There, got that out of the way. In the event that there were enough readers of this little blog to divide into two different categories, then it would be as easy as not to divide the readers into two types - those who read to generally check in to see how I'm doing, and everyone else.
It's for the first type that I say, I'm fine. Because some of you, I know, will get the alert that I've published a post and will think, uh-oh what's wrong. Maybe you won't say it that way, but you'll think it.
One year plus. That's a long time without a post and I'm going to avoid spending time talking about how I haven't posted for a long time and what that means, because really, it doesn't mean anything. But a quick recap, for those who have been following along and lost track, and for those who haven't been following.
I'm now about 8 years out from initial diagnosis of follicular lymphoma, a type of non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (or nHL); I'm almost exactly 6 years out from finishing my first treatment. That was six rounds of Bendamustine (a traditional chemothearpy agent) and Rituxan (a monoclonal antibody). I tolerated the chemo well; kept my hair, stayed at work except for one day a month; went to Disney. And most importantly, the treatment worked. I'm also about a year plus out of a clinical trial of Rituxan + Imprime. That also seemed to work.
But "working" is all relative. Follicular lymphoma is a chronic disease, and cancer as a chronic disease means you keep weeding the garden. You keep whacking away the weeds, getting rid of the cancer and hopefully doing a good enough job so that it doesn't grow back at all; or if the weeds do back, they don't grow back too quickly; or if they grow back, they aren't resistant to your method of weeding; or if they are resistant, you can find another way to weed whack.
Weeding is annoying. I mean, I love the finished product of a neatly manicured garden with evenly spread mulch. It's the getting there that is annoying, at least.
But to quote my friend, Allan Osborne, life is good. I'm feeling fine, doing my regular checkups, getting my monthly massage, and running.
Meanwhile, we're getting ready to send our senior off to college in about 6 months time. And, if I'm going to be honest here, I'd say that milestone event is part of my return to blogging motivation. He just walked in while I'm sitting here writing this and, lifting his head momentarily from his phone, asked if I was doing work
"No, I'm blogging."
"For work?"
"No. For me."
"I didn't know you had a personal blog."
"Yes, you did."
"No. I didn't
"We've talked about it. I've been doing this on and off for about 7 years.."
" I just assumed that was for work."
"Oh. So sort of like work."
Sigh.
That wasn't the impetus for this post. That was merely the interruption. But when I, god willing, am in my 80s, and my boys are all grown up and have finally left our basement and have moved into their own basement. I want them to remember who I was in my 50s and before -- not from dusty memories and faded photographs (yeah, yeah... digital photography doesn't fade, but give the writer a little space here) -- but from where my mind and soul was. And it's a writer's words not his eyes that are the window to his soul.
Time for a tangent.
I started writing when I was an angst-ridden teenager. Through college and beyond, I continued to write -- pretty poorly, I might add, except for the occasional accident of stringing a couple of clever lines together. But sitting on English Beach in Vancouver, BC., in 1986 I realized that writing -- being surrounded by words, poems, stories, books, creative expression - that's what I should do. That's what I needed to do. Three years later, I had my Masters in English and American Literature, having finally passed my foreign language competency exam (Mon Dieu!) and was a staff writer for a business magazine. I've never looked back -- metaphorically speaking.
The point being, writing is my happy place. That, and running. And reading good books. And doing crossword puzzles. And hanging out with friends and family with a nice beer, preferably a good craft brew. And traveling. And playing soccer. Okay, I have an abundance of happy places. But writing is not just a happy place; it's how I process meaning; how I understand life; how I best express myself; how I think out loud.
So do I pivot this blog away from cancer? Probably not.
But maybe.
Maybe I don't need a road map (boys, that's what people used before Waze) to figure out where this blog is going. Maybe it'll just get there on its own. Wherever there is.
--michael
