And Now, Some News!

Hi blog,

Still no hello back? Maybe someday you'll stop being so shy.

Anyways, news!

Doesn't look terribly healthy

After waiting over two weeks to get the results of my CT scans of my shoulders back, I got a call from the doctor's office on Monday (I called five times over the course of those two weeks) and the nurse actually asked me to come in just a couple hours later so the doctor could tell me what he saw. So, I went in and waited nearly an hour to see the doctor before he showed up and pulled up the images of my CT scans. (On a side note: I was told, based on the x-rays, that I would probably only be a candidate for a reverse shoulder replacement, which is the surgery of last resort and they don't like doing it on anyone over 70 because there's nothing to fall back on after it wears out in 8-10 years.) As it turns out, the scans showed that while the ball joint looked like hell, the socket of both shoulders are both relatively intact! The reason it took so long to get the results back is because my doctor wanted to confer with another surgeon up in San Francisco, and they both agreed that it's possible for them to do a partial shoulder replacement on both left and right shoulders! It's the least difficult of the surgeries, the one they would go to first, rather than the last-resort reverse replacement. A partial means that they would only replace the ball joint and leave the socket as it is. If the doctor is doing the surgery and he does the partial replacement and he doesn't like how it works, he can always switch to a total replacement (replacing both the socket and the ball) while he's still in there. This is (relatively) excellent news in terms of what kind of recovery and future I'm looking at. A partial replacement would mean that I have two more surgeries to fall back on after the first wears out. It means I won't have to hope that some new technique comes out soon like I would if I did the reverse. So, I guess I'm happy. Except...

It turns out that I won't actually be able to get my shoulder done until July 29th. Yea. Two months from now. The surgery scheduler at the doctor's office is working on finding some OR (operating room) time sooner so I don't have to wait that long, but I'm understandably concerned. Mostly because if I wait that long, I can't be sure that there won't be more damage to the joints and then I won't be able to do the partial replacement surgeries. Also, if I can get the first surgery done during the summer, recovery can happen before I go back to school in the fall and it would just make life a lot easier. Also, I despise waiting. I get too much time to think when I wait. And the pain has been getting worse in both shoulders on a nearly daily basis as well, so more waiting means more pain for longer, and quite frankly I don't really like pain all that much, so I'd rather get the surgery done as soon as possible.

My apologies for taking so long to relay this information, but hopefully you're more patient than I am dear reader and blog. I can smell the irony from here.

More news: I'm done with school for the semester (and did really well by the looks of it), so I can get back into writing again. I did a bit yesterday and it literally felt like my fingers had rusted up from misuse (despite using them constantly for typing all sorts of other things besides my book). The first 500 words or so took much longer than usual as my stiff and unresponsive fingers creaked and groaned and strained against my willpower until I managed to painstakingly put one word after another onto the electronic page. It got easier the more I wrote, and actually the whole experience was significantly less troublesome than I anticipated. Generally when I go on writing hiatuses it takes an enormous amount of effort to get back into the story, but this time I slipped back in with relative ease. I'm pleased.

I saw Nick today as well, the two of us got together and discussed a number of things regarding the books. We finished our book proposals and are now sending them out to editors and publishers to see what they think and if anyone would be interested. We also talked about how I should end my book (still not sure, since my issues are ongoing and I don't really have a very definitive stopping point on which to end on a high note), how much progress we've both made (not too much), and set goals for how much we need to get done by the next time we see each other. We also did some writing exercises and wrote for an hour. 

For the writing exercise, we wrote down a number of words and attached three other words to those, and then circled one and gave it to the other to write a five-minute short story about. My word was German. Here's what happened:

Helga and Zer Ax

Helga swung her ax and split the wood with one clean stroke. Her husband made an irritated huffing noise and shook his head. “Ja, you can choop zer vood like a man, but you vill never pass for one, for your breasts are larger than most boulders.”

Helga sighed and slammed the ax-head into the stump with barely a thought, her oxen-like muscles laughing at the pitiful ease of her task. “Ja dear hoosband, but you forget zat no vun vill care, because I can beat zem at zer arm wrestling.” She flexed her arm and a small shockwave ripped apart one wall of their meager shed. “Oopsie, sorry dear hoosband, I forget myself soomtimes.”

Yea. That's about it for now. I'll keep you updated dear blog when I find out more about the surgery dates. 

Also, I'll be going up to San Francisco next weekend to spend time with my best friend from when I was young. I'm excited, I haven't really traveled anywhere too far since I got diagnosed, and this will be the first time I've been on a plane in over ten years. I'm a little nervous, but that's far outweighed by my excitement to see my friend and also the enormous step forward it represents in my recovery.

That's all for now. TTFN.

Your Germanic Topiary (HUH???),
Andrew

Reunion With a Mission

Hi blog,

I'm still waiting for the day you say "Hi" back blog, although I suspect it will unnerve me to no end.

Firstly, I saw Nick on Thursday and after hearing about my imploding shoulders he came over and gave me a bottle of Skele-Gro, filled with a "magical elixir" that may or may not have been untreated lake water stuck in an old bottle with a label printed up for minor comedic relief. He'll forgive me for being somewhat dubious.

My dubious face and toothpick

Anyway, getting on with stuff and all that. Yesterday was the 38th Annual Bone Marrow Transplant Reunion at City of Hope in Duarte, CA (which is near Los Angeles). I went up with my parents to what I assumed would be a gathering of a hundred people or so and doctors and a couple famous people to talk for a little bit and all that. Yea, no. There must have been upwards of a thousand people there underneath a forest of large tents and amongst a minor labyrinth of booths and food stops of all shapes of sizes (and cupcakes!). And while indeed there were some famous guests (such as comedian Sean Kent and musician George Winston (link: Musician George Winston has new goal: Say ‘thank you’ in German, a brief article about Mr. Winston meeting his German bone marrow donor)), there was also a young girl around nine years old who played a touching rendition of Kermit the Frog's Rainbow Connection on the ukulele (which she first played for her doctor during treatment) and I'm pretty sure I heard sniffles all around me in that giant tent. Many a handkerchief and tissue were pulled out, I assure you it was very much warranted.

Left to right: Pamela Bundy, Dr. Anna
Pawlowska, Me, and Bill Bundy

I think for me though, the best part about going to the reunion was getting to see one of my oncologists. Dr. Pawlowska (a name I can now spell without any assistance at all, which she thought was rather humorous), whom I haven't seen in several years. The last time I saw her, I weighed an extra fifty pounds and had no hair (that part hasn't changed, as you can tell by the pictures). She greeted me with a patently thick-accented "Wow! You look excellent!" That's definitely one thing you really like to hear from someone who saw you at death's door once upon a time. The five of us (one of the social workers I knew from the hospital was there as well) talked and I discussed what was going on in my life and how things were going (keeping a positive spin on all of it). She was particularly interested in my book and wants a copy of the rough draft when I finish it. Of course, she'll also get a signed copy of the first edition when it goes to print, but that goes without saying.

I did have a secondary mission, co-crafted by myself and Nick, for when I went to the BMT Reunion. I brought with me a handful of information packets describing both Nick and mine mission statement (talking about who we are, our information, what we're working on (the books), and why we're doing it) and also a little about the two of us, including excerpts from our books. I still had several copies left over by the time I was about to leave, so I leapt into salesperson overdrive and handed them out to random people, giving them a brief synopsis of mine and Nick's tale and what the small document was I had just stuck into their hand. I wish I could have better explained it to them and really given them a better idea of what was going on when I handed them the papers, but I only just managed to give out the last one by the time my dad drove up in the car, and with City of Hope being near LA, the sooner we left, the better. Traffic added an hour onto the drive back, which actually isn't too bad, you know, considering it's LA.

To the people who got the handouts: I would like to briefly mention that I have written a kind of Awareness Week series of posts that discusses helpful tips for cancer patients and survivors that you or someone you know may find useful. Please feel free to pass them along if you think they will help.
Awareness Week Part 1: Surviving Cancer
Awareness Week Part 2: Combating Side Effects
Awareness Week Part 3: Life is Mental


On a side note: I also reaffirmed what a light sleeper I am. I love toothpicks, and when I take micronaps or suspect I might fall asleep but am already chewing on a toothpick, I just tuck it behind my ear for safekeeping. Well, I was resting against the window and mostly asleep when I felt the toothpick start to slide out from behind my ear. This brought me out of sleep just barely, but once the toothpick fell out and into my lap I jerked away as though there had been a supernova ten inches from my face (actually that wouldn't have woken me up so much as completely vaporized me). Yea...light sleeper.


Earlier in the post I mentioned the mission statement Nick and I crafted and it dawned on me that it might not be a bad idea to include it. So...

 Life Has No Title by Andrew Bundy and Ultra Souls: The Tale of Mr. 3000 by Nickademus Hollon are separate memoirs that follow the lives of two friends whose paths are pulled apart by cancer yet grounded through friendship. These memoirs document unique, vivid stories told from entirely different perspectives. Life Has No Title follows Andrew on his journey through hell and back, from the diagnosis of Acute Myeloid Leukemia to fighting tooth and nail through post-cancer treatments and surgeries, each leaving their own multitude of scars both physical and emotional. His story is inspirational and filled with laughter, tears, pain, misery, and hope. By providing a tale of survival against all odds this book proves that no matter how insurmountable life can seem at times, there is always a chance and always hope.
Meanwhile, Ultra Souls: The Tale of Mr. 3000 is the other side of the coin. The book follows Nickademus after he’s deeply moved by his friend’s diagnosis. During his last year in high school, Nickademus embarks on a project to run 3000 miles in order to raise awareness and funds for his friend Andrew. During the project, he discovers his passion for running long distance and quickly begins a career in Ultra-Marathon running, taking on and winning some of the world’s most difficult foot races. The two books are intertwined stories of survival and what it’s like to live on the fringes of existence. These tales of determination, depression, will, anger, and hope are told from two entirely different perspectives, yet crafted together through an enduring friendship strengthened through adversity.

Andrew Bundy is a survivor in every sense of the word. he was diagnosed with cancer at the age of 18, just weeks before graduating from high school. After multiple rounds of chemotherapy and scores of treatments and surgeries, Andrew has come out of it all as a survivor. He hopes to use his love of writing and his painful, yet inspiration tale to change the lives of others for the better.

Nickademus Hollon is a professional endurance athlete, most notable as the world's youngest finisher of the Badwater 135-mile footrace and winner of the 2013 Barkley marathon, a notoriously difficult 100-mile footrace. Nickademus is constantly pushing the limits of human potential and uses his gifted athleticism to motivate and inspire others to do the same. 

Anyways, that's all for now. Blog, thank you for taking the time to let me write you. I know it must be somewhat tedious, albeit exciting that you actually have some activity and so much of it! I'll let you take your pick of which one is true.

Your long-winded ruler,

What the Book is Going On?

Hi blog,

I know I said I would update you on Friday, but I didn't. I promise not to tell the readers if you don't, okay?

I had some CT (or CAT) scans done on Saturday of both my shoulders so the doctor could more accurate determine the amount of damage and what surgical possibilities are open to me. Unlike x-rays, CT scans get a 3-D image and shores the target in much finer details and with the extra dimension of depth. This allows for a much better understanding of the issues that may be present in the target. The technician who did the images said I should probably find out on Wednesday or thereabouts.

Anyways, I promised an update on the book, so let's get to it.

The last time I mentioned my book, I talked about finally getting out of the horrible year of 2008 and how great it felt to be free of that part of my life (in the sense of the book, obviously it's still going to impact me). In the three weeks following that post I've made it another three years to March of 2011. The rate of progress increased enormously once I was out of what I felt was the worst of it. I thought that it would get easier to write after all the nasty things in 2008, and it did, but not nearly as much as I figured it would. Things are still difficult, probably because I remember them better and more vividly than I had when I was writing about being drugged up and in the hospital. Those memories from back then were blocked out, but the more recent ones are not. The closer I get to the present, the better I remember and the more emotion is connected to them. For the most part, I've just pushed through it. In fact, I managed to write 30,000 words in the course of a week after really just going into hyperdrive. Those are the kind of levels of writing I achieved when working on my (fictional) novel (which was a lot easier to write due to the fact that it didn't bring up excruciating memories for me, being as it was fictional).

This is my greatest fear about the book...

I've been saying to myself "Oh I'll be done soon. I'm just about ready to finish up and this last bit won't take too long." I'm talking about my autobiography, just to be clear. Well, I seem to have a knack for making things pretty long (still the book), and the 100,000 word book I intended to write became 125,000 word book that I intended to write and is now just a smidge under 150,000 words long and I still have three more years to write about. Fortunately, one of those years is this year, so that might make it easier. I have a feeling I'll get about another month before I'm done and hopefully it'll stay under 200,000. I think that once I get to editing I can remove large chunks of it. The problem is, it's hard to cut out parts of your life that you think are important. It's difficult to tell the difference between what should be in the story and what shouldn't be. This is where other people come in. They can be more objective about it than I can and once I finish the rough draft I can start getting good insight as to what is important and what isn't. Now I just have to finish it...

Unfortunately, I need to take a break from writing for a couple weeks (insert sound of me screaming in frustration here). I have a final for my sociology class on Thursday and the final project the Thursday after that. The final project is some kind of scrapbook where you find 15 objects from your life and attach sociological terms to them, write a paragraph about why you picked that object and how it fits in with sociology, and then also write a two-page essay on why sociology matters or something like that. To be honest, I haven't really looked too much into any of it yet (although I have read through the prompt a couple times), so in order to make sure I put enough effort into this project to get a good grade, I need to set aside my writing until I can finish the project. The writing will be there when I get back (you have no idea how hard it is for me to say that. Writing is, and always will be, my deepest love [except maybe space]), but in order to do well in this class, I need to make that sacrifice. Also, writing about my past is stressful as all get out (which makes sense). So this might help some of the rising stress levels I've been facing lately between the writing and school and all the medical crap that's been going on. Look for the silver lining, right?

Anyways, that's about it with the writing. I'll include a sample of my work below once I figure out what to include. Not that you'll know how long it took me, because it'll just be a quick scroll for you. But for me, it'll take some figuring out. All you have to do is read.

Once I get an update about the shoulders I'll put together another blog post. I'm trying to be more regular about this while still providing actual information of interest. I know how much you like real information blog. Kinda.

Your creator and general kerfuffler,
Andrew

Book Excerpt:

Just as I was finishing up my semester, I got a message from my high school AP Biology teacher. He asked if I wanted to give a talk to some of his AP Bio students about my experience, since they were going over cancer in class at the time. Plus, after the AP tests the next week, his students wouldn’t have as much to do as a normal class. I told him sure, that would be fine.

Now what the hell do you say to a bunch of sixteen and seventeen-year-old kids who probably don’t want to hear about some former student talk about the horrific world of cancer? Jokes. You tell them jokes.

Although I’d just given a talk at the Relay for Life less than a month before, I was still nervous about doing this one. After all, that had been a two-minute deal, and this would last nearly an hour. A slight difference between the two I think. And this would be in front of fewer people, so I couldn’t just look out above the crowd or at my notes like before, I would have to make…eye contact! (Dun dun dunnnnnnnn)

Anxious as I was about public speaking, I started to come up with some ideas. I could just give a prepared speech, but I knew I would just end up reading from the piece of paper I brought from me and wouldn’t seem at all genuine. I could bring pictures too. Yes, pictures. A note card full of boring facts to present as punctuations of my narrative would be helpful as well. It was really a patchwork job, I always hated preparing for speeches. It seemed Improv Club would come in handy after all.

I showed up early with my cane and a small packet of pictures to pass around once I got started. “Hey Mr. Chrispeels,” I said as I met my teacher and shook his hand.

“Thanks for coming. You’re looking good.”

“Not even, but thank you.”

“Well you look better then.”

I laughed. “Yea that’s true I guess. So do they actually know what’s going on?”

“They do. I’ll get them settled in and you can start as soon as they’re ready. Have a seat.”

I sat down on a swivel stool and spun myself around while frantically constructing a timeline of the last two and a half years in my head. The students filed in as only exhausted teenagers at 7:30 in the morning can do, grumbling and mumbling and looking ready to collapse. Me, I was bubbling with nervous energy, despite a horrible night’s sleep and a persistent pain in my ankle. “Good morning,” Chrispeels said to the weary-looking class. A smattering of hellos echoed weakly back. “Our speaker is here today. One of my former students. He’s going to talk about, well he can tell you that for himself, can’t he?”

“That’s the plan,” I said, swinging forward and trying not to have a panic attack as I looked at the curious and tired faces of nearly forty students.

“You’re ready then?” I nodded. “Okay. I’ll turn class over to Mr. Bundy. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be in the back, watching you.”

“Gee thanks,” I tittered nervously as I got up and stood in front of the class. Standing hurt. I sat down on the edge of Chrispeels’ desk. “Hey kids. I’m Andrew Bundy…”

As I started to talk about myself and my experience, I could see the mostly shut eyes of the students start to widen and their slouching posture improve dramatically. Okay, this is good, just keep it up, I told myself. Almost every other sentence became some type of joke, more for my own sanity and to keep from collapsing into the fetal position than to entertain the class. I didn’t realize how difficult just talking about it would be (writing it seems to be even worse, hell if I know why), and the humor helped to dampen the blow of reliving it. When I joked, the severity of the whole debacle lost its edge and the emotional torture of remembering dulled significantly.

I lost track of time, and it was only when Chrispeels mentioned that I only had ten minutes left and that it might be a good time to wrap up and answer questions that I blinked and realized I’d been talking for forty-five minutes to a rapt audience.

“…and now I’m here, waiting to get my ankles replaced. Any questions?”

A young-looking (they all looked young to me, a whole four years their senior). “I never realized it got like that after cancer. I always thought it was just cancer and then you were done.”

“That isn’t a question but I’ll answer it anyways.” I smiled at the series of chuckles. “It is a good point though. I never knew about it, not even when I was in chemotherapy. Nobody really talks about it. Probably just easier that way. They don’t want you to worry about all the problems that come after. Their main goal is to keep you alive. Maybe that’s why the public doesn’t know about it either,” I mused. “Sorry I’m tangenting. Next question?”

There’s something here, I told myself after they left. You were going to write a book. You gave up on that to save yourself the pain. But why not? It’s a story that needs telling. How many people know about just how bad things get after the cancer? Hardly any. Why not? That’s a good question. They should know though. They need to know. Who better to tell them than me? Probably lots of people, but maybe not. I didn’t know why I got sick, but I could give this horrible chapter of my life a purpose if I wanted to. Maybe it was time to do that.

“That was really great. You need to work on your projection a bit, but otherwise, really good.” Chrispeels wrote my name up on the whiteboard and stood against his desk. “I didn’t realize it got so bad.”

“I don’t think that many people do. My family and I tried to keep a positive face on it. It was actually worse than what I said. I didn’t want to freak them out too badly. Just a little bit.”

“Well you certain did that. Welcome, sit down,” he said to the incoming class. “This is my normal biology class. We’re going to do a lesson so you can wander around or hang out here if you want. Up to you.”

“I think I’ll go see who else is around. Thanks Chrispy. See you in a bit.”

With each class presentation, I got a little better, remembered a little more, and told slightly better jokes. By the time I was finished with the last class, I was tired and very satisfied with myself. Some of the pain experienced in the first class wasn’t present during the last. By repeatedly exposing myself to the painful memories, they got slightly easier to talk about. Maybe one day it wouldn't be so bad.