Chronicles of a
Cancer Patient

Indiana Brosnan and the Temple of Pizza

“What is it?”

“It’s a major award!”

“But what is it?!”

“It’s a major award!”

I grip the crowbar and shove the end between the slabs of wood that make up the over-sized crate. “This End Up” is stamped diagonally on the side, with an arrow pointing toward the corner. I push down and the top comes off with a creak and a pop.

The inside is full of straw.

“What is it?” You all ask.

“It’s a major award!” I tell you.

I climb into the crate and throw out the straw in big, heaping arm-fulls until I get to the bottom.

And there it is.

Cold. Moldy. Delicious.

It’s a free pizza from India.

I entered an international blog contest about a month ago. It was a contest that featured english-language cancer blogs. I’m being very serious here, I really wanted to win the free pizza in India. I mean, how cool is that? There’s a pizza waiting for me somewhere in the Indian subcontinent.

I can picture it. I get off the bus, dusty and sweaty. I’ve been traveling for 36 hours without sleep. I’m wearing linen, but it’s some how not wrinkled. I need a shave. Because this is a dream, I also have a full head of hair and I look like Pierce Brosnan.

I fight past the goats with my impossibly small duffle bag (just a change of clothes for the courageous traveler). I ask a man with long robes and a staff where I cam find my pizza. He nods and I follow him.

We climb into the mountains. It becomes cold. I squint my eyes at the mountain tops like Pierce would, and I stop briefly for the camera to catch the shot. We climb higher and higher. Just below the summit, the man stops and points for me to continue on alone. He will wait for me.

I continue on alone to the top of the mountain. I am above the clouds now, and the air is thin and cold. I turn the final corner and there it is.

Cold. Hand-tossed. Delicious.

I find my Indian pizza. The pizza I have traveled so far for. It tastes like goat cheese and curry, but I don’t care. This is the pizza I’ve been waiting for. This is the pizza I’ve been writing for. I made this pizza with a internet connection and a 6 months of chemotherapy. This is my pizza.

I won second prize in the blog contest. I tied with a guy from Bangalore, India, who’s father survived colon cancer.

Isn’t this interesting?

I won a whole basket of prizes. Free entrance to Mayajaal (I don’t know what Mayajaal is either), a leather cell phone holder, a 6 month subscription to an Indian business portal, a calendar from this guy, a t-shirt, a key chain, and – don’t forget – “a dine in offer for 2 from any Pizza Corner outlet in India.”

Check it out: CAN Conquer CANcer Blog Contest

I started a diet. I gained 40 lbs during chemotherapy, and although people keep telling me I look good, I believe that what they mean by “good” is “alive,” and “alive” would look “good” in any shape. Even fat-shaped.

I bought a Men’s Health magazine at the train station the other day and tore out the pages that had “healthy” recipes, or any recipes, and I drove to the store. It was midnight, the time of night when lonely people come 24-hour supermarkets. When I had parked and was about to go in, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet at home. So I drove home from the store at midnight-plus-five-minutes and decided never to go on a diet again.

Until today. I went to the store again today, with my wallet, but forgetting the torn out page of the stupid Men’s Health magazine that I bought at the stupid train station on my stupid way home. Stupid chemo brain. I remembered something about whole wheat and fiber, so I bought a wide variety of things I don’t believe raccoons would even eat and brought them home.

I thought I’d try out this “soy milk,” since the world seems to be so excited about soy these days. I couldn’t bring myself to try the regular soy milk, though, because it looks like that which comes from a lactating bovine, but is not, and for some backwards reason that disgusts me. So, instead, I bought the chocolate soy milk, which, although looking much more attractive than the regular, probably has no place in anything called a “diet.” When I came home my mother told me that recent studies have shown that soy milk isn’t all that great, and the world isn’t that excited about it anymore.

I really gotta move out.

But I digress. When I got home I found that the Men’s Health called for cream cheese on its “Whole Wheat Turkey Wrap.” And salsa. And green onions. Of which I had none. So I put on Miracle Whip instead, and chopped up cucumbers, and this slimy turkey that was on sale at the store. It looked nothing like the turkey, salsa, cream cheese wrap on the torn out page. And I don’t think the Miracle Whip plays any role in my “diet,” either.

I also added dill weed, because my mother told me that “dill weed” wasn’t just a nickname for some unfortunate playground kid, that it was actually a spice used in cooking.

Did I mention I’m 25? Pathetic.

But by then I had already offered to make dinner this evening, so it was too late to back out of this “diet” idea. I planned on making the recipe from the torn out page that was directly below the now-annoying picture of the fancy Turkey Salsa Cream Cheese You-Can’t-Even-Make-a-Friggin’ Wrap (or whatever it was called), which was a Broccoli and Rice Casserole.

Which reminds me. We need to find a better word for “Casserole.” Making a “Casserole” for dinner is lame and makes me feel old. Say it: “Casserole.” If you stare at it long enough it even starts to look weird: “Casserole.”

I’ll spare you the dreary details of the Broccoli and Rice Casserole. In the end, it was good, but could’ve used a thick layer of melted cheese all over the top of it.

Somewhere between the slimy, no-salsa, Salsa Turkey Whole Wheat Wrap and the “Casserole,” I found the granola bars. Not the ones that taste like dirt and are good for you, but the ones with chocolate and sugar and peanut butter. I figured I shouldn’t eat them while on my “diet”…but, I mean…there were, like, four boxes of these things, and I figured that I should probably try to get rid of them as quick as I can, so as not to ruin the “diet.”

So, like I said, I started a diet. It’s going about as well as expected.

Saw the Doc today, who told me I’d be back to normal in a month or so. Which I do not believe, but is probably accurate anyway.

I tried to record more songs today for this album I’m going to release soon. It still needs a few songs. I’m still having a hard time playing up-tempo standards well enough to release. My fine motor coordination isn’t all back online yet I guess. So I threw out most of the stuff I recorded. I did get a good take of the ballad “I’m Through With Love” (which I believe I’ll spell, “I’m Thru With Love” on the actual album).

This CD will be a real accomplishment for me when I get it out.

I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is fourteen days. ~ Totie Fields

I turn 25 today. 25. Wow. You know, I hardly made it this far.

I never thought that getting to age 25 would end up being a struggle. I guess I never really considered it, but if I had, I suppose I would have imagined my 20s sailing by without much of an effort.

You don’t think about this kind of stuff before it actually happens to you, right? And I think it should be like that. Don’t worry about cancer. If there’s any advice I’d feel confident giving, it’d be that: just don’t worry about it.

Don’t worry about tumors, or needles, or doctor’s bills, or if you’d be brave enough, or strong enough. If you spend any of your life worrying about what awful thing might happen to you, you’ll miss all the things that do happen.

We live in a forward thinking society, surely. It’s necessary to plan ahead, especially financially and vocationally. If you don’t plan a future, you might not have one when you get there.

Nevertheless, I think about it like hiking. I notice a funny thing when I’m hiking. I’m always falling into the creek. No, I’m kidding. What I notice is the dilemma of hiking – that you are surrounded by beauty, but if you look up long enough to appreciate it – you’ll trip on a rock, break your leg, run out of food and die a lonely death – isolated in this stupid forest, on this stupid mountain, with these stupid birds…circling above…who look hungry…

Anyway, you get the point.

It seems like life is like that sometimes, too. If I stop long enough to appreciate how my life is going, I inevitable end up feeling like there is something more important that I should be doing.

And the truth is that there probably is something more important that I should be doing, but that’s not the point. The point is that hiking isn’t just about walking.

And while I’m here, I have more to say.

Yes, I beat cancer. I totally beat cancer. And I hope that that gives others hope – but (and this will sound funny) – not too much hope.

We’re all gonna die. There’s something really valuable in realizing how short life is, and how fragile it all is. There’s something good about feeling life desperately flash by. There’s an part that I like about feeling like you should finally get off your ass and do something with yourself, or for others, before you die.

And there’s danger of losing that idea if we cure all the diseases, and heal all the sick, and put death back into storage with all the other alarming thoughts we don’t want to think about.

Not that I’m saying we shouldn’t heal all the sick and cure all the dying, that’s not the point. The point is that I’m still going to die.

Wow. After all this writing about cancer, it still feels awkward to write about death. Kicking the bucket. Sleeping the big sleep. Tumbling down the hill. (I made that one up.) It feels like I’m being rude, or doing something I’m not supposed to. It feels like people are going to be mad at me for talking about it.

That’s how little we talk about it these days.

Not that long ago, death used to be a way of life, strange as that sounds. People were dying all the time. The infant mortality rate was astounding. People died of plagues, and worldwide wars, and simple illnesses like the flu. I looked it up – life expectancy 100 years ago was 49. That means a hundred years ago, I’d have been considered middle-aged by now.

But we’ve got medicine for everything now. Even cancer can be beaten. Infant mortality has been nearly forgotten about in the West. We understand nearly all the little bugs and critters that want to kill us, and we know how to avoid them, or what to do when we can’t.

Medical science is an entire industry funded by the human instinct for self-preservation. And just look at how much money we’re willing to spend!

It’s so much easier to stay alive these days, that one might forget entirely about death altogether. The ticking second hand of a clock means less today than it used to. Why drive out and watch the sunset? There’ll just be another one tomorrow.

No! Don’t have too much hope! Don’t drown yourself in hope and forget about how desperate your situation really is! You’re not going to make it! Do something now!

And that’s really how I feel about this journal of my disease. I hope I don’t inspire you too much. I hope I don’t bring anybody the false illusion that we are anything other than a fragile organism. I don’t want anybody to read this and then put off something they’ve been meaning to do. Like living. Or loving. Or dying.

Happy birthday to me. I’m 25. I’m probably going to live for quite a while longer. I can’t wait to do something with this extra time that I’ve been gifted. I have love for all of you, for sharing this time with me. That’s a start.

I went for a walk in the woods yesterday and I fell in the creek. Yeah, I know. It was not my finest moment. If there was a video of the incident you’d probably want to replay it in slow motion to see the look of disbelief on my face right before I bit it. Twenty years I’ve been walking in these woods, and I’ve never fallen into that creek.

The good news is that I found out that my boots really are waterproof. The bad news is that my jeans aren’t. Or my socks.

Now, I could blame it on chemotherapy and say that my legs were rubbery and my head was cloudy, but that’s not really the case. I felt ok. There wasn’t anything medical about it. I just fell in the creek.

And isn’t that nice? I don’t think I’ve done one thing in the past six months that I didn’t blame on drugs, or cancer, or taste-buds, or hair follicles… It’s nice to do something stupid on my own for a change. What a relief it is to see a hint of my old self again.

I had much less patience with this last treatment than I did with the others. Waiting for my “bad week” to end, I was bored, and antsy, and ready to get rid of it. But that didn’t change any of the side effects. It probably made them worse, really, considering how little I cared to baby myself through them.

But now the bad week is mostly over. My body is recovering at about the same speed as I’ve become accustom to. I gained 10 pounds on Monday and lost it by Saturday. Tuesday was awful, but Wednesday was better.

Despite my last chemotherapy treatment having taken place just a short week ago, it feels like chemo was a long, long time ago, and happened to somebody else, whose name I don’t remember. Still, I’m quick to find my fatigue when there’s some chore I should do.

Really, I’m just tired of the whole thing. I’m tired of living with it, and I’m tired of talking about it. I’m ready to just put the whole thing entirely behind me and look ahead. I’m ready to start a regular schedule again, even if my body isn’t. When my friends ask me what I’m up to, I’m ready to talk about something other than all this. I’m ready to become a person again. I’m ready for the next challenge. Cancer? What cancer?

“The worst thing in your life may contain the seeds of the best.” ~ Joe Kogel, cancer survivor

The Children’s Theater of Elgin’s Gala on Saturday, which doubled as a benefit for yours truly, was really something else.

I didn’t know if it’d be a show for me, or a show about me, but it definitely ended up being the latter. A lot of all my old friends performed, and it was really heartwarming to see so many people (maybe 170?) coming together for a young guy like me.

In all the worrying that I did about this night, it never once occurred to me that they might bring me on stage. Twice. Or that, once they put me on stage, that they’d dress me up in a tiara and beads. Or that there’d be a photographer from the local paper taking pictures of me in a tiara and beads. I gotta admit, that was pretty funny, though.

Almost my whole family was able to make it to the event, including my Aunt, who recently survived cancer, and my Cousin, who just had to go through a couple of sessions of chemo himself. I was really happy to see them.

The food was fantastic, and there was a full bar, and everyone was dressed up like we were at the prom. I must repeat myself – it was so nice to see so many of my friends in one place. As my brother said, “it was like a wedding, but nobody had to get married.”

The guys from my jazz trio, Casey and Alex, came and I dedicated a few tunes to my parents, my Catie, and my brother. The boys came and played gratis, like everybody else that night. It really meant a lot to me that I could perform for everyone that night – that I would have the energy and the life to play jazz for a roomful of my favorite people.

The jazz was followed by dancing on the big dance floor, and then it just all ended too quick. The dancing could have continued throughout the night, for the whole weekend, and maybe the whole week…so that I might not have had to go to my final chemo. We could have invited the nurses and the doctors, and Shirley and William – maybe we could have gotten Shakey McShakerson and his big white truck to come. Free PET scans for everyone! What a week it would have been.

Thanks to CTE, to the CTE Board, to Peter Akemann, to Susan Heaton, to Bill Brown, to all my friends that performed: Jess, Colleen, Andy, Chris, Allison, Eleni, Budgie, Courtney, Ken, Katie, Rachel, Abbie, Cathy, Jessie, Matthew, Jake, Casey, Alex and Brianna. You guys were great. This all meant a lot to me, I won’t forget it.

It’s Over

I showed up late yesterday to my last treatment. I only sort of felt bad about it, if you know what I mean.

The chemo room was full – every chair and both private rooms were taken when I got there. Shirley was there (I joked with her that I think she lives there), so I stood and talked to her for a bit.

I told her that today would be my last treatment. She asked me I’d still be coming in to visit. I’ll be in to “flush my port” once a month, as the nurses say, so I told her that. I didn’t ask her how much longer she had to come to chemo. With Shirley, I get the impression that her chemo doesn’t have an end date, or at least not one in this lifetime.

For having such a grim prognosis, you’d think Shirley would be…less personable? She’s the life of the chemo room, really, which is odd, considering how little life is left in her somedays. Sometimes it seems like she’s here to make sure that everyone else is comfortable, shouting out “Oh, you look good”s and “oh, how are you feeling?”s between her ever present “God bless you”s.

She’s quite a lady, I wonder what will happen to her. I guess it’s already happened.

They took my blood and sent it to the lab, and since there was no room for me, I went to the coffee shop to get some lunch. I could hardly eat anything, though, with the thought of chemo on my mind.

When I returned they had cleared Room #1 for me. It seemed fitting that I should be in there for my last treatment, as the only other time I’d been in there was for my first treatment.

I fell asleep with the Benedryl. I slept through my whole last treatment. I woke up and it was all done. They unhooked me and my brother took me home. It was nothing special.

It feels really good to be done with this crap, surely, but it’ll feel even better in a couple weeks. It’ll feel best in two weeks when it’s Monday and I realize that I don’t have to go into chemo. When my “good week” just goes on and on, becoming a “good month,” then a “good year,” then, finally, a “good life.”

As I told my friend Ashley the other day, my mind has already moved so far past all this that I’m anxious for my body to follow. I’m thinking about the future, now that I know I have a future. I’m thinking about the things I want to do, and the people I want to see.

I guess I wish this hadn’t happened, but there’s nothing worthwhile in that thought. It did happen. My body malfunctioned and tried to kill itself. It attempted to commit suicide without first consulting me about it. What a stupid thing to do. I hope it doesn’t do something idiotic and short-sighted like that ever again.

I’m done. No more chemo. I’m done.

The Elgin Courier News wrote a really nice article yesterday about me, the benefit on Saturday and about this blog. Traffic here tripled yesterday, so I imagine many of you have already read this, but I thought I’d include it here for everyone anyway.

Thanks Cam, Peter, Susan, and Tom for the nice words.

By Tom Polansek
STAFF WRITER

ELGIN — When 24-year-old Dave Hahn was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma last summer, the first thing he did was log on to the Internet.

After reading up on the facts and figures of his illness, he started searching for more personal content: first-person stories from cancer patients like himself. He came up practically empty.

So Hahn, a professional pianist who grew up in Elgin, decided he would try to add something to the discussion. He started his own cancer Web log, or blog, titled “Chronicles of a Cancer Patient.” He also produced podcasts, or downloadable audio files that can be played back on a computer, about his chemotherapy treatments.

“When you actually get diagnosed with cancer it’s such a personal thing that you kind of want to see what it was like for other people to go through,” Hahn said in an interview. “Nobody ever talked about what it was like to lose your hair or what it felt like to sit in a chemo chair or what the room looked like.

I really wanted to know what it felt like not to have a stomach lining or what it felt like to be nauseous all day.”

But Hahn’s story has not just left a lasting impact on the Internet, where he said more than 250 people downloaded his first podcast. The Children’s Theatre of Elgin also said Hahn has left an indelible mark there through performances he did as a child and through his work at the theater as an adult.

The theater dedicated its annual gala benefit to Hahn on Saturday, and all proceeds will go to help pay his medical bills.

“He’s had a very strong influence on our organization,” Office Manager Susan Heaton said. “The top-notch caliber of his character has set a great example for our other members and really helped move us forward.”

Peter Ackeman, president of the theater’s board, agreed.

“He’s always been a pleasant person to be around and a gifted artist,” Ackeman said. “The two don’t often go hand in hand. That’s why I’ve always liked working with him.”

Hahn’s strong character is evident in his blog, where he expressed a mostly positive outlook despite his draining chemotherapy treatments. For example, instead of focusing on his physical or emotional pain, in one entry he described the simple pleasure of eating the butter-filled cookies served at the Sherman Hospital Cancer Care Center.

“Clearly the bakery keeps the best cookies for us cancer patients,” Hahn wrote Aug. 16, 2005. “They probably use a pound of butter in each cookie, but I mean, what do we care, right? What, is it going to give us cancer? Gimme one of those damn cookies, and put more butter in it next time.”

Hahn’s friends said his bravery and positive attitude were inspiring. Cameron Mizell attended Indiana University with Hahn and said his friend has always been outgoing and fearless.

“It’s just in his personality,” Mizell said. “He’s a tough person.”

Mizell, a guitarist, and several musicians plan to produce a CD this year to benefit Hahn. Hahn also is working on his own CD on his record label, Preservation Records.

There is more good news. This fall, Hahn scratched the word “patient” off the title of his blog. It now reads “Chronicles of a Cancer Survivor.”

“I found out the day before Thanksgiving that I kicked it. I beat it,” Hahn said about his cancer. “It was such a release of stress, and I think it was for everyone in the family too. You don’t realize how many people are along with you on this journey.”

Read Hahn’s blog, Chronicles of a Cancer Survivor, at www.preservationrecords.com.