Beating cancer is great.   It's like winning a prize fight.  Mohammad Ali VS Smokin' Joe Frazier.  At the end, when the doctor says to you "the scan revealed no indication of cancer in your body", you want to leap out of your chair and cheer (and probably will).  It feels like you've been handed a golden trophy.   Then, later, as you go to put it on your shelf, you realise, "hold on, whafuck ?  This thing's .. *sticky*"   You look more closely.  There are brown smudges on the rim of the trophy (and now on your hands).  "Ew, is that chocolate ?"   You smell your hands.  Nope.  It's not chocolate.   Grimacing, you lift the lid on the trophy, and yes.  Yes, I'm afraid so.  It's filled with shit.   There are people who don't win the fight against their cancer.  They die.  May they rest in peace.   But if you do survive the cancer, either by having it removed, or managed / in remission - you've probably got a laundry list of side effects ... but more likely than not, you also have a dark cloud hanging over you - a fear that will never go away.   I get face spasms.  Yep, cramps in my face.  They suck, but I'm grateful to have them.  I have three young kids, and my deal with any sentient creator was simple - "don't make my little children face the grief of losing a father, and I will slay many goats in your name"   OK, no goats were killed in the writing of this post.   But yeah, I have face spasms, a laundry-list of chemoradiation side effects, and, any time I get sick, my neck lymph nodes swell up.  They create a hard lump that often feels *EXACTLY* like the lump/node swelling that I had when the cancer was first diagnosed.   Yep.  Every little cough, every feeling of fatigue, your thoughts will probably be shadowed with "has the cancer come back ?"   That's the grim reality of living with cancer.   My advice (and my personal goal) is to develop the tools and strategies that allow me to overcome (or at least ignore) these feelings of anxiety.   Yes, we are all going to die.   But today, I am alive.  Thank you, God, Allah, Fonzie, Batman.  I am alive.   If you've got this same, crippling fear that I sometimes have .. I feel you.  It's awful.  But how about we try and park it to one side and celebrate the fact that we're still here ? ... View more

I don't really see much discussion around death, but let's face it - it's one commonality to the human condition - inevitably at some stage we all must die.   My son's jujitsu teacher died in a motorcycle accident very recently.  A young man, in his prime, early 30s.  I was given a very grim prognosis and have been fighting cancer for 3 years now - but may live another 30.  Who knows ?   But I do sometimes think about death:  what will it be like ?  Will it truly be the end ?  Will it be linear consciousness, and then, nothing ?   I've never *not* been.  I can't remember the womb, I can't remember many things from my childhood.  Slippage slippage, time drifts by.   When my son was a toddler, just learning to speak, I asked him if he could remember being in Mummy's Tummy.  He said YES.  I asked him what it was like.  He said it was warm.  Bright.  I asked him if he could remember BEFORE THAT.  He said YES.  I asked him what it was like.  He didn't have the vocabulary.   Who knows ?  Maybe there is something spiritual to us, something that exists before and after our corporeal existence ends.   Maybe not ?  Maybe it feels like falling into a dreamless sleep that you never wake up from - so the very concept of "feeling" becomes a redundancy.   Will I one day be no more ?  Will I go on somehow ?   There are people who will say stuff like "By Jesus' Grace, if you believe in Life Eternal you will go to HEAVEN (amen)", and that's OK.  There are people who say "logic dictates when your meat dies your perceptions end, game over".  (An equally viable BELIEF SYSTEM).   I don't have any specific belief construct.  I'm just musing, just throwing my thoughts out there into the void, in case some other passenger on Spaceship Earth is pondering the same stuff, and our common experience helps to shrug off the anxiety that perpetually surrounds death.   Hey, there are folks that believe you're already in heaven, or hell.  One of the (supposedly) smartest folks on the planet recently asserted that the odds are we're already living in an AI manufactured virtual reality (something like that great movie THE MATRIX).  Ok.  Belief systems are like rectums - pretty much everybody has one, and it's not much fun to compare them.   If I were a betting man, I'd probably speculate:   1) there is some kind of finer spiritual meaning to our life, we (meaning the spark of creative life within us) go on somehow 2) maybe consciousness CAN reform, be it in a bird or a fish or another human foetus 3)  The idea of Heaven & Hell is ever so much bullshit invented by early-man clubs looking to control the masses, and we never quite grew out of it.  Dogmatic religion is bullshit. 4) There MAY be some kind of God or Creator, may even be deeply aware and woven into our lives 5) Or death MAY be just like falling asleep and never waking up.  If you're in pain, it's an ending of pain. 6) Most of the reported near death experience stuff is probably bullshit - a kind of hysteria induced mass hallucination where we experience things based on common comforting themes shared previously in a kind of 'group think' 7) Even so we MAY transition to some completely new state of existence.  This body and mind slip away, consciousness reforms elsewhere, it could be like being in a cataclysmic car crash that impairs your mental function .. you were a living human, you're gone, now you're a baby, and reasoning and linear memory is reduced down to "warm", "cold" "scared" "hungry"   Anyway, if you're dying or think you're dying - don't be afraid - you're on the edge of humanity's enduring undiscovered country.  We can explore continents, the oceans, eventually space, our own internal physical and mental processes - but death is that ultimate mystery.   Until that final moment, reality is a temporary idea, something we've taken on sensory logic built over time.  It's possible that the objective reality you've accepted your entire life is an illusion.   Hey - maybe you're God, and when you get weary or start to work out that you're God, you reboot into a new life, a new reality, and endless series of The Sims style stories.   Whenever and however it happens - it's a bit of a backhanded gift and small consolation:  at least we may get to find out, eh ? ... View more

As cancer survivors, it's easy to see yourself as a victim, to focus on the adversity you face, rather than the advantages that are available to you.   I would posit that some of our shared advantages (as survivors) probably position us pretty well to start a Cult.  (name & purpose of the cult to be discussed).   Consider:   - generally, I think it's fair to say that surviving cancer gives you a new perspective on life.  I think as cancer survivors, we might be more willing to unify around the common theme of our hard-earned wisdom, more ready to see each other as peers, a bit like how soldiers bond in battle .... and have each others back in a 'culty' way - as cancer survivors, we've had to look death in the face, we are able to see past frivolous things and have the potential to be quite resolute and focussed - fellow cult-members with darker prognoses will be less risk adverse and also potentially less concerned about long term stuff like credit-scores, and therefore an immediate source of cult revenues - departing members can bequest various property(ies) and assets to the cult   Now .. to the purpose of the cult..   I'm not 100% sure, honestly.     Most cults are about raking in the cash (in my opinion).  Maybe also doing the horizontal mamba, the ole rumpy-pumpy, a bit of the old bedroom rodeo, you know - bow-chicka-wow-wow, a bit of the ole entangling of the lower beards, you know what I mean, nudge nudge, wink wink, say n'more, a bit of the old slipping the sausage between the buns, you know what I mean ?  Stuffing the taco, taking the bald headed gnome for a stroll into the misty forest ..... and so forth, sorry, I'll stop... (since chemo, I can get muddled, ramble, and say shit purely for my own amusement :/)   Anyways, I just thought I'd throw the idea out into the void .. or if you prefer, run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes.   But yeah, purpose and name of the cult is something we'd need to explore in detail, please reply if you have any ideas, I'm thinking something like:   NAME: The C-Team MISSION: solving mysteries & vigilante crime-fighting, a bit like a sickbed version of the A-Team or Mission Impossible   NAME:  The Bonded CS Illuminati MISSION:  protect vulnerable cancer sufferers & survivors, grow massive amounts of wealth, fund cancer research, also ride around in solid gold limousines   Dunno, that's me tapped out.  Also, I'm not voluntering as Cult Leader, but I'd be happy to play a central role ... ahh .. ahem .. treasurer maybe ? ... View more