Night
For some reason I have been for weeks now in the midst of normalcy. Yes, I am still often lying flat in bed resting but my mind spirit and body are soaring when up. I do feel some fatigue but mostly I feel excitement. I survived another year after my bleed out, I had so hoped I would. Its been almost a year and a half now. The cancer is twice as large too but nothing is keeping me down, I keep rising up. I am thinking of cycling today. It connects me to myself. When I cycle I believe in myself in a way that I never do off the bike. Its not easy cycling with the liver fatigue I have.
September 18, 2015
I did find some cycle mates on the 16th and cycle that day for 3 hours. It was fantastic. I am 63, they were 31 and 33, one is becoming a lifeguard. I out cycled both of them but I am sure if he wished, he could have raced ahead of me and in all fairness I was on my race road bike and she on a mountain bike and he on a beach cruiser but fuck what an age difference. We cycled out here in the country going out to Kaena Point.
I had serious leg cramps after my 3 hour cycle but nothing like when I began cycling and building the leg muscles required to cycle hard and fast for long stretches of time in the hot sun and it was very hot on the 16th, we started out when the sun was the hottest.
Yesterday, I cycled an hour down to what I call The Green Hole. Its a small surf break but really there are very few surfers out here. There are also very few tourist.
I am lying in bed in Makawao on the island of Maui. I've come with my male gay friend that I met at The Camera Club of New York in 2001 when I moved there. I no longer travel alone. I do not have the energy it takes. Liver cancer requires a lot of rest so I do but I do it so when I am strong from resting enough, I can cycle, hoop dance, swim, all for hours. I am presently quite strong. I hoop danced one day 3 hours non stop. Tomas and I have been out the entire day today driving up to Hana. We only arrived yesterday at 6 a.m. After leaving the north shore by car, I drove us and got us into short term parking. I was up at 2 a.m. I swell so much now. I do not have Ascites though. I get an inflammatory response to everything I eat. I have lost 4 pounds but still my gut is altered from having liver cancer. As I understand, the liver will swell very large as it dies then just before death it shrivels into a small hard knot then with some time everything, blood, oxygen quit flowing through it to such a severe degree that protein builds and is not eliminated because bile can no longer be produced and the excess becomes ammonia that eventually hits the brain and shuts it down but its also possible that the body's ability to function simply brings death head on instead of inducing coma. I have very low platelets and varices in my gut under pressure so its possible they could burst and next time, I will bleed to death. Its amazing I am still living after the last bleed out. I so wanted another year and its been another year and a half.
I will never give up, I will always keep trying. I will always find something to hope for, something worth hoping for, if not for myself then for someone else. Hope brings peace even if we know for our own survival, we have exhausted it, then I will hope for someone else.
Tomorrow we drive to Lahaina to spend the day with my son. I want to go to the jungle, the bamboo forest, I'd like to take photographs.
10/9/15
