this ending - this beginning - this birthday

I've never been one to freak out and hit the panic button. I've been fortunate to be endowed with a certain sense, a depth of calm and understanding that when calamity hits everything goes into slow motion and I'm able to operate with clarity.

Tonight, I can't sleep. I'm bursting with anticipation as on April 22nd I land on a new birthday. I will finally have surgery to remove the implant on my chest, this metal cylinder that I've been living with since last summer that is directly accessing my jugular vein where all the chemo poisons shot through my heart to assassinate the cancerous cells. I could have taken a variety of holistic approaches that would have been gentler to my body and over all experience, but I signed up for this insane mission (with a knapsack full of green juices and sweatlodge prayers), allowing me to assassinate any shadow of a monkey on my back that would ever dare whisper to me that cancer is lingering in my body. There is no sharp shooter in fighting cancer… an analogy I like to share with friends about cancer: When an army has to destroy a rebellion, and those rebels are dressed like civilians, it is impossible to send a sharpshooter in to just assassinate the rebels because they are mixed in with the innocent villagers. What generally happens in this scenario is the military bombs the village, killing the rebels and all of the innocent (look at Afghanistan and Iraq). I don't approve of this method when innocent lives are taken, especially for political nonsense; but in the arena of cancer - the body is the village, the cells are both the innocent and the rebels, and the chemo is the unleashed military arsenal.

This experience with cancer has been an explosive fire. The process of defeating it has burned away almost everything - .my marriage, my career, my body, my being - so much has been burned down to ash. For months, my violent dance with chemo sent me into a burning river in what I described as a river in the valley of death, it was a baptism I wish upon no one. My 14-day cycle of death and rebirth lived through over and over again for 12-rounds over 6-months is an experience I am so grateful not to have to ever have to live through ever again - the entries of this blog serve as the memory. Through all this, I am fortunate - I've survived. I have spoken to my regenerated molecules, I have spoke to my reoxygenized blood, I have spoke to the four winds, I have spoken with my ancestors and know to my core that I have conquered the beast. The removal of 'the port' will mark the end of life as I have known it as with this new tribal scar, this initiation tattoos a specific moment in my life time; this ending - this beginning - this birthday.

I've had the last 8-weeks to live, love, regenerate, reassess, rebuild, and realign myself with my breath and my heart. As my new birthday approaches I'm diving over the edge head first with absolute surrender and trust in to the great unknown… diving in to what I named this blog so many months ago - into the great mystery. And so it is…

Phoenix Rising

CT-Scan and Procedures

It's been about 9-weeks since I made an entry here. After spending 7-months beating cancer, I escaped the New York City winter and lived between Miami and Los Angeles. I've returned to a regular yoga practice, been exercising a lot, eating healthy, I'm deep in my daily spiritual practice, and over all feeling highly charged and alive. I know to the core of my being that I am cancer free, there is not an hint of disease anywhere in this body.

Still, procedures need to be adhered to… I had a hospital visit yesterday, my first time walking in to Mt. Sinai Medical since my last round of chemo in February. In previous visits my body would convulse and my head would start spinning just by placing my feet on the concrete steps outside the hospital doors; that reaction is no longer activated; it's a bit of a big deal…

I went to the hospital to have the port 'flushed' and a CT scan. I had to consume a thick chemical infused smoothie, and 20-minutes later I was in a robe, laying back being swallowed by a machine. As the CT-scan was proceeding I was injected with ISOVUE, a solution that allows the machine to reach my body. The nurse said, 'your whole body will feel like you are getting a hot-flash, try not to panic'. Fortunately, it was no big thing, I just visualized turning into light and breathed easily. When the procedure was done the nurse said, 'just drink a lot of water and the chemicals will be out of your body in a few days, you need to get them out of your kidney's'!!! I asked 'can i go and sweat it out in steam and sauna', they replied 'that would be much faster'. i rushed from the hospital to the Russian Baths and detoxed for three hours, it was a profound experience between the heat, the bathroom, the heat, the cold, the bathroom... the chemicals took the express train out of my body.

I have a few birthdays in my life, anniversaries of major events that have initiated me though this life. i have a new one coming up next thursday april 22nd as at 8am that morning i will be at the hospital going through the surgery to extract the metal implant in my chest from which the chemo was administered. it will officially mark the conclusion of what has been the darkest chapter in my life. It's almost over… Following the surgery I intend to do a liver/kidney/heavy metal detox to rejuvenate my blood.

Phoenix Rising