The First Post

Stage IV Gastric Adenocarcinoma. Metastes to esophagus, lungs, lymphatic system, peritoneum, bladder, and brain.

Fancy way of saying: your shit is fucked.

Well, it started off as a difficulty in eating. I was drinking heavily and working hard, so it seemed like a normal bodily reaction. It wound up being stage IV stomach cancer that spread to the esophagus, lungs, and lymphatic system.

I was told that I had 4 weeks to live. I was 21 years-old... I remember that day was sunny.

Well what could I do? We are very rarely able to appreciate the entirety of an event during the time we are experiencing it. This has given rise to the cliche that hindsight is 20/20. It is obviously easier to see the correct decision, or the extent of a situation, after you have experienced that event. After the event and/or decision has affected your life positively or negatively it is not too difficult to recognize it's impact at least on a very superficial level.

So I was sad, but no one knew that I had gone to a few other doctors alone who confirmed my diagnosis and actually were the ones who gave me the 4 week deadline. The oncologist I chose as my primary caretaker was reluctant to give me a time frame answer, especially with all of my love ones around. So the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th opinions spanned everywhere from 2-4 weeks.

Something happened on day 29. I felt liberated. I had beat the numbers. Calculations and probablilities weren't for shit. I woke up staring at my white wall. I remeber smiling, because I had been counting the days. It was at that moment that I realized that I was now playing with the house's money. I had many dark days reflecting on death and the things I would miss about life during the previous days. I accepted that I was going to die - soon, tomorrow, someday - and on day 29, the fact that I made it one day longer than expected allowed me to happily accept death whenever it came.

I've realized a lot of things since the "Reset" button of my life was pressed. Some of them you will not want to hear if you or someone you know has cancer or some other tragic disease or misfortune. The good things, though, you want to hear them, and for the first post I want to give you one really good thing to look forward to:

I was diagnosed Thursday July 6, 2006. I made it much longer than 29 days.

I can only tell you this blog will be sometimes sad, sometimes funny, always truthful.

I will talk to you soon