VAXED Poderoso

I've been reflecting on a lot of old memories while under quarantine. It's funny how all the dust that can settle has settled these last 15 months, only to help unearth old fears & circumstances that are woven into the fabric of my adulthood. I finally realized (accepted) this past year that I am an adult. A grown ass man with a dad bod, creaky joints and thicker reading glasses. I wear PJs with dress shoes when going to the store; wear compression socks with sandals; pull a muscle getting jeans on. It's depressing.

Long gone are the days when the party would start at 10 pm (12 am in Vegas), or Bar hoping at joints located 20 miles away (hello Dresden). Even the mirror ball tends to get too bright. Sigh.

All that said I still consider myself fortunate to be around. Honestly, I didn't think I would last beyond 2020 and in many ways never planned goals for myself other than surviving. Now, I find myself in an amusing 2nd midlife crisis where I am trying to define what I should do in the next couple of years: personally & professionally. Since my original diagnosis in 2016 I sort of "gave up" on many goals and focused only on what was to help extend my life. Cancer has a way to help a person define priorities, so that Austin Martin & Career as a Jewel Thief had to go. Nonetheless, I look back with irreverent fondness at the path I've traversed the last five years and humbly pat myself in the back.

The TPX-0005 clinical trial, or Repotrectinib for you dandys, seems to be working wonders on my cancer-guest. As if I needed more of an excuse to go on. But seriously, I am very lucky that my physique has responded good to this particular drug and has given me an outlook beyond an annual goal. I've regained the same stresses as a regular "American Male" would have at the age of 54. Now I’m planning all kinds of shit that are really circumstantial to a man my age, but it's nice to not have to live week-by-week, or month-by-month as I did last year.

Time has certainly flown by as has slowed down these last 5 years. Kind of like the flu: cold & hot at the same time. A perpetual cold sweat, or hangover. It sucked. But, at the same time it rocked, in that I was able to face my demon and live another day.

I found a strength I never knew I had (nor deserved). But it's sweet to be able to recognize that.

I am good.

Salud!