Tag Archives: autobiography

Mind body & death

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This week deals with the mind body connection and death. It has been a heavy week and today is sad because my old co-worker and friend died from cancer early this Thursday morning. It is immensely sad and crushing. Apart from this guy being an incredibly nice and cool person in every way, I always felt a special connection with him, since we both had been seen by death in the way of being hit by life threatening conditions. The little silver lining, if there is one, is that he has been fighting cancer hard for six years which has brought a lot of pain, stress and hardship, so now he gets to rest. His wife and family is showing an incredible braveness in the middle of all this and it is reminding me that life is the last outpost. It’s the utmost point. Everything can suck and I can have massive complaints, I can be sad and angry, I can fail at a lot of things, I can be disappointed and frustrated, but in the face of death I desperately want the option to live! In the face of those choices everything pales and becomes pointless. I don’t give a shit what happens, just let me stay alive and spend it in whichever way with my family, friends and the world. I know my friend will have good travels and I will see him on the other side.

The fact of mortality becoming so real and feeling that death was looking over my shoulder was something that was tough. After being three years (!) out since my surgery, it is still tough sometimes, but it’s strange how much a part of my life it is now.

clinic_work mind body

On another note, today is the day I have my Annual. It’s something that Stanford transplant patients do once a year. I don’t know if they do it at other places. It is basically doing two days of tests regarding my health and making sure things are going along in the best way possible. X-rays, blood draws, sonograms etc. Today there was some waiting involved, so I took the opportunity to do some work on this comic in the clinic room. This first day, all of my tests looked good! Tomorrow there are some more tests and hopefully they will be ok too. The staff at Stanford really make me feel thoroughly taken care of which is something I deeply appreciate.

I hope everyone is doing ok and thanks for coming by to read. In honor of my friend, let’s make this a celebration of the privilege of getting to be alive and to be able to enjoy the world around us. Love!

Making up food

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Hello again.

It’s Friday today instead of Thursday. What happened? I blame traveling, time zones, packing and un-packing.

I have been traveling again and it all went well without any snafu’s, not counting the on-set of jet-lags. The lag going East is definitely giving me a hard time as  I am reaching old age (or is it just having kids as traveling companions???). All I know is that we were up playing soccer at 5 am just to pass the time.

Also got to ride a bunch of trains, which I LOVE! It’s by far my favorite mode of transportation.

This week keeps on harping about the no salt diet. It will probably occupy a few more weeks since it was a central part of my life at the time. Translating dishes I wanted that were too salty to no-salt was a challenge but actually fun and interesting, and most of the time I was really happy with the outcome. Thai food was one thing I craved back then and I tried to crack the coconut soup (Thom Ka?) and the curries. The best result I probably got was a barbecue sauce from a guy in Kentucky. It is simply fun to make more of your foods.

Anyway, hope you’re into this week’s installment and that you’re all doing reasonably well.

Dad dreams & realities

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Sometimes I have high-flying ideas of who I am and how I will deal with certain situations, should they show up. Then life happens and I learn something about myself that is not so high-flying. It’s good to see how human and “imperfect” I am. It also makes me more understanding of other people and maybe I’ll be able to hold back one of those knee jerk Pollyanna pieces of advice next time I hear someone suffering from something.

The will to seem “normal” has turned out to be stronger with me than I thought it would be and it’s not something I am proud of. If anything it’s a good reality check against my previous relatively problem free life. Having special needs feels uncomfortable sometimes, and jeebus knows my special needs are very mild, but I don’t want to come across as weak. It’s easy to tell other people to just be straight forward an honest about whatever needs and conditions they have and things will be fine, but as always they tune is different when it’s about myself.

I hope you all have a good week and thanks for stopping by!

Hugs.

 

Fireworks…

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…to celebrate the arrival of episode #7.

oooh

There has been celebrations, summer is in full swing, kids get to stay up late and the story is trucking ahead.

Last night I stopped by to see the tail end of a talk by my old hero Winston Smith at Pegasus Books in Berkeley. It’s a great book store by the way. After getting to shake his hand and telling him what a great influence on my teenage years and life he was, I was browsing through the comic book/graphic novel section and I stumbled upon another book about a health condition! I actually can’t remember ever seeing a comic dealing with these issues before, but maybe I haven’t been looking hard enough, and since I am doing my story now, I guess my eyes are extra attentive to these types of things. You know like when you’re looking for a toaster and now you seem to see toasters everywhere? Anyway, the book is by and about the great writer, and Robert Crumb collaborator, Harvey Pekar. It’s called “Our Cancer Year”. I have never heard about this book before, which is weird since I am a Crumb fan and like to think that I am keeping an eye on what happens around him creatively, but you live and you learn. I am not sure I am ready to read it yet, but I will for sure eventually.

I also spent some time in the E.R. a few days ago. My swollen foot was bugging me so I went to see the doctor to have it checked out. It’s a good example of how any ailment can turn into a bigger scare since I am a person who had a heart transplant. Since I felt the foot had started swell up after a plane ride, both me and the doc touched upon the possibility of a blood clot (=sitting still for a long time + blood getting stuck in your feet + the air pressure in a plane being different etc, etc.) Since a blood clot can be fatal I was off to the E.R., which, by the way, is a place that will be talked about in next week’s installment.

Anyway, I better stop before this turns into a complete orgy of links (too late!).

Hope you’re all doing well and thanks for stopping by and reading.