Here is a Brief Clip Showing Some of the Work that the C3 Men's Breakfast Accomplished Over A Couple Of Weekends.

Thanks So Much Everyone!

The Lucky Ones

Days after I was diagnosed I went to Barnes and Noble to wonder the isles of books and sip coffee, in an attempt to be "normal". I restrained as long as possible from ducking down the isle that held the books on cancer. Eventually I succumbed acknowledging the fact that nothing was "normal" anymore. I found the section entitled cancer/cancer information, it was surprisingly small. You would think that such a large book retailer would have countless volumes on the subject, or maybe it was my hope that I would find that magic book that would tell me it was all going to be ok. I didn't. Instead I found lots of pink books entitled "Boobs" or "Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips". It was a bit disheartening, especially since I was a man, without breasts and sensing that anything with the words crazy, sexy, and cowgirl in the title really did not fit my situation or lifestyle either. With a cautious glance around to see if anyone was watching, I reluctantly pulled the "Crazy Sexy Cancer Tips" book off the shelf and found my way awkwardly to a table. Careful to not display the title to chance shoppers I read the book cover to cover. Though a bit embarrassing it was a very good book, full of sound information and resources that seemed to be helpful, if not then, definitely at some point in the future. It provided a thorough overview of necessary topics ranging from wholefood diets, self image, treatment effects, and unique ways to celebrate the fact that you were bald and "beautiful". I would recommend the book to anyone as a great point of initial reference (even if you are not a woman or even a cowgirl). I did go away feeling a bit frustrated that there were not more resources available for men. I went home and searched the Internet. Still resources for men were few and far between. It seems that unless your cancer has something to do with breasts or prostrates, you are lumped (no pun intended) into a massive group of dissimilar cancers. Resources are available for other cancer patients, unfortunately without the fanfare and more straightforward access as Cancers of the "nether regions". I expressed this frustration to a friend who pointed me to Lance Armstrong's book entitled "Its not about the bike" I picked up a copy and quickly read through it. I liked it. It had a bit much detail focusing on cycling, but that was an aspect of the man that could obviously not be separated from the larger reality of his battle with cancer. There were portions though that left my mind spinning. Armstrong's description of his diagnosis and the roller coaster of emotions that ensued was painfully raw and hit the mark with a clarity and similarity I could not deny. I myself am walking those darkened and fearful paths as I write these very words. Out of all the pages a couple simple statements that he made resonated with me in a powerful way. Armstrong tells of a letter that he received. It was from a man he had never met before. He himself had battled cancer. He wrote Armstrong to acknowledge his support and positive thoughts. As he finished the letter he made a strange statement that confused Armstrong. He wrote, "you probably do not understand this right now, but we are the lucky ones". What? How is anyone with cancer lucky? It is devastating. It not only has the potential to steal your life, but also has the destructive potential to steal your Hope. Those words are haunting. Lucky? We are the lucky ones. This brotherhood of suffering is somehow lucky..........blessed? It is diametrically opposed to any sort of sane thinking that those outside of this brotherhood would agree with. It actually is an almost dangerous statement. As if you say it as you are waking off a cliff without a safety net. A statement such as that redefines everything. Life. Death. And even Hope. But as I walk this path, and simultaneously encounter life in all its beauty and harshness, I find myself agreeing. "We are the lucky ones". I am lucky. I say those words with a part of me screaming, "how dare you, how can you say that". But it is true. The perspective that cancer gives to life is unbelievable. It has the power to refine you. Your thoughts. Your direction. Your focus. It is as if you look at life for the first time. Everything is different. Nothing is the same. Everything is turned on edge, revealing a freshness and an urgency that is not seen outside of cancer. If this clarity does exist in our normal lives, it is missed. Overshadowed by the busyness of life. By worthless and empty pursuits. Another quote from Armstrong's book was this: "Cancer is not about dying, it is about living" What a statement. Most would argue against it. But those that walk this path find it to be true. Life after diagnosis becomes "alive". It becomes real. It is as if you can grasp it with your own hands, breath it in, consume it. Oh if I could have had this view earlier in life. I knew that it existed. I sensed it. I chased it. Through the mountains. Through relationships. In the woods and fields of my youth. It was a whisper in the words of poets. And a reflection on the horizon as the sun slipped out of view. But i did not catch it until cancer became my reference. My reality. We who are members of this brotherhood and sisterhood of suffering are the lucky ones, because now we can truly live. And Love. And Hope. And I dare to say Dream. They are painful dreams, haunted with the shadows of uncertainty, but they are vivid dreams. Passionate dreams. Dreams that leave your heart aching, your soul longing. We are released from the fear of death. Our finite lives are bared. We come face to face with our mortality and realize that life is looking back at us. Raw and uncertain. But ALIVE none the less. There were days before cancer that I despaired. At times despising my life. But now I am hungry to live. I long to live. Whether that time be long or short, I hold tight to life and all of its glorious agony.

A Familiar Path

(Click on the image to view a larger version)

Above is a profile map of the Colorado Trail. It is just short of 500 miles in length. I spent a summer (approximately 60 days) hiking the trail. At least 1/2 of the trip I hiked solo. Alone. It included 14 mountain ranges with an average elevation of 10.000 feet. The lessons I learned on the trail parallel the lessons I am learning on this journey of cancer. There are lots of ups and downs. Days when you feel like you can't go any further. There are also days when suddenly the larger view comes into focus and it absolutely takes your breath away. Small things in life take on a greater significance. A phone call from a friend, a familiar face, the pleasure of a soft bed and a roof over your head. Securities we often take for granted. Hiking the trail as well as cancer has an incredible way of refining your focus. Life quickly becomes more real, important, and precious. All the other things easily fall away. On the trail you have lots of time to think. Your mind wonders and explores the recesses of yourself that our busy life does not permit us to venture into. Cancer is very similar. It exposes parts of yourself in ways never before felt. The only way to walk 500 miles through rugged mountains is to put one foot in front of the other. As you walk day in and day out you find yourself basking in the wonder of creation. No matter what difficulties came my way on the trail, whether they be rain, snow, heat, lack of water, wild animals, blisters, fatigue, or fear, the way to the end of the journey was simple. A single step repeated hundreds and thousands of times would eventually arrive at the end. It did not take superhuman strength or a talent that most do not have. It took a steadfast commitment. Step by step as the miles added up and the challenges slipped by. Today just like those days on the trail, is another step. Tomorrow yet another. I walk this journey in anticipation of the end, but I also know that there is much to learn in the process. It is the process, no matter what the hardship where great beauty and adventure can be found.

A Favorite Poem

The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Broken Vessels

I was reflecting on the video I just posted from the Livestrong website. To see all of those faces. Young. Old. Friends. Families. Fighting the same battle. Walking the same path I am. It is both empowering and frustrating. So many lives. So many lost. I know the harsh reality of cancer. Our family has seen it take its toll. My brother lost the same battle I am fighting. Same disease. Same age of onset. People often try to find "reasons" why people get cancer. Obviously poor lifestyle choices increase the likelihood of certain types of cancer, but the reality is that it almost seems random. On the outside at least. I have no easy answers, and feel that oversimplification of causes or "curses" is painfully ignorant. I frame this disease as a path one must walk. We all have paths that stretch out before us. Many are equally difficult. Loss. Fear. Broken relationships. Financial Ruin. Illness. Age. And countless other challenges that we are faced with. No one is immune. We live in a fallen world, where good people die, and bad people prosper. Our world is often unfair. Life is often unfair. It is our response to that reality that is ultimately most important. My response is hope. Hope in a God that is outside and above this broken world, but not absent. He is a God that is moving, often quietly, but steady. Molding. Bending, but never breaking. He is the master potter. I am a broken vessel. At a young age I asked him to fill me. I have continued to this day. Fill me to overflowing. The more broken I am the more his life giving water flows out of me and saturates the world around me. Brokenness can be at once a curse from a broken world and a blessing from God. My hope today is that my brokenness will reach out. My sphere of influence will grow. Not I, But HE. Not my will, But Yahweh God's.

What would you say?

These are Real Emotions. Real stories. Real Challenges. Real Hope.

Michael Jackson Sighting!

Broken Bodies

Life is a balance act. Juggling time, commitments, expectations, and relationships is like the man on the street corner spinning one, two, three, four, five balls into the air. Faster and faster they spin, one wrong move and they all come tumbling down. A persons health is like that too. The difficult thing is you can't see the juggling act. It happens without knowing it is going on. Heart beating pulsing out blood. Lungs expanding drawing life giving oxygen into the body. Cells, tissues, organs transferring waste, regulating, keeping this fragile frame of a human being in balance. Alive. Sometimes like with certain types of cancer you have no idea anything is going wrong. It is a bit unnerving when you discover that the body is not in balance, not working as it should. I received a call yesterday late in the day from my oncology nurse. She said my blood results from earlier in the day came back. My white blood cell count is dangerously low. At that time in the treatment cycle my counts should be at least 500. Yesterday they were at 250. What? But I feel fine. I have energy. I look good. A bit tired but who would not be after a 13 hour work day. It is as if my body had betrayed me again. First the cancer now this. A white blood cell count as low as 250 places me in danger of infection. The simple common cold could send my fragile immune system into collapse. The nurse suggested not being around people. Good luck with that, I work in Human Resources. I train staff. I teach at a community college. Suggestions were to disinfect everything and wear a mask. I am not ready for a mask yet. I have prepared myself for hair loss, possible sterility, endless tests, being pierced in the chest to access a buried port under my skin, toxic chemicals slowly being injected into my body, nausea, rash, etc, but not a mask. My mind shudders with the thought. My heart screams.....but that will make me look like I am sick. What a stupid thought. I am sick! The mind is a fickle animal. It languishes in a state of denial even when there is no room to hide from the stark reality of life. I am not ready for a mask. I have emotionally faced cancer, at least the word, that dreaded term, the "C" word. I have obviously not completely processed the reality that I am sick. Or at least could become even more sick. Foolishness. Today I am a bit angry with my body. This cursed flesh that I have struggled with all my life. So I lift my hands to the heavens, to the architect of the skies. My Redeemer. Master surgeon of the heart. My God. I am in His hands. His will. His Plan. I rest here. I was drawn to the following scripture. It is good medicine for a broken body. Paul writes to the Corinthian church: " (1) For we know that when this tent we live in now is taken down-when we die and leave these bodies-we will have wonderful new bodies in heaven, homes that will be ours forevermore, made for us by God himself, and not by human hands. (2) How weary we grow of our present bodies. That is why we look forward eagerly to the day when we shall have heavenly bodies which we shall put on like new clothes. (3) For we shall not be merely spirits without bodies. (4) These earthly bodies make us groan and sigh, but we wouldn't like to think of dying and having no bodies at all. We want to slip into our new bodies so that these dying bodies will, as it were, be swallowed up by everlasting life. (5) This is what God has prepared for us and, as a guarantee, he has given us his Holy Spirit." 2 Corinthians 5:1-5.

Laughter: A Healing Balm

When the storms of life are swirling and the darkness begins to pierce your ability to see the light of day, it is easy to loose sight of simple joy. I was reminded last night of this. I ran accross this video I had discovered about a year ago. I found myself simply laughing.

Innocence Lost

The need is great. The challenges are many. While this may reflect the place I am in, it is evident more and more every day that this is the place that countless other people are. Right now. As I write. The despair, the hopelessness in peoples lives is striking. There is an emptiness that can be seen. We rely on caffeine, routine, passionate pursuits of love and lust to rattle the feeling of hopelessness loose from our bones. The news is streaked with stories of anguish and loss. Innocence shattered. It is a struggle to make sense of the senselessness. There is a fatal flaw within humanity brought on by a long ago battle. Lost. A battle of will. A battle of control. We fight the same battle still today. Our humanity stricken with the grief of a world shaken from its foundation. Without restoration there is hopelessness. With restoration there is life. I hope for restoration. I pray for it.

Grasping

I look around and there is a whole life left undone. Projects. Housework. Plans. Dreams. My mind screams for some sort of order. Control. Everything seems to be undone. It easily pushes what feeble balance I have off center. Frustration seethes. Emotions run high. This walk feels more like a tightrope sometimes than a path. The fatigue is beginning to creep in. With it comes the deepening reality of this illness. A further understanding of my current reality. Sometimes I pause and look into the mirror and think to myself......."this is real, this is really happening". It is staggering. A sudden wave washing over the moment, sweeping in a frigged numbness. My mind freezes trying to comprehend the magnitude of what I am facing. Life. Death. Hope. Uncertainty. How do you live in such a reality. Life at least tangibly has not changed significantly in the last few weeks. Dogs still need walked. Dishes still need done. Children tucked into bed. The difference seems to be a point of reference. A paradigm shift. It is dizzying. It has left me unhinged. My hands grasping for something to hold on to.

Perspective

Vision and perspective is such a difficult balance in life. As I was sitting in the sun today on the porch, I realized that I was suddenly struggling to see the future. I have spent most of my life wishing away my days, waiting, hoping, longing for those "greener pastures", financial ease, the next trip, the days when the kids get a bit older, or quieter, etc. I have missed much of the "now" in life. The odd thing is right now, I am having a hard time seeing what may be to come in life. Treatment is uncertain, prognosis is hopeful, but I have seen the painful truth of this disease walked before me by my own flesh and blood. I have seen the harsh reality of life. Death. Loss. The aftermath that moves on in a relentless arch towards normality, just missing the mark. It is a slippery slope trying to balance the need for today with a healthy vision for a future that is in actuality completely uncertain. The specifics of our day can change on a moments notice. Financial downturn, sickness, broken relationships, things completely out of our control. Things we try so hard to hold at bay. A life without experiencing the moment of today is empty. At the same time a life without the hopefulness of tomorrow is shortsighted. A path with no end or direction. It is a difficult balance. One that today I am facing.

Illusion

I was writing a friend earlier about the illusion of life. The mask we all wear that hides the true man or women that is behind it. It permits us to walk along in life looking as if we are seemingly well adjusted, capable, secure, etc. I know intimately this mask. It has been an old friend. Its illusion is so powerful it can even hide the deepest struggles from those that are closest to us. Of all things, I am beginning to think that this mask paralyzes us the most of anything in our lives. It keeps us from being seen for who we really are. It keeps us from reaching out because we are afraid to drop the illusion, to be seen as we truly are, the scars, the weakness, the humanity within ourselves. This journey that I am on has provided some amazing opportunity in the short while I have walked this path. I am fortunate to have had this mask taken from me. I can not hide now, I do not want to hide. It is a disservice to myself and I am finding to others around me to hide behind the illusion. It is invigorating to reach out unencumbered. The words I love you flow easier, thank you drips off your lips with sincere gratitude, laughter is richer, sadness is even somehow more powerful. I am uncertain of the challenges that await me. Right now I feel physically very good, tired, but good. I hope and pray that as the treatments take their toll combating the good in my body with the bad, I will continue to be seen as I am. Unmasked. Unashamed. Human. Hopeful. Passionate. Enduring. That I believe is the cry of all of our hearts.

The Ministry of Brokenness

On man. It is not getting better. Can't sleep. The heartburn has evolved into a case of painfully deep hiccups that are trying to send what little dinner I had into orbit. Yuck! So I will contemplate some of the amazing people I have met so far on this journey. The staff at the hospitals and clinic have been incredible. They have been warm and comforting. Each have gone well out of their way to comfort me along each step. They surpassed even what would be considered optimum service. Each have reached out in a servant like heart. The list includes front desk receptionists, technicians, radiologists, CT/PET scan techs, nurses, doctors, and the list goes on. I have been truly blessed by the professional care I have received so far. Many times individuals have spent not just minutes but even hours with me discussing things in detail and ensuring that I have all of the resources I need medically, emotionally, and financially. But the real heroes have been the those that have surrounded me outside of the medical facilities. My family, our church friends, old friends, complete strangers I encounter at work, fellow employees, and the beautifully honest fellow travelers that I have met at the cancer center and the clinic. These wonderful souls posses the ability to reach out in their time of need to comfort the "new kid on the block" (me). I have met those suffering with significantly worse diagnosis than myself, cervical cancer, prostrate cancer, Brest cancer, rare incurable cancer, many of which is complicated by other health concerns, age and even developmental disabilities. None of these paths that these fellow travelers walk are easy, but I have seen such a lightness of being in them all. Each trying to see the hope in the midst of the raging storm, providing to others a glimpse of light that they themselves are searching for. There is this strange principle I am discovering not just in myself but in those countless others that are members of this difficult brotherhood and sisterhood of suffering. I am noticing that a significant part of the healing process is to reach out and give to others, both those that are sick and those that are well. It seems to some possibly a bit ludicrous, but to me it seems as if it gives this journey a complete purpose, a usefulness of sorts. I am coming to call it "A ministry of Brokenness" I am seeing it as a powerful balm to all in need. It is said in scripture that the prayer of a righteous man is powerful, just think of the power in the prayer of a righteous and broken man or woman. In our weakness we are made strong. There is a deep truth in all of this.

And the side effects begin!

Ugh! This afternoon brought my first side effects. The wonderful dulling of my sense of taste and a raging case of heart burn. I have tried about everything to get it to settle but nothing seems to help. Oh well, it means that the "witches brew" of toxins are beginning to do their dirty work. First they attack the fast growing cells in the body such as mouth cells, stomach cells, and hair follicles. Then they begin the deep work attacking everything else (hopefully those pesky cancer cells the most!). My medicine cabinet is beginning to look like a pharmacy. I am sure I will add some wonderful additions to the list of ever growing names I can not pronounce. Little magic helpers that sooth the long list of things that go wrong as things hopefully start to go right! Well my 13 hour work day has drained me. It is time to settle in for a nights sleep with a firey belly.

Sitting and Waiting

Well the first treatment is coming to an end. I started things at about 8:30 and it is now nearing 2:00. The staging was positive. Stage 2, there was no presence in the bone marrow and no cancer noted within the abdomen or below. That is great! It seems we have caught it early. The treatment regimen looks to be 4 months (8 treatments) of Chemo (ABVD) and 4-6 weeks of radiation daily after the Chemo ends. I do not have any nausea yet, we will see what the weekend brings. Now is a waiting game, watching for side effects, blood level drops, and infections. It sounds like the 4 to 5 hours of Chemo is the easy part. It is the in between times where things can get "exciting"

Wired

I am sitting here right now in a lazy boy recliner with my feet up. No I am not on some sort of vacation, or watching a movie, or napping on a spring day. Today I am willingly being injected with some of the most powerful and poisonous drugs I have ever heard of. The side effects are long and nasty sounding, hair loss, diarrhea, constipation (not sure how you can have both at the same time!), mouth sores, bruising, easy bleeding, allergic reaction, collapse of white blood cell counts, risk of infection, etc. So far so good! The room is full. People of all ages. It is staggering the longer I walk this path how many people are battling this disease. I have been unfortunately very naive about the extent of cancer in our society. It is an equal opportunity disease. It knows no boundaries. The scans, heart test, pulmonary test, blood test, etc. have all shown that I am healthy......other than the little issue of cancer. I have the blood workup of an athlete. Unfortunately there are these tiny cells in my body trying to kill me from the inside out. It is a strange place to be, a bit surreal.