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.

The ebb and flow.......

Big T on his first board, getting the first inclings of his backside attack. 1997

Stickman, lien ollie SB park 2000

Kev, sending the stale fish at a high altitude. Damn, that kid can ride! SB park 2000

Lizzy has been known to smoke the bowls here and there. Brookings, OR. 2003

Stick, backside floatness at the Reno skatepark on one of my first visits back after transplanting to SBtown. 1998

The Liz in the lap of luxury, PBR, cooler, camp stove, northcoast beach lurk. The guitar case says it all. Crescent City, Ca. 2003

Backside D in the Pac Northwest. 2003

My brother Kev posting an invert in SB, the biggest dude you'll ever see do the smoothest handstanders. 2000

Encinitas living room session, buzzing in the bee suit. 2005

Mr. North flowing in the Pala pool like only his twinkle toed, feather footed, style oozing ass could. 2003

Me on my first board. Some old ass yellowing pink nosed sixties Yater with a crazy D fin. I was still learning so I had a leash attached to the fin. I remember people used to kind of harsh me for riding that thing back then. Now days I'd be on the forefront of the surf hipster movement. 1000 steps 1997

Kev squeaking a backside tail while The Ringer looks on with approval. Goleta 1999

Scottie and his fresh new set up. This photo floods me with stoke. Check the socks tan! Solana Beach 2003

Little lip basher on a fun summer wind swell taken by my Paps. Cardiff 2005

Norte laying one back in the high desert mining country. Virginia City, NV. 2001

Kev lofting an indy air at one of the state fair demo/contests way back in the day. Reno 1996

Big T trunking it in north SB county on my dad's log. Refugio, Ca. 1996

Jon styling a backside four wheel slide in the beer cooler at WINCO foods. He does well around beer. Reno 2001

A few days ago at the ski place we grew up riding. Good times.

The kid's first day on the mountain in two seasons. Here forearms were super sore the next day from tensing them the first two runs anticipating a slam. HEHEHEHE....

Well here I am again, back in the blurring meltdown the day after treatment number 9 out of 12 which makes me 3/4 of the way through my chemo dream. Things are pretty much the same up in these parts, four or five days of fun and forgetfulness trying to surround myself with as much goodness and smile provoking folk and stoke before I'm back to the IV for another chemocation. The shit hits me a lot harder and quicker each time I get flushed. In the beginning I could be out and about for almost two days after my dose but now I'm already melting down before I leave the death lab. The last few treatments it takes all my power to hold back from gagging and puking all over my nurses and cancerous cohort. The smell of the saline they give me to dilute the tweak makes me a teetering vomitess mess. I can no longer make eye contact with any of the chemo drugs in the bag or while they are infiltrating my carcass. I Must hold back the nauseous puketitude at all costs, especially in the clinic. So.......FUCK! What can I say, the ride continues and I guess I'm steering toward the light at the end of the tunnel. The brilliant news is that two days ago at my oncology appointment I got back the results of my CT scan and my PET scan. These tests show swelling as well as cancerous areas which will glow on the image due to the radioactive dye they put into me before the test which is sugar based, sugar attracts to cancerous cells for some reason. Anyway, my funky ass is clean! No glowing, no massive tumorous inflammation and potentially no more CANCER? I have three more doses of mystery left and then I will have a month off before I go for my torching tenure of radiation which should last about another month. I'm twiddling my fingers here trying to figure out just what to do with myself on a month long sabbatical. I think I'm heading toward the sea, if you need me that's where I'll be. The weather has sure been nice around here the past week which has made the heinous days a lot better, feel like I've been stuck inside a snow globe for four months. Well I'm not feeling too wordy today, and what else can I say that I haven't said already. I think I've given enough prolific life advice and ideas to last me at least til the next posting. I wish I would post more but I think the more therapy they give me the crustier I get, kinda weird eh? Well there it is friends, I just went through a giant box of photos of mine that stirred up some great memories and happy happy feelings. Here's some pictures of me and my brothers and kids having some radical sideways standing times. I'm living vicariously through these photos! Thanks for listening and looking! Stick

I'm High.........

The road is long and I've been on it for quite awhile now, but i've got the directions to make the right turns and get to where I need to be. Exactly where the rest of you are, a place of well being.

Me and this thing these days are on a whole new trip, what I would do without it I can't begin. It's been there since I can remember and what it does for me now, well it saves me. Think I love skateboarding more than I ever did, funny cause it hurts more, I suck at it now, it's too cold here, and I'm pretty much my only friend when it comes to going to ride one. I step on it now and I transport to my own secret world of innocence, well being, and youthful satisfaction.

Well good day to you! It's SuperBalls Sunday and I just awoke from a thirteen hour substance induced sleepscapade. My dreams lately are so damn sick; comic book end of the world sagas, inflatable mat surfing mind benders, skateboard epics with iconic characters, snowsliding adventures with ollies from one mountain to the next. All of them having the oddly magical purpose of recharging my life and gifting my imagintation. It's a real gas living in this pseudo reality for the first couple days of these treatments, sometimes I have to remind myself about why it is I find myself on a bendy, half comatose magic carpet ride fueled by sweet little cookie monsters and those little white pills that come in the small ambiguous orange jar. Ahhhhhh..... yes, I must stay away from the dark side of the tweaky chemo zone. Typically I fancy a clear headed mind state in my (Real Life).... Notice how my pre-cancer existence is my (Real Life) and this melting swirl of soupy cognition I live and operate in now is something completely and ridiculously more complicated, though possibly more important. This thing here now, this state that I type from is a ground level view and a dismantled glimpse of how damn neat the things are that just go unseen and unappreciated in my daily human and earthly sense. In this life I see how cool it is that my mom fixed up, operated and glorified this little piece of property we live on. I see how important it is that my brother shed a tear after reading my last post. How crazy it really is that we can count on the planet to be on time all the time (mostly).How if you don't got great friends then you ain't gonna have great memories, and those are the only things that last in this life. I see how ironically wonderful it is to be back in touch with a whole hell of a lot of special people that I hold dearly in my life and how being squeezed into this situation allowed me the avenue to rekindle those relations. How magical and moving the sea is and what it does to my soul every time I think about it. It's not even about surfing anymore, it's about me asking her for forgiveness for all the things I didn't see or do on the days that I was on her shores. I was the weenus who only saw the Shred Zone and not the trees, kelp, sand, crabs, sun, sky, foam, my girlfriend, a magazine, a book, sometimes a sandwich......I see how this thing goes on and on and you can either take it in and fill it up or you can watch it pass by and dream it away. I think I may be having a little trouble self admittedly, on trying to get these pesky words and ill developed profoundings (not a word but it sounds good eh?) out of my weathered head today. I guess the main thing I want to re-iterate to myself and to those who may have given another moment of their life to read this is to slow down, look at the small things, examine the virtue, embrace the simplest moments, learn to be outspoken to the ones you love and most importantly always cherish what you have and where you've been, not what you want and where you're going. My theoretical renderings about being a better person and finding life's key points are on top of my agenda these days, simply because never before in my life have I thought seriously about losing them or losing you. Cheers, Stickman-

Broke the 200 Lb. mark at the doctor yesterday, the only kid to gain fifteen pounds on chemo while still sportin a full head of hair. POW!

Again, It was wonderful to hear all your letters of encouragement and embrace. Seth, Brian, Jelly, Shippy, Mateo, Nick, Devo, Sarah B., Malia, Jamers, Daniel, Erin, Amy, Jess, Andrea,Carina, Carmel, Nathan, Audrey, Remmers, Kim & Roger. It feels sooo great to have you guys with me! Man, I think I just squirt a couple tears..... THanks for stopping by. My email is onefintrim@gmail.com if you wanna......ya know......and stuff.

How I got this blog!!!

My nurse is a bit odd, but she cooks a mean roasted chicken.......

ALas, I am back on the blogness as I have now made it to treatment #7 of my predicted twelve. As I was told there would be a cumulative effect as I became more and more intimate with this poison. Seems ever since the beginning of my last treatment I just want to sleep and I'm having a different sort of fatigue. Oddly, this is almost better though because now I can just make the time blur away in a foggy mixture of family guy episodes, surf films and the back of my eyelids. Been getting an elixir down to help reduce my aches and my almost over the edge anxiety, a drug called adavan which is a pre-0p sedative and some special baked goods have turned this whole escapade into something nearly manageable I reckon. SO things get a little weird around here day after day by myself, the cats stare at me like I'm lazy and unemployed which I am I guess, but so are they those little bastards. It's been funny getting super deep into the computer cyberlife thing, lurking on facebook, writing two blogs and for once actually using my email to communicate with people. It's the little tasks I get to complete that would never get done or even hold a spot on my to due list. Like the other day I "had" to go get a new bulb for my Spiderman Lantern that I keep next to my bed, and also a tiny watch battery to put in another micro headlamp I have. There has been talk since I started the treatment about "chemo brain" though I hadn't really felt it I kind of wrote it off. Well now I know what those people who don't know what they're doing are talking about. I'm thinking about starting to wear a man purse around my waist to keep track of the five things in my life that I'm responsible for as to avoid leaving my wallet in the rental car, my water bottle at the hospital or the cereal in the fridge all of which were haphazardly executed this last week. "I FEEL LIKE I"M TAKING CRAZY PILLS! So, what the heck happened to the Stickman? How the what the fuck did you end up with cancer?

Last Christmas 08 I was home with the family having a generally saucy rip riding helluva good time. We got waist deep snow on Christmas day! When we got home from the mountain and for most of my visit I felt tired as the evening developed, more than usual though. One of the best times in Reno is going to the bars over the Holidays, surely something I never would miss. Well it was different last year, I was just too tired and not into it. Didn't really think twice about it other than maybe the pow days were just draining me. So we had a Christmas dinner toast and everyone wished for a better year to follow, expressively my brother who had just gone through a lame break up. Looking back now this gives me the goosebumps...... I remember thinking "This was the sickest year of my life, I'm the luckiest guy ever really, nothing truly rotten has ever happened to me" I honestly said that to myself!!!!!

When I got back to Washington I was working for LiB Tech building snowboards and had also been hired to work at one of the elementary schools as a TA in the special needs department. After my first official day working at the school I came home and my dad was putting up some siding on the house and asked me for a hand. From the time that I had had a faint cough at lunch break to the time I was fumbling to help my dad I felt like I had developed fucking malaria or something. For the next week and a half I called off work with a brutally deep yet dry cold and flooding amounts of exhaustion. In order to prove I was legitimately haggard to my employers I had to go get a follow up check up from the urgent care who had given me some anti-biotics to wrestle my symptoms down. In a possible out of step move, the nurse ordered a chest x-ray to ensure there was no pneumonia impending on my lungs. I left the clinic back to my house thinking this sickness was in the bag like the twenty others I'd waded through, " I don't have pneumonia" I said to myself. Two days later the phone rings and my x ray nurse tells me they see some surprisingly enlarged lymph node in my chest cavity and want to schedule me a CT scan.

"What does that mean"? I thought. "What do those lymph nodes do?""You have them in your chest?" "Why are mine so big?" With the news I eagerly broke out my computer and began researching what these findings could mean, Lymphoma, Leukemia, Lymphadenopathy....all daunting prospects. That day was the first day I had cried in years and years, I was so scared and confused. The cold grey Washington day felt so much darker and unjust.

I had to go to the University of Washington Medical Center for my first Biopsy which would be an outpatient surgery though I would be anesthetized. They stuck a tube and a camera scope down my throat and sliced a small portion off of one of the two now striking familiar and large toad nodes. The surgery was about an hour and a half and I woke up comfortably sedated and numb. My dad and my girlfriend wheeled me down to the car and off we went back across the Puget Sound onto the Peninsula. It took about two weeks for the results to prove that there was no malignancy and that the swelling was most likely caused by environmental effects like something I had breathed in while remodeling the house or working at the snowboard factory. Well Far Fuckin Out! I had no cancer, I just had to focus on taking care of this weird unknown lung infection. Happy Days were back!

After being confronted with such a gnarly scare I rearranged my life plans and decided it may be the best thing for me to get out of the snowboard shop, and head back to San Diego to complete my teaching credential studies. Arriving back in SoCal felt ok, nothing like I wanted it to feel like though. I had been scarred by the small town country roads, rural farming communities and huge glacial mountains in my back yard with peeling surf at their bases. The hustle and bustle that I was now back in the thick of was creating feelings of anxiety that I had never felt in my life. As it turns out the five months I spent back in San Diego going to homeopathic doctors, nutritionists and message therapists trying heal myself ,were not going to help and it was not the City, the move, or the people that were making me feel so tweaked. It was the cancer starting to really poke it's head out.

In July after a follow up blood test my inflammation rate was six times higher than it had been back in Washington and chest pains were feeling a bit too foreign and questionable to write off. I flew back to Reno where my Mom set up for me to have another Biopsy, this time they would take a full node from my collar bone region and have it tested at Stanford. Again It was an outpatient procedure and I was back on the plane the next day to San Diego to continue my life.

I had just come downstairs to grab my surf stuff to go slide when my cell phone rang. It was my mom so I knew she had the news whatever it be. I wanted to screen that call so bad.....I picked up the phone as my Mom's voice cracked and said 'I'm so sorry honey". Those four words was all she had to say as I swayed back looking for somewhere to sit down and deflate. That moment seemed like all the innocent childhood self perceptions I still clung onto were all taken away by some fuckin asshole bully guy named Life. He had hit me with a lead pipe right in the throat. I had no Idea what to do, I sat in the garage staring at all the artwork I had done when I was little and all the photos on the walls of me having great times. I cried, I couldn't believe all the innocence was gone, my life was no longer that great story I loved telling myself. I felt scared to call or tell anyone about the news, when I did call somebody I could only get through them saying "Hello" before my pre planned composure disintegrated into a muddle of tearful collapse. It took almost a week to fully comprehend the whole thing.

So off I was, I had to give notice on my killer apartment by the beach and leave my wonderful girlfriend to handle the final moving procedures. I packed my van with all I could stuff and drove to Reno in the beginning of October 2009. Leaving behind my jobs, house, girlfriend, school and happiness to go battle the unknown with my Mom by my side. The first week was staging, I had two heart scans, a CT scan, A PET scan, and a bone marrow biopsy. The bone marrow test alone will forever be the gnarliest most humbling thing that this experience will deal me. You never want one of those. So after two weeks and a stream of tests I swam away with Stage 2B Hodgkin's lymphoma. No organ or bone marrow infections. I get chemo every other week for 24 weeks and then a balmy dose of radiation in April to zorch whatever pesky death is left.

It's January now, over halfway into this mess and I'm having fun with it I suppose. It's weird to see how scared i can make myself and then how easy it is to bounce back by taking in the little things and thinking about all the people that encourage me and make me so strong. I miss you all so much. It was so great to hear from all you SB friends who I haven't talked to in so long. Believe it or not the comments I get on this lame little blog give me so much positive outlook and encouragement I find myself looking everyday to hear from a familiar face. I'm winning this because I have you all! LOve you guys, THanks for listening, SICKSTICK

I also write some potentially comical and insightful surf junk as Kenny Bloggins over at mitchsnorth.blogspot.com. Have a gander.

What Cancer????

Well the storm of Holiday goodness and fun times is gone and I'm back on the freaky tweak chemo trip as of yesterday. I have to say though this last couple weeks was a stoking realization as to how rad shit can be even in the midst of all this harshness. I got a chance to see heap loads of good people that I haven't seen in long times and in an ironic and equally cliche way this whole being sick thing has brought our family, whether near nor far a whole lot closer. Not saying I'm this almighty radical person but I do believe the reality check of life's unpredictability and sometimes vicious twists that have unravelled upon me have effected a good amount of my family and friends and that's a really good thing as far as I'm concerned. It's so damn easy to get lost out there doing things, buying things, stressing, ego tripping, following dreams, loving and living that sometimes we're not really loving or living at all. The expression, emotion, and true meaning of life, friends, and family gets broken up somewhere in the mess of so called "life". No one's to blame, I'm guilty as shit of getting lost in my own self endeavors; not calling, writing or visiting, not giving enough, not smiling enough, not helping, not saying what needs to be said. Well......not anymore i reckon this is a whole new enlightening self growth experience that I hope no one ever has to go through in this way but that they may find in some other less frightening, furious way.
On a less insightful and possible overly analytical note, I got my ass out and about over the holiday period do some good stuff. Went snow shredding with my pals Jon and Erin on Christmas day along with my moms. Always good shredding with your best buds especially ones who you idolize in the elements of style and ability. Also got to ride with my broham one day which was the raddest ever, super good snow, sunny skies and some fun little jumpers to send my chemo carcass sailing off. Riding with my brother pretty much makes the whole snowboarding thing "uber fun", nothing else compares. On an even higher note I got some fancy baked goods from some friends that have been making the sketchy days a little less jagged. Went skating with my brother as well, still pretty snowy around these parts so we were forced to the utmost of junk skating but it was still stoke provoking. My other brother showed up two days ago and took me along for a butt ass early morning , freezing balls cold pursuit out on a desolate lake in an Indian reservation for some famous cutthroat trout fishin. Top notch fun I have to say, out on a boat on an eerie, foggy wintry lake stoned to the bone off the prescription cookies talkin shit and reeling in some fine fishies. So there it is, nuff rambling for now, my life ain't that interesting for you to squander much more of your time reading this. Thanks for checking in, Miss da likes of yooz guys. Stick


Twenty degrees, 8 am on a spooky, foggy snow covered Indian Lake in the middle of Nevada, showing the rewards with a 20 inch cutthroat.

Big Toe and I acting like we got some trophy fish or something, this 20' was just barely legal size at about a pound and a half. Guys spend years out here trying to catch 10 pounders, they call em' toads. This was just a guppie but after three hours and no bites this catch was hyping.

BBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRR...................

Big T in trolling for a toad of his own, bundled to the gills in his one piece flannel cammo suit still shiverin a little.

The prescription serving me well, haggard, tired and freezing yet comfortably sedated.

Reno sunrise en route to Pyramid Lake.

Moms and I headed up the lift for some snow sliding. She has proven to me once again that she is the utmost ski fanatic; outlasting, outskiing and outsmiling almost anyone on the mountain.

Ma, Kev and I gleaming with stoke with views of Tahoe out back. Best day ever.

Lifting now.....

Me and Chafe amped on a new booter we found in shape that we hadn't ridden for a couple seasons. Looking for some aerial endeavors.

Christmas Kookiness.

Broham and my Aunt. Holding down the party.

Christmas feeling haggard but soo distracted by happiness and good people I look pretty stoke here eh?

Moms threw me a surprise party on my birthday and rented me a suite at the hotel and invited all my pals and family for a party platter filled hoorah of spirits and laughs. Thanks Ma!!!!

The suite had a hot tub and flat screen, needless to say my humanoid nature more turned to that of a crustacean. Hours in the tub i say......

Old man withers also made the trip down from Washington to see me and spend some holiday times around the house. Ahhhhh the Jigs.....

WTF?
Fleece beanie, fleece gloves, a snuggie and a 40 oz. Lowenbrau Stine.....the cure for cancer?

Whoa there tiger??!!!

Hey there friends, thanks for stopping by to listen again. It's Saturday morning and I just finished a bowl of Peanut Butter Puffins cereal which always delights me, if you haven't had this you must, it will change you. (Ahhhhh the simple things....) As has been in the last weeks of wretchedness this past week was nothing shy of what I have come to expect, though without the constipation. WOOOOOOOFUCKINHAAAAAA! I got my Oncologist who has a keen demeanor and resemblance to Bill Murray to write me a prescription for Marinol which is THC in pill form. This was a saving grace when staring into the eyes of three days of creaking, piercing joint aches and an unexplainably maddening state of mind where there is so much indecision, built up anxiety and fatigue simultaneously in my body that the only thing I can think of to do is throw the damn couch through the front window. It feels like the worst hangover you've ever had in your life coupled with feelings of having eighty cups of coffee along with enough indecision and lack of enthusiasm to make a mentally ill person feel ill. The Marinol at least gives me a little distraction from the harshness and offers up any sort of different feeling other than what the chemo gives me. On a side note.....We went to see the Fabulous Mr. Fox the other night and it was absolutely entertaining, adventurous and so ambitiously creative I left the theatre utterly glowing even in the thick of feeling terrible. Go check it out, it's really fun! I started to crawl out of the hole Thursday as I usually do, fumbling to get my natural human feelings back and get enough energy to make it further than the couch to fridge journey which is usually the extent of my venturings for the most part of the week. Matter a fact yesterday I went to the Mountain with my mom and rode my snow sliding board for a couple hours, nine runs to be exact. This being the utmost apex of my human existence in the last four months I had smiles from ear to ear the entire time, shoulda put sunblock on my teeth...... The old legs definitely weren't ready for the whole balance strength and control routine for sure, I felt at times like I was eight years old again on one of my first days on the hill. My arms flailing to regain balance as to avoid catching an edge and my legs jarring unknowingly trying to comprehend just what the their assignment exactly was for the day. On the third run skidding down the mountain I lost control a little bit blasting mach 10 on my heel edge beaming straight toward my mom who had cut across and halted to see how I was progressing down the slightly bumping an maybe a bit too icy slope. Her regards as to what my facial expression looked like as I narrowly missed her and regained some sort of control were that of sheer panic and anticipation of impending doom as she laughed and asked if I was ok. As I neared the bottom of the hill on the same run I had again reached about mach 10 this time feeling in control though as I laid down a huge toe side carve with some hand drag which usually comes very comfortable and confidant to me but apparently not so much for my back leg as it decided it was not powerful enough to support that much carvetude and buckled, sending me into a pitching heelside edge catch to ass side impact followed by back snapping neck whiplash as my head bounced off the hard pack and my beanie and goggles went their own ways flying through the air. Sprawled out like road kill I laid there slightly hurt and a bit panicked, I felt nostalgic and somewhat comical as I don't think I had caught a heel edge like that since those now strikingly familiar first days of trying to learn how to ride one of these crazy snowsliders. I picked haggard myself up and proceeded to enjoy the rest of day on the hill with a slight neck crink and some incling to maybe take it a little easier there cancer boy. So here I am today at home plunking the keys once again with a sore ass neck and a whole lot of stoke in the air. I'm having fun here and there and the days that aren't completely fucking terrifyingly miserable are positively zen. Hope you all are having great days and have great holidays as well. Thanks for listening. Stick.

My nurse says to me,"People don't die from cancer they die from chemotherapy."

Wooooooooweeeeee!!!!!! Hot damn I been through some strange shit this past week. As I have spoke of before the constipation issues are harsh and they are still definitely plagueing me with plug. My last dose went as planned though I needed two doses of Nuepogen which is a chemical that stimulates white blood cell growth. My white blood cell count was 100 after my last treatment compared to that of any normal count which is around 4500. With counts this low my chances of catching a cold are like the chances of hitting traffic on the 5 on Friday afternoon. This has me made one of those weirdo OCD people who carries hand sanitizer around in their pocket and doesn't shake peoples hands. Yesterday I was having lunch in public and using a napkin to hold the ketchup bottle and I caught these people looking at me all strange half rolling their eyes. Got some gnarly joint aches this time around which were basically putting me on the bench, coupled with gastronomical stomach pain and flooring fatigue I was basically a sack of bones for the last week or so. I didn't sleep for three nights straight cause my stomach was bloated to the point of having a front butt, found myself walking around the neighborhoods at four in the morning to try to find some catharsis for my cringing carcass. It's kind of weirdly cool having no sleep schedule and nothing to be on time for, I find myself in really odd circumstances. With all the shatner that came along with this last dose and all that didn't.......hehehe.... I'm finally back producing some results in the lavatory after taking crack fiend doses of mirlax, milk of magnesia, senna, prune juice and coffee all simultaneously trying to get the party started. Been back on the high energy tip the past two days and on my bike again, even went and skated asswell which always gives me some groundation. So here I am sitting in this way too fucking familiar living room in my sedimentary position on the sofa plunking away on the keys again as the snow flurries are bustling in the sky out the front window and the furnace fights the ongoing fight against the twenty degree temps outside. I miss you guys so much, I miss..... I miss.....I miss....This thing is a third of the way through at this point and I will win and I will figure out how to control these side effects. I will be on the road again and be visiting all I so dearly cherish so very soon. I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm scared and I'm fucking winning this fight. Love You all, thanks for listening. Stick