I was released from City of Hope during the first week of August, 2017. I went back to Joe and Paul”s house (on a Friday, I think) to either convalesce, recuperate, or, buy the farm, depending on one’s belief or point of view at the time. Whatever was going to happen, I was convinced that I was not going to die anytime soon, and, I was very happy to be out. I had a trach tube feeding air into my lungs, a g-tube in my stomach, and an inoperable ulcerating tumor emerging from my neck. All three of these fabulous prizes had to be continuously maintained, and I couldn’t do it myself. Neither could ..read more

I don’t remember when or how I received the results of my July 2017 PET scan, but I’m sure that it was my brother-in-law Paul who provided me with the information. Unfortunately, the news was not encouraging– After completing the Carboplatin and Docetaxil chemotherapy regimen, the follow-up imaging indicated that the mass on the left side of my neck was still cancerous, and had grown larger. The three metastatic lymph nodes in my superior mediastinum (located between the lungs) were also still there, but no new cancer sites were detected. I didn’t have a melt down, I did not panic, and I was n ..read more

After starting the Carboplatin and Taxotere regimen in early June of 2017, I went into some kind of dissociative psychological state, as if I were in a dream. I had recently started to take generous amounts of pain medication on a daily basis– as well as cannabis oil– and was on autopilot when it came to emotionally dealing with my increasingly alarming health situation and uncertain prognosis. I was overloaded. I checked out, shut down. My memories of the ensuing eight weeks remain sketchy and scattered at best, but pieces remain. I began to spend much more time at my brother Joe’s house. Joe ..read more

It’s late March of 2017, and I had just come back from visiting the folks on the east coast. I’m driving through Anaheim, California, when on a genuine whim I stop off at the nearest salon I can find to have my hair touched up. I had gone rapidly gray following my last chemo treatment and wanted to return to work looking healthier than I actually was. A couple of days later– and, for the second time in a year–  I returned to work following a four-month absence.  There were flowers on my desk, and, a get-well card that was signed by (most) of the residency program staff. One of my co-workers, K ..read more

My chemo and radiation therapy treatments were over. Two weeks later, I was still underweight, undernourished, exhausted, and was experiencing the cognitive impairment known as “chemo brain”.  “Chemo brain” refers to the symptoms brought on by chemotherapy, which include decreased short-term memory, problems finding words, a short attention span, and difficulty concentrating. As challenging as these issues were, it was also essential that I return to work. There are federal and state statutes designed to protect employees who have cancer and other disabilities. Unfortunately, this was no guara ..read more

Sometime after my surgery in December of 2016– either right before Christmas Day or maybe right after– my brother Joe called and told me about a Christian faith healer with a reputation for being able to work miracles, quite literally. He was based in Arizona– Joe had been given his contact information by a friend here in L.A.. This guy was supposed to be the real deal, and was apparently quite famous and well known, as far as faith healers go. One thing I am not is closed-minded– at least, not when it comes to God, Jesus, miracles, the supernatural, or realities that may be true but cannot be ..read more

I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had to be born again because I had not fulfilled the task that was given to me. – Carl Gustav Jung   One postscript about Kathleen. We broke up in 2006. It was painful for both of us, and tears flowed– first Kathleen, then me, but in my case, after I hung up the phone. In our final conversation, I apologized to her for putting her through the fails and tribulations of my illness, as well as the psychodramas and traumas that followed, which she was forced endur ..read more

For 10 hours, I lay in a medically-induced coma. Unconscious, intubated, a black nothingness, unaware of what was happening to my body. And then…  THUD! I was abruptly awakened by what looked like a half dozen eighteen year-old girls. It felt like they were aggressively pulling tubes out of my body, or shaking me, or something like that. “Michael, your surgery’s finished!”, they all appeared to sing in unison. For a millisecond, I had no idea where I was or what was happening. And then I remembered why I was there. I was completely immobilized. My left arm was in a cast, and my legs were wrapp ..read more

Kathleen and I had corresponded almost exclusively by email for several weeks, but since she traveled quite a bit for work, we had to wait a while before actually getting together for our first date. We planned to meet at a restaurant on First Avenue, somewhere between 51st and 53rd Street in Manhattan. Tonight would be the Big Night. I was wearing jeans, an oxford shirt, and a navy blazer, and arrived about 5 minutes before she did, waiting outside the front door of the restaurant. As she appeared from around the corner, I noticed that her long, blond hair fell all the way down below her wai ..read more