For The Last TIme

A poem I wrote in response to my cancer diagnosis.

I want my friends to know
that I will die.

When is not important...2 days?
…20 years? ...63 months?

And I want to start dying
today - now in fact -
I've waited too long.

As I sit here for perhaps the final time
in the evening sunlight under this tree.
And every breath becomes almost my last.

And tonight, I’ll savour
scallops in white wine
as if it's the last time I may taste them.

And tomorrow, if I'm still alive, I will
walk to the club on College street
that always plays latin music.

And dance like there's no tomorrow.

How sad these people around me,
obsessed with only living -
careening through life.
The forward momentum they must maintain
somehow so strident, predictable.
With no idea where their mad
rush is heading.

No such craziness for me.
I'm just hanging around
balanced,
like a man who loves mountains.
The long climb up thrills him -
so does skiing all the way back down.

Ah, the sweetness of being mortal,
knowing I'm more ephemeral,
unique,
than the mountains the sky, the sea,
even that old tree over there.

How peaceful I feel sitting in a bar
enjoying what could be my last whiskey.
(Pleased I asked for an eighteen-year single-malt for the occasion.)

And that woman Anne
- eight months ago -
surely I need to send flowers now
in case she’s my final lover.

And I want my friends to know
that they will die.
I want my friends to start dying too,
to join me in dying.

And we'll sit there laughing, reading poetry to each other,
for maybe the last time.

Happy with our dying
and our living.

Thoughts Around my Recent Cancer Diagnosis 6

I have had many things given to me in my life. Many have been very wonderful. Somethings have been painful, causing misery in my heart. But this is how everyone's life is, and I'm not sure if I would want to live a life that was all bliss. Now I have been given cancer. And cancer, with all its physical misery, fear and uncertainty is just another event in my life. Rather than focusing on the fact that the splendid life I was living just two months ago is largely no longer available to me, I can look to see how much fun a cancer patient can have, perhaps even finding out if there's any fun in being a cancer patient.

Thoughts Around my Recent Cancer Diagnosis 5

"Cancer connects us to one another because
Having cancer is an embodiment of the
Existential paradox that we all experience:
We feel that we are immortal,
Yet we know that we will die."

-Alice Stewart Trillin


Started chemo today. Will find out in about a month if I am in remission. Not cured. In remission. Maybe now I will feel a little less immortal. That's good.

Thoughts Around my Recent Cancer Diagnosis 4

My first night in the hospital getting used to all the routine. They took me for a CT scan this morning and the orderly asked me if I could walk. Not quite that bad yet I thought.
Lying in a bed, being fussed over, served food. Letting others explore my body. It's all very passive. Stuck in a well oiled bureaucratic hospital machine. Wearing hospital garments and tethered to an IV pole. Easy to start seeing myself as a blob. Stop being grounded. Lose a sense of my own vitality. Feel sorry for myself.  Become a patient.
It's all about attitude. My attitude. And as always I have the ability to form that attitude. Do I let my situation and environment dominate me, or do I live in this place the way I want to live, within the possibilities.
Can I still be something bigger than this place?

Thoughts Around my Recent Cancer Diagnosis 3

Being admitted in a few hours. Chemo starting for a week tomorrow morning.

Was wondering today why I had been so nervous to give cancer a thought over the years. Learning about it a bit, how to avoid it, what it is, what treatments are available would hardly have been worse than avoiding the topic out of fear. People I love have died from it of course, but then it's unfortunately a fact of modern life.

All that sugar I ate (ha ha).

For some reason I kept thinking of "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm" all day.

Thoughts Around my Recent Cancer Diagnosis 2

Checked my beehive today, they are doing really well. Nothing like an Ausgust hive of 60,000 bees busy as hell to give a feeling of energy and effulgence.

Feeling tired. Got very emotional at one point when I mentioned how many wonderful people like me and are rooting for me. I sometimes have felt very emotional.

Talked to Alix my nurse, may get in tomorrow.

Spent afternoon with Brian, Neev, Eron and Debbie. Had dinner with Nathan who is coming to see me every day. Got a great card from (his) Anastasia, designed and painted by her. Seems I rock like Jack White and Ash Grunwald. Two (temporary) tatoos inside. Thanks Anastasia.

Thoughts Around my Recent Cancer Diagnosis

August 23 / 2015

10 days since diagnosis with Acute Myeloid Leukemia. Hopefully admission to Princess Margaret Hospital is tomorrow.

I have been nervous about the topic of Cancer (ha ha Tropic of Cancer) for many years now, since my father and three friends have succumbed to it.

Hearing the news 10 days ago was obviously a shock. For several days a feeling of dread or doom in the stomach, sinking feeling, hard in the middle of the night. Confusion trying to figure out a way to relate to all the feelings / thoughts that go through my head. What is the “right healing attitude” I should have here?? And do I have it?

A lot of time spent initially contacting family and friends in an ordered fashion.

The yoyo between thinking of getting through it and what if I die. I did not ask my contact at the hospital what my chances were, hoping I could maintain a middle path of “What will be will be”.
Someone told me to be angry and smash plates, which I didn’t feel. I felt this is my life now, and so still enjoy it. At times I felt good, even excited at the intensity, and that bothered me too, as if I was too accepting of the whole thing. Not knowing my chances pushed me to try to be completely open to the future. To try to be ready for anything. Then my nurse told me I had a good chance, so now I’m more hope and less “zen” about it. But often still that little flicker of dread in the background. I have enjoyed making up a fantastic list of all the great things I want to do when I get out.

I have received some excellent guidance for how to handle this which I gone over and over.

I could die here. Strangely still something of an abstract thought. I have had a life four years longer than my Father, and a dear friend from the past died over thirty years ago, but somehow this sort of reasoning means nothing. So many of my (our) ideas about life are trite. I feel very grateful for the life I have had, so frankly I’ve not done a lot of feeling sorry for myself yet.

It is a challenge.

I look at people walking past on the street and they seem so confident, in control, almost smug about their lives. Assumptions. Entitled to being alive. I felt the same way recently. Now I am grateful for so little. Just sitting in the sun is great.

The social connections I have had in the last 10 days have been insane. It seems I am connected to so many great people, and have connected to some I’ve not talked to in years. At times this was draining, and sometimes I felt I had to “cheer people up”. Not be too heavy. There was a fear of isolation so maybe I was over extending myself in my insecurity to mitigate against that. Wanting to be normal so others would be normal. I’ve been phoning, texting, emailing, Facebook posting and messaging, skyping and plain old meeting for dinner. Although sometimes tiring, I think this is good. 

And I’ve had so many arrangement to make, it’s been busy.

Someone referred just now to my "Health Adventure", that seems good to me. Although maybe there is some denial in there.

Often very tiring. Hard to climb stairs without lots of hemoglobin to supply oxygen to my muscles. And often waking in the night, feverish, pillow and pj top soaking.

Got a close haircut to pre-empt the chemo hairloss, glad I did it as it's like the new me having some sort of control.

I have also gone out of my way to milk the situation for any humour I can. Again perhaps my insecurity and desire to not alienate people. To cheer them up and cheer me up. It’s been good, although I sometimes suspect people are being too tolerant of my jokes.

Thanks to all who have made me feel so loved. I am very grateful.