I'm Here...

On the advice of a couple of good friends, I do this blog. I always thought the most profound event of my life (besides brutally raped- that’s another story) was the time I spent in prison thirty years ago. It defined me, not in a negative way, but as an intense, life changing time-don’t regret it- I got a rare perspective of the worst and best of humanity. I began to write then - Poems, stories, journals from 1978 forward…. records of prison, all that happened before and since . Now, I’ve a new sentence – cancer. Such a startling reality when told- on Monday morning at work over the phone. wow, that call was heart stopping for a second. in those few hours after the call, I found myself driving aimlessly in San Diego, in a trance. It was just before Christmas; my wife was in Tucson, - I was to meet her there in three days, alone, driving, thinking, screaming inside, laughing at the irony that it was breast cancer, not lung cancer always thought if I got cancer I figured it would lungs….the irony that I had always wanted a breast reduction –that old cliché, careful what you ask for. a couple of months into it, it’s surreal some, too real, days, other days, particularly when they cut a chunk of my boob out, and it still hurts most days…and that what follows is months of chemo and radiation.