Life in the Stupid Lane

I didn’t write last night because I got home too late, and because sometimes good news still knocks the wind out of you.

The drive back from Houston was long and dark and mostly quiet, the kind of drive that gives your thoughts too much room to stretch out. Earlier that day I’d sat in exam rooms, stared at scans, and endured the third—though apparently not final—time someone put a tube where no one ever wants a tube while fully awake. And then, somewhere between all of that and the drive home, I was told the thing that matters most: the tumor has shrunk by more than fifty percent. The cancer hasn’t spread anywhere they can see. In a week, they’re going to surgically remove what’s left.

Eventually, the ostomy bag will be reversed too. Probably not before March, but still—almost all of this is good news. I would’ve preferred a version of this story where surgery wasn’t part of the plan at all, but that was wishful thinking, a fact my older brother helpfully and bluntly confirmed.

I spent most of the drive home fixated on the surgery. Nearly two feet of intestine will be removed. Things will change. There will be a before and an after. But when you compare that to the alternatives—living indefinitely with a bag, or living with cancer that spreads somewhere it can’t be cut out—“changes in quality of life” starts to sound a lot like winning. Whatever those changes are, I’ll learn them as I go.

What hijacked my brain yesterday wasn’t the news itself so much as the delivery. My surgeon is incredible—everyone I meet in the medical world tells me how lucky I am to have her—and she is relentlessly honest. She walked me through every possible complication, from manageable pain all the way to catastrophic, life-ending scenarios. Leaks. Sepsis. Sutures failing. Bleeding out. The bag returning permanently like some kind of medical ghost.

None of it was sugarcoated. And none of it was framed as likely. But once you hear those words, they move in and start unpacking. And when you’re driving across Texas in the dark, there’s nothing to stop them.

It took hours—and a Diet Coke—to remember what actually mattered: the cancer is shrinking. It hasn’t spread. There is a plan. Today, with a little distance from yesterday, it’s clear that this was a good day carrying good news, even if it didn’t feel that way at the time.

Now I’m hoping the next part goes according to plan. That my intestines are cut, stretched like a slinky, and reattached to the egress port (still my favorite clinical term for the butthole) without incident. If all goes well, March will arrive with a different kind of reflection—one where I look back on the past year and wonder how I made it through without falling apart, or disappearing into something darker.

I don’t entirely know how I’ve done that so far. I suspect it’s some combination of friends, family, faith, and Tugboat. Last night he climbed into bed and curled up next to me, which was unexpected and oddly grounding. It didn’t last long—eventually I disrupted his ability to get the eighteen hours of sleep required to sustain his difficult, loaf-shaped existence—but it was nice while it lasted.

I leave for surgery Wednesday night. I don’t know how long I’ll be in the hospital, but if last time is any indication, it’ll be at least three days. Hospital beds are engineered somewhere between “thick wool blanket” and “punishment device,” which explains both bedsores and why sleep becomes a distant memory after day two. I’m also curious how quickly I’ll irritate the nurses. Last time it took less than a day, mostly because I interpreted “you can walk to get coffee” as permission to leave the hospital and go to Starbucks. Apparently they meant the one inside the building. Lesson learned. Probably.

For now, this is where things stand. Surgery is coming. The news is good. The fear hasn’t disappeared, but it no longer gets to be the headline.

Thank you for the prayers, the texts, and the steady reminders that I’m not walking through this alone.

It’s two hours before I head to MD Anderson to find out how well—or how poorly—I responded to chemo and radiation over the last year, and what the next, and hopefully final, steps of this whole thing will be.

It’s another one of those seminal moments, not unlike the first time I came here early last year. I don’t know if it’s irony, symmetry, or something else entirely, but I’m sitting in the exact same hotel room where this all started. Staring out at the same signage I stared at then. I’m sure my woo-woo friends will someday have plenty to say about that. For now, it just is.

In a bit, I’ll shower, then walk down Holcombe Boulevard, turn into that little alleyway that cuts between two medical buildings—the one with copper stains streaking down the walls from the steam vents that hiss constantly in a way I’ve somehow come to love—pass the Starbucks where the security guard DJ and I have become friends, and enter the back side of the main MD Anderson campus. Again.

It’ll be my 100th time walking into the hosptal. I know because I’ve been counting for some reason. More irony or symmetry for people to read into later.

I didn’t write at all the last two days, even though I got to Houston on Monday. Not much happened, really. CT scans, MRIs, and other invasive-but-necessary scans to tee things up for today. Yesterday was simple. Easy, uncomfortable, sure, but easy.

What has been keeping me at easy is the amount of outreach, concern, and prayer from so many people. Most messages assume I’m scared, not sleeping, not eating, and generally a distressed wreck. I assumed the same thing about myself. But since getting here, it’s been the opposite. I’ve eaten like a fat kid, slept well, and felt completely calm.

Yesterday afternoon I sat in a coffee shop reading after leaving the hospital, then ended up meeting some random new friends at a BBQ place who were in town for their very first MD Anderson consultation. We talked, ate, and prayed together. It was one of those moments that happens only because I talk too much to strangers—whether it’s an elderly couple in an elevator going to see their grandson before surgery, or a young mom and her mom standing in line at a BBQ joint, trying Texas barbecue for the first time before her husband learns about his pancreatic cancer treatment options the next morning.

I think God gave me this calm not just for me, but so I could offer it to other people. That might sound arrogant, but it’s something I’ve noticed the last couple days: people seem to gravitate toward my outlook this time around more than before. And that actually makes all of this easier, because I’ve always felt better when I can help someone else, even in the smallest way.

It might be hard to believe that I’m not scared this morning, but walking to get coffee earlier this morning, I realized why. Beyond all the love and support from everyone in my life, my mom gave me the blueprint for how to handle all this shit—last colon cancer pun ever, I promise—when she went through it with my dad forty years ago. Watching a mother of four navigate something harder, with fewer resources, makes what I’m doing now feel surprisingly manageable by comparison.

So today, I’ll walk into these appointments feeling more excited than anything else.

I’ll update this blog again this evening after I get my results. Radiation oncologist at 11. Surgeon—probably the most important meeting—at 1:30. Chemo doctor shortly after that. Then I’ll climb into that great self-driving car GM gave me, point it toward home, stop at Whataburger for a big-ass Diet Coke, and listen to an audiobook.

I’m really looking forward to that part.

See you on the other side.

Five Days & Counting

I should probably be more nervous than I am. A week from now I’ll find out how effective radiation and chemo have been, and that feels like the kind of thing a person is supposed to spiral about. But over the last week or so, I’ve settled into something that looks a lot like peace. Not denial. Not bravery. Just acceptance of whatever might be coming for me next.

On the sixth, I have three scans.

First up is a CT scan with dye contrast — the one that absolutely sucks. The techs always warn you ahead of time, and at MD Anderson they like to mention that they use a stronger contrast dye than other places. I don’t remember why they do that, because right after they explain it, the dye hits your bloodstream and your body feels like it’s on fire. Then comes the overwhelming sensation that you’re actively urinating on yourself while lying on the CT table.

You are not, thankfully, urinating. But at this point, if I were, it wouldn’t even crack the top ten list of dignity-robbing things that have happened over the last year. And I assume there are still some truly unimaginable ones waiting their turn.

After the CT scan, there’s a couple-hour window where I sit around the hospital watching thousands of other sick people move through the hallways. I always wonder how I look to them. I usually feel like I look healthier than most, but I’m also noticeably younger. Sometimes I wonder if that annoys anyone — if I look like I’m taking up space I don’t deserve yet. I catch myself wanting to shrink, to make myself less visible so I don’t upset anyone inadvertently. I don’t really know how I’d do that, though, so I just sit there and wait.

Later that day is a pelvic MRI without contrast. This one is new to me. I think until now my experiences have been limited to CT scans or being anally probed — a phrase I still refuse to stop typing, even though it remains the worst thing I’ve endured in this entire year of shit. I don’t really know what the MRI shows that the CT doesn’t, but I assume it has a purpose I just haven’t bothered to ask about yet.

The final “scan” is visual. An ostomy nurse will look at how I’ve been attaching my bags and will either tell me I’m doing something horribly wrong or stare at me in quiet horror as I explain what I’ve been doing. The bags are holding, but I am almost certainly using far too much adhesive caulk. When I remove them, I’m always surprised I don’t take skin with me.

Imagine getting waxed, but with super glue. That’s about right.

Whatever the ostomy nurse says, I’ll probably just point out that unless it’s really bad, this thing should be coming off sometime around March. That’s still the plan, as far as I’ve been led to believe, and it’s the thing I’m hoping for most.

On the seventh, I meet with all my doctors. They’ll have reviewed the scans and — ideally — they’ll tell me things look better than expected. Maybe some remaining treatments get expedited. Maybe the road shortens a bit. If you’re one of the many people praying for me, that’s what I’m praying for too.

Last week, I went to a friend’s house — a buddy who used to be one of the pastors at a church I attended years ago. They host an annual evening of prayer and asked if I’d come so people could pray for my health. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I’ve always leaned toward the idea that prayer is private, shaped largely by Matthew 6:6, where Jesus talks about praying quietly and unseen.

But it turned out to be surprisingly comforting to have a room full of people spending their evening asking God to help someone they mostly just met.

I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately, even before that night. About its power. About its purpose. If God already has a plan, and my prayer doesn’t match it, is prayer pointless? Before I could even ask that question out loud, my buddy Ryan talked about prayer being something God places in your heart — something that aligns you with His desires and draws you closer to Him.

That’s at least how I remember it. There was a lot going on that night, and my mind wasn’t exactly locked in. But it made sense to me.

It’s also probably why I’ve found myself praying more — not just about my upcoming scans, but about my little brother. He’s had a hard year too, and lately that’s what occupies my thoughts the most. I don’t know if that’s because I’m using his struggles as a distraction from my own, or because that’s genuinely where my heart is being pulled, or because I’m just grasping for meaning in random events.

Honestly, it doesn’t really matter. It’s where my calm is coming from.

So tonight, like the last few weeks, I’ll pray for good news. I’ll pray for strength to handle it well if the news isn’t what I want. And more than anything, I’ll pray for my little brother as he tries to turn the corner on a shitty 2025 — yes, I’m using a colon cancer pun for someone else this time — and start 2026 on better footing than this year ended.

If you’re someone who prays for me, feel free to use that as a guide. If you’re not, that’s okay too. I’d still appreciate whatever version of a request to a higher power you’re comfortable with. I doubt God is particularly concerned with what anyone calls Him.

For now, it’s time for bed.

That makes it just four more days to go.

I’m sitting in my favorite coffee shop in Austin — Nate’s Baked Goods. It’s a little bungalow house that’s been converted into a cozy coffee shop, and I love it for exactly that reason. It’s comfortable. Familiar. The kind of place where nothing is trying too hard. I come here a few times a week at a minimum, usually with buddies, and it’s where I like to start both good days and bad ones.

Today, I’m here by myself.

Austin has slowed down over the past week as Christmas gets closer. It’s a transplant town, and when the holidays roll around, a lot of people head home — wherever home happens to be for them. The city gets quieter as a result, and honestly, it’s really nice. I’ve always liked having people around, but as January 6th gets closer, the quiet feels like a small gift. Fewer conversations. Fewer check-ins. Fewer well-meaning questions about how I’m feeling or how I’m doing.

To be clear, I don’t mind talking about cancer. It would be pretty dense of me to say that, given the theme of this blog and how much time I’ve spent writing about it. I genuinely appreciate the concern — the texts, the prayers, the way people take time out of their lives to care about mine. That part still matters to me.

But over the last ten months, my identity has slowly shifted into something I didn’t ask for: AJ — the guy with cancer… and Tugboat.

I used to enjoy sympathy before all of this started. I don’t know why, and I won’t pretend that’s a flattering thing to admit, but it’s true. These days, while I still appreciate the sentiment behind it, I don’t enjoy it the way I once did. Somewhere along the way, sympathy stopped feeling comforting and started feeling limiting — like it was quietly shrinking me down to one story.

Recently, someone sent me a video — one of those things I’d normally scroll past without a second thought. It’s some random guy who kind of looks like Channing Tatum, which already felt suspicious. In the video, he talks about making it through just one more hard day and how that alone is something to be proud of. He says your future self needs you, but your past self doesn’t. The goal isn’t to be perfect — it’s just to carry on and aim to get a little better each day.

I don’t usually subscribe to clickbait motivation, but this one stuck with me.

These quiet days — the ones without constant conversations about what’s wrong — have given me space to think about what’s right. And I realized two things.

First, as much as I appreciate sympathy when people offer it, I’d choose admiration over it every time if given the option.

And second, when I actually take inventory, I have a lot to be proud of.

I’m not going to list those things out. That feels arrogant and also exhausting. But in the aggregate — and that word matters — I’ve gotten better at something every single day since all of this shit started. Yes, that was absolutely a pun.

Have there been rocky days? Of course. There were a few recently where my brain went down some truly idiotic rabbit holes. That still happens. But when I zoom out instead of fixating on the noise, I’m proud of where I am this morning — sitting in a quiet coffee shop, drinking my coffee, writing this, planning out a few small things I’ll do today to be just a little better tomorrow than I am right now.

I’m doing okay.

I’m not defined by my cancer.

I’m optimistic about what comes next — with cancer and without it — and I’m doing my best to get better each day, whether that improvement has anything to do with cancer at all.

And honestly, the day I’m most looking forward to isn’t some dramatic milestone or perfectly clean scan. It’s the day I get to be defined again by all the same stupid things that defined me before cancer. There are so so so many stupid things to choose from on that day…

That will be a good day.

That will be a day worth admiring.

It’s nearly midnight on a Sunday as I write this. I’m stretched out on the couch, wide awake, listening to Tugboat snore contentedly from his bed across the room. He’s on his back, feet sticking straight up in the air—the position he only finds when he’s fully at peace. I’ve come to learn that’s his tell. When he sleeps like that, he’s happy. Probably dreaming about food. Or getting pets from literally anyone in the building. Either way, it makes me smile.

In a few minutes, the calendar will roll over to the 15th. That means I have twenty-two days left before I learn what comes next in this cancer story. Twenty-two days until scans, answers, and whatever reality is waiting on the other side of early January.

Since radiation ended, sleep hasn’t come easily. It’s not that I don’t sleep at all—I do—but it’s restless, shallow, and easily interrupted by my own thoughts. These nights are strange because they’re both exciting and terrifying at the same time. That probably sounds contradictory, but it’s true.

They’re exciting because I can imagine a version of January where I’m told the radiation worked incredibly well. Where the words “we don’t see any cancer” are said plainly, almost casually, as if they aren’t capable of rearranging an entire life in a single sentence. That version of the future is easy to picture, and it fills me with real optimism.

But I’ve also become more of a realist than I used to be—maybe because of all this, maybe because you don’t get to be naïve forever. I know the odds aren’t great. A coin toss at best. And that means I have to hold space for the possibility that the news won’t be ideal, and that this road doesn’t end as cleanly or quickly as I’d like.

I want to be clear about something, though: this isn’t despair. I’m not spiraling or sinking or giving up. I still have hope. I still have faith. What I do have is a lot of quiet time to think—about mortality, about time, about what actually matters when the noise dies down. That might sound cliché or even a little pompous, but given the circumstances, it feels unavoidable.

This is usually the part where that Tim McGraw song sneaks into my head—“I went skydiving, I went Rocky Mountain climbing, I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu.” To be extremely clear: I will not be skydiving, I will not be bull riding, and there is a zero percent chance I will be spending even a fraction of a second on a bull named Fu Man Chu. I’m reflecting on life, not actively trying to shorten it.

Still, the song does its job. It got me thinking about the things I do want to do, and that list surprised me.

I want to live in Montenegro for a while, drinking coffee by the water and working my way through the eighty-four books currently sitting in my backlog. I want to graduate from being a modestly competent cook to a genuinely impressive one. I want to give away all my bourbon to people who will save it for the right moments—to forget hard times, remember good ones, and laugh at everything in between that made our friendships what they are.

I want to get a bespoke three-piece suit made in Italy, wait until cancer is firmly in the rearview mirror, and then wear it to hit on a woman wildly out of my league—fully expecting to get rejected and enjoying the absurdity of it anyway. I want to watch my nieces and nephews grow into adults who are better people than I ever managed to be. I want my mom to go back to Germany, where she met my dad, before she gave up so much of her own life to help her kids become adults half as good as she is.

More than anything, I want to get better at saying no—to the noise, the distractions, the things that feel important in the moment but won’t matter at all when you finally sit down and take inventory of your life. And I want to keep adding to this list as time goes on.

This isn’t a morbid bucket list. It’s not wishful thinking born out of fear. It’s a future I’m genuinely excited about. That’s why these sleepless nights are strange—they’re filled with both anticipation and uncertainty. The fear that some of these things might not happen is real, but the truth is that fear exists for everyone, cancer or not. None of us are guaranteed time.

Time is precious. It’s strange and fragile and unbelievably valuable. And wasting it—out of habit, fear, or apathy—feels especially stupid once you’re forced to really look at it.

So with that, I’m going to close the laptop and pick up my book. Because I know someone will ask, it’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong, and it’s incredible.

If the posts between now and early January are a little sparse, that’s intentional. There isn’t much new to report in these twenty-two days, and I’ll do my best not to sound pretentious or boring while we wait. Come January sixth and seventh, though, I’ll have a story to tell—good or bad.

And if you have any book recommendations, I can always make room for an eighty-fifth.

I haven’t written in almost two weeks, mostly because these are the dog days of cancer—the slow, uncomfortable stretch where nothing really happens but the waiting. I’m stuck in a holding pattern until the first week of January, when I head back to Houston for scans and, yes, the now-routine anal probing. Never thought I’d reach a point in life where I could say that without either laughing or thinking, “WTF?” But here we are. 2025 has been full of surprises.

The truth is, without any new medical chaos to report, I kept convincing myself I had nothing worth writing about. Who wants to read about me walking Tugboat, or the book I’m reading, or the PlayStation game my little brother and I dive into at night? Who cares that I’ve been learning to cook things I can’t pronounce with ingredients I can’t identify? (Tonight’s class is allegedly Mediterranean, but based on the grocery list, it could also be witchcraft.)

Then my friend Amy stopped by this afternoon to return some measuring cups and to distract Tugboat, who treats visitors like his personal entertainment staff. While I was stressing about my “lack of content,” she said something that stuck with me: that after the heaviness of all the Houston stories, there’s beauty in the mundane. People might actually want to see the quiet parts too.

It helps that she said this in a very elegant British accent—the kind that sounds like M from the James Bond movies. The one difference is that Amy looks absolutely nothing like Dame Judi Dench, something she would want on record.

So with her voice in my head (and yes, it is objectively better than the voice in my own head), I started thinking about the past couple of weeks. And honestly? Things have been boring… in a very good way.

I’ve been going back to work, which keeps my brain too busy to spiral about what radiation may or may not be doing inside me. I’ve been going to the gym again, which feels like getting a small piece of normal life back. I even squatted heavy for the first time since this ridiculous bag was attached to me. Hitting 300 pounds again was an emotional rollercoaster: good because it felt like progress, bad because 300 pounds is still very much 300 pounds, frustrating because it used to feel easier, and optimistic because once things are fully normal again next year, I know I’ll be able to push past it.

Evenings are for video games with my younger brother, whose superpower is turning my mind off better than any meditation app ever could. And Tugboat—my furry little tyrant—has softened enough to follow me room to room. Realistically, he wants treats. I choose to believe it’s affection. If he could read this, he’d roll his eyes so hard he’d sprain something.

I still have thirty days until I get any real answers, but when I look at the last thirty since radiation ended, life hasn’t been bad. In fact, it’s been pretty good. I’ve had far fewer reasons to pity myself than I would’ve guessed, and that alone feels like something to hold on to.

For now, the dog days of cancer and the beauty in the mundane are enough to get me to whatever comes next.

The past week has been slow and quiet—the kind of quiet that would normally feel like a gift. But this time, it hasn’t felt peaceful so much as… hollow. Too much stillness leaves too much room for my brain to wander into places I’d rather not be, places filled with questions about what’s happening inside me while I wait for someone in a white coat to tell me whether the last seven months actually worked.

Seven months. It feels surreal to even type that. Looking back, the time somehow blurred by. Looking forward? Time feels like it’s decided to drag itself forward on its elbows, one inch at a time. So I sit. And I think. And I try—unsuccessfully—to control outcomes I have absolutely zero power over. And that mental tug-of-war is exhausting.

I’m not falling apart. This isn’t a dramatic spiral. But in this stretch of the journey, I’m struggling. Not in a “call for help” way. Just… human. Tired. Uncertain.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to write any of this. I’ve realized I much prefer being the person who seems strong, upbeat, and unshaken by all of this. That version of me gets admiration, which is a lot more comfortable than sympathy. But pretending gets heavy. I’m not sleeping well. My “I’m doing fine!” smile has been powered mostly by caffeine and stubbornness. And I kept quiet this week because I assumed—probably unfairly—that people want the inspiring parts, not the messy ones. I do that too with others, so I get it.

So I hid. Smiled like someone who is absolutely not fine but refuses to make it awkward. Distracted myself with the things I love and hoped they’d pull me far enough away from my thoughts to get a reprieve.

The gym has been the most reliable escape. Now that I know my stoma—the stomach butthole—isn’t going to rip open like a grocery store bag carrying way too many cans, I’ve finally graduated from the Richard-Simmons tier of workouts. And I know it sounds dramatic to say this, but that garage gym feels like therapy. The grit of the barbell knurling. The rubber smell of the mats. The thunder of weights slamming onto the floor. Music loud enough to shake loose anything the doctors haven’t already blasted out of me. It all snaps me into the present moment in a way nothing else does. For an hour, the questions fade. The fear quiets. I just move.

But then I leave the gym. And the bag is still there.

And that’s the part that gets me—because the bag is the thing I can’t escape. It’s the reminder that nothing is normal right now. It’s the physical proof taped to my body that things went very wrong, and could still go wrong. I can bury myself in workouts, books, video games, whatever… but the bag comes with me. It’s the unpaid intern of this whole ordeal—constantly around, offering no help, and showing up at the worst possible times. And maybe that’s why this week felt so particularly shitty—pun required by law at this point—and why everything felt heavier.

Still, even in a week that felt like sludge, something good managed to sneak in. I was listening to Judah Smith, and he said something that landed in the center of all this: that sometimes the hardest seasons are the ones God uses to show the people around you His love—people who might not otherwise see it. That your suffering becomes a doorway for someone else’s hope. And somehow, that idea lifted something off me more than any weight I touched this week.

So tomorrow, I’ll get up. I’ll thank God for another day. I’ll try not to fall apart. I’ll keep counting down the days until this chapter ends and this ridiculous, stupid, clingy bag is finally just a bad memory.

And until then, I’ll keep telling the truth—even the messy parts—because maybe someone else needs to see it.

It’s been sixteen days since radiation ended, which means I’ve got fifty-one more before anyone can tell me how well it worked and what level of surgery I’m in for. I know something is going to get cut out of me—how much and how soon is still in the “wait and find out” category. It’s not exactly thrilling to sit around with your own fate on backorder. Most days fly by fast enough that I barely think about anything beyond the immediate stuff—mostly the bag attached to me like a very clingy, very unhelpful sidekick.

But then there are the slow days. The quiet days. The sitting-on-the-couch-while-Tugboat-snores-from-another-room days. And on those days, my mind wanders into places I’d prefer it didn’t. Is the radiation still working? Did it kill off the cancer? Did it only annoy the cancer and make it stronger, like a Marvel villain origin story I never asked for? Those thoughts don’t show up often, but when they do, they sit heavy. Tonight is one of those nights. Not even Monday Night Football, good takeout, or Tugboat angrily asleep because he didn’t get a single table scrap has managed to shut my brain up. So, I’m left with the only thing that still works: writing.

When I got back from Houston on Halloween, I walked in to find nearly thirty packages waiting for me. I had ordered maybe… three things from Amazon? Four if you count the impulse buy I still don’t remember making? Certainly not enough to justify the wall of cardboard that greeted me. I knew I had people who cared about me, but seeing all those gifts made it embarrassingly obvious just how much.

There was a brand-new video game(Borderlands 4) so I could play online with a friend. A stack of books from someone’s favorite authors—perfect for keeping my mind busy during those quiet, late-night hours when the condo feels too still. And then there were the mystery gifts. No notes, no names, just vibes.

Someone sent my favorite brand of jeans—jeans that do not come in my size and always have to be tailored. And these? Already tailored. Perfectly. Which raises questions. Who knows that brand? Who knows my measurements? And who went full Project Runway behind the scenes? I genuinely have no clue. But they’re fantastic jeans, so the mystery tailor can stay anonymous.

Then there were a pair of Air Jordans. I have not worn Jordans since the third grade. These fit perfectly and were the same style from the third grade. Another mystery. Someone else sent me a Costco-sized package of Cascade dishwashing pods. I don’t know if it was a hint, a joke, or someone thinking, “You know what this man needs during cancer treatment? Immaculate dishes.”

And honestly? Gifts like these—meaningful, random, practical, absurd—they all do the same thing: they distract me exactly when I need it most. Even if the distraction is just me wondering who knows my exact waist size, who is monitoring my footwear nostalgia, or who thinks my dishes are a cry for help.

Tomorrow is a new day, and the countdown will tick to fifty. Tugboat and I are heading to bed grateful for the people who clearly pay more attention to my pant length, waist measurements, and shoe size than I ever realized. Maybe that’s the sign of a good friend. Or a very dedicated stalker. Either way, tonight, I’m grateful for the distraction.

Since getting back to Austin, I haven’t had much to write about. I expected that, and honestly welcomed it. No news is good news for the next two months. But I kept trying to find something worth writing about—and I really should have watched what I wished for.

This evening I took my friend Emily to Canje, the Caribbean spot in East Austin that I love. We were celebrating her birthday, and it gave me an excuse to go out in public with another human and pretend to be normal. That was the plan anyway. Consider that your foreshadowing.

Two hours before dinner, I switched to a new brand of bag. A decision that, in retrospect, makes me wonder if radiation somehow melted an important part of my brain. I didn’t think much of it when dinner started. We ordered a few of my favorites—coco buns, plantain chips, ox tail empanadas. Not long after the first round of food arrived, I felt the bag inflating from gas. This isn’t something that happens often for me, but there was no denying it. So I excused myself and handled it in the bathroom—“burping the bag,” as my friend Ramsey (an ostomy nurse who lives in my building) kindly informed me it’s called. I wish I could un-know that term.

Once deflated, I came back to the table and was having a genuinely lovely time with Emily. She warms up slowly, but once she gets talking, it’s great. Then the second round of food arrived. I pulled my napkin back into my lap and was immediately met with a wet sensation on my jeans. My heart dropped. I moved my hands discreetly and realized the end of the bag—the velcro closure—wasn’t secured at all. And what I’ll generously call “juice” had leaked out.

I’ve had a lot of unexpected fears enter the chat since getting diagnosed with cancer, but this one shot straight to the top, battling it out with “dying of cancer” for first place. For about two seconds, I genuinely considered taking the table knife and slitting my wrists just to avoid the humiliation of the moment, but cooler heads prevailed—mainly because I didn’t want to traumatize Emily.

I went to the bathroom, cleaned up as best as possible, and prayed the kitchen smells would overpower anything lingering. I have no idea if they did, but Emily didn’t seem to notice. If there’s a silver lining, that’s the one.

I don’t have a positive spin for this beyond hoping that someday, far in the future, this becomes a story I can laugh about—or at least point to as evidence that something about me became stronger. For now, I’m just glad to be home, out of those jeans, and sitting next to Tugoat, who is staring at me like he can smell exactly what happened and is wondering how I’m the one in charge.

Before I sign off, I will say the walker joke at work landed perfectly. I still have two months before I know how effective the radiation was, and outside of the bag fiasco, things are fine.

For now, I’m going to bed and hoping this never happens again

Sleeping in your own bed might be one of life’s most underrated luxuries. After a month away, I’m finally back in mine — and sleeping better than I ever did in Houston. Tugboat seems equally thrilled, judging by the thunderous snoring coming from the other room. He’s back in his own bed too, though after two weeks of bouncing between friends’ houses (friends I’m forever grateful to for spoiling him), I suspect his dreams are filled with belly rubs and treats from his temporary caretakers. Still, even if he’s dreaming of others, there’s something ridiculously comforting about having that fat little loaf of bread snoring nearby while I drift off to sleep.

Radiation is officially over, and so — for now — is Houston. I have two months to wait before I find out if it worked. I asked why it takes that long, and my doctors started talking about double helix bonds and cancer cells losing their ability to reproduce. But honestly, it was my last day of radiation, and the only thing I cared about was cracking bad jokes to make my doctor laugh and getting my radiated ass home to Austin.

This might actually be the hardest part: the waiting. Two months of not knowing what’s happening inside me, of trying not to get lost in “what if.” I’ll try to distract myself, but that’s easier said than done.

Work seems like an obvious choice — I’m heading back this week — though I’m not sure it’ll keep my mind busy enough. At least it’s something. I can finally exercise again too, which feels good, even if I’m still slightly paranoid about that damn bag exploding at an inopportune moment. I briefly considered learning something mentally intense, like mastering a yo-yo or Rubik’s cube, but let’s be real — I’d probably just hit myself in the face with a yo-yo or somehow manage to injure myself with a Rubik’s cube. I don’t need to add “traumatized by childhood toys” to my list of current problems.

So instead, I’ll stick to what I know works. Spending time with friends, keeping busy, and finally tackling the eight dusty books that have been sitting on my nightstand for months. At the start of the year, I told myself I’d read one a week — eight in two months — but that plan went about as well as most of my well-intentioned plans do. Still, maybe now’s a good time to give it another shot.

It’s late, and tomorrow’s my first day back in the office. But before I head to bed, I have to admit — I’m actually looking forward to it. For weeks, I’ve been telling my coworkers that I’ve had trouble walking because of radiation. Which, to be clear, is not true. I just borrowed a walker from a family member and plan to show up tomorrow using it like an 85-year-old. I’ll dramatically shuffle around all morning, really sell it. Then halfway through our staff meeting, I’ll suddenly hop up, walk normally to get a Diet Coke, come back, and sit down like nothing happened.

I have no idea how anyone will react, but I know it’s going to make me laugh — and right now, laughing feels like medicine.

So maybe that’s my plan for the next two months: find things that make me laugh, no matter how small or stupid they are. Because honestly, anything that keeps my mind busy, keeps me moving, and keeps me from overthinking is a win in my book. And tonight, lying in my own bed with Tugboat snoring away in his, it feels like I’m already off to a pretty good start.