URGH

 It has been over three years since I last wrote in this thing.  So much has happened that I don't know if I have enough scotch to work through all of it.  Since we last spoke, Cole did a shit load of shitty treatments, and some cool experiences in NY, and tried to restart his life.  

For the record, I had a cool thought that was introspective and smart sounding and all that but I have completely forgotten it like I have decided to forget grammar this is a choose your own adventure scenario where you can capitalize as you see fit and put in whatever punctuation in whatever spot you want ok this is annoying to write so i can only imagine how annoying it is to read although i have not intention of publishing this so I am really just writing to keep from getting my frustration out by kicking my beagle (before calling authorities i dont have a beagle, but my chief did and he apparently kicked it often)

My current thought that has to hurry up and get down onto paper before it stops existing is more of a question than a thought.  If you have a friend who has an issue like you have, does the friend's issue magnify and cause your issue to increase or does your issue decrease because you have a friend whose issue allows them to empathize with you?

Warning Pity Party about to kick off: Every day I feel like I am failing as a father.  Now to begin with I am not that 50s mysognoistic (I can't figure out how to spell check on this computer and am rapidly getting too drunk to care) guy who thinks he is head of the house, runs everything, and all that stupid shit.  However, I do believe that it is my job (not necessarily because I am a father but more because I have no limit on the shit I would to do to accomplish this task) to protect my family.  So the question must be begged. Why can't I protect him?  Why can't I keep him safe?  FUCK THIS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry for that.  Fuck it, I am done for tonight.  Maybe tomorrow I can figure it out.

Thank You

So if you are reading this then you know, and if you know then your knowing does not need further application of knowing by me; however as the purpose of this is to allow me to ensure that my knowing is known by all the knowers, prepare for some know, now.

Scans = more spots.  More spots = hospital treatments (and a sharp increase in the consumption of scotch). hospital treatments = missed work and shitty life.  missed work and shitty life brings us to the point of our meeting today.....by calling it a meeting, it implies that you have entered my brain and are looking around.  For those of you that are in here with me please note the following: 1.  That picture on the wall never happened (i.e. an indictment is not a conviction) 2. I hope that you are wearing non-slip shoes. 3. The fuzziness is a result of the scotch. 4. Don't open the door in the back.  You aren't ready for that kind of crazy.  I have totally lost what I was talking about.  Wait.  Wait.  Wait.  Oh yeah, now I remember.

So we are back in treatment and we (saying "we" is kind of presumptuous (prəˈzəm(p)(t)SH(o͞o)əs/) of me and a little more ego-centric than I usually am.) had our first session.....the we is dumb.  Cole had the treatment.  All I did was sit there and play GTA5.  More on that later.  It has been a while (a while is the grown up word for some number of years that is greater than 1 but less than 1,0wer09w8er0we98r0ew9) since Cole had any kind of serious treatment that really affected him negatively.  This treatment (for those of you keeping score and for those of you who are actually interested in the truth (crazy bastards), the treatment includes the immunotherapy with a chemo kicker) causes Cole to feel strange and significant pain while he is in.  The pain is strange because it is in the joints of his legs and feet.  He says it feels like the pain your legs feel when you are sitting for a long time, but then intensified a great deal.  In addition to the fun pain, he gets the normal chemo nausea.  Fortunately the nausea is way less than the previous chemos that he done did.

Regardless, I have decided that it is no fun.  The only goood thing is that it is not on study which means that we do not have to jump through all the hoops (specific dates of treatment, underwear that must be worn, etc.).  Other than that, it pretty much sucks.

Ok, so all the crappy health stuff is done.  Now I would like to try and be sincere for a moment. (no promises as I have already entered crazy town and am 3/9 of the way through the double scotch that magically appeared when I poured it into a glass).  On a sort of whim, I set up a gofundme campaign.  I was doing the middle class math (middle class math is the grown up word for how in the hell am I going to make ends meet) game and with me missing 1 week of work per month, and with all the weird costs than pop up when you are doing multi-day hospital stays, I knew that this would be a rough summer.  Of course those closest to us asked how they could help.  So I did the gofundme.  It felt weird.  I felt like I was going out to sit on an internet street corner with a sign that says "will work for food", but I set it up anyway.

Now it may seem strange to you, but I don't really see myself as having a lot of friends. I have family.  I have people that I know.  But I don't really have friends (in case you are feeling sorry for me, it does not bother me.  I am very much an introvert and enjoy taking strolls in my own thoughts).  So it amazed, shocked, humbled, and moved me beyond words when the response to my gofund me was so amazing.  I keep trying to describe how I feel.  I keep trying to find the words to express my overpowering gratitude, but I can't seem to find the words.  I can't even find the made up words that always seem to come so easily to me.  All I know is that the people have spoken, and they have said loudly and clearly, "Cole.  We love you and we are here for you...all of us"  It does not seem to be enough but all I can think to say is, Thank You.  Thank You to all who donated.  Thank You to all who have prayed.  Than You to all who have offered help.  Thank You to all who have given support.  Thank You. Thank You.  Thank You.

Birthday party and/or mail order brides

CaPiTalIZATION rules are dumb.  Why do we even need them?

Today when I opened this blog, there was a link to the right that apparently allowed me to purchase a bride through the mail.  My question is: do they ship her USPS or FedEx?

Now on to the issue of the day.  Today I shoved a certain number of 12 year old boys (the actual number is a variable based on the reader's affiliation to law enforcement) in my car and had them bounce around on tramps (trampolines.  The other kind will be on the 18th birthday), fed them pizza, then set them loose on the neighborhood.  You may have heard the sirens.

So that was an awesome thing that happened today, and for all of the people, minus one, in the entire world, it was perfect.  The minus one existed because a conversation earlier in the day between myself and the mom of the kid whose dad is the coach who has an assistant coach whose son, because of the delivery of produce, caught KD's warmup shirt.  She asked the innocuous question of how is Cole doing.  I gave the normal non-specific answer of, "Fighting the fight."  Then I got to thinking about the possibility, nae the apparent likelihood, of  going back the the regular week long hospital visits.  Now I am a fundamentally optimistic person with a slightly off kilter flippancy.

Normally when thinking about going back in to the clink, I think about all the fun gaming we will an all the Pringles I will be eating (Pringles is the hospital word for the thing you eat when you are in a place where the drinking of Scotch is frowned upon).   Today; however, I thought about the 3rd floor through the prism of today's festivities and a dark cloud formed over my flippant optimism.  I don't think I want us to go back inside.

So what to do, what to do?  Well as I sit here and watch the clock slowly tick towards 2am, I have decided to honor a certain Muddy Lancer and engineer a solution.....wait, I suck at engineering. Plan B.  I will make a presidential decree wherein we will no longer allow illegal immigrant cells to obtain refuge in safe haven bodies.  All such cells must immediately vacate said bodies and go back to the hell from whence they came.

Scans in one month.  I might be a little crazy(er) until then.

Peace Be The RunningS

Age, Blood Draw, Cancer

Way back in my 30;s (most people incorrectly put an ' when saying something like 30s so I am highlighting their dumberness than me by putting a partial butthole with mine) I learned that all of my years playing marathon sessions of Civilization, Madden, and watching Saved By The Bell marathons had all been preparation for and had been instrumental in the creation of my ability to sit in a hospital chair for hours on end.  Well now I am in my 40"s (infra) and I feel my skills slipping.

I only had an 8 hour session in the hospital room today and it nearly wrecked me.  Thanks to my beautiful wife for recommending that we go to Grill House for dinner.  And thanks to J u l i a Ha Dd IX for the booze that is causing me to think that my insane rambling is actually brilliance manifested.

Some of you may think that today Cole and his dad went to UCSF for a planned 8+  hour day of periodic lab draws, but you would be wrong.  Oh how wrong you would be.

Technactually what had happened was that this morning I found my self in my favorite alley with my home boy Faze.  Our favorite diner was closing so they were throwing out the choicest of garbage when all of a sudden we see some dude steal a nice grandma looking lady's (by nice we mean soft and sweet, not hardcore biker chik badass like some grandmas that I may, or may not, know) purse.

While our time as wandering homeless superheros in our own mind had taught us that this was not a strange occurance, it became strange when the robber suddenly turned into a dog and began bounding down our alley.

Faze yells to me, "Polymorph catch him.  Let's be heros." Without hesitation I use my superhuman agility and catch the dogman.  I get my hands on him and...well you all know what happens then.  Long story short, Faze and I ended up in an adventure rife with super heroes, conspiracies, an enginerd who had a huge butt on his shirt (or was a butt, or had a smelly butt...), and generally made a mess of everything.  If you want to hear the full story, send me $10.987 and I will fill you in on the details.

If today's post does not make any sense, then check your premises and adjust accordingly.  While you are doing that raise your glasses and toast Faze who will use his power to change certain naughty cells to vapor so we can end this business.

GI

To sum up:

Just sit right back
And you'll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful kid
That started from this San Mateo,
Inside this tiny house.

The kid was a bad ass dude,
The Dad brave and sure.
Five family members fight this fight
For six long years,
For six long years.

His health started getting rough
The tiny boy was diagnosed
If not for the support of family and friends
The family would be lost.
The family would be lost.

(In case you didn't already, go back and re read the above to the tune of Gilligan's Island)

In case that did not make sense to anyone let me splain to ju a leetle better.  We have been treatment free for some number of months that is more than 1 and less than 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 (Ask Elisa the correct number as I don't do "exact" or "right" or "accurate" or "true" or """".  During that glorious indeterminate number of months we loaded up our schedules with baseball (all 3 boys), basketball (2 boys), soccer (1 boy), dance (1 boy), a new teaching job for me, and coaching two basketball teams (me).  Now is the time when you send flowers, Starbucks Gift Cards, a nice Pinot Grigio, or a bottle of Aboslut Citron to my bad ass wife as she has borne the brunt of the ensuing chaos.

Howevers, a new spot has emerged and we are back in the treatment world.  We were given 3 offers.  We rejected, as Office Space taught me, the first offer out of hand.  For the other two I will break them down into relevant portions for your convenience (no thanks needed.  If you want to the know the specifics and science behind them...too bad).  The first is a pill that is taken once per day and has not shown any side effects.  Of course it also is very early in the experimental testing phase and has not shown any actual curative results yet.  The second is the super trendy ch14.18ILT which is an immunotherapy with a chemo kicker.  This has shown significant positive results and is FDA approved which means, I think, that we can get it from the Taco Bell drive-thru now (might be mistaken on the last part).  Down side is that it means 1 out of every 3 weeks he is in the hospital inpatient, there is guaranteed serious nerve pain (which I never understood that term.  Isn't all pain nerve pain?  I never took anatomy but my basic Arizona High School education leads me to believe that pain is what the nerves do), possible hair loss, general shitty feeling, and possible inability to go to school during non-hospital weeks.

What to choose? What to choose?  First of all I would like James Earl Jones to read my blog into an audio book.  That is what I choose.  Second, after deep consideration, a number of d20 rolls, mediation (or was it meditation?), and the obligatory throwing of the bones, we came to the conclusion that, like backyard chickens, if some is good then more must be better.  So we are doing the pill until summer then, assuming no change or negative results, we will jump on the bandwagon and start eating the chalupa14.18.

Because of all this, I have decided (for those of you who didn't know this won't make sense, but not in the way that most of what I say doesn't make sense) to resign my professorship effective Friday.  From that moment forward I will no longer be tasked with the shaping of tomorrow's leaders.  Probably for the best.

Now I know that most of you are asking yourselves, your pets, your sig oths what you can do to help.  While all the normal stuff helps (prayers, thoughts, new Tesla for me to drive him to the doctor, etc.) here is where you can really help me the most.  I've got Cole.  We know this business and are, unfortunately that we know this, very good at this game.  D&D is being crafted, games assembled, and pringles purchased.  If you want to help, send Elisa some flowers.  Send Logan and Ollie some toys.  Go play with them.  Make them feel like they are not second fiddle to this whole experience.  They will be off this summer and will have to endure, again, a house that is in the business of hospitals and cancer and all that stupid shit.  We need to make sure they enjoy their summer.  Take them hiking.  Take them to the park.  Pick them up for a play date.  Fly them to AZ to attend basketball camp.  Build legos with them.  Dance with them.  Help them keep and define their childhood as their own.  That is how you can help.

So today I ask you to raise your glasses and toast my family, because they deserve it.

i am too pissed about this situation to give a clever title or to even capitalize.

So tonight's blog is brought to you by Paula and the black gentleman named Johnny W that she introduced me to on my birthday.

The following conversation happened almost exactly as I am recounting.  I have only changed the names, accents and facts in order to protect the slightly more innocent than me.

(As an aside I think that I hate the idea of indenting paragraphs.  If I skip a space I really don't think that I also need to indent to let you know that we are on a new paragraph.  It seems kind of condescending. But I digress.  Here is the promised conversation)))))))(just cuz))))))

Setting: a living room in a non-descript suburban household on a plot that contains the legally allowable number of chickens and not one more.

Characters: Role-a 12 year old boy human.  Rad-a 40 year old bad ass dad type dude with magic powers and an Alar like Ramson Steel.

Role: Rad, why come you don't blog no mo?
Rad: Verily I say to thee, I haveth beenth busyth myth sonth
Role: say what?
Rad: Ah rekon ah gots ta talk dffrnt
Role: not helping
Rad: Go to bed

Now that we have been entertained and confused appropriately let's commence with the business that is the business at hand.

As previously reported Cole's last set of scans showed a new lesion (or as I have just decided to call it, legion).  This means...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................we are back in treatment.  Yea for us!!!! Of course by yea I mean yeah.  And by yeah I mean stupid fu@#INg cancer.  And by that I mean....well I think that is self explanatory (aside: which of my insane grammer things is more annoying the parenthetical fetish or the .........?  The phones are open now.  Vote early and often.  Oh, and another stupid grammar redundancy that I have just decided to start hating.  I am, of course, talking about capitalizing to start a new sentence.  If I am punctuating to show that a sentence has ended, shouldn't I assume then that you are smart enough to understand that right after that punctuation a new sentence has begun?)()()(())

If you are lost, let me recap.  I am crazy.  I am slightly drunk.  I hate cancer.  Cole is going to restart treatment.

So the recommended option is something called ch.14.18 (for the record the periods herein are not of my own making) which is an immunotherapy which, as I choose to understand it, turns Cole into a mouse...or was made from a mouse, or a mouse was sacrificed in a ritualistic manner in order to create the therapy.  It will mean that we will find ourselves back as regular residents of the wonderful 3rd floor.  If you are part of the calvary, stand by.  You will be getting a call soon.

The other option is to go back to eating sweaty socks and not eating meat fat, milk, or things that are hot (see previous posts about fenretinide).

So that sucks.

Oh well, we will handle our business as we always have.  While we do, please raise your glasses and toast Cole, tenacious defender for his Abbott Falcons.

2/10/17 I hate birthdays

I have never been a big fan of birthdays.  I, in fact, only have one happy birthday memory.  Now it is important to note that lack of happy does not necessarily mean unhappy, it just means a lack of affirmatively happy memories.  Now my one happy memory of my birthday was only happy due to a piano player, The Undertaker, and Glenn the bartender.  Other than that I have a bunch of neutral memories, one sad memory and then starting 6 years ago, shitty memories.  But I digress....no I don't....tomorrow is the day formerly known as my birthday, but that I have rechristened Chemo Christmas and I find that we are right back where we have been, but thought we weren't.

That's right sports fans, we are going back into the world of treatment.  For the last 9 months I have been working diligently to make myself forget all those treatments, days/nights/weeks in the hospital, Kaiser, UCSF, bone marrow, surgeries, hair loss, anti-nausea meds, fear, fear, fear, and fear.  I had almost even convinced myself that I did not remember what it felt like to get kicked in the parent nuts.

To give a quick summary since I have not written in a while, last summer Cole had the big surgery at UCSF and then had to go on a crazy low fat diet due to issues from the surgery.  But (and this shows what a bananannas life we live in and how our perspective of "normal" is all messed up) other than that, we have not had any C-word stuff for quite a while.  He has been in school, making friends, playing basketball, and generally loving life.  Well now that is about to change.

This week we had scans.  The CT came back clean.  The MIBG came back with a new spot in the lower back.  This i,s to quote the, apparently, visionaries of the future, a most heinous turn of events.  It means that our plan of do nothing and have a great life is not to be.  Next week I will meet with the team and Kaiser and figure out what our treatment options are.

Let me just say that Cancer sucks.  I don't mean it sucks like Cauliflower sucks.  I don't mean that it sucks like the Nets suck.  I don't mean that it sucks like ties suck.  I don't even mean that it sucks like 45 sucks.  I mean that it sucks more than anything else ever.  In fact if you take all the sucky things that have ever existed and add them all up, you still will not have the suckness of Cancer.

When I told Cole about the new scans, he, of course, took it in stride.  I often wish I had half his strength.

I will try to update after we decide what to do, but my ability to write is based in large part in the amount and type of alcohol I have at my disposal so if you are a fan, send booze.  Also make yourself a drink and toast Cole, the boy who lived.

9/1 Foundation #1: Okizu

Okizu is a non-profit organization that runs a kick-ass summer camp for pediatric cancer patients, their siblings, and their families.  We have been to their family summer camp and both Cole and Logan have been to sleep away camp for the last two years.  The staff is amazing, and they will bend over backwards to help to make sure your kids get the best camping experience possible.

This is a great outfit because they are able to perform a small bit of magic for these kids.  They bring a bunch of kids together, all of whom share this horrible set of experiences.  The magic is that they have set up the camp in such a way that despite the fact that the kids are all there because they (or their siblings have cancer, it is not the focus of camp.  If you were to go and watch for a day, you would just think that it was a regular camp for regular kids.  For those of you who don’t have to go through this on a daily basis, regular is good.  Regular is the ideal. 

Check out their website at www.okizu.org.  Right now they have a triple matching campaign going so if you donate $100, they get $300.  If you give to Okizu, I will, for purposes of my internet embarrassment, honor the triple amount.

September is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month

Dear Facebook and Internet,

Please share this with the rest of your friends and ask them to share with theirs:

This month is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month. Pediatric Cancer kills more kids than any other disease; however it only receives about 4% of the total funds allocated towards cancer research. For that reason, outside fundraising is of paramount importance. As you all know, my oldest boy has been fighting a form of cancer called neuroblastoma for over 5 years. And since we are still fighting, as opposed to the awful alternative, I consider us lucky. Others have not been so lucky.

There are a great many organizations and foundations out there that raise money for research, family assistance, and the like. I ask that this month you please, please, please, consider donating some money to one of them. In order to help you, I will do two things this month. First, each day this month I will highlight on Facebook and Twitter one foundation or organization. Second, if you prove to me that you have donated this month, or if you send money to my paypal account, I will thank you by embarrassing myself on the internet. As the total dollar amount increases, the amount of embarrassment of the thing that I will do on the internet will increase. At the end of the month, I will take all the money received via paypal and make one donation to an organization that our family most likes.

The email address that you can send paypal money to is aric44@gmail.com. If you are concerned that this is some sort of a scam you can 1)ask my wife, Elisa (who is nearly incapable of lying) or 2) check out my blog to learn about our family history in dealing with this. The blog address is www.http://aboutcole.blogspot.com.

Here is the current donation/embarrassment tier: If we get lucky and get a bunch of donations, I might add some cool, funny stuff. *Note that if you prove to me that you have donated $1,000 in one shot, I will let you pick my embarrassment (within legal and loose moral bounds).

$1: Photo of me smiling

$10: Photo of me with excited smile

$100: Video of me dancing

$500: Video of me dancing without my shirt

$600: Video of me signing

$700: Video of me acting like a My Little Pony Character

$1000: Video of me swimming in the freezing Bay water

$5000: Video of me swimming in the freezing Bay water with as few clothes as possible without the video being porn

$10,000: Internet’s choice

$20,000: Me playing 1 on 1 with Steph Curry (assuming I can convince him), and made to look like a fool as he cross me over, breaks my ankles, and drains a three on me.

Back At It

When it all said and done there are essentially two types of events.  There is the Curly Bill event, and the Johnny Ringo event.

For the past amount of time that I don't really know but that is a significant enough amount of time for the purposes of what we are taking about (see my better .5 for exact details) the big time events have all been Curly Bill.  I honestly can't remember the last Ringo event that we had.

With Curly Bill it all happens so fast that you don't really have time to think or worry about it.  You just deal with it, walk into the river and shoot.  But with Ringo, you know he is out there.  You know what to expect from him.  You know where.  You know when.  So you sit on a couch 2 days prior and think about everything Ringo is.  You worry that you will get swallowed up by that big empty hole that can never be filled.  You worry that you are not good enough to beat him and you know that despite cinematic evidence to the contrary there is no huckleberry.  There is just you and yours facing Ringo.

Well to that I say, fine Ringo take my sleep tonight and tomorrow night.  Take my concentration at work tomorrow.  Take the stress that those around me experience when I bite their heads off.  Take it all. You want one of my kidneys?  One of my lungs?  Take it all.  But know this you heartless son of a bitch.  You will lose.

In just over 30 hours it will happen.  They will stop talking about H hour, D Day being on June 6.  Now all will know that June 21 is the day that we invaded.  The new battle of Normandy will not have been fought on the shores of France, but rather in the body of a bad ass little boy.  No bombs.  No guns.  Just wrong on one side, and right (powered by science and a shit ton of collective and cumulative education) on the other.  June 21 will be the day that we stood on the bridge and said, "You shall not pass.  Go back to the shadow.  You will not pass."

In just 30 hours you will likely be getting ready to start your day.  Maybe having a cup of coffee, tea, or juice.  Well when you do, please raise your glass and toast Cole, The Dude.

Reminiscing

Thursday marks 5 years since the first chemo treatment for Cole.  Not surprisingly, this week I have been thinking a lot about when Cole was first diagnosed.  It's kind of funny the things that I remember so clearly after all this time an after all these treatments and after all of everything.  

I remember the first room at Kaiser (room 4), and how it and a little antechamber connected to it.  

I remember the magic hidden toilet in the PICU.  

I remember Nurse Level 2.  

I remember Elisa and Julia forcing me to leave the hospital to go take a nap at the hotel.  

I remember standing outside Room 4 and watching my sister walk down the hallway, thinking at the time that it seemed such a far walk.  

I remember the anticlimactic conversation with Cole wherein I told him that he had Cancer.  

I remember (and this is a strange one) sitting in that little room listening to Dr. Taggart tell me the diagnosis and wondering if, due to her ears, she was a half-elf.  

I remember giving Cole a bath and thinking that he looked like he had been in a concentration camp.

I remember a thousand million other small shitty details that I wish I could unremember.

I remember fentretonide.

I remember the irony of oral zofran.

I remember mint ice cream.

I remember visits to the ER.

I remember him falling at the park prior to diagnosis.

I remember yelling at him to walk right, not knowing the bone marrow in his hips was essentially melting.

I remember finding a time machine being carelessly left unattended.

I remember taking the time machine to the future and finding out that they had cured cancer.

I remember taking that knowledge back to February 2011 and nipping this shit in the bud.

Is the Is the Is or Not?

So anyways like I was saying....

When I am standing here beside myself thinking all the thinks I can think I am forced to think the think that is who is the is that is me?  Am I Michael Clark Duncan or am I Anna Paquin?  Now normally I am content with accepting that the is that is me is the is that currently is and that is can, and does, change to a new is as is necessary.  However when the requirements of the current is require the is that truly is is the is that is the current is then the question of which is is the is that is the is, truly.  More to come on that later.

The above notwithstanding, my current is is contemplating the difference between New York and California.  In New York they play the US Open Tennis tournament.  This tournament is played on a hard court.  Both the benefit and downside of playing on a hard surface is that the game is sped up a great deal.  What if my is chooses to play on this hard surface and it proves to be too fast?  What if I lose control of the game?  Now I am very used to playing on the clay surface of the SF Tennis courts, but at some point you need to go play somewhere else.  Thoughts?

Baseball x2, Cooking x2, Music, Chess, School x 2.5, Coding, Work x1.75, Portland, Seattle, Tucson, Mt. Cross, Okizu, Wizbots, XXX-, US Open?, Clay Courts?  What's a midwest girl to do?

One of the great things about the ever-shifting is that is the ism of the is that is my is is that the current is is always the right is at the time as the is is defined by what is asked of the is currently.  However when the tables get turned and the situation must be defined by the is and not the other way around, which is is the right is?  How do you choose?

Jaime has small ears.

Which is betterer? Blue Bloods or Law & Order?  Answer is Blue Bloods cuz Whalbergs and I like hamburgers.

If you are confused blame Tito, or is it Tita......ok fine blame M&D.

I have a new dog and he ate my chickens.  I think revenge is in order.  As soon as he gets some chickens I will eat them.

I might be drunk.

Or I might not.

Seriously, which is is the is that is the right is for the is that is needed?  I is not able to know.

Raise your glasses and toast Cole, the ball boy at either the US Open or the SF Open.

tHIS bLOG sTILL eXISTS?

Math time.  Cole recently played 4 baseball games in 4 days.  During those 4 games his batting average was .000, but his on base percentage was .900.  That has to be a record.

Business time.  In a couple of weeks, Baker BBQ sauce will make its official California debut.  If you want to place an order, email me.  If you try to order by commenting on this post, you will likely starve (see Admission time infra).

Awesome kid time.  Ollie is in full blown awesome 3 year old world (full blown awesome 3 year old world is the clinical definition of insanity).  He is well aware of his penis.  He knows that his butt, and the things that come out if it, are both funny and torment his mother.  His command of the English language makes me fall on the floor.

Admission time.  Today I was checking to make sure the interweb was still working by going to my blog’s website.  Did you know that the comments were activated and that I can look at them and see what people have said?  You did?  Well you don’t need to brag about it, because I did not.  So if you commented and I did not respond, please accept my (I would say humble but I don’t think that anyone would buy that) apologies.  In the future I will strive to intentionally not respond to comments so that you can rest assured that my not responding was not due to some oversight.  There.  I feel much better now.

Medical Time.  Cole had been doing a treatment that involved chemo (Chemo is kind of like Saved by the Bell.  You got me through some tough times in my life, but you basically suck the soul.) and some experimental liquid medicine whose properties are kind of magical and if you try and figure out what is in it you run the risk of being banished to the ice penal (heheh I said penal) colony on Zortof, the 3^rd moon of the planet Zoroastical.  The treatments were successful in the same way that most of the treatments have been successful.  Cole is not dead.  His cancer has not spread, and Cole could tolerate the med. (read the last two sentences out loud for an added experience).  This is the same treatment that I last described way back in November.  The chemo portion caused his hair to fall out, and caused him to miss one week of school every three weeks (and still got an award for reading more words that all the other kids in the world combined).  We did like 15 or 16 rounds of this treatment.  The result?  A tie.  I know a tie is a win in this game, but I want a F$#@#$$ing full on hoist the trophy win.  Now we are on to a new treatment.  This one, assuming it works, is totes awesome.  The therapy is immuno based therapy.  In this instance the medicine goes in and provides a pep talk similar to the one I gave to the soccer team (see other posts either supra or infra depending on how your browser organizes the blog) to the white blood cells.  Of course the result is the final determination of the awesomeness, or lack thereof, but this treatment already has a high level of awesome because there is no chemo component to it.  That means that if you get a rare look at Cole’s head, sans hat, you will see a darkening that is not because the hat is totally gross and dirty (which it is), but because he is getting fuzzy up there.  Imaging this week after our first full cycle of this treatment.  Stay tuned.

Admission time.  Again.  I am not wearing pants.

Question of the day.  Why is it ok for girls to wear spandex type pants around town but when I do it, suddenly I am that weird guy who makes people uncomfortable?  That is cultural gender discrimination and I will not stand for it.

Drink Time.  Raise your glasses and drink to Cole, who may or may not join the Blue Man Group as an intern this summer.

Beware of Greeks and Naked Messy Dudes

Last night Norma Rae was off rabble rousing, so the boys and I had a good old fashioned boys’ night.  A fort was made.  A fort was destroyed.  A fort was rebuilt.  A fort was redestroyed.  A fort was rerebuilt.  A fort was reredestroyed.  A fight ensued.  Peace was installed.  Milk was consumed.  A fort was abandoned to the savages.  A fuse was blown.  A child cooked a protein.  Things were deep fried in oil.  Condiments were overused.  Messes were made.  A good night was had by all.

Then reality sunk in. Cole started feeling shitty (In case you have not been keeping track, this is a treatment week).  As it was early and I was too tired….I mean since I value art so much…. I let the boys tear into the play dough. 

Logan made a dude.  I know it was a dude because it had some stuff that only has a dude has.  And it had butt cheeks too. (here it is appropriate to say that boys rule.  Girls drool). 

Oliver made a mess.

Cole made a little figure, and a toilet.  The figure had food (real food mind you) in the mouth and there was food in the toilet.  I asked him what he made and this is what he told me, “Well Dad, when the Greeks would get sick or hurt, they would make a figure that showed the sickness or hurt.  They would put it in their house and the hurt would go away.”  Umm.  Ok, little man you are nine.  You have not (yet) graduated from Stanford so you should not have such sophisticated thoughts.  But you do, and you are awesome. #buybakingsoda

Next imaging is week of Thanksgiving.  I think that someone should buy me (by me of course I mean Cole but since he is a child I will have to go with him) some tickets to the Seattle-SF Thanksgiving game.   

Please come wet your toes in the pool of insanity with me

You may be wondering why my last few posts have been about the awesomeness of sports.  Well, first of all it is because sports are awesome and anyone who disagrees is a big banananananana head.  Second it is because of October. 

For those who are not sports peeps, October is the best month for sports.  Hard core basketball dudes will say I am wrong and that either March (college) or June (NBA) is the best.  Followers of fine football will be fuming, and fabricate fibs that January/February is the best.  Hockey….I just can’t seriously discuss hockey (don’t worry, they are all Canadadaaddaddaians who will cheerfully still be nice to me even though I trash their game). 

The reason October is the best is because baseball is winding down, with the ultimate culmination occurring with the World Series; football is just getting into its groove where games really start to matter; and basketball is just starting.  Every aspect of sport can be seen, experienced, cherished, blah blah blah all in one month.  It rocks.

Today’s discussion from the world of sports is the idea of excellence vs. greatness.  First some definitions.

Excellence: The grown up word for doing it the best.  People like to see excellence.  The best example of excellence is the San Antonio Spurs.  Watching them play reminds me of doing a very specific drill to learn how to run an offense.  In this drill, the offense would run its plays, or sets, or whatever it was supposed to do without any defensive players on the court.  You just worked on going to the right spots, making the right passes, getting the good shots.  Then doing it again until you can run the offense in your sleep.  That is the Spurs.  It is like the defense is not even there.  They just do their thing, and make it look easy.  That is excellence. 

Greatness: The grown up word for Legen------------(if swung that way I would totally be into to NPH)------dary.  Greatness is like porn.  Hard to define but you know it when you see it (thank you Supreme Court for helping with my analogy).  Greatness causes people to lose their minds (in the good way, not the need a lobotomy way).  The San Francisco Giants are a great example of this.  This is a baseball team that is not really all that good.  They have a few good players (for the locals who are fuming at my only referring to the better players as good, look at Mad Bum’s stats in the regular season.  Good, not great), a really good manager, and a good front office.  But something happens to them if they somehow find themselves playing in October.  They become magic.  Maybe that is what greatness really is.  When someone(s) transforms themselves, and/or performs in such a way that can only be described as magic. That is greatness.

People who strive for, and succeed at, excellence see the universe of rules that governs their world.  They know the goal.  They have a plan.  They execute the plan.  They achieve the goal, and they do it better (in whatever way better is defined within that world) than everyone else.  Excellence is doing it the right way perfectly.

People who achieve greatness look at the rules of the specific universe and gafaw (in order to truly understand a gafaw, imagine a man standing in the face of a hurricane that is throwing hot lava.  As the fit hits the shan, the man leans his head back and lets out a booming sound from deep down in the cockles of the soul.  The sound is a cross between a laugh and a threat.).  They toss the rules aside and proceed to achieve the goal in a way that no one has ever heard of before.  If excellence is doing it the right way, then greatness is creating the right way.  Most attempters of greatness go mad.  Those ones that don’t, become legends.

Which do you want to be, excellent or great?

On the day of my wedding, a certain coach for whom I have great respect (despite the fact that he broke the rule.  The one rule.  There was only one, and it was broken and only I picked up on it and I won’t tell anyone what it was except for a certain other person who played a sport for which I have absolutely no respect but he/she/it is sworn to secrecy and you can tell how important this sentence is because I am not degrading it with any CJ punctuation or any of that cuz I am lazy #youth(wow that was a cool rant that had inside rants from no less than 3 of my different worlds in which I live))()()()(j)(u)(s)(t)(b)(e)(c)(a)(u)(s)(e) wished excellence upon my marriage.  That wish always felt just a little bit off to me.  It is like wearing a shirt that is just 1/6 of a size too small.  For the most part it fits, but is just ever so slightly off.  I think that my offness stemmed from the fact that I have absolutely no desire for excellence.  Really.  I am being serious here.  If I ever end up excellent at anything, it was not intentional and I apologize.  What I want, what I desire, what I yearn for is greatness.  I have not achieved it yet….then again maybe I have.  Or maybe i’VE already gone mad.  I will let my autobiographer decide if he ever gets around to actually writing the book.

When I look at Cole and Logan (Ollie is a little t0o young for me to determine how his life is going to go.  As a general rule I like to let kids have 5-6 years of carefree happiness before I decide who they are, and who they will be), I see one kid who will undoubtedly be great, and one who will surely be excellent.  I am enjoying watching them play it out.

Fine, an update on boring medical stuff.  Cole is doing well.  Hair is funky.  Labs are good.  This week we actually have a rare week where not one single medicine is required for an entire 5 days.  Pretty cool.  Next week we start another round of treatment, but in the meantime raise your glasses and take a quick drink cuz they are watching you. (Side note: The best part of my blogging experience is letting my computer try to spell check my post.  I did not know that computers could sigh in exasperation, but come to find out they can.)

Torrent River of Swirling Thoughts

Number 1:

So like I was saying, everyone around here was watching it.  Everyone within 100 miles of KC was watching it.  27 other people were watching it.  If you are one of the aforementioned individuals, this post is not for you.  If you are one of the chosen from the last post, then this post is not for you (but you will appreciate it). 

Music is the only field, other than sports, where 50,000 people will go out of their minds crazy just to watch you do your job.  But here is why sports is better.  In music there is no chance of losing.  NKOTB never goes out on stage and has to worry about 98◦ out playing them.  There is no agony in watching Green Day work all year long, playing concert after concert only to lose out to JayZ.  That is not to say that music is in any way bad.  In fact anytime 50K peeps will act like maniacs because you walk around, it is cool, but still, sports wins.  Go find your sport and start playing.

Number 2:

I just started the Slow Regard of Silent Things.  I highly recommend that you read this, but you must follow Pat’s advice and neither buy it nor read it unless you are supposed to, and unless it is right.  His first two books are awesome and fantastic and super cool.  This one is simply beautiful

Number 3:

Do you like this new format?

Number 4:

I just had a great idea.  Chemo Christmas.  This is a new holiday that will be celebrated in February.  Here is how it works.  On Chemo Christmas, you celebrate the magic of western medicine’s ability to figure out that they can make stuff that will kill the bad parts faster than the good parts.  You celebrate this by giving a gift to someone who’s life has been affected by chemotherapy.  The gift does not need to be, and should not be, big or expensive.  It should just be something to say, “I am glad that because of chemotherapy you are here to receive this gift.”  The gift is not really for the patient, but for the collective intelligence and spirit of every doctor, scientist, nurse, and patient who has ever been involved in cancer research.  This new holiday will be celebrated on the first day after the tenth day of the second month of the year.

Number 5:

I have been working on a train of thought regarding the difference between excellence and greatness.  That will be in a future post.

Number 6: 

Tonight pour a drink and raise your glasses for Cole, the first of the three most awesome dudes ever.

Sports

I have been instructed by my therapist to start blogging again.  Apparently I have been kind of an ass lately....wait....hold on....it's coming............I am always kind of an ass (or a kind of ass, or a kind ass, or one of the asskind (a race of grammarain warrariors from the south of france).  Oh well, I am here might as well make the best of it.

Details on Cole to follow, but I would be remiss in my duties as el entrenador grande if I did not first speak to you about some sports stuff.  For those of you who are sports peeps, you already know this so feel free to jump down to the update section.  For those of you who either think sports are dumb, or refuse to let your kids play sports, keep reading.

This morning 7 4th and 5th graders stepped onto the pitch to do battle.  With no subs, this well coached group of mini-warriors fought epically for a half.  la They were like little possessed beasts.  They were flying to the ball.  At one point Cole literally.....literally...flew into an opposing player, who had at least 40 lbs on him, in an attempt to win the ball.  Their efforts paid off, and they jumped out to a 2-0 lead.  As the half wound down, the other team's best player (who will not have to pay for college) dropped a dime from 25 in the upper right corner, and then tapped in a rebound after we made an all star save.

2-2 at halftime.  As the soldiers prepared to finish the game, one comes to me and tells me that hA e has to leave.

The second half starts and we are down a man.  I gather the troops and give them the combination of St. Crispin's Day Speech, Any Given Sunday Speech, and Hooser's (for those sad sad few who don't know this one..."My team is on the field").  A great war cry erupted from the pre-pubescents, and I think that I actually saw fear in the other team's eyes.

The boys played with a fervor that I have not seen since lo these many years.  However, as the game wore on, and the attrition started to set in, the enemy was able to chip away at us.  Exhaustion.

Two goals were scored  late in the second half.  We rallied and got one back, but they were too strong, and we were missing a player, and they tacked on two more at the end.  6-3.

Now here is why this is important.  In the San Mateo AYSO U-10 league, the first five games do not count towards the tournament.  We did not win any of those games.  The last 5 do count.  Last week (a loss) was gave 6.  This week was game 7.  In case you were not paying attention, we have not won a game yet.  Also, in case you were not paying attention, we were down a man for half of the game today.

As the boys walked off the field in defeat today, almost every single one of them had tears in their eyes.  These tears were not just due to losing.  No.  They were the tears that come when you give everything you have to something, and then you give a little more, but you come up short.  Every boy today played his heart out, and I want them to hold their heads up high, but I know that they will not.  Sometimes the dagger thrust of defeat is too deep to heal in one night. So tonight as you go to bed you should know that there are 7 little men that have been wounded deeply today.  Tomorrow they will wake up, and maybe, they will take that pain and use it as a reminder to keep trying, keep fighting, keep going.  They will also know that there are 6 other people to whom they are connected, and with whom they share a bond that goes down to the very soul of their person.  That is why you play sports.

Now on to Cole (I know what you are thinking, why talk about cancer (which sucks) after talking about sport, but it must be done for a few reasons.  1) you want to know 2)Roberta would kill me if I don't and I have about 500 reasons to listen to her and c) it is a better update than the last one).  Cole has been on a new treatment that started right after the last time that we all got together and entered my brain.  It consists of some liquid medicine (which sounds chill but can literally....literally eat through a brand new quartz countertop), "normal" chemo meds ("normal" chem meds?  really, "normal"?  what does that even mean.  Well, I am glad you asked.  "normal" is the grown up word for a drug that is not experimental.), and various other otcs.

So far the treatment has been going well.  Not a victory, but not a loss.  New spots in the leg appear to have been eradicated.  All the old spots are still there, but they are not getting bigger.  In this game, ties are good.

Poopy Poopy Poopy Pants

There are not many things that I truly hate.  I can usually always find something good…at least good in the way that I look at things which usually involves making someone feel uncomfortable… in anything.  That being said I odviously hate cancer.  A side hatred of the overarching cancer hatred is the hatred of waiting for the next thing. 

For those of you that are lost, let me splain.  Cole had been taking part in a treatment that consisted of him taking pills every day that did not seem to have any sort of side effects.    Unfortunately they also did not seem to have any sort of cancer fighting effect.  The spots that were there are still there, and he has a new spot in his right leg.  So now we are back into the hair falling out, feeling like shit, upset stomach, sleepless nights (and the side effects on Cole suck too) chemotherapy treatments that we all love so dearly.

So tomorrow, well since it is well past one am today I guess, Cole has to go in to the OR and get a port put in (I do hope they put it on his right side for ironicality).  A port is just like the central line that he used to have, but the access point to this line lives under the skin.  Good for us because there is no maintenance and no water restrictions on Cole, who incidentally, has become quite the swimmer.   

This port installation procedure is a fairly minor (relatively speaking) procedure, and I am sure that Doc Sullivan will have no problems.  Of course my wildly overactive imagination has gone through all of the shittiest possibilities and has decided to share them with the part of my brain that deals with me going to sleep.  I have been sitting here imagining having to write his obituary (which I have done more times that I care to admit), imagine the doctor coming into the waiting room to apologize because there was nothing they could do.  Super fun times. 

Switching gears a little bit….that is what I do and how I roll.  Deal with it…., I had a telephone meeting with a nurse practitioner in advance of the surgery….at least that is what he said that it was.  Given his almost comically (without the almost) clichéd accent, and the fact that he kept saying, “According to computer” (now put that line into an over the top Russian accent that sounds like a guy making fun of Russian accents, and you will see the comedy), and the fact that he is from Kaiser, which is where Cole was born, and the fact that he kept asking about Elisa’s pregnancy, and the fact that 2+2=4, I have decided that he is a sleeper agent from the former Soviet Union that was accidently activated when I ordered a pizza online the other day.

This new therapy will require Cole to spend 4 hours per day, M-F, one week out of 3 (sounds like the worst Reserves commercial ever) up at sunny UCSF (when the new one opens I wonder if the proximity to the ball park will result in more games attended.) for the foreseeable future.  Word around the campfire is that we are of the mindset of long term systemic treatment instead of maintenance. 

Looking for ideas on things to do while we are in.  The therapy is all done outpatient so we can’t bring the big bag of stuff (big bag of stuff means the D&D stuff, Wii, Dr. Pepper, Pringles, and Goldfish).  Odviouslylenss we will do some world domination plotting (Will send you the link to our World Domination Kickstarter.  We only have to raise 2345w3sfw34545342 more dollars), but we need some other ideas of what to do that does not equal video games.

Think I will say bye for now, but please remember to give me ideas that are not the normal ideas (do a puzzle, paint a picture, get some stank).  Think outside the box.  I look forward to your comments, but please be advised that all comments must be written between the hours of 12am-4am PST (or is it PTSD) or written after 12-14 beers have been consumed within the previous 1 minute.  Please raise your glasses to Cole, author of a beloved series of children’s book starring a shy palm tree named Guido.

100 is a cool number

Do you think that I look like Busta Rhymes?  Maybe just a little bit?

I was thinking about making a big deal about the fact that this is my 100st(th)(rd) post, but then I decided that the round, base 10 numbers get all the play so I am going to celebrate some lonely prime number.

You that super awesome feeling that you experienced as a kid on Christmas eve?  Lying there in bed, quivering with excitement knowing that at any moment a very large (for those of you who were kids before Coke made him fat, feel free to remember him as a small elf) possibly drunk (given the flushed cheeks) would be performing a home invasion at your house.  What you got did not really matter.  All that mattered was that you were getting stuff.  Every sound that you heard had to be Santa.  You knew that if you could only go to sleep Christmas would get here.

So this week is imaging week.  The anticipation that I feel is the exact opposite of the Christmas Eve feeling.  I kind of don’t want imaging day to come.  If it never comes, then I don’t have to have that conversation with Dr. Taggart about new spots and new treatments.  I don’t have to tell Cole that he can’t play sports this week, or that we have to start a new treatment that will involve some stupid side effects. 

This means that when you ask me how it’s going, I will say to you, “good good (don’t know why I always speakly doubly thus, but verily I doth)” but now you will know that inside I will be doing the crazy dance of crazy.  (Think Madonna, Madonna, Martha Graham, Martha Graham).

For those of you who don’t speak Jim very well, we have imaging (MRI, MIBG, CT, EIEIO) this week.  Today was MIBG injection and MRI.  Tomorrow is MIBG and CT.  This will tell us what, if any, effect this new treatment has been having.

Now on to much cooler stuff.  The best little town in America (San Bruno) is kicking off their Relay for Life Run that is coming up this April with a great community event this Saturday.  In the spirit of Batkid, two local kids will be battling an evil super villain all across the city.  The battle will be followed by a BBQ.  The whole purpose behind this event is to honor and celebrate those who have fought and won the battle against cancer.  It is also to let those that are still fighting know that they have friends and loved ones out there who are ready and willing to help. 

This event is taking place this coming Saturday.  Send me an email, comment on this blog, or facebook me if you are interested in more details.  For now; however, raise your glasses and toast Cole, superhero.

I am a 99er

So I have a couple of things on my mind today.  The first, in no particular order, is prayer.  Now I must first say that I am not making judgments as to whether or not you should pray.  Nor am I saying that any one faith, or lack thereof, is better or worse than any other.  But today I was sitting in church and listening to the people pray for those that they loved.  I began to think about the studies that I have seen that suggest that patients who, without their knowledge, are prayed for by strangers have a higher rate of recovery than those that don’t.

So here is my question/problem.  If we take it as a given that prayer works, then that kind of means that the absence of prayer is detrimental.  It also means that the deity to whom the prayer is directed is less likely to intervene in the absence of the prayer.  So it is really just a popularity contest.  That all being said, I know that a bunch of you have been praying for him, and you know the results to date, so keep it up…and tell your friends.

Second.  I may have written about this before, but since I never go back and re-read my prior posts, I can’t be certain.  Now I know that we are winning.  I know that he is doing great.  I know that he is making long term plans to start an origami basketball league.  I know all this with the thinking part of my brain that is in control when the lights are on.  When the lights go out and the demons come; however, it is a different story.  For some reason when I go into that dark place I write, and re-write his obituary. It is scary and depressing and I don’t like it.  But as Big Dan used to always tell me.  This shit will end.  The sun will come up tomorrow.  It’s all good.  #true (btw I think that I have a sufficient misunderstanding of the #hashtag thing to start using it on a parenthetical scale))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

Third, there are too many people that have done so much for us that I could just write a blog called “Thank You” and I don’t really want to exclude anyone or place anyone’s help above anyone else’s so I rarely give too many shout outs on this blog.  I prefer to thank you personally.  Tonight; however, I do want to say thank you to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church for what you have done for us recently.  No need to go into details, but please know that we thank you from the bottomless basket of our hearts.

Today marks the official last day of cycle 1 of Cole’s treatment.  Tomorrow he and I brave the urban savages and invade the UCSF PCRC LMNOP EIEIO.  We will be well provisioned and well prepared, and will kick some Cancer ass.  Blah Blah Blah.  That is not important stuff.

What is way more important is that THEY ARE COMING.  I repeat THEY ARE COMING.  If you know who THEY are, you should be excited.  If you don’t you should be even more excited.  Again, in case you have really bad short term memory (remember that great SNL skit with Tom Hanks, Mr. Short Term Memory?  “Who put this wallet in my pocket.  It belongs to someone named Tom.”  “You are Tom.”  “I am now.”  Great stuff), THEY ARE COMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Until they do, raise your glasses and toast Cole, Commissioner of the OBL.