When Surgery is Good News

Hey readers,

So we're going to be going with a relatively short post this day. I suppose it's a good thing, not having that much to report and update you on. Mostly it'll be focused on news with my ankle.

After getting an MRI and some x-rays, I finally managed to get in to see my new ankle specialist. I went through the whole routine of filling out paperwork and running out of room where it says "List all surgeries with approximate dates" and having various nurses and doctors saying "Wow, aren't you a bit young for all this?" and "I'm sorry you had to go through all that." It's funny to see trained medical professionals act with the same stunned uncertainty that I see when "normal" people find out about my medical past and can't figure out how to express their pity and/or sympathy properly. But I did like the doctor, he listened to my opinions (I can't work with doctors that assume I know nothing and won't factor in my suggestions or treat me like an ignorant child), showed me what he saw in the MRIs and x-rays, and freely admitted that this was an extreme case and, rather than go forward assuming he knew best, wanted to get the opinions of some other doctors to see what they thought. I always like that, because I've had more than my fair share of arrogant doctors who think they know best and then turn out to be totally wrong.

The bone spurs are visible just to
the left of the screws

There is some separation of the bones that
is usually associated with older people

Now let's get into the specifics about the ankle. The x-rays and MRIs showed that there are some bone spurs on the inside portion of my left ankle, no real news there. However, he also spotted a stress fracture on the medial malleolus (lower tip of the tibia), which is right above where most of the pain has been located. It might be possible that at least some of the pain comes from this stress fracture. These are all pretty sedate problems for me, things can will either heal on their own or require basic surgery (which I'll discuss shortly) to fix.

The black areas surrounded by white
are where the AVN is most noticeable
(A dove-shaped area above and a
bridge-shaped area directly below that)

However, the MRIs showed a much more serious potential problem in the future. Back in 2010 I had ankle allografts on both ankles (basically removing part of my ankle and replacing it with donor bone) that helped with the damaged portions of my bones caused by AVN (a degenerative bone disease I got as a result of my cancer treatment's treatment, my not so little souvenir I picked up when I had to survive the cure). These donor bones were healthy and over the last few years they've looked very good on x-ray, everyone's been impressed by them. But looking at the MRIs of the ankle, the specialist saw that the AVN was now starting to affect the fresh, healthy bone. The AVN is very pronounced in the lower "knob" of the tibia and also in part of the talus (the part that had been replaced five years ago). Although it probably isn't causing my pain now, since AVN usually only hurts when it reaches the surface of the bone, which it hasn't done yet in the aforementioned areas, it will require additional surgery at some point. It could be years or decades from now, or it could be months, it's hard to say. Basically it'll happen when the pain comes back because of the AVN or if the structure collapses like it did back in 2009, which is what prompted the surgery in the first place.


Fortunately, the AVN is not an immediate problem, but it is something to keep an eye on. The more immediately problem (bone spurs) are a lot easier to fix. My doctor would prefer to be on the cautious side and err toward a minimalistic approach to healing, which I can totally get behind. The plan is to do arthroscopic surgery, which uses a small camera and instruments to see and clean out the damaged areas of the ankle, and then see if that helps sideline the pain for a little bit. Compared to the huge joint replacement surgeries I'm so familiar with, this is far less intrusive and debilitating. After the surgery, the specialist wants to see me every 6-12 months to get images of my ankle so we can check on its progress and catch any further damage early on, before it has a chance to morph into something major. Until the surgery, I've been given orthotics and a brace to help take some of the weight off of my ankle and alleviate the pain as much as possible. And I'll be back to using my cane to take weight off of my ankle. (The doctor felt bad for me, since I would "stick" (terrible pun) out, but told me I could use it to whack people. I think that's the moment I realized how much I liked this guy. Beating people with canes always makes me think of the man who tried to assassinate Andrew Jackson and the 67-year-old president wailed on the guy with his cane). All in all, it feels like this is something that can be taken care of easily and I'll be able to move past it with relative ease. I don't have a date yet for the surgery, but I'm supposed to get a call from the doctor's surgery scheduler to get that sorted out.

Until then, I'm going to keep chugging along and staying productive.
Ciao

Coming soon:
Keep an eye out for the next blog post, which will throw some hard truths and harsh spotlights on an issue that underlies everything in my life, and in the lives of millions and millions of other cancer patients and survivors.

PS: I don't think this was nearly as short as I thought it would be. Sorry for accidentally lying to you.

Another Milestone Down, Another Surgery Up

G'day errybody!

It has been an extremely hectic month, to say the least. I've been busy trying to sort out all the stuff from the last post and then some! Mostly I've been focused on the memoir and my physical health, although I have also started back up school. I've been able to get enough strength around my knee at physical therapy to avoid knee replacement surgery (yay). However, as I mentioned before, I do have a couple bone spurs in my ankles (boo). I'm going to have an appointment with an ankle specialist (my old one moved to Seattle shortly after I had the double ankle allograft) in a couple weeks to see what the best option is, but I'll likely have surgery to get the bone spurs removed. It's not as bad as it sounds actually. It's relatively minor, so much so that I could probably just do myself by this point. I might as well have the surgeon cut me open, point me in the right direction, and I'll chip the spurs away myself. Otherwise, my health has been rather quiet and uneventful. And you know what? I'll take uneventful with little change, it sure as hell beats the alternative that seems so dreadfully
common with me.

This is kinda how surviving feels

Onto writing news. I have finished the third draft of my memoir (yay)! It's kind of intimidating that I'm getting so close to having my book published. However, I have been getting some very positive feedback from a couple college professors that read the manuscript. I've been reassured that my book is an important part of helping to get awareness up about the many issues that face a cancer survivor. Both acute and chronic, from mental to physical to emotional, there are a great many pitfalls that await those freshly gifted with remission when there doesn't need to be. Lack of information and attention to what can be the most difficult part about cancer has constantly made my attempts to rebuild my life extremely difficult. So I am hoping that with this book and speaking events and the like I can do my part to make survivorship (the part of a cancer patient's tribulation that comes after the cancer is beaten back) just a little bit easier for the millions and millions of survivors and patients out there (which is the reason for starting the Surviving the Cure Facebook page that I'm hoping will gather momentum and help a bit with that awareness. If you feel so inclined, please like it and share it with your friends). Being reminded of my goal and told that this book has great potential to achieve it, well, that's a good vaccine against the anxiety and nerves surrounding the publication. At the moment, Nick and I are reading each other's books and helping to guide the other in the right direction and polish both our manuscripts up. And slim them down so we can cut down on costs when we send our stuff out to the editor.

Of course, even with the books finished we still have the networking and marketing aspect to take care of as well. Luckily, one of Nick's friends is a photographer (a very high-caliber one at that) who took some head shots of us for when we start the marketing campaigns. They turned out really well. I might actually use some for a more personal use. If I ever need eHarmony of something, I'll definitely be putting one of Keshav's pictures up there.

Nick and I | Credit: Keshav Dahiya

In addition to all of that, I've been working on a couple short stories. Plus a whole bunch of ideas that came rushing out of nowhere in a massive creativity dump over the last few days. Not that I'm complaining, I love creativity dumps. I just wish, you know, that they wouldn't be so distracting and alluring. To me, they're like sirens trying to call me away from the memoir and all the other things that need taking care of. I hear them whispering: "Bundy, Bundy, come write us. Write us good!" To which I usually reply: "You mean 'well'! It's 'well', not 'good'!" Then people ask if I'm okay and give me that look reserved for strangers that you can't quite be sure aren't totally insane. I mean maybe I am, but that's more fun than being normal in my mind. Normalcy is uber overrated.

So those short stories. One of them I'm planning to shop around to see if any magazines or something will want to publish it. It's a short mostly non-fiction piece about my dad's summiting of Mount Aconcagua in the Andes (highest peak outside the Himalayas). The other is a more standard short story for me, which I recently posted on my author page on Facebook. I'll start you out with the beginning at the end of this post and if you want to read on, go ahead and check out the rest of it on the Facebook page. While you're there, feel free to like it! I'll be posting excerpts from my memoir and other pieces of writing there from time to time.

Many thanks to you all, have a splendid day/night/dawn/dusk/what-have-you.

Catfishing

Sitting outside, Myles realized that his plan to flush out the potential catfish was severely flawed. Sure, it probably wasn’t an old guy, but just because some girl sounded hot didn’t necessarily mean she was. “Dammit! Please, God, let her be hot. I’d give anything for her to be the hot, funny, wonderful girl she claims to be.” Maybe it was God, or maybe it was his subconscious, a little cocaine-snorting Freud sitting next to an empty couch who spoke, but the answer came to him either way: Only one way to find out.

The house was small, boring, unassuming. It didn’t fit into his picture of where such a stunning and special person like her would live. Though he couldn’t exactly figure out what that picture was, he at least knew this wasn’t it. Myles heard his friend Zachary’s voice whispering “Catfish” in the back of his mind. Try as he might to shoo it away, he could not quite rid himself of that treasonous doubt. With a sigh and a stomach full of writhing creatures, Myles stepped out of the car and closed the door, absently locking his car as he frowned at the driveway. It looked no different from any other driveway in America. What was he expecting? A driveway made of red carpet? “Go Myles,” he muttered under his breath. He couldn’t. Instead, he found himself rooted to the spot, paralyzed by the possibility that Zachary was right, that he’d been duped. But he’d seen her picture, heard her voice, how could she be anyone but who she claimed to be?

To see if Myles gets the girl or if Zachary is right and he gets the hook, read on at: https://www.facebook.com/andrewbundybooks

Gathering Momentum

Hello faithful readers!

I am happy to say that it has been an incredibly busy few weeks, and not in a bad way (mostly)! I've made a lot of progress along many different fronts and am trying to keep that momentum going and going and going. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, I KNOW I can! Shall we begin?

First and foremost, I am beyond ecstatic to announce the end of the second draft of my memoir! I managed to take out a rather large chunk of useless tangents (put in the rough draft mostly to take the edge off the agonizing task of remembering the things I spent years trying to forget) and am that much closer to being finished with this whole project. In the near future, I'll be able to submit the work to an editor that Nick and I have settled on and from that point on I think it'll be a bit more work and then we can safely put this whole memoir thing behind us. Quite frankly, as important as I think my book is (I can't afford modesty at this point), the allure of fiction is always the siren song trying to pull me off track. I'll admit, I have done some work on some side projects, but the goal is to publish the memoir before I ramp up my efforts for the next major project (which I've already decided on and I giddy as all get out to plow straight into). I do find the fiction to be a nice release, especially from the more challenging parts of the memoir, but it's a constant battle to keep myself from sliding so easily back into my preferred genre. On a side note: I wrote a short story that I really liked. It's nice, I haven't finished a short story in quite some time, so you can imagine how satisfying that is to work on something so fun and familiar.

To learn more about the memoirs Nick and I are working on, you can read the article in the Poway magazine 92064 called Memoirs Recount Challenges Faced by Two Poway High School Graduates

The other major mark of progress is my work at physical therapy. As mentioned in my last post, I've been strengthening the muscles in my legs to compensate for what could be further degeneration in the bones or some other issue that has yet to be fully diagnosed. I know that the ankle pain in my left ankle is caused by a bone spur (see right) that I'll probably have to do something about soon. But over the last few months the pain has been getting progressively worse. However, because of all the work at PT, I've been able to slow down a lot of the pain's progression and even prevent it from getting worse at all in some instances. I'm definitely a lot stronger than I have been in years, with the full compliment of joints replaced and feeling somewhat like I did before this journey of mine began more than eight years ago. It's amazing to me how long it's been. I can no longer remember what it's like to be a healthy person, what having hair is like, dealing with the issues that once seemed all-consuming in high school and now seem infinitely petty after the long Odyssey.

I've also been doing my best to prevent myself from pulling away again. Although I have not updated the blog in a while, I've been on other social media outlets for short bursts of time and have been trying to get out to see friends and get out of the house on occasion. I finally put up the Facebook page as my "official" author page (whatever it's called), which I will post a brand new short story (see above) if I manage to get 50 likes by the end of August. I will also be pulling my collection of short stories On The Fringes of Awareness by the end of the year as I switch from Amazon to another company that will allow me more control over my works.

In addition, and more importantly, I've started the Surviving the Cure page on Facebook as well. Its goal is something I've talked about semi-regularly on this blog, and indirectly focused on for the entirety of it, to spotlight post-cancer issues that cancer survivors must face after they are in remission and trying to rebuild their lives (the life lived after diagnosis and beyond is called survivorship). Anybody who has read at least a couple posts on here knows that surviving cancer is way more than just surviving cancer. It's trying to put your life back together after so many trials and tribulations and finding that the journey is only just beginning. It varies from person to person, and undoubtedly I'm an extreme case, but perhaps that's why I'm able to speak from experience about the multitude of challenges that survivors have to face after they escape cancer's grasp. If you go to the Facebook page for Surviving the Cure, there's a detailed mission statement and, similar to the author page, if 50 people like the page, I'll be putting an excerpt from my memoir up as a thank you for helping get the word out there about the difficulties involved with surviving and rebuilding a life left in tatters from the scorched Earth war against cancer.

What I'm trying to do is get the message out there, so if you would be so inclined to share not only the Facebook page, but also this blog, with your friends and the like, it would be a good first step toward helping spread awareness about how difficult life can be when you're cancer-free. (Damn that's catchy, if somewhat dark). It's a subject rarely discussed, even with oncologists treating you for your cancer, and as a result there is substantially less support in place for survivors. Many are forced to tread water and figure out how to cope and fix the side effects from the treatments, on top of the after-effects of the cancer itself, used to save their life. Whether those side effects be physical, mental, or emotional, there needs to be a better system of support in place to ease survivors' transition back into society and a semi-normal life. My hope is that the farther this message gets spread and the more people learn about just how painful and difficult picking up the pieces can be, in some instances its even harder than the cancer itself, we can be that ray of knowledge that pierces the dark clouds of ignorance about one of the hardest challenges any survivor will ever have to face. (I'll admit, I just added that last part to justify putting the picture in. I needed to compensate for the lack of cute little animals that I normally put in because that's what people like to see. Here, tell you what...

You're welcome)

Thank you in advance for sharing,
Andrew

"That Cancer Guy"

I've had an interesting week. (Side note: the white space that used to be here was bothering my editorial side, so I added this note to compensate for that and make me feel a little better.)

There's been lots of forward progress in terms of both Nick and I's book. Nick and mine? Mine and Nick's? My and Nick's? None of those sound right when I say them out loud. Weird. It's probably a poor way to structure the sentence, but I'm too lazy to do that. Because, you know, writing all this extra stuff out here is less work than fixing a few words. Oh well. Nick and I have met three times this week. On Monday we got together, discussed some aspects of Nick's memoir, then went to a meeting of the San Diego Writers/Editors Guild. Great idea on Nick's part, just utter genius. We'll get to that thought. On Wednesday we went over the non-writing aspects of our book: how much of our budget we want to spend on x, y, z, what makes sense to focus on first, what we need to look for in an editor, in a graphic artist, etc. Today we're meeting up to work on the actual writing and editing process. I think with everything that's happened this week, both Nick and I feel like we're on solid ground a little more. We have a very tangible sense of forward progress and confidence that this is an achievable goal (whereas prior to this both of us were in a bit of a quagmire, albeit for different reasons), and are more and more excited about getting our books published in the near-ish future.

The San Diego Writers/Editors Guild was such a fun experience for both of us. Although almost everyone in the room was at least twice our age, neither of us felt acutely uncomfortable. In fact, it was refreshing to be around them, because so many of them were in fact writers and had been published. The speaker for the night was, appropriately, a woman who talked about how to write the memoir of your life (although it was more geared toward an older crowd, us pups gleaned some useful information from the lecture/talk/thingy-ma-jig. We managed to make several new contacts, passing out business cards and collecting them from some of the people in the meeting. It gave us a good taste of what we might expect from similar events and are almost certainly going to try to make the next meeting at the end of July. Who knows, maybe we'll even join! Baby steps though, baby steps.

There were several amusing anecdotes gained throughout the night, but three of them really stuck out to me. Here we go:

1. That's NORMAL?!: Near the beginning of the talk, a woman sitting directly in front of us raised a hand as the speaker spoke about drafts and forming a story. "Excuse me," she said politely. "Before I even write a single word, I spin the idea around several different times in my head and make sure to look at it from several angles until it's perfect. Then I'll do about 25 drafts." Nick and I exchanged a glance, this lady was intense. The speaker nodded and told the woman that having so many drafts was, and I quote "completely normal." The glance we shared mutated into a mask of horror. If we did 25 drafts of our book, we'd both die of old age before we got even halfway through that many drafts at the rate we're doing it. I whispered to Nick that I think we should probably not do 25 drafts. He agreed quite readily.
2. I Just Sit Down and Write: Toward the end of the talk, an older gentleman by the name of Bill raised his hand. The speaker was discussing how to get around writer's blocks and that it sometimes requires lots of planning and outlining first when Bill interjected. "I don't bother with all that. I just sit down and write for six hours a day, seven days a week. Then I publish it." I wanted to applaud the man, because I've got little use for outlines, they never really fit that well with how the story ends up. I almost stood up and raised my fist with a cry of "Right on!", but quickly realized that maybe a meeting full of 60-90 year-old white people from San Diego was not the ideal place to pull a move associated with the Black Panthers. Perhaps one of the better uses of my barely touched mental filter I've had in my whole life.
3. That Cancer Guy: When the meeting began, Nick and I introduced ourselves and told the group about ourselves. Nick talked about his ultrarunning, and I talked about my experiences writing and a very brief synopsis of my condition (I almost went ahead and bet that I had more joint replacements than the whole room put together, but I suspect I wouldn't have won that bet, though it would certainly be close. I've had nine, so if a third of the room had one joint replaced, I wouldn't have won. But if I'd gone head-to-head against any one of them, I think I'd have an easy shot at winning). After the meeting, when Nick and I went around talking to people and introducing ourselves, I met a man selling a book he'd put together featuring the letters of a private in the Union Army during the Civil War. He signed my book and a couple other men came over and we started chatting. One of them brought up running and asked me how I could do such crazy races. I corrected him and directed his question to Nick. The guy said he thought I was the "running guy" because I had sneakers on and Nick was wearing these pseudo-cowboy boots. I told him that Nick was the running guy, not me. "Which guy are you?" the man who'd signed his book asked. Explaining I'd been the one with cancer, he frowned for a moment and then realization dawned on him. "Oh you're that cancer guy!" I imagined myself as a door to door salesman asking if people wanted to buy cancer (it was as weird in my head as I'm sure it is in yours). As we were leaving, Nick said to me: "You know that's probably what everyone will know you for if our books get big, right?" Another image popped into my head, people on the street passing by and recognizing me with a quick "Oh hey! You're that cancer guy!" I suppose that's me, I'm just that kinda (cancer) guy.

Yes, I'm that cancer guy.

We'll do some brief updates and then I'll let you get on with your day (or whatever you'll be doing after you read this far):

• For the last two months I'd been working on what was originally a short story. It ended up being three times longer than the longest short story I've ever written (Exhibit, which is one of the short stories in my book of short stories). The exact same thing happened when I was writing the second draft of Road to Refuge. It expanded more than TEN TIMES in length, very odd. So I guess this new story, whose title still eludes me because none of the ones I come up with really click with me, is actually a novella. Rough draft done, very pleased with it. This is the first major project I've finished (sort of) since I wrote the rough draft of my memoir. Yay.
• I was attacked by some sort of demonic superbug. I had several itchy bites on my lower legs on Monday, and by Tuesday morning they'd turned into massive sores almost ten times bigger (sounds familiar)! They're finally starting to get better now, but I swear I briefly thought I had leprosy.
• I survived the diagnosversary (see previous post). I hated it, definitely not one of the good years. But I did make it through, so that has to count for something.
• I'm back in physical therapy to try to strengthen my legs and specifically my knees so I can attempt to avoid having surgery in September. Fingers, toes, eyes, arms, and legs crossed.

That should do it for today. Have a good weekend everybody! Even if you're reading this on Monday, have a good weekend, whichever weekend is coming up soonest for you. There, that should take care of anybody reading this in the future. You're welcome.

Ciao now brown cow

Rollercoaster (Featuring Claire)

If you want to look at it from a glass half full perspective, then this recent reclusiveness was a lot shorter than the last one. A month and a half versus five months? That's better. If you want to look at it from a glass half empty perspective...then keep it to yourself. Or myself, since I'm the one struggling NOT to look at the glass as half empty.

Speaking of struggling...

These last few weeks have been extremely difficult for me. At times I've felt like I was on the verge of losing control like I had in January, although I am happy to report that this week has been substantially better than the last two or three. I'd actually started writing this post over a week ago and the saved draft I had was wildly different from what I'm feeling now. I think it really sums up just how much of a roller coaster this year has been for me.

There are two big events that I can cite for my increased anxiety and reclusivity (I need to get this word in the dictionary, I don't care what anyone else thinks). Firstly, I've run into another major hurdle with my health: knees. For those who don't know, I've actually replaced parts of my knees before, back in 2012 (right) and 2013 (left). When most people think of joint replacement, they think of the total joint replacements that involve fitting an artificial device where the puny organic joint used to be. But for me, the doctor and I decided that we would approach it from a different route: allograft. Essentially an allograft can be explained as a bone replacement. It appears to have a better lifespan than the artificial joints and, being younger than most recipients of new joints, it made more sense to do an allograft so I would not need to undergo surgery again for a longer period than I would have if I'd scored myself a total knee replacement. However, the allograft didn't replace the whole joint, just the most damaged parts (although the doctor did say that the allografts were looking really good, the best part of the knee actually). There is still a large amount of AVN (degeneration and dead bone) in my knees, and over the last few months I've noticed an uptick in the amount of pain experienced in both joints. I saw the doctor about a month ago and he couldn't exactly pin down what was wrong, but he basically said that there wouldn't be any major fix for the pain except to just scrap the whole knee and put in a shiny new artificial one. Needless to say, I was extremely displeased with this news. I'd just finished up getting both my shoulders replaced (both total joint replacements) and thought I was in the clear for at least another 5-10 years (when the artificial joints put in 5 years ago might need to be replaced again). Several months of no physical problems left me cautiously optimistic, because I'd pretty much replaced everything I could replace, but I can't remember anytime in the last 8 years when there hadn't been some major complication at least one or two times a year, so I felt overdue for something. So when the doctor said "Probably have to replace the whole thing," I was both shocked and unsurprised.

I took a couple weeks to decide whether I wanted to replace them or not, after all, the pain isn't debilitating yet. But what really drove me to say yes was the fact that he wouldn't have any surgery openings until the end of September. I didn't trust Murphy to play nice (I suspect my life is guided by Murphy's Law, as discussed in the blog post A Murphaic Victory). Rather than wait until the pain became debilitating and unbearable (assuming it ever did), I didn't want to wait until the pain got that bad to schedule the surgery and then be forced to wait several months in agony while I waited to get fixed. By scheduling it now, I have a safeguard in place in case they DO get worse, and if they don't I can always cancel. It all sounds solid, but for some reason that no matter how hard I try to explain, nobody really seems to be able to fully grasp (which is understandable, seeing how my situation borders on being unique) why making that call and scheduling the surgery was so difficult and painful for me. It feels like giving up. And at a time where I'm just starting to come back into the world and maybe even look forward to what the future has in store for me, it all comes (potentially) crashing back down to Earth and the same cycle of replacements and surgeries and setbacks all rushes back into place. Stuck. Scheduling the surgery makes me stuck. I won't pretend very many people will understand why the two-minute phone call undid two months of exhausting mental work at Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), but I'll leave it out there in case someone does manage to figure it out.
Summary (in case none of the above makes sense): My knees, which had already been partially replaced, are now beginning to hurt again. The doctor told me the only real solution would be to completely replace them, so I scheduled a surgery for the end of September as a safeguard for if the pain gets worse. It's stressed me out a lot.

The proof is somewhere in there

Now that the small essay you may or may not have just finished reading is over, I can move onto the second big reason for my increased anxiety and depression: diagnosversary. Sunday marks the eighth year of my leukemia diagnosis. Some years it hasn't been too bad, others it's been the worst day of the year. With my mental state the way it is, inherently unstable and only just starting to recover, perhaps it's more than a little underst
andable that I am what the kids call "freaking scared." The anticipation is definitely one of the worst parts (and I'm sure I've mentioned how much waiting is the worst part of anything medical), but coupled with my very recent recovery and scheduling the surgery, I've become exceedingly anxious about the day. Thinking or talking about it makes me anxious, I just caught myself holding my breath for the last minute and noticed all my muscles were tight and my body felt jittery and flighty. Perhaps why I am so nervous is because of how anxious I am NOW, not even on the actual day. The day is a symbol of a life thrown off the rails. It brings up memories that I've so deeply suppressed that I didn't even know they were there. Maybe the reason it's so bad is because I fixate on it and work myself up into a tizzy in the days leading up to it. In my last day of CBT, I discussed my anxiety and somebody pointed out that the day only means something because I make it mean something. Sunday is just Sunday after all. I think I've known that for a while, but trying to tell myself things that could be helpful for me...well let's just say I tend to discount much of the positive self-talk I attempt. It's a lot easier for me to accept something coming from someone else. I'm really going to try my best to remind myself that it is a day just like any other, that the only power it has over me is the power I give it. Easier said than done obviously, but it's certainly a new approach that warrants a try. I could also reframe it in a positive light: I'm alive. Sure, that day may have pushed me into a life nobody would ever ask for, but I made it through and survived it all. I guess the proof will be in the pudding, although why anybody would bury proof in a pudding is utterly beyond me.

The Old Guard with Mr. Swan

Quick life tidbit: I went to a send-off for my high school drama teacher Mr. Swan last night. I thought there would be tons of alumni there, but it turned out to also be the awards ceremony for the kids at the high school (most of whom are ten years younger than I am. Nothing makes you feel older than being in a room with kids nearly half your age). When I got there, I only saw children and immediately wondered if I had the wrong night. Nick came in a few minutes later, also being a theater geek from back in the day, and for nearly half an hour we thought we were the oldest people in the room. Luckily, there was a group of our peers from back in the day sitting at a table on the other side of the room. Only a few of us "old people" showed up, but we had a raucous good time reminiscing about drama and looking at old pictures of ourselves in plays. It was an emotional night for just about everyone there, but it was really good to see some of the old thespian buddies and to catch up afterward over a beer and talk about all sorts of things (ranging from Chinese words never to say in America to expensive toys to amusing stories from our lives). There is going to be another get together, this time with a lot more of the Old Guard (which is very literal for me, because in both Shakespeare plays I performed in, I played guards) at a restaurant later this month. I'm pretty excited to see a lot of the people I expected to see at the send-off last night.

This last week has been better for me. I think a lot of that has to do with me being extremely busy running around San Diego (not literally, I save that for Nick) to doctor appointments and whatsuch. I've also been a lot more social and have been doing my best to talk to and hang out with several friends of the last week or so. I also forced myself into writing more. I've been reluctant and anxious about finishing a long short story that I am enamored with. I didn't know why I was anxious about sitting down to work on it every time I went to write, but last night I figured it out. When I'm done with this story, I have no excuse or distraction to keep me from getting back to editing my memoir, Life Has No Title. Currently, I'm stopped at the very worst time in my life. This section was not only the most difficult to live through, but also the most difficult to write. At a time where I'm worried about memories being triggered by the diagnosversary, perhaps it's not hard to imagine why I would be finding any way (whether conscious or not) to prevent myself from going back to work on the project that literally takes my most painful memories and shoves them in my face for me to reread and edit. But...I know I have to do it. I've got lots of wonderful feedback from my neighbor (the first professional feedback I've ever gotten to this extent, which was nerve-racking in and of itself) so I will be able to go back into the book with a lot better sense of how to edit it. But holy damn am I really not looking forward to this. I need to force myself to do it though because this is extremely important and I need to face my fears. Not just face them, but overcome them. It'll be cathartic. I hope.

Ciao for now

PS: By the next post I hope to have some pretty exciting news regarding the memoir. Appendages crossed!

PPS: Claire says hi

Return of the Recluse

I'm so tempted to put Episode VI: Return of the Recluse...

Man, where to start...

First, I would like to explain my nearly half a year absence. After I had my left shoulder replaced, things quickly went downhill. Physically I was doing well (we'll get back to that later), but mentally something had happened that I could not fully explain. All I knew was that I was feeling disconnected, anxious, depressed, and extremely unhappy with life in general. Then in January, I hit rock bottom. I began to have nightmares, sleep paralysis, and suffered from extreme paranoia that made me jump at every little sound or even something as simple as an object in my peripheral vision that I couldn't immediately identify. I felt like I was going insane, that I'd finally suffered that long-term nervous breakdown that I knew would be coming for me at some point. I've had some breakdowns before, but none lasting this long. I was in this state of agitation for over a month and knew that I couldn't live life like that. So I sought out help and my therapist recommended that I try doing some mindfulness meditation (we'll get to that later, part 2). Shortly after I began the mindfulness, I started to feel better, also buoyed by an anti-depressant that I've been on and off since I was 8. It took me a while to figure out what was going on, but I figured out that it was my PTSD that was causing me to freak out and turn into a quivering shadow of myself for several months. My best guess is that this was all brought on because I no longer had any surgeries to worry about (or look forward to, if I'm being honest the thought of surgery has been more comforting than distressing, because I know what to expect) in the near future and my path was, for the first time, open for me to do as I pleased without having to worry about a very possible disruption from Murphy to derail my plans. However, I still have that fear of the future, moving forward is scary. Change is scary. I'm so familiar with what I have right now, even if I'm not satisfied with it, that to change and move on with my life and put the past behind me...it's terrifying to me. So that is where my life is now, at the precipice of an uncertain drop into the future. Behind me: solid ground, the past. Down there: black uncertainty, the future. So much of me is screaming not to take that leap, but I know I need to if I am ever to make all of my suffering and the suffering I've caused to those who care about me worth something. Now in my life comes the hard part...moving out of the label of survivor to thriver.

I suppose I should also discuss how my physical health has been, because that's important too. After the left shoulder was replaced, I began to use my right shoulder a great deal more (obviously) and as a result both shoulders are doing exceptionally well. I didn't have much doubt that the left shoulder would be anything but fine, and I was right. The left shoulder progressed even faster than the right, and now they are about the same, with much better ranges of motion and a lot less pain than I was having since the surgeries. Although the shoulders are doing well, my knees have been real asshats. I've been dealing with more general pain in both knees (the right one is worse), as well as random spurts of flaring and sharp pain that crops up at random times. I'm calling my knee specialist in the next couple days to see if I can get an appointment and find out what's going on. At the same time as the mental breakdown, I starting having a severe migraine storm (hurrigraine, as I have not-so-affectionately called them) where I have bad headaches on a daily basis and bad migraines a few times a week. I'm on a new medication for that now, hopefully it will calm that down shortly.

I don't really think I need to add too much more to what's going on mentally for me. Besides the depression, PTSD, nightmares, sleep paralysis, high anxiety, fear of the future, and completely shutting myself away and becoming hyper-reclusive, there's not much going on. Most of that I'd already discussed, and I am happy to say that a lot of the paranoia and nightmares have almost completely gone away. I'm no longer waking up screaming every night or nearly pissing myself if a box is left in the hallway and I see it out of the corner of my eye. So that's good. The depression and PTSD and anxiety are all still there, but I've been going to a Cognitive therapy group that has given me a few tools and insights in the three weeks I've been attending it. Mixed with the mindfulness mentioned above and it has been very helpful in getting me off my back and into a sitting position, with the goal of getting back on my feet closer to being within my reach than it was since my first shoulder surgery. (I identify that first surgery as the genesis of this breakdown, with the second one being the thing that helped break me completely)

Sadly, I haven't been doing much writing, but that's really not terribly surprising considering I've been totally drained of energy for the last five months or so. Depression does that to you. It's one of the hardest things for me to overcome at the moment, because it's still there, festering like an infected wound that I can't quite reach to clean it out properly. And the anxiety of trying to move forward in my life doesn't really help out too much either. But I am doing my best to fight against it, even if it often feels like a losing battle, because I know I can get through this just like I have everything else. I just need to push through and pull myself out of this deep dark hole I've dug for myself.

I think the only person I've seen with any real regularity is Nick. He and I are continuing to work on our books and are both in the editing phase (which means different things for him and I, but that's all just semantics). I'm around 1/3 of the way through my second draft of my memoir Life Has No Title, and Nick and I continue to make good progress when we meet up at least once a week. I would like to start doing some editing outside of those sessions, I know I should, but it's really tough. I think it's so tough because the Cognitive therapy lasts for almost five hours (half an hour drive both ways with over three hours of therapy) and I am completely exhausted mentally, emotionally, and physically by the time I get home and all I want to do is lie down and read or watch TV or anything besides push myself harder with going through the pages of a book that were excruciating to write. However, as I get better, I anticipate an uptick in my production and I have currently set the goal of being finished with the second draft by July 1, 2015. We'll see how it goes.

I think that's about it for now. I will likely go into more detail about the Cognitive therapy and Mindfulness and maybe even my mental health in other posts, but the fact that I'm even writing this is a good sign. It means I am trying to come out of my self-imposed exile and wish to stop being reclusive and attempt to be social again. It's hard, really hard. It's comfortable to be disconnected from everyone, but I know it needs to be done. I have a message that needs to get out and I can't do that sitting in my car driving between doctors and staying at home and picking away at random projects. This is what I need.

Welcome back to my blog, let's hope I can be consistent with the posts like I was before. Fingers (and everything else that's flexible enough) crossed.