1 Month (Don’t Believe It!)
1974 was a very good year in Palisade, Colorado.
I wish you could see me after hot yoga.
Who would have thought, just five months ago post-chemo, stumbling around like an old chubby invalid, that I would turn into this wiry, strong bearded guy with a fierce gaze and the sweat pooling on his face like a Gatorade commercial?
And then, into the cold plunge like the warrior I am! Hot Yoga by Joe K on Fairfax, with infrared heat. I am easily 15 years older than the oldest person there, and towards the end I can’t always finish each pose, but I hang in there and triumph.
I wish all the news was sunny, though. My cancer markers have risen, and my recent scan is a bit shocking. There are new tests to take to be certain, but it may appear there is somewhat a rise in disease expression.
When this happens, it is easy to feel as betrayed as a kicked puppy, especially when you have been doing SO MUCH, spending so much money (and other people’s kind donations) on alternative treatments, and living a life run by such rigorous protocol. I decided pretty quickly to begin adding Talzenna and Xtandi to my existing Lupron protocol, leaving me a chemical castrate on top of a chemical castrate. No testosterone in this body in many a year.
It was time to go back to family and friends for help. The enzyme treatments are just too damned expensive. And, is this new treatment doing any good, is it working? On the surface it would appear not, but sometimes the numbers flare up if the cancer is being attacked, and also sometimes these things work with other medications in combo.
When are you bravely optimistic, and when are you foolishly clinging to hope? I am beginning to consider, if it is time to wrap things up, how to spend my (remaining?) time. My vision is to complete the next six months of running the tech for the University of Santa Monica’s flagship program and the coaching school I love. I’ll have help, and it will come to pass.
I want to marry and move in with my beloved Mark. I want that experience in my life. I want to be a published author. I want to travel.
Moreover, I want to exist as the man I was destined to be in thought, action, and integrity. If I could master this, I could leave the party at any time. I believe my life onward must gently unfurl this as a graceful inevitability, because I am just that man, always, a miracle, poetry in motion! When to strive harder, and when to just love yourself as you are? Why not both?
In one month, we will be at “0 Months”, in other words the date I was predicted to die 19 months ago. I will certainly surpass that and move forwards into the +1, +2, +3, etc. Look, if these new meds and treatments don’t work, there is still a radiation based treatment called Pluvicto which, for some men, is almost a miracle drug. I can try the Ivermectin & Mebendazole again. I can try experimental treatments and studies.
So, here I am for another Christmas. All day today I did my coaching, and meditated when I could with the SRF all-day Christmas online meditation. Doing the work of this new treatment really takes me off the court of humans and life way too much. If you are reading this, I love you still. May we be together once again.
P.S. If you are reading this, you have likely been generous in one way or another, so instead of giving money if you could share this fundraiser with others with a few kind words, that would be lovely.