Cancer Selfies

Hospice VLog September 9th

A short (hopefully) daily video about what's going on in hospice. Today, some edited selfies from the past few days. Today's rambling video in the comments.

Three years since my first public cancer complaint

I've come to learn a lot about pain, in all its horendous flavours, these past years.

There was the stabbing, burning intensity of whatever the tumor in my pre-treatment naval was doing. A feeling so intense it could block visition. I had a lot of traveling to do that summer, and an exam to write, the pain pulled me off the road at least a half dozen times, and had it struck during my exam I might never have been able to call myself an electrician for those brief days.

There is the strange knotted numbness I felt with the surgical incision. As the hydromorphone hit and began to work, it was as though someone with the gentleist, most skilled touch was gently untying knots in the nerves, the sensation starting slow in the very pit of pain (where the naval used to be). The result didn't even register as a pain/no pain feeling, more the sort of relief feeling your body gives you whenever you've done something right (like when you stop holding your bladder too long, but to a much greater extent).

Recently, after the total bowel obstruction and the begginning of my stay in hospice, the pain registered as an extremely intense heartburn. It had a component in it of real heart burn, because over the counter medications helped briefly, sometimes enough to fall asleep (when combined with well timed sleep aids), but often it as just too painful to sleep. The solution to this was less painkiller based and more based on modifying how my digestive system works, but the cancer pain still manifested differently and in a way I wouldn't expect.

Cancer pain has dominated most of the last three years of my life. Only though accepting my fate and accepting a pain pump (truly a miricle machine to those in need) have I been able to break free of it. Or, at least, dramatically losten the strength of the teather. And I am happy for the freedom.

The following was originally posted September 9, 2023

I really wish I better understood why this is a symptom, probably something to do with the pain.

Anyways, we didn't know it, but I've now been talking cancer for two years. I have no idea what to think of that.

The following was originally posted September 9, 2021

Super glad my body has decided that hunger is boring and unhelpful and instead goes all in on confusion and irritability

Hospice Part 9, the final hospice video (but hospice videos will continue)

In hospice I remain, but this series has run its course. I can no longer express to you the strangeness of a place that has become mundane.

Hospice was a liminal space in which I have been trapped, trapped until my personal avatar of death, of passing on, of transition and freedom comes to me and sets me into the whatever comes next.

I'm beginning to think it's liminal all the way down.

Output will continue, but like Cancer Selfies, Hospice is completed.

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

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.

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.

Ghouls are still out there

When you get diagnosed with a serious disease, the flood gates open to all that quasi legal direct drug marketing. You are inudated with smiling people in lab coats, with their perfectly chosen glasses and pure white smiles.

I've met scientists, and these are not they are not. These are amoung the lowest of the low, marketers. But I'm not here to take on marketers, at least they're hawking a product with some evidence behind it.

The moment you're life starts to be about hospice care, and pallieative medicine, the true monsters crawl out of the woodwork. The purveyers of fake medicine (largely harmless en mass, but deadly to you, kind) who are sure that whatever fad diet they like this week and some yoga will kick those tumours asses (and if not, remember, you just didn't try hard enough). There are the health cults, which are the same as the first group but really want to get their kill count up before their caught. They'll come in the form of gurus and faith healers (especially faith healers, never, ever trust someone with an invisible, untestable product.

Then you've got piles and piles and piles of traditional practices. I don't make time in my day for any of that, but it's your life, if its part of your tradition then I hope you get what you need from it, and if it isn't maybe consider your last mortal action not being one of appropriation.

I would relish conversation on a lot of subjects. This isn't one of them.

The following was originally posted September 1, 2023

I was writing a post about the evils of complementary and alternative medicine and my power went out 😮

Coincidence? I mean, yeah, probably, those fiends are too busy finding cancer patients to take advantage of

From the comments

James Petrosky: Got an issue with my fundamental point here? I encourage you to go do some good quality research. I'm not available to argue about to ❤️

James Petrosky: If it makes you feel better, new agers and faith healers are similarly problematic. Also not debating this.

---

Ron: Not enough is made of the fact that people who push that crap are actively preventing people who need real help from getting it in time to matter. Evil indeed.

James Petrosky: Ron I was reading my memories and it apparently took less than a day for the algorithm to serve up this kind of stuff to me. Skepticism has long been one of my interests, so I'm okay, but not everyone would be

Hair Style Lightning Round

A collection of hair styles I have chosen, and that the treatment has allowed for me.

• Centre is pre-diagnosis, pre-treatment, regular assed long hair
• North is bleached at Lilly's place, I'd have loved to wear it more than an hour, it wss fun
• North-East is the blue that was on the box. It didn't take
• East is the glorious green I got
• South-East is the green as the sun ravaged it and the chemo started to take holding
• South is the point where I shaved what remained
• South-West is the baby fuzz starting to grow back. It was very soft, wavy and provded no tempeature regulation. But it was summer, so it also provided no sun protectiuon.
• West was the straight bald i wore through most of my last chemo cycle. It was easier to keep the floor clean with a perminanly shedding cat that way.
• North-West is how it is now. The facial hair grew back in better and more mountin man than I could have ever hoped. I wish I could survive in part because I just want to see what it can do. The baby hair is back, soft as ever. I may not have won the lifespan lottery this go around, but I'm doing great for hair. And sometimes you take what you can get.

You have fine the joy when it comes to something like cancer. Once it has sapped all the joy, and I think it inevitibly will, that's your end. Or at least it will be mine. But I've been talking with the many faces of death, and I don't think we're ready quite yet.

*The following was originally posted September 3, 2023

I miss my long hair, and my green hair, and especially the few days it was blue hair. I did a thing I'd half heartedly wanted to do for a decade, and I'm glad I did. It's nice that not everything in my Facevook memories is an emotional timebomb I've got to work through.

The following was originally posted August 30, 2022

If the chemo is going to take my hair, I'm going to have fun with it first

From the Comments

James Petrosky: *it isn't a forgone conclusion that I'll lose my hair, and I'm pretty excited about this whole thing

Look-Back x2: Oncologist panic

Sitting here in the hospice in 2024 I don't think there's any other way this situation could have played out for me. I wasn't afraid to ask questions, or even the right questions, but I was so passive that I often didn't take the time to make sure I had the information part of informed conscent solidly figured out.

I did, eventually, get there. All my at home readings of reputible research and advice papers put out by reputible hospital networks got me the information I needed, it would have just been faster if I wasn't so shy and was willig to ask especially about weird bowel movements earlier.

The old mantra remains true, though, questions would not have changed the outcome.

The following was originally posted September 1, 2023

Looking back at this expremely anxious time in my life, the only thing that made sense was for the two teams to be working together in some way to improve my outcome. And both teams turned out great, the disease just had other plans.

The following was originally posted September 1, 2022

Given that there are fewer than 24 hours until I meet my oncologist, I'm going to go back to the CUTE ANIMAL PHOTOS well because holy fuck I have an anxiety disorder and I didn't understand anxiety could be so bad

The comments comtain dozens of posts featuring people's pets and wild animals

Hospice Part 8, I lost the joy for a moment

Last night, I had a brief crisis of faith, so to speak, as I looked out upon my hospice suite and saw not the cozy, whimsical little nest we had constructed over the past weeks, but a hospital room, fancier and better appointed than most, but sterile and lacking.

The feeling passed this time. It wasn't too difficult to challange. But a single datum points no where, is this a bad night or the look of things to come?

I know not, but know that I have all of you on my side, and I'm confident that is enough.

)

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Hospice Part 7, August 23, 2023

Hospice is a liminal space, a place between life (and those skilled in the healing arts) and death (backed, in my case, by one of the most feared phrases in the English language (cancer, stage four). It's an easy space to get lost in, an easy space for the truly horrifying facts of life to set in and become mundane (the last time I truly consumed food was July 5th, the last bowel movement shortly after.

Todau the metastable system we had developed over the past month collapsed a bit as my partner departed the hospice for the real world of primary school teaching. It's been inevitable since the 5th. The whole group, Alicia, myself, friends, family. We've all known. And so far, while it's only been hours, it feels right.

I genuinely don't know if I expected to last this long. But I have, and I'm still relatively sturdy. I'm now looking forward to spending more time with my brothers and parents (and poodles and Thomasin).

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Windemere: 2008

Every morning, I look forward to what Facebook memories has for me. Are they emotional landmines that will take me hours to resolve, leaving me better able to deal with my condition tomorrow? Will they be presently unresolvible, causing damage until I can put them from my head?

Or will they be a photo from an adventure I had, years before I had the understanding of selfies.

Today is an anniversary of one of the times I took my long term partner in university out to the camp. 2008 could be first or second trip out. I didn't drive and she didn't have a car, so I know the logistics were terrible.

We were on our ways up Grazing inlet, having just left the ghost town of Nicholson to visit whatever of the Tremblay clan was kicking about.

Grazing Inlet, and much of Lake Windemere in general, was carved direct from the rock gouged and scratched during the areas glacial maximum.

Tldr this is how I looked in university, and until I switched it all up for hospital gowns I was doing pretty okay, fashion wise.

The following was originally posted August 21, 2023

I pay a lot of attention to both Facebook memories and the like these days, but I did not expect the gift they gave this morning.

From August 21st, 2008

Hospice Part 6, corgwen, a concert, and shopping

This last video interval had me take two trips off hospital grounds. It was exciting to go to old familliar places and pick my own snacks.

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Hospice Part 5, breakfast

An exploration of the bleak breakfast (singular) I get daily that I am usually still excited for. Also popcorn cheese powder.

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Making Friends with the Darkness

Surviving cancer has been a long, hard process of identifying the demons that haunt the dark places in my life and befriending them.

First, I tried the disease itself. But that's too big. I still haven't gotten to the point of forgiveness to my own body for the betrayal it's put on me. But I have accepted it, and recognize it as an amoral force of nature.

My real first victory was over denial. Accepting the diagnosis was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I don't remember if it was the first or second chemo session that convinced me completely, but it was early. And for this I'm thankful, it let me jump right into the photo project which has enriched my life and delivered a tremendous amount of meaning to me. And maybe it'll help someone, too.

There have been dozens of little and big anxieties. I used to hate needles, now I have four perminant IVs in my limbs. Eighteen chemo cycles over two years is enough exposure for most. My treatment was repetitive, it's easy to make boring or anxiety like that.

A secret I only just started telling is that three days before the HIPEC surgery, when I had the consent forms filled out but hadn't sent them in, I very nearly didn't. I had won a minor duel with denial on routine stuff, but not when a dozen organs were on the line. But the fortitude I'd developed in eight months of treatment carried me through, and for my trouble I was gifted certainty. But not granted our desired outcome.

Befriending death is the difficult one. I've been working on it since accepting my diagnosis in September 2022 and since accepting my surgical fate in June 2023. I've come a long way. I know the form death will take (it's private, don't ask), and I know my last act will be to embrace it as a close friend. And I know that this will happen on their time, and I'm not ready yet.

There's more, so much more, buried in my Facebook wall (I've read it all for a project), but today I want to celebrate a small, but important for me, victory. The Antler's Hospice is a beautiful little album, perhaps nothing worth writing about these years later, but I like it's tragic beauty. I banned it from my playlist in 2022 because the central metaphor of a hospice was too much for me while coping with terminal illness.

Friends, I listened to that album straight through. In the cold dark of the hospice I've called home for over a month. My partner is in the next room, but she's asleep. And the nurses largely leave us alone after dark. It's just me, my headphones, the inky darkness of a Northern Ontario night, and the hum of my medical machines.

How I imagine it supposed to be listened to it.

I've become fast friends with Hospice again. I only hope this small victory can apply elsewhere. But if not, I have Kettering back. And thats beauty I want from the world.

From the comments

James Petrosky: The song I have forgiven for hitting too close to home. It's a beautiful and powerful song.

Brennan Moline: James Petrosky thank you as always for sharing powerful art that speaks to you

Gena Radcliffe: “I still haven’t forgiven my body for the betrayal it’s put on me. But I have accepted it, and recognize it as an amoral force of nature.” This is beautiful, powerful, and deeply relatable.

James Petrosky: Gena Radcliffe it took me so long to get here, and it requires constant work as the cancer creates new nightmares, but it's given me so much peace and mental stillness.

Cathy Petrosky: You have taught this old lady so much. For this I am so grateful. 🥰

Dennis Dorion: Your mom is so right. This past, short 2 years will have changed so many lives. I hope in some way we can pay it forward. Each day is so precious. It is so easy to look at the big things and miss all the beautiful smalls. You have been able to capture all these smalls. I am beginning to see these smalls because of you. Thank you so much for being you. ❤️💜

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Cats (2019) is a Perfect Movie

Today, my partner Alicia and brother Joseph watched Cats. This was both of their first times, and probably something around my 250th.

I hadn't watched it since before my diagnosis. I needed comforts like this more than ever, but with Cats I'm always terrified that the magic will have somehow evaporated. That I'll be left like the majority who panned it, stuck in a grayer world, lacking those beautiful neon alleys.

Cats' powerful sway over me is broken. My capacity for that obsession died the day I had to say out loud the words "it's cancer" to my parents, "stage four". But Cats is still a joy, a delight, a bright and colourful balm, and exactly what today needed.

From the comments

Brennan Moline: You are a much stronger man than me for being able to resist forcing your friends and family to watch your obsession. I know I forced Annette on more than a few folks

James Petrosky: Brennan Moline some things are just so close to you that you need to be forced to share with your loved ones. The fear of rejection has been too white hot, but I'm glad I overcame it today.

Brennan Moline: James Petrosky I understand that -- after some bad reactions to the aforementioned forced annette, I am much more hesitant now.

Jamie Piedmont Murgatroyd Teller: Brennan Moline you did the right thing

Brennan Moline: Jamie Piedmont Murgatroyd Teller By forcing Annette or being hesitant haha

Jamie Piedmont Murgatroyd Teller: Brennan Moline the former, the good news must be spread (it’s my favorite film of the decade so far)

Brennan Moline: Jamie Piedmont Murgatroyd Teller Fuck yes, so glad to meet another devotee of the baby Annette (who is a baby, afterall). It's among my favorite films of all time. It came at a time when I was feeling really weirdly sullen and pessimistic and slapped me out of nowhere as one of my new favorite movies. I even have a tattoo saying "Sympathy for the Abyss"

Cam Percy: Sharing Cats (2019) with someone for the first time is one of my favourite things to do. I'm so glad you got to do it today.

Cam Percy: SKIM BLE SHANKS THE RAIL WAY CAT

James Petrosky: Cam Percy Skimble won't let anything go wrong, and that is a comforting thought

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Perfect Tinsil Like Nostalgia

Very occasionally, you can catch a perfect tinsel like strand of nostalgia. We embraced, shared, and parted as friends. It's the safe way to spend time with these ghosts.

(We had a group watch of Repo: The Genetic Opera and all felt it held up as a beautiful cult film, the way we did in university)

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Hospice Part 4, conscious final goodbyes

To people, Al, and to podcasts, The Flop House. Thank you for spending this time with me

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Hospice Part 3, nostalgia and juice

I'm no longer writing Cancer Selfies, that project didn't finish where I wanted or where I expected, but it did finish at the right place. People have used the final post (hospice, sticky on my profile) as a place to leave nice messages for me and my family, which I appriciate more than I can express. This is a good place for them. I've enjoyed reading them all, and keeping them together makes them easier to find in the future.

Thank you for going through this with me.

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Second Cancerversary Video

Today I'm celebrating my second Cancervercery. I don't think that, as a birthday like holiday, it's likely to catch on with anyone else, but it's important to me.

It marks the anniversary of my diagnosis, celebrates the months and months enduring chemo and recovering from surgery. It's an opportunity for me to look back at all the things I've done while under the shadow of one of humanities greatest nightmares.

For my first Cancervercery, I threw a squishmallow tea party, complete with a decorated Cancervercery cake. Whimsy and silliness were powerful enough then to contain the horror.

For my second, and final, Cancervercery, that horror is unavoidable and inescapable. I've survived and thrived during my time in hospice, during the time when the processes of death itself could not be ignored. I've prepared a tour of my hospice life, complete with the digression and discussion everyone who knows me has come to expect. It's a long video, but a nice length for a visit (1.5 hours). It's extremely intimate and emotional. But I chose to make it, and I chose to publish it, and I'm choosing to share it here.

My first Cancervercery (this is a genuinely fun and joyful video)

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Hospice Part 2, vaccuum pumps for drinking

I've enjoyed my time as amateur science communicator. This is not that.

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.

Hospice Part 1

I've enjoyed my time as amateur science communicator. This is not that.

Content warnings for cancer, death, dying, medical terror, and crimes against peach lemonade.

The full hospice playlist

Consider donating to St Joseph's Hospital in Elliot Lake, they do excellent work for a small community. They're working on improving their oncology area, which is very close to my heart. These improvements will allow more patients to recieve their treatment in the community they live in, rather than traveling two hours each way to the nearest cancer centre.

If you want to keep your money closer to home, then please consider donating to a hospice. The one here has given me and my family so much joy and comfort in a very difficult time in our lives time. I don't think I'd still feel as alive and vibrant, and I would not still be creating, without the care this hospice provides. Hospice is a gift we all deseve at our appointed hour.