Here I am, writing again. Nothing to say really. Just having the usual questions of who am I really and what am I doing here? I had those feelings before I got diagnosed with a life threatening disease. They just seem more appropriate now.

I met with my new therapist. This one is a real doctor. We made some progress. He made me feel comfortable and he made me think about things and he gave me some ideas. That may have been a real good change for the better. Especially since what he said about my statements to him about my life made me feel comfortable, his words were believable and direct. That is what this is all about, my life and my pursuit of it. From there things just keep tumbling forward.

I have fewer questions about my life. I have more resolve to pursue it. It could be called focus. All of these things will get tested as my life goes forward. (For those of you thinking that I am being self indulgent, yes, I am. But this is my blog. If you want to get self indulgent, start your own blog.) Of the many things that are more clear, there is the awful truth that as much as I want to find it, there probably is no silver bullet to solve my life and all of the problems I feel I have. It all comes to baby steps; a little step here, a little progress there. I just don't have the strict time schedule so much anymore; time is not that important.

One thing do I notice is that I feel like I understand where I felt off balance. No, I didn't say 'why' I said 'where'. And oddly enough my life stopped having so much of that shaky feeling, as if I was somewhere I did not belong. It is a modest start. I feel pretty good about it too. I picture myself as a traveler of space and time, shedding trinkets in search of a better life. When I stop searching it will be because I will have discovered that I already had it, I just didn't have it in the pocket I thought it was in.

As my favorite author P.J. O'Rourke claims to have said to his father in a conversation regarding his mother having lost her finger. "Did she look behind the refrigerator?"

Today I started making the phone calls to get appointments with a shrink and a therapist. The shrink's office has me filling out a 22 page long form. I read it over. It asked if I had recently experienced stress or other factors. That will be a YES. I could in fact save a lot of time by just cutting to the chase and telling him that being a pancreatic cancer patient means you got the grim reaper's scythe at your throat day in and day out and it won't go away, ever. The cancer might disappear off the scope but you never really know if there isn't one little bit of that demon left just waiting to roar back.

It would help if I had a job to leave the house to go play at. Having people around to provide an external source of annoyance and amusement would be a godsend right now. Being here day in and day out leaves me to play mind games with myself. I'm trying to find a job right now, but not much luck there. A couple of interested people but nothing that is going anywhere. I have to moderate the job search with the possibility that I may have to go back into chemo, either full or into a reduced regimen. My bet is that people will get a little miffed if I start new job and have to go away for a while to handle a chemo regimen that will likely leave me looking like a B-rated movie zombie, with approximately the same intellect. But I plug on, thinking all positive thoughts. Somewhere out there is something that will get me out of the house for money.

I cleaned out my email addresses today. Got rid of some people that I don't remember and some I would just as soon not. That's kind of a hard thought process. In a sense I am predicting the future, but only actually influencing it slightly. Some people just need to be culled from my list of contacts. They could still write me but a response is likely not going to be sent. Part of my overall house cleaning to my new slimmed down and redesigned life. That is a thought far deeper than most of you can fathom. For me it means cleaning my mental house to the bare walls and then moving some walls besides. The cancer wiped many previous experiences clean for me. Think of a hurricane sweeping a swampy coast clean of the trees and grasses and leaving a beach with only few trunks sticking up in the sand. Now just a beach, waves washing over it. The tangles are gone and the tide comes and goes without leaving pools of murky water in amongst tangled tree roots. And then there is always the chance of another angry hurricane coming along. I am searching for driftwood to build my shelter and digging a pit for the small chunks so I can build a fire tonight. One day at a time, no plans for next week because there is no use for such a measurement of time. One day is all I can utilize, the convenient time between sunrise and sunset and darkness to fill in the rest.

That is much easier to describe in this blog than it is to implement in my actual life. I have to make my way through everyday life as if nothing happened. Except for the changes in my body and a medi-port on my right shoulder, and maybe the ridges in my nails from the chemo, there are no real marks from this event. Most of the scars are mental. Not so much memories, they are more emotional reactions to things that have happened as the days go by. All the things that got me here are now lying around in a mess that I have to sort through, like soggy photographs of a life I once had. And those around me have little to no idea of what is really going on inside my thoughts. They all bring their own thoughts to this conversation so they apply their thoughts to the situation as best they can and our thoughts just don't mesh like they used to. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. What is the definition of doing the same things you used to do and not getting even close to the same results that you did before? It sure as hell isn't sanity.

Another beautiful day, and more strange thoughts. I have been thinking about the sandwich line story I wrote last night. Many will think I was going off on being impatient. Actually I wasn't. I was going off on being where you are and doing what is necessary to accomplish the given goal at that time and place. If you walk into a sandwich shop and your head is elsewhere the menu is the last thing you will consider. Same with life. If you go through life being someplace else other than where you really physically are you are wasting your life. Driving with a cell phone in your ear is another variation. If you do one thing you can dedicate yourself and your mind to it. Doing two things means neither one gets even 50% of your attention. When you do things like that while driving you are a menace plain and simple. Doing things like that as a matter of practice during your life means you are wasting opportunities daily. Be where you are and doing what you are doing. Multitasking is not only over rated, it is lying to yourself. You are doing neither activity well and the results will prove that out. Life is sometimes all too brief, it can end suddenly, and there are absolutely no guarantees on life unless you were one of the lucky ones with an ironclad contract from God tattooed on your butt when you were born. I checked, I don't have that contract back there. So these days I am rearranging my life so that I do things that are more conducive to living life rather than just passing through while it being somewhere else.

I sort of took today off and tried to let my mind get some focus on where and what I am. It was dangerous because new thoughts came into my head. Music lyrics provided some of those. Things like having to know yourself before you can appreciate other people, corny stuff like that. Other thoughts came from realizing that I have some sort of anxiety that distracts me from concentration. There is evidence I have had it all my life and it just got worse recently. I will have to learn how to deal with that. Self analysis sucks, and it can be very difficult to make it productive. First step might be to keep a tablet handy and write some things down as they occur to me. I started a things to do list like that a few weeks back, it took me several weeks to work through that list. But I did. Now I need one just to record my thoughts so I can get them organized.

I am reading books on some software I want to learn. That's bad enough but the software is from Microsoft and I have to say those guys are insidious in self promotion, and rather crappy at putting together a product right the first time. I am reading several books on some of their software that changes massively from release to release, even to the point of being incompatible between versions. Not to mention that the latest version is like heroin for the user because it purports to do so much behind the scenes that the user actually cannot change the code once the M/S software emits it. I write about this because I see a very big problem with code emitters and code maintenance, like code maintenance being nearly impossible in that realm. It has made my opinion of M/S programmers sink to what I think of COBOL 'programmers', "when they make it so any fool can do it, any fool will". If you think I am being harsh realize that most major banks cannot process your transactions immediately because their critical code is written in COBOL and they have no idea how to figure out how to rewrite it in modern code to make it interactive or ready for real time processing. The guys who coded it are all gone and the new guys have no idea what the code really does. Just like the people writing in the new M/S offering. They really have no idea what their code does behind the scenes so if it goes bad, they have no clue how or where to fix it. Just a bitch about M/S. And life in general too. How many people have given their lives over to modern conveniences and fashion and have no idea how to really do things for themselves?

It's late and I need to go to bed. Tomorrow I will ponder the job market and more programming. And try to keep a tablet nearby to write down my random thoughts so I can accumulate them and sort them out. You can't really appreciate someone else until you understand yourself. I changed and I need to know where I am so I can appreciate life better. This new world I am living in is very challenging.

The excitement of the good news has worn off and the reality of life is pouring in. There are many residuals of the cancer adventure that haunt me. I cry at the drop of a hat. Almost anything will make me come to tears. I feel adrift in life, having many thoughts that would seem outrageous to most people. But they are very real to me.

I ponder living through a life threatening episode this late in life. The point of life can be lost when I consider my age and what I might have ahead of me in life. And then there are all the things behind me. The wonder of life that I had when I was younger was mostly gone by the time I got cancer. My days of courting were long since gone, I have been married for many years. We got the medical diagnosis of my cancer on our 25th wedding anniversary. The wonder and excitement of life had dwindled to the occasional times when I forgot myself and few a very few seconds wonder and awe could return. It slips in at odd times now, surprises me then it slips silently away before I can appreciate it.

There are so many books and stories that have been written about finding yourself after a serious illness threatens a person's life. They are for the most part embellishments of the real situation. What is real is that the ground beneath your feet has given way to squishy sand and you don't really know what is real for you anymore. Things get mixed in ways you never thought about or even dreamed of. Some of the little annoyances of life do actually go away. Other annoyances grow. The one that comes to mind is how much people waste their time, and yours at the same time. You see them everyday, bumbling along with no conscious thought whatsoever as they ponder the menu of ten items at the sandwich shop, seemingly unable to decide on this momentous and life changing decision of which sandwich to order. As if that decision would be of any consequence whatsoever once they have wiped their mouths and left for other places. To all of you out there, think of this next time you order food; nobody is going to die because of your decision, but you might if you don't make up your mind real soon. The people behind you are waiting while your minuscule mind ponders the vagaries of the menu, and believe me those people behind you are plotting your demise in horrible and unthinkable ways. They have a life they would like to get on with, while you apparently don't. They would gladly solve that issue for you.

Otherwise the wisdom of a second chance at life leaves many more questions than answers. What used to be a natural easy situation suddenly becomes a quest across new ground, the things that made your life move along so easily are suddenly laid bare for questioning. No, not just which sandwich to order, but "Why did I take that job several years ago?" and so on. What was obvious or at least possibly a given years ago now seems to be not so obvious. You do suddenly hear people in different ways. You now have exuberance for things that seemed nonchalant before. A baby's laugh, a peaceful scene, music you never had time for, all these things can change for you without your knowledge. And the people around you are not the same as they used to be. Yes, you do find yourself questioning yourself and your motives to your very core of being.

I need to go out and get a job because I am slowly going crazy being home everyday. Sounds simple enough. But the consideration of that brings on a question of what friends do you have to rely on for help in finding that job. In my case, there are few. I find my lack of trust issues have resulted in having few close friends that I can rely on in that situation. I struggle to even name three references because I was so distant from people most of my life. The big question is how do I go about changing the way I relate to people? Try contemplating that monumental challenge for days on end, and then watching yourself as you try to change your behavior. It is tough, very tough. Past that there are the challenges of finding a job that sounds even remotely interesting. It was so easy before, the choices seemed much more obvious, and many of them had to do with money. But now they are not clear at all. What used to be exciting is no more, what were values held close are not so much anymore. I changed and I wasn't here to notice it. I even considered a job that would take me out of town for extended periods of time, away from my wife and my home and my pets. I have spent considerable time thinking about my reaction to that job. I am quietly amazed at my emotions on that point. What do I want to do for the remainder of my life that might be even remotely interesting? That is a question I cannot answer at this very moment. I poke through programming books, I ponder things on the internet, and I discuss things with with my wife.

That brings up a very often overlooked situation about these things. What the patient feels during the crisis is not remotely similar to what those around them feel. As if them and the patient were on different planets while it was all going on. And they were. In different solar systems even. I find the conversations regarding these differences can get very testy. I know that I have to find another confidant other than my wife because we have almost nothing in common on that point. None of our conversations on that point have turned out well. Another observation along that point that I feel I should point out. When things look like crap in your life and you feel like there is no point in staying alive, that particular point has absolutely no relevance when you are really faced with death. It seems almost comical now that I could get so depressed that I didn't want to go on living before. Given the option of life or death, I have much more wisdom on that point now. By the way, whatever depression issues I had before are gone. No problem with being depressed anymore; at worst I am bored. Anxiety has increased somewhat though. Not sure why. Probably because I have so many questions and so few answers.

My next set of tests are two weeks out. I test 11/2 and get the results 11/6. I take nothing for granted any more. I feel just as apprehensive this time as I have the last two times, or at the beginning of this ordeal. In this game if you lose one hand you are out of the game. And pancreatic cancer is not known for having a sense of humor or latitude. Yeah, I am scared. I look around and there is no obvious threat to my life, everything seems so normal. But inside me is a little demon that may come raging back and end this blog unceremoniously. I have no illusions there. I wonder when or how I will ever feel secure about life again. A dragon lives inside me, I wonder if it will ever go away.