Avoiding Cancer

There are a list of behaviors that will help you avoid cancer:  diet, exercise, things like not smoking or living in cities that are too polluted, picking the right parents.  And then even if you do them right, even then, serious athletes can get it, innocent children can get it, Superman’s wife can get it and whether or not you survive it may be a very dis-balanced coin toss. I haven’t gotten on the job market much at all. I did a resume and sent it to a couple of places and I need to ground in and go but I don’t know what I want to do. But unlike a relationship, I don’t have the luxury of sitting around for a year hoping someday that I’ll meet the right one.

I haven’t applied for unemployment and don’t know if I will. I have updated my resume but don’t really know what jobs to apply for but I am meeting with an attorney today and I turned in my appeal yesterday. I haven’t figured out what to do in regards to Cobra though I’ve looked at Costco’s personal health insurance which is in short great if it’s just for insurance and not as great if it’s likely to be necessary. Perhaps to no surprise, some of the things my doctors want to move up before insurance is gone with our insurance being self-funded aren’t being approved. We’ll call that a coincidence because its not like things have been approved well throughout.

All living things want to keep living. That includes the white blood cells which fight disease and cancer which is a disease. They want to continue to exists but the different between the good and the bad in very simple terms is that the cancer cells want to reproduce no matter what damage it does. Now, I am not getting preachy here about vegetarianism or recycling etc but if we consume whatever we consume without regards to the damage to ourselves or future generations, we aren’t much better than cancer.

Tonight I’m going to the Austin Marathon’s trash run (http://youraustinmarathon.com/trashrun). It’s a new tradition they started last year and this will be their 6^th one and I’ve haven’t missed any of them. I am usually not a litterer but during races I take that cup of water, drink it and then throw it on the ground. These trash runs each goes through part of the course and picks up garbage along the route, it’s own way of giving back.

Ironically, as a small child I actually wanted to be a janitor because I liked cleaning. A little older now I realize that’s not the easiest job nor is it well paid but I have to make some decisions about whether or not just going to work for a paycheck to “keep my lifestyle” is worth it to me. Kiana talked to me about the new shelves she’s going to have at Dre’s house and that (for the first time since her mother left), she’s going to have her own room where mommy lives. She shared it with the enthusiasm that children have about all novelties. My wife left when I was broke and sick to be with a guy who was healthy and has always made a lot more money than I am, infinitely more so when you have no income. Now I see my daughter excited about the things she’ll have there and anyone who doesn’t have mixed emotions about that please send me the instruction book.

I come from a country where grown men leave their children and wives to go live 14 or 15 men to a house to be able to send money back to their wives and kids to put food on the table. My own grandfather did it with his 12 kids. My stepfather did it for me and we had no genetic ties though he adopted me, his last name is mine, and the figure itself is tattooed onto my shoulder. And once again, wondering in the wilderness, I wonder about where Kiana is better off and where she’ll have access to more resources. And I wonder about whether or not it’s an adequate use or resources to be keeping track or fighting a disease that has always seemed improbable to beat.

I don’t know what’s coming. You could probably have stuck that sentence in the middle of any of these entries. But since I didn’t avoid cancer itself, I want to avoid being cancer, I want to avoid using healthy resources that damage healthy cells just to keep going , just to stay alive. I hope all this process is brain surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, things that do some damage along the way in order to restore perhaps even create health but it sure doesn’t seem like it. I don’t know how much left I have in the tank but I’ve always said “one day at a time, I get tired when I do two.” So today, I am trying to figure out whether or not to fight and to pick up some garbage along the way.