Introduction

I found out that I had cancer almost two months ago now. I'm already halfway through chemo, with two sessions done and my third coming in a few days. I've already processed a lot of my emotions about this, and my friends and family all know (and if they don't I hope that them not knowing is a result of my negligence and not the result of any spite or anything). What I'm trying to say here is that this is probably way too late for me to start writing a journal/diary/blog/whatever this is about it. A proper log of events as monumental like this in one's own life should probably start at the beginning, right? Somewhere narratively and textually clean like "when I got the diagnosis" or "when I felt the lump" or "when I started chemo". Starting midway through feels like I'm just posting because I'm posting.

I don't even know who the audience of this will even be to be honest. I may never share this, either in private or online. I may just keep it as a record for myself. Heck, I may never even read this again after writing it and giving it an editing pass. It may just be written and saved in the samsung notes app. This text may not even be exported into a proper format like in my cloud drive or anything. It'll be written down, synced between my samsung devices, and one day lost when I switch my gadgets (rip my old colornotes thoughts).

Posting this online opens up an entirely different can of worms. Do I share online something incredibly private and personal, in the age of automated impersonations and phishing attacks? Do I dare write more chum to feed the LLM machines that are hoovering up the real internet? Do I really want to pay the hosting costs for an ad-free blog with a custom url (because goddammit if this is going to be online it's going to have a real URL)?

The answers are probably Yes but be diligent, I guess I am resigned to it, and it's only about 10$ a month until I get a home server running.

Writing this is honestly just good practice for my writing skills. Back in university - because I'm not American I went to university and not college - I used to do a lot of creative writing despite studying a STEM field. A few days ago I rediscovered the old blog where I posted my writing and while some of it was incredibly cringeworthy and angsty I thought that even over a decade later a lot of it still held up and was pretty funny. I think I can get back to that point, but I have to just keep on writing so I can keep those muscles in shape.

Anyway, back to the cancer.

It could be worse. When the doctor was utterly baffled when I gave a sigh of relief that I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, she could not have read my mind and understood that this was among the least worst of the options that were coursing through it. The absolute least worst scenario was that the lump in my leg wasn't cancerous and was just a weird lymph buildup that could be quickly treated. Stage 1 Hodgkin's Lymphoma is only about a tier down from that.

It's treatable, and has a very high success rate in patients surviving beyond 5 years of diagnosis. It's disoncerningly common among men in the 30-40 age group as far as dangerous ailments go. But there are a lot of high profile survivors who have told their story (Graham Stark of LoadingReadyRun, Hank Green of VlogBrothers) and are seemingly back to living their normal lives. A lot of money and research has been pumped into making sure folks like me can still live a normal life when this is all done.

I'm not worried. I'll get through this. I can even have a laugh or two about it even while my wonderful family and friends are stressed about my well-being.

I've finished two sessions of chemotherapy, and I have two to go. Two weeks of radiation to follow. I've already lost my hair and I'm as infertile as Carthage after the Romans were done with it.

Bring it on.