Four months at a time: living between brain scans
I live my life four months at a time. After a good scan I am happy to move forward with my life for a while. In some cases I do long-range planning: I am going to a wedding this summer. My BFF wants to go to Seattle with me in the fall. Brett and I...
Your friend, Logan
I was at the gym working on my “clean and jerk” (which looks like this graphic), when the song “Complex“ started playing through the sound system. The band was Little Tin Frog. The drummer was Logan Whitehurst, a long time friend, fellow drummer, and the most well-respected musician/awesome guy/creative talent among my peers between 1997 and the...
Brain surgery: the inside story (pun slightly intended)
I volunteer as a “Mentor Angel” with a group called Imerman Angels. This organization carefully matches and individually pairs people touched by cancer (a cancer fighter, survivor or caregiver) with someone who has fought and survived the same type of cancer (a Mentor Angel). I’ve been volunteering with Imerman Angels for nearly six months, and before...
What art can do to us
I’m in southern California this week for work and I had some free time on my hands allowing me a visit to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. When I was in junior high my mom worked one block from this museum and I ended up spending a lot of time there after school....
Fear
Something I’m afraid of: death Something I’m not afraid of: death Funny how that works.
The Fountain
I saw a friend put “The Fountain” on his Netflix queue, so I added it to mine. Brett and I noticed it was available as a streaming movie so we decided to watch on our Playstation 3 last night. Ah, geez. I didn’t realize the movie was about a man who’s wife was dying from...
Ghost Liz
On Facebook I read about a 29 year-old woman I have never met (who was friend’s with a friend) who just passed away from metastatic colon cancer. The Facebook post contained a link to the woman’s website. I saw photos of her–she’s beautiful. I read about her. She was diagnosed in 2007 and got married...
Not too far away
I still have an e-mail sitting in my inbox from an acquaintance who died a few months ago. He sent it about two months before his death. Every time I see the message I think about him and I am afraid that if I erase the message it might erase my memory of him. I...
Mark Miller
There’s this guy I met at the UC Davis brain tumor support group, Mark Miller. He was there to make a presentation on managing health with technology – and Mark had brain cancer too. I was excited about this presentation because I use my iPhone to track my chemo treatments, I log my seizures and...
You’re not going to die, you know
My “regular” dream was interrupted last night by a visit from a friend. After this visit I woke up and got to remember everything we said. I was packing a box of The Liz Army shirts for shipment. I wrote a check to pay the receiver for selling them. I thought, Who’s going to pay...
