Life in the Stupid Lane

It’s been nearly three days since my first chemotherapy session ended, and I’m happy to report that the side effects I was warned about have been relatively mild—all things considered. Nausea and fatigue have popped in intermittently, but not nearly to the extreme I had imagined.

On Saturday afternoon, I disconnected my chemo pump—a little gray device about the size of an old-school Game Boy, housed in a very functional-looking black fanny pack. It had a long, clear tube running from the pump, under my shirt, to a chemo port just below my right collarbone.

I had gone through a quick training session on how to properly disconnect it, but true to form, I didn’t retain all the instructions. When the time came, it felt more like a movie scene where the good guy has to cut the right wire to disarm a bomb. Spoiler: I cut the wrong one, and it quickly turned into something more out of a Saw movie than Mission: Impossible.

With some distance from the ordeal, I now realize the mistake was not clamping the port line correctly after disconnecting the saline flush. That let a solid, freaking crazy spray of blood shoot out of the line. I can see now why they recommend having someone help you with these things. But, like most things in life, I’m stubborn and terrible at asking for help—so I just sucked it up and did it myself. Sort of. I didn’t pass out or die or anything, so for a first attempt, I’m calling it a win.

Once everything was cleaned up, I got my first good look at the incision on my chest from where the port was placed. I wasn’t ready for that moment. It’s not a bad-looking wound—it’s small, really—but I wasn’t prepared for how much it would symbolize. It’ll be a forever reminder of this whole ordeal, right there in the mirror every day. Most of my other scars are out of sight, which makes the memories that go with them easy to forget. Not this one. 

In that moment, my inner monologue decided to try and help by quoting The Replacements, with Keanu Reeves. In that movie he plays a scab quarterback during an NFL strike, and toward the end, his team is about to score for the final time in the movie. In the huddle, his teammates look to him for something inspiring, and he says, “I wish I could say something classy and inspirational, but that just isn’t our style.” He pauses, then adds, “Pain heals, chicks dig scars, and glory lasts forever.”

That’s what my brain offered me while I stood there, staring at my new most prominent scar. I’m not entirely sure what that moment was supposed to mean, but it felt right, and it still makes me smile. Interpret it however you want—you’re probably right too.

After all that nonsense, I was encouraged to find I had enough energy to get two workouts in since the port came out. They weren’t hard, but they were satisfying. A small victory. I never thought I’d look at my buddies suffering through burpees, rowing, or deadlifts and feel jealous—but here we are. I think I’ll be back at it soon. I just need that scar to seal up first. Then we’ll see what’s possible.

Another bright spot? I still have a pretty healthy appetite—even if my cravings are a bit bizarre. Right now, I can’t stop thinking about Taco Bell. Specifically, bean and cheese burritos. I have nothing against Taco Bell, but the intensity of the craving makes me wonder if the cancer has spread to my brain. Still, I’ve driven there… twice. So maybe it’s just chemo brain and nothing more.

And then there’s Tugboat.

You hear all these stories about dogs becoming extra sympathetic when their humans are sick—never leaving their side, being all loving and attentive, blah blah blah. Tugboat? Not so much.

While I was away for treatment, he stayed with my friends Vince and Janice, who live on a different floor in my building. When I went to pick him up after four days of chemo, he did everything in his power not to come home. He made it very clear that the luxury resort life at Vince and Janice’s place was vastly superior to life with me and my IV bags.

When I finally got him home, he sat at the door and cried for two hours—pausing only to glare at me for ruining his vacation. Even now, as I write this and he’s snoring at the end of my bed, I swear he’s cursing me between the breaths.

Still, I’m glad to have him nearby. There’s something indescribably comforting about that little jerk. Even if he’s mad, even if he’s betrayed, even if he’d rather be down stairs eating filet mignon and watching Netflix, there’s a peace that settles in when he’s close. Like his snoring keeps out some kind of creeping darkness that might otherwise sneak in.

I don’t really know what I expected to happen in the first 36 hours of chemotherapy. I guess I envisioned myself draped over the rim of a toilet, vomiting constantly—like a 20-something after a long night of drinking on 6th Street.

So far, that couldn’t be further from reality. My nausea has been mild at its worst and nonexistent most of the day. I am worried it’ll get worse once I disconnect the pump in about 18 hours, but the truth is, I don’t really know what comes next. Everyone reacts different according to my medical team.

I carry the pump in a fanny pack, with a plastic tube that runs from it, up under my shirt to the chemo port above my right pectoral, just under the skin. A doctor put the port in on Wednesday, and it’s still tender to the touch. When I think about all of this in its entirety, it disgusts me as much as it amazes me. Medicine is kind of wild. The idea that I’m pumping poison into my body—through a self-contained pump—in the hopes that it kills the cancer before it kills me… that’s sobering. Sadly, not the kind of sobering that helps with nausea, but sobering nonetheless.

The pump makes a churning sound as it pushes the drugs into my system, and every time I hear it, my stomach turns. I think it’s psychosomatic—everyone tells me I can’t actually feel the drugs going in—but when I hear that sound, I feel something. And it’s unpleasant.

Last night, that churning made it hard to sleep. It was the only thing with me in the dark of my bedroom, until I found a white noise YouTube channel that plays rainstorms. That drowned it out enough to let me sleep well. Tugboat would’ve hated that sound—he’s terrified of thunder—so part of me was glad he stayed with neighbors while I rested, even if I did miss having him at the end of the bed.

It’s been strange, waking up a few times in the night and not finding him there, snoring like a fat little loaf of bread. That sound—his snoring, like the storm white noise—is comforting. I missed it in those brief moments between waking and falling back asleep.

But I’m thankful he’s able to stay with friends. Honestly, I find myself feeling grateful for a lot right now. For my people. My older brother—the stoic one who always shows up to do the things that don’t come easy to me—has been a godsend. My mom, even in all her anxious worrying (the kind moms do no matter how old or capable you may be), has been praying constantly and mothering even more vigorously than usual. That’s always welcome, even when I don’t show it.

And the friends—checking in, offering to help with the little things that I know I’ll start to need help with as this drags on and maybe starts to take more of a toll—that’s deeply moving. I can’t thank them enough. Every text, every offer, every little note of concern has meant the world. Even if I’m slow to respond, even if I don’t always express it in the moment—I am grateful.

Because of all of this, I’m able to sleep well tonight. Lights off, in my own bed, with thunderstorm white noise, mild symptoms, and some real optimism about tomorrow. When this pump comes off, I’ll get a small break from this chemo crap and a brief return to something that looks like normal—for a little while, at least, until I do it all over again in two weeks.

But until then… tomorrow is going to be a good day.

Well, the unknown wasn’t that bad after all—probably not too surprising.
That being said, a chemo port completely sucks.

They made a small incision somewhere near my collarbone on the right side of my chest. I can’t really tell exactly where it is because of the bandages, but I know it’s there—and that there’s a device under my skin. When I stand up, I can feel gravity pulling on it. It’s not painful exactly, just awkward and weird-feeling.

Tomorrow morning, I start chemotherapy. I think I’m as ready as I’ll ever be to have poison pumped directly into my heart. I keep saying that, because it still feels wild to me that that’s what’s actually going to happen.

Still, I’m holding out hope for some of the less talked about side effects—the ones I almost certainly imagined while on anesthesia. You know, like being able to see seven seconds into the future, developing perfect pitch, or suddenly knowing how to paint. That’d be cool.

There were a few bright spots today that I really appreciated. My mom’s best friend—who we’ve always called Aunt Eliane—was kind enough to take me to the surgery. I hadn’t read the location info carefully, and it turned out I needed to be at the Woodlands campus, which was an hour north of where I was staying. On the drive, we got to talk—really talk—for the first time as adults, for more than just a couple of minutes.

She shared stories about my mom, my dad, and my Uncle Calvin, who died in a plane crash before I was born. I knew he was a pilot flying missions for missionaries when he died, but I never really knew any details about his life beyond the highlights. Hearing about him like that was a silver lining to an otherwise crappy day, and I was really grateful for it.

I heard someone say that no good story ever happens when everything is going right. I liked that.

Things are going okay right now, all things considered. But even if that saying holds true, I still hope this ends up being a good story—because of the hard parts, not in spite of them.

We’ll see where this story goes. But for now, I’m just out here looking for all the silver linings I can find. It’s late-ish, and tomorrow is the start of another new adventure.

I’m scared of the dark.

I have been ever since I started having issues with my eyesight back in 2005. When I’m in an unfamiliar place, I tend to sleep with the lights on—like in a hotel at MD Anderson.

I’m back at MD Anderson for the second week in a row, getting ready to have a chemo port placed tomorrow. The day after that, I start an aggressive chemotherapy protocol.

By all accounts, I should be terrified. And I think, deep down, I am. But I’ve been doing a pretty good job of not letting myself feel it—not really. Not yet.

Today alone, I fielded no less than a dozen calls from nurse practitioners, clinical specialists, doctors, and other well-meaning professionals. They all walked me through what to expect in the coming days. One talked me through the port procedure—how they’ll cut me open and attach a nickel-sized device to one of my major arteries so they can run a line straight to my heart. You know, so they can pump poison into me more easily. That one will haunt my dreams for a while for sure…

She also went over all the risks, most of which sounded like plot points in a SAW movie.

Then came the chemo prep—and the complete bonkers  list of side effects.

You know those drug commercials where they casually list horrifying things like “Side effects may include…” and then list some of the crazies things you’ve ever heard in your life?  Yeah. This was like that. But worse.

After the first few—eyeballs melting, spontaneous combustion, an inability to survive without witchcraft—I just started tuning out. It was the only way I stood a chance at ever sleeping again.

If it’s not obvious by now, one of my best defense mechanisms is stupid humor. I crack jokes because it keeps me from cracking open. And writing this, it’s becoming clearer to me that I am scared. Not just about tomorrow, but about everything that comes after.

Like with the dark, it’s not what I can see that scares me—it’s the unknown.

What will life look like when this is all over?
What if it’s never over?
What if it is?

I’ve been telling myself I’m not that scared. And maybe on the surface, I’m not. But now that I’ve written it all out… I am.

So for tonight, I’ll sleep with the lights on.

My dad left me a Bible when he passed away in the mid-eighties. It’s my most prized possession by far. (Luckily, Tugboat—my judgmental little corgi—doesn’t read this blog, so he won’t be offended. First, for being referred to as a possession, and second, for not being my most prized one.)

On the inside cover of that Bible, there’s a childish doodle I made on 11/18/1984. I know the date because he wrote it in that day, for reasons I’ll never know. He died eight months later, on 7/29/1985.

The Bible is old and falling apart in places. Everything from Philippians to Revelation has come loose from the binding. I had always intended to get it rebound, but over the last few weeks, I’ve started to like its brokenness and age.

I’ve opened that Bible a lot lately, flipping through the pages at random. Yesterday, while doing it again, I came across a verse my dad underlined—Matthew 6:27. It says, “Who of you by worrying can add a single day to your life?”

I have to assume he read that at a time when he already knew he was dying and found some kind of peace in it. I did too, when I read it yesterday. It might sound campy to some, but I don’t think it was a coincidence. I doubt my dad knew I’d need that verse for a similar reason, long after he was gone. But I do believe it was put in front of me at this exact time to give me hope.

My friend Willis said something to me not long ago that really stuck. He told me that when things show up like this—when moments line up too perfectly to explain—it isn’t coincidence. It’s God. It’s His way of putting something in front of you because He knows what you need, even when you don’t. I’ve chosen to believe that, too.

Hope and optimism have always been two of my stronger traits—especially now. And why wouldn’t they be, honestly? I really only have two choices: I can either worry, or I can hope. If things go badly, at least I didn’t waste whatever time I had left being afraid of something I couldn’t control. But if things go the way I hope, it’ll be that much sweeter.

I know some people might read this and think I’m being ridiculous—or something of the sort. That’s ok, I get it. It doesn’t change how I feel. I’m still hopeful. I’m hopeful that tomorrow, when I meet my radiation oncologist and we move forward with the treatment plan, things will go okay. I’m hopeful that tomorrow is the next step in a shitty journey that ends well.

This post probably reads a little oddly, maybe a little rambling at times. But I wrote it for anyone and everyone who’s worrying. Have faith. Keep hope. Things will be okay—for me, and for you—whatever it is you’re hopeful for.

For now, its time to call it a night.  I want to watch the Last of Us so I can be reminded that no matter whatever comes next, its not likely to be zombies…

It’s 184 miles from the Intercontinental Hotel at MD Anderson, where i was staying this week, to the front door of my condo in Austin. That meant I had a little under three hours today to feel sorry for myself, driving through rural East Texas to a soundtrack mostly made up of ’90s grunge rock.

After yesterday, I was struggling to shake something Dr. Yu said: the tumor was Stage 3 but could become Stage 4 soon.

Because the original pathology report said Stage 2, then the MRI said Stage 3, and now MD Anderson was saying potentially Stage 4, the steady progression of bad news had me spiraling. So there I was, somewhere between Houston and nowhere, wrestling with this while listening to the soundtrack of my teenage years—Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, and Blur, most notably. Song 2 still holds up.

There were two things I couldn’t get out of my head on my drive home.

The first was the “what now?” question.

This shouldn’t have been that hard to figure out. I like to think I’m fairly pragmatic when it comes to the important stuff in life. But this question had me more stumped than any problem I’ve run into in recent memory.

I couldn’t seem to move past it to even attempt an answer. And every time the song changed during the drive, the question looped back in my mind like a skipping record.

The second thing I kept circling around was the whole idea that cancer is a fight.

This one wasn’t upsetting—it was just confusing. I don’t know why almost everyone in medicine insists on using that language. It’s not a fight, at least not in the sense that I can physically do something to impact the outcome.

The only “fight” I can foresee in this process is the one I’ll have when some well-meaning hippy starts telling me to cure cancer with magnets, ionized water, or essential oils. That person, God help them, is going to get a Jason Statham-style dropkick to the chest like they’re a nameless henchman in one of his movies.

But cancer? It’s not a fight. It’s a process. A step-by-step ordeal. And right about the time I came to that conclusion, I figured out how to answer the “what now?” question.

This is going to suck. That part’s guaranteed. But we have a plan. And all I can—and will—do is follow that plan:

See a doctor.
Get scoped.
See another doctor.
Get a chemo port.
Get chemo (yay!).
Get radiation.
Practice drop kick technique.
Drop kick advocate for essential oils as a cure for cancer.
Get more chemo.
Drop kick idiot telling me magnets will cure cancer.
Get surgery.
Don’t die.

I’m not sure why it took the better part of 100 miles for that to finally settle into place. But there it was. Pity party over—just in time to stop at Buc-ee’s in Bastrop for all the junk food my doctors now say I shouldn’t eat… FML.

By the time I pulled back into Austin, I’d also realized that not much is actually going to change right now.

I’m still going to CrossFit—had to include this just to make Ed roll his eyes while reading from vacation.  I’m still going to work and see through the big project we’ve got coming up, because I like my team.  I’m still going to walk Tugboat and get ignored by women who only want to talk to him.  I’ll still play video games with my brothers, read the 12 books stacked on my nightstand, keep grinding through grad school, and talk shit—no colon pun intended—to Dean and Mike over Saturday coffee at Nate’s Baked Goods.

Most interesting of all: I’m going to work on a solution to help fix a gap I’ve seen in healthcare education—especially in oncology offices—with the help of some great friends. That feels like something worth doing.

I guess the point of this rambling post is that I’m going to be okay, regardless of what happens with the cancer. Life’s challenging for all of us. This just happens to be my very public challenge…mostly of my own doing, I know.

And I’ll face it with the same lack of dignity and seriousness I tend to apply to most things in life—and we’ll see what happens.

Stay tuned for the rest, if you’d like.

If nothing else, it’ll be interesting to see how many people I end up drop-kicking in the next few months.

My dad died in 1985 from a glioblastoma—a brain tumor that spread into his spine. I only have pieces of memories from that time. I was six years old.

One sliver I do remember is sitting in a hospital, looking through the porthole of a hyperbaric chamber as he sat in a metal room with other sickly-looking people receiving treatment. I remember how fragile he looked.

This morning, while I sat in a waiting room in the main building of MD Anderson watching people walk past, that memory was at the forefront of my mind—but maybe not for the reason you’d expect.

I found myself smiling, thinking about all the times my dad might have sat in the same kind of rooms, waiting for news on his prognosis. In that moment, I felt connected to my dad in a way that brought me peace—comfort I haven’t often felt in my life.

I’ve said I believe in God, and I choose to believe that this wasn’t just a random childhood memory rushing back from some subconscious trigger. Maybe it was something more. Either way, it was the comfort I didn’t know I needed—and I found myself sitting there smiling like an idiot.

I don’t know if it’s just my nature or something else, but as depressing as a cancer hospital can be, I kept catching myself smiling at people, saying hello, trying to make conversation—just being upbeat.

Partially for my own sanity, but mostly for those around me. I don’t know if it made a difference to anyone specifically, but I figure it didn’t hurt. It’s like a prayer. It costs nothing to give, and it might change everything for someone—even if you never know.

One lesson I did learn today: never ask someone, “What type of cancer do you have?” Because if it turns into a competition, nobody wants to win that game. The trophy sucks ass—pun fully intended.

I met with a colorectal specialist named Dr. Yu. She came highly recommended by medical professionals who are much smarter than I’ll ever be.

I had a sense of what to expect, thanks to the prep work my nurse advocate walked me through. So when I found myself on an exam table in the fetal position with a camera “in me,” watching my own tumor on a screen while Dr. Yu explained what was good and what was bad, I couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all.

Then she started taking biopsies—live, on screen, while I felt it happening in real time. It was the worst interactive movie ever made. Zero stars.

Once I recovered—I’ll spare you those details, though I will say I’m glad I never put much stock in dignity—Dr. Yu told me the cancer was Stage 3 and could be progressing to Stage 4.

That hit harder than any procedure so far. What ran screaming through my brain was the drop in five-year survival rates from Stage 3 to Stage 4—about a 70% difference.

I tried to stay focused. We laid out a treatment plan that’s aggressive but feels hopeful: two months of intravenous chemo, followed by radiation, more chemo (I think), and then surgery.

There were other options, but they involved colostomy bags or experimental treatments that had a zero percent chance of granting superpowers. So, I chose the reasonable path, all things considered.

I took a free shuttle from MD Anderson back to the hotel. During the 10-minute ride—I would’ve walked if I hadn’t just been anally probed for the better part of an hour—while I stared out the window at the passing medical center and talked to God. Mostly about all the things I still want to do before my time’s up.

This evening, back at the hotel, still looking out the same hotel window at that hospital that’s now going to have to save my life soon, I ran back through that list—and I smiled again.

Here’s that list:

1. I really want to go to F1 with Dave and his son in October.
2. I want to take Dean’s Cobra from Antwerp down to Tivat with Mike and Dean next year.
3. I really want to see the last Fast & Furious movie with my brothers and Zac.
4. I’d like to finish my master’s and spend a summer weekend at Ed Skoudis’s beach house talking theology and books.
5. I’d like to work for Mike Hanley at some point.
6. I’d like to take Tugboat on a road trip where he doesn’t freak out the entire time—which I assume is an indictment of my driving, according to him.
7. I really want to take my mom back to Berlin with my siblings before time runs out.
8. I’d like to play the new Borderlands with my brothers.
9. I want to see all my nieces and nephews grow into adults.
10. And while some will roll their eyes at this—I want to see my dev team get through 2025 with the same success we had in 2024.

I’m sitting in my hotel room at the Intercontinental Hotel, staring out the window at MD Anderson and wondering if tomorrow, they’ll be telling me whether or not they can save my life. This is a surreal moment—almost certainly a seminal moment in my life—and as good a place to start this story as any other.

A month ago—April 2nd—I was most concerned with applying for internal cybersecurity jobs at my company while trying to get through my most recent grad school class. Then I had a colonoscopy, and all those things faded into the background of life, like strangers’ conversations in a coffee shop.

Cancer is a strange thing to hear you have—though technically, I didn’t get told I had cancer. No, I got handed a piece of paper while getting into a car, still coming down from anesthesia, that said, “full obstruction in the colon.” That’s still the thing I’m most upset about, at least so far. I could go on a rant here, but I just don’t have the energy this evening.

In the next couple of weeks, I had visits with a surgeon who was awesome—even after he put things up my ass while I lay on an exam table in the fetal position. I had CT scans and MRIs. I met with oncologists who spoke in a near-foreign language that I still don’t see the need for. For as expensive as medical care is, you’d think they’d dumb it down to the most common language possible for the customer.

Instead, I needed my brother, who’s also a doctor, to act as a translator. He explained the pathology report said I had stage 2 cancer, which at the time was somehow good news. I would have thought good news meant hearing they made a terrible mistake and confused my medical records with some terrible human being who deserved this kind of news. But I guess there are degrees of good news when it comes to cancer.

One thing I did know was definitely good news: the cancer was nowhere near the egress hole—I’m trying out new ways to describe the asshole that sound more polite, to keep my mom from getting upset at my language—which meant it was unlikely I’d need a colostomy bag as a result of what was coming. That was in fact good news!

Eventually, after meeting with a team in Austin, my older brother wanted a second opinion and was able to work with friends to help get an appointment at MD Anderson. I don’t know if they’ll tell me anything different. I hope they do, but if not—or if the news is worse—I’ll find a way to make do and keep moving forward.

Looking back on everything that’s happened since I got the bad news, the hardest part by far was telling my mom. She went through enough cancer horrors with my dad—her husband—in the 80s, and the fear of opening old scars weighed heavily on me. A family friend, one of the great doctors we’re lucky enough to call lifelong friends, reminded me in a text that my mom is way stronger than I was giving her credit for. He was right. But still, there’s something about the idea that my mom might have to bury one of her kids that makes it hard not to cry at night—when it’s just me and Tugboat.

(Tugboat is my corgi, for those who don’t know him.)

There are a few things I take comfort in each day. One is that I’ve always believed in God. That statement can be divisive—I get why—but for me, I’ve been asking God for a way to show my faith more easily. I’m not sure this is exactly what I meant, but if this is how God wants it—I have to assume it is—then so be it.

Second, this has made it really easy to tell people I love them, and that alone is a beautiful thing.

I’m clearly not private or shy. I’ll try to update this story as it unfolds. For now, it’s 11 p.m., and tomorrow morning I get to take an enema before getting a scope stuck in me. That seems like as good a place to sign off as any.