It’s all about the socks

 I grew up poor in Mexico and then came over in the same financial state to the United States at 8 years of age. Christmas memories vary for us all but for me I genuinely don’t have the memory of getting super materialistic happiness on December 25th. Most of my clothes were hand me downs or garage sale shopping (we didn’t have a Goodwill in the town I was in and now I work for them!). 

The present I remember most often is socks. I’ve always enjoyed athletic endeavors and whether that be running or team sports, my huge toes lead to worn out socks. So very often I would unwrap something under the tree that was a nice package of sacks likely from the dollar store. I remember always being greatful, though perhaps not excited. The one time I received a just for fun gift that I remember was a Heman tiger that I accidentally dropped into the neighbors friend and whose dog quickly destroyed it. Even fake cats were the enemy… 

I’m 42 years old now and I realize just how much those socks meant. I’m a runner still and on Christmas Eve it was the first time in my life that the year, the temperature and the mileage all matched-22. I was pretty consistent and just faded a little in the last couple of miles which made it the longest I’ve ran in over a year and in the entirety of the year. The wool socks mattered. 

But as I sat and thought of this, I realize that well I’ve gotten socks from lots of people including raffles (hey modern running socks individually are more expensive than the packs I got as a kid). But it takes me a moment to realize, without exception, everyone I’ve ever purchased and given socks to is someone that I love. It’s family and friends that could call at 2:00 in the morning and I’d be there in a heartbeat. 

I have socks from Kiana about how cold of a dad I am, I have gag ones that are bright colors that I rarely wear but don’t dare to discard. I also have some race ones and some recovery ones that are solid memories of events. Kiana for a long time was horrible about putting socks away and would just throw them in a drawer and then rather than looking for a match one day, decided to just grab two different ones whether or not they matched in color or length. I loved the non conformity and creativity of it. 

I hope whoever or however you’re spending this holiday season or the upcoming New Year, you reach out to those who lovingly provided you socks or have provided them for. The only person who I’ve never shared a home or a bed with that I’ve gotten socks to is my friend Chris, who is by far the person I’ve ran with the most and somehow will run with holes in his socks. My to go gifts for him are vodka and socks; I should combine those two someday. And believe it or not, it’s not a bad time to still get socks from someone. (If you’re thinking about me, somehow I’ve never gotten socks with an 8 or a lion!).

I am at the house I would always visit when I would come to west Texas. It’s a home my parents have been buying but my grandparents have been living in. Since my grandmother passed away last summer, my parents have been living here with my grandfather. I’ve struggled with the signs referencing that it’s grandpa and grandma’s house. It’s the first time I’ve ever visited and somewhere between the turkey or the tamales or the Mexican hot chocolate, I still feel like she’s just around the corner. I’m dreaming of a fully brown Christmas because there’s less of us now who don’t speak some if not fluent English but with her we had to talk in Spanish or be quiet. I’ve cried a bit but mostly I have tried to focus on the pictures of her smiling with different people at different stages. She was one of those people who gave me socks. 

So, let me emphasize again, that I hope you use and I certainly intend to, call, text, dm, shout at someone and thank them if they took  care of you from head to toe, those bare necessities whether or not they provided you the luxuries of life. Tell them you love them and appreciate the way they took care of you or the privilege you have in taking care of them. Maybe if you’re lucky, it’ll knock their socks off. 

Carma running over Dogma

 This thing is called picking up a hitchhiker because I’ve picked up every hitchhiker I’ve ever passed by and then needed rides for 3 years. But my carma has caught up in a different way in the last few weeks, I have been driving in 2 different cars that have been totaled in the last few weeks. I’ve also had my car on my ‘new’ 2007 Prius broken by someone who was breaking mirrors and biting people and then after that got repaired, the hybrid battery ran out. Somehow all the car bills from 3 years of not driving almost a decade ago got caught up and then some in 3 months. It’s a good thing the world is so car bill and purchase friendly right now… oh wait. 

I would like to apologize to whoever I pissed off because after a few runs of the best years in my life from like 2016 to 2018, I have been on a downhill trend since 2019 in so many ways with 2022 being the worst year of my life in about every way possible. Still, my email signature reads “ I am and always will be the optimist, the hoper of far flung hopes and the dreamer of improbable dreams.” Some people have interpreted that to mean the simple colloquial meaning of an optimism of seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. I’ve never quite understood that allegory since it’s an even split. When it’s not, are we supposed to say 1/10th full rather than mostly empty. Optimism for me is to stand in the pouring rain and believe the sun will shine again. 

I crashed into someone at a race recently, one of only two ‘good’ races I have had in over a year and like the days of old, one I signed up for the day before. They said my social media posts and this blog is not quite as positive as they remember it. I didn’t know what to say to that. There is some acknowledgement in that; I know that I’m worse for the wear, more than I’ve been in anytime I remember but hey I have a damaged memory. That’s a great irony because people still say I have more energy than anyone I’ve met but one of the women from the past recently said that my vitality in life was one of the attractive features of mine.  Only so much credence you should give to your exes (and I have enough in Texas to where I may have to retire in Tennessee) since it didn’t work out but it definitely made me wonder. 

I’m thankful to be alive each and every moment of every day. There are moments of those who are supposed to be the keepers of the flame that feel more abusive, more chokeholds or slaps in the face of those who are supposed to be caretakers. The medical bill for some bloodwork that was quoted to me for $50 came in at almost $4000. Several phone calls etc end with ‘there’s nothing else we can do for you” but they didn’t do anything for me to begin with. As I write this, I think I’m done with anything new in the medical world. I know I’m only 42 years old and this and that but I made peace with dying a long time ago and I’ll do the upkeep that I’m supposed to on what we know but I am exhausted. I’m not quitting; I don’t quit (trust me I did a half marathon yesterday in the slowest time I’ve ever done that course in a lot of pain in the humidity yesterday and there was not a moment of walking despite all the pain). But there is acceptance and not signing up to tilt at certain windmills anymore. 

I know no one fully gets it; I still have people who know that I walk into the room and am happy to be there and to see everyone because I genuinely am still happy in the freedom I take. But again “oh freedom, that’s just some people talking when my prison is walking in this world all alone.” I don’t think I’m getting bailed out of that prison ever cause a poor boy from an immigrant family in Mexico and small town West Texas to college in Napa Valley has lots of friends but such an odd story that relatability is both legion and hard. As a college professor once shared, “you are unique just like everyone else.” I have turned town book deals though it was offered at two different points in my life. (In case you’re wondering, I would call it “The Thrill of Hope, a Soundtrack of Quiet Desperation” with each chapter named after a song.) I am tempted to write it more and more these days but I don’t think I could with the honesty and rawness that I’d want because while I see and would project most of what’s gone wrong on to myself, sharing the details of other people’s lives who matter to me, well oddly enough too many of those people read this blog and appreciate but are very private. Most of them realize that it’s just hiding in public which is actually far more freeing than just hiding or hiding in therapy or telling almost enough to your friends to where you feel honest. But while some people live life to add this time or that one to the memoir, I think all/almost the things I’ve ever read that were based on true stories it was people living with intent to live more than intent to remember that made interesting. 

So I’m ready for this year to end. I’ve kind of given up all old traditions about Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s that I once had in this rough era thinking maybe it was time to let the old ways die. I’m hoping the carma days run over my dogmas and I just hope for a really really boring year in 2023. I am going to run the Austin marathon in February which is the furthest I can dream ahead. It’s odd, in July it was the first time my oncologist stated/believe I wouldn’t die of cancer according to the stats but my father’s death in 2021, my grandmother’s in 2022 and invariably the number of cancer friends that continue to give me survivors guilt make me have a harder time envisioning too far down the road. Right now I’m tired enough to where I’m not even thinking to my next MRI which was my previous method of keeping time. But for today and at least tomorrow, I still want to live like Don Quixote but not die like him. I want to die an unreasonable man, tilting at windmills till the end. I want to love though I gotta get better at that pure and chaste from afar if Dulcinea even exists anywhere except in my projections.  And when I walked away from totaling car accident number 2, I ran the fastest race I have in about a year and a half, the only good one since June of 2021 (a friend joked I should have more car accidents). But with simple materialistic or any other sorrow, even if I can’t go as far, I still want to run where the brave dare not go. And well if I can do that, I think my heart will be peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest. 

The Narrative To Come

 “Narrative is one of the best intoxicants or tranquilizers.” ― S. Byatt, Still Life

I imagine most, if not all of us, have stories we tell ourselves, songs we listen to, something that makes our inner self release what we want to come out. Maybe it's right, maybe it's wrong, maybe it's neither but life with a better flow makes a little sense. 

People have said about this blog, or my speeches or even work presentations that I'm good at narrative. I may just be doing awake what we all do at night, writing a story that connects the randomly received to the remembered reality. But here I am again, reflecting on one more year of cancer. Remember, remember the 5th of November, 13 into them, 12 anniversaries where the damage in my brain is relegated to still being secondary to life. 

I celebrate it or acknowledge it in someway every year, every year. That is more times than I have acknowledged my birthday in the entirety of my life and if it makes will surpass the wedding anniversaries I've celebrated despite being married twice. This year, acknowledging that some people you adore and appreciate deserve quality level stuff, I had a "what ages well" themed celebration Saturday night asking people to bring fine wine (even throughout the dare that whoever brought one from the same year I was diagnosed got extra points). 

There were more bottles brought than drank but early on, someone brought one called Austin Hope and as they did they asked me to make a toast. It was off the cuff and I don't remember it all but it started with a joke about how I often get paid to speak and they weren't paying enough for me going very long. I shared the appreciation of those in the area and those not there and I finished remembering that almost to the minute 12 years ago I was being admitted to a hospital and because I had shared that I had something going on in my brain, good friends were coming into the room. When others showed, the nurses asked them "Are you here for the party room?" and pointed them the right way. 12 years later, the party goes on! Who can't say cheers to that?

It was low key, talking to old and new friends from the one who helped raise money to get me to brain surgery, to the one who ran with me outside the hospital and helped keep me safe in the marathon I put off brain surgery for (they just had a baby!), to the one who flew me back from Duke to different ones along the way, most more established friendship but some brand new ones to though those I could count on one hand; this was a more established relationship invitation primarily. Even Kiana realized how important it was because while she was supposed to be at her mom's for the weekend she was there for it. 

We broke in the newly built patio (the previous one rotted) and it was the first real gathering since pre pandemic with roughly as many years as I've been alive people coming through and going. At the end of the night we had finished exactly 12 bottles of wine, some light, some dark, some blends, one non alcoholic. Speaking of good stories that seemed like a good parallel to the last dozen years. 

It would be dishonest to say that between year 11 and 12 was not by far the suckiest time of my life ever and well... that's saying something. But it took a little bit of fire and hope to realize that even during the rough times, I want s'more. 

The next day I ran a 10 mile race that I once ran by myself in under 60 minutes, that I once ran with Kiana in a stroller in 63 minutes and that I ran next to Kiana in about 75. The muscles are worn and tired these days and still have unexplained deficiencies. I barely beat Kiana's time. But at the finish line and now, I realized that while it may be what got the world's attention, my speed was a release point not the point itself. The playlist I have made for the last few races have had different music and it was as I cheered friends in that I realized the angry songs don't make my playlist anymore. There's no more Eminem. They are still up beat and rhythmic but I don't have much anger left in me. I'm not sure, despite my damaged memory, I even completely recall what I was so angry at and why that needed to be absorbed through shock on concrete and pavement. There was a point late in the race when I knew that my competitive spirit it at least not what it used to be if not entirely gone when a woman in a stroller past me about 3/4 past the race and I was more proud of her than I was ashamed of me (but both were true for the record). 

But focusing too much on the past was never my style no matter how good or bad so I ran and finished and smiled. And I cheered people in and I loved that I am still part of this community and part of the run of it. 

I don't know what life holds next but that's always been true and the guessing game of just reading this blog shows you that it's about as reliable as Texas weather reports. I may be true to my word but there's other people and circumstances that I wouldn't have ever ever guessed. 

It's Election Day as I write this. In this representative democracy where we each should do our own part and really all do whether it's passive or active, make a choice in what comes next. But I'm going to keep focusing a lot on today and plenty on tomorrow and even on the nights that end harshly, I'm going to be thankful for each day, challenge myself and those I love to make tomorrow a little better in its own way. Perhaps, with that, there will be a dozen or more 5ths of November and days to make choices and the narrative to come will be not a perfect but a great experience. 

Immortal But Not For Long

Roughly 10 days ago, I was at the first LIVESTRONG Challenge weekend I had been at since 2018. I spoke briefly at the 25th anniversary gala, only a few days after I had remembered the adventures at the 20th one. The room had changed since then of course, CEO was different as were a good percentage of the attendees, but there were still a few friends in the room and in the display was my guidebook, a gift that keeps on giving. 

It was the first time I ever quoted Tolkien while speaking, that not all who wonder are lost, and that some of the tools and guidance they gave me helped me remember home in a time of disorientation. I’ve never grown entirely into being comfortable being a cancer guy, perhaps because I still have it and I never wanted to identify too closely with what I’ve always believed would kill me. But the people there were wonderful. Some of course only saw the idea of me since we only interacted briefly but there were friends there, who knew exactly how human I were and how helpful and hopeful they were to that humanity. It was not lost on me, however, that despite the smartest thing I ever said came from a LIVESTRONG video that ‘you have to work on the relationships you want to keep’ that I was the only person speaking at that event who came and left alone. Still, enough people commented on my speech and my fashionable outfit to where I left smiling.

The next day I had a 10k that I am doing as part of this distance challenge series of races that are all or nothing. I’m still struggling with returning to running at my previous capacity and believe you me that’s frustrating so on a flat course I was riding a see saw of will power and vitamin deficiencies and potential. The playlist had some good songs previously quoted on here before but there were also some new ones, perhaps remembering that change is life’s constant. Still it was lyrics from the song here that stuck out to me as I was around mile 4

Sometimes the only payoff for having any faith is when it’s tested again and again every day

I’m still comparing your past to my future; it might be your would but they’re my sutures. 

I encapsulated that the past and the future were both versions of me but at least in regards to running certainly liked the past. I tried to close after that song was over and still wanting to believe that I was the 30 something year old that was daring to dream about maybe getting to 40, I was the 42 year old straining a hamstring. But of, of course, I finished because I would crawl before taking a DNF.  Almost 12 years into this journey, I am not certain that I’ll ever find someone to call when I can’t crawl anymore. Still, I had a friend Tim pacing me for most of that 10k and by pacing, it meant slowing down with my hamstring. We’ve raced each other before and perhaps will again but it was good to have company. 

From there, I went to the LIVESTRONG Challenge. Before I knew it would conflict with this race, I had signed up for the 100 miler but I biked 20 miles for the 20th anniversary, so I went for 25 on the 25th. I had company for the first bit and varying company on the return. I was slow going out but hauling on the way home. I’ve been all around the world and as a matter of fact, who says you can’t go home. It was different people at the finish line, some who asked some of the tough questions since we last saw each other, some who shared it in the silence. There was enough warmth there where you realize that there’s room for a new welcomes. New firsts that will can still exist at this point in life.  

I spent that afternoon reflecting on the friends I’ve made along this cancer journey, many, most of them better people than me. I still and will always struggle with the survivors guilt where people who statistically were supposed to alive did not outlast me. Some were better athletes, better partners, better fathers. I also remembered the last one and reached out to some of the ones who hadn’t made it. It was all a tough but healthy perspective. 

Then the next morning as I headed to run with Chris, the primary run with, in the street I’ve turned off since I bought a house 16 years before, I got hit by a car on my drivers side. I stepped out of the car and checked on the other drive. She was shaken up but seemed and stated she was fine. Someone pointed out I was bleeding. It was from my head on the passenger side, something I still can’t make sense of since the impact was on the drivers side. 

Three minutes or so after getting out of the car I was calling the friend I was on my way to run for telling him I wasn’t going to make it due to my car getting totaled. He immediately said he was on his way over. I  made a list of phone calls about missing work, to share that I was okay without someone even knowing I was in an accident, to make sure Kiana’s mom could pick her up from school. I realized quickly this wasn’t normal; I was holding a blood soaked towel while taking care of business. People have suggested this was the adrenaline but it’s what I did after seizures. It’s what I did after brain surgeries. Somewhere I’m not wired right. I wasn’t even going to go to the doctor but Chris insisted where I ended up with 20 stitches with my favorite joke being that I sure go to a lot of effort to get matching scars. 

Still, a friend who happened to have an appointment in the building took me to another friend who lent me a car for a week. I made my 11 am meeting, worked into the evening and had enough time to make a dealership to realize this is not a good time to be looking for cars used or new. For all that I’ve done wrong in my life, I must have done something right to get good friends. I’ve long stated that I have great friends but the great punchline comeback was someone who stated “Of course all your friends are good people; only really good people could put up with you.”

Still, Chris who had come immediately upon finding out and took the pictures said to me “3 feet further and you’d likely not be here.” It takes a cursory look at the photos to realize he was right. I grew up in a rough neighborhood, I have cancer and outlasted the prognosis for most people, I’ve had seizures in various places and now I’ve been through a serious car accident. I was at a run yesterday where as I took a picture of the group they said “get closer to each other, don’t make Iram go into the street; he’s cheated death enough times.” I don’t know if Leons, since they’re from the cat family, technically get 9 lives and with my luck I only get 8 probably but probably wise not to push the limits too many times. Still, strained hamstrings, vertigo, vitamin deficiencies and issues with my liver, I still insist that I may be more afraid of aging than dying. 

But of course, I was running 3 days later, I have a 12th cancerversary party this Saturday (like fine wine baby, like fine wine; which one are you sending if you’re reading this) and I’m running a 10 mile race on Sunday and I still believe I can learn to hope and love and live better. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but I’m a Leon. 

So even today while I got a several thousand surprise medical bill for some of the oncological stuff I did earlier this year, I feel like my life has been a ‘day of the dead’ scavenger hunt, I remember that in Encanto and some of my culture the way those who have passed ‘stay alive’ is by being remembered. That’s charming in it’s on way but I am also trying to remember those who are alive now that I do so too. 

My life, love, my drive they came from pain. So even as life continues and continues to be strange, I’m a believer. 

To Hell With You

“But all alone his blood runs thin and doubt, doubt comes in” Hadestown

I watched Hadestown last weekend, a musical spin on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. It was the day after I got the bloodwork result. While I’m more tempted to sing you a couple of the songs or give my critical review of the Tony award winning musical, I don’t think that’s why I write here or why anyone read. 

On my bloodwork it was determined I don’t have any reason to believe I have any new cancer or  too serious of liver damage. I just have some leukopenia and that is what’s causing some issues. There doesn’t seem to be any solution we’re going to approach or figure out and like my brain, it’s just going to be a sit and watch and wait monitoring situation so several medical appointments later… no real progress. They thought I would be more excited to hear that there was no cancer or evidence of disease and it was my doctor’s assistant who came by who hadn’t met me so I responded with a recent oft repeated line that I’m more afraid of aging than dying.

I am relieved but not as relieved as they hoped. But in the context of that confusion I watched a musical about someone who goes to hell to save their loved one but they aren’t able to make it back because they look back right before helping them escape. Whatever interpretation you want to give is fair game but surely there had to be some one who was trying to focus on looking forward. Looking back hurting the person you love the most and then hurting you because you hurt them… if that’s not hell I don’t know what is. 

That wasn’t the part that caught my eye, ear, or heart though. It was that the reason his loved one ends up in hell was because she was asking for help but he was too focused on his own song so did he put her in hell only to love her enough to almost get her out? That’s a tough story. I’ve obviously not been great at helping people join me through hell much less to hell and back. In those moments on a hospital bed where you turn away emotionally asking what’s wrong with my brain, you hope someone is listening and that they rescue you on the way to hell not to just get you to escape. 

The balance of relationships and health and ethics and consequences were singing through my head quite literally about when I have tried to figure out too much at once alone. I know I have good friends with the vast majority of the ones who were in the hospital room still available. I was talking to someone about money and they said that after a point it doesn’t matter how much money you make, just how many people will show up if something goes wrong at 3 o clock in the morning. I am thankful to have and be in that kind of relationship with good people.

I come from a background that says there is power in the blood and so as my athleticness give ways due to blood issues it sure seems to be true. But somehow despite the fact I am not generating power in the way that I used to. I just did a 5k that during my usual days (like a year and a few months ago) I likely would have finished in the top 3 I’m super disappointed that I came somewhere in the top 20. It’s funny almost 12 years ago, I was scared because the way I’d always defined myself by my brain was now at risk and I learned to define myself more by my running muscles. Now those are struggling and I’m lost a bit, that was easy to read in the last post. 

But today, I’m seriously considering signing up for more races, perhaps even return to a marathon for the first time in over a year for the Austin marathon. I can’t decide if to take it as my final lap. Then again when at 30 I was doing it as my final lap well I’ve done over a dozen since then so who knows. But how can I not do 42 kilometers at 42 years of age? 

I hadn’t blogged in a while but the last one helped me remember while I may not have listened well enough yet to stop hell being a factor in my life, I’ve had some good people who keep leading me out. But I guess that reminds me of a cheers from there “To the world we dream about and the one we live in now!” Oh and for my expert review, in case you were wondering, my favorite part was some great female trombone solos with some serious good slick slides up and down the scale. 

 

Bailed Out

“Stuck in this game you've started, Don't leave me broken hearted 'Cause I've got nothing left to lose”-Higher

I’ve not been blogging much. In fact I’ve blogged as many times this week as I had the rest of the  year. There was once upon a time I started writing it just to remember with a damaged memory. There were times I was hesitant because for some reason strangers started reading it instead of known people and then when people I cared about were being written about more got more private, it got harder for it be raw and uncensored since they all appreciated their privacy as much if not more than most people. I’ve written elsewhere in a process where I write things out and then delete it, more of a purge than a process. 

There are other reasons which perhaps will get a blog of their own in due time or as someone who reminds that life is short and that they are hot, there are still people who think I should write a book. I doubt it would be well received because too many people still like the idea of me better than myself. But there was a comfort in hiding in public in this forum so at least for today, well I’ll try it again. 

This year has been medically rough. Somewhere late last year there started being health issues, none of which have been written around here. Something didnt’ feel right in my muscles. I wanted to dismiss it as mental but hard as I tried I couldn’t turn the mental back on. Maybe it was malnutrition and I just needed to take more protein. I changed up some eating and drinking exercises, I took off the better part a month off running after not having missed a day in over 3.5 years. I went to a chiropractor. Finally I went to a doctor where I acknowledged that I was more afraid of aging than I was of dying. They took 14 vials of blood taken in February to run some tests where there were some deficiencies in vitamins and iron. There were 3 supplements and follow up, that resulted in more blood tests and more follow ups which resulted in more blood tests, a second doctor and more follow up. On Monday, 3 days ago, I did the 5th bloodwork of the year. This year I have had the most medical appointments in any year of my life since year two of cancer. Something is definitely wrong. It could be a variety of diseases or just simply damage to my liver or kidneys having issues from heavy dosage of medication or maximum dosage really for almost a decade to keep me from waking up or the lack thereof on the side of a run as occurred once. But the only result missing from Monday’s work is whether I possibly have lymphoma or leukemia. It is possible (but highly unlikely the doctor said) that I may have one of those. The last time the doctor ordered some cancer test and said it was highly unlikely that it was something… well let’s just say it got this blog started.

I have sat here and wondered what to do. I have a DNR order and a futile care order well established. I am tired and worn out. I am not sure how much of the fighter still remains. I think i can go at least 5 rounds but could I even get to my favorite number and do I have what it takes to knock it out if it’s there again. It felt from the last brain cancer appointment that maybe I was finally getting free from prison but maybe I just moved to another one. Is there anyone to bail me out? What’s the right way to ask the bailif a question at this point? Too early to tell I suppose. 

There will be people who will ask what about Kiana. My goal almost 12 years ago was not to just be there indefinitely, just to give her some good memories and to hopefully give her the tools to be fully capable of independence when I’m gone whenever that may be. Watching the struggles of her adolescence, I’m not sure I’ve done much for either. But I often genuinely wonder if maybe her life wouldn’t be a lot better when I reflect on the fact that the biggest negative contributor in her life may well have been the tension between her parents which is zero percent her fault, much of it coming from her mother leaving in the middle of cancer with scars and staples in my head and the damage from that continuing from too many people. I also think I’ve likely never modeled any healthy relationships for her at least in the significant other category. 

So sometimes you just feel lost? And you wonder if there’s some writing on the wall? I don’t have spatial orientation anymore after surgery but recently I was able to march like someone bringing flowers to a king to a new place but I could remember it perfectly because it was next to medical appointments I had pre brain surgery. My mind’s most powerful memories are in trauma and lyrics. As I drove home from there, I got a text that some of the results were in. I pulled over to read it but it was a minor update to the complete blood count not the cancer tests. 

I don’t know what’s coming but I’m tired of the tests and the scanxiety and doctors again. I long ago said to my regular doctors that the less I see them the more I like them. This new set, one of them said that I was the kind of patient who keeps them up at night because the results are so odd. But whatever comes I’l try to focus on continuing to dream the impossible dream even if it’s an unreasonable way to tilt at windmills. And if some parts of my body are going lower, I’ll try to find some love or hope or positive emotion to let me go higher.

When Abuela and Forever Leave

My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. There is no proper homage to a woman of that magnitude. I spoke at the funeral and a few words at the burial. I wrote things on a social media and here at a month and a half out, I still regularly cry as I process it. I’ve tried to explain to me, Kiana, others that part of it is like most people’s grandparents in her life, she was not someone who I visited or who visited me. For at least all the early years of my life, I was in her house. And unlike my mother who was an adult and I’ve watched her age, my grandmother was somehow ‘always old and yet always there.’ She is the closest reality to forever I have, what I imagine God must be like, kind, ever present, ever caring, always providing. 

She was still standing and mobile till the last few weeks due to heart issues. She’d had heart issues for a while so it didn’t come as a complete surprise at 8y years old. Still, that age means that in my life she’s always been there, feels like she was there before the universe itself. 

She was also diagnosed with cancer this year and has declined treatment so it’s been a year of health issues. She’d been unconscious for most of this hospitalization but as she’s come through she’s made it clear she doesn’t want a lot of medical treatment for this now, just to be given a chance to to heal or get to get her final rest back in Chihuahua, in the house and neighborhood I was born and raised in. Her children, my mother included, seemed to resist that. The day I visited her in the hospital in July some of them were angry that a doctor had talked to her that morning with another and recorded that she didn’t want any more treatment. They were angry because they weren’t told or invited but living in the world I know, I would guess it was a liability issue. The woman didn’t have a full education so there was no legal paperwork about those thing. 

Speaking of my mom, she was a single and working mother. My grandmother Sahara has never had a ‘job’ in her life because before she was legally an adult she started raising 12 kids, my mom being the oldest of alternating 6 girls, 6 boys. That continued to raising grandkids and great grand kids in various capacities and levels. For me, I was literally under her roof in Mexico as my childhood, never afraid of her, but if there’s one person I didn’t want to disappoint in my entire life, it’s been her. I didn’t bat a thousand and there were times I just hid my misbehavior from her. Perhaps the most infamous one of ‘not getting away with it’ is when I started a newspaper on fire 6 years and because I heard her coming I knew I had to hide it. I threw it under the couch. The reprimand was about my safety not the destruction of her property. 

I have a big head and apparently it would knock me off balance and I’d fall on it. She told that story all my life cracking up. But I also remember her after the laughter which I’d join her in that long before the brain cancer she said well you have a big brain in there. Use it. 

She has always been an excellent cook; in 42 years of life she’s fed me ridiculously excellent meals of just the greatest stuff on earth tamales, tostadas, burritos, tacos, menudo. There is exactly one time she ever made a meal I didn’t like, some vegetable heavy soup when I was very young so I just rushed through it and ate it very fast. When she saw that, she proclaimed how I must have thought it was delicious and served a second bowl. I ate that second bowl very slowly, a good life lesson. When I became more ‘modern’ I tried to take over the kitchen once and she quietly redirected me that was her territory and to go sit down; I did as I was told. In the first and only road trip I’ve ever taken Spring Break of 2021, the first stop was to visit her on the way to a few other things. At 86 years old, she still insisted on making us a meal. That road trip included national parks, great restaurants, mountains. The only picture I printed and framed from all of that is the one with her, my grandpa and Kiana.

There was an ever growing number of grandkids and great grandkids. I like to think I’m the favorite and have always taken it confirmation when I was the one chosen to walk her down the aisle at her and my grandfather’s 50th anniversary. Two years ago, summer of 2020, was supposed to be a huge party for their 70th but it was made very small due to covid restrictions. Never removing my mask, I made sure to make it. When I visited her at the hospital, as I hugged her goodbye, she said I was always one of her favorites. I actually shared that story at her funeral to the groans of the audience but finished the story that when I said it to my cousin, he said that’s what she tells everyone. 

We share a cell phone plan that had to be upgraded in the middle of this pandemic because my grandmother’s data usage exploded during quarantine. The visits from the family and friends greatly reduced out of precaution. While for some of us it was binging on some old or new shows and movies, my grandmother’s screen time increase  was from constant viewing of sermons. God had to bless her soul for how long this matriarch has put up with all of us. Somewhere I have a hope that the Ruler of Universe is as thankful about people like her as the other way around.

I ended up getting her phone after her passing to try to clear it out and there were almost no original pictures on it, I realized that because one of the most recent ones was one of Kiana from an event she wasn’t at but it had been texted to her. Her camera was mainly a photo album of pictures she’d saved. Oh also, tons of sermons she had downloaded. 

Ironically enough, the heart attacked that got her near the edge, it happened as she returned from Chihuahua to West Texas and was in between the two in El Paso. In the border, at the pass between the two countries she’s lived in, most of her children and grand children are now on this side of that river but she wants to go back and rest where she was born. 

When I heard about it, I almost didn’t go because I knew I’d kept a good relationship with her. As I’ve traveled my own journey, I’ve seen a lot of people who think a last goodbye is important. I’ve made it a successful goal to always call and visit her and say hello. I don’t know what’s coming but I was thankful for 4 decades of Hola with my Abuelita. But when she came to, she called and said, my fingers work, my toes work, my brain works, my mouth works but the engine is giving out. I flew there the next day. Kiana as unable to go as she as at her mother’s home just having caught covid.

She was tired when I arrived, trying to get out of her hospital room with an aunt saying the nurse wouldn’t let her. I made sure they let her but after just one lap of me pushing her, she was ready to rest. Her heart was at 20% and she was wearing an oxygen mask. I flew back that day and did the crying on the plane, figure it was past her time to comfort me. 

I made arrangement for Kiana and I to fly to Chihuahua about a week later, where she would head to be in hospice. Unfortunately, she died the day before we were headed out there. She had another mild heart attack the night before but when your heart was already at 20%. She stuck to her position and didn’t take any more treatment and wouldn’t use a machine to stay alive. She had been eating good solid Mexican food in the house she raised me in for the last few days with children, grandchildren and great grandchildren present. She was tired and the family that was around her didn’t know what to do, who does when someone that they love is near dying. They sang hymns and she was like can you all just be quiet and let me rest. Somehow it seems entirely appropriate that her final words were in essence shut up and give me a break for once. 

We’d get there on the funeral day where 1 by 1 all of her 12 kids (9 themselves and 3 by their children) spoke about her. There were 12 very different human beings with different stories despite having the same parents, same town, same up bringing with different reflections. Then they opened it up to various speakers. I ended up being the final one highlighting more her humor, not minimizing the faith that had been highlighted about how this would all be okay cause we’d see her again but asking that between now and then, that we live up to her legacy and honor the memory of her with our lives. Kiana had painted a picture of her which was given to my grandmother and they put it on the casket during the service.

It hit me the hardest later that evening when we were back at her house. Somehow though I spent years in it and visited lots afterwards, I never thought of it as my house or my grandparents house, it was my grandma’s house. Perhaps because my grandpa would often be gone to work in the US or elsewhere for a while. Perhaps because the kitchen was always where she worked and directed. It was at that moment when she should have just come around the corner and told us that food was ready or what to do. In that moment was one of the biggest cries of my life. I went outside and took a walk and the neighbors from across the street who were still there from decades ago offered me a shot of tequila. I took the first and passed on the second. 

It was Kiana’s first visit to where I was born and I’d show her some things old and we’d discover parts of the town together. That may need a reflection of its own but I just kept thinking about that forever was gone. My grandpa has gotten his first cell phone since then at 91 years. I’ve called him but we never really did speak on the phone much and I struggle with what I’m certain is a fraction of what he’s dealing with, why can’t I also talk to my Abuela when I make that call. 

I know and can only imagine that my pain is a fraction of my mother and aunts and uncles or even the cousins who she raised longer because of other single parents. And that it’s a grain of sand on the beach of my grandpa who spent 71 years next to the most wonderful person I’ve ever met and they shared a bed till the last few days. I miss her. But I’m thankful that my grandmother loved me forever and that’s how long I’ll love her back. 

Confusion about my birth and death

 I didn’t meet my father until I was 15. He didn’t know I existed until then. My parents were never married, well they were just not to each other. I’ve always been a bastard. I had assumed my brother’s father, my mother’s first husband was and somehow never mentioned it to anyone, just wondered why he was polite and no more to me while being much kinder to my brother his son. So when I found out the truth, that shifted a lot of things about self perception about who I was from well conception on. 

Today’s events had similar…feelings. I didn’t officially get my MRI results from over a month ago till today. I had gotten a print out of the report the day after from a second opinion so I wasn’t worried about it, a formality in my book this time around. In the conversation with my neurooncologist in over a year, there was a lot to catch up on and like the good man he is he asked questions and listened. Now that I’m back in the workforce, always being a workaholic I have done my appointments to disrupt that as little as possible. The MRI had been at 10:00. This appointment was his closing one of the day. 

Still, the conversation we had, had a very confusing element. The median survival rate for my cancer is 4 years without surgery, 7 years with. Long time readers of this train wreck of thought may remember that at 7 years he said well maybe IF and when we get to 10 years we’ll move MRI’s to annually instead of every 6 months. The kind born on 8/8/80 talked him into doing it at 8 years. When I got to 10, the survival rate is 12% and he said after giving me the good news that everything was stable and congratulating me the reality check in of that he’d had a lot of his patients see growth between 10 and 12 years. Last year at almost 11 he said “well you know if we get to 15 I may start to believe you’ll be one of the lucky ones.” There may be people who take that as harsh but I genuinely appreciated. It’s why I’ve kept him as my longest doctor. My neurosurgeon I picked because he said we’re probably not going to beat this but maybe we’ll get you to 40. I like reality checks, I like reality (I like checks too if anyone wants to send them). 

I’ve long stated that what I bet on and what I hope for don’t always match after all I’m a Dallas Cowboys fan. It gets some laughs but then I realized what I bet on and what I hope for rarely match. If it’s ‘just a hope’ I next to never put money on it. The only games I’ve ever bet on in a casino in any significant fashion are Blackjack and Poker, ones that because the mathematical parts of my brain still work, I can figure out odds. The house, like the Grim Reaper, may always win but you have some probability to guesstimate. So I have been betting on the probability that I would be dead by 40… that passed but still I just figured, it was at best Russian roulette with a bigger barrel than I had realized (those damn abusive Russians). 

And I don’t really know what to do if my oncologist is right. Of course that may not be true, he was never stating I would die but the probability didn’t apply here, has not so far anyway. But what is he is? I’ve made the vast majority of big decisions based on not living too long, heck on not being alive now. This can easily be deduced to the best and worst decisions of my life.

Financially, I assumed the big medical bills may come again and have lived more fiscally to not leave my child with less at my passing (remember she was 3 when this started). Ironically, it’s led to  me putting money into retirement accounts, betting I’d never retire but because in the event of medical bankruptcy they can’t go after that so it was protected for Kiana.

I didn’t do dental care as much as I should have cause you know I didn’t need them for decades just a decade and that has cost me a fair chunk of change. 

I’ve kept driving the same 2008 cause why would I not just run it into the ground. It’s holding but it is the longest I’ve ever owned a car even if 3 years it was sitting in a garage due to seizures. 

Almost all my decisions about relationships with women have been based on that probability… I’ll let the long time readers guess on whether I think those were among the best or worst decisions of my life. 

But one I made was that I decided, made it impossible for myself to have any more kids because I thought it would be irresponsible to leave a kid with a low probability for a father. I never wanted Kiana to be an only child. How bad was that decision as a risk assessment? 

I stayed out of the proper workforce being forced out until some changes forced me back into it thinking that I wanted to enjoy life. I’ve returned realizing I’m still a workaholic but even as I was trying to return I only applied in the non profit world figuring I had at best 5 years to give and feeling like the equity in my house, the 529, and the retirement were enough at this point to get Kiana to college and proper adulthood since I wasn’t going to be around anyway. Would I have worked harder to get into the for profit world with this idea? 

At usual appointments, I ask can I keep running and am I fit to raise a kid because one is how I get through the day and the other day is why. My running is horrible right now for a huge variety of reasons, some of them strictly medical. And while there may be people who think I’m a decent dad, I know exactly how inadequate I have been in Kiana’s adolescence so even my typical questions of how and why are off. 

As I headed out of the oncologist office, I saw him headed out the back into his car as I sat reflecting in my car. I drove out then and somewhere in the Austin traffic, I started bawling, not my rare crying which is a tear or few down my cheeks but just where you’re trying to hold it in but to do so makes you feel like you’re being choked. The last time I cried like that after a medical appointment was years ago on a plane on the way home from Duke after the major stuff there had been settled. 

So 27 years ago, I was confused about what life had meant since birth. Today I am confused about how to live without as harsh of a view of a impending death. The questions swimming through my head are legion. 

A church lady once sent me a song about how living like you’re dying isn’t living at all. I thought it was silly at the time and told her so since we’re all dying but today it perhaps is making more sense. Maybe I was dying like I was living if that has any rhyme or reason to it. 

I am confused and dazed and probably not as thrilled as most people believe I should be. I’ll give it a few more hours at most about looking back and then I’ll look forward and try to dream, live, be bigger than death just around the corner while still loving life. I’m not hoping for that, for the first time in over a decade, I’m betting on it. 

Hope As A Discipline

I have an MRI tonight at 10 PM. It’s the latest I’ve ever done one of those.  It’s on a new machine which while consistently using the same on for several years this will be the 4th machine in 4 years. The old one where I used to do it, even if there was a nervousness to it, there was a familiarity with the place, with the staff. It’s literally in a media piece about me.

Then there was covid and different insurance etc which led to a different machine in 2020 and a different one in 2021. This year I tried to go back to this one but there’s a new machine with better technology from the same company. I don’t have a great reason, there are never good reasons for giving up too much coping skills but I just scheduled this at earliest availability. I usually schedule the MRI or the results on the 8th, believing that somehow the kid born 8/8/80 gets the universe to bend a little more towards giving me life than death that way, at least for now. But the MRI was randomly scheduled and a few days ago the appointment is going to be in mid June something because my doctor had to go somewhere unexpected. 

Life has changed so much since the last one. The world has reopened officially but a lot of mine has shifted and much of it has shot down. I used to really only live one MRI at a time, never looking to far ahead but I have stopped looking even that far forward or even far back. For the first time since I was an adult, I didn’t hang up an ornament at Christmas trying to represent the most important event of the year. I didn’t set my usual 8 New Year’s resolution, I didn’t even set one. 

I’ve had some health problems that I didn’t even blog in here, I haven’t been blogging in here but there were several issues with my bloodwork in February that have affected my athletic skills. I’ve long said that running is how I get through the day and raising a kid is why and I feel like I’ve not been doing a great job in either. I have not been able to train and I haven’t really had a good race since last June. Kiana has some challenges of her own, some I think due to the post covid world, some entirely from lots of elements of life handed down to her. 

I’ve still kept notes and organized a few things but these missing blogs are perhaps because I don’t know what to say any more for it to be effective as a personal narrative when who you love and thought love you are less stuck in a life with their own place away from a shared one. 

It’s been tough to be an idea. I was frustrated with some things going on with health insurance recently at a dental cleaning and they mentioned something about dental insurance and I focused on the other part. I didn’t think anything of it but apparently my walking out after having paid my bill thinking about that caused enough concern to where the office manager MAILED me a note saying she would work as best as she could with my dental insurance. That didn’t matter but I called and said thank you and explained myself. But it reminded me that if somewhere I show up and am not cracking jokes as I check out after a dental cleaning it worries people. 

It’s the game in races for the last year where I still smile and cheer even as I struggle with my times because somewhere I still am recognized enough. I really do enjoy running but there is a frustration to how much I’m slowing down. Still this weekend, I did a Spartan. I signed up only 3 days before because I had a social media reminder I had done my first 9 years ago. I am in better upper body shape and actually ran more than that one. It was nowhere near my peak a few years ago when I could hang with the elites. Yet, how I could do, I smiled with conviction at the end that somewhere in me there was still enough fire to make the grim reaper work for it. Kiana did the sprint the next day with her mom and stepfather. I only found out afterwards because she said she didn’t want to tell me afraid I’d be hurt because it had always been our things. I responded with anything that’s healthy for your mind and body of course keep doing and I’ll support and cheer whether or not I’m there. 

I am struggling, perhaps because I am not running anywhere near as much nor as often. I focused on that and ran 6 out of the 7 days last week with 5 of them by myself. It wouldn’t have been that long ago that I wouldn’t run that many days alone in a month so it was both a positive and a negative but that’s life these days. Diet is not as disciplined when you’re back in an office all the time but since May 1st I’ve been up desert more because I’d like to keep fitting in my pants. Dealing with that and obstacles and making sure your mouth is connecting in the right place without breaking down too far on Sunday brunches makes you realize that somewhere I still have discipline. 

Still, Tonight I have an MRI at 10:00 PM in a fancy machine to see if my brain is the same level of cancerous or worse. This is the worst gut feeling I remember though this journey but then again I have a damaged memory. Perhaps it’s reflecting that at 11.5 years of surviving, I wonder how much I’ve gotten right vs how many things I’ve still screwed up while being given a 2nd chance at life (the latter is much bigger). Perhaps it’s that my doctor’s office gave me a call and said something happened in his life and he’s going to be unexpectedly gone and I may not get results for 3-4 weeks. There’s a fear you can only survive Russian roulette so long even if the barrel is more magnetic and tube shaped. For a guy who has lived with hope as his four letter word, I am trying to focus on what Mariame Kaba said “hope is a discipline.”

So tonight, I’ll try to remember that I am a disciplined guy, that roughly a year ago, I was facing demons in running in and out of the Grand Canyon, that less than one I still won a couple of races, that just two days ago I still successfully completed most obstacles, that Kiana’s still going in her own ways, and that hope is not a feeling for me today. Today hope is a discipline.