Relax

Hi blog,

I would like to thank you for allowing me to co-opt you for Awareness Week. I know that you had to sit through a lot of advice that doesn't pertain to you, because you aren't biological at all, but it was for a good cause and I know you like helping people so it works out for all of us.

To the humans: I am very appreciative of all of you who spent the time to read through Awareness Week posts and even more appreciative of those who shared them with others. Of course, just because Awareness Week is over doesn't mean that you can't share it anymore. If you think of somebody who might be able to use any of the advice given, please, please, please share it with them!

Sharing is caring!

As a present, both to you (the blog) and to the humans who have supported me through my attempts to provide useful information to those who need it, I have a fun, light short story. You can share that as well! It's also actually a good visualization tool (see the post Awareness Week: Life is Mental for more details) for those who have stress or anxiety in their lives. Maybe it'll help somebody as well!

Relax

The dull, incessant ticking of the second hand seemed to grow inexplicably louder with every little click. Growing and building on itself like some gluttonous monstrosity until it became so gorged it burst. Bursting would be good, I decided, then the damn thing would be quiet. It just never seemed to get to that point. Even as three o’clock in the afternoon rolled by in my dingy little colorless-themed cubicle, the seconds ticked on by louder and louder until they were a crashing roar in my head. The florescent tubes burned holes into the back of my brain, a harsh glow cast upon my dreary social prison. 

I stared blankly at the computer screen, which had been frozen on a graph for the last hour and a half, a graph that I was supposed to clean up and present the next day. Briefly, I wondered if it was possible to get permission to go home if I mysteriously wound up with a staple in the middle of my forehead. The stapler whispered for me to give it a try. That was disconcerting. I ignored its pleas to taste human flesh and drummed my fingers on the unresponsive keyboard while I waited for someone from IT, whom I was beginning to become certain had been sucked into some interdimensional portal. Or was busy. One or the other.

“At least try it!” the hungry stapler grumbled irritably.

“I am not going to slam you into my forehead,” I told it sternly, and the office supply fell mercifully silent. The last thing I needed was someone to come by and wonder why I was talking to a stapler. I hate slow days.

All around me the tapping of keys rose up from beyond the flimsy excuses for walls that served as my three-sided cell. The sound drifted above the barriers and seemed to taunt me and my inoperable device. I considered threatening it again, but you can only mutter death threats to a computer so many times before it becomes weird, and I had easily surpassed that limit five minutes into the malfunction.

As I rocked back and forth in my squeaky office chair, content that any noise was better than the cacophonous roar of the passing of time, I looked around my desk and spotted the one welcome sight in the building: empty space. With nothing better to do, I rolled my chair over and folded my arms atop the only place I wanted to be and laid my head on them. My eyes fluttered closed almost immediately, the backs of my eyelids a much needed respite from the unnatural glare of modern lighting.

A couple years ago I  had learned a neat relaxation technique called visualization. You imagine yourself somewhere relaxing and inviting. Somewhere you would vacation perhaps, or somewhere that appeals to you. Little by little, you add in more details until it almost feels like you are there. It is a wonderfully helpful tool for me, but not one I have many opportunities to practice. If ever there was a time though, this was it.

Mine is a little different from the normal destinations of a warm sandy beach or a deserted island or a clearing in the middle of a forest. I like to picture myself floating on a bed in a warm tropical sea on a clear summer’s night. So I did.

I took in a deep breath. The saline perfume wafted into my head and brought a proto-smile to my previously tense lips. I could nearly taste the salt in the air as I took my next breath, the smell pervading my senses and surrounding me in a cocoon of inviting briny fragrance. The teasing aroma grew more tangible as I inhaled a third time, and this time I really could taste the froth of seawater dancing on my tongue like some pleasantly stinging ephemeral jellyfish.

Now I envisioned the bed. My back resting on a silky puffy comforter, my head on a gooshy foam pillow. I could feel the back of my head sinking down into the foam, the walls of the indentation pressing ever so light against the sides of my head, mashing my hair against my skull in a tender caress. With my hands folded on my chest, the silken feel of fabric against the backs of my legs, I stretched out as far as I could, never quite reaching the end of the bed, which was always the perfect length.

The drone of the clock faded away, graying out until the obnoxiously boisterous ticks became lost in the swelling sound of water licking at the sides of my bed. The gentle sea lapped at the sheets hanging down, splashing fairy droplets onto my upturned face, causing the strength of the smell to undulate with each diminutive wave. Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried out and was met with a chorus from its family. A splash far away signaled a breaching whale. The salty sloshing sea murmured all about me, echoing for eternity in every direction around my cozy raft, with only nature surrounding my floating island sanctuary.

Finally, with all the other senses in place, I opened my eyes. My heart leapt in my throat as a vivid, moonless night sky stretched before me. Thousands of pinpricks of light shimmered and winked down at me. A vast band of dust streaked across the horizon, cleaving the dark, star-spotted veil clean in two. Small smudges could be found nestled in between the brilliant luminous balls, distant realms far, far away from my perfect isolation. I could pick out the constellations hanging above me, and traced their outlines with an outstretched hand as though I were painting them in place for all to see, though this would be for my own private gallery. As I did, a fiery streak glowed white-hot as it crossed the twilight dome in a glorious, short-lived burst that left a green afterimage burned into my vision, flitting across my sight like a playful wraith.

The last thing to do was let go. Part of me was still thinking about my report, was still wondering when the damnable IT kid would show up to fix my malevolent computer. I knew what to do though. I took my hands and placed them as though I were cupping a small ball. Focusing intensely, I imagined all of my worries, all of my concerns, everything from the life outside of my pocket universe, and put it in a bubble. I watched as a small spark lit up smack-dab in the middle of the void between my palms and slowly grew into a perfect, glassy sphere with a shimmering surface painted with images from the life I was about to release into the ether.

Raising my head up off the pillow, I leaned forward with my lips almost pressed to the thin film of reality, and lightly blew on the weightless orb, watching as it drifted away higher and higher toward the dust lanes of the Milky Way until I blinked and could no longer see it. There was an empty feeling in my chest where once a knot the size of an office building had once sat. The pit was soon filled by a torrent of beauty from the world around me, crashing in and washing away the last vestiges of anxiety and apprehension, leaving me perfectly satisfied to drift endlessly through the infinite ocean of my new home, with only the sea life and the far-flung heavenly bodies to keep me company. What I am now is a lone witness to all of this stunning, radiant beauty. And really, you can’t get any better than that: a familiar, comfortable place to take in the breathtaking scenery. A place to just…relax.

Your mildly benevolent wordsmith, Andrew

Awareness Week: Life is Mental

Hi blog,

Well, today is the end of Awareness Week, it's the last post. Subsequently, I also think it might be the most important. This post isn't just for cancer patients and survivors, it's for EVERYONE. Not only is there a little something for everyone to take away, but there's also an enormous amount of awareness (go figure) embedded within the words that will follow these. So sit back (or forward, maybe stand if you want, whatever you like), hold on, and use your eyeballs.

Cancer isn't just about cancer. I can hear you scratching your heads from here (might I suggest a better shampoo?), but hear me out. The actual cancer itself is just part of the problem, there's so many more aspects of the disease that come into play, both directly and indirectly. In my previous post I discussed two side effects that don't get a lot of attention, but left out the most important of all side effects. It's an almost taboo subject in our society, regardless of whether or not you've had cancer. But for cancer survivors, it's one of the biggest hurdles for recovering and living a normal life. It's something I have struggled with for some time and am slowly making progress on. Give up? It's a little something called "mental issues." (Although I suspect the title might have given it away some)

Yes, mental illness is extremely common amongst cancer survivors and patients. It makes perfect sense when you think about it, but most people don't. It is an underwhelmingly undiscussed topic both in cancer recovery and in life in general. People hate talking about mental illness. My theories on why this is the case are not relevant to this blog, although I have several. The goal of Awareness Week is to spread, wait for it...AWARENESS about the problems that cancer patients and survivors must go through. It is an enormously difficult thing to piece your life back together after being dealt such a crippling physical blow, but you and everyone around you is so focused on getting your physical health in as good a shape as they can that often your mental state is neglected to some degree. The people around you, those who are supporting you, don't really understand that not only are you battling the cancer, but also any range of mental and emotional problems such as: depression, anxiety, paranoia, intense anger, panic attacks, nervous breakdowns, manic behavior, suicidal thoughts and tendencies, and the list goes on.

There are a few aspects of this topic that I would like to cover. One for the patient/survivor, and another for those supporting them.

How to cope with mental pain:

• Depression: Probably the most common feeling associate with a cancer diagnosis, both for the patient and their family and friends, depression can be a difficult problem to kick. Remember that there are social workers at the hospital who are used to talking to cancer patients and have a sympathetic ear, they will listen if you talk to them. Also, don't be afraid or ashamed to ask for
  
  anti-depressants, they can help to improve your mood to some degree and (if you read the first post) being in a better mood can actually increase your chances of survival. Another good way to stave off depression: laugh (mentioned in the first post). By laughing, you are telling yourself that things aren't completely hopeless, that you can still find joy in the world. Finding some happiness  will go a long way toward dispelling some of that darkness that threatens to cast a pall over your thoughts. One last tip: talk to yourself. Tell yourself that you are feeling good and that you will get through this. At first, it will seem silly and like you're lying to yourself, but if you repeat this to yourself often enough, you will start to believe it and it might make all the difference in the world.
• Anger: It begins with the diagnosis itself. Being told that your life is about to radically change, likely forever, is enough to rock even the most thick-skinned people to their very core. There is a sense of betrayal, your body has turned on you and is eating you from the inside out. That's normal. Anger is normal. It is extremely difficult to be able to direct all of that hate and fury to the cancer though, because you can't necessarily see it and so a lot of the anger ends up transferring to people around you. Inevitably, you will snap at somebody you care about for doing something that normally would not bother you in the least, but without an outlet for your anger, you will lash out at those closest to you. It is your duty to apologize and let that person know that you didn't mean it. The best thing you can do to actually deal with the anger is to find an outlet for it, whether it is in violent video games, beating a piñata, or yelling into a pillow, if you can find a method of dispensing that anger into an inanimate object, it will alleviate the rage to some degree.
• Anxiety: Probably the issue that I have the most problem with myself, anxiety can be a nearly crippling force that threatens to overwhelm you in every possible way. Luckily, there are a number of anti-anxiety medications available and this will dull the most potent effects of the  
  
  anxiety. It would help to learn some relaxation techniques (Relaxation Techniques for Stress Relief) as well, as this will serve to calm your thoughts and sooth your racing mind. Personally, I find that deep breathing (easy one: breathe in for 5 seconds, hold breath for 5 seconds, breathe out for 5 seconds, hold breath for 5 seconds, repeat as necessarily) and visualization (slowly putting yourself into a relaxing scene, like being on the beach, be sure to include all 5 senses) are the most helpful, but these methods differ from person to person and you should be encouraged to try as many out as you want to find the ones that work best for you.
• Suicidal thoughts: Obviously the most dire of mental problems, if you (or the person you are supporting and/or caring for) starts to have suicidal tendencies or thoughts, you should tell your doctor right away so you (or they) can get the help that they need. This is not something you should tackle on your own, the stakes are too high for that. When things are this bad, you want as much professional help on your side as you can get. Here is a link to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline: click here.

How to offer support: To those who are trying to support somebody going through cancer, it can be a difficult experience for you as well. Watching somebody you care about slowly deteriorate before your eyes can be an excruciatingly painful experience. It might feel awkward to be around them because you don't know what to talk about and don't want to feel insensitive or like you're babying or pitying them. Sometimes this causes people to drift or pull away, and the support for the cancer patient or survivor will almost always dry up to some extent as time passes, but the people who care the most, the ones who the patient can count on, will stick with them even through the bad times. As a cancer survivor and somebody who lost quite a lot of support almost immediately after finding out I wasn't going to die, I have an inkling about the sort of things that work best for helping to support your friend/family member who is going through their treatment/trying to put their life back together afterward. Here are a few friendly tips for supporting the person you care about:

• Treat them like a human: There is nothing worse than having every damn person give you a pitying glance when they find out what you're going through/have been through. It doesn't make somebody any less human to have gone through cancer, they are still the same person you used to know, so treat them like it! They will still like the same movies (most likely, unless it's a sad movie about cancer, then probably not so much), enjoy the same jokes, like the same music, but for some inexplicable reason people start to act like the survivor/patient is five-years old and needs to be coddled at every step. We don't. We want to be treated like an actual person, who deserves all of the respect and friendship that we had before we got sick. 
  
• Share things with them: Don't feel like you have to hide aspects of your life from somebody just because they're going through cancer. You may feel guilty for being able to enjoy life while they're stuck in a bed, but you shouldn't. Cancer treatment is characterized by very boring periods followed by short, intense periods of crazy stuff. During those boring times, it helps to hear how  friends are doing and learning about their lives, sometimes it allows patients to live vicariously through you. Just because a patient is undergoing chemotherapy does not mean they don't want to hear anything about you. If you have a funny story about a bad date that you went on last Friday, tell it! Don't feel bad about sharing your life with them, they won't hold it against you that you aren't sick. 
• Stick with them: It will be a hard thing to watch at times, but the single most reassuring thing for a cancer patient is to know that your friends are there for you when the going gets tough. It can be demoralizing when somebody you've known for years stops coming around and won't return your calls, it can make you feel abandoned. As their friend, you want to try and keep the person going through their cancer treatments in as good a mood as possible (see above). A very simple way to accomplish this is to put aside your discomfort for a few minutes and take the time to visit, call, or even just text them and see how things are going. 
• Don't give up: Sometimes it is difficult to believe things will be okay. Sometimes you know things won't be okay. This does not mean you should just give up and stop trying to help. In fact, that is precisely when you should be even more supportive. When things get bad, it is imperative that the cancer patient gets as much encouragement as possible to help them get through it. As their friend/family, you have an opportunity to lift their spirits and help them fight off any feelings of hoplessness. If you hear them talking about giving up, don't be afraid to call them on it and tell them they are being ridiculous, because they are. Never let them give up, and you shouldn't either. Miracles can happen (I'm walking proof of that, I shouldn't be alive), so always have faith and be as supportive as human possible (and a little more).

And the last thing to remember is that there is no shame in having issues with your mental or emotional health. It is a very common side effect of going through cancer and the treatments associated with it. Ask for help, follow the guidelines above, and remember: things will get better if you believe they will get better. Life is 85% mental, your brain has a mysterious way of molding physical health and can be one of your greatest allies. A positive attitude is your greatest weapon. 

And supporters? Be there for them, they need you now more than ever. You have the power to help save their life, don't forget that. Make them smile, show them you're there for them, and never, ever give up on them.

Well, that's it for Awareness Week. I hope that you have learned some useful facts about cancer, cancer treatments, side effects, and ways to cope with all of the above. If you know somebody who is currently going through cancer, has gone through cancer, or has friends or family doing either of the former, please share this with them and spread some awareness. Hopefully by getting some of this information out there, we can all help change perception of cancer and learn how to better hope those who are forced to endure it.

If you have any comments or facts you wish to share, please post them in the comment section below (that's why it's there!). Have a wonderful day.

And blog? Thank you. Sincerely, your boss, Andrew

Awareness Week: Combating Side Effects

Hi blog,

I will continue to commandeer you for Awareness Week until, well...the end of the week I guess. You'll thank me later. Maybe. If not, then you'll have to forgive me, and if you can't, well that's not my problem at that point.

Today I will discuss some of the side effects that come about as a result of cancer and the treatments involved with it. I'll deal with short term effects for this post, and while non-cancer patients might not find this particularly useful (unlike my previous post, which was partially helpful in general), you may know somebody who might find it helpful in one way, shape, or form, so please, do that person a favor and pass this on.

Pass it on!

Many of us know about a couple of the physical side effects of cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation: the nausea, hair loss, lack of energy, weakened immune system, stuff like that. However, there are a few other unfortunately common effects that are not as well known that generally do not come to people's attention until they deal with the issues themselves or know somebody close to them who is going through cancer treatments. I shall focus on the two of these that I think are the most important (and another one to cap off Awareness Week that gets its own post because it is THAT significant) and give you (the reader) some useful tips that help to combat and alleviate these issues that will invariably crop up as a results of many treatment plans.

Chemobrain: The first of these problems that you (as the cancer patient) might come across is a little (not so little) something called chemobrain. Essentially, chemobrain is a decrease in mental acuity that generally manifests itself as issues with concentration, memory, and a general sense of not functioning at the same level of mental sharpness as one did before treatment. To put it simply, your brain doesn't work as well as it did. You might lose things easier, forget dates, important bits of information, have difficulty focusing on a task at hand, not do as well on a test, have trouble following a conversation, etc. At the moment there are several theories as to why people go through chemobrain, but none has been definitively proven, and besides, the goal is not to cure the chemobrain, but to find ways of coping and negotiating your way around it. Here's some tips:

• Make lists: As soon as somebody tells you something, write it down! Whether it's groceries you have to pick up, medication you need to take, or movies somebody tells you that you should watch, be sure to write it down as soon as you hear about it, that way you have a visual reminder of what you need to do and can refer back to it if your memory proves to be stubborn and unhelpful. And be sure to cross off any item that you complete as well, you don't want to do it twice. 
• Get a planner or notebook: Similar to the previous tip, a notebook will allow you to jot down any old thing that you may need or want. Somebody tells you a funny joke? Write it down! You need to remember somebody's name or information? Write it down! Have an appointment you need to keep? I'll let you guess what you should do. A notebook basically functions as a paper/electronic  (if you want to use a computer instead) memory bank that you can fill with whatever information you deem worthy of retaining. Don't be shy about writing things down either, even if you aren't sure whether it's important or not, write it down anyway, you never know. Besides, notebooks aren't really that expensive, feel free to fill up as many as you please!
• Keep a journal: Remembering how you feel on certain days can be helpful, especially if you have a problem that has been going on for a few days and you need to keep track of it. Having a detailed account of your physical, emotional, and mental well-being might also make for interesting reading for later as well, when you're telling people about how freaking awesome and brave you are after undergoing your treatments.
• Avoid distractions: When you need to concentrate on a task and have trouble with focus, making sure that you are in an environment where nothing is going to break your train of thought is important. Personally, I have trouble with this (even in quiet environments, I have a weird habit of breaking my own line of thought with excessively random tangents), and I find it incredibly
  
  helpful to be somewhere nice and quiet where I can count on being able to do what needs to be done without having some six-foot noisebox (also called a human) come in and talk about their cat while I'm trying to write a blog post. Don't hesitate to tell your friends or family that you need some time to think while you complete your chore or task, they'll understand. 
• Talk to your nurse or oncology social worker: These people will be able to give you some more useful facts and tips about chemobrain and other problems that you may encounter during the course of your treatment. They are an invaluable resource that you should use often and freely. For more tips on how to combat chemobrain, see CancerCare's article: Combating Chemobrain

Drug dependence: An issue with treatment is that it can cause additional pain. To deal with the pain, narcotics are very commonly used. Based on the nature of this point, you may worry about addiction, but actually addiction is different than physical dependence (which is what this part is about). Addiction is characterized by the compulsive use of drugs (in this case prescription because you will likely have access to a lot of those) for for mood-altering effects rather than pain relief. I went down the road of addiction, but it's not too common to go to that extreme, so don't worry about that. What you do need to concern yourself with is physical dependence, which will show up as you come off of the drugs. You may notice side effects such as: anxiety, paranoia, agitation, sweating, diarrhea, and insomnia. It is possible to notice these signs and work toward ensuring that you come off of your painkillers without suffering too much in the way of withdrawal effects, because you have enough crap to deal with already. 

• Talk to your doctor if you have concerns about drug dependence and if you notice that you are asking for the drugs even when you don't need them, tell somebody immediately, because addiction is a beast you do not want to tangle with, it can get you killed if you aren't careful.
• Don't be afraid to ask questions about the types and doses of painkillers you are on. If you are in more pain, don't worry about getting "hooked" on your drugs, because your main concern should be staying as comfortable as possible rather than toughing out extra pain due to a fear of becoming reliant on your drugs. 
• The best way to mitigate the effects of withdrawals is to come off of your dose slowly, lowering it a little at a time until finally you can come off it completely. Talk about a plan to wean you off your drugs with your doctor. 

There is one more big effect that is almost taboo to talk about, yet should come as no surprise to anybody. Sadly, I'm a tease, and if you want to learn what this last problem is and learn ways to alleviate it, tune in later this week for the conclusion of Awareness Week.

If you found this post helpful or enjoy this blog as a whole, please subscribe by clicking on the button to the right (of the screen, not in three-dimensional space) and/or leave a comment below. Also, I would appreciate it if you shared this with somebody who might be able to put it to good use, you'll gain a smidgeon of karma if you do and who knows, if you share it with enough people the universe might look kindly enough on you to let you win the lottery! (Doubtful, but you never know!)


Thank for for the repurposing today blog, mucho appreciado, your cliffhanger loving master and commander, Andrew

Awareness Week: Surviving Cancer

Hi blog (and others),

Well I promised today (and the rest of the week) would be the start of Awareness Week. So...without further ado, awareness!

A little introduction though. If you look to your right (on the screen, not actually to your right), you'll see the "About Me" thingamajig. Read that. Then look here. I'll wait...good! So yes, I had leukemia (AML to be specific), and have been in remission for about six years now. Obviously some treatments have changed, however, the methods for actually surviving have not. You see, surviving is actually about 85% mental by my estimates. Maybe less. More. I dunno, I'm not a statistician, but in any event, that's my guess. It also works for life in general when things are tough, but for the sake of argument and because this is, at its core, a cancer blog kinda in a way, we'll focus mostly on surviving cancer. So here are five very helpful tips for surviving cancer (and most crappy things life throws at you).

Yes I made a snazzy poster. With colors and pictures no less! (I'm not a huge color person, you don't want to see me wearing red, it's horrendous) And now, some further comments about the above tips.

1. Positivity: It's what it sounds like, the word positive being a major clue. I've actually read studies backing me up, although I am far too behind with this post to actually go find them right now, so you'll just have to take my word on this. Staying positive and keeping a good attitude even when things get bad or you're in a lot of pain actually helps an enormous amount. Not only will your chances of survival increase by a statistically relevant margin, but people who have a positive outlook actually have less pain than people with a negative outlook. So the tip? Flash that beautiful smile and assume the best, because it might just save your life!

2. Laugh loud and laugh often: Following a similar line to the previous tip, try to find some humor in life. It may seem dreary or bleak, hospitals can be very bland places, but find ways to spice it up! Post funny pictures on your off-white walls (you know they are), watch funny movies, listen to your favorite stand up comic, watch old reruns of good sitcoms (preferably ones you like), read a humorous book, have people send you jokes to put in a scrapbook, play benign practical jokes on your doctors and nurses (pretending you've lost an eye by putting Jell-O between your fingers and holding it up to your eye is perhaps borderline), stuff like that! Just like the statistic of positive thinking increasing your chances, you're more likely to be in a good mood if you've been laughing. It may hurt a little, but a bit of pain is a small price to pay for a few joyful tears and grin.

3. Surround yourself with support: It's always helpful to find people who will be there for you when the going gets tough. Family is a good first choice, most families will be more than willing to offer as much assistance as you need and will continue to give it even when things get really rough. Find some really good friends, ones you can depend on to stick with it. There will inevitably be people who will initially offer their support but soon disappear. Don't worry about them, cancer is an unnerving beast at the best of times, some people have a hard time coping with that and don't know what to do. Try not to get mad at them, it's just humans being humans. Instead, focus on how great the people are who stay! Those are the true gems in your life, treasure them always! And remember, don't be afraid to ask for help when you need it, because the people who really care about you will be there by your side.

4. Find a hobby: I know you probably won't have a ton of energy to do stuff, so I don't expect you to go out searching for silver in the Andes mountains in your free time or anything like that. But really do consider finding something you truly enjoy a great deal. Ideally something you can do sitting or lying down. It doesn't necessarily matter what, as long as it makes you happy and passes the time. Time is something you have a lot of and it's good to do things that you like so it seems to just fly by! There's not much more dreary than sitting in a hospital room doing absolutely nothing for hours on end, I can testify to that with much gusto. If you can do something enjoyable, learn a new craft or make something awesome, then I guarantee that it'll be time to go to sleep before you can say "Wow look at this perfect scale model of the International Space Station that I made!"

5. Don't be afraid to ask questions: Doctors are (usually) very smart. They know a lot of things. This means that if you have a question about this or that, they can probably answer it. Just because it can be difficult to follow your treatment plan or there's eight quadrillion different drugs that you have to take doesn't mean you have to sit clueless in your hospital bed staring blankly at a droning doctor until your eyes get stuck that way. If you don't understand something, ask! And be sure to do research as well, there's new treatments coming out all the time, there might be something beneficial that hasn't been explored too thoroughly yet. See what your doctor thinks of that. The nurses too are genius, they know all sorts of little tricks for combating all kinda of ailments, see if they have advice for you. I promise that one or two of them will come up with something that might be of use to you. If not, ask someone else. From my experience the nurses in oncology wards are some of the best around, don't be nervous about asking somebody a question or two, they don't bite (and if they do I bet you could make a lot of money off of a lawsuit so it's a win-win really).

Well that concludes part one of Awareness Week. Click the "Subscribe" button off to the right to get a notification of the next edition coming soon to this blog near you!

And blog? Thank you for being so understanding and letting me post a bunch of semi-ridiculous pictures up on you, I know how much you hate pictures. I dunno why, you're kinda weird.

Sincerely, your pictorially-enamored master, Andrew

Nick Hollon: Tracking Success

Hi blog,

You may have noticed a couple changes in your look, I may have done a slight makeover and then had your name changed. Originally, you were named after my book, but that seems like a bit too much like shameless self-promotion, so after some brainstorming with Nick (details to follow shortly), I came up with your NEW title! "Surviving the Cure." Since this is a blog from a cancer survivor who has dealt with numerous issues stemming from his treatments that saved his life, it seemed very appropriate to come up with a title that related to that in some way. Several bad ideas later, I came up with this name and Nick immediately latched onto the idea. So this is your new name (until I think of something better, if I ever do), I hope you like it! Because there isn't a damn thing you can do to change it!

Okay, now I said "details to follow" earlier, so I'll get into that. Nick and I met yesterday for our weekly book-related meeting. I had tasked him with rewriting some of his rough draft and giving me ten pages of his best ever work for me to edit, and I would give him ten pages of my more recent stuff for him to edit. Both of us handed the other our ten pages (Nick gave me fifteen pages, but I only got through about ten of them for the sake of time) and I busted out my Red Pen of Death (people who have suffered my editing know to fear the RPD) and got to work. He finished in about twenty minutes, both of us very quiet as we marked and remarked and scribbled out and circled things on the other's paper. Although he had finished, I was only about halfway through his section, being the horrifically meticulous editor that I am, so he spent the remaining time of my editing working on his book some more. 

He started with my work, pointing out some issues I had using a passive voice at times and correcting me on a few facts when it came to writing about him. The section I had given him consisted of a gruesome story about my neck and then another section talking about Nick's 100-mile run around the high school track to raise money for cancer research. Once he finished, I went and pointed out the single most confusing metaphor I have ever come across in my entire life. I was so confused that I went and showed it to my dad, thinking that I perhaps didn't understand it for one reason or another and that was a personal failing on my part rather than a rambling monstrosity that Nick put in. After a couple minutes, my dad looked to us and said, "Is this supposed to be a metaphor for something?" I busted out laughing, feeling vindicated. Nick had a hard time explaining it himself, so I told him to get rid of it. 

The last thing we did was talk about blog management (hence the name change). We went over some ideas for putting stuff up on our blogs, which I shall begin instituting next week, so stay tuned to find some amusing and possibly interesting facts and posts. The session ended with my idea of posting up part of our memoirs that we've been working on so you get a sense of what we've been doing. I'll be putting up my section about Nick doing his 100-mile run around the track. Here's an article written about Nick's monster run: Nick Hollon piles up miles to buoy leukemia-stricken pal

Nick is at the front of the pack, my dad center frame

Enjoy this little blurb from the book! Your (mostly) benevolent overlord, Andrew

Excerpt from Life Has No Title (working title):

Nick and I were both running our own races. I was fighting for my life, and he was running to live his. Our starting lines were separated by time and distance, but at some point our routes merged and led us to the same path. We ran together, sometimes one of us a little ahead of the other, sometimes a little farther behind, but we were on the same track, always ready to rejoin with the other when they needed it. And while time is the great separator and destroyer of connections, and while there were many different routes for either of us to take that would split us asunder, we never ventured onto them. When you find someone like Nick, the last thing you want to do is diverge from their path, you want to run with them as long as your legs can carry you. A guy like Nick is one in fifty million, nay, fifty billion. In all of human history there may have been only one other like him, and I think I know who: the Greek soldier who ran from Athens to Sparta before the Battle of Marathon to ask for the help of the Spartans. The man ran 140 miles straight and arrived the day after he set off. That man's name? Nickademus Hollon the Elder. And it would be two and a half thousand years before Nickademus Hollon the Younger would walk this Earth, only to outdo his valiant predecessor in spectacular fashion.

I mentioned early on in this book that at our school we have a thing called the Senior Project, which involves a bunch of work that causes a great deal of resentment amongst the senior class, since we’re really the only school in the area that does it. For mine, I wrote a play. Nick decided he had to do one better than me, because he’s a competitive son of a bitch if nothing else.

When I was first diagnosed, Nick hadn’t yet decided on a project. He racked his brain, thinking, thinking, but nothing happened. After he came to visit me he felt like he needed to do something more. Like me, he sought purpose. It took him a little while before an idea planted itself in his mind and took hold like a beautiful weed, tenacious but wonderful, striking but stubborn. His love of running had been growing over the last few years, and the advice given to everyone on what to do for their Senior Projects was always: “Pick something you love.” Well, Nick loved running, so why not do something with that?

From there, it took him no time at all to work through the ideas. A 10k? For him, that was just an appetizer, a snack on the way to a larger goal. It wasn’t in his DNA to do something so insubstantial. We both liked acting, he thought about my own senior project and wondered if he could do a student written play and raise money that way. But his heart was leaving drama and shifting more and more into this primal desire to run and push himself. He had to do something with that.

What distance to do though? His original thought was 5000 miles, but breaking that up into a ten month period gave him an average of eighteen miles a day. He just had too much going on to do something so insane. After a bit of brainstorming with his mom, he came upon the magic number 3000. Nick liked that, he even came up with a name for himself. “Mr. 3000.” Catchy, clever, it might just work. With his running goal set, he now needed a monetary goal to aspire to. $10,000. Yes, that would do.

So while I was going through treatment and fighting to stay awake while bobbing along on the gentle waves of hardcore narcotics, Nick was pushing his body every day while riding a wave of endorphins, his own version of a high. Personally, I like his better. However, both of them are addicting in their own way. I tried to keep apprised of his situation, find out how he was doing, but I had become absorbed in my own issues and lost tabs on just about everyone around me, including the kid putting his body through hellish extremes on my account. He still came to visit, and I would ask him how the running was going and he would smile awkwardly and say it was fine. But as he left I always noticed that little limp, a stiff walk, a wince, something to belie the true pain he was enduring.

As great a kid as he was, as mature as he was, he was still a kid. Like just about everyone else who came to visit, he was uncomfortable with my situation. Who could blame him? It’s such an expected thing to be struck down out of nowhere, even worse when it’s somebody you know. I’d dealt with it a couple times in my short life already and it’s never easy. Yet despite his obvious discomfort, he would stay for hours at a time and talk and laugh and I could forget for a while just how shitty life truly was. Nick wasn’t ever one for letting people down, never has been, never will be.

I didn’t find out until the day of the event, May 17^th, what Nick had planned to do. I had been a bet preoccupied with my own situation, the outside world didn’t exist too much except where it affected me. I had given up trying to make an effort to think about others, I just didn’t have the strength anymore. Hell, I barely had the strength to think about myself at that point. But Nick…man, I talk about him like he’s a saint, and in some ways he is. It may look like I’m playing up his good qualities, but in truth there’s no way to quantify someone like him, he’s above words, descriptions, metaphors, all of it. All you need to know about Nick is that he’s a runner second and a good person first.

It turned out that Nick had been struggling with his fundraising goal. It was hard for him to balance out everything and also talk to a hundred different people to get small donations that would take him a thousand years and change to hit his goal. He would need to do something big and brash, something to really grip everyone’s attention and draw them in to raise more money. A big run would do it. How big though? A marathon’s worth? Naw, not Nick. Twice that? Nope. A nice, even number to really blow people’s minds. A hundred miles around the school’s track would do it. It would be easy to watch, people could run with him, and the news would eat it up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I had no idea what Nick would be doing that, day, I was just going about my life as usual, being miserable and trying not to think about it, being drugged up, not breathing very well, all those fun things I’d come to completely despise with a hateful passion in the hospital. Then, that afternoon, my mom asked me if I wanted to talk to Nick. I was confused, why would I want to talk to Nick? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to him, but my mom had never really asked me if I wanted to talk to someone before, normally either that person called or I did. She explained to me what Nick was doing, a hundred mile run around the Poway High track. I was stunned, that seemed freakishly long, almost the distance from Poway to City of Hope. In my mind, I imagined Nick running all the way here to visit me, and a little smile played upon my lips.

“Sure. I’d love to talk to him.” I figured that she would hand me my phone, but instead she grabbed my computer and opened up a video call to Nick. My dad was holding up his computer and running beside Nick when he answered.

“Hey man,” Nick said breathlessly, his eyes only occasionally darting toward the screen. He was in the zone, breaking his concentration just long enough to come up with a response. “How ya doin?”

“Oh you know,” I said vaguely. I had swapped out my full face mask for a nasal cannula, which consists of a thin hose and two hollow prongs that sit in your nostrils to deliver oxygen in that way. It seemed better that way, I didn’t want Nick to see me with the full setup. I didn’t want to depress him at all, he had more important things to focus on. It was ironic to think that, because here he was, running to raise money for leukemia research, and I didn’t want him to see how bad it could truly get. We’re funny creatures. “I’m all right,” I lied. “How are you doing?”

“Good,” he said, a little exhale puffing out with each step. “It’s damn hot out though.”

“How hot is it?” I asked.

“Over 100. Hot.”

“Hell that’s pretty hot. You holding up all right?”

“Yea fine. I’m at mile…” He stopped talking for a minute until he passed some off-screen marker. “Just got to mile 80. Need to go. Gotta focus. Take care.” His last jumbled words to me faded away as my dad came to a stop and walked off the side of the track to catch his breath.

I waited for dad to hold up the screen again and he showed me what Nick was doing. I couldn’t actually make him out, there was a large group of people running with him. “Looks like he’s doing pretty well,” I mentioned.

My dad turned the computer back around and nodded. “Yep. He’s really kicking ass. I’m going to try and run some more with him. Love you buddy. Love you sweetie pie,” he said to my mom, and hung up.

“Well that was nice to get to see him run,” mom said.

I was tired just from watching Nick run, I had no idea how he could still be on two feet, or even alive. 100 degree weather? The kid was nuts, and he was only eighteen. There was someone going onto much bigger and better things, a flair for the dramatic, enraptured with the grandiose, never willing to give in and always willing to give something a try. “Yea it was.”

Nick ran through the day, well past nightfall before he finally completed his 100 miles. He could barely walk the next day, his legs were jelly, his body aching almost as bad as mine, but he felt an immense pride and self-satisfaction at completing his almost insurmountable goal. I was proud of him, he had fought his fight and won it. I still wasn’t through mine though, and my opponent still had one trick left up his nasty sleeve. 

Return of the Chadi

Hey blog!

My brother Chad is home for spring break! It's a pretty funny story actually, so buckle up! (I don't think you have a seat belt, or a physical body for that matter, but it's just a figure of speech so don't spend too much time thinking about it, aigh?)

About a month ago my mom asked if Chad was coming home for spring break. His girlfriend (Erica) would be coming down, but Chad told her that he decided he was going to stay up in Humboldt (where he goes to school obviously) instead of coming back. Mom was bothered by this, she missed Chad and wanted him back, but in their Skype call she put on a brave face and told him in a not-at-all convincing tone that she hoped he had fun and would see him over the summer. In a resigned tone she said goodnight and almost immediately after hanging up sighed and said to us, "He's not coming home. I wish he would."

For the next couple weeks my mom didn't mention it, but then she got a strange message from Chad's girlfriend's mom saying that she was looking forward to seeing both Chad and Erica that spring break. Confused, my mom called Chad and asked him why Erica's mom thought he would be coming down for spring break. "Oh, must be some kind of mix-up," he said, shooting down the rising star of hope that mom had gathered up about Chad's return. "I'll be sure to text her and let her know that I'm not coming back. Thanks for letting me know." The conversation didn't last much longer and my mom was once again dejected that her son would not be coming to see her near the end of March as she wanted.

I got a call from Chad a couple days later, in which he spoke for no real reason in a hushed tone. "Hey Andrew. I decided I'm coming down for spring break. But it's a surprise, so don't tell mom. I'll need your help though when I get there."

"Sure thing," I told him, grinning ear to ear. I loved having Chad back home, it was nice to have somebody to actually hang out with rather than sit by myself most of the day and work on my book and relive old memories. "What do you need from me?"

"I'll probably be getting in late, so I'll need some help getting in." I assured him that I would do my part when the time came and hung up just a moment before I realized I had no idea when he was coming back. Oh well, he'll call me a couple days before and then I'll be able to let him in, easy peasy, I told myself.

Over the next couple weeks, my mom would intermittently bring up the fact that Chad had decided to stay at Humboldt, but it really became a daily topic a few days before his spring break was supposed to start. "I just can't believe he would stay up here. I mean Erica's down here."

"Maybe he just wants some time to himself," I said, my face deadpan so I wouldn't give away the secret of the year.

On Saturday I got a text from Chad saying he would be there at around 10:30 pm. When I asked him what day he meant, I didn't get anything for several hours, but eventually I got a response saying "Tonight." I looked at my phone. It read 8 pm. Well at least I got some head's up anyway.

My mom went to bed at 10:30 that night and I considered trying to find a way to keep her awake for a bit longer until Chad got home, but that might seem too suspicious so I wished her goodnight and went to watch TV until my little brother got home.

At 11 pm I got the text. "Here." Brief, to the point, informative, perfect. I headed out to the garage to let him in and winced as the metal grated against metal and let out a horrific squeal, so I stopped immediately and gestured that Chad should crouch underneath it, just barely clearing the bottom of the door. I closed it again and this time we both grimaced as the agonizing noise scraped against our eardrums. "That's loud. Do you think that woke them up?" Chad asked as I shut the latch.

"Naw. Should be fine." I opened the door to the house and locked it behind us. He was holding two plates. "What are those for?"

"I'm bringing them back."

Chad snuck past mom and dad's room and I waited in the hall as he put his stuff away. He came back out with the dishes and came over to me. "Do you think I should just go to bed and let them find me there? Or should I wake them up?"

"What do you think?"

"Might be nice to surprise them. Your choice."

Chad nodded and disappeared into the dark room. I followed behind him and watched with amusement as he shook mom quietly. "Hey mom? I brought your dishes back?"

"Hm?" she muttered as she turned to look up at Chad. I switched on the lights and mom blinked slowly several times as Chad held out the dishes to her. Confusion danced across her face for a moment, and then the whole thing lit up like a hundred-foot Christmas tree. "Chad!!" she sighed happily. "Oh Chad you're home! Bill! Chad's home!" she mewed joyfully. She aww'd and ooh'd repeatedly as she hugged my brother and I sat down in the chair in the corner and watched as the three of them talked and my mom continued to make high-pitched noise of happiness.

Mom has been overjoyed that Chad is home and I'm quite happy as well. We've all been having a great time. Luckily mom decided not to go up to surprise Chad at Humboldt like she planned, that would have been funny though. The family goes up, the other comes home. It was good Chad told me so I could have nixed that plan should mom had decided to go through with it. He'll be home until Saturday night, and we'll be doing as much as we can as a family. Unfortunately Chad has a cold now, great timing right?

Just thought I would share that story with you blog, I can tell you were absolutely enraptured by that roller coaster of sorrow and joy.

Your yarnspinning master, Andrew

Gravity? I Hardly Knew Her!

Hi blog!

Sorry for not posting on Saturday like I promised, I was busy writing up a long post for my other blog. I hope you can forgive me. If not, too bad, deal with it.

Groundbreaking news time! Scientists announced today that they have discovered direct evidence of gravity waves, which help to prove that inflation occurred after the Big Bang! Inflation is the event that took place very, very shortly after the Big Bang and started off the rapid expansion of the universe, which continues to this day. Gravity waves were predicted by Einstein in his general theory of relativity, but it has taken almost 100 years to find proof of their existence. Now, a group of scientists searching for these gravity waves have found direct evidence of them from their post in the South Pole. Now, until other groups can verify these finds, it is difficult to accept the findings without some trepidation, but if they are accurate, as I suspect they might be, we could be looking at a very big step toward understanding our universe's birth!

From gravity waves to...um, other things. I hate transitions, I don't know what it is about them, but I thoroughly dislike them. Anyways, back on track! Over the last few days I've been feeling rather dizzy out of nowhere. I'm not sure if it's the heat (it really hasn't been THAT bad) or if the house has been stuffier than usual or maybe it's just stress. I'm leaning toward a combination of stress and stale air, since I've felt like it's been harder to breathe at times. It didn't happen much today, but I'll be keeping an eye on it.

Also today: I almost ran over a coyote. Yea, I know, right blog? Crazy! I was driving to physical therapy when I happened to notice a brown bag laying in the middle of the street. I stared at it for a second and then realized something was trotting away from it at a lackadaisical pace. It looked like a dog. My first thought was that it was a stray, but when it turned its head I saw the very familiar color pattern and face of a coyote. I immediately lifted my foot off the accelerator and covered the brakes, uncertain of what the animal would do. It just looked at me though, not with huge, scared eyes, but in a very calculated way. As I drove closer, I started to apply a bit of pressure to my brakes when suddenly the coyote made a break for the side of the road. It sprinted out in front of my car when I was only a couple hundred feet away. Instantly I drove my foot down to the floor and winced as my tires locked up and shoved me forward, a squeal piercing the morning air as I came to a halt not but six feet away from the creature. It hadn't even made it halfway past my car, but it soon disappeared off the side of the road and vanished from view. I sat there for a couple seconds, shook my head, rolled my eyes, and drove on as though nothing had happened. I dunno why it was out in the middle of the road like that, maybe there was food in the bag or it was actually a dead animal, who can say? All I know is that it WASN'T a very wily coyote...

Your punny overlord, Andrew

Revolutionarily Radical Revelations (and hyper-peanuts)

Dear blog,

Well today was a very good day indeed! "Why?" I hear you asking (in my head...I'm not crazy...) Well I'll tell you why! If only you'll listen.

Firstly, you know I've been working on this memoir of mine, with the working title the same as the blog name Life Has No Title. It's been a very challenging effort for me, but some of that difficulty has been alleviated with the help of my friend Nick (his blog is Ultrademus), who I'm sure I've mentioned several times before. He and I try to meet once a week to discuss how our projects are going (he's also writing a memoir) and to talk about all sorts of other things: marketing, publishing, editing, and sometimes just random tangents (I told him about the sodium leeches, he thought it was funny). Today was an especially productive meeting though! I've been having trouble deciding how to finish my book. Do I want to end it on a surgery? On a note I wrote, thinking I wasn't going to survive the surgery mentioned in the previous sentence? Going back to school maybe? Recovery? All sorts of ideas and more floated in my head, and none of them seemed right. Then, I typed into Google "How to end a memoir" and read some of the tips giving by one website. If your book has a theme throughout, try to start and end the book with imagery from that same scene. I mentioned it to Nick and then told him about my prologue, which had a great story in it about how I found the meaning of life in four words. Inspiration struck like lightning from on high! I could break up the prologue into two parts: the new prologue would consist of the first half of the story, and the epilogue could consist of the second half of the original prologue story! At the end of the book I would have my four word meaning of life be the last four words of the book! Several weeks of angst and worry about not knowing how to finish my book were gone! I have an ending now! Huzzah!

Another thing we have discussed, and I have mentioned in brief before, is the use of alliteration to come up with a snappy and memorable term that will really stick in people's mind. Humans are hardwired to appreciate alliteration, it's a pattern, and humans LOVE patterns, our brains can't get enough of them. For those unfamiliar with the term, an alliteration is where a series of words all begin with the same letter or sound. Example: "Alliteration always amazes Andrew." See how the first letter of each word begins with "A?" That's alliteration. The one that has been mentioned before in my blog was "manufactured mortality," a term used to describe Nick's desire to push his body to the absolute limits in his running. It's catchy, sticks with you, and helpful for marketing. Advertisers love using alliteration, as do poets. Perhaps it's not as useful in a non-fiction memoir, but it's fun to use. 

Can you think of a good alliteration? Post your alliterations in the comment section below!

There's a massive star in the Milky Way called HR 5171 A (click the link for a video) that was recently revealed to be 1300 times the size of our sun. That's freakishly massive. To give you an idea, it's 1.1 BILLION miles across. It's one of the ten largest stars ever discovered. However, that's not why I'm writing about it today. It's a peanut. Yes, I know blog, it's not ACTUALLY a peanut, but you'll see. It was recently discovered, along with its true size, that HR 5171 A has a sister star orbiting around it. The two stars are so close that the other star actually TOUCHES HR 5171 A, causing it to resemble a giant peanut...that just so happens to be well over a billion miles wide. 

Artist's Rendition of the HR 5171 system

Yes blog, I know it's incredibly nerdy, but also pretty nifty! (Okay, that sealed my nerddom right there by using the word "nifty," I accept what I am though!) However, I shall make it up to you in a few different ways. Firstly, I would like to announce that I will begin a "Question of the Week" whereupon people will post a question to me, and I will choose one to answer at the start of each week (or the end, if nobody posts a question before then). The questions can be about anything or nothing, but please, feel free to post them in the comment section!

Second, a meme! Okay...TWO memes!

And finally, some beauty to brighten your day! Or night...or whatever time it is when you're reading this.

This is a star cluster at the center of the Rosette Nebula (it looks like a rose when zoomed out), which is a stellar nursery where newborn stars are formed. The colors correspond to different elements. Blue for oxygen, green for hydrogen, and red for sulphur. Wind from the newborn stars sculpts the gas and dust around them and disperses the clouds that helped to form them, blowing away the material around them to create a bubble of space.

I think I've inundated you with enough pictures for today blog, I hope you enjoy them. Take care, your image-happy overlord, Andrew

The Sodium Lamp Mystery

Hi blog,

I apologize for not saying hello to you yesterday. I dislike deviating from our scheduled dates, but I had an extremely busy and exhausting day and by the time I had settled in for the day it was far too late to get anything done. So again, my apologies blog, I'll try to keep that from happening again. 

It's been a tough few days for me. I've been making decent progress on my book (although it has slowed a bit), but I'm in the worst part of my story. It's the most painful to write. Every paragraph grips my chest like a starving anaconda around its next meal, the anxiety floods into my system and threatens to paralyze me and send me spiraling down into endless oblivion. I seem to have some morbid fascination with pushing myself harder and harder to see where my wall is, at what point I'll simple cave in and implode in spectacular fashion. I haven't reached it yet thankfully, but I know I have to finish this section sooner rather than later, because the longer I take to muddle through it, the more risk I'm putting myself at for some kind of breakdown or relapse. And yet I'm having trouble getting up the courage to write, I keep finding ways to subconsciously sabotage myself and get distracted so I wind up not writing. This allows me to avoid the immediate damage from stress and anxiety, but I still feel the looming pressure to finish the book weighing down on me, and I can't allow myself to get mired just because my chest is tight and my stomach twisted up in a series of knots so complex not even Houdini could escape from them. March on writer, tell your tale. I'll let you know how it goes blog, I have a meeting with Nick on Thursday so hopefully I'll have gotten a bit more writing done by then.

And now, space! In case you didn't know, the TV show "Cosmos" (originally hosted by the eminent astronomer Carl Sagan) has been rebooted! It's on Fox on Sundays at 9 pm (in case you wanted to watch).  It's now being hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (another astronomer) who once met Sagan when he was young. The show talks about our world, the universe, life, science, all that good stuff. The first episode was sort of a basic run-down of science and our place in the universe, giving Earth's "cosmic address" so to speak. Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Local Group (the small group of galaxy immediately around the Milky Way), the Virgo Supercluster (a much larger group of galaxies that the Milky Way is a part of), and finally, the Universe (and maybe the Multiverse after that, but I shan't get into that). For me, it's rudimentary stuff, I know most of it because I'm a massive space nerd (and a nerd in general to be fair), but I'm still very much looking forward to it. The show mostly targets a younger audience (the somewhat cheesy animation belies that fact), but I think the idea of trying to interest this generation's children and teenagers into finding science cool is a very noble one indeed. It's something that we have kind of fallen away from in recent years, knowledge is not "cool." But think of what might happen if we can get people to become interested in science again. One of those kids might become the next Einstein or Sagan, adding a tremendous insight into some aspect of our lives that will change everything around us for the better. Knowledge is power is a phrase that has stuck with us for so long because it is the absolute truth. Try to learn more, soak up the information around you, because we live in a fascinating world that we're only just starting to understand.

And in trying to understand the world, we come to a mystery so vast and enigmatic, that the government has tried to keep the truth a secret for the better part of a century. The mystery? How sodium lamps work. Sodium lamps are most commonly used as street lamps, and have a very strange quality to apparently suck the color out of everything nearby, leaving the world a Twilight Zone gray devoid of a rainbow of color until you step out from under their influence. The government would have you believe that the reason for this has to do with the type of light being emitted, but it's just a lie to cover up the truth. You want to know what sodium lamps REALLY are? They're containers holding...sodium leeches! "What's a sodium leech?" I hear you asking me. A quick search of the internet turns up nothing, because the government is hiding them! These strange creatures live in a glass case filled with a saline solution (hence the name "sodium leech") and live off of certain wavelengths of light, specifically those given off by color! All of this light is "sucked" up into the container held high off the ground, where the leech absorbs it and radiates the extra energy as the harsh orange-yellow glow that you see from the sodium lamp. Sodium leeches are nocturnal, and direct light kills them, so they are kept housed and protected by special glass that keeps out bright lights while still allowing them to absorb the colored wavelengths they need and to release their glow to allow them to light our streets. So the next time you drive past a sodium light, remember...there's a weird little creature glowing in there, say hello and thank you.

Because I failed to write in you yesterday, all of my posts for this week will be shifted by one day. Expect Thursday and Saturday postings. That is all for today.

Your gut-wrenched, anxious, but still in charge somewhat benevolent overlord, Andrew

How Small Mexican Tacos Saved My Sanity

Dear blog,

I met with Nick yesterday for our weekly meeting on our book projects. While we did not do any writing and it was a little shorter than usual, he and I came out of the meeting with several very important things to take away.

1. We discussed ways of making references to each other's work. 
2. We read part of our books to each other and got feedback on them. Nick read to me a very emotionally raw and visceral experience he had that brought an upwelling of anger to him. He's an extremely expressive writer and it gave me a better understand of what he's gone through and what level his writing is on. It was also inspiring, because I have times when I just don't want to write at all, and knowing that I'm not the only one writing about painful times helps give me the kick in the pants (I don't normally wear pants) that I needed.
3. We have a list of assignments to do. Admittedly, we've not been great at some of these, but we're both getting better about it. 

Following up on this whole book subject, I came up with something interesting. Nick was talking about how in his ultramarathoning, he's pushing his body to the limits, getting as close to death as he can without actually being in much danger. I compared it to going to the limit of my body's endurance as well, albeit not very willingly. There's a high that Nick gets from it, a feeling of higher purpose when he's so close to hitting the wall and giving up. It's something that he strives for in his running, he wants to approximate death in some way. I came up with a term for it that I thought both very apropos and kinda catchy: manufactured mortality. I'm curious to get some opinions on the term and if you think it fits with Nick's attempts to push his body to the very limit so he can experience something along the lines that I did to a simultaneously lesser and greater extent. What do you think of the term? Appropriate? Stupid? Catchy? Please let me know, I would appreciate it. I would hate to release this vile, evil, destructive Attack Puppy on you...maybe.

Blog...I'm reaching the hardest part of writing my memoirs. It's going to be a very hard week or two while I shove my way through it. I fully expect a couple tears to be shed and a lot of anxiety and stress to flood into my brain. I finally got past the point when I was put into a medically induced coma (March 2008, six years ago. I was taken out of the common exactly six years ago yesterday), but the worst has yet to come. The very next part describes how I should have died and begins the part of the story that I find the most important: what happens after you survive. For me, trying to adjust to life again after all that has happened to me is almost harder than surviving in the first place. I know I'm not the only one who has these problems, it's a lot more common than most people realize. The whole point of my book is to raise awareness for the side effects of treatment and hopefully to both inspire and help others in similar situations get through it. I also have a very lofty goal of possibly influencing policy in some way to provide a more cohesive and unified survivor program that would help those coming out of radiation treatments or chemotherapy or transplants only to find their bodies radically altered and suffering the side effects of surviving. I feel it's a topic hardly discussed and want to bring it to the foreground so something can be done to make life better for people after they have survived, so that they can better enjoy their lives with the freedom they deserve after such a harrowing and unfair experience. 

Do you know who was one of the greatest and most well respected heros of the American Revolution? George Washington, sure. The Marquis de Lafayette, yea okay. But you probably wouldn't have guessed...Benedict Arnold??? That's right, good ol' Benedict, before he turned traitor and pulled a him, was actually one of the most praised and well-liked of all of the Revolutionary figures. People loved him, his troops would follow him anywhere, and he was a brilliant tactician who was one of the most important for saving the Revolution in the critical early years. After being treated like crap, denied recognition by his superiors, wounded, bankrupted by giving almost all of his money to the cause of freedom, and having his honor impinged upon by politicians insulting his good name by falling him a Loyalist (to the British empire), he got fed up and defected. Luckily, America's first spy ring (Culper Ring, a very interesting group of civilians, read more about it here: The Culper Spy Ring) was able to discover his plans to sell West Point to the British (which would have almost certainly cost us the war) and although Arnold escaped, he would eventually die broke and mistrusted by even the British in England.

And now, I will not address the blog for a moment (sorry blog, I'll get back to you, I promise) and would like to talk to my readership. I've been trying to drum up more views and interest in my blog, as random as it is, and would love to reach a wider audience. So if you have read this blog and enjoy it, please share it with your friends or post it on your Twitter or Facebook. I will be extremely grateful, thank you! As an extra incentive to comment (shifting topic a smidge), I will start taking requests for short stories and plan to write a one thousand word short story every couple weeks based on some of those ideas and will give the person whose story idea I choose recognition for the idea! So if you've ever had a story idea that you thought was good but never got written, here's your chance to see that come to fruition!

Hello again blog! I told you I hadn't forgotten about you. As a show of appreciation for your patience, here's a pretty funny video that Nick made about small Mexican tacos. It's called...Ode to Small Mexican Tacos. I think you'll like it blog, I was cracking up the whole time he was showing it to me during our meeting yesterday. It helped me get through what would have been an otherwise difficult session by improving my mood and decreasing my anxiety. 

Well that's it for this week blog. Hopefully you enjoyed my words, and if not, well, not much you can do it about. 

Your master scribe, Andrew