Well, I'm slowly coming around, and my friends at the Portuguese ARtists Colony said Hey, why not come down and read at our show, but I didn't know if I'd be starting my proton beam radiation therapy down there in Southern California at Loma Linda University Hospital yet, so I said don't put me on the poster, but if I can limp on down there, I'll put in an appearance, so yeah, I'll come down there to the Five Points Arthouse on 72 Tehama Street in SF around 5 p.m. on Sunday the 25th and pull some material out of the old suitcase, and bring my guitar and whatnot. Life is short. Gotta do stuff while you can. Not that I personally plan on having a particularly short life. I plan on getting through this cancer episode and sticking around for a great while longer. But, in general, it makes sense to assume that life is short. You know what I mean? You get more fun in that way. You figure, heck, I'll jump in the river. Why not?
James M. Emmerling
stanleybing
Sandra Stephens
Julie Delio
Denise LeBlanc-Bock
Arlene Green
Salon.com
Comments
I'm not a writer, I just liked to read your column, and followed it fairly closely. I was dismayed and saddened when I read you had cancer, and just hoped you would manage to get through it somehow. Meanwhile, I was having increasing problems of my own with a recent lower back problem that just kept getting worse no matter what I did for it.
My world fell apart the day I finally had my MRI. Suddenly, what I had read in your last columns was incredibly pertinent to me. I was not even off the MRI table before the technician told me what was causing my pain. I have a huge 11 cm sacral meningeal cyst. Not cancer, thankfully, but compressing every nerve root from L5 to S4 and pretty much destroying my sacrum over the years I've had it in there. There was nothing any neurosurgeon in the Northwest could do for me, they just don't do surgery on that kind of cyst... it's just too rare and impossible to fix. The prognosis was continued progressive increase in pain and disability. If not for the Internet and forums, I would know next to nothing about my condition or what to do about it. I was lucky to find a surgeon in Kansas City with experience and a track record, who is willing to do surgery to deflate and remove my cyst. And maybe, there is a possibility that I will improve and have some of my life back. Or I could get worse. It's a gamble. I'm scheduled for May 20.
I just wanted to say I know some of what you have been living with, the pain, problems with those sacral nerves not working, the insurance denials, the doctors not knowing what to do for you. I'm scared, and probably don't have all the moral support you have, but I do have some. Anyway, I'm out here rooting for you, hoping you get your pain down, and your column back up.
Chris
Life can be scary, hold on fast to what helps you.