Remember "The Little Engine That Could"? Well I'm "The Old Engine That Will"

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I was waiting all week to write about something relevant (Chanel and Cancer?  Too rich?  Too thin?  Or too dead?) and then this happened:  I met a Motion Therapist named Bridgit.  She's kind and beautiful and gave me difficult exercises that I have a short time to master.  To quote Fred Willard in "Anchorman, The Legend of Ron Burgundy", "Ask and you shall receive!" When female reporter Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) demands that she be given a hard-hitting news story, (I think he gives her a meat loaf recipe.  She actually reports on a not-to-be-missed cat show, it is one of the funniest movies ever made!  Seriously.)

Anyway I went to Folsom (lovely town!) and I asked for serious work and I received it!  Since time is of the essence, I was really appreciative that she got right to work putting me to work.  Apparently there is "a lot going on" in my noggin (we all know that!) that needs to be identified before a determination can be reached.

Luckily, determination is my middle name.  Leah is actually my middle name, but "Determination" should be!  All the weight lifting, all the hundreds of miles of biking to nowhere came together  to show their purpose. I "lost my place in space" and I have to regain/relearn balance to walk. I understood what she wanted and her terminology instantly.  If she was surprised by my determination and degree of FUBARedness, (F@#$@#! UP BEYOND ALL RECOGNITION! Old Government Term), she never showed it.

What she demonstrated was a knowledge of the brain that was as vast as mine is small and that she had a plan for neuroplasticity.  I have to execute the plan, but there's a plan.  That's all I want!

I am the patient of the future.  Kicking cancer out of my body was just the first step in a long process, not the end game. I expect all subsequent MRI's to be clear and they are and will continue to be.  I'm as healthy as a horse and expect to remain so. We live in a society that worships money and youth.  On the surface, society revere's health, which is really important because once you lose that, none of the other things matter.  As my best friend once observed, "You can always make more money.  But once your health is gone..."  The implication being once you lost your health, you were screwed!  You don't get a "do-over".  I am alive and profoundly grateful to be (Thank you HA!)  (Thank you, Paul (Dr. Death!).  I am focused and motivated.  I have a young child.  Failure is not an option.  Pain?  Fear?  That's the other guy's problem!  I feel fantastic!  Hungry, but fantastic!  I keep thinking about those stupid "Transformers", that's what has happened to me I'm transforming.

I think the game is changing and I'm on the precipice of that change.  Bridgit Moore could be my guide to the other side.  Game on!  Bring it!

My mother recently asked me what acute rehab was.  It's where they try to train you how to function at home immediately following surgery, I spent a few weeks there immediately following brain surgery in 2011. I was not very happy or successful in 2011 for the  same reasons I would be amazingly successful now. Immediately after surgery I was not eating/sleeping properly, dependent on pain medication and under the tragic misimpression I'd get better in about a year.  It's been three years.  I take 0 medications and am always searching for an answer.  I have focus and drive like I never have had.  Everything I do since 2011 is for a single objective; one goal, one result.  I don't see anything else.  That's what I mean by "patient of the future".  I'm never, ever quitting and I don't know whether I should be amused or exasperated by the lame (and I mean Lame!) selection of goods and services marketed to the lame!

Scooters?  Upright Tubs?  Seats that creep ever so slowly up staircases?  Really?  I fought The Big "C" for this? Uh, I don't think so! The only big "C" I entertain now is "Cookie"  or possibly "Caramel", I am different from other patients because I only care about getting better.  I don't care at all about feeling better!  I feel as about as good as I'm going to.

This is why I think I would thrive in an intense, therapeutic setting:  I'm ready to work, I have health, strength and stamina.  I don't expect to have fun, ever.  I'm neither sleepy or sensitive!  I'll sleep and cry when I'm dead.  But mostly because I will do the work.  There is an old kitchen expression that translates to most professions, that instantly and precisely tells everyone where you are in the big scheme of things.  I'm "in the weeds"(see: FUBARred for description) and I know it!  I have one shot at getting out of them.  This is it.  So, come on Dr. Huang (?), what do you say?  Patient determined to succeed who needs almost nothing but therapy and somewhere to do it?  C'mon!  I don't care where the referral comes from!  I will succeed!  That place has this awesome "Transformer" machine that engages the patient safely and relieves the therapist of manipulating all the patient's dead weight around, using a remote.

I can't walk but I have energy for days!  When I can walk I'll never stop.  I'll just keep walking...  Or stand, I'll just stand around!  Eating cookies!  That would be great!

I didn't survive cancer, I kicked it's butt!  It's not coming back, I can suffer through an infinite number of MRIs, that won't change!  So come on Bridgit!  Bring it!

 Now we'll see if I'm as smart and strong as I think I am.  It's time to Embrace the Suck, people!


PS - Boomer was a special boy!

If Crazy Jihadists Can Inspire Me How Must Healthy Americans Be Reacting?

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I had a scintillating topic to complain about; (Brain Tumors and Why Those BIG Headaches Really Should Be Diagnosed) then this happened.  James Foley got kidnapped and decapitated in Iraq.  Nothing humorous or trivial.  All flavors of sadness and indignation represented there.  ISIS?  WTH?  And Al Quaeda has disavowed these dudes? For being "too radical"?   I don't think so.  Nuh, uh, not in my house!  Here's why it's BT (Brain Tumor) related:  If this news has inspired me into action (and no, I have no clue exactly what form this "action" might take.  This "action" could manifest itself in say, a strongly worded letter) you can imagine how all kinds  (and large numbers) of Americans far less handicapped than I might respond!

And before you ask, no, I haven't seen the video.  And I'm not going to.  Ever.  My seeing it won't help anything.  It's bad.  I know that.  A good man, somebody's uncle/brother/son died.   I haven't tried crystal meth either.   Same deal, it's like a Geico commercial.  "Decapitation and crystal meth are bad!"  "Everybody knows that!"

So with "Eye of the Tiger" blaring in the background, envision a montage of rehabbing (me) at the gym getting toned and stretched until I can walk then, run!  Then I purchase a one-way plane ticket to Iraq where I locate ISIS then I promptly get shot and die.  Because that is what would happen if I went to Iraq. This isn't "Kill Bill I" and I'm not Beatrix Kiddo. So, I won't go to Iraq :(.  ( Boo-hoo! I know you're so sad!)

But the notion that I even entertained an idea of a montage or would travel half way across the world to get shot (when I could easily get shot right here!) is alarming!  When I considered taking the wheelchair to Iraq, I keep seeing the covered wagon joke from "Blazing Saddles".  The joke was there was one family who was alone.  So when it was time to "corral the wagons" their one wagon would race around in circles!  That's how I see the wheelchair in a protest.  So another reason to 86 the evil chair!  (As if I needed another reason, I didn't)

I'm feeling marvelous these days!  The most negative emotion I register is "slightly irritated" so for me to get fired up for any montage is significant!  And I'm fired up, make no mistake about that! I want to raise some money and some awareness!  No one and nothing will stop me either!  And I'm pretty jazzed about the adventure!  Even if I just go in a circle!

PS - A great friend went on with his journey ahead of us.  He will be with his parents always.

My Tribute to a Gal's Gal - Who Departed This World This Week to Continue On Her Journey...

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Again I was going to take on a subject that desperately needs to be obsessed about:  Brain Tumors and Barnabas Collins - Coincidence or Connection? and then this happened:

Last week, Robin Williams committed suicide.  Everyone felt really bad about it.  It was a straight up suicide too, not an overdose or some erotic adventure gone horribly wrong, the guy hanged himself on Tiburon.

Very sad, for all kinds of reasons.  Someone else died (a movie star) that same day with not any of the drama or fanfare of the painful death (I mean for all of us, I have no doubt it was really painful for poor Mr. Williams), so I wanted to express my feelings about this star who I last saw playing herself on "The Sopranos".

Lauren (Betty) Bacall had a long career and an even longer life.  Ms. Bacall is known for many things, but most people only remember her as being half of a pair, Bogart & Bacall.  After Bogey died (of cancer) Ms. Bacall went forward and had several high-profile relationships and at least one other marriage, but she claimed that Humphrey Bogart was "the love of her life" and it's arguably what she's best known for.

A great deal has been said about her "look" (she was nervous) and the now-infamous "line" (You know how to whistle, right?  You just put your lips together and blow!)  "To Have and Have Not" and "Key Largo" were the two quintessential Bogart/Bacall pictures and they're very good.

My favorite Lauren Bacall film is as much fun to watch now as it probably was 40 years ago.

All the great qualities of Betty Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, New York in the 50's, are on display in one of my very favorite movies:  Howard Hawks' "How to Marry a Millionaire".  It's stylish and silly and funny as hell.  It's what "Sex In the City"wanted to be, strived for, all those seasons.

These girls were models that ate hotdogs and "dogburgers" whatever those were. They drank beer too. These girls had amazing wardrobes and were dead broke.  They lived in a stunning apartment on Park Avenue and had nothing in their refrigerator but old corsages and champagne!  The only visible result of this "poverty" was the furniture coming and going.  "Dogburgers"?  WTH?  OK, so it's not technically based in any reality I'm aware of.  It's pretty and funny.  I love every minute of it!

Bacall is the "brains" of this scheme and the only one that actually marries a millionaire, although she's unaware of it at the time.  In every scene she looks incredible, it's in technicolor which was a big step forward back in those days.

Anyway, there are certainly more substantial films in her body of work but none that are as filled with eye-candy and fun to watch.  Bacall as "Schatzi" could make any hare-brained scheme sound plausible.  "Marry a Millionaire?  Sounds like a crazy caper to me!  I'm in!
 
PS - My fun of the week has to go to Funny Or Die's "Drunk History" on Comedy Central.  I defy you not to laugh.  And the laughs are the best because they're completely unintentional.

Different Day, Same Question: Is It Cancer? No? Then Who Cares? But Is It Ebola?...

Hello Fellow Travelers!

Once again I was all set to share my thoughts on a cancer-related subject (this week:  Frankenstein: Monster Created from Death or Just a  Really Bad Headache?) then this happened:

I thought cancer was like Hitler the worst of the worst - the worst disease possible, mortality rate is astronomical.  Ebola is worse than a brain tumor.  A lot worse.  Ebola is a death sentence.  A short, brutal death sentence.  I might be able to overcome my current situation, but Ebola would kick me to the curb!  So never ask yourself, "How could things get any worse?"  Because things can always get worse.  They invariably always do, so don't even ask.

What's worse than cancer?  Easy.  Ebola!  Fast, extremely painful and very deadly.  The CDC doesn't know what to do with it!  When the Center for Disease Control doesn't know, nay, freely admits to not possessing the first clue how to treat this, you know it's bad!  And then you die.  Pretty happily, I might add.  Grateful for death!  Now, that's some serious doo-doo, as the PS might say.  I thought cancer separated your hair (or made it fall out) but anything that CNN reports hourly on and requires it's reporters to don hazmat suits could be a pandemic.  Or,  at the very least, it's very "badass"!

I am reminded again of KB #1 and the Japanese Charlie Brown who answers his wife very thoughtfully when Charlie Brown-San is asked if he wants his head chopped off.  "No, I don'r think I'd like that."  I feel the same way about ebola. It doesn't sound very safe.  And I don't think I'd like it.

I was asleep and dreaming (as I often do) and I kicked a wall hard.(KB#2)  In all my dreams I can walk.  In any bone-breaking event I waited as long as I could before going to the doctor .Sometimes I don't go get any medical attention  The problem for me now is I can't tell if anything is broken.  I've been wrong before.  And the results have been disastrous. My foot became truly the colors of the rainbow, and I was pretty certain "letting it get better", was not an option.   So I sucked it up and got an X-Ray, great news!  No break, just a colorful sprain!  It doesn't meet my usual criteria:  Is it cancer?  No?  Then who cares?  Now I have to worry about E-bola too?  Really? I just don't have the strength!

PS - Very sorry to hear about Robin Williams passing.  I guess the voices in his head became too loud.

Teddy Bears the Way They Were Intended - With Fangs and Nails in their Giant Paws!

Hello Fellow Travelers!

I was going to start a big discussion on some important, tumor-specific topic (Brain Cancer and Cialis;  why "ED" is a problem for tumor patients.  Or is it "all in their heads"?) and then this happened.  I've always liked Steiff Teddy Bears, vampires,  and the band Muse.  I've always been interested in the Third Reich, I never knew why.  I saw somewhere that all you had to type to see the Muse video that won the 2010 MTV Award for Best Animation were the words Muse and angry teddy bears to U-Tube.

I'm usually game for anything having to do with teddies so I thought I'd have a look.

I vaguely recall the awards show from 2010 in fact Muse was the only thing I remember about the show because they brought the house down with  a live version of "Uprising".  So recently I looked at the 2009 video and it worked on every level for me.  Giant teddy bears, running amok with vampire fangs!  Giant angry, teddies in a tiny town, rising from the dead and catching fire, ending with a teddy bonfire and all the plastic people get their faces melted off! At the teddy bear bonfire.  It's  perfect!

In this video, several of my lifelong interests are all explored and explained.  And there is a teddy bear bonfire!   Presumably with vampire teddies!  And it is awesome!  Remember what happened to the SS officer in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom"?  His face melts off!  Same thing happens to all the teeny, tiny, townsfolk at the Steiff Bear BBQ!  When I was a little kid I wanted a Teddy Bear Picnic, now I'd like a safe and sane Teddy Bear bonfire!

Now that mystery has been solved I can move onto more pressing issues, like cookies!