Life in the Stupid Lane

By Friday, I wrapped up my third week of radiation. Two more to go. So far, no major side effects—which, given everything, feels like a quiet victory.

People keep asking what radiation is like. The truth? It’s not that exciting. Every morning, I make my way to the east side of MD Anderson and head down into the basement. Down there is a maze of tunnels that make IKEA look organized. I’ve gotten lost more times than I’d like to admit. The only difference is that IKEA rewards you with Swedish meatballs at the end, and MD Anderson doesn’t.

The treatment itself is short—fifteen minutes total. Eight minutes of radiation, seven minutes of setup. I have three tattoos: one on each hip and one a few inches below my belly button. They help the team line up the machine precisely each time. So there I am, lying on a cold metal table, pants half-down, while a giant machine rotates around me, zapping me with invisible beams of radiation right at my tramp stamp tattoos. If you’re picturing an alien abduction scene, you’re not far off.

At least they let me choose the music. I usually go with Zach Bryan. By 7:15 a.m., I’m done for the day—free to rest, think, or just be bored.

I’ve been lucky. My radiation has been easy so far, and I don’t take that lightly. I don’t know why I’ve been spared the worst of it, but I try to use that grace to pay attention to others who are having a harder time. Sometimes people are open to conversation; sometimes they just want to sit in silence. Either way, I get it.

But Thursday was different. I met a woman and her 5-year-old daughter, Poppy. Poppy is fighting kidney cancer. She’d lost her hair and looked exhausted. Her mom mentioned to a nurse that Poppy had gotten her nails painted before coming in.

If you’ve followed this blog, you know I usually have my toenails painted too. It started as a joke, but it’s become a kind of quiet rebellion—a small, colorful reminder that there’s still room for joy, even in hard things.

So I went over, introduced myself, asked about her toenails, and then kicked off my shoes to show her mine—light blue, Frozen style. Hers were sparkly pink. She looked at my toes for a few seconds, then burst into laughter, hopping out of her wheelchair for a closer look.

It was a small, simple moment, but it lit up the room. For a few seconds, she wasn’t a kid in treatment—she was just a kid laughing at some guy’s painted toes.

The next morning, I ran into them again in the waiting room. Poppy grinned and pointed at her toes, then at mine. I pointed back and smiled. That’s when her mom told me that the day before—when she’d laughed—was the first time she’d heard Poppy laugh since losing her hair.

That stopped me.

It was the first time I truly felt like I was paying forward some of the kindness so many people have shown me—through calls, walks, and quiet support (if you are reading this, you are one of those people).

Thursday ended up being the best day of treatment I’ve had.

I probably won’t see Poppy again—her next treatment isn’t until after I’m finished and back in Austin—but tomorrow, I’m getting my toenails painted sparkly pink anyway. Just in case I get lucky enough to see her one more time.

The bell peppers didn’t survive.

Apparently, that’s an acceptable casualty when your ostomy bag decides to give up on life in the middle of an H-E-B. I didn’t know this until my phone started lighting up with sympathetic (and surprisingly funny) messages from friends. Turns out, people have opinions about how to handle a grocery-store bag explosion.

That day went straight to hell, so I did the responsible thing and made an appointment at the Ostomy Center for the following morning. When I showed up, the nurses — who are always absurdly kind — looked at me like they were trying to figure out if this was a bad rerun. One of them finally said, “Didn’t we just see you last week?”

Yes. Yes, you did.

I started listing my problems, one by one, and as I spoke I could see their faces shift between horror, amusement, and the kind of confusion that makes people blink twice before responding. Eventually, we all reached the same conclusion: either I was the problem, or radiation and chemo had melted whatever part of my brain controls common sense. Honestly, it could be either. Or both.

After I told them the whole embarrassing saga, they decided my situation wasn’t a big deal and immediately jumped into solution mode — which, for the record, was both comforting and terrifying. (Foreshadowing.)

If you’ve read my earlier posts, you know I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said goodbye to dignity. At this point, dignity is a luxury item — like a vacation home or a working metabolism. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself lying on a hospital table with my stoma (which, if you’re new here, is the medical term for stomach butthole) on full display while a nurse removed the old bag and started cleaning the area.

Reading that doesn’t sound that bad, right? Still gross, but manageable. Except for when the stoma decides to “work” mid-cleaning — and the nurse reacts like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Meanwhile, I’m silently begging for divine intervention. Something quick and painless. Maybe a tiny, hyper-targeted meteor strike that only hits me and spares everyone else. Anything, really.

But no — the stomach butthole just kept doing its thing while I stared at the ceiling, wondering where exactly my life had gone wrong. Eventually, the nurse cleaned up and started walking me through some “new solutions” that might keep the bag from falling off again.

Her first idea? Caulk. Yes, you read that right — actual caulk. The kind used to seal toilets to sewer pipes. Nothing says self-esteem like hearing the phrase “you and your toilet have similar sealing needs.”

I watched as she pulled out a syringe, filled it with this medical-grade plumber’s putty, and carefully applied it around my stoma before pressing the new bag down. She held it there for three minutes to make sure it sealed — and the entire time, she tried to make small talk. Normally, I’d be all in for small talk. But at that moment, my brain was blaring the Super Mario Bros. theme on repeat. I couldn’t focus on a single word she said. Just “doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo” echoing in my skull while this poor woman politely pretended I wasn’t a human plumbing project.

When the plumber’s caulk was set, she introduced me to Phase Two: the giant plastic shield. It’s basically an extra ring that goes around the bag’s adhesive seal, like armor plating for your abdomen. The original seal is maybe four inches wide — this thing felt like it covered half my torso. Manufacturers could easily just make the bag this size to begin with, but apparently, that would make too much sense. So there I was, lying on the table, half praying for that tiny meteor strike right to my head only, while being fitted with what looked like a futuristic Tupperware lid over my stomach.

In case you want to visualize this masterpiece of modern engineering, here’s what I’m talking about — the Convex Ostomy Bag and those lovely Barrier Strips that go with it. They sound innocent enough — but in the moment, they feel like industrial-strength punishment. Still, I have to admit: it’s working. It’s been a full day since installation, and everything’s holding steady. No leaks, no disasters. I’ll take the win.

There was one more thing — a belt. Apparently, the bag has little clips on the sides where you can attach a thin elastic strap for “extra support.” Which is a polite way of saying, “Here’s one more thing to make you feel ridiculous.” I wore it for about 45 minutes before deciding it was unnecessary. Also, it made me look like I was wearing a medical cummerbund. Not a good look.

All jokes aside, the nurses at MD Anderson are unbelievable. I don’t think people realize how much light they bring into some of the darkest moments of other people’s lives. It’s not just the nurses I see for treatment, either. I met another nurse at the dog park before heading back to Austin — a really sweet blonde Asian woman who works in a completely different cancer unit and also has diabetes. We ended up talking for a long time about books, food, stupid diabetes, and even stupider cancer. She had the same humor and kindness that all the nurses there seem to share. It’s uncanny — like they’re all built from the same combination of compassion and resilience that most people only aspire to.

Honestly, they’re a big part of why I can still laugh about all this. If they didn’t approach their jobs with so much empathy and lightness, these stories would be a lot darker to tell.

So here we are — 24 hours post–plumber’s caulk installation, no leaks in sight, and a tiny flicker of optimism returning. Tomorrow I’ll see if this new contraption can survive a workout. I’ve been slacking, and it’s time to move again.

It’s weird, but days like this — the messy, humiliating, absurd ones — have a way of making me grateful. Grateful for the people who show up with humor instead of pity. Grateful that my body, despite everything, is still trying. Grateful that somehow, through all of it, I can still laugh.

Because when life turns into plumbing, sometimes the only thing left to do is grab the caulk and keep going.

Today was one of those rare days where everything just fell apart. Not in a dramatic, world-ending way — just in the quiet, human way where frustration piles up until you crack.

Now that I’ve had some distance from what was, let’s be honest, a full-blown breakdown, I’m grateful to God that I’ve made it this far without losing it sooner. But today, God must’ve thought, “Let’s see what happens if…” — and I didn’t exactly rise to the moment with grace or humor.

The morning actually started fine. I walked over to my radiation appointment, only to find out it was being held in a different building because my regular room was down for maintenance. The new room wasn’t far, but it did mean a three-block walk through Houston’s early morning heat and the kind of humidity that feels like you’re swimming instead of walking. By the time I got there, I looked like I’d walked a mile underwater.

Normally, that wouldn’t matter much — except for the small, inconvenient detail that I currently have an ostomy bag attached to my stomach butt hole (and yes, that’s what it is, and we’re just going to call it what it is). These things don’t love heat or sweat, which makes living in Houston a challenge and working out again at home an unsolved mystery.

Thankfully, it held through radiation, mostly because I wear this “stealth belt” under my shirt— a name that’s far cooler than the product itself. It’s meant to make the bag less visible, but all it really does is make me feel like I’m going to a formal event in a medical cumberbund.

Still, I made it through. I should’ve taken that as my win for the day and called it there. But no…

A couple hours later, I went to a new coffee shop called Pavon, trying to relax with a book. It was one of those perfectly curated Houston cafés — all marble counters and soft jazz — except for a group of women holding court at the next table, talking loudly enough to fill the room. Normally, that would’ve annoyed me, but today their noise was actually a blessing: it covered the occasional gurgle from my ostomy bag, which was acting up a bit. Nothing major, just…active.

What I didn’t realize was that “active” was the early warning sign for “about to fail catastrophically.”

So naturally, instead of heading home, I decided to stop at H-E-B. Because why not add public risk to the equation? Sometimes my own stupid decision-making astounds me.

You can probably see where this is going. Somewhere in the cracker aisle, I felt the adhesive starting to give way — right as the smell hit. I froze, clutching the bag against my stomach with one hand and steering my cart with the other, praying I could get to checkout before total disaster. I didn’t care who I ran over at that point.

By some miracle, I made it through the line, grabbed my groceries, and made it to the car before the bag fully surrendered. And that’s about when I did too.

The truth is, this wasn’t just about one bad day. I’d been working with an ostomy nurse the week before at MD Anderson to try a new convex bag that was supposed to hold better than the flat ones. When she applied it, it lasted three full days. When I did it myself, the first lasted eight hours, the second one hour, and today’s barely made it eight again. I’m doing everything I’m told — cleaning properly, prepping the skin, applying the seal just right — and yet it keeps failing.

By the time I got back to my Airbnb, I was hanging on by a thread. The bag came off, and so did my composure. I lost it. I don’t know why I took it out on my groceries, but the bell peppers took the worst of it. A few other items were harmed in the making of this meltdown, but I’ll fix them before confessing which ones.

Eventually, I just sat down and stared at the mess. I’ll figure this out. I know I will. This won’t be the thing that beats me — but today, it sure as shit did.

And yet, like always, there’s a silver lining somewhere in it. My threshold for embarrassment keeps rising with every mishap. That’s not exactly a superpower I asked for, but I guess life doesn’t really take requests.

Here I am — a little more humbled, a little more human, and needing new bell peppers…

I wrote this on Saturday, but didnt get to post it till today.  

It’s just before noon, and I’m back in Austin—sitting at my favorite casual spot in the city, Sour Duck Market, under the big oak tree canopy and the new green picnic umbrellas they’ve added to give the place a more natural feel (at least in my opinion). There’s a soft, comfortable breeze moving across the patio, and it gives the whole scene a calm, weekend-brunch kind of vibe.

The place is packed, which explains why it’s taking so long for my hipster salad and turmeric Moscow mule to arrive. I’m reading a book called The Flamethrowers—one I’ve been “trying” to finish since moving to Houston. I’m technically not supposed to drink alcohol—the doctors specifically said no bourbon—but since this mule has turmeric in it, it feels healthy. That’s the lie I’m going with today.

I don’t usually describe my surroundings in this much detail, but as I sat here, I realized this was the most relaxed I’ve been in a long time. I hadn’t noticed until now how uncomfortable I’d been in Houston.

Tugboat hated it there. People kept finding new reasons to be scared of him, and he barely wanted to leave the dark confines of the closet except to use the restroom. Neither of us had been sleeping well, probably because the bed in our rental feels like it was salvaged from a condemned motel off some lonely interstate.

If you move even slightly, one of two things happens:

1. The springs squeak so loudly it sounds like a parody of a horror movie, or
2. The headboard—held to the frame by what I think might be Scotch tape—bangs against the wall loud enough to startle both Tugboat and me awake.

Getting even 8–10 minutes of continuous sleep was impossible, especially since I move a lot now thanks to my new exit hole on my stomach. I want to call it a “stomach butthole” because that’s really what it is, but that feels too lowbrow even for me—so “exit hole” it is.

And if you didn’t know, Tugboat does not like being startled awake. I’m fairly sure he was one more loud bang away from figuring out how to use a box cutter on me.

So, we came back to Austin. I needed real sleep, Tugboat needed familiar ground, and honestly, I didn’t want to have to explain to my doctors that the cuts on me weren’t self-inflicted—they were the result of a Corgi’s rage. I doubt they’d have believed that story anyway.

It’s been a while since my last post. At first, I didn’t have much to write about. The headline I’ve buried here—like always—is that radiation is going well. I haven’t had any side effects so far. The doctors keep reminding me that the side effects are cumulative, so if I’m going to experience any, it’ll be toward the end of the month.

Nothing like looking forward to a potential “sunburned butthole” to really make you excited for the end of the month. Still, I’m confident I’ll get through this easily enough. (Knocking on wood.)

The bag on my stomach, though—that’s still the worst part of all this. Nothing, and I mean nothing, about it is okay. It’s leaked multiple times, and when it does, the odor is so bad it makes me gag. Thankfully, it’s only happened in private so far, but the constant fear that it could happen in public keeps my anxiety running high.

If it ever does, I have a contingency plan—but it probably ends with me praying for spontaneous combustion.

Some friends have sent me videos from so-called ostomy influencers. (I’m still not convinced that’s a real thing, but apparently, there are a lot of people claiming that title.) They seem to have two main goals: to either convince me this isn’t that bad, or to make me question if we’re watching the same reality.

One woman proudly announced she’s better off with her bag because now she can poop “stealth-style” in important meetings without anyone knowing. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never once thought, “I wish I didn’t have to leave this staff meeting to poop in private.”

Another person bragged about how much money they’ve saved on toilet paper since getting their bag. Personally, trading toilet paper for an exit hole on your stomach seems like a poor bargain—but hey, everyone’s got their own value system.

I get that these folks are just trying to make the best of a bad situation, but every time I watch one of these videos, all I can think is: YOU ARE A DAMN DIRTY LIAR.

That’s probably the sleep deprivation talking—or maybe the general lack of fun in Houston wearing me down.

To be fair, I probably haven’t seen all sides of Houston. But after ten days, the highlight of my time there was learning that the walking trail I’d been taking Tugboat on was also the place where police found six bodies from a serial killer that week. So yeah… great recommendation.

Now that I’ve gotten all of that off my chest, my salad’s here, my drink’s gone (and it was so good), and I finally feel like myself again.

I’ll head back to Houston tomorrow and start my third week of radiation Monday morning. I decided to leave Tugboat here in Austin for both our sanity. He did a complete 180 the moment we got home—it’s wild how fast a dog can go from depressed to joyful in the time it takes to open a car door.

Honestly, he might’ve pulled out that box cutter if I tried to bring him back to Houston anyway, so it’s for the best.

For now, I’m going to sign off. Texas plays OU in about an hour, and I want to enjoy this little pocket of Austin calm while I can. I’ll try to post more regularly this week.

I’m sitting on the 35th floor of an Airbnb in Houston, earbuds in, Zach Bryan’s Pink Skies running through Spotify, and the city sprawled out beneath me like a quiet map. From up here, it’s calm—peaceful even. The kind of calm that makes you forget the chaos waiting on the ground.

And chaos came quickly.

Tugboat got sick. The Wi-Fi didn’t work for two days. The hospital “forgot” to give me my chemo pills during my first day of radiation. My short-term leave paperwork got botched so my paycheck was delayed. And the crown jewel? On my second morning, walking Tugboat, my ostomy bag finally ruptured and left me strolling home covered in my own…well, use your imagination.

Individually, none of these things would’ve been a dealbreaker. But stacked up in the first 48 hours? It felt like the universe saying, “You thought this was going to be smooth sailing? Ha.” I’d pictured myself coasting through treatment, reading four books, cooking like a pro, brushing up on tech skills, and coming back to Austin in November stronger, smarter, better. Instead, here I was, two days in, feeling like a guy in a slapstick comedy with an exploding prop bag.

And yet—here’s the weird part—I’m grateful. Three days of radiation in, I don’t feel any real side effects. Maybe these small fires are blessings in disguise. Each one has kept me busy enough that I haven’t had time to spiral into the fears I carried with me to Houston: What if the radiation doesn’t work? What if I get really sick? What if it hurts like hell? What if I can’t handle it?

So far, those questions haven’t lived in my head. And if it takes a series of sh*t shows to keep them at bay, I’ll take it.

Before coming here, the biggest weight on my mind wasn’t radiation or chemo—it was the bag. The literal one attached to my stomach. My friend Ramsey, who used to be an ostomy nurse, gave me the crash course in leaks, gas, and blowouts. She made it clinical and funny enough that I felt less like a patient and more like a leaky bicycle tire. Still, the self-consciousness followed me everywhere.

That’s why, when my friend Emily invited me to a movie the night before I left for Houston, I nearly said no. Emily is brilliant, kind, gorgeous—all the adjectives you want in a new friend. But sitting in a small arthouse theater with someone like her while your stomach bag farts on its own schedule? Nightmare fuel.

We went anyway. It was a Leonardo DiCaprio flick, One Battle After Another. Loud soundtrack, constant noise, perfect cover. Two hours in, I was thanking God for the volume. But then came the setup—foreshadowing I should’ve seen from a mile away.

Two hours and fifteen minutes in, the film drops into a dead-silent car chase. And right on cue, my bag decides it’s time to audition for America’s Loudest Sound. In my head, it was a jet engine. In reality, it was probably much smaller. Still, as I shrank in my seat, praying for invisibility, Emily didn’t flinch. Didn’t smirk. Didn’t acknowledge it. She gave me exactly what I needed: nothing. And with that, what I thought would be my most humiliating moment became just another story. One more absurd chapter in this whole saga.

That’s been the theme: the disasters I script in my head never play out the way I fear. The ruptured bag, the sick dog, the broken Wi-Fi—none of it has crushed me. If anything, each stumble has been a reminder that this whole thing is survivable. Laughable, even.

So here I am now, earbuds in, Zach Bryan still playing, watching the Houston sun sink into the horizon. Thankful for Emily’s quiet kindness. Thankful for Ramsey’s expertise. Thankful even for Tugboat’s stubborn stomach, because he gets me out walking when I’d otherwise sulk indoors.

It’s not the smooth, quiet trip I imagined—but maybe that’s the point. The chaos, the interruptions, the embarrassments—they’re not detours. They’re the path. And maybe, just maybe, they’re what keep me looking up instead of down.

It’s Tuesday morning, five days since my ostomy surgery, and I’ve waited until now to post anything. I wanted to be back home, through the initial shock, and—well—“functioning” as normally as someone can when their butthole has been temporarily relocated three inches left of their belly button. Go ahead and laugh at that with me. It took me until yesterday to be able to laugh about it myself, so you might as well join in.

The surgery itself was mostly as expected—about two hours start to finish. I stayed in the hospital until Sunday. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. Pain was almost nonexistent, which is surprising considering they cut through my abdominal wall, pulled out some intestine, and made a new exit point for my body. You’d think that would hurt more, but it really didn’t.

What did make me smile was ditching that dignity-destroying hospital gown almost immediately and putting on my usual gym clothes. By day two, when the surgeon or a new nurse would come in, they often mistook me for a visitor sitting in the chair rather than the patient. “Wait—you’re the patient? You don’t look like a patient.” I’ll take that compliment, intentional or not.

I’d hoped to get out by Saturday, but anesthesia had my intestinal tract on strike. So, they kept me another day. In the meantime, I took their advice to “move around” a little too seriously—walking to Starbucks or Chipotle, podcasts in my ears. Nurses didn’t love that I’d disappear for three hours at a time. Personally, I thought they should’ve congratulated me. Turns out doctors and I disagree on these things.

Coming home was its own milestone. The first night back, Tugboat did something he’s never done before—he curled up next to me and stayed there the entire night. It was like he knew I needed support, or maybe he thought he needed to stand guard. I’m not sure which, but either way, it was exactly what I needed.

No one warned me about the soundtrack of life with an ostomy. Thursday night, still groggy from anesthesia, I was jolted awake by the loudest, most violent blast of gas I’ve ever experienced—straight from my stomach. The vibration alone made me think something had ruptured and I was doomed. The nurse laughed, assured me it was “normal.”

Normal?! My stomach farted loudly enough to alert patients on other floors. That’s not normal in any world I know of.

Since then, I wouldn’t say I’ve gotten used to it, but I’ve gotten less embarrassed—except when it happens in an elevator with one of my very attractive neighbors. Nothing like a stomach fart at close quarters to kill the vibe. Thankfully, most of them know what’s going on and laugh it off. Me? I want to sprint back home, hunt down those pain meds that knock me out cold, and pretend it never happened. Writing this out probably isn’t helping my case.

From talking with my friend Ramsey (who’s a phenomenal nurse) and YouTube research, I’ve learned there are other “fun surprises” in store—blowouts, leaks, and situations that make me sound more like a bike tire than a person. Apparently, this is all just part of the package deal.

This is definitely a life adjustment, but it’s temporary. Six months, give or take. On Sunday, I head to Houston for radiation treatments that will last until early November. The prep process gave me another entry for my “HOLY SHIT 2025” bingo card—literally.

First, they tattooed me with three tiny dots (below my belly button and on each hip) to line up the radiation lasers. Then, during the simulation the day after surgery, they realized they needed a fourth reference point. Without much warning, the technician slapped a sticker on my butthole. Yes, you read that right.

It wasn’t announced with any buildup. Just: “SURPRISE!” Not the kind of surprise anyone wants. But honestly, by now any shred of dignity I once had has long since packed up and left. Weirdly enough, I didn’t even think it was that strange in the moment. I really hope that mindset resets when this is all over, because that’s not the kind of “new normal” I’m trying to keep.

As of this morning, things are moving again—literally. My intestines have woken up, and I lost seven pounds in one day. I’ll let you do the math on that one.

What I keep coming back to, though, is this: six months isn’t forever. It’s tough, yes, but I’ve surprised myself with the strength I’m finding along the way. I hoped it was there, but until life forces you to prove it, you never really know.

I’ve been through a lot—diabetes, nearly going blind, that car accident, and now cancer. Taking a step back, I’m in awe that I can sit here at my kitchen counter with a bag of shit stuck to my abdomen and still smile about it all. That’s a testament to my mom’s influence, my siblings’ support, my friends’ encouragement (that’s all of you), and ultimately what God knows I’m capable of.

For now, I’ll end this post here.

It seems like a number of my posts start the same way: me, sitting in a hotel room across from the MD Anderson campus, the night before something significant is about to happen. Tonight is no different.

Tomorrow I go in for surgery—the one I wanted to avoid at nearly any cost outside of my life. They’ll be placing an ostomy bag on my left side, right where the abdominal meets the oblique and about an inch above the belly button. After my third (and most alarmingly in-depth) ostomy training session this afternoon, I think the only appropriate descriptor for all this is: F%$K ME.

There’s no sugarcoating it—this won’t be easy. And while I sincerely appreciate people trying to be supportive (because really, what can you say?), if you think it’s “no big deal,” I’d like to invite you to get one too. We can treat it like matching tattoos—except instead of ink, you get an exit hole on your stomach! I’ll even pay for yours.

I know that sounds angry. It’s not, really. It’s mostly tongue-in-cheek, because what else can I do at this point but make jokes? The education nurse, while kind, seemed oddly dismissive, minimizing what this thing will actually mean for daily life. It’s glued to your body, dangling there after you clean the “hole.” Tucking in a shirt? Forget it—unless you want your waistband to clamp your bag. Exercising? Still trying to imagine how that works with this thing flopping around.

And then there was the pamphlet a second nurse gave me—some guy in his eighties, grinning while wearing what looked like a cummerbund to “disguise” the bag. Nothing says “discreet” like working out in a cummerbund. I’m sure there’s some solution I haven’t figured out yet, but right now, nothing about this screams subtle.

The worst part, though, is what I won’t go into detail about: cleaning the hole and sealing it correctly. If you don’t, you risk—you guessed it—leakage. I had some wild things on my “2025 THIS IS CRAZY” bingo card, but anal leakage from the front of my body? Not one of them.

So, to quote one of my favorite characters of all time—Mark Watney from The Martian: “Well, I’m fucked.”

But, like Watney, all I can do is solve the next problem, then the next, and keep going until there are no more problems left. Tomorrow’s surgery is around 10 a.m. Then I’ll hang out in the hospital, hopefully not hyper-fixating on my new “exit hole,” until Friday or Saturday. After that, I’ll head home to recover until the 28th, before moving to Houston for 40 days.

That’s the plan. But before I get there, let me pause this pity party and focus on what I am grateful for.

The day before I left Austin, the residents of my building—about 120 people—gave me a care package. Inside were handwritten notes from nearly every neighbor, filled with kindness that honestly floored me. It reminded me how important it is to tell people how you feel when you have the chance. Don’t wait. You might not always get another shot.

It also reminded me how lucky I am to have people supporting me through all this shit—pun absolutely intended. And because of that, even in the face of what feels like a massive indignity, it’s not as unbearable as my mind wants me to think.

It helps too when one of your oldest friends tells you, bluntly: “Stop being a bitch.” He knows me well enough to know this isn’t the hardest thing I’ve faced anyway.

So until next time (and it probably won’t be tomorrow, because I’ll be drugged out of my mind and liable to type gibberish if handed a computer), do me a favor: go tell the people around you how important they are. You never know who’s going through some shit too—and they might need to hear it.

I’m currently perched in a small window sill on the 7th floor of MD Anderson’s main building, drinking a below-average iced latte and listening to Blur’s Song 2. Out the window, I’m watching people and traffic pass by, soaking in a small moment of peace before I head in to talk with my colorectal surgeon.

There’s a sticker on my laptop that makes me laugh every time I see it. It says:
“This too shall pass, but like HOLY S**T.”
Honestly, that might be the most accurate mantra I’ve ever encountered.

I didn’t post an update yesterday—not because there wasn’t news, but because I didn’t want to let frustration and anger misrepresent it.

Yesterday included a CT scan, a visit with a geneticist, and then a meeting with my radiation oncologist. Let’s start with the good news: the cancer hasn’t spread and hasn’t ruptured the colon wall. That’s a win. That should have been the headline.

But that wasn’t the only news I got.

I also learned that an ostomy bag is unavoidable. Even if it’s temporary, it’s still a bag attached to the front of my stomach. From a personal and psychological standpoint, that hit me hard. It’s… well, shitty news. (Yes, pun intended.)

Then came the treatment schedule—turns out, I’ve been wildly optimistic. I had pictured myself done with radiation by the end of October, surgery by mid-November, and back to normal life in time for Thanksgiving.

Turns out, I suck at estimations. No surprise to Jeremy or anyone on my team at work who’s seen my feature timelines.

Here’s what the actual plan looks like: surgery for the ostomy bag on September 23, followed by 10 days of recovery, then five and a half weeks of radiation—with chemo during that time. Neither the duration nor the chemo were part of my original mental draft. After that, I’ll need a few weeks to recover before undergoing surgery to remove whatever’s left. And then, likely, eight rounds of harsh chemo to clean up anything hiding elsewhere in my body.

Which means… I’m in this until sometime next year.

So yeah, I didn’t write yesterday because it would’ve been a rambling stream of curse words, a bad pun, and then more swearing. I try to limit the profanity, if only to avoid getting a call from my mom about my language.

So that brings me to today, sitting in this window sill with my latte and my music. Cooler heads have prevailed. The anger’s dulled, and the question now is: what’s next?

Well, now I move forward.
The ostomy bag is coming—I’ll deal with it.
I’ll be staying in Houston for at least the next five or six weeks. Other than my buddy Dave and his son, I won’t be seeing many people in person while I adjust to this “crap bag” (last pun, I swear).

Then comes radiation and chemo, and I’ll get through that too. Because none of this—not cancer, not a bag, not even the damn chemo—gets to dictate how I live my life. No more than diabetes or anything else I’ve faced so far.

As I write this, I can feel my mood already shifting—upward. That happens a lot, especially when I write while listening to some good old rage rock. Korn, Tool, Pantera, Deftones… you get it. It’s shockingly therapeutic for me.

There’ve been some surprising, meaningful moments recently that I’m genuinely proud of.

At work, a senior leader invited me to give a safety message during an all-hands meeting—a big deal kind of event. Naturally, I got up and talked about cancer screening and how important it is. I managed to squeeze in a few jokes and, yes, a couple of curse words. Very professional… for me, anyway.

What followed was overwhelming: messages of love, support, shared stories—and most importantly, people showing me they were getting screened. That meant the world.

If this experience leads to even a handful of people I know (or just met) getting screened and catching something early—or avoiding it altogether—then this shitty process has another silver lining.

Also: my older brother continues to show up in huge ways. Everyone has, truly. But having a sibling who works in genetic oncology and knows how to navigate this mess? That’s been invaluable. He’s helped steer my treatment in ways only an expert can. I’m beyond grateful for that.

Next, I need to find a place to live in Houston—probably in Montrose so Tugboat (my dog) has some stuff to do. I’ll pack up some cookware, pick out the books and video games I want to bring, and try to make the most of the time.

If I’m lucky, I’ll spend it gaming, reading, resting, cooking, maybe even studying a bit. Hopefully not going crazy in a city that still feels kind of alien, alone except for Tugboat.

Normally I’d be excited about living somewhere new—meeting people, trying food and coffee spots—but with the ostomy bag situation, I’m not sure how social I’ll be. We’ll see. Time will tell.

But for now, all I need to do is get through today.
And then see what tomorrow has in store.

For the past two weeks, I haven’t had much to say—at least not anything worth writing down. No big updates. No medical drama. Just a slow, weird limbo where I’ve existed between cautious hope and quiet dread. So, I didn’t blog.

But tomorrow, that all changes.

Tomorrow kicks off two full days of progress scans and appointments—CTs, scopes, bloodwork, and a lovely lineup of doctors ready to poke, prod, and pronounce how the last eight weeks have gone. It’s a lot. There’s the “scope,” which is as undignified as ever, and somehow always manages to feel like the lowest moment of an already surreal process.

For the last couple weeks, I’ve been bouncing somewhere between nervously excited and scared to death about these appointments. Because the truth is: I have no real idea where I stand. None. I’d love to say I’m confident that things are trending in the right direction, but… I just can’t. Not honestly. There have been new aches, strange discomforts—things that might be nothing, but my brain doesn’t do “might.” It races straight to the worst-case scenario. Is it something? Is it nothing? I don’t know yet. And not knowing is exhausting.

Here’s what I do know: I’m hoping they’ll tell me the cancer has shrunk and that there’s no sign of spread. That would mean I could avoid the ostomy bag—at least for now—as I head into radiation. That’s the best-case scenario, and while I don’t expect it, I’m holding onto it with cautious fingers. The more likely outcome? The tumor hasn’t spread, but it also hasn’t shrunk much either, and the bag is unavoidable. That’s what I’m preparing myself for.

People—good, supportive, well-meaning people—have tried to reassure me. “It won’t be that bad,” they say. “It’s short term.” I know they’re trying their best to help me see the upside in a situation that, frankly, is just complete shit. Pun absolutely intended. But here’s the deal: there’s no neat silver lining here that I can wrap myself in. Not yet.

That said, I’ll be living in Houston during this phase, and maybe that’s something of a silver lining. I won’t be running into familiar faces or fielding uncomfortable questions about the bag or how it works or what it’s like. Not that my friends would ever ask so directly. But anyone reading this knows that I’d end up talking about it anyway—because I have no boundaries. So maybe a little isolation in Houston is a gift in disguise. We’ll see.

Tonight, I’m back in the same hotel room where this whole thing began. I’m staring out the same window, across at the glowing MD Anderson sign, wondering if tomorrow will be another one of those seminal moments in this messy, brutal, beautiful fight. I hope so.

For now, it’s late. I’ve got a good book to keep me company—My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante—and two long days ahead that I’m trying very hard not to overthink.

No, I haven’t lost my optimism. It’s still here. Just a little guarded right now, as tomorrow inches closer.

It’s Monday night, and I am officially done with chemotherapy—three hours ago, I took my pump off for the eighth and (hopefully) final time. This is definitely a reason to celebrate, and I’m happy to have this part behind me. But let’s be real: I’m far, far from through with all the crap—pun intended.

Next up are scans, then 30 days of radiation, and finally surgery. With scans coming in about three weeks, my mind now has plenty of time to wander into dark places filled with “what ifs.” What if the chemo didn’t work and the cancer has spread? What if the tumor hasn’t shrunk and I end up needing an ostomy bag for a while? Or worst of all—what if I need more chemo? These thoughts creep in whenever I’m idle, and since I’ll soon be on FMLA during radiation (living in Houston with no clue what to expect), I know there’s a lot of idle time ahead.

Normally, I’d be thrilled for a little downtime. But in this situation, I’ve been trying to figure out how to keep myself busy—beyond reading and exercising—so I don’t fall into the “what if” trap. Naturally, I decided on two things: diving deeper into security and AI, and… cooking.

Yeah, you read that right. Cooking.

Let me be clear: I am not a cook. But in anticipation of becoming a world-class chef who specializes in the greatest chicken biscuit sandwich on earth, I went out and bought a mountain of high-end cooking gear. Knives, stainless steel pots and pans, a fancy baking pan, a mixer, a blender, a spice grinder (don’t ask—I don’t know why either), and about thirty other gadgets I was convinced would turn me into Gordon Ramsay overnight. The goal? To make a chicken biscuit sandwich so good it cures both cancer and diabetes. Ambitious? Sure. But hey, what’s the point of goals if they aren’t stretch goals?

Of course, I quickly learned the hard truth: tools don’t instantly make you a good chef. My “plan” was off to a pretty shitty start—pun again intended. But I wasn’t about to be deterred. I went back to Williams Sonoma, where I’d bought all my gear, and struck up a conversation with a woman running a cooking demo. One thing led to another, and suddenly I had a chef coming over to give me private cooking lessons.

So far, on my quest toward the super-chicken-biscuit, we started with knife skills and made shrimp scampi. And let me tell you—it was really good.

Now, instead of letting my mind drift to all those dark places, I find it wandering toward food—or buried in cookbooks. I don’t know if that’s necessarily “better,” but at least it keeps me distracted and gives me something to focus on until the next scan, and until I move on to the next phase of this cancer crap.

I’m not sure if cooking will end up being a new passion or just a distraction, but for now it’s giving me something to focus on other than the “what ifs.” And honestly, if the worst thing I come out of this with is a killer chicken biscuit recipe… I’ll take it.