Tuesday, May 29, 2012

May: cancerversaries, birthdays, and NPR shits & giggles.

May is both the anniversary of my release from the Abu-Graib of all cancer treatments, and my birthday-- the one where I turn 27 and lose the health insurance I had through my mom. It's a complicated month.

Here's the post from my last chemo, May 2009

I've been thinking a lot about after-care. It's been two years since my last cancer remission, and I'm only just beginning to see a therapist to unload all of this emotional baggage I've been carrying around. It's hard to get [free] help from resources like cancercare.org and SamFund because there's so much red-tape & many, many exclusions.

I am of the opinion that everyone should stop mindlessly running, walking, and buying for Cancer Non-profit Monoliths who have lost their way... who have minimal outreach services compared to the millions they make as a non-profit organization. They profit from our collective guilt and ambivalence. What we should be doing is investing in finding a less invasive, less brutal way to cure cancer, and providing palliative services for the millions of young adults dealing with the aftermath, as well as studying the long term effects.


As of now I don't have health insurance, and that's really scary. I should have never gone to art school. I've racked up a few medical bills so far, which of course I can't afford to pay and so they go to collections, where they will languish until I either die or become filthy rich. Thank god for HHC and Planned Parenthood!

Despite everything I had a very nice 27th birthday. We went to Coney Island for the first time, rode rollercoasters til we were dizzy, ate icecream, and saw a guy wearing a shirt that said "SIT ON MY FACE AND I'LL GUESS YOUR WEIGHT". All in all an enchanting evening.

blending in 



I was on NPR's The Takeaway this morning talking about the comic, and I was so focused on trying not to use "fucking" as an adjective, as I am wont to do, that I said "shitting" instead. I also completely forgot what I was talking about several times & totally derailed. 7:45am is a fucking ungodly hour to be articulate. I refuse to listen to it, but you can find it here. Don't judge me dudes.

I laugh everytime I think about Celeste's face as I mention how funny vomit and shit can be.


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You sounded wondeful on The TakeAway!

Patrice Corneli

Lana said...

Congrats on NPR, your birthday, and being 2 years out from last chemo. I hear ya about the Livestrong thing and other cancer orgs that have SO MUCH money and could really use it to focus on researching...at least even making stage 4 cancer a chronic disease as opposed to a terminal one. Actually, I was tempted to join in a livestrong event to support a friend but politely declined for the reasons in the link you had provided...though I didn't have the heart to tell him that was the reason. Take care.

eppie said...

Holy shit I'm not on a computer right now but I'm going to listen to that interview as soon as I get home. Really excited to hear u swear on NPR!

Ari said...

Hello, my name is Ari, I am a survivor (so far...) of two cancers, a widower of a cancer victim (now re-married..) and is dedicated to fighting cancer, and helping others do so.
I lived in Toronto, Canada (my family is in southern California), and last year, after marriage, I moved to the Philippines. I am majority owner of a Dialysis clinic, and built a unique cancer clinic, the one I dreamt of having when my first wife was struggling. I took her to Mexico clinics twice, for treatments (which were very successful!), talked to dozens of physicians, and always found lack of properly equipped clinics, which could do a lot better if they were.
Along the way, I have gained insight of how proper Hyperthermia should be applied. This is a method which doubles the success rate of conventional therapies, and alternative ones as well, provided it is done properly. I have purchased the most powerful device for this, and added two other types of devices, which when applied in the right order, prevent a process of DE-sensitizing of cancer cells to the effects of specific frequency hyperthermia. We also do mild whole body hyperthermia in order to strengthen the immune system (with no side effects),and help reach the right thermo-therapeutic levels within the tumour.(the right temperature simply destroys the tumour...). There are also other aspects to this, biological ones, which for lack of commercial incentive (UN-patentable..) is not pursued by multinational pharmaceutical corporations which control all medical research in the field.
I also introduced other forms of immunotherapy, and alternative cytotoxic elements, such as Helixor, a mistletoe extract, which has three times better success rate then most chemo agents, without the side effects.
I can give information about many clinics I learned about, (mainly in Mexico and Germany)
If you are interested in getting free advice, please feel free to contact me, @ advancedcancertherapies@yahoo.com
Thanks,
Ari Idan