World Lung Cancer Day is About Transformation

 

Hello Friends,

Butterflies are symbols of transformation and beauty, as well as symbols of hope. Today is World Lung Cancer Day. It is a day to remember those we've lost to lung cancer, a day to celebrate the progress we've made in developing new treatments and in catching lung cancer early, AND a day to look forward with hope toward research that will continue to reveal better, more effective treatments, and perhaps someday a cure for this most lethal of cancers.

Please visit my LinkTree to find connections to a number of lung cancer organizations that have supported me over the years.

I am in my ninth year of living with lung cancer. Diagnosed at Stage IV, things looked a bit grim early on. Two years of a mixed bag of treatments got my disease stabilized, and thanks to a targeted therapy that I accessed originally through a clinical trial, I am here today to share my story. Yay for research!

Not everyone is so lucky. Lung cancer often mutates very quickly in response to treatment, and disease progression is common, even after years of stability. That means we need to constantly be working to find new treatments, and someday a cure. 

Lung cancer is notoriously hard to treat. That's because it isn't just one disease, as there are many types and many mutations that occur along the way. It's so important to keep our focus on funding lung cancer research.

I hope you will join me in supporting research! Your contributions make a difference.

Just Go With It

 

Just Go With It

This year the non-native ornamental 

This Year's Birthday Blossoms (barely)

weeping cherry tree bloomed 

early during a heatwave

and shed its frilly white-pink flowers

last week in a windstorm and last nip

of freezing air. Each year I take a selfie

beside or under my stubby tree

and her profligate ornamental bursting

on this, my birthday, the first day

of spring, a national holiday in Japan

(where they also love cherry blossoms)

and this year Eid al-Fitr around the world.

For years I embraced the myth

that one could balance an egg on its fat end

at the exact minute of the equinox

then learned you could that on a Tuesday or

any day or time with the right egg and a steady hand.

My mother says it was snowing at 1:14 a.m.

when I was born in a northern city

on the first day of spring, so I let that

be a metaphor for something

and sometimes there is still snow

Thick blossoms in early March

and yet each vernal equinox is a setting out

into a relentless wispy greening toward summer.

We planted the cherry tree in memoriam of

a prognosis: my imminent death, which after

nine years is perhaps less imminent or maybe not

because who knows how the divine mind goes?

I try not to read too much into the early blooming

and pre-birthday devastation of tree flowers (climate change

never-ending oil wars, the shitty way our countries 

are ruled by the corrupt, all those cruelties we perpetrate

on the weakest among us) and just go with gratitude

for all the text messages reminding me I am loved

just go with this day's grace into the light coming 

down through all the cracks, just go knowing

and knowing the answer to love is always yes

and more love.

(PS: This day marks my 63rd trip around the sun...I am setting an intention to write at least 63 poems this year and make 63 pieces of art.)