The Good, the Bad, and Pluto

Over the last few weeks I've been thrust into the battle between my desire to move forward and my trauma trying to hold me back in a familiar place, rather than go out into the world and risk more hurt and difficulty. Even if I want to side with moving forward, it's hard to overstate the power of the trauma-induced fear in paralyzing me. It's one of those ugly truths about the whole experience of cancer, that cancer doesn't end with a pat on the back and an "Atta boy" when you get the beautiful news of remission. It stays with you, sometimes for the rest of your life. Whether it's an amputation or the scars of surgery or needing assistance or waking up screaming or crying when a memory is triggered, the experience tends to stick with you like a needy koala toddler to its mother. The last year has been especially rough, with the paralysis nearly choking the rest of my will to move forward to death. But, with a lot of work and both the desire and the need to push through the anxiety, I'm finally beginning to make headway in a couple areas. I'm hesitant about being overly optimistic, but I'm starting to think this might be the first few steps in the direction I have been wanting to go in for years now, it's just been that life is content to throw a googolplex detours my way.

Perhaps the most important thing, to me at least, has been the work I've been doing on my book. I mentioned before that I was waiting for my editor to get my memoir back to me, and only a few days later, she did. Her report and her notes on the manuscript itself were absolutely astonishing and very touching and meaningful for me in so many different ways. Personally, I believe that her kind words and belief in my story and my ability (the terror of wondering if her notes would come back as a mighty hand to swat down the pathetic insect that laughingly thought it could write kept me from opening her notes right away, but even before the end of the first paragraph I felt relief in a way that I don't think I've felt since...probably 2012, when I was the closest I've ever been to reaching that semi-normal life I've been craving) have been key in lighting a fire under me not just in working on the fourth and newest draft of my book, but also in other areas of my life. Getting a bit of confidence in one area seems to have been contagious, and it might be the first contagious thing I've been happy to catch. There's still a lot of work to be done. I'm a third of the way through her edits (plus edits of my own that I'm making after hearing her general thoughts on the book and what areas to focus on more or reduce) and hoping to finish within the next few weeks. After that, assuming the length is more reasonable than it is now (Currently I'm 20,000 words over the maximum "limit" for a memoir. Although there obviously isn't a real limit, the usual length for one ranges between 60,000 and 120,000 words), it's onto the marketing and networking. I've got a lot of trepidation about that, but the more success I have with the book and in life, the better I think I'll be at tackling these sort of problems. I believe victories in life help to give me confidence, especially when they've been so rare and tainted with bitter irony or followed up with crippling defeat. For now, that's not going to be much on my mind, I choose to focus on getting the edits done first. One thing at a time.

The other big thing I've been working on and have begun to find some success in is being more social. When I get overwhelmed I tend to shut down and shut away to decrease the amount of stimulation and unknown variables that my brain says will only make things worse. Even if I don't want to, the anxiety of having to face other living entities becomes a daunting challenge that my mind refuses to attempt. I've been wrestling with the comforts of reclusiveness for the last few months. It's comfortable for me, in much the same way I actually preferred being in the hospital after my ordeals with Graft vs. Host and the side effects of the bone marrow transplant. I hated the hospital, much as I hated reclusiveness, but there was a kind of serenity and comfort in them, they were predictable, and so there wasn't anything to be worried about. No real surprises, just maintaining a basic existence was about all I wanted to deal with. Simple things, things I could enjoy or that would pull me from reality and plop me into my head where the world couldn't get to me, that's what I wanted, even as I protested against it. It's been hard to drag my unwilling brain back into some sort of social mode, but I'm doing my best to force myself to contact people and hang out with them. I know that once I am spending time with friends, I enjoy myself tremendously, but in the days and hours and minutes leading up to that encounter, I feel the panic and the desire to call it off get stronger and stronger. Grappling with that is exhausting, but it's worth it when I finally get to see friends and I can forget about it for a time. The more I socialize, the less my brain protests, so it's been getting a bit easier lately, but I'm still wary and making sure I stay on top of the reclusive me so it can't surprise me and shut me back away again. I really do want to be part of the world, especially since the world has space and gravitational waves and Pluto.

Hope your year has started of well so far,
Ciao

PS: I'm starting a new writing blog, Make a Write Here (I know, I know, deal with it. I'll feature pieces and excerpts from various stories and non-fiction, discussions regarding aspects of writing, and updates on current writing projects. It's online at the moment, but I have yet to post any content besides the first generic "Hi, this is my blog" post. It's also not full formatted, but I'll probably get around to it before the universe ends (maybe).

Guess not...

"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

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.

Sometimes It Crashes Around You

Hi blog,

Apologies for the abnormally long pause in post, I'd been meaning to do post more frequently and instead the exact opposite happened. It's something to work on.

Part of the reason for not posting when I normally do is because there really isn't all that much going on. It's been relatively low-key over the last couple weeks and finding anything interesting is a bit of a challenge. That applies to positive things though, there's been a slew of neutral and negative things piling up, which accounts for the other reason I didn't post at the normal time: I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Looking at nudibranchs...great stress reliever

My version of overwhelmed seemed oddly calm compared to some people's, but it's less about the workload and more about the mental taxation it puts on me in terms of anxiety and stress. I've been scrambling to get a number of school-related issues cleared up and have been running into nonsense after nonsense that pushes me back two steps for every one I put forward. Coming across all this bureaucratic BS that has been making it difficult to get anything done, I've become more and more stressed as these tasks are added to even more things I need to do, creating a backlog of different chores and assignments that doesn't ever seem to get any smaller. Mixed in with the schoolwork that I'm not quite used to just yet and it leads to me feeling anxious. I've managed to whittle away at some of these projects but then something else will come up that needs to get done and the neverending march does its own whittling on my heavy mind.

But why is my mind heavy? Surely it may be frustrating to deal with all these assignments, but it's not impossible to deal with them given the time and the mental stamina. Within the latter lies my other major problem. I'm worn out mentally and emotionally exhausted. You might think the upcoming surgery is weighing heavily on my mind, but really it isn't. In my last post I discussed how it actually was somewhat of a relief to get it out of the way. Instead, my taxing problem is with my knee. For almost nine months now I've been experiencing some new form of new pain within my right knee. I had that one replaced with an allograft almost two years ago to deal with the same degeneration that has plagued the rest of my body. This new pain started off minor, so I didn't think much of it, just some pain because I was doing a lot more walking after a semester of on campus classes for the first time. However, it recently kicked up to a much sharper level last month and my mind invariably goes to the worst-case scenario of severe damage, either due to further degeneration or a failure of the allograft. I didn't do anything about it for a few weeks, in part because I was almost overwhelmed from all the other work, but mostly because I didn't want to find out what it was and learn I might need to have yet another surgery. "But Andrew, don't you like surgery? You just said-" Bugger what I just said. This is different, this wasn't expected. It's forced to light a problem and possibility I've been trying to ignore for a while now: that the rest of my life could be spent fixing one problem or another, that the surgeries will end up being continuous as one problem emerges. I hoped to avoid further surgeries and have all my replacements hold up for at least ten years, and now I'm facing (what I think) is a real possibility that something very bad is wrong with my knee. Of course, I could be wrong, but this kind of deep, sharp pain is eerily reminiscent of my pre-surgery knee pain. I had x-rays done of it a couple days ago, but couldn't get in to see my knee specialist until October 9th since he's out of the office for almost all of September. Instead I'll be going to my general practitioner, who luckily is a sports doctor so at least he knows damaged bones when he sees them. I can get a preliminary idea of what's wrong from him I hope and then see the knee specialist to be absolutely sure.

All in all, I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping because if I bend my knee to a certain angle the pain kicks in (and because I'm a rabid insomniac to start with). Actually it only hurts within a certain angle and otherwise is fine. It could be because there's something grinding against something else or a spur of some kind. Now I have to wait for over a month wondering what's wrong with my knee and try to live as normal a life I can, getting things done and continuing to rehab my shoulder. Maybe I'm just blowing this all wildly out of proportion, but my mind already has had the idea and now, in its tenacious desire to freak me out, it won't let me abandon it. It feels like everything is happening all at once, raging and howling at me like some vindictive hellstorm that whips up a frenzied tsunami as I stand helplessly in the middle of my 10' by 10' walled fortress plopped squarely in a vast ocean of problems. I'm just waiting for the waves and the wind to sweep me away as I watch the churning water crash around me, slowly but surely eroding the not-so-very solid rock beneath my feet and knocking bricks from my flimsy walls. All I can do is watch and occasionally stick a brick back in place, feeling like an exercise in futility.

Andrew stared unseeingly at his computer screen for a couple minutes, the imagery all too real in his head as yet more concerns about his knee taunted him. Then he blinked and took in a deep breath, which escaped in a slow, steady sigh ending with more finger movement across the keyboard.

...annnnyyyyways...

I'm supposed to be working on my memoir but that got kicked aside as soon as school started abruptly. Maybe since I'm not sleeping I can work on the outline I keep promising Nick I'll do. I really need to get that done. My writing has not totally suffered though! Positive note time, because I hate ending on less than positive news. I've been working on a revamped version of a short story I wrote four years ago and finally finished the rough draft and posted it online a few days ago on a few different websites. Officially, it's a Harry Potter "fanfic," but if you've read this blog even just a couple times you should know better than to expect something normal. In fact, you should be downright suspicious because I'm not the kind of person to write nice, fluffy pieces (as evidenced by the brutality of The Eagle and the Milk or the pure oddity of Fruity Pebble Tea), although I have been known to indulge in them from time to time. Most of my short stories are more along the lines of the two examples given above though, so if you do read the Harry Potter "fanfic" (there's a reason for the quotation marks) just be aware of what you're getting yourself into. Links to the various sites for the story will be posted below. PS: I wrote a poem as well, you probably guess it is weird and odd and quirkly. You're right.


Message for Mr. Potter - FanFiction
Message for Mr. Potter - Archive of Our Own
Message for Mr. Potter - Wattpad
Message for Mr. Potter - Goodreads

I think that's about enough for today. I might update on Monday if I have anything worth mentioning. Feel free to share the Harry Potter "fanfic" if you want, or don't, that's fine too.

Blog, you might have to deal with more erratic posting habits for a bit while I work to get my life under some semblance of control, but I shall not forget you! (Probably)

Your tired tyrant,
Andrew

On the (New) Horizon(s)

Hi blog,

I don't have a ton to add, but I'll see what I can do so this post isn't just two sentences.

School started up last week, much to my surprise. I thought it was starting this week but apparently I have no idea what's going on with that so...school. I was taking three classes: critical thinking, history, and biology. I'm very excited about the first two, they both seems like interesting classes taught by interesting people (I researched the teachers first to make sure I got ones that wouldn't kill me with boredom). All three were at least partially online and the biology course had an on-campus lab that lasted three hours. Now, for those not in the know, I'd attempted to take an on-campus class complete with lab for the spring semester of this year and it went catastrophically. I was away from home for seven hours with only one break to rest and the toll it took on my body put me in so much pain I was forced to drop the class or see my health severely impacted. That was my big concern with taking a lab (when I went on Friday it was about studying snails. This is actually interesting, I swear) this semester, but since it was only three hours, I wasn't as negatively affected. It still hurt, my arm is still tender from the lab three days ago, but it wasn't debilitating. Maybe it would get worse as the labs got more complex and maybe it wouldn't have, but it's a moot point. At the moment it seems like I'll be dropping the class regardless of what it does to my right arm. Why? Because of my left arm, which I shall now explain. 

October 28th, 2014. That's my explanation. Not ten minutes after I left the biology lab I got a call from my doctor's office from his surgery scheduler. Yes, that's when I'm having my left shoulder replaced, in just over two months. If I stayed in the lab I'd be missing out on the last few weeks of class, and after talking to the person teaching him, he said it would be extremely difficult to pass the class if I stopped showing up. Plus I'm going to be wonked out of my mind on drugs, and two classes will be hard enough. Every sensible fiber points to dropping the class, and my disabled student service counselor agrees. The more important focus here is in the surgery and getting better, both so I can move forward in school and in life with as few problems as possible.

Polar bear cubs are the personification of warm fuzzy feelings

Why is that? Because, and I dread saying this because it got me in trouble last time (I said that after the knees and then the shoulders got bad), this will probably be my last surgery for a while. I'm out of joints, this is #8/9 (because the left hip was done twice the numbers are a bit finicky), the only things left after this are redos when the artificial/allograft joints wear out and need to be replaced. I'm actually excited. I don't know many people who are excited to have someone cut them open and tear this joint out only to replace it with something else, but I am one of them. I'm more comfortable with surgeries than I am with most things in my life, I guess that says something. It's their familiarity that really comforts me. The monotony of surgery is part of the appeal. The surgeries may be different on the surface but underneath they're essentially the same. The only uncertainty is with the surgery itself. But once you go under and come back up it's all about the same. The pain is in different places but it's still there. The methods of recovery are a little different but you still go through it. It's one of the few constants I can count on to understand in a maelstrom of uncertainty I'm currently facing. So I cling to it with joyful relief and get spared the looming specter of a cloudy future for a few more months. It's a smidge macabre, but you find the warm fuzzy feeling of familiarity wherever you can (especially in polar bear cubs; see above).

And now for a new segment that is really only taking place today because a bunch of stuff happened...

Today in space:

Yes, Neptune is STILL in space

• Two years ago we lost the great Neil Armstrong. There's a man who has left a mark (literally) on history that very few people will ever replicate. 
• Also today two years ago (although the date is a little more approximation than hard truth, but it's pretty close), the Voyager 1 spacecraft left our solar system, making it the first man-made object to leave our little neck of the galaxy. 
• Voyager 2 performed its flyby of Neptune in 1989 on this day as well, getting a good view of our (now) farthest planet and one of its strange moons, Triton. 
• Finally, the spacecraft New Horizons crossed Neptune's orbit (25 years to the day that Voyager 2 did) on its way to rendezvous with Pluto and then a couple objects in the region nearby. New Horizons should be reaching Pluto in a little under a year.

And just to round things off: I finished up a short story. It's actually a remake of a story I did a few years ago. I'm going to find a place to put it and then link it to this blog sometime in the future probably.  That's about it. 

Your cosmic-minded tyrant,

Andrew

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

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.

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

Progress Meets Digress

Dear blog,

Well Tucker, the dog, is fine. After a night in the pet ER and some charcoal paste later, he came home the next day and was back to his normal self. This included bounding around with his best friend, barking at every damn thing that moves outside, and finding the singular most awkward looking sleeping spaces he can find. I know you don't know much about sleeping, being you're just a digital entity, but trust me, he's a funky sleeping dog. I think you can see my point? This wasn't a set-up picture...that's just his normal sleeping arrangement. If anything, that's actually pretty mild for him. But I digress, as I often do. It's fun, digression, like a tangent, but with more acidic sounding syllables.



This weekend was extremely productive for me. After several days of not writing, I finally got my ass in gear and plowed headlong in the fray! (Frey if you're British) It's been insane. No. Insane's a bad word for it, because that's too polite. What it's actually been is brutal. Yesterday I managed to give myself a stomach ache from stress alone, only to replicate the same feat tonight. I haven't eaten dinner two nights in a row. Although I did have a couple frozen thin mints, because even if your stomach is dangling out of your abdomen after an encounter with a bus-sized eagle (there's a story related to that, I'll post it Wednesday), you have to eat frozen thin mints. It's impossible not to. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's the fourth law of thermodynamics. Look it up. Anyways, more digress! So while the writing has been very difficult for me, I'm finding it easier to write it down. Not in the sense that it's less painful, but in the sense that I'm able to get more words down before I have to give in and stop. I did two days of 1500 words, and today got close to 3000 words. Progress! Be proud of me blog, there's a long ways left to go for the really tough stuff, and it only gets worse from here. Well, until it gets better anyways, but until then...it gets worse.

Yes...yes I would

I read a very interesting article today about how we could use zepplin-like airships to go explore Venus. Since the surface of Venus is the most hostile of any planet (850 degrees Fahrenheit, 100 times the pressure at sea level, and sulfuric acid? Yea, that's hostile), it is one of the most difficult to explore. However, by cruising through the clouds in giant airships, you can actually find a very modest room temperature world atop the hellish domain below! Such a ship could actually fly around the planet in about six days (coasting on the winds) and would last for up to a year before it lost buoyancy and slowly dropped to the ground to be incinerated like several probes before it. With that kind of idea, really you could actually float an entire city in Venus if you had people crazy enough to do it! Now where would you find people like that...welcome to Columbia 2.0!

I know that last post I didn't give you a space thing, shame on me! Here you go! It's a spiral galaxy with several more distance galaxies in the background!

Humbly apologizing for the lack of a space picture but still really in control so you aren't allowed to complain, Andrew

Exo-Progress...o

Dear blog,

Today I saw my friend Nick Hollon for our weekly meeting regarding a joint project the two of us are working on. After I was diagnosed with AML (acute myeloid leukemia), he put together a project to run 3000 miles to raise money and support for leukemia research, and has since become an ultramarathoner (essentially crazy people who enjoy lots of leg pain). He's been working on his memoir about running, life, liberty, and the pursuit (get it?...cause he's a runner!) of more insane races. I've been working on my own book about my journey through hell, a little bit farther, and back. A while ago we decided to team up and work together and have been meeting up recently to discuss progress and work on ideas as a duo. Today we discussed ways of making our books sound interesting and how to pitch them to publishers. The guy has such an interesting story to tell, his madness knows no bounds, and it's inspirational as all get out. You would like him blog, he's a cool cat. 

A cool cat = Nick

While he's been editing his first draft, I've been pumping out my own rough draft of my own book. As you may know, I went through all kinds of hellish insane sh** and want to share my story. Well, reliving all the memories from the chemotherapy and all of the side effects from treatment has been...difficult. Some of the memories were locked away, so retrieving them is almost like experiencing. them for the very first time. It leaves me shaken up sometimes, near tears other times, and occasionally a happy memory will slip through and make me laugh. But, my lovely blog, I'm getting to the worst of it, and it's left me wondering if I can do this. I know the doubt isn't helpful, but I must continue through. If not for myself and the healing that writing out my story might bring, than for the people it could help: other cancer survivors, their families, people who need to become aware of just how difficult living with some of the side effects from treatments are. And of course, I can't let down Nick. So I will shoulder my pain, stare it down, remind myself that I have already survived and won, and write on.

I've been thinking of things to put on you lately as well blog. I don't want to neglect you and leave you to rot in obscurity like your predecessors, I'm already quite fond of you. I'll be tweaking your appearance too, so you'll look all beautified in the future. One of my ideas is to include writing of some sort, perhaps excerpts from my memoirs or even my freakishly long novel (that will be split into a series once I get back on that project), maybe short stories. Another idea is to actually see if I can do a communal short story, starting a sentence and seeing if I can get people who read you to come up with the next one, and the next person to come up with the next sentence, and so on and so forth. What do you think blog, would you like that?

Today also marks a glorious day in space exploration! (Blog, if you want to skip this part, go ahead. I'm acutely aware that my interest in space may not match yours) 715 new exoplanets were discovered using the data from the Kepler space telescope, nearly DOUBLING the amount of exoplanets we already knew! We're getting close to TWO THOUSAND known exoplanets! Of those 715, four were near-Earth sized and within the habitable zone, making them possible candidates for harboring life as we know it! (This of course does not account for life as we do NOT know it, but really, that's not the point at the moment) It might even be that I helped find some of these planets, thanks to a site called Planet Hunters, where you can sift through starlight data and find dips in light where an exoplanet passes in front of its host star! It's a lot more exciting than it sounds (to me anyways), I always get giddy when I see a possible transit, knowing that the dip in light I'm seeing might be a world trillions upon trillions of miles away...and wonder if anything is looking back.

I hope you and I can have a nice, pleasant relationship my blog minion, for I do enjoy your company. Talk to you soon my itsy-bytsy friend. 

Your benevolent overlord, Andrew