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I was seated in 10B, headed home on Northwest Air flight 2 from Narita to LAX. Aisle seat, I had my headphones on, gazing peacefully out the window. My headphones on, tuned into the inflight entertainment system. A lyric beats rhythmically... Us Against the World... Us Against the World... Us Against the World... (Click play in the vid window below now to hear it) Thousands of miles from home, thousands of miles away from each of you. I am coming home from another international journey... l… Continue

I am jet lagged beyond belief. About to head out to my favorite greasy chinese. I arrived late last night after a 10 hour flight from Tokyo Narita back to Los Angeles. Many pictures, stories, and videos to come. Thank you to all my dear friends at PC for sending me comments and well wishes while I was away. While on the plane, thinking of so many of you, I got to thinking... I've lost something. I know I had it on me before cancer. Somehow, somewhere along the way. I think I lost a part of me… Continue

As I write this to you all, I can't seem to feel like those days of chemo are almost, just almost finally out of my mind. I am sitting on the super high speed bullet train that takes you from Kyoto back to Tokyo. We've been here for four days now. We arrived on Tuesday afternoon and spent the first blissful day in Tokyo central. From there, we took t… Continue

Gotcha! ;-) You think you could get rid of me so easily? Well I don't have a big blog or one of my normal "I got to thinking posts", rather just an update to all my friends here at PC. I am leaving on Tuesday morning for Tokyo and Osaka. I've never been to Japan. I know some of you were inspired and so supportive when I took my "finding myself" trip to London and Europe about a month or so ago. I learned so much about myself, of course put myself more in debt, but hey, I've had cancer, what… Continue

Sometimes when I sit alone, I think about that day. That day that changed it all. Some days it feels like yesterday, other days it feels like forever ago. Cancer is the ultimate heartbreak. The day my heart was broken, obliterated and shattered into a thousand little pieces. The day each and every boyhood dream became unrealized. You carry on each day, eyes red from sobbing in the shower, crying alone, crying with only the closest of friends. You dare not show them how broken yo… Continue

Updated and re-edited due to a number of requests. I am now almost 1.5 years out from my last chemo. As you can see from my original blog posting, I had a few near death experiences during chemotherapy and radiation. I did not eat orally for a few months (gtube), could not speak (simple sign language and writing on paper), and was on a ton of pain meds. I frequently had bloody from my lips and throat, and was on dilaudid, morphine, and fentanyl. There were days I did not think I would survive to… Continue

Do you ever find yourself feeling like absolute shit? Sure the drugs might be working but the pain penetrates so deep there's no real way to describe it. The kind of aching that hurts in the very center of you. A soft painful ache, slowly cutting you with each heartbeat. One that makes you think about relationships gone past, dreams unrealized. The loneliness feels palpable. What is it about Cancer that tests us so? What is it about the experience that leads us to hope for the best, but alwa… Continue

It's a beautiful day in LA today. One of those days where you almost, for an instant, forget that cancer has once invaded your soul. Crossed the threshold from bad nightmare to horrible, sobering reality. I'm convinced that cancer is not a disease of the body. Instead it attacks where we are most vulnerable. It hits us where it hurts most, the most tender of tenderest spots. I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, hoping to explain to him what the experience is like. How do… Continue

It finally happened. Today, May 28th 2008 around 2:45 PM. I'm done. That's right. There I said it. I'm done questioning myself. I'm tired of being tired... frustrated about being frustrated. I figured something out today. No one expects anything from me, and apparently I don't either. When I was sick, fighting for my life- people expected me to fight with every bit of my soul. They expected the very most from me because anything less would be fatal, both for myself and for them. P… Continue

So during a middle of the night youtube surfing session, I searched my particular cancer, and stumbled across this gem. Apparently, Nasopharangeal Cancer should be treated with the following: The title of the video is TREATMENT OF CANCER OF THE NASOPHARNX, the exact type of rare cancer that I was diagnosed with. Continue