i was so busy calling everyone i know to share my great news that i forgot to put it on the blog for all of you read.....

picture it if you can, october 2002, a phone call from the hospital to tell me that really serious tests i'd had six months earlier had been mis-transcribed while they filled in my g.i. chart history....

32 polyps removed during an unexpected stay in the hospital( for non-relevant reasons) had been biopsied. i was informed that while it was a high number and i was a particularly young age for such a polyp colony, it is also common for younger men and women to not have any reason to have their intestines, colon and so forth delved into yet alone searched by floodlamp and hidden camera) while a team of prissy nursing students and over confident first year residents sit watching from above on a wide screen tv in the surgical ampitheater....all said and done, the results had come back as all 32 polyps being benign and needing no further follow up other than a full g. i. series every 12 months due to my crohn's disease....

fast forward...suddenly, a beautiful and temperate october afternoon, i got a call from my friend and doctor, armando caccierelli who was the head of the g.i. area where i went for crohns treatment...he told me it was urgent that i get in to his office that day if possible as he needed to sit down with me and discuss the seriousness of something that had happened somewhere along the line between surgical theater and lab transcription folks and that idyllic indian summer day i was so far living up in my own meager and somewhat mild way....

when i got to his office several hours later, i could have been knocked over with a feather boa....he explained the error and subsequent consequences of the error in my polyp count and biopsy transcription...where i was told 32 were benign and end of story, in fact, 3 were MALIGNANT and due to the lapse of time and the area of my colon (about 14 - 17 inches in from the end of the road, so to speak), this loss of time for treatment was more than dangerous, it was potentially deadly....i was told that i would be having surgery 3 days from that exact day, armando had one of his friends from mt. sinai offer his assistance as the lead if armando would be his second in charge for the potentially radical and physically invasive procedure....

i was numb. i was not scared. i have cancer....i have colon cancer....i am 34 years old on this day and suddenly i'm told i may not live until next month for my 35th birthday because of cancer and human error....i did not cry....i did not scream....i did not have time to register what exactly this would mean and i did not have time to die....i did not have time to find mom and jim in wyoming and i needed them to be here. i did not have time to have a will drafted and filed....i did not think i would soon be so sick that fear would be secondary to wanting to be dead....i did not know that within months, i'd be so thin that people would want to help me with my addictions which were actually chemo and radiation....i did not know that chemo can send you flying on a delirious and acid like trip....i did not know that radiation is normally aimed only at the area where you are being treated...i did not know that my 3 MALIGNANT growths had had enough time to grow from individual areas ranging from 3 - 5 mm each into one intersected growth of over 17 mm....i did not know that when i told them to just perform the colostomy procedure while i was in that my friend, the doctor would hug me....and tell me that the difference between being brave and being alive is being healthy enough to make an informed decision when there is so much life to live still and so little happiness with knee jerk bravado....

the story goes on, but i will not bore you...it is pretty similar to most cancer patients, but one thing you should know is that colon cancer is predominantly a retirement age disease, with most cases occurring after the age of 62....younger patients, in the 40 and under range, have only a 17% survival rate because they so seldom have a reason to have any type of invasive testing done that area until they either experience such severe pain or horrible symptoms that they are rushed to the e.r. and generally don't last for many weeks after that trip to the hospital since the disease will have probably run it's course and crossed into the organs and other horrible things....

fast forward 5 years....i lost my home. i lost my possessions...i lost my friends...i lost my sanity...i lost my pride...i lost my youth...i lost my dreams...i lost my hope....i lost my will to live....i lost my mind (literally in 3 small areas, perhaps chemo related...) i lost my hair but i'm happy to announce it's come back to visit...i mean it's now on my back but i can visit it by turning and looking in a mirror on occasion....

i did not lose my family...i did not lose my smile...i did not lose my ability to step beyond my own problems to help someone else with theirs - they call that escapism....i did not hurt anyone....i did not make any promises i couldn't keep. i did not forget i was sick for a minute. i did not live. i did not ignore death, but found that i had embraced it long ago....in fact, i recalled every day for the last five years that when we are born we come into life screaming while the world around us is joyous with music and dancing but when we die, the world beats its breast at the great injustice suffered by dying so young, yet dying brings us full circle into our own moment of joyous music and peace....i did not lose my sense of humor....god makes me laugh - she's a funny guy!

friday night, my doctor called while he was driving home for the weekend. i have had ongoing extensive, invasive and not so comfortable tests done nearly every week since november 1, 2007...i had been unable to find a single result from any source which leading up to my december 24th anniversary for having finished chemo and radiation was making me a bit paranoid....december 24th came and went with no test results....

december 24th should have been a major milestone...it was 5 years....i was sick the entire month of december and thought it was cancer related...december 25th i sat alone in my apartment for christmas and i cried because i felt that i'd been beaten and would finally have to admit i've lost this battle with an enemy that is part of my own body....new years came and went. i slept through it and barely left my apartment, i had nowhere to go and no one to see and no will to seek any opportunities out....the grim reaper is less than cooperative when you really have your life in line for his convenience....

i am officially, a cancer SURVIVOR....i am 5 years clean of colon cancer....i am 100% cancer free....if i wasn't pickled by chemo and radiation, i'd probably be labeled organic....i am now going to live....and i must say....i'll be damned if i'm going to let life and those who run it and those who administer it stop my making up for the life i've already lost....i will never live the last 5 years again....i hope to never revisit much of the last five years again...but i am going to wear my badge of survival as a license to live for all the world to see....i can't believe that i've been from the top of the world with education, careers, travels, loves and possessions, yet, only when the planet took a sudden shift, and made a quarter turn to the right without me, did i learn that by losing everything that ever mattered in the world to me, i not only gained strength and wisdom, but i got every single thing that will ever truly matter back while i was sleeping at some point...you see, a job is good, money would be nice, tailored clothing is pretty and who doesn't like to be at home in their own cozy nest, yet when everything is dark and you are alone, you find that no one has ever made wishes come true with magic....wishes and dreams and hopes and love and life and anything you will ever truly want or need or cherish beyond belief, is simply right there...it's in your heart and in your soul, and no one can take that away from you for any price or any reason....you might give your heart or share your hope and if you're truly blessed even further, you may share you life, but these things that are so valuable and undeniably precious only increase as you possessions for the simple act of giving and sharing them with others.....

i am so blessed and i am so thankful to the universe that has given me everything i could ever need to survive, including all those fucked up lessons on how to do without, because today, i sit in tears while i share this with you, i know that my life has more beauty, love, compassion and hope than any one person could probably realize is possible....