Tag Archives: Blogs

Talking About Life While Facing Death

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One of my more popular contributions to the Quora.com web site deals briefly with how we approach loss and watching a loved one die from cancer. This is a subset of one of the most important topics of my blog, the need to redefine the narrative of cancer. Stories that we hear and those we tell ourselves are very important in terms of how we approach and understand the world. For most of history, the narrative of cancer has been relayed in a fairly dreadful manner — and often rightfully so, because the story of the times was perhaps simply accurate. But the time we are living in now requires a reboot of that narrative, one with more optimism and hope and, more importantly than even that, a good, solid dose of actual science. Another thing that needs to be adjusted, I believe, is more of a societal approach to the empathy of death and dying and how that can be embraced as a natural, even welcome, component of life.

I am clearly not above the occasional inspirational bracelet.
I am clearly not above the occasional inspirational bracelet.

While this is a more complex issue than I can adequately address in this post, I am going to include a short answer I wrote on Quora about a year after my own diagnosis with lung cancer — at which time I had just about reached my “statistical” expectation for life expectancy with a Stage 4 diagnosis. You see, according to the abstract numbers you get through pretty much any Internet search on survival rates, Stage 4 lung cancer does not fair very well. If you believe the numbers, you’re just supposed to die. Quickly. So I did some “soul searching,” and came to terms with what dying might mean to me. Then I moved along because, for one thing, I know a little bit about reading statistics and it was clear that they did not apply to me. (My demographic, for one thing, was not properly represented, nor was the collection of treatments that had been introduced in the previous five to ten years, which is about how out of date most survival rate statistics are when you get them.) Besides, even if cancer was going to negatively impact my longevity, I still had a lot of living to do. And the plan remains to live long enough to die of something else. After all, there is no shortage of ways to exit this existence. The real question, ultimately, becomes not how or why we go, but what we do with our time here that matters. Continue reading Talking About Life While Facing Death →

Negative Comments, Positive Response

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I’ll admit that I was a little perplexed this morning when I received a pair of (presumably) unrelated negative responses on one of my older blog posts, The Myth of the Wellness Warrior. Although I wrote that post about eight months ago, it continues to bring in a fair amount of traffic, including about 150 views today that appear to be mostly sourced off of Facebook and a few Google searches. While I expected that piece to illicit some reactions, I felt that the information I presented spoke for itself fairly well, and irrefutably so. I only criticized claims that are demonstrably false and I included links to vetted sources to support my statements. Still, I am no stranger to quasi-anonymous Internet attacks.

Follow this link to www.justbadforyou.com/blog
Cat pics simply bring people together, creating order out of chaos, joining everyone in blissful unity.

For a long time, I moderated a political forum that had civility as one of its prime directives. My job, in no small part, was to ensure that conversations stayed focused and did not degenerate into name calling or worse. One way that we ensured this possibility was to remove anonymity as much as we could through a registration process. The other way was through constant moderation and guidance. Because of that experience, I had initially required specific site registration here in order for anyone to comment. The system in place, however, was not entirely functional and several people let me know that they could not log in to leave comments. At the behest of a friend, I relaxed the comment restrictions and readied myself for an onslaught of SPAM and Internet Trolls. Continue reading Negative Comments, Positive Response →

The Chemo Diaries: Year Two, Round Two

Cancer, Health and Wellness, , , , , , , , ,
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Getting ready to fluff my pillow before the chemo drip begins.

The Chemo has been going pretty well since my first real extended break. By extended, I really only mean two weeks off from the usual cycle. The first infusion after the vacation may have left me a bit more tired than expected, but I wasn’t exactly super well-rested after a week of extra stairs and cross-country travel. It will be interesting to see how this round goes.

Chemo and Gratitude

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This isn’t about still having my hair, or not throwing up all the time. Maybe it’s a little about those things. But I have been quite fortunate with regard to all aspects of my treatment and to all the people involved with the process from initial decision making to treatment to support. Nowhere along the way was I met with an adversarial situation. (Huntington Memorial and my Nurse Navigator, the illustrious Christine, get special credit for that, having gone to bat with my HMO so that I would not have to. And the whole staff with my oncologist at Keck works diligently to ensure that I am shielded from most HMO related nonsense, as well.) Continue reading The Chemo Diaries: Year Two, Round Two →

Everyday Tragedy

Fear, Politics, Reason, , , , , , , , , ,

I’ll admit that there are some days when I feel like stuff is pretty bad. As with most people, I imagine, it can be easy to focus on how stressed out I am over finances, health issues, car trouble,  marital concerns, whatever it is that is going on with my kid, deadlines on projects I don’t really want to be doing, deadlines on projects I really don’t want to be doing, some bullshit, that other thing, whatever… But before I go moping off into my self-aggrandized pit of misery, something usually stops me. More and more often in recent years, it has been essentially the same thing: the reminder, through everyday tragedies experienced by people I care about, that life is fragile, tenuous and entirely worth not wasting on feeling sorry for myself.

Tragedy teaches us

Drama-icon
As much as these are lessons I would rather not have learned, it is an inescapable fact that every tragic occurrence teaches something. The lesson might seem small, even devastatingly pointless, but that is part of the theme; the overarching message life gives us is that we are all relatively inconsequential, except to each other. Our value is created by our contribution, our loss felt more deeply for a future deprived.

More than that, however, life teaches us that we — any one of us, at any time — can simply be removed from the social equation. That includes everyone we love, everything we hold dear. Our closest friends. Our parents. Our children.

There are lots of practical causes for things that turn tragic. Some of these we can do something about. Better gun regulations, better mental health services, better education. Sometimes we just get lucky and hit the brakes while turning the wheel at precisely the right moment. Continue reading Everyday Tragedy →

Truth, Peace and Holiday Values

Fear, Politics, Reason, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The holiday season is upon us. Traditionally this is a time for reflection on our values, both our personal values and those shared by society at large. We are also in the midst of a heated political campaign season, made divisive largely through a fearful shift throughout our culture. Because these holidays, pretty universally across religious boundaries, are focused on peace, it seems like a good time to consider some of the foundational concepts that have created the divisiveness we are experiencing. By addressing some of these, perhaps the peace we aspire to will be easier to grasp for all of us.

The topics of gun control, national security and terrorism, taxes, healthcare and climate change are issues we all agree are important to our society. Ideological divides often prevent productive conversations on these issues, largely because we, as a society, are quite uninformed about the facts underlying each issue. And our politicians frequently do not help this situation, preferring to fan the fires of discontent rather than address issues in an open and honest fashion. We, however, as cognizant and inquisitive humans, have the ability to sidestep the easy rhetoric and parroting of sound bytes in order to debate issues in a civil manner not currently reflected by many high-profile politicians and certainly not reflected by most pundits in the media. Continue reading Truth, Peace and Holiday Values →

Other People’s Cancer Blogs

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It’s true. I’m not the only person who writes about cancer in a blog. It turns out that these here InterWebs are full of conversations and observations and ramblings and rants and meditations and monologues galore, focused on all things cancer. And, while it may not be a shock that I enjoy reading some cancer blogs, the surprise is really how darn good many of them are. Now, because I have lung cancer, I tend to gravitate toward reading the experiences of others with the same condition. And I may be biased in thinking that lung cancer brings out the best writers. But I am going to throw it out there that, at the very least, what I am about to share is some very good work by some dedicated people with important stories worth reading. I’m not going to rank the best lung cancer blog or set up any sort of competition here. I just feel that these are other experiences from other people that I would like to share with you.

I’m targeting other writers with metastatic lung cancer, partly to show that I am not a complete outlier. While this disease is still killing an inordinately high number of people, the cancer blogs I’m linking here tell an uplifting, inspiring story, especially when taken as a collective whole.

The Cancer Blogs

Janet Freeman-Daily is an aerospace engineer turned lung cancer advocate who was diagnosed in 2011. She writes about Gratitude on her blog, Grey Connections, and her posts also appear on the useful website for Cure magazine. She also has a terrific list of other lung cancer blogs which is much more exhaustive and interesting than what I am including here, and it includes detail on each author’s age at the date of diagnosis along with the type of lung cancer. Continue reading Other People’s Cancer Blogs →

Shine a Light on Lung Cancer November 8, 2015

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I was asked to speak at the Shine a Light event at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena, CA. Below the video is a transcript, for those of you who like to read. The event certainly was not about me, and I will link to more info on the ceremony when it is posted and available, but in the meantime here is a small portion for your viewing enjoyment.

One year ago yesterday, I wrote my first blog post about lung cancer. I had just been diagnosed with inoperable metastatic stage 4 adenocarcinoma. That was a pretty long name for an ominous sounding condition that I knew relatively little about. People all around me — and it seemed everywhere across the Internet — were ready to express what a dire situation I was in. But I’m here to tell you that I feel great. Today is a fabulous day. Tomorrow I am going in for another infusion, a little bit of what I like to consider my “me time.” Granted I’m on maintenance therapy now and I kind of miss the longer treatment that I used to have, because it allowed me to get some work done on the blog or do some quality reading or catch up on my email. These days, my infusion happens too quickly to get much accomplished. But… I really can’t complain about that. Continue reading Shine a Light on Lung Cancer November 8, 2015 →

Lung Cancer Answers and Awareness Support

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As a frequent contributor to Quora.com, a website for asking questions and getting answers from people who are knowledgable about the subject, I have naturally offered input on issues related to lung cancer. After all, one of the first rules for authors is to “write what you know.” Here, in honor of lung cancer awareness month, I am collecting links to some of the answers I have supplied on Quora.

  • Read on below the links for more on Lung Cancer Awareness

Some of these questions have many answers and mine might be somewhere down the list, but generally all of them make for interesting reading and good perspectives. Popular ones may have been “upvoted” quite extensively (this could also be the case for older answers while newer answers with more merit may have few upvotes simply because fewer people have viewed them). Also, a lot of the answers are quite brief. Occasionally I do get a bit long-winded, but my contribution to the discussion could be just a few sentences or paragraphs. Overall, however, I think that these questions and answers make for good reading in a format more like a town hall meeting than a typical blog. Continue reading Lung Cancer Answers and Awareness Support →

My Frenemy, Dexamethasone

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When initially discussing chemotherapy treatments, most people begin with the thought that it is the chemo drugs themselves, those infamously toxic concoctions, that the patient would complain about most, or fear, or suffer from. And chemo does suck, what with the potential for nausea and fatigue and that notorious chemo brain. But do you know what really sucks, dear Reader? Steroids.

I recognize the importance of the Dexamethasone pills I take for three days at the start of each infusion cycle. And I appreciate that I am not taking Prednisone, which some of my friends have been saddled with for lengthy periods of time and which I had seen turn my father’s final years into a much less pleasant time than they should have been. I owe a debt to Prednisone, without which I would not have gotten ill enough to eventually lead to my cancer diagnosis, but I will never take it again. Dexamethasone, on the other hand, I can deal with. I don’t like it, but I understand the need to make my peace with the sleepless nights and mild dizzy spells and increased irritability, the hoarseness and seemingly endless peeing. Continue reading My Frenemy, Dexamethasone →

Perspective: One of the Greatest Gifts of a Cancer Diagnosis

Cancer, Health and Wellness, Reason, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was skulking around the house last week, ruminating on just how bad I smelled. My wife was getting annoyed with me, insisting that I did not smell any differently; it was a hot, stagnant summer day and I was sweating (I felt) profusely. My chemo treatment was beginning to purge from my system and it seemed to me that as I would walk around a corner or even just turn my head, I would get a wiff of something nasty, putrid, sour. And I couldn’t shake it — that smell was just plain bad.

But it couldn’t be identified, or even located. And I was the only one smelling it.

Then I started to take stock of all my symptoms, which I do now and then as both a way of monitoring my body and keeping a sense of humor about the process. Because it can be pretty gross. Let’s face it, no one likes to think of themselves covered in puss-filled sores, hobbling about on swollen feet and wafting fetid breezes from God knows where throughout the room. Continue reading Perspective: One of the Greatest Gifts of a Cancer Diagnosis →