Today I had to get up early for Day One of Radiation Therapy. THAT has got be the worse part of cancer—getting up. Fuck is always the first word I say now.

I called my radiation oncologist the other day and got the FULL report of my bone scan. Not only is my leg fucked. My spine, my skull and my ribs are also included in the new real estate cancer has taken homes in.

Fuck!

Lately, I haven't been sleeping well. I seem to wake up around 2 a.m. with The Worries.

Some of The Worries are about "long-term" worries like will I only be able to finish one more book before I die?

And some of The Worries are sillier "short-term" worries like will I be able to transplant the strawberries before I die?

And sometimes, I think the best solution to all my worries is just to die.

No matter how you butter this toast, yesterday was a BAD NEWS DAY.

My fucking chemo ain't working. And this pain in my side and pain in my leg has nothing to do with overexertion or not working the muscle enough. Plain and simple, it's fucking cancer eating my bones

FUCK!

So, I've turned a new chapter. Everything that I've come to accept as routine will now be changed. Stay tuned. I know this ride ain't over yet but it's getting a little crazy.

If CANCER hasn't taught me anything, it's:

Every "I LOVE life—whatever is left for me!" post will be followed by "another day of blood in my watery shit" post.

It's just the way CANCER is. It gives no GOOD without and an equal or proportionately higher dose of BAD. It just does.

So, here's what I hope:

I'm sitting around with my band peeps and we're laughing and drinking and we just got finished with a good night of music—like tonight—and maybe it's after a gig or just a rehearsal (like tonight) and someone says:

"Hey, slatts, weren't you suppose to be dead three years ago?"

Hemorrhoids and CANCER and blood clots and blood thinners is fuckin' gawd-awful combination!

I could fucking die tonight and I will know I was in Heaven before I did.

Nothing beats a good Music Night with the full band.

I LOVE you Walter Mittys!!!

So, I take it the effects of my last chemo dose must be over.

I woke up this morning only feeling like I had been hit by a bus and not like I had been dropped off a twenty-story building.

And hit by a fucking bus!

CANCER has killed my band.

The dreaded C-word has taken the C-word of COMMITMENT and replaced it another C-word, CANCELLATION.

I'm so depressed that CANCER has killed the one thing I so truly enjoy. It's killed my music

It's fucking killed my band!

So, right now, I'm in the "best shape" I've been since my diagnosis.

What does this mean?

The eye of the hurricane? The calm before the fucking storm?

"I've got time."

That's not really something I can say. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

And if you've been reading this blog and my other online Journal—or you know me personally—you know TIME is an important thing to me and wasting it is a "crime" in my book.

Yet, I can sit here in the yard and 'babysit' my cat while she stalks a bird or just sits herself and enjoys the shade, and I can be quite content with that.

Not a waste of time, at all.

So, let it be noted, if I were to go into a fucking choking fit, right here, and fall over in my chair and die—I'd be quite OK with that.

'Just watching my cat.

Yet, ANOTHER fucking music night canceled!

The Walter Mittys got cancer when I did.

The music is fucking dying!

Yeah, so here I am. Another fucking day where I have blood in my shit and I cough up half a lung like Aqualung. But hey, then I go through all the motions of setting up my kayaks for a day on the lake and it fucking rains.

So, we end up in a bar, drinking beers and watching the World Cup. GOOD TIMES!

Then we go back to my house and drink Single Barrel Jack Daniel's.

YEAH!

Now, I'm fucked up watching The Beatles Anthology years 1964-65

Hell, yeah!

Or is that Hell, Yeah!, Yeah!, Yeah!(?)

A year ago yesterday a doctor tried to make two years sound longer by calling it 24 months.

fuck.

Well, one down, one to go. Yeah, I feel like crap this morning but I do most mornings and today with a good reason: I went swimming yesterday!

So, so be it. Here's to "one to go!"

A year ago today was my last day of work.

Now, I didn't think so. I thought I was just going to Michigan for a long weekend.

Little did I fucking know that I wouldn't go back to work again.

Sometimes it's so hard to focus on what I really should be doing.

Cos what the fuck should I really be doing?

Hey, but playing music is still a shitload of fun!

Mornings with cancer can be like getting up after being hit by a truck.

Or maybe it's because of all the chores and shit you did the day before. Like everyday is your body as a 90 lb. weakling and mowing the lawn or painting the fence or planting flowers is like hiking up a mountain.

I don't know. Maybe it's being out of shape or it's mornings with cancer can be like getting up after being hit by a truck.

Yeah, I know time is running out. But some nights—like tonight—I just like to get drunk and veg out on Beatle shit on YouTube.

It's funny how the perspective changes.

Those people who were OK with just sending you a Christmas card every year—and maybe not always that—suddenly need to do and be more once they find out you're dying.

I mean, if we listen to the philosophers, we're all dying, right? So, what's different now?

What the fuck was that all about?

I go to my annual eye appointment. Meet my new doctor. A rather routine examination takes place. It's only been a year. At the end, she asks me if any new health developments have occurred in the past year. I tell her of my cancer diagnosis. She asks of my prognosis. I tell her. She replies, "And you're here getting your eyes examed?" I sorta laugh and say, "I guess, I want see my best in my final days." She sorta laughs. Then apologizes. I say it's OK. I don't mind gallows humor. Then I go the check out and I find next appointment is "beyond my prognosis."

I guess I ain't coming back?

Sometimes I wonder, if I only have a finite number of days, of strength and energy, should I spend that time making poems, songs and art like only I can do or sweep stairs, rake leaves and till garden rows like anyone could do?

It's good those days when you're laughing and talking with friends, where if you didn't speak about having cancer you wouldn't feel like you do.

Another fucking "blood-in-my-spit" morning. I wonder if I'll run into someone I haven't seen in years and have to share "my news" like I did yesterday?

Of all the well-intended shit forwarded to me about cancer, one thing has suddenly made sense. It's conspiracy-theory by its very nature but when one truly thinks about it, it fucking makes sense. A cure for cancer is like an end to war. Oh, the noblest of us bleeding hearts wants this but do we see the problem here? A multi-billion dollar industry would crumble and die. If you are a cancer patient like me, think of ALL those people you meet on a weekly or daily basis that would be out of a job. I was talking to an oncology staff person the other day who was pleased to share the news that a new wing was going to be built on the hospital I attend. I was happy for her as I thought how all my insurance money would help pay for this. And how all us fucking cancer people would come here by the droves to get injected with large doses of poison in the name of cancer treatment. Cancer Treatment. It needs to stay that way, right? 'Cause CANCER CURE would be the end. The end of cancer treatment. The end of Oncology. The end of oncology staff. And new wings on hospitals. And the beginning of a whole lot of people out of work. Let alone all us cancer people who wouldn't eventually die off and make room for new cancer people. Fuck. If there's a cure. It's the end.