Captive animal to be released in just weeks!

In a week from now I will most likely be laying on the couch or dozing in and out of another copious sedation from my last chemotherapy infusion and my shrine of med jars. I am crusting today as usual, floating through this dose like I've got water wings on or something. We were talking the other day about how cussing harsh this whole program has been and by the time I'm done with treatment 12 I'm gonna be like one of those stunt men guys like Knievel or something, where you see the footage of them after their blowout crash and their on the stretcher covered in bandages and blood but they still lift the arm up for a token thumbs up. That's going to be me next week after my last infusion, stick a fork in me I freaking done. What a weird dream it's been, and what a damn crazy different element of reality I've been living in. I feel like I stepped away from this world's grasp for six months and I was operating on some unexplored time continuum that only people on nine different drugs get to experience and or try to comprehend. I kinda romanticize that the world was just waiting for me to finish my business and wake up to the realization that I can have it all back, like time and everything I knew was twiddling it's thumbs waiting on me like a passenger waiting on a train. In a couple weeks I'm getting back on that train and back to a realistic neurological state of thinking and reasoning. I'm getting crazy excited to leave here and head toward the sea, sun, and friends, going over plans and camp spots, contemplating boards to bring and camping equipment to get together. Where to stay, who to see, what skate parks to scope and just what the hell is gonna happen when I see that blue wavy thing once again. Good times are a comin' down the highway.

So last time I went to the infusion center my white cell count was too low to get doped, so I had to get another stimulus shot which makes my bone marrow get all happy and dance and reproduce really fast. I had a count of 700 on my scheduled chemo day when I needed at least a 1500. So.....they stabbed me in the arm and filled me full of this uncanny reproducer, which to my total disbelief and frustration costs 1,500 per dose, making the costs just for those shots over the course of this treatment about 2o grand. WTF? Let alone the chemo at about eight grand a session, thank you lord baby jesus that I was able to have health insurance for the first time in ten years just so conveniently when I had to deal with this. I get so tripped out and sad imagining people who have to try to defeat something of this nature without any family support and without any health coverage. If i didn't have health insurance I would have been kicked around like a soda can on some back alley until some janky clinic picked me up for some experimental half researched recycling experiment. Please Support the Lymphoma Leukemia Society, they make it a whole lot better for people who aren't as lucky as I've been. Anyway, after they sent me packing on my scheduled infusion day I went home and felt exactly like I do when I do get flooded with the hell. I was totally brain tripping myself into gnarly bouts of nausea and fatigue and I hadn't even been treated, it was just from the thought and the smell after being there for an hour. Crazy how powerful the mind is, it will run game on ya! The next day I went back and my white count was through the roof at 6000, no escaping the IV this time, as a matter of fact this shit was the worst day of all, it took five different tries to find a trusty vein and get me an IV that wasn't running the risk of leaking any of the Roger Rabbit like, skin melting, body disappearing acidity onto my skin. Scary ass shit, as I said before this one drug can burn a hole through muscle, tendon and to the bone in seconds. FUCK! It's all good it's just going into my BODY! So after four hours session 11 was done, it is only now that I feel like I can even start to anticipate the end of this, only two more weeks seems like an easy enough thing to comprehend and take on finally. So there it is and here I be, I'll be off groundation and free to play in about fifteen days, (ask yer mom if I can spend the night that weekend). Thanks again for listening and caring, it means the world to me. Stickman.

Sunrise Rehabilitation Clinic

Hawhaaa? It's been almost six months since I left the coast to come back to my old home, the one that I lived in during my pesky, trouble making, skate rat days, where midnight curfews and borrowing the car were the highest of concerns. The place that etched a good part of my character and the one that still redefines the way I respect and admire my Mom. Ahhhh Ma's house, what better place could I be and what better comfort can you get than that from your the Mother when your feeling downright defeated. Well here's some clips of the house and the little environment I live and operate amongst on the daily. My chair and the publishing department of Sickstick sit just inside those front windows. Most all of my groundbreaking literary achievements have taken place in my black chair that rests calmly in the window, usually occupied by a thin haired, half baked, pasty pale lanky lurkmiester claiming he knows the meaning of life and how enlightened he has become since he's taken office. Aside from the grey ass, blistering cold, blustery slot machine of a weather pattern winter we've been having this place has made it all not so super bad.

As I've stated many times before, the grass makes things a whole lot better when you're laying on your back feeling edgier than a ski shop grinder. Actually, contrary to my usual green room antics, the stuff really just makes me want to be active. It makes my mind wander just enough to forget about my tweaky feelings and get me out rollin or pedaling. Yay green stuff.

Some really cool grainy, twisty, siding on the back of the house. In the day the wood soaks up mass heat from the sun and it gets all balmy back there. I lurk there sometimes.

We have treasures buried around the house, here's some sick booty.

Living with the healthy food wiz Liz and understanding the situation I am in as far as how important quality and organic food is for a healthy immune function and defending me against the chemo army, we have been having great colorful feasting abound. Also, having the benefit of Liz working at a health food grocery store has made my diet and nutrition that much more intrepid. I believe that the reason I have gained twenty pounds, not lost my hair and am able to maintain a pretty adequate energy level throughout the cycles is because of how good the food is that I'm putting in my body. You really are what you eat, I'm convinced my diet is helping me clobber this disease and these treatment side effects. Here's a gander at the ol' compost, the tail ends of some awesome nutritional inhalations.

Got the old radio flyer out to tow around some firewood. This thing is at least twenty years old, they don't make em' like they used to I'll tell you what. Another gem stowed away in the yard.

Get your garden boxes going, grow some tasty grub and get to know the vast array of tasty characters you consume. I'm looking forward to getting my green thumb attune this summer.

A Double lot makes for a huge yard full of bird feeders, finches, scrub jays,warblers, dog-like cats and a lot of space to just get weird......

Come on over, bring some brewskis, we'll have a shweet ol' time.

The place where I wait, where I wonder and ache. The place that has seen me through the best and the worst of times. A place I will happily be leaving for the month of April to go to the coast for some sliding adventures and some drop-in visits to some fine friends of mine. At this point in time I'm a week away from getting my second to last wash of chemo, making my last four hour lazy-boy IV drip outing March 31st. Oh hot damn! I went to see the radiologist the other day and got the breakdown on the effectiveness of radiation coupled with the chemotherapy I've taken and what the 5 year survival percentage rates are for someone with my story. With a relatively high cure rate to start with, getting localized radiation on the initial tumor site(my chest) for four weeks makes a 50% less rate of recurrent Hodgkin's. Amazingly the initial tumor size was about as big as a cantelope(larger than I thought) and at this point it is down to the size of a grape. The radiation is going to shrivel that little bugger into a raisen. The chances of being gifted some other form of cancer or heart disease from the radiation treatments are about 1%. So.... as in the very first episodes of this saga the daunting prospects of all that could go wrong and what might happen still seem to shiver me timbers a little bit. But hey, I've come this far and I've done this well and I'm ready to live this thing like I got firecrackers in my drawls. Life could have never been this special to me! I'm scared sure, but I'm just as intriqued and excited about looking at this life one day at a time. As ironic as it sounds it's strangely more motivating and romantic when my life certainly has a distinct and impending chance of unfolding completely differently than I once envisioned it would. Thanks for listening. Sickstick
New ripsticks always have the uncanny ability to conjure stoke and willingness to ride. My new device for sessioning all the insane terrain around the hood.