Lifestyle Over Cancer

Climbing continues to make me sad.  It represents so much that I don’t want to leave behind.  Love of nature, friends, self and fancy equipment that I can spend lots of time researching 😛

I joke but I do get sad.  I see a picture of climbing and I am sad.  Very sad.  I talk about climbing and I am sad.  I would give all my money for one day climbing with my friends the way I used to.  To all those who I love who climb, enjoy it for me.  Maybe once in a while remember how much I loved to be out at the cliff and let yourself really enjoy the moment.  These are the special moments that can bring so much joy.  You just need to be present for them. To all those who don’t climb, you are crazy.

I am pretty happy most of the time these days.  But the loss of climbing makes me sad.

Stayed up late talking to Amelia about life the universe and everything.  It made me so happy.  The knowledge that the people I love will live on in a beautiful world is a great comfort to me.  I cried much, but a lot of it was happy. My life is looking shorter, but I hope that I will have more time.  I am scared of death.  This can not be denied.  But at the same time I feel it could be glorious.  To leave the conscious mind behind and observe what is left.  If only it was possible without dying 😛

I would give it all away for one day on my old life. I can see this life slipping away and I don’t want what is left. What is left is nothing but decline and pain. I hate this more than I can express. my life is over. I have very little left. The love of those close to me keeps me going but I have so little left and I can see that slipping away.
I see degradation on my leg and think to myself “well hopefully I will be dead before they have to chop my leg off”. I am sick of this whole fucking thing. I just want to sit in my chair, watch some nice friendly tv and gently fade away. I will certainly not get that. I will go back to hospital. I will probably lose my leg. I am so angry and sick of this shit that I can not write well. I just want to be peaceful and happy as I go. I will not get this. I just want to be peaceful.
Nobody is to blame directly. But our medical system is more broken than most people know. So much money is spent on drugs that give just a few more months of poor quality life while almost none is spent looking into people who have cured themselves with cheap or free lifestyle methods. I know these people exist because I have met them. There is so much money at stake in this game that if a cute was discovered by one of the major drug companies it would be in there best interests to bury it. So it is little wonder that these cheap and sometimes affective methods don’t get looked at. Some people mange too cure themselves with little knowledge and just the advice of other people who have done similar things, imagine if we had used some of the trillions we have spent on drugs to fine tune these methods. But we don’t because on the ends money rules everything and ignorance is bliss. And now I, a man who was as ignorant as the next is going to die for it. Little good will come of my death. Perhaps I will write a brilliant blog that will convince you that the system is broken the way I know this blog will not and that will be some good. But I doubt it. 5 years ago I would have looked at my ideas now and thought I was just a conspiracy nut. “People get cancer, its a fact of life. Pollution, bad diet and high stress have nothing to do with it. What do you mean big drug companies and the fda make so much money from cancer that they in fact stifle many areas that could lead to cures. You are just crazy.” So I will probably not have an affect. But fuck I am still angry.
If I could scream via blog I would.
Humans are not a species, we are a collection of selfish individuals. And until we remember this we can not evolve.

I am crying a lot again. It would be rare to go 6 hours without breaking down. My breathing has for the first time become truly difficult. I have an appointment at peter mac next week. I always liked the quote “be good, and if you can’t be good be lucky”. Despite my best efforts I was either not good enough our not good at all. It has come time to be lucky. So really the last glimmer of hope is that pm will have some new miracle cure. Sadly I suspect that they do, but it will not be available to me. I have come to the conclusion that I got sick just 10 years too early. I can see all the markers that rhabdo will be curable in just a short spell of time. Sadly it will almost certainly be too late for me.
So, here is to luck, may it show itself on wednesday. Until then crying will act as therapy.

The world is so beautiful I can not bear it. I do not wish to die and yet it seems I will. The world is so wonderful I cry. I would give almost anything to leave this life and travel the world.
Explore it for me. Love everything for me. Life is so fragile and beautiful. Do not let it pass you by.

I jerk awake and instantly regret it.  I have left a land of infinite possibilities for one of slow, committed drudgery.  Life has degraded of late.  I am no longer comfortable much of the time.  My leg is once again sore.  I have tumours everywhere.  My breathing is slowly degrading.  It has to be said, I no longer think confidently of surviving.  In fact if I am honest I no longer think kindly of life.  I just wish to be back asleep, living the land of my dreams.

I had my birthday on the weekend just gone.  I turned 26.  Despite the circumstances I had a wonderful day. The weather was perfect and a lot of good friends turned up to Floriade for a picnic with live music unexpectedly but pleasantly playing in the background.  The day was wonderful, but it was tainted by my realising that it would almost certainly be my last birthday.  Not that I have every really cared for birthdays, or at least not since I left my early teens, but it is a shock to realise that you might be turning the oldest you will ever be.  Forever in the eyes of those I will leave behind I will be 26.  Forever young.  At least, forever kind of young.

Life has become boring. I went climbing the other day in an attempt to liven things up.  I had a great day but I can no longer climb.  I became exhausted just trying.  As a man who used to like pushing things to the edge scrambling up a 15 on top rope with my head spinning is not enough.  I have though about trying to go to a choir or something to give me some excitement.  Then I realise I have no idea where to go and I get depressed that even a choir, as conservative as it is, is probably too tiring for me to handle.  I do not have the energy to do these things.  I barely have the energy to walk around the block.

I makes me sad that this is the way things are going to end.  I saw the death of the British indy car driver Wheldon in the states yesterday.  That is the way to go, doing something you love.  Pushing yourself, participating in something you believe in.  Not in bed, tired, bored and boring.

Life had so much to offer. How did I end up here?

I sit here, drinking my green juice in the afternoon of my fast day on a knife edge. I stand on a razor thin edge looking at two radically different valleys. In one, I stop my fast and head up to the bakery and get whatever I want and eat it. I then head home and have whatever I want for dinner. This valley looks good. It’s very easy, and comfortable. The other valley consists of finishing the fast and going back to the old diet tomorrow. It is a harsh valley. It is fairly barren, lifeless. But underneath the dry plains is the promise of endless riches.
The trip down to the second valley is long and winds down a path atop a large cliff. If at any point I get tired and misstep, my destination is sealed. The easy valley is called that for a reason. It is very easy. And once you start down that road it is hard to end up anywhere else.
I sit here on this edge. I have often thought I was here before, but secretly been on the harder path. But today I genuinely could go either way. And in truth I don’t mind. Maybe that is why this time is different. I wouldn’t even feel guilty. I feel at piece with life.

Why is it that climbing is the thing that hits hardest.  I don’t know.  Every time I look at a picture of a person climbing I am flooded with emotions diverse but dominated by rage.  It hurts more than I think I can cope with.  Perhaps its because it’s a preview, a sneak peak at what I am leaving behind.  It is the first of the many things I love that I can not do.  I can still read, listen to music, spend time with the people I love, but I can not climb.  At least not to the level that I want.  I can probably struggle up a 13 or 14 but its like going from flying to jumping off the bottom step, there is no comparison.  I want to pull dynoes above the crystal clear water of vietnam.  I want to climb limestone cliffs high above the French plains.  I want to try the crux pitches of Selathe high above the Yosemite valley.

But it looks like that will never happen.  Instead it is most likely that the tumours will keep growing and eventually my body will no longer be able to cope.  I will die in my bed, eyes closed dreaming of all the things I love.

So now I look at pictures, amazing visuals of a thing I used to hold next my heart and I get angry.  I see my slide into oblivion.  I see my demise from glory.  I see my own weakness. I see what is wrong with the world.  I no longer see the beauty and the joy.  And that makes me sad.

Today I am fasting again. Just for a day. I am thinking of fasting one day a week. I have always felt that my health is better when I fast. So maybe fasting once a week will be a good thing. We will see.
Thank you all those who are commenting. Especially those I don’t know or don’t know well. I love to get feedback and encouragement. So thank you.

I am devastated. I felt alone and horrifyingly afraid. I do not know what to do and I suspect things are slipping towards a brink. My breathing is not right and everyone I hear my chest “whistle” or “splutter” it’s like it’s laughing in my face. I always thought I could take it but I can’t. I haute this more than I can describe. I keep looking around for a door but there us none. I am struck. Cancer is awful. It destroys your soul. It takes every scrap of hope and light you have and destroys it in front of you. I’m am a shell of the man I was 12 months ago and I hate that. I do not know what to do.

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO FUCKING DO. FUUUUUUUUUCK.

It is just so unsatisfactory saying on a blog.

It is impossible to know what it feels like to have your life slowly drained from you as you watch unroll until it happens to you. I would not wish this on anybody. Give me a quick death any day. A quick slide when I am 90 surrounded by my great grandchildren, that is the way to go. Not this, never this.

I do not know what to do. I guess I will go home.