Terminally Illin’ – “Chaos in Humanhattan”

Today I got a real treat, my own personal copy of Chaos in Humanhattan - the scary, cynical, irreverent, twenty-something, mash-up of a memoir, a ”chemo-induced ‘Alice in Wonderland’ story and a “campy ‘Hollywood’ action adventure” graphic novel that focuses on the Kaylin Andres and her Ewing Sarcoma cancer battles. http://www.cancercomicbook.com/

While the story is fantastical, so is the fact that Kaylin is still alive. I believe she’s still living because she found humor – black humor, gallows humor, sardonic humor – an vehicle for empowering her fight with a dark, hideously unrelenting cancer that whacked her at twenty-three and kept trying to drag her into the grave.

“Chaos in Humanhattan” is written and drawn for millennials. If you aren’t a millennial in your age or in your soul, you might find it flippant or upsetting. To my way of thinking, Kaylin addressed that when she wrote her book and blog’s subtitle – “Cancer is not Funny … Cancer is Hilarious.”  If that line doesn’t resonate with you, don’t read this book.

But it you are a millennial, in age or attitude, you should read this book. The story, by Kalin and Jon Solo, is in turns bleak, poignant, darkly comedic and upsetting – like many cancer survivor stories. 

The graphics by Jon Solo and Jade Takushi are terrific - powerful, complex, and vivid. They are just as good as any Manga I’ve ever read.

What I really like about Chaos in Humanhattan is that Kalin and Jon capture all the horrible emotions that cancer victims go through, from “Why me?” to “Oh no!” to “I’m done” to “Now, I’m really pissed” and everything in between.

Here’s a link to their Facebook site: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Terminally-Illin-The-Comic-Book/178624932149196

Insult to Injury: “Beauty blogger Meechy Monroe's signature afro lost to brain cancer”

One would think that having a brain tumor would be bad enough, but having a YouTube hairstylist loose her hair due to chemo and radiation just seems like insult to injury. 

I haven’t been quite so depressed since reading about Grant Achatz, the world-famous Chicago Restaurateur, having stage IV tongue cancer, or Sandra Marante, a young budding opera singer having a seizure during a rehearsal: http://johnstumor.blogspot.com/2012/03/truth-is-stranger-than-fictionits-also.html

Horribly, both Monroe and Marante are young, accomplished women who were full of promise and vitality and optimism.

The article in the Chicago Tribune, by Lolly Bowean, nicely captures all the horrible irony that hair loss for a nationally-known hair stylist commands.

Interested? If you’re not, I dare you to read the following opening sentences of Bowean's story and not be compelled to read the rest of article. Here’s the link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-meechy-monroe-cancer-met-1007-20141011-story.html#page=1

“Over the last five years, Meechy Monroe has built a reputation and international following among black women who turned to her for hair care tips and inspiration as they turned from chemically treated hair to natural styles.

Through her blog, social media and YouTube channel, Monroe won tens of thousands of followers who longed to know just how she twisted, twirled, patted and puffed her signature, textured Afro into an elegant, bouffant-esque style. Her YouTube channel piled up more than 2.4 million views. She gained 36,000 followers on Instagram and reached thousands more through Twitter and her blog.

But recently, the 29-year-old West Pullman resident has been diagnosed with a rare brain tumor that affects just 1 percent of cancer patients in the U.S. The disease, along with the radiation and chemotherapy necessary to treat it, has changed everything for Monroe. She lost her ability to write clearly. Her speech became halting.

Added to those huge losses was another one: her hair, the glorious, dark black, curly mane that helped catapult her to icon status within the natural hair community.” (I made the last line bold because it is so ironic, although maybe “sardonic” is a better description.)

If nothing else, be sure to watch the video: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-meechy-monroe-cancer-met-1007-20141011-story.html#page=1

Describing Life on Chemo

Here’s a particularly articulate description of enduring chemo treatments by blogger and brain tumor victim Mark Green excerpted from a post on his blog, moosevt: http://moosevt.wordpress.com/

 

“The opportunity to reflect is a gift: what was, what could’ve been, what might be, becomes part of a deeply tumultuous swirl of emotion from places within I didn’t even know existed. Because of this cancer I’ve been given this time, this heretofore unwelcome ‘gift.’ And there is nothing like Jackson Browne to reach inside my heart and pull everything right up to the front, like the deep roots of some primeval tree, to unleash a torrent.”

Later in the same posting he says “After enduring two weeks of chemo in the hospital and a third to begin Tuesday I’m feeling a little bit like a  punchdrunk boxer in the ring: DeNiro in Raging Bull with fists coming slow, hard and unrelenting. I know I’ve referred to the Native American character in “One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest” who in the end ripped the sink from the flooring and smashed through the wall, releasing the patients from the asylum. 

While certainly my hospital stays are nothing of the sort, the doctors, staff and nurses all being top- rate, being tethered (and often entangled like a fish caught in a driftnet) to an IV pole day after day, having it wrapped around my legs and arms having to unplug every time I have to go to the bathroom trying to get there before it’s too late, having it pull on my PIC-lined arm is not a friend I wish to be attached to. The notion of tossing the entire IV pole through the plateglass window comes to mind quite often.”

Honest. Insightful. Painful to read, but well worth doing so.

Jack Hoffman, 7 Year Old Brain Cancer Victim Scores a Touchdown, Everybody Wins!

This writing about brain tumors is often depressing. For reasons I still can't fathom good people, wonderful people, unsuspecting people of all ages get whacked with brutally oppressive diseases that drag them to unhappy endings.

And then I read about Jack Hoffman and the Nebraska football team. Jack is a 7 year old cancer victim on a two-week hiatus from a “60-week chemotherapy regimen.”  A 6 week chemo regimen would depress me, I can’t imagine what 60 weeks of chemo would be like.

But during the Nebraska football team’s spring scrimmage, the coach drew up a play just for Jack that allowed him to score in front of nearly 70 thousand cheering fans (If you are not from the U.S. or even the Midwestern section of the U.S., yes, you read that right. Seventy thousand people attended a “practice” game in the off season).

And if this video doesn’t bring a tear to your eye or quicken your pulse, call the funeral home, because you’re dead.

Here’s a link to the ESPN article: http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/9142300/jack-hoffman-7-scores-nebraska-cornhuskers-spring-game

Zach Lederer Brain Tumor Celebrity

There is something in a story of the little guy, the long-shot, the guy bucking the odds who won’t take no for an answer that makes everybody want to root for him.  Zach Lederer is that kinda guy.

He’s also the kind of guy that’s had brain cancer not once but twice.

He’s also the guy that invented “Zaching.” 

Zaching is a phrase used to describe Zach’s pose coming out of his second brain surgery. It's a pose that visually and viscerally demonstrates that he’s going to fight cancer and with every ounce of his spirit. It says that he believes he's going to win this battle.

The attached article describes this pose he made for his Dad when he asked him to take his picture right after surgery “He said he thought, “If I make these muscles and show everyone how strong I am right now, they’ll stop worrying about me and think, ‘Oh he’ll be great.’”.

Not only has that pose captured that emotion and statement indelibly, it seems to touch everybody on a primal level who sees it.  It’s touched me that way.

And just when you think that America is a cold-hearted, dog-eat-dog society, you see an incredible swatch of the nation get behind this kid, this idea, this pose and show support.

As you may know, the pose is now a national phenomenon, a social media creature that has taken on a life of its own.  Pictures of people Zaching – from classmates, to celebrities, to the military – are posted on social media sites of all shapes and sizes.

So if you’re a brain tumor victim, what does this mean?  I think it means that fighting brain tumors are something that everybody, and I mean everybody, can support.  It means that even if folks don’t know who you are and what your background is, if they know that you’re in a dog-fight with a brain tumor or cancer, they will support you.  In a dark moment when you’re fighting pain or reduced cognitive skills or fears of the future, that’s a comforting thought. 

Does this mean that Zach is cured? Out of the woods? Going to be fine? 

No, he still has months of chemo and possibly radiation ahead of him. And while I haven’t had chemo, everything I hear from friends who’ve had chemo, and everything I read on cancer blogs tells me that Zach has some very, very tough times ahead.

And like everybody else, I’m going to be praying for him and rooting for him.

Here's a link to the article - http://ellicottcity.patch.com/articles/ellicott-city-teen-diagnosed-with-cancer-inspires-web-phenomenon - and be sure to watch the video.