Cancer Selfies

Wednesday September 04, 2024

Mortality and Hospice

September is a time of transition for us all. The seasons demand it of us. Our geese gather and leave us, hoping for warmer climates (or the open watering holes of southern Ontario). The leaves change as they die, so the trees as a whole may survive. And in that change, give us the colours of a perpetual sunset until the cold waters come and end it all in a sludgy, cold, slippery mess from which next year's leaves and berries and wonder all grow from. We may not all be there to see it, but its happened every year since the glacier's retreated and I see no reason why it wouldn't continue in my absence just as it has. Maybe with a bit more spice from climate change than we'd like, though.

I have been doing a video series on how weird a transitional splace hospice has been for me. Because it has truly been the strangest physical, mental and emotional places where I've spent any serious amount of time in. Its been a deeply special place, and, as the last few grains of sand in my hourglass empty, one I've been very glad to call home. Its been a gift to me and my family. But a deeply strange one. Some days its a regular apartment, which just so happens to be attached to a hospital, where your old sitcome friend (who always happeens to be a nurse) can bardge in any time to an appause track as they either solve the little problem you were having (usually an IV disconnect or reconnect) and be on their way. Sometimes, though, you're just trapped in a hospital room with no magic, where no amount of whimsy in the form of flowers and quishmallows and toys and pink flamingos and photos on the wall and children's colouring and the like can save it. Its still just sterile.

And those days, my friends, are the hardest ones. Because no one can breath life back into the space. Its just gone for a moment or a minute or longer. And I am ost without it. Its happened rarely, but some day the whole edifice willl colapse, bringing with it the joy I have found here. There will still exist joy obviously, the poodles and Thomasin still exist, but it will be lesser, different. It will be another stepping stone on the path towards my inevitable death. Which is inevitable, and not something I intend to run from at all.

Today there is joy. There is joy in hospice, so here I shall remain. But I must remember that the geese fly befroe the winter, not after the ice has frozen their ponds over. And I just need the wisdom to find that inflection point within my life.

September is a transition time for us all. After all.

The following was originally posted September 4, 2023

This is the anniversary of when I started this album. I'm not sure what I thought I was doing then, but eventually I found my comfort zone relating my experiences with the medical system - the administrative side and the treatment side. This was a comfortable place through chemotherapy, and honestly an exciting one for me to be in through surgery. But I've struggled a bit since then.

I thought it was just that surgical recovery was boring (and it is), but chemotherapy was the same two week cycle sixteen times, and I never felt this way about it. I still talk nonstop about my cancer, as any of you who know me in person, or are in the same Facevook groups, can attest. But I haven't been able to figure out this place.

I think the reason is that, in light of my failed surgery and prognosis, the only place it made sense for me to go was do the same kind of day by day thing, but instead of it being about getting the full cancer trearment experience at 35, it's about grappling with mortality at 36 and, statistically, dying at 37.

Mental health wise, I'm just coming down from a minor hypomanic episode and feel stable, bipolar wise. My lithium levels are good. If asked how I'm doing, I'd truthfully answer "good, given the circumstances," but I can't tell you if that means I'm doing good.

I'm not an actor, though, when you see a look of delight on my face, that's real. I do have an actual notebook with an actual list of neat stuff to do and I am actually crossing things off on all my little adventures. I'm getting out and experiencing the world. Probably doing way more than I ever would have if I remained otherwise healthy, too, which is a thought too terrifying to contemplate.

To end, because it's been haunting my dreams and hopefully sharing will help, if someone, someday, talks about my death bed conversion, know that they are a disgusting fiend who takes advantage of the vulnerable to glorify themselves. If disease progression or treatment leaves me vulnerable earlier than that, same logic applies. These people were never able to convince me so far, I doubt they'll come up with something compelling in the next few years. I doubt I'm interesting or notable enough to receive this treatment, but I know it happens, so I know I'm not 100% unreasonable in my fears.

A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of a rusty old truck, fields appear to be in the background

Outside Bala, Ontario, searching for its Bog Beast (visible in far background)
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair sits in a folding chair, smiing, with a hat with a goose on it A man with short hair and bushy facial hair lies in bed with a small hamster Squishmallow
When I bought it, I thought it was a cat, I now realize it's a hamster. My first pets were a pair of hamsters, who's claws terrified me so much I barely held them. And now I have a cat who walks up and bites me for unknown feline reasons, we change so much
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of the water, with the lights from a bar reflected, at sunset
At Balm Beach, arcade, store and restaurant visible as bright lights
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of a drainage ditch on a dam, the water is murkey
Recording videos at the marsh
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands, the camera is angled so you can see his messanger bad with a blue shark and white goose plush attached
Goose friend!
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair sits in a Muskoka chair, side eyeing a Parks Canada beaver logo stamped on it
Suspect beaver (at Kirkfield lift lock)
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of a steel door covered in grafiti
Mystery door, Collingwood
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of some fish sculptures bolted onto a wall, they're painted rainbow colours, one is painted in trans flag colours
Rainbow trout, Thornbury
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of an old wooden tressle bridge
Old historical rail bridge, Thornbury
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair sits at the Balm Beach waterfront
A cool evening, down by the bay
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in an antique store recreation of a 70s living room, a blond woman is sitting on the couch
Most antique shop booths are dragon's hoards of shiny things, thrown together. This one was a beautiful room (ft Lilly)
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in an antique store, a sholder hight creepy monkey statue is centred in the frame
Is he looking at me?
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair lays in bed looking tired with a long, curled moustach
State of the Moustache
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair sits in a computer chair holding a plastic skull
Memento mori
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair sits on a second floor patio overlooking a busy beach
At the restaurant in Balm Beach (I had what they called an Austin Cheese Steak, which i assume is a regular cheese steak with Texas grilling traditions. I have no idea, it was delicious though)
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of a giant inflatable pizza shaped flotation device
I'm stoned in some of these pictures, but not this one, no matter how it looks.
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair stands in front of a poster for Meg 2: The Trench
10/10, only note is that I wanted more giant octopus
A man with short hair and bushy facial hair sits on a bench in a marsh looking contented and relaxed
I can tell the chemo really effected me because it's above 30C here, there's no shade for 2km, I've already been outside for half an hour, and I'm just comfortable.

From the comments

James Petrosky: 37 is an estimate. I don't want anyone who knows me well enough to start doing math on my birthday and panicking. 38 is probably a better estimate, but 37 fits the flow a lot better, and it's all statistics based on regular colon cancer anyways

James Petrosky: I want to dramatically say "from here on in its all about death" but honestly it's been that way for a while. You have no idea how happy the "thinking about death" joke in Barbie made me, because a) it was funny, and matched my mental state perfectly and b) gave me a lot of cover to joke about it all summer. So thank you, Uncontrollable Thoughts of Death Barbie, you're a life saver.

James Petrosky: Somewhat related to liars for Jesus are liars for other spiritual causes. Mediums, channelers, seyances, ghost hunters, it's all evidence free nonsense, and they do tremendous harm to people undergoing grief by giving them a false hope that can never, ever be realized. If there is somehow an afterlife that can communicate back to the living, I promise you I'll never, ever give these dangerous frauds the time of day. I can be a stubborn person, and this is the thing I'm most stubborn about, so you can be sure I'll hold to it.

Because we live in something approaching a techno dystopia, it's possible to train a large language model on someone's social media history to create a computer program that can write and speak like you can. Maybe there's not enough information available for me. Almost certianly I'm not important enough for this treatment. But if this is done, and it's done well enough to be convincing, the output program is also not me. It's just an actor, playing a role. The same as a spiritualist, they just learn their script from different sources.

posted at 16:55  ·   ·  Post Treatment  End Stage  full-hair  short-hair  brown-hair  long beard  Elliot Lake  Hospice  Look-Back  Death & Dying