On a clear day I can see forever...

Received good news for a change.

The new specialist I'm now seeing says my lab results are good and my CT shows no further deteriorating of my organ.

In other words, I'm not getting sicker. I'm holding fast.

He seemed surprised, and actually pleased to be surprised. Odd. To see a doctor actually be pleased that I'm doing well is something I'm not used to. Having a doctor be a jerk and barely listen to me, THAT is the norm.

Regardless, he was still surprised and explained his surprise came from years of having patients not follow his advice, and get progressively worse on each visit. He was happy to see that I took his advice to heart. I told him I didn't think I had much of a choice. I was the one to seek him out. It'd be counterproductive to not heed it.

We came to an unspoken agreement at that point, I believe. I won't compare him to my previous bastard of a doctor, and he won't compare me to his previous apathetic patients. I'll do what he says, and he'll work with me. We will be a team and not adversaries.

This gives me strength.

This gives me hope.

This gives me peace of mind, and soul.

I found love in a hopeless place...

We all take things for granted on a daily basis. I'm no more guilty of this than I am less guilty of this.

I take the fact that the sun will rise tomorrow for granted.

I take for granted that when I wake up there will be food ready for me to eat, courtesy of my ever suffering and overworked spouse.

I don't worry about these things, whether big or small, because I've come to rely on them. They are facts, in my world. They are unchangeable, steadfast & permanent.

I'm wrong, of course. As I am about a great many things.

That's the thing about taking things for granted. You never realize you do so until your world is shook, and you come to find out that permanence isn't always permanent.

I used to take for granted the fact that I could easily walk from here to there, or I could eat anything I wanted without an adverse effect, or even that if I cut myself I would clot SO fast there was no need for a bandaid.

Having been dealt a blow to my worldview in the past so many months, I am now less inclined to take stuff like that for granted. I know now, that it's only matter of time before I find it harder to walk, or when my diet will be restricted even further, or when I will bleed out.

I'm more aware of my blessings, in essence. I'm conscious of the good, where before it was an afterthought, if I even thought of it at all.

The odd thing about this transformation of my perception is that I have been granted a new view, not just of my world, but of myself. I don't take myself for granted anymore.

I'm working on improving myself, because I realized once I discovered I was taking myself for granted, I was also neglecting myself. I don't know why. It could have been residual teenage self-loathing, age related depression, or simply laziness. Perhaps the truth lies in a combination of all three with some yet undiscovered cause. I don't know, and I don't care. All I know is that it's over.

Like with many things taken for granted, the power lies in ignorance. Once you know you're taking something for granted, you tend to do it less, even if just out of guilt. Boom. The power is gone.

So I'm now vigilant.

I'm still taking a few things for granted, like the sun rising, but I do take a moment now and then to watch it rise and allow myself to bask in the awesomeness of it.

Small steps.

If anything good has come from my facing my mortality it's this.

If I could do it all over again...

One of the topics I now cling to is that of regret. I guess it goes hand in hand with this nostalgia for better days.

I sometimes wax poetic on the many choices I have made in my life, and with the superpower of hindsight at my disposal, question them.

Do I regret many things I have done? Sure. But oddly enough not as many as I would have thought. I regret times I've lost control of my anger and said things or done things just to inflict pain, not because I actually felt them. Things I have done, or said that I genuinely felt, regardless of the outcome, those things I do not regret.

So does that mean I'm genuinely happy with my progress in life if my regrets do not outweigh my triumphs? I don't know.

I'd still do a few things differently.

Not many things, just a handful really.

I'd love to have a conversation with myself and give myself advice at various stages of my development.

I'd take 4 year old Anna aside and say, "You won't always be lonely. You'll make friends who will genuinely like you for you. Don't try so hard."

7 year old Anna would be told, "Girls are jerks. Forget them and stop trying to be something you're not comfortable with. Go play with the boys and ignore their taunts."

My 10 year old self would be told, "Buy that Don Mattingly card for $1. You'll always regret it if you don't."

Teenage Anna at the ripe old age of 16 would receive the best advice. "Don't be ashamed. You are more beautiful than you believe yourself to be. Don't sell yourself short. Don't be afraid. Your heart may hurt but it will never break permanently. Go to the University of Miami."

It's bittersweet to linger on these thoughts. I remember my innocence and long for it, but don't wish to lose the self I've become.

We are after all the sum of our experiences and by default, our choices. Sure I may not have the job I want, but I am the person I want to be. Perhaps those things I wish I could change, those regrets I would prefer to avoid, are the very things that have shaped me.

I still wish I had bought that 1986 Topps Don Mattingly card, though.

Nothing's what it seems; Nothing but debris...

It's funny how in the course of this year's health upheavals, the simple way in which I react to new things has be changed. In short, I take bad news with a silent acceptance, and I take good news with a grain of salt.

It seems sad to think that I now come to expect the bad, and disbelieve the good.

I used to think I was a cynical pessimist, but I've come to find out, I had no clue as to how cynical or pessimistic I could truly be.

Perhaps it's this sense of betrayal I carry with me now. This sense of being cheated somehow, by my body and by extension, my family has given me a bad case of the "once bitten, twice shys."

All I know is when I read the doctor's reports stating all looks "normal" in my CT scan, I can't help but ask myself, "how normal is normal, when my biopsy SHOWS the progressive, permanent damage to my organ?" Obviously the scan is wrong, or the doctor is blind. No way could I be holding ground and not getting sicker.

There has to be more.

I mean, I have no symptoms. Are you going to tell me I have no illness too?

Just because my test results come back as good news, it doesn't mean there isn't the spectre of bad just below the surface.

My body showed no signs of sickness all those months ago, and if it hadn't been for a coincidental finding during a test for an unrelated matter, I would never have been diagnosed. I can't help but to hold onto that fact. That is my proof that my body lies and cannot be trusted.

And when the trust has left, what else is there?

Nothing.

So now I find this lack of faith affecting the good along with the bad.

That's my emotional fall-out.

Debris indeed.

Reach out and touch faith...

They say there are no atheists on death row.

That's because once you accept the fact that your time on planet earth is up, well, you try to grab hold of anything that may bring you comfort and the idea of an afterlife is incredibly comforting. Also you must not discount the fact that with nothing much to lose, giving yourself over to religion and it's organized indoctrination is really not much of a gamble.

So my question is simply this: Why am I finding faith in a higher power so hard to accept?

Why do I continue to question the mere existence of God, heaven, etc?

Sure, I was raised Catholic. I went through the years of study, I've read the bible and the apocrypha, I understand the teachings intellectually. I just have a hard time grasping the so-called "mysteries."

In search of my faith I've read the holy books of various other religions, I've studied them, even tried a few on for size, but still blind faith has eluded me.

I'm sometimes envious of those who's beliefs are so set in stone that they would die for them. It must be awesome to know, just KNOW you are saved, or chosen or whathaveyou.

Heck, I'd settle for knowing that there is someone out there controlling the cosmos. It would make me feel better.

I can't bring myself to pray for myself. Not without at least attempting to believe. It's hard.

I'm pragmatic. I try to hedge my bets whenever I can, at least make an effort in taking chance out of the equation. Why can't I do this now? I'm dying. I should be wearing my rosary thin, just in case.

Perhaps I hold those with faith in such high regard that I feel it would be an insult to them to do so.

Perhaps I'm too skeptical.

Perhaps I haven't reached the point of grasping at straws.

I don't know.

I don't know anything.

I have a secret...

For the past 11 years I have been counting down to my death.

A few of my loved ones know this. No one speaks of it. Most think me down right daffy for clinging onto this fear. A select few worry.

You see, I am convinced I will pass away sometime between mid February 2012 and the beginning of March. I have been convinced for the past 10 years (coming on 11 years soon). From the moment I noticed the pattern, I became sure that there is some sort of 11 year curse in my family that affects the women on my mother's side.

From the moment I turn 3, my mother and I shared an interesting quirk. Every 11 years our ages would be inverse. I turned 3, she turned 30. 11 years later, I turned 14, and she, 41.

But what is most peculiar about this quirk, is that every 11 years there's been a death.

Age 3: my great grandmother
Age14: my grandmother
Age 25: my mother

I will be turning 36 soon. Logic dictates I'm next if the pattern is to continue.

My diagnosis in July only helped to push this fear into the forefront.

Am I crazy? I don't know.

Hopefully I'll be wrong and come April I will have made a fool of myself for unnecessarily worrying.

If not, let this blog entry be my testament, that I knew it was coming and though scared beyond all that is and ever was, I am standing tall and not giving up.

I'm dying... But I'm not dead yet.

Occupy this! I am the 1%...

No, I am not among the wealthiest 1% of Americans.

What I am is the legendary statistical 1% that exists in all of life's caveats.

You know... "This treatment is 99% effective" or "There's only a 1 in a million chance of possible side effects." Say hello to the 1 in a million to experience the side effect, or the 1% which will not react effectively to said treatment.

The whole life I have been the 1%. Sometimes it has worked in my favor, such as achieving a high scores in school. However, for the most part it has been more of a burden than a blessing.

When I visit my doctor and ask for the worse case scenario, I am told I should be less pessimistic. I am told I should be positive and think good thoughts and not worry about that small 1% chance of something going off script.

Excuse me.

I guess you would know my track record better than me, seeing as though you've known me for 6 months and can't seem to remember my name without looking in my chart. I guess my 35 years of living as the human exception to the rule does not qualify me to plan ahead for what can most certainly occur TO ME.

I apologize for my arrogance, in wanting to be informed of ALL eventualities.

The pathetic thing is, even though I know without a shadow of doubt that I will be the statistical variance, I still maintain hope that this one time, just once, that I will beat the odds.

I have hope.

I am positive.

I will fight.

So fuck you Dr. Know-Nothing. Fuck you in the ass.