“do you have a relationship with jesus christ?”

 merry chemo christmas, all. humbug is one way to describe how i feel this morning. starting a cycle is never easy. 28 days feels like a long time to not feel good, and, truthfully, it is. this will be a different kind of christmas, in that it’ll be my first year that I’ve celebrated the holiday at the same time i’m likely to feel all different kinds of bad on the special morning. i’ll be exactly two weeks in, and the medicine will have reached its full levels by then. will it be my feet, or the intense heartburn that started last cycle or the normal fatigue and nausea and diarrhea and normal “how do you feel?” “shit-tastic.” stuff, or will it be a glorious combination of them all? we shall see.

physically, today i still feel well. i only took my first pill last night. it’s going to take a few more days for things to ramp up and get weird. i should be able to taste my fajita friday dinner tomorrow as god intended. that will be nice. i should be able to get one or two more really good workouts in, which will hopefully help me feel a little better on those days that i can’t. limbo is doing their holiday get-together on saturday. i should be able to appropriately enjoy catchphrase and making a fool out of myself when that bastard timer goes off in my hands. i can’t wait to see everyone and enjoy the comfort and company of people that I care a lot about. i'll be able to get around at the huge falcons game sunday. i hope they don't lose.  

and then, the next week will happen, and things will start to change. some predictability, if nothing else, comes with having completed five cycles of chemotherapy. i no longer hold out hope that i won’t feel bad. i know i’m gonna. at this point, it’s all about managing the side effects, anticipating them in a way that it doesn’t come as a massive surprise when it becomes a real exercise in pain tolerance to go and sit down in the bathroom. when i have to shift the weight around on the bottoms of my feet to avoid the most sensitive of hot spots. when i will not be able to taste my food. when i’ll regret eating that food because there’s a good chance i’m going to feel a pretty intense burning in my chest for a couple of hours afterwards. when the fatigue hits at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. the world will see me as fine. “you look great, kevin!” so, i’ll look like a pussy when it’s all i can do to move out of the office. when my gums bleed at the slightest touch of the toothbrush and become so sensitive that cavities don’t sound so bad. when shifting the weight around on the bottoms of my feet doesn’t help anymore. when it all hits me all at once. when i realize that i couldn’t be being more of an asshole at home because i can’t get up and outside my own self-loathing. chemo, man. it’s a helluva drug.

merry christmas?

people are funny.

a lady recently asked my cashier if she had a relationship with jesus. how are you supposed to respond to that, really? such a mindless and rote way of evangelizing. how many times has she asked someone that question? how many times has she received an honest response? probably very few, but, deep down, i wonder if she felt better about her effort, her work for the greater good, her reason for the season. it’s all speculation. i wish she would’ve asked me. this morning, it would have turned into something more interesting. something more than she expected. something different altogether. of course, i wouldn’t have been mean. i just would have been honest. people hate honesty. so do i.

i’ve had cancer. and then it came back.

 “do you have a relationship with jesus?”

 Who knows, ma’am. i have no idea what the reason for the season is anymore. what would you say if i told you “no.”? would you invite me to your church? would you hand me a tract? what’s your role in this, footsoldier or savior?

 the reason for my season this year will be my children. my family. my friends. my standing up to my cancer and my fighting the good fight for that hypothetical one person that may see my battle and buckle up themselves.

 i love my god. don’t get me wrong, please. i think my creator loves me.

 i hope it’s okay. it’s not, necessarily, that i want to take christ out of my christmas. but, just this once, i think he’s going to end up on the backburner. he’ll be there with me still, right? that’s how it works?

 who knows how it works?

disciplined in my journey, i’ll travel on. there is something to be gained from the valleys just as there are the hills.  

“you look great, Kevin!”

yeah? cool. thanks.

“do you have a relationship with jesus?”

eh. can i get back to you?

“do you have a relationship with jesus?”

not today.

but i'm listening.