Author Archive
Two and a half years out from my diagnosis and I am still here. Doctor doom would say I’m postponing the inevitable, living on borrowed time. Borrowed from whom? That stingy middle fate who measures the threads of our lives? Did her hands accidentally slip so that my thread gained an extra loop she didn’t…
December 8, 2021 Dear Doctors No doubt that without your wisdom, dedication, commitment, and heart, I would not have made it as far as I have given my diagnosis of glioblastoma in July 2019. I would not have had these two years to write a book about my journey or what I’ve learned. I would…
There are days when I stumble, my thoughts are all a jumble, and Henry says I mumble. I feel as if I’ll stumble and hope I do not tumble. It seems everything I bumble in my quest to be as humble as I can, is jumbled as I grumble, fumble, mumble, and crumble.
1. The goddess dwells in the trees, their roots, trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, buds and all the creatures who depend on them. She connects the trees in the forest through the mycelial network. She IS the forest. She is the mother tree, as are all mothers, grandmothers, wild women and crones. In her glorious decline…
“Dear ayahuasca,” I wrote in a mental letter after hearing about ayahuasca-inspired journeys from two trusted friends. “I know we haven’t been properly introduced but what can you tell me my brain cancer, the path ahead, the next task?” At the time I was in the throes of an intense reaction to the covid booster….
Four clear scans —a year of being cancer-free, a medical miracle if you consider that with this particular cancer most people don’t make it to two years. The ability to do math in my head might have been excised and zapped along with the tumor, but I believe I’m a few months past two years,…
A bout with drought and with doing without. My internal spring seems clogged up with grout. Barely any words or images sprout and those that manage to, struggle and wither, sending a shiver down a waterless river. Low humidity and a parching wind, fires to the west and smoke-ash skies… I wait for the rain…
July 19, 2021 Dear sensei glioblastoma On July 22, it will be two years since you took up residence in the right parietal lobe of my brain. As you probably noticed, I just had my third clear scan in a row. Aside from some brain swelling (no doubt due to my plump ego as well…
Clear scan number three — does this mean I’m cancer free? I must wait and see. 2. Joy and gratitude — these I expected to feel why am I confused? 3. Why am I doubtful? a little disappointed? Was I gearing up? 4. Braced for a big fall, staging a dramatic end in my final…