"If I Leave You It Doesn't Mean I Love You Any Less"

For the second day in a row I am starting off with a Warren Zevon quote.  While Warren was dying of mesothelioma he wrote a song to his wife with the line "if I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less".  It was a touching line when I first heard it and a much more powerful line after my cancer diagnosis.  I think the first reaction when you are diagnosed, is to wonder if you are going to survive.  The second reaction is if you don't survive, what will that do to your family?  What a brilliantly simple way of expressing how we feel.  If cancer takes us, it doesn't mean that we want to go.

I "graduated" from the Wellness Community this week.  I won't say I am 100% over all of this stuff, heck for one thing I haven't officially been released from the urologist yet, but cancer is no longer the prevailing thought in my mind anymore.  Granted there are other things going on in my life right now that are taking my focus off that crap, which is a good thing.  I don't know if I would feel this far removed from cancer otherwise, but the point is I do and that's all that matters.  It's hard to believe my cancerversary is coming up in just a few months!

The Wellness Community and more importantly the people in my support group have been very...well supportive.  I was hoping there would be a big crowd there so I could say "bye", but there was only the facilitator and one other guy, who happened to be my favorite guy and the one that helped me the most.  This particular guy (without giving any identifying information, which is a no-no for a support group) has lived with cancer for literally decades.  Not a survivor, LIVED WITH CANCER as in still has cancer!  There is another in my group that has lived with cancer for about a decade as well.  Do you know how comforting that is to someone who just got diagnosed?   Even if you aren't cured, here is living proof that you can live with cancer and look like a normal non-cancer-having person!  And the thing I was most impressed with these two individuals was they were the most upbeat of the group.  They weren't cursing their maker or bitter at the world.  They were positive.  With just my favorite guy in my final meeting, I was able to spend a lot of time telling him just how important he has been to my emotional recovery.  I wish there were a couple of others there that I wanted to thank, but that's what e-mail is for.

Now to complain about my group for just one second.  One thing I did get off my chest was there was an incredibly negative individual that almost caused me to quit the group.  This person was CURED but didn't want to believe it and spent the whole meeting going on about how if you had cancer once it stays in you forever and it can pop up anytime, even if the doctor says you are in remission or even cured.  That is not something I wanted to be around just out of my surgery and facing chemotherapy.  Luckily, the lady from the No Boobs About It blog warned me that there is one of those people in every group, to just try to ignore them.  I am glad she told me that.  The only other complaint I have with my group (and people in general) sometimes when life looks the darkest, people give up on you.  Most cancer patients have ups and downs in their care, and some people in the group would start referring to people in the past tense that were struggling in their fight.  The whole time Monty Python and the Holy Grail was running through my head "I'm not dead yet..."  All of the people referred to in the past tense have gotten better!  Thank God (literally) that they had better outlooks on their own lives than some of their supporters.

But all in all, I loved the Wellness Community and the support everyone gave me.  I didn't really want to leave, but I didn't feel it was right for me to be there anymore, since I feel less and less like a cancer patient and more like a cancer survivor.  I wanted to thank everyone for what they did with a gift, however I couldn't just give gifts because I am still unemployed and don't have a lot of money flowing in right now.  I would have liked to cook something and bring it in (and let's just pretend for a moment that my cooking is tolerable) but when you are on chemo, you can be super sensitive to tastes and smells (I still won't touch pasta and shun salt, two things I enjoyed before chemo) so food is not even allowed inside the room we meet in.  So that left me with my favorite thing, music.

Not only have I worked extensively in music running record stores, as a club DJ, and even with a record company being required to hang out with rock stars for three years, but I have always used music to alter my mood and relate to others.  Back in the day, years before I even met my wife (if she is reading this) I would make mix tapes and CD's to open doors to hot girls that would inevitably ask for more CDs and less of me.  More recently, I boil my music collection to moods.  I have several CDs I put together just to keep me awake on roadtrips.  I have CDs I made to listen to just when I want to sing loud in the car with no one around.  I have a CD I made to listen to when you are in a pissed off mood (which I largely gathered from my wife's music collection, I don't know what that means, I'm just saying...).  And I have made CDs just to put me in a good mood.  So that is what I did, I made CDs for my group, happy CDs.  You know, songs that are just impossible to be sad while listening to, stuff like LFO's Summer Girls, Spice Girls' Wannabe, and Hanson's MmmBop...OK, I am lying, I like most people over the age of two and with most of their faculties hate those songs.  That was just a list of my sister's CD collection.  (The funny thing here, is I have to approve all comments before they are posted, so there is no way for her to refute this on my page.  But I am sure there will be retribution on hers.)  But I did put together a list of twenty songs from 1952 to the mid 1990s that just make you feel good.  I don't know if they will appreciate them or not, but even if they don't, at least I gave them a new shiny coaster.

So Thursday, Warren's lyrics held a different meaning to me.  I didn't want to leave the friendships, but it was time for me to leave the group.  And although I can't specifically identify people or illnesses, I will vaguely take a moment to say some "thank yous".  Thank you Bill for showing me how one person can face cancer and act like...well someone that doesn't have cancer.  Thank you Susan for having that magic folder where much like a Magic 8 Ball, you ask a question, you reach your hand in, and pull out a print out with the answer.  Thank you Ann for showing just how hard one human can fight, and still retain grace and dignity the whole time.  Thank you Cary for taking a bad situation and turning it around for something good.  And most of all thank you Ned, no doubt your family sacrificed a great deal for the benefit of so many others, and I will never be able to express my gratitude sufficiently.  And there are many others at the group that helped me, and I don't mean to play favorites here...but I am (did).  And it's not like anyone actually reads these anyway, so there is not really anyone to offend with an omission.  Even though I didn't place that Warren Zevon song (Keep Me In Your Heart For A While) on the CD I made, because although very poignant and beautiful it's also incredibly depressing, I graduate from and depart the Wellness Community with those words in my heart and mind, "If I leave you it doesn't mean I love you any less".

Enjoy Every Sandwich

I haven't spent much time on the computer lately because I was spending too much time on the computer.  No, I wasn't actually doing anything on the computer, I was just watching it sit and lock up and restart.  I can't complain too much, the computer I was using was from 2003.  However, this week while helping a friend with a project, and sitting at the computer for literally an hour while it processed the request I was asking of it, I said enough was enough.  After begging and pleading with my wife, I now have a brand new computer that actually turns on when you turn it on, and does what you ask it to do.  I bought it yesterday and upon cleaning out the old computer and setting up my new one, I decided to check the speed of the thing by watching some video content that I have missed over the years.  Not porn, because I make sure not to miss that, just everything from a Simpson's episode I missed last month to Warren Zevon's last appearance on David Letterman a few years back.

At my support group meeting two weeks ago, we discussed how all of us in the group, after having the inarguably life changing cancer diagnosis, all have adopted a more living-in-the-moment attitude.  We were not talking about living your life like an anarchist, we were talking about living without regrets.  When people say they live their life without regrets, they tend to mean that they stand by the decisions they made in their life, be them good or bad, because even bad decisions can be learning experiences.  However, the living without regrets that we were referring to, is all of the times in our lives we have passed on an opportunity or not followed a dream for trivial reasons.  They can be life decisions or just fun times we passed up with friends.  Whether it be regretting not going to that concert with your buddy, or not having the opportunity to say "bye" to someone before it was too late, or not marrying Christie Turlington, there are several decisions in all of our lives we wish we could change or get that opportunity back.

Still unemployed, I have recently reevaluated my life and my career path.  My latest career path started when I was volunteering while helping out my hometown during the floods along the Mississippi River.  I loved working side by side with people to sandbag in an effort to save their house, business, church, or just the town in general.  I later managed to get into the disaster business and found that in the disaster business, you don't really get to help those individuals anymore.  I got more and more immersed in my job, working longer and weirder hours, seeing the people I wanted to help less and less.  I got to teach disaster preparedness to people, which I loved, but my job was asking me to take a more supervisory role on that as well and have volunteers do that.  When you work a job you love and you work long hours, the years go by, the job changes, and before you know it, the job you once loved, is no longer the same job, and you just love it out of habit.  It dawned on me recently, that is what happened to me.

After the things that have happened in my life lately, I have analyzed what I enjoy.  When you are faced with life altering events, you realize a job can be something you love doing and are willing to sacrifice for, something you hate doing, but it pays so much it gives you the opportunity to spend that money on your family enriching your life that way, for a lucky few like musicians and porn stars it could be a job that you both love and pays a lot, or it can be a job you hate, doesn't pay that well, and isn't rewarding.  After talking with my wife, we both agreed that in this stage of our lives, I should look for either a job I really, really enjoy, a job that I maybe don't enjoy and doesn't pay much but allows me a lot of time with my family, or a job that pays ridiculous money that when I do get sometime off I can afford to jet off to Walt Disney World or buy expensive guitars (she says spend the money on the family, but that's not how I processed it in my mind).  Just like we talked in my group, live in the moment, make sure your job is worth it to you, either monetarily or sense of accomplishment.

But we weren't just talking about jobs in my group.  We were talking about everything in life, meeting that friend for lunch, dropping an e-mail to a sick friend, taking that trip, learning that skill you have always wanted, whatever.  I wish I could live a week in Cinderella's Castle at Walt Disney World, get right out of bed walk straight to the Jungle Cruise and shoot an elephant in my PJs (how he got in my pajamas I'll never know...ya gotta love Groucho!).  That is a trip that would probably bankrupt me and put a huge financial strain on my family for many years to come.  That is not the type of thing we were talking about.  However, for years my wife and I have dreamed of taking a trip out west, just driving and seeing the sights this country has to offer.  That trip, I have no doubt we will take in the coming years when we are physically and financially able to go.  For years, I have begged my parents to come to Florida with us.  We went as a family one time and had a great experience.  That was sixteen years ago.  My wife and I are able to visit Florida frequently on a fairly cheap budget.  I have invited my parents many times and offered many ways to help facilitate their travel down there.  Time after time we are turned down and have basically heard from them that they will never travel that far again.  It is something that really saddens me, especially since my cancer diagnosis.  We don't know when God may call any of us back home.  We don't know how much time we have with each other.  Instead of just showing my parents photos and telling them what a great time we have in Florida, we would like to take them, show them, experience it with them (until they get tired and grumpy like old people tend to do, then we will lock them in a bathroom or something).  I think what saddens me is not so much the repeated declines of our previous offers, but how they say they don't ever think they will make a trip like that again.  I was taken to Disney Parks the first time by my family and I was kind of hoping that one day they would be there to experience it with their grandchild.  Who knows, maybe they will be more adventurous by the time that opportunity rolls around, or at least senile enough that we can tell them we are taking them to Big Lots or something and Big Lots has a new one thousand mile long parking lot.

When Warren Zevon made his final appearance on David Letterman, he was well aware that he was dying from Mesothelioma.  He knew it was the last time he would be on there.  He knew that the breath that he drew to sing songs many people loved was being stolen more and more by the cancer filling his lungs.  Warren had a great attitude and repeated many times through his dying days "Enjoy every sandwich."  It may sound stupid and simple, but for anyone that has looked at a doctor waiting to hear a success rate or a chance of survivability we know exactly what he means.  Do what you enjoy.  Don't waste your time on things you don't enjoy.  If you do have to do things you don't enjoy, make sure it's worth it in the end.  Learn to love the gifts you are given in your life, the big ones and the little ones.  Enjoy every sandwich.  With that said, I am sore from typing and hungry for a sandwich, so it's time to get off of here.