I sat down at my computer this morning intending to write about my clinical trial.

The start date is set now. The appointments are scheduled. Things are finally moving forward. I figured I should probably start writing more regularly again as all of this ramps up.

Then Tugboat looked over at me from across the room like I was making a terrible decision.

He was right.

I’ve spent so much time over the last year thinking about what I might miss out on if things go the wrong way that I sometimes forget about all the things I still get to do right now. The little things. The ordinary things. The things that probably don’t sound important until you start realizing they’re actually everything.

So instead of writing, I put on my shoes, put in my earbuds, turned on an audiobook, and took Tugboat for a walk. It was his second walk of the morning, but that didn’t seem to matter to him.

We made our way down Fifth Street toward Nate’s Baked Goods, my favorite neighborhood coffee shop. Tugboat stopped every few feet to sniff or mark something he had already sniffed or marked a thousand times before, and I listened to The Vegetarian by Han Kang. So far, it’s really good. Also really bizarre. I have absolutely no idea where it’s going, but I enjoyed listening to it while Tugboat and I slowly wandered through the neighborhood.

When we got to the coffee shop, I switched from listening to one book to reading another because apparently I don’t know how to consume stories one at a time. I spent about an hour reading The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner while Tugboat collected treats and belly rubs from the yoga girls getting out of Black Swan’s 9 a.m. class.

I still can’t adequately explain what The Flamethrowers is about. As best I can tell, it’s about a girl dating an Italian guy whose family makes motorcycles and then they go to Italy. That’s probably doing the book a tremendous disservice. But I’m enjoying it, and I’m hoping to finish it tonight before bed.

After the coffee shop, I spent a couple of hours at the gym with friends doing squats, deadlifts, power cleans, and pushing and pulling a sled around in the Texas heat. I sweated out what felt like every ounce of water in my body and then sat in the sauna to make sure I got the rest. I have a love-hate relationship with every minute of it. But somewhere along the way, I’ve found myself becoming grateful for every rep. Every set. Every workout I still have the energy to do.

The rest of the day was spent doing ordinary things. I cooked tandoori chicken. Took a nap. Walked Tugboat to the dog park and Healthy Pet. Called my mom twice. Some days we don’t have much to talk about, but those conversations are always welcome.

I also stopped by Trader Joe’s and picked up some food for Ruben, the homeless guy who lives on the corner near me. He’s a really nice guy. A little crazy, maybe, but loved by God just as much as I am. Buying him crackers and black beans isn’t something I do because I think I’m a good person. It’s something I do because it feels like a privilege God has given me. I still don’t know how he opens the cans of beans. But somehow he manages. So I keep buying them. It’s only a few dollars worth of food. I never mind.

Later in the afternoon I watched a few Yes Theory videos about people finding incredible community in places the world says it shouldn’t exist. Those stories always make me dream a little. They remind me there are still places I want to see and people I want to meet.

When I finally came back to my computer this evening, I spent a long time staring at the blank screen. Not writing. Just thinking.

And it hit me that I’ve spent so much of the last year worrying about losing life that I’ve sometimes overlooked the life God keeps giving me every single day. Not the big moments. Not bucket-list experiences. Not accomplishments.

The small things.

Walking Tugboat to get coffee. Reading books on a patio. Working out with friends. Calling my mom. Buying Ruben food. Taking naps. Cooking dinner.

The mundane things.

The things that don’t seem important until you realize they’re the very things you’ll miss most someday.

The funny thing is that I know people probably came here hoping for an update about treatment.

So here it is.

This Friday I’ll be at MD Anderson for an EKG and an echocardiogram. Then the clinical trial starts the following Monday. The plan is to take a pill every day for twenty-one days and receive an infusion at the beginning of each cycle. Then there will be a seven-day break before starting again.

The trial lasts six months.

Somewhere along the way, and again at the end, they’ll do blood work to see whether the cancer is gone.

I don’t really know what to expect. But I do know that the doctors aren’t anticipating many side effects, and for that I’m grateful.

Beyond that, my plan is pretty simple.

I’m going to keep walking Tugboat to the coffee shop. Keep reading through the ridiculous stack of books waiting for me. Keep working out with my friends. Keep buying Ruben food. Keep calling my mom. Keep thanking God for every day I’m given.

Because the reality is that none of us are promised anything. Not next year. Not next month. Not tomorrow.

All any of us really have is today.

And today was good.

Tomorrow I’ll wake up and do my best to enjoy whatever ordinary blessings God puts in front of me then. Next week the trial starts. Maybe it will be difficult. Maybe it won’t. Either way, I’ll keep showing up to the life in front of me.

The coffee. The books. The dog walks. The gym. The friends. The family. The small things.

The things that are easy to overlook until you realize they were the things that made life beautiful all along.

I’ll probably be writing more regularly once the trial gets underway. Expect at least a little hyperbole. Otherwise these updates might get pretty boring.

For now, though, I’m hungry, ready for bed, and looking forward to finishing my book before the week ahead begins.

See you all soon.

I meant to write something sooner. The problem is there hasn’t really been much to write about.

Lately life has felt like driving through West Texas. Not the pretty parts. The other parts. The parts where you’ve been staring out the window for three hours and you’re not entirely convinced the scenery is changing at all. Every now and then a gas station shows up. Or a billboard advertising fireworks, Jesus, or fireworks for Jesus. Then it’s right back to miles of highway and scrub brush and the same horizon doing the same thing it was doing 20 minutes ago.

That’s kind of where I am right now.

I’m in the clinical trial. I don’t actually know when it starts yet, but I do know I’m in it. Which feels like a weird sentence to say out loud, but here we are. I know what the treatment plan will look like once it kicks off. Pills for 21 days. Infusion on day one. Seven days off. Then repeat that whole thing for six months and try not to overthink it.

I had a PET scan and it came back clean. Which is good. I think. Cancer has gotten really good at giving me updates that are both “great news” and “cool, still annoying though” at the same time. Nothing showed up on the scan, which is obviously what you want. But also, the reason nothing showed up is because whatever they’re looking for is apparently too small to see right now. So the official situation is: it’s there… we just can’t see it… which is awesome… and also not awesome.

So we wait. And we treat what we can’t see and hope it gets bored and leaves.

The treatment itself doesn’t sound too terrible. At least that’s what everyone keeps telling me, which is exactly what you say right before handing someone an 80-page list of things that could go wrong. I started reading it, then stopped reading it. Somewhere around page 12 it stopped feeling like medical information and started feeling like the Terms and Conditions for being alive.

I’m pretty sure I saw something in there about losing the ability to turn left, which I think is technically called Zoolander Syndrome. If you didn’t get that reference, just Google it. Or don’t. Your life is probably better either way.

What’s been interesting lately is how many people seem worried that I’m losing hope. That’s probably my fault. Because the truth is… not much has changed.

I still wake up. I still go to work. I still go to the gym. I still walk Tugboat. I still read. I still laugh at dumb things way too hard. I still spend way too much time thinking about books I’m not finishing, cars I’m not buying, trips I’m not taking yet. Most days are just… days.

And I think I’ve finally realized that’s not a downgrade.

When this all started, I think I expected a personality shift. Like the movies make it seem like you get diagnosed and immediately become someone who quits their job, climbs something dangerous, forgives everyone, and suddenly becomes spiritually enlightened while also learning piano. That hasn’t really happened.

What has happened is I mostly just want more Tuesdays. More boring mornings. More normal workouts. More evenings on the couch doing absolutely nothing important. More walks where Tugboat acts like he’s being recognized in public for reasons I still don’t understand.

I don’t really think about bucket lists the same way anymore. Not because there aren’t things I want to do — there are plenty. I still want to drive from Antwerp to Montenegro with Dean and Mike, stopping anytime something looks remotely interesting or stupid enough to justify pulling over. I still want to travel. I still want to see new places.

But I’ve realized that’s not really the thing I’m trying to hold onto. It’s everything around it. The boring stuff. The stuff you don’t think about when everything is normal. The stuff that doesn’t make a good story. The stuff you don’t post. The stuff you only realize mattered when someone reminds you it’s not guaranteed.

And the weird twist is that if this trial works — and I really hope it does — the actual reward isn’t some dramatic “new chapter.” It’s just… getting to be bored again. Back to work. Back to the gym. Back to reading books I probably bought too many of. Back to complaining about the Austin heat like it’s a personal betrayal. Back to Tugboat being a celebrity for no reason whatsoever.

Just the normal stuff. The good stuff.

Tonight I’ll read a little more of The Flamethrowers. I’ll probably try to pet Tugboat while he snores like he’s paying rent. I’ll look at the stack of 44 books on my dresser and pretend that was a responsible decision at some point in my life. It wasn’t. But that’s Future Me’s problem.

For now, I’m just sitting here in the middle of this long stretch of West Texas highway. The scenery still hasn’t changed much. And for once, I’m not in a rush for it to.

This week, I should be getting some news about what comes next.

I know I have a PET scan, which seems to be way easier than a CT scan from everything I have read. So of course that probably means it will be anything but easy. That’s generally how these things work.

After that, on Wednesday, I talk to the doctor about the clinical trial. There was one spot left in this trial, and it sounds like it may have been held for me for a while. I’m not sure whether I should be flattered by that or pissed off.

For now, I’m going to assume it’s God’s hand at work and that this is all going to go well.

I did get some paperwork the other day explaining the drugs I’ll be on. Most of it read like Greek. The part about side effects, however, was pretty interesting.

Compared to everything else I’ve been through, this sounds like it won’t be too hard on me, which is encouraging.

Of course, since it’s a drug trial, the pharmaceutical company listed every possible side effect known to mankind. The list seemed to range from fatigue all the way to your eyeballs melting out of your skull like the Nazis at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So there’s that to look forward to.

I realized after getting some thoughtful messages from friends that my last couple of posts may have given off the impression that I’m standing on the edge of a cliff, one inconvenience away from completely imploding.

That’s not really the case.

I did have a pity party for about a day. That’s usually my M.O.

After that, I got over it and went back to normal.

I don’t know what’s going to happen, and that isn’t ideal. But I can control how I handle today and however many todays I get after that.

So life has largely returned to normal.

I’m still working, although I’ve been thinking about whether I should move into a different role so the team that depends on me gets the support they need and deserve this year. Last year, I had a lot of great people step in and help carry the load. This year, some of those people have moved on, so I’m looking at what makes the most sense.

Beyond that, I leave work around 4:30 most afternoons, drag some form of exercise equipment out into the Texas sun and humidity, and do my very best to nearly kill myself with a CrossFit-style workout.

There are a couple reasons for that.

The first is that I want my fitness as high as possible for whatever comes next. I know exercise and sunshine can’t kill cancer, but if I can get my cardiovascular fitness up, my VO2 max up, my heart rate variability up, my strength up, my body fat down, and my overall health moving in the right direction, it stands to reason that I’ll be better prepared for whatever fight is ahead.

At least that’s what I tell myself every time I’m lying on the ground in the middle of a workout, questioning my life choices while a little voice in my head screams, “Get up. Do another rep.”

So far, so good.

We’ll see.

The other thing exercise does is flood the brain with enough endorphins to make it really difficult to throw yourself a pity party for very long.

The workouts have been difficult, but I find myself grateful to God that I can still do them reasonably well.

There’s also something oddly satisfying about choosing to suffer on purpose for an hour. Cancer may get a vote in what happens next, but every afternoon I still get to choose to walk out into that heat and do something hard.

Regardless of what my Whoop app thinks about the situation.

For now, there isn’t much more to talk about.

I’m eating well. I avoid Diet Coke and processed foods most of the time. Tugboat still wants very little to do with me unless I am actively providing him with something of value.

Otherwise, I’m pretty sure he’d lock me in a closet with the vacuum cleaner.

If he weren’t terrified of the vacuum cleaner himself.

They say dogs can smell illness in the body. Since he doesn’t seem to be acting any more concerned than usual—and by “concerned” I mean being his normal level of jerk—maybe things are trending in the right direction.

If he could talk, I wonder what he’d tell me.

Actually, that’s not true.

I know exactly what he’d tell me.

“GIVE ME A DAMN PUP CUP AND GO AWAY.”

Oh well.

For now, it’s off to bed.

Tomorrow will get here whether I’m ready for it or not.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, it’s that worrying about tomorrow has never once made tomorrow easier.

So I’ll deal with it when it gets here.

Tonight, sleep sounds like a much better plan.