The Adventures of the other Pancho and LeftyCancer is a jerk. This is my story about living with it.

So!

 A shit-ton of shit has happened since my last entry. I mean, it seems like the universe is actively imploding in the vicinity of everyone i’ve ever met in my life, and scores that I’ve never had the distinction to meet. 2016 was a completely fucked up year, and 2017 is already giving it a run for it’s money.

As I sit here trying to get my thoughts straight after an enormously emotional day and too much of the good brownies, I am completely and selfishly focused on the depressive state I find myself in due to the intense sorrow that hangs over the lives of so many of those I care for today.

Every time I turn around, someone in my bundle of loves and extended peeps either gets some terrible news, or they are the terrible news. At 41, I didn’t expect this kind of regular occurrence for at least 15-20 more years. Between heart issues, cancer, and a few other choice health problems, I see that the health experts made an egregious mistake when they said millennials are going to be the first generation to die sooner than their parents in recorded history, or whatever. I think it is my generation. I know  personally 14 women my age who were diagnosed with breast cancer before 40, and have 3 online sisters that are actively losing the fight right at this very moment. I have several friends on heart meds already, 2 with stage 4 colon cancer, 6 with either type 1 or 2 diabetes, 4 with serious gastro issues, countless with various forms of arthritis, auto-immune disorders,  etc, etc, etc.  Our health record reads like those of 70 year olds. And worst of all, today,  a not close but very dear couple will be separated, as the husband will be taken off life support after major heart procedures and complications after. After a year long and very hard pressed battle, he will be released to change his place in this universe, and forever change the universes of his loved ones. My heart breaks for them. For everyone in my social circle right now.

Last year struck blow after blow. From the loss of favorite artists, again, most much too young to die from the things they died from, to the loss of American integrity, as a megalomaniac was falsely elected into the presidency of this nation. Top that with all the personal heartache everyone has dealt with, we are left battered and broken on the field, but we drag our bodies on, as hope slowly drains away.

Melodramatic? ya, a bit, but most people I know are feelin’ it. Even as we battle on. As we will continue to battle on, because there is no alternative. Giving up certainly is not an option. But damn, it hurts.

I remember listening to my Nanny & Papa talking about who was sick and who had died that week when I was a kid. I recall thinking that they lived such a strange life with everyone being sick and dying all the time. My child age brain just could not compute the way life worked. When you are young, and have a beautifully skewed view of how time functions and don’t understand the perspective of someone closer to the opposite end of that life graph, it just seems so terribly odd. Then all of a sudden, you are having those very same conversations with everyone you know and you are standing there going “WTF?”.

Where I’m going with all of this rambling is: Latent post-surgery blues combines with constant sorrowful news has me in a state of extreme sadness and reflection. Daniel’s death is making me take a harder look at my life and habits than my own health issues have ever done, and I am not sure entirely why.  Maybe too many of these shocks right in a row, while I am feeling not only unfit, but am having almost constant pain of some kind due to my surgeries and a change in my cancer treatment. I feel weak, feeble, unhealthy, and overly fragile. That also makes me terribly angry. Angry at myself, angry at the universe. Angry for my dear friends, and their families, because it is just so goddamn unfair that they are sick or someone they love is sick. That there isn’t a clear path to a cure for most of these things. That there isn’t a decent healthcare system in this fucked up country. That we have to have fundraisers so many of these people can get any kind of medical treatment to begin with. That their families have to worry about that. That big pharma and our elected officials gives zero fucks about all of us.

There need to be a lot of changes made going forward. In the way that I treat myself. In the way I treat my loved ones. In the way I engage in civic life. In the way this country runs. In the way humans treat each other and the rest of the planet. In the way I interact with the world around me. In the way we all connect with one another on a daily basis.

I think I am going to try to blog more to keep myself accountable for the changes I want to make. The first part of those changes is eliminating alcohol from my life, with exceptions for true vacations and really special events. So, please don’t think it is weird if I don’t indulge. I’m also going to take a walk every night, without exception, and continue all my PT at home for at least one year. I’ll take other steps towards improving my health as time goes on, but this is my start. I know I say this kind of thing all the time, but I am really rattled. And hopefully making regular updates here, even if no one reads them ever, will keep me focused enough.

I’d love to see each of you doing at least one thing to make yourself healthier, starting today. Could be anything from quitting smoking to not eating chicharrones anymore, or doing yoga at home for at least 30 minutes every day, or taking a walk. Would you be willing to make it public and share it? I want us to do everything we can to continue to be here for one another, sharing life’s joys. Will you commit to that? It really can be ANYTHING that improves your health.

I’ll get back to BC and will post a long one about my reconstruction in a couple of weeks, but I just had to get all of this out today before I had a complete breakdown.

Thanks for giving it a read, and remember, I love you and you are fantastic.