August 20th, 2015

Thus begins my blog. I can't promise anything profound here, merely the musings of a twenty-something male from Midwestern America doing the best he can to live life to the fullest while going through treatment for a pediatric cancer. Which, when I stop to think about it, are far from ordinary circumstances. But I'll let you judge whether or not my circumstances lead to any profound thoughts. So what is this blog going to be about? My life, in short. I hope to convey what I'm doing and thinking in a concise--and if I'm lucky a humorous and interesting--way. Let's get started then.

Today is an easy day. No bloodwork scheduled, no scans, no nothing. Just a half dozen different pills twice daily. Today marks the first time since May that my body is free of some kind of tube or dressing. Not even a band-aid (tm?), as of this afternoon! OK, to be fair, I still have a mediport, a device in my chest through which chemo and IV fluids can be administered, but that's under my skin and not accessed right now, so I'm not counting that. I don't have any staples or steri strips, because it's been over three weeks since my last surgery. Even the tube through which my experimental radio-immunotherapy was administered is gone, as of Monday. If you're curious, it was the size of a normal IV tube, and came out of my abdominal cavity to the left of my belly button. My left, not yours. If you weren't curious, I apologize for boring you.

There have been many easy days like today, and many very, very difficult days, but surprisingly few uneasy days. Let me explain that sentence. Today, and mercifully many other days, I am able to eat food, walk fine, go places, and in general feel fine. Many times throughout the course of my cancer treatment, this has not been the case. There have been days of chemo where I was too sick to eat. Worse were the days recovering from surgery where I would have traded body parts (those I have left, so not my spleen) to be allowed to eat, but the tube draining my stomach showed that my insides were still running in reverse. But whether it's a day like today, where my charming wife and I enjoyed lunch at a cute Mexican restaurant down the block, or a day where I'm sporting a brand new fifteen inch long scar from surgery, I have almost never felt uneasy, and never for more than a fleeting moment.

I know I can't speak for anyone else on this journey with me, but I have only rarely felt truly unsettled about this whole cancer thing. Have I looked forward to the various toxins that are chemotherapy? Hardly. Have I been excited when surgeons describe an upcoming procedure and recovery process? Not exactly. Am I nervous about starting radiation in a month? Yeah. But am I uneasy? Am I shaken and rattled? Have I fallen apart and questioned the fairness of life? No. Nothing I've seen or gone through this past year has rocked my worldview. If anything, it has only reinforced something I've known for a while, something the book of Job makes abundantly clear. Shit happens. It can happen to anyone. As far as I'm concerned, how "good" or "bad" your life turns out depends far more on your attitude than your circumstances. I have a great life, and I wouldn’t trade it for anyone else’s.

Until next time,

Morgan Bolt