and the task at hand.  There is, I'm finding, a third option: a Middle Way.  And that is, as I touched on earlier, that I can focus my energy on enacting change and bettering the world, and find personal happiness and fulfillment at the same time.  I want others who are going through this and don't even remotely understand what it means to accept "normalcy" again, to know that it's okay to learn to be happy again.  It's okay to be happy.  You'll find happiness in old things in different ways. And it's okay to embrace that.  It's okay to own your new life.  You have passed through a checkpoint, a weigh station, and you've seen things others never will, and that has shaken you to your core and caused you to reevaluate and reconsider just about everything you've ever experienced.  But there are some experiences that will still translate, and that will be all the same, or even enhanced by this.  And they are...

Love.  Self-worth.  Fulfillment.  Happiness.

If you're anything like me, you'll isolate yourself from the possibility of ever finding these things again.  I had resigned myself to being miserable, although I would have argued that I was steeling myself and making the necessary sacrifices to meet my goals.  I now know that it was unreasonable to put myself through all that I did, but, I needed it at the time, and it was useful to my growth, and I wouldn't trade that time for the world.  I got a lot of work done, both tangible and intangible.  It was a time of significant development and the beginning of a gradual process of healing.  I'm proud of myself for having such discipline and fortitude at a point when I needed it most.  This is not to say that I immediately took to my self-care responsibilities right away, or with any sense of ease whatsoever.  In reality, I spent the good part of a year curled up on the couch, covered in a snuggie.  But that was part of my process.  If you happen to process tragedy that way, curled up under a snuggie, then that's okay.  I went from severe "handling" mode, to severe couch mode, in the span of a few months.  I shut down because I couldn't filter all the terrible information that was running through my head, like the vile tributaries of a vast and poisonous river.

It's okay to come to terms with all that, and the fact that you've gone through it.  And the fact that you are or will some day come out on the other side.  Being happy or accepting happiness is not a denial that something awful has happened to you -- quite the contrary, I'm finding out.  It's an acknowledgment of the experience, and a nod to your new-found perspective.  Life is short enough as it is; we should embrace all the love, self-worth, fulfillment, and happiness that we can.  You might stumble around aimlessly until you find it, like I did, or you might suddenly get back on your feet and know exactly where to look for it.  In truth, there's no right answer, and no guidebook for finding happiness after a tragedy.  Normalcy is a lie ordinarily -- it doesn't exist -- and even more so after you have your life threatened.  Normalcy is a quest, more than it is a concrete state of things.

Who Am I?

I came out of St. Marks Market today, with a bagel in one hand and coffee in the other.  I crossed to the south sidewalk and passed a group of punkish-looking fellows.  One of them wore a black hood with the eyes cut out, and was eyeing my approach eagerly.  I was fully aware that I was about to have an interesting story to tell.

Sure enough, the man began walking backwards, gesturing wildly.  "I am famous for chopping off people's heads in the 1800's," he yelled, excitedly.  "What is my name!?"  I felt like it was a riddle straight out of a video game.  If I got the right answer, I thought, maybe he'd give me a special sword because it's dangerous to go alone.  My first inkling was actually to stop in my tracks and respond to the inaccuracies of his riddle.  "Well, actually buddy, you're a few centuries off," I would start, proceeding to launch into a chronological analysis of the tradition of western capital punishment.  It took a lot of willpower, but I simply mumbled "executioner," and went on with my day.  

This could be a fun story about how I view life in the city, and the availability of bizarre and thought-provoking material at every turn.  In a way, I think it is.  For me though, I operate upon the connections I forge during daily life, and this called upon an idea I'd had for some time.  It made me think right away about death, of course.  And how everyone is basically very cool with the idea, in the abstract.  When it has a face, and is a symbol, and categorized.  Here's a man with a hood, inaccurately riddling people in the streets to get his jollies.  He represents an idea, and as long as it remains within certain social confines, most people will probably not think twice about it.  Maybe one or two people he solicits will be uncomfortable and leave with a bad taste in their mouths, but for the most part, I imagine a lot of folks will be thoroughly entertained by the man's shenanigans.  

What is it about death that makes it so easy to deal with as a clear symbol, something brutally and often inaccurately portrayed in mainstream culture?  And what is it about death that makes it so easy to symbolize, so easy to make into a caricature and focal point of such intense negativity?  Death is a man in a black hood. That's good -- this man is a symbol and an automatic enemy.  Death can be a disease.  Even better -- you can fight a disease, engage in a battle, and come out triumphant.  It's often easier to fight a disease as a concept than a man in a black hood as a concept.  Because an executioner is state-sanctioned, and he's still a person, and we can identify with aspects of his nature.  We absolutely cannot identify with a disease, a ruthless and unflinching organism or state of malfunction within our own bodies, that has no personification, and simply doesn't care, because it doesn't think or reason, and it has no sympathy, and is not state-sanctioned, or sanctioned by any force that human beings can readily comprehend.  As a symbol, it can be broken down into polarizing and unrealistic interpretations and handled more clearly.  

Because it's easier to make a symbolic fight out of something than to face the full extent of its terror.  Cancer is very much a symbolic battle these days, much to the chagrin of anyone diagnosed with the disease.  We are not fighting a symbolic enemy, but attempting to survive with a condition that doesn't have motives.  That's a paralyzingly scary thought.  Death is a scary concept to most of us, and I firmly believe in Irvin Yalom's existential psychology -- I believe the man is 100% accurate in his conclusion that the highest motivating factor in anyone's life is the conscious or unconscious anxiety spawning from the fact that someday life will end.  I don't know that it isn't okay to create symbols that serve as focal points for certain emotions and fears, but it does seem a bit juvenile after my own experience with the real facts of death and dying.  

It's possible that there's a way to bridge the gap.  I believe the bridge will be built firmly from education and genuine awareness.  Self-analysis is of huge importance in matters relating to such extreme finality.  It's very difficult to be comfortable with thoughts that you believe by extension will threaten your very existence.  But if these thoughts allow you to improve your circumstances and that of others going forward, then it might be time to deal with your fears, because not doing so would be selfish.  It's okay to be afraid.  It's not okay to create limitations revolving around your fears that prevent you from dealing with reality, and force others to go along with that.  Soon there will have to be a real conversation about the ethics of death and dying.  I feel fortunate that I was raised by a family that was abnormally comfortable with the subject, due to the fact that my mother is a hospice social worker.  I've been addressing the idea in one way or another my whole life, mostly in an analytic and observational way, and then suddenly in a very practical way.  I feel that it's important to assemble the collective powers on this one, and find the sense of duty possessed by those of us who have faced the issue in a practical way.  We hold certain keys that can succeed in opening doors that are sealed with the utmost apprehension.  There's so much wisdom and hope that comes arm-in-arm with facing these issues in a practical way, and that needs to be expanded upon and shared.  It's a top priority of mine to find a way to do this that will succeed, and will benefit the baseline happiness and self-awareness of the human condition for generations to come.  

And So We Fight On

I struggle every day with the same thoughts, and the same burning questions.  I'd like to tell you about one of them.  Every day, I have the very distinct and overwhelmingly powerful thought that I'm not a good enough person to have been given extra time on this earth.  I was supposed to die, and I didn't.  And every day, I get upset with myself and obsess over the idea that I haven't done enough to deserve the time I have.

When I was diagnosed, at 25, I had already lived an incredibly full life.  I had several adventures, and had many amazing people in my life, many of whom I couldn't imagine living without.  My life was already its own reward, and each day, a wonderland.  I had already run after my dreams, traveling down various highways and dirt roads on the journey through my own soul, and through the tangled, unpredictable wilderness of my ambitions.  I accomplished a great deal by that point, in spite of my own propensity to commit the cardinal sin of wasting time.  But there were several things I could have done better.  Including a few I could have done much, much better.  I haven't always done the right thing, though I tried very hard.  Sometimes I did the wrong thing, and I did it on purpose.  I did it because it benefit me, or out of a hedonistic sense of momentary pleasure.  For a long time I adhered to misguided philosophies of morality, and justified behavior that had no justification.  I admit it's possible that I'm being too hard on myself, in hindsight.  I think that when you have a reason to pause and evaluate your decisions, more often than not you'll find yourself guilty of several things, whether it's fair, or logical, or not.  But these motives, whether deserved or not, help me to become the man I want to be.  And there isn't anything contrived or misguided about that.

Very generally, I feel that I don't deserve the good things that come my way now.  And that makes me work harder for them.  But harder in a very genuine way, because I'm no longer moving toward goals for the sake of achieving them, I'm only moving on things I actually want.  When you know what you want, and you aren't sure you deserve it, you become a better person, by default.  There are several reasons why I might have cause to be happy about moving forward these days, and all of them are quickly diminishing the thought that I no longer deserve to be happy.  It's possible that I have a clean slate.  And I have clear priorities.  Those two things make me formidable, and stronger than I've felt in a very long time.  It remains to be seen what I do with that strength -- whether I find the courage to follow through, or lose my willpower altogether down the road.  It seems very likely to me that I will meet my goals, one way or the other.  The fear that I'll sabotage myself is very minimal for now.  Of course, that goes in phases, like everything else.

My point?  Hopeful optimism.  Start feeling excited about being happy.  I am.  I feel a lot of pressure building up, whispering in my ear that it's time to be content, after a long winter of discontent.  If you allow such urges to course through you, even in times when you know you don't deserve it, you may just allow yourself to act on those urges, and end up suddenly, surprisingly, happy.  

How To Survive Cancer: Part 2

There is, of course, a lot more to it than that.  Yet, even with all of our 21st century medical knowledge behind us, there's still only so much we can do.  And if you think that cancer is a "battle" that you can win, please see the following: http://zenofmetastasis.blogspot.com/2013/03/honk-if-youre-hero-ps-you-are.html

But there are a few practical things you can do after a cancer diagnosis that will give you the best chances right from the start, and I'd like to go over them here.

1.)  Seek out the best doctors you can find that specialize in your type of cancer.  This probably ties as one of the most important things you can do.  Do it quickly; don't waste time.  The minute I got my diagnosis, I was on the phone scheduling appointments.  However, I wasn't in my right mind, and I didn't even think about finding the best possible doctors available to me.  When my mother got wind of things, she immediately researched the melanoma gurus on the East coast and called to get me appointments.  I had to cancel all the plans I'd made, much to the chagrin of the administrative assistant who'd helped me schedule them.  So, do yourself a favor, find the best doctors right away, or run the risk of having your mother do it for you.

2.)  Find your support network.  This is the other step that ties for most important.  You cannot suffer through the terrors of cancer without a support network.  Period.

3.)  Do your homework.  Don't blindly follow along with any treatment plan you're given without reading into it extensively.  I had a bit of insurance trouble throughout, but living a middle class American life, I was entering into a veritable wonderland of technological and medicinal options to treat my cancer.  However, many of these options are touted by the people who fund them, and they may represent particular agendas that don't include your best interests as a patient.  Be aware that we live in a complex and morally ambiguous world.  Do your own research and be your own advocate.

4.)  Make lifestyle changes if necessary.  I had been smoking when I got my diagnosis (a few cigs a day) and I'd been working a highly stressful job in the deep and terrible trenches of corporate NYC.  Most nights you'd find me partying my heart out, drinking away the stresses accrued during the day.  If you asked me now though, I'd tell you that it's easy to see how a "work hard, play hard" lifestyle falls directly into the realm of things with adverse health affects.  I'm not saying you shouldn't have fun.  In fact, I'm a big believer in the importance of fun and adventure, just be careful that you aren't seeking out your fun as a means to distract from all the bad parts of your life.  Of course, lifestyle alone is not going to kill you, for the most part.  There are certainly behaviors that are more dangerous than others, like smoking, or chowing down on discarded, depleted uranium cores.  However, there are those miraculous individuals who do everything wrong and still live to be a hundred.  These people are few and far between though, and no one knows what makes them so resilient (if they insist that they do, they're trying to sell you something).  In reality, until we know exactly what we should and shouldn't do on a genetic level, it's a good idea to lower your own risk factors as best you can.  It's very possible that the primary cause of most cancers is a genetic disposition (this is certainly true in certain cancers, if not all of them), combined with an individual's risk profile.  A genetic disposition doesn't guarantee that you'll get cancer, or that cancer will return.  But a genetic disposition aggravated by a life full of excessive risk factors just might.

Read more about stress and the immune system, here:  http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/stress

There are other, optional things to keep in mind also.  These are things you can do in addition to the list above, and may or may not jive with your current goals.

5.)  Move home.  Be wherever your family is.  These people are important to you, or they should be.  Maybe you're estranged from them.  Well, fix it.  Having been diagnosed with cancer, you now realize that life is much too short.  I was fortunate enough to have a very supportive family throughout my life who were there for me during my surgeries and treatment.  I tried very hard to stay in NYC and go through this without them, but I quickly realized that I couldn't, nor did I have any right to deny them precious time with me in case I might be dying.

6.)  Find your friends.  My friends are everywhere.  I hated leaving the ones in NYC.  They had become a second family to me.  When I moved home to Pennsylvania though, I quickly fell back in with the close-knit group I'd grown up with.  And I had new people connect with me to show their support, too.  Some I'd never talked to before, and some I hoped to talk to much more.  One of the best things about cancer is that you'll quickly find out who in your life really belongs there.  Some people will disappear.  And others will be more supportive than you could have imagined.  These people, the ones who stick with you, are the ones you need to survive, and not just through cancer.  Carve their initials deeply into your heart, and make sure they know how much they mean to you.

7.)  Find your religion.  I don't care what it is, and I'm not going to tell you about mine.  Most people wouldn't appreciate it if I did.  And that's fine, because it's for me, like spiritual beliefs should be.  They're personal beliefs unique to each individual, and we use them to find our place in the universe.  And don't push your individual religion on someone else once you've found it; that doesn't make you "pious."  But do use your beliefs in whatever way you need to help you overcome your fears and live a more fulfilled life in the face of your diagnosis.

8.)  Quit your job and do what you love.  This one's simple.  There are many who don't have this option available to them, but sometimes it's easier to focus on dealing with the side effects of treatment rather than on your career.  If you can afford to, do it.  And, if you hate your job, do it with a smile on your face.  Afterward, go after that thing you've really wanted all your life, and make no excuses until you get it.

9.)  Reevaluate your priorities.  That is, if you haven't already done so.  I did so immediately, within nanoseconds of being told I had cancer.  I cataloged my greatest sins, and set out to atone for them.  Usually, our greatest sins are straightforward and easy to identify.  Mine was.  And if you have the energy, don't just identify your failings, set out to fix them.  Then, seek out the most important people in your life and tell them about it.  Spend as much time with them as you can.  Find the other things in life you know to make you happy, and don't ever lose sight of them.

I set out to write a guide about surviving cancer, but I realize that a lot of these things aren't cancer-specific, and you should probably be doing them anyway, regardless of what diseases you have or don't have.  Or, if you hate all of my suggestions, that's okay too.  Because this was my guide, and it consists of all the things that were important to me throughout my experience with cancer, and still are.  But please, if you take nothing else from this, use it as inspiration to find your own guide.  Because there are important things in your life that you can't live without -- I know there are.  And if you haven't figured out what they are yet, take it from me -- If you wait until you might be dying to find them, you'll end up having a lot of apologizing to do, and mostly to yourself.

"A domain of evil it is. In you must go."

Fear and dissatisfaction are the enemy.  If you're afraid, face it.  If you're dissatisfied, change it.

It's really that simple.  I did it just now, and I do it every day.  More often these days than in the past, but that's alright.  With more exposure to the world at large we generally expect to find more things to be afraid of, and to be dissatisfied with.  It's a numbers game.  I would never have thought to be afraid of dying before my thirtieth birthday before my cancer diagnosis, for instance.  I also never worried about being hit by a subway train before I moved to NYC.  I was never concerned about paying for sub-par deli meat and bagels before finding out there's life after Boar's Head.  And I most definitely never imagined how nervous I'd be that someone would find me out while masquerading as a marketing account manager for a beer company at a VIP signing party.  But hey, these things happen.  Also, a quick thank you to my bro Velasquez for smuggling me into that party.

This may be an obvious conclusion, but it's easy to remain unafraid of that which you have no knowledge.  It's easy to remain unconcerned with questions you've never asked and doubts you've never entertained.  Sometime, though, you will ask questions and have doubts.  And it's okay to have doubts and fears, because everyone does, and it's an unavoidable aspect of the human condition.

What isn't simple is preparing for these preexisting or sometimes unforeseen fears.  The difficult part is rising to the level of self-control it takes to be able to adjust your attitude and emotional state with relative ease.  It requires a great deal of personal development and self-knowledge.  Here is my step-by-step guide for $19.95!  No, I'm kidding.  Everyone acquires personal development from different sources, and self-knowledge is as subjective as there are "selves."  And there's no handbook to any of this.  People will tell you there is, but what they're really doing is trying to sell you their own handbook.  As a general rule, I'd advise not to trust anyone who won't allow you to find your own way.  As Basho reminds us, "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought."  No one can hand you inner peace, everyone must find their own.

My way is easy.  I consciously analyze my fears.  It's bizarrely effective to understand the roots and facets of your fears or dissatisfaction.  Maybe this is also fairly obvious.  But that doesn't mean it's accomplished very often.  For the most part, these things take the form of subconscious emotions.  They hide deep in the shadows of your mind, where they can't be fought.  They put up barriers that redirect and confuse your ability to confront them.  The minute you are able bring them to light, however, you can figure out how to deal with them.

I'll tell you a story.  After my year of immunotherapy treatment ended, I was very excited about things getting back to normal.  And I'd tell myself this every minute of every day; "Man, I'm so excited that this is over, and that now I can go to grad school and write another book and get a job and date."  I told myself this constantly, repeated it in my head like a mantra.  And if I had the courage at that point to take an honest look at what I was doing, I would have realized right away that I was in severe denial.  Justification mode was fully engaged, and I was making excuses for my behavior, which did not at all reflect the mantra I wanted so much to believe.  I wasn't ready for "normalcy," I was neurotic and terrified of everything.  The moment I realized this however, I was free of it.

One of my favorite quotes of all time, regarding the subject of confronting fear, comes from Michael Crichton's memoirs, Travels.  It describes a trip to the African Savannah where he comes to find out there's a giant elephant outside of his tent in the middle of the night.  It deals very nicely with the subject of true conscious awareness of fear as a way to quell it.  I'll post it here:

"We can all work ourselves into a hysterical panic over possibilities that we won't look at.  What if I have cancer?  What if my job is at risk?  What if my kids are on drugs?  What if I'm getting bald?  What if an elephant is outside my tent?  What if I'm faced with some terrible thing I don't know how to deal with?  And that hysteria always goes away the instant we are willing to hear the answer.  Even if the answer is what we feared all along.  Yes, you have cancer.  Yes, your kids are on drugs.  Yes, there is an elephant outside your tent.  Now the question becomes, what are you going to do about it?  Subsequent emotions may not be pleasant, but the hysteria stops... the minute we look, we cease being afraid."

I try very hard to challenge myself into examining my true fears, as well as my true desires.  The minute we admit to having them, we immediately find suitable avenues to pursue or deal with them.  Most people have fears with easily-identifiable sources.  Some people hate their jobs, but are afraid to quit.  Others are no longer in love but are afraid of breaking up.  And we can sit around complaining about our dead-end relationships, soul-sucking jobs, or whatever the case may be, or we can stop being afraid that the world will end if we deal with these things and actually get what we've wanted all along.  Maybe you want a better job or a better significant other.  You have to respect yourself enough to know that your time on the Earth is valuable and irreplaceable, and it simply doesn't pay to spend it not doing what you want.

These days, I have very clear goals.  It's been a long journey for me, but I've pinpointed my fears, and my desires.  I'm going after what I want.  I hope you will, too.

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."  - Joseph Campbell

Metastatic Memories

I've put this off for a long, long time. In fact, I've put it off for a year and a half. I mostly discouraged myself from even considering the attempt, from the very beginning. I saw other people doing it, and I thought that although in some cases they were very successful in their undertakings, it simply didn't appeal to me. Something about it makes me squirm. It inspires me to fight to uncover any excuse in the book in order to justify my inaction.

What am I talking about? What is this terrible and ugly thing that I'm resisting with every fiber of my being? Because there are many things in life that I choose to resist. Things I refuse to take responsibility for out of fear or an inability to face the emotional and psychological consequences. As with us all, I too abandon certain nagging thoughts to the dark recesses of my mind. As with us all, I accumulate pain and guilt through a series of encounters with forces either beyond my control or not. And as with us all, I have many pervasive and lingering fears. In this case, however, I'm talking about the decision to write publicly about my experience with cancer.

Perhaps publicly isn't the right descriptor. Because, in fact, I've actually written a book about it that's currently being shopped around for publication. And there's hardly anything more public than that. I suppose what I mean, specifically, is the actual act of blogging. Blogging is a more accessible form of media. It's a series of intimate details about the blogger's own life. A projectile vomiting of unfiltered ideas that can be interpreted and analyzed with little effort. Constant postings that explain the character defects and neuroses of the author. Blogging constitutes a window into the blogger's very soul. It's a very public enterprise. I've always wanted my accessible thoughts, my public thoughts, to reflect a particular attitude or brand. I never wanted to be the cancer kid. Yet that's what I am. I wanted to be the carefree, mildly eccentric, live-life-on-his-own-terms, rock star personality that I so admire. I want to make people laugh. The last thing I want to do is make them uncomfortable. In fact, I don't even want to make myself uncomfortable (who does?), even though I've been in a constant state of discomfort, albeit unconsciously at times, since my diagnosis.

My decision to finally offer up a public record of my cancer fiasco is in fact an act of great personal courage. But I'm not asking for your admiration. Others may not find writing about their cancer to be very difficult. But they might struggle with something I find easy. That's the nature of being human. We all have our wars to wage.

And so my reluctance to blog about this has been covered by layers and layers of justification, buried deep with no hope of discovering why the resistance is present in the first place. Any time the topic is broached, I find myself saying, "Blogging? Well, shit, I wrote a book, for God's sake -- isn't that enough?" And I don't know the answer to that. Maybe it is enough. Or maybe, as a cancer survivor, I have a unique obligation to increase awareness and fight for those who can't fight for themselves. Possibly, and I plan to post more on this later.

But why the resistance to blogging? I did write a book. I wrote it while undergoing immunotherapy for stage 3 metastatic melanoma. A good bit of it, probably a third, was completed during my first month in the hospital, where I received the lion's share of treatment intravenously every weekday for four weeks. Days when I cried myself to sleep most nights, and struggled desperately to keep my sanity intact. But those images and feelings, those metastatic memories, are distant. My diagnosis, my surgeries, my treatment, all passed in a blur. And likewise, most of the actual writing did as well.

It's the paralyzing fear of revisiting these memories that keeps me from blogging. Now that I'm thinking clearly, and enough time has passed, I've gained the capacity for perspective. When something traumatic happens to you, it's very common to shut down emotionally in order to avoid the most terrifying aspects of your ordeal. And that's what I did. I functioned entirely on autopilot for a year and a half. Ostensibly, that isn't even a bad thing. In fact, I did very well. When you've severed all emotional connections to your circumstances, you can be anything you want. I was very courageous, and I'm told I was the glue that kept my family together after my diagnosis. I spouted contrived wisdom and used romantic ideals to comfort those closest to me, hardly realizing what I was doing. Some of the things I said or did are offensive to me now, due to the absurd oversimplifications I entertained or encouraged. Cancer is not romantic, and the smell of death circling above your head can never be effectively aerosol-ed. The mere suggestion that it can is offensive. And I was at one time the worst offender.

And so, after "waking up" from a year and a half of autopilot, a year and a half of embedded trauma, and a year and a half of drug-induced cognitive suppression, it's almost unbearable to look back over the events of the last year and a half without overwhelming terror. I've woken up to find myself alive, in working order, and surrounded by love and support. It's my responsibility to carve out a path from there. That in itself is terrifying -- what is life supposed to be like after cancer? How fulfilled can it really be? Do you stop taking shit from anyone, or anywhere? Do you adopt a no-shit policy? Is it okay to finally be selfish? Is it alright to ignore certain responsibilities, because you finally have your priorities straight? These questions and more are certainly worthy of extensive examination.

Personally, I suppose blogging will be an outlet. It'll allow me to finally free myself of some pervasive negativity, and maybe even relieve enough of my recently adopted neurotic behavior to once again function in the world at large. It will certainly serve to garner awareness for cancer, and that's a primary goal in my life these days. Because, as much as my experience has pained me and set me back in my own life, the thought of anyone else undergoing the same level of suffering is very hard for me to think about. I find myself tearing up every time I begin to read the account of another cancer survivor. Awareness is important, because suffering is only alleviated when there is enough manpower present to alleviate it. It isn't magic -- it's math. And all the publicity in the world won't help unless enough of us decide to act. Action manifests itself in several ways, and that's part of the reason I've finally decided to blog about this.

My account is detailed in my book, "Cancer Kid." But that isn't enough. I have certain goals I've sworn to meet, without excuse, and I plan to meet them. Blogging was not originally one of those goals, but it's going to help in several ways. It will hopefully help the public at large be more informed about the goings-on of cancer survivors. It will help me create a platform for myself and publicize my work, which will in turn increase awareness and further the fight. It will allow me the resources to fund the foundation I'd like to build. And, perhaps most importantly of all, it will free me from the fear I've buried so deep in my subconscious, and allow me to remember the important things in life.