Bad Medicine

If you haven’t already watched the most horrible youtube video ever http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKLXEAPjwAw, it’s someone who captured me singing Bon Jovi during the Gusher Marathon. Bon Jovi was coming to town about a month after the victory and ticketcity was kind enough to give me 2 tickets to the coolest concert, I’ve ever been to. There was a great atmosphere, great lighting and much better singing than I could have ever achieved and I owe apologies to for destroying his video… but I had to decide who to invite. Let’s just say that I invited the current George Clooney girl…Who had been kind enough to have dinner with me the night before court and we got two very interesting fortune cookies... mine was the center one, hers was the hesitation one

I am not superstitious but I am a little bit stitious so it was intriguing to get those. But me, a guy who hasn’t had a girlfriend since high school, the other George Clooney girls I’ve taken pictures of but never with. As you can probably tell from my regular posting of pictures, I like photography but I think it captures something, perhaps like the Native Americans believe it steals a part of your soul. Well, the deal with Ticket City was asking if I would be kind enough to take pictures and post them share them etc. And so for the first time in over 2.5 years, I took a picture with a date…

Who is this girl? Well, I’m not going to give you her name or social security number but it’s an old friend who I may be entirely too comfortable with. But part of the attraction is that she’s almost as smart as I am/was and though she used to live in Austin once upon a time she had moved away. There is the simple fact that by knowing her for so long there’s less of a “getting to know each other” phase. She’s moved back recently but when this all started, she was one of about a dozen friends that flew in between the diagnosis and the surgery. Because she was also valedictorian back during her high school days and we had traveled to a couple of places together, she notices the deficits, frustrations that I have with the post cancer surgery, memory and financial deals. Only time will tell if she’s ready to deal with all that’s required to put up with me but I am little more open to the possibility.

Still, I couldn’t help but sing my heart out and laugh when Bad Medicine came on

Your love is like bad madicine 
Bad medicine is what I need 
Shake it up, just like bad madicine 
There ain't no doctor that can 
Cure my disease 

The bad medicine prescriptions still continue where people are trying to get me to try very many foreign substances to beat cancer… I take pills every day and still have woken up in ambulances and still there are focal seizures. I don’t know what the polite way to say this is but I’m not trying to beat this. I go see the doctors because they have a better clue how to monitor it.

This new George Clooney girl is interesting; we aren’t  at the boyfriend/girlfriend stage and I am not diving into that with anyone but it tells you something that unlike the other girls who people have seen us and said no one would guess you’re dating, she has literally been the first girl ever introduced as the current George Clooney girl (she rolled her eyes). With that said, well, last Friday, 2 weeks before the trip I asked her to come to Duke with me and on Monday I asked her to the Bon Jovi concert… She’s coming to both which is the first time since the original surgery over 2 years ago that I return to Duke with anyone. When she was trying to come to visit back when we were “just friends,” I blew her off and she contacted Todd, got more details and got here to visit. So, call it penance but she showed up when I was first trying to protect everyone from my diagnosis and so I’m inviting her to the follow up at Duke and that if all goes well, I may get the biggest break from cancer yet. The pills continue daily for the rest of my life but no medical or legal appointments regarding this diagnosis for 3 months straights which would be the first time in what feels like FOREVER.

She asked a question which no one has ever asked, despite the phrase that I’ve used dozens of times “why is it that you say that if you didn’t have a kid, you’d go climb in the grand canyon and die when you die?.” The answer is that the Grand Canyon is a lonely place. I am the definition of an extreme extrovert and to go to a place where if you get lost on your own you could get lost for days if not for life (or rather until death). So, then perhaps no one would notice if I die and I’d damage them less… But then again, the Grand Canyon theoretically started as a small separation that got that big from a crack that split over time… and perhaps with a break from the medical and legal stuff (I’ve slept better the last 4 nights than I had in who knows how long), the heart is a little lighter and opening up more than it has in a while.

There is a do not resuscitate order in place and Texas law has a refuse to treatment law that lets you refuse treatment when you believe it futile. If I'd lost custody, it would have been temping to get both into place but the universe was kind enough to reward the things I've put the most effort into. I run and keep up with the medical stuff to know that and have some confirmation that I am still fit and fit to parent. I did a 2 mile race trying to prepare for the Duke race pushing a stroller and Kiana and I came in 4th overall, sub 11 and won the non collegiate division... At that Cap 10k, the one that it had been announced I'd been at, I got my fast time ever 37.26. Between Kiana and I we've done a race every weekend since February 17th... People ask why I run so many races, why don't I just focus on one. One of the girls from my group called me such a running slut.  There was an entry in here once called avoiding cancer… and that’s what I’ve tried to not be, to not be cancer, to not be just someone that takes resources since I don’t have a job and provides nothing back. I volunteer places still and help out with various things like runs, math tutorning and ultimate and livestrong events to name a few. The healthy cells and healthy human beings are ones that both take and receive… if you don’t find the right balance, it’s asking for a collapse much bigger than the ones that put you in ambulances… I hope I'm doing a halfway decent job.

So, I am trying to do the parental thing as best as I can and the helping society out with the tools I've got left… and I’m not going to take every alternative treatment that people are recommending because I trust my doctors. And even if there is no doctor that can cure my disease, I am going to say that the closer of Bon Jovi is more my style. No promises on what will happen with the latest George Clooney girl but people like Todd, her and friends and family have provided the love I’ve received. It has not cured anything but it’s the best medicine I’ve had… And so I went to church this morning and maybe Bon Jovi had some other lyrics that were right… it doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not, we’ve got each other, and that’s a lot… for love, we’ll give it a shot.