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Final 40 days: the setup.

As y'all know, I've tried to keep up a schedule of blogging an average of every three days. I've posted about everything under the sun: my cancer, the treatments, how I'm feeling and how I'm progressing, adventures I've been having through this difficult time.

I will soon be hitting the 40 day mark. 40 days (three chemos) left of treatment until my lymphoma is cured. As that final day gets closer, it gets harder and harder to think of what to write about. My condition is worsening as the drugs are pummeling my body, so there are no more big adventures I can take and write about. Soon I'll be off work and sitting at home quite a bit.

At the same time, I don't want my final days of blogging to be a bunch of whining and complaining. "My knees still hurt today, the joint pain's getting worse.""I got dizzy going up a flight of stairs again." BOOOOO.

I know it's important to use this space to notify everyone of the challenges I'm facing and the condition I'm in. But I don't want to dwell on the bad. So I asked myself, how can I structure this blog to be more about the positives? And there ARE positives, you know, no matter how bad it gets. There are always good things, always sunny days.

After some careful thought, I came up with two things I would like to do for each of the remaining blog entries:

1.) I would like to recognize somebody in my life who has made it possible for me to survive this cancer. Chemotherapy has been the physical cure, but just as important to me, I needed a mental cure from the sheer madness of sadness and anger that can easily overcome me when I think that ever-pervasive thought, "good lord, I have cancer."

I'm not an extrovert, I don't have hundreds of people in my life holding my hand and walking me through it. But there are a select group of people who, in my most difficult year, have helped me stay above water.

I'm going to recognize one of those people each blog entry. 15 entries for 15 special people that have literally saved my life, whether they realize it or not.

You may already know who you are, or you may not. But regardless, I'm going to plaster your sexy face all over my blog, and make sure each of you know, one at a time, how very very very important you are. This is my big chance to thank you, publicly, for all you've done.

2.) In honor of Great Highway passing the 40 song mark (40 produced tracks performed live over the course of 5 years), I would like to post one track per day of Great Highway songs for you to re-listen to.

Nothing has mattered more to my creative life, nothing has fueled my days more than the time I've spent in this wonderful band. I want to honor that time by reintroducing you to one of the greatest musical acts in the universe.

So each blog post, I will be writing about different songs and what they've meant to me as writer, producer, performer, instrumentalist and/or singer. I'm going to rank them counting up to #1, so keep an eye on this spot and see if your favorite GH tunes are my favorites as well! 

So yes, it's time to convert this blog into something REALLY worth reading about: a blog about people, great people, who I truly love and care for. And a blog about music, great music that means the world to me.

Adam.

My first friendly friends blog entry is about a certain gentleman who has known me for ohhhhh, about 37 years or so. 

Now, it's no secret that my only brother and I have had a contentious relationship in the past. For whole years at a time, we sometimes didn't talk to each other, either because of a disagreement, or just for no reason at all. We aren't a lot alike; I think the genes split pretty evenly. He got all the personality stuff I didn't get, and vice versa. Our teachers from high school remember us as the math one (him) and the English one (me), or perhaps in secret, the really smart one (him), and the somewhat more average one. He's a starter, an idea man, and I'm a stubborn finisher. As adults we took very different paths; he got married, I stayed single. Now he's divorced and searching for monogamous true love, and I'm living the hippy poly lifestyle. He bought the house and the cars and all that good suburban stuff, I never owned a single inch of land. Now he's cycling around the country, never living in one place for too long, while I've just passed a 10 year mark in San Francisco. I was traveling when he was all settled down, and now that I've taken root, he's the wandering gypsy. It's almost as if the universe created a sitcom-quality odd couple in the two of us. 

Despite the differences between us, Adam was one of the first people to reach out to me after I announced I had cancer. He felt a deep, genuine need to help, and he offered it all: his time, his money, his attention. I didn't take advantage of much of this, because I already had such a strong support network locally, and he wasn't here in San Francisco. But I know that he would have done almost anything to help if I'd taken advantage of his good graces. He was poised and ready, to rush to my side.

This is the thing about my brother: he's eccentric, he's unpredictable. He baffles my dad, and twice as much my mother. Sometimes, when I'm healthy and happy and everything is coming up sun and roses, I don't know how to have a relationship with him. But I have figured out a key component about Adam: he's a helper. He earnestly, genuinely, deep in the core of him, wants to help people. It's no surprise his life's new focus is cycling for charities, and that before that he was engaging in teaching things like yoga and massage. He likes to raise people up who are suffering. Other people's pain are his challenge. I have seen this in his friendships, his relationship with family, his romantic relationships, even with casual acquaintances. He is drawn to the problems of others, feels true empathy, and thinks very intensely about how to better other people's lives.

I'm a pretty weird guy too. I don't really think I'm exactly like anyone in my family. Bits of my mom, my dad and my brother are all present in me, but I'm sort of a satellite personality out here in California. But I love everyone in my core family for different reasons. And I love my brother in part because of that core desire he feels to serve and improve. I'm regularly touched by his commitment to help me and others, and I'm inspired by his life.

Adam is not the brother I would've ordered if there was a company who made perfect brothers. Does anyone get that in a family member? But Adam is the brother I SHOULD have. At his worst, he's a pain in my ass; but at his best, he's much more than I deserve. I wouldn't trade him for anybody.

Much love to you, bro. Can we finish that video game yet? 

Breckin.

My brief history with Breckin is one of those funny doesn't-this-only-happen-on-television escalations of friendship.

He started out as my neighbor, a friend-of-a-friend who happened to live down the block from my old house in the Mission. In our early associations, he struck me as this unusually personable, jovial sort of good-natured fellow - unusual because he was also apparently this brilliant engineer (he works at Apple these days, and is probably reinventing the planet Earth, or something comparable - Apple Earth? iEarth?). I don't know how many brilliant engineers you know, but...people skills are not in the job description. 

For awhile, he was just this guy who showed up to my weekly game nights, knew as much about Star Trek as I did, and brought a couple of his wacky roommate friends along for extra fun. But he quickly became one of my favorite dudes. And when I learned he owned a super deluxe RV, I suggested a vacation with some of his friends and some of my friends. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say, it involved a road trip, a lake, an adorable puppy, a great deal of cuddling, and possibly certain illicit substances. Our friendship was cemented after that.

This neighbor-turned-fast friend evolved again a couple months later, into a bandmate of all things. Breckin started telling me stories of his years as a DJ in Texas. My band at the time was an acoustic outfit live, but an electropop outfit in the recording studio. I was already looking for ways to synth-up the stage show, so Breckin enthusiastically volunteered his time, his equipment, and a lot of energy into raising up our first electronic sound. He was DJ #1 in Great Highway, and had the unfortunate job of slogging through the early preliminary steps to working a synth rig on stage with our instrumentation. The very talented folks that have since filled his shoes - Jade, and more recently Meredith - have worked very hard in their own right, but they also reaped the benefits of all the groundwork Breckin and I did in those early days. When Breckin got too busy with work and all his other hobbies and had to leave the band, he bequeathed his expensive Ableton Live DJ board to us at no charge.

Then our relationship transformed again. My romance with Emily exploded from the inside out and caused a complete life shift for me. Breckin was one of the first people by my side, one of the first people to say, "Jason, this is not your fault. This has so little to do with you." When others were shaking their heads in confusion, some blaming me for her depressive episodes and eventual breakdown, Breckin was buying me beers and listening. His hand on my back kept me going. He had already saved my band; now he had also saved my sanity.

Since then, my life has obviously smoothed way the hell out, and I have never called upon Breckin in quite the way I did back in those dark months of 2013. Mostly, when we get together, it's either to go watch live music and take road trips to festivals, or just to nurse a beer, wax philosophical about the past, and look forward together to the future. If I had only just met him now, I might not have known what a deep, thoughtful, reflective, and kind person he is. He's a hell of a lot more than just a jovial good-natured neighbor.

My support network in 2017 is quite a great deal fuller and stronger. I haven't leaned on Breckin during the cancer the way I did 4 years ago. I'm also older and more stubborn, and I'm learning not to lean on anyone quite so much, to get through hard times on my own. But Breckin has made it very clear he's there for me - he checks up on me time to time, offers to come by and watch a Star Trek episode together. He helped me put together a fantastic vacation to Northern Nights this year, right smack in the middle of some pretty dark days. And hanging out with him and the group, it felt like almost nothing had changed. He is one of the only constant presences over the years, a man I don't fight with, don't argue with, a man who loves me and loves my friends. And I love him too.

Breckin, lets grab a beer when you're up in the city again. Oh yeah, and...thanks for saving me.

Bryne.

Most of my friends are, like me, what I would describe as "extroverted introverts." They're people who lead quieter lives. They use the spaces in between work and friendships to recharge their batteries and find solace. Most of the people I know who are full-on extroverts - the social butterflies that draw strength from others - are celebrity musician and artist acquaintances that I only know as third- and fourth-degree contacts. You can find them on Facebook posting relentlessly Instagram-filtered photo shoots of themselves with a zillion likes and loves and "wow"s. 

Then there's Bryne Ulmschneider.

Bryne is neither quiet, nor celebrity. She's not introverted. Se's not glamorous either. Bryne is like a mad scientist's successful effort to splice an ambitious, high-energy go-getting hipster with an empathic, emotionally mature, thoughtful confidante. She's one of the only people in my life I would describe as both loud and a listener, as both kind and highly, highly badass. Most of the people who claim to straddle that line are fooling everyone. 

I met Bryne in the context of her friendship with Sky. For a long time she was Sky's co-worker in my mind, filed away under the category 'should hang out with more sometime.' It wasn't until our first trip to Northern Nights together that I realized how sweet-natured and nurturing this strong-willed and opinionated liberal was.

To be honest, in my own limited intelligence, it was easy for a year or so to think of Bryne as one of those passionate 'hot science chicks' changing the world at her job with test tubes and refrigerated samples and on her social media with progressive politics. It's easy for me to two-dimensionalize the people I don't spend a large volume of time around. And until she started inviting me out for a beer or dinner every couple months or so, I wanted to think Bryne was more like my celebrity acquaintances than my dear friends. But Bryne, as Bryne tends to do, shattered expectations. She burrowed her way into my heart. 

If you have been lucky enough to share a meal or a beer with Ms. Ulmschneider, you know that conversations with her can be deceptively deep, touching, and soft despite the fact that they start with a hug so fierce and intense and squeeze-y you'll think you've been captured by a giant jungle snake. Bryne laughs like an extrovert and loves like an introvert. I haven't come even close to plumbing the truest depths of her gentle soul. She's a lover all the way around, and she cares. She is fiercely loyal to her friends, and she chooses those people carefully.

Like all my friendships, my relationship with her this year has become partially defined by these questions of, how are you feeling, and is there anything I can do for you, and do you need me to get you anything. But when we get together, there is still plenty of pouring over the deep topics: relationships, friendships, the future. I appreciate Bryne because I know that, like the other people I have written about on this blog, she would rush to my side if I truly needed it. I know that like a lot of my favorite people, she worries that she isn't doing enough and wonders what she could do to help. But like a lot of my favorite friends, she also doesn't realize how much strength I pull from simply knowing she's there for me. 

We went back to Northern Nights this year and spent hours over bowls of reheated soup, sitting by a river in the sun, hugging and talking and living. I feel in my heart that these are the moments that have sent my cancer running and hiding. I'm not surviving just because they're pumping me full of drugs. I'm surviving because I'm still laughing and smiling, and that's thanks to people like her.

And so, yes, Bryne, just like Adam and Breckin, you too have saved my life this year. I hope you have a riotously good time at Burning Man, and I'm sorry I couldn't join you this year. But I WILL see you on the other side of these remaining 35 days of treatment. And when I throw that inevitable "I don't have cancer anymore" party in October, you'll be at the top of my invite list. 

Christine.

Inspiring, original, talented, insanely attractive, naturally sensual, wildly wacky, can I just make my Christine entry a giant paragraph of all her amazing gifts and personality traits?

No? Not creative enough? OK.

Most of you know that my life right now is structured in three tiers. I have people in my life who are asking from a distance, "how ya doing? How's the cancer?" These are the co-workers, musician friends and friends of friends, people I went to high school with and college.

Then there's a tier closer to the action. These are the people I've spent a lot of time around on the evenings and weekends, the people who've seen me lose my hair, watched me go from biking 50 miles at a time to holding the handrail as I climb a flight of stairs. These people will all be called out in this blog, one at a time. 

But there are two very special folks who form a special bonus tier. I call them my "chemo buddies," and there are only two. This blog entry is about one of them.

Christine has been there with me for every single one of my now nine chemotherapy days. She's logged in somewhere around 35 hours sitting on the side of a hospital bed, watching them poke and probe and poison me. Then she's gotten me rides home, sat with me on those dark Monday nights after chemo while I cried or banged my fists on the floor or just fell into an unsettled sleep. Throughout those long chemo weeks, she's been back at my apartment, checking up on me, helping me vent by destroying hordes of evil minions with gigantic unrealistic video game guns. She sat and held my head when I'm sure she would have rather had the virile, strong-bodied man she met over two years ago. This only scratches the surface of everything Christine has done for me in the last 147 days.

Why does she do all this? You'd probably answer "because she's your girlfriend, you dolt. That's what partners do for each other." But, nnnno. I don't think that accounts for it. 

If you know Christine, you know there is a special flavor to her kindness. She is not just California nice. She's not just warm or sweet. She is those things, yes, but it's so much more. Christine is LOYAL. She's DEEPLY KIND. She loves with a ferocity that I can feel in the very core of me, in my veins, in the lifeblood that moves me.

Without meaning to embarrass her through the gritty details, Christine grew up with a distinct lack of love in her life, a childhood that had food on the table and money in the pocket but was missing the more intangible emotional comforts that everyone should have in their formative years. As a result, she has become tough as nails, a fighter, a warrior in the truest sense of the word. She has survived countless trials, and that in and of itself makes her remarkable.

But there is something even more remarkable about her. She has an ability, in spite of the hardest days, to put her faith in those she loves, to trust and to give, and to be a giver. She has endured this trial with me in the same way she has endured all trials in her life: with love, with patience, and with the uncanny ability to come out the other end full of optimism and compassion. 

I have told Christine on multiple occasions all the ways that I love her, and all the ways that I find her so inspiring. She knows, I hope. And so I think a laundry list of all the things that make her such a beautiful person inside and out is not what's needed here.

I think what I need to do most of all, here in this blog space, is to say publicly, in front of all our friends and family, a very big, fat thank you.

Nope, need a bigger font.

A very big, fat, 

THANK YOU.

Hmm, nope. Bigger. Like Louis CK sectional couch big. With an adorable crab.

Still not nearly enough, but it will do for now.

Love you to piece and peences, Christine. When this is all done at last, I will spend 2018 continuing to try and thank you enough.

Chad.

I'm going to keep today's entry short because I'm resting comfortably after a very harrowing Saturday. One thing I'm never ever allowed to do is contract a fever, and for a short amount of time yesterday afternoon my body temp finally went up a couple degrees. This is something that frequently happens to cancer patients, and unfortunately if it persists, you have to rush yourself to a hospital and get antibiotic'd up for a couple days. Fortunately for me (this time anyway), I dodged a bullet - a little extra rest, lots of fluids and a couple hours later, my fever was dissipating. I'm holding my breath for the next chemo (#10 out of 12), but trying to remain optimistic in the meantime.

Before I sign off though, I want to give a short shout-out to someone that I decided recently to add to my list of 15. Unlike my other entries, this is not someone I spend regular time around, or have even seen in recent years. He's not someone who lives locally and not someone I could have a close friendship with at this point in time. But he is a fellow cancer survivor, which makes him unique on this list. 

Chad Matheny was a guy I grew up with in high school. Quirky, creative, highly intelligent, he always distinguished himself even among other super smart kids at our college prep school. He was never average in any way and, having followed his musical career from a distance, I know he persists in excelling creatively now as much as then.

We were friends for a long time and bandmates for about 5 minutes (a pretty average length of time actually, for high school). Up until a few weeks ago, he was just another guy from my past who I followed with interest on social media. But I will add that I've been particularly interested in his life because of his work under the moniker Emperor X. That's the name of his musical outfit, in which he plays a kind of experimental, progressive rock laced with other genre-bending elements. I highly, highly recommend you check him out online and give his stuff a listen, and I don't make such recommendations often.

But that's not why I wanted to write about him. Instead I wanted to thank him for a particularly heartwarming and encouraging set of messages he sent me by email and Facebook over the last few weeks, sharing his own struggles with a much more aggressive strain of cancer than mine. His message, as a fellow survivor, resonated in a way that no one else's could. I gained a lot of insight just from reading his thoughts on this epic battle that some of us have had to fight. I won't go into the details, but suffice to say, I was deeply moved by his story, and very glad he shared it with me.

Thanks Chad. Though you may be far away in another country, you are as much a friend now as then. 

The worst came.

As some of you already know, I have been in the hospital for the last four days. 

This is something that happens to most cancer patients at some point. For most patients, it happens a lot sooner than on their 151st day of treatment. In fact, making it 5 solid months with nothing more interesting to report than some tingling and pill-pop-to-stop nausea is a small miracle. I got lucky, and my luck ran out. 

I woke up very late this past Sunday night with a recurrence of a fever I thought I’d shaken Saturday. Within a couple of minutes of being awake, I threw up all over my kitchen floor. 20 minutes later, with a bag packed full of my favorite things and changes of clothes, I was in an Uber heading to UCSF. When you are otherwise healthy, a fever is usually something you recover from at home with soup and rest. On chemotherapy, a fever means instant hospitalization.

I’m not going to brighten it up in the usual blog style, folks. There were tears, there was pain. There was heaving, moaning, there were needles and machines and scans, long sleepless nights, concerned faces of endless strangers. At one point I had three lines and five sticky monitors poking from my chest and arms. In the end, it was a common case of strep that had moved into my chest and caused some rashing, stomach problems and a lot of heartache. 

I want to say with no further ado that I’m fine, I’ve just been discharged, and I’m resting at home. The worst is over. I’m out of danger, the fever is gone. I am still stuck in the chest to an IV that has to be filled daily with antibiotics, and I will have to return to the hospital - just for an hour or two - next Thursday. But after that things return to normal. Well, normal meaning, more of the chemo that has been delayed for two weeks. Yes, my chemo schedule was pushed out - the new end to this nightmare slides over now from 9/25 to 10/9, into my birthday month (ugh) but still luckily before my birthday (yay!). 

Despite the nightmare of this week, and the unanticipated pause in my recovery, I want to end on some positives, and a couple big thank-yous as well:

First of all, I was released earlier than originally told - the plan had been to stay in hospital until this Sunday. But thanks to the strep being very common and easily treatable with antibiotics, and thanks to the fact that my body continues to bear both illness and chemo-induced side effects so well, I was let go early. 

I was also let go to a beautiful, no dammit gorgeous sunny day in San Francisco. You know, hospitals are like prisons. I have always maintained that they’re the worst places to end up on the Earth next to prisons themselves, and maybe courthouses. Not surprising that all three places are associated with involuntary confinement. When I was released it was like seeing the sun for the first time. I cried a little on the steps of the hospital. I cried again sitting by my apartment window in the beaming sunlight. 

Another major, major positive: this will almost certainly be the very hardest thing that ever happens to me throughout the now-200 days of chemotherapy. Nothing has been this hard yet, and the likelihood of suffering another fever in the remaining 29 days of treatment is deeply unlikely. 

Also, chemo itself is going to feel like a cakewalk by comparison. 4 hours in the hospital? Only 5 or 6 injections? That’s it? Compared to the last few days, that’s easy peasy lemon squeezy. Bring it on, bitches.

And if there is one last but certainly not least positive, it is how much closer still I have become to my lovely lady Sky. It needs to be called out in public, though she consistently downplays her role in all this, that she once again acted as my sword and my shield, my defender, my advocate, the President of Jason. She was at my side almost every hour of every day AND night, slept in the hospital with me, talked with me to most of the doctors who swooped in and out and gave their differing and complex opinions of what ended up being a very ordinary illness. Yep, she even held the vomit bucket. She has been there every step of the way already, but Monday thru Thursday of this week she took that to yet another new level. I can never, ever, ever, ever thank her enough. She’s getting an entry in my “15 people who are saving my life” series, of course, but I needed to especially mention this heroic effort of hers this week before the countdown unpauses.

I’d also like to quickly thank my bandmates, Sean and Sarah, who also spent a bunch of time visiting me, laughed with me, brightened up my hospital room, basically paused the band itself just to come and make their sax player feel a lot better. Thanks guys, for everything you do. You talented nuts!

So yeah, that’s the update. I will write more soon if for any reason I have any more scares. If not, the next time you’ll hear from this blog will be in a week and a half, when this chemo clock starts ticking again, and the 29 days left slips down to 28. Til then, wishing you all love, luck, and happiness.

Deb.

I'M BACK, BABY!

After 14 days of vomiting, syringes, partial mobility, no gym, no running, no biking, no hot tub...I’m FUCKING BACK.

Yesterday I had my two-week-delayed chemotherapy (only two more left now!) after the strep-induced fever took my life away for 14 days. I really lost myself back there folks, I won’t lie. It was the worst feeling I’ve had since the day a nurse practitioner first announced “it’s probably lymphoma," and that was five months ago.

But I’m back to normal - or what passes for normal in 2017. I’m woozy from the chemo, my stomach is doing fun little knots. But I’m not connected to any stupid tubules, I’m not sitting in any stupid hospital rooms, I’m back in the office (for a couple weeks at least), I’m playing bass and saxophone again, and I'm going to start hanging out with people. I’m weak, but I’m myself again. And maybe the best part of all: the countdown finally resumes. 28 days as-of today. Out of everything that happened in the last two weeks, having to pause that countdown was perhaps the most mentally fatiguing, dispiriting, morale-destroying part. 

SO. Now that I’m myself again, time to start thanking some more people. The next one on my list is a most gorgeous, most hilarious, strong and all-around awesome girl. She has a badass job saving the state’s water, she’s married to a badass guitarist who is also saving the world through science. She’s sharp as a tack, knows how to let loose and have a great time. 

But maybe what I love most about her: she’s not just a badass - I know plenty of those. She’s a KIND badass. She has always welcomed me into her home even though I started out in her life as that weird guy who snatched up her guitarist husband on craigslist and stole him away a couple days a week to play weird electronic music. 

When probably most folks in her shoes would’ve been all, “what the hell is all this?” Her response was, “hey that’s pretty cool, and if it makes them happy, it makes me happy.” And she meant it, genuinely. 

She is one of the most wrapped-together, with-it people I’ve ever met, and someone I actually look up to as a role model. More importantly than that, though, for purposes of this blog: she has been incredibly sweet to me through this whole cancer process, sending me lovely notes by email to encourage me and offer help even during her crazy busy power-job-plus-raising-kid days. She’s invited me over to her lovely home for dinner and games and conversation on multiple occasions. There is always a full glass of wine and some delicious original edible creation on the table waiting whenever I come by. 

She was my guitarist’s date in 2013 when I met her, just a fun cool superfan in the front row of our early shows jamming along to our amateur tunes. Four years later, she’s a dear dear friend, and one of the people who is literally saving my life right now, just by being so great and being there to encourage me. 

My thanks to Deb Chilvers for bursting open the top of my awesome-meter. You’re rad, Deb. I’m glad to know you.

Erin.

I'm talking today about someone who has a very unique place among my super-secret, tiny, private, introvert's club of trusted confidantes. 

She's unique because, unlike everyone else I'm blogging about this month, she met me AFTER the cancer treatments started. I never knew her as a 'normal guy.' I was always messed up with physical (and mental) health impairments, right from day one. In fact, we met through an OKCupid profile that I starkly and bluntly start by saying, "hey folks, I have cancer. That's my struggle this year." 

Erin embraced me and accepted me at my weakest, my lowest, my most vulnerable. She has been a sympathetic ear when that's what I needed most. She offered companionship unconditionally. She's been a hot kinky fellow adventurer when I had the energy for it. And when I didn't, she sat on the phone, by text or in our brief visit in San Francisco, and she just let me vent about how much this whole process has really kicked my ass.

Erin demonstrated compassion, kindness, a giving nature, right from day one. Even while there was tremendous turbulence in her own life, change, struggle, she took out time to care for somebody who was hundreds of miles away. Underneath the ugly cancer-y ogre I'm rapidly becoming, she saw the shinier person I was before this took over my life. Everyone else I care about in my life can see the real me underneath all that nastiness, but that's largely because they knew me long before any of this happened. Erin never had that benefit, and as a result I have never been able to give her my best, though I've tried to at least do well enough to be worth her time. I hope I have succeeded.

Erin is an extrovert, so I'm not sure I've ever been able to make her understand how incredibly rare and special it is for me to 'let someone in' the way I have with her. It's even rarer for me to fold someone into my trusted club when I'm down and sick and beaten like this. If you're an introvert, you understand that when introverts are hurting, physically or emotionally, you tend to retreat within yourself and hide until it gets better. It's not in our nature to reach out to others. But I reached out to Erin, and she has been infinitely amazing since. 

I'm very proud and honored to know Erin. I'm honored that she has given so much to me. She is a sensitive, passionate, infinitely talented writer and musician and artist, and frankly I don't deserve her. I hope I have offered her a little something in return; I know that her visit to SF was life-changing for her and gave her a new perspective on things. My first visit to SF was the same way, so I know how it feels. But I doubt I can ever fully repay her for the time and care she's donated to me. 

To the sweet, sexy, fun and smart girl living waaaaay the hell out there: thank you for saving my life. May your wildest dreams be realized, may all your poems be published, and may you get into every single one of the eight MFA programs you're applying for. I know with conviction that you're destined to do some really cool, creative things with your life in the years to come, and I hope to be a part of it. See you at the next visit! 

Liz.

I don't have many friends from my first year in the Bay Area. There's some people I've known all my life since I was a child, some folks I've known since high school or college or grad school. Some I met when I finally got the courage to move in to San Francisco and out of my hiding hole in Marin County. 

But that first year in Larkspur, California...I didn't make many friends. It was an awkward time, a lonely time. But it seems like that's a theme of this blog lately - people I met in the worst pockets of my life who are still beside me today, helping me fight this latest bad but temporary thing. Liz is one of those very special people. She is my one and only friend from Bay Area year one.

We met on - oh geez, was it match.com? Is that even still a thing? - my first online dating profile I ever made. I had a work from home job, I'd just graduated school and moved out of San Diego. I had no idea what I wanted out of - well, anything. Life. Women. I didn't know anybody in Marin or in San Francisco. I had no night life, no social life. I wanted a romantic partner, but I needed a friend.

So, Liz and I met, on a date. Over the course of that first year, we established a deep rapport. We understood each other, our feelings about other people and about ourselves, almost too well to be anything but good friends. In a decade of sharing our life together, we became confidantes, spiritual and life guides for each other; we were drinking buddies sometimes, downing bottles of wine and drowning sorrows; other times we were coffee pals, sharing horror stories about the first dates we had with other people the night before or trying to navigate the messes of careers and family and other friendships together. We were travel buddies (the photo above was taken in Iguazú, on the border of Argentina and Brazil). We met each other's parents and siblings. One day, she moved away from the city and took a place down in Silicon Valley, and we learned how to be long-distance penpals. 

In any phase of our remarkable friendship, Liz has always, always been there for me. I see her only once in a blue moon these days. But even in this difficult year where neither of us have had much time for more than emails and texts, Liz threw herself into the Go Fund Me project a fellow amazing friend put together for my cancer. She sent blasts out to her friends encouraging even people who didn't know me to send money, and she's responsible for raising a big chunk of that 4-digit sum that helped pay my hospital bills. And maybe more importantly, she never let too much time go by without sending me a lovely note to let me know I was in her thoughts, and to offer dinner or just a cup of coffee like old times. We've made tentative plans later this month to have a little sleepover in the city when I am at my most down and out, bald and pale and weak and climbing out of the end-times of this stupid chemotherapy. But even at my worst, I know it will be just like the very first year with Liz - caring, compassionate, with lots of mutual listening and that same immediate understanding and empathy we have always had for each other. 

At one time in my life, Liz restored my faith in humanity, and my belief in the power of real, lasting, lifetime friendships. Now she is helping to restore my very life. So Liz, thank you for being you, and I look forward to seeing you again later this Fall. You are my best friend, always.

Marianne.

Marianne Chance is my very oldest good friend. There are some people from further back, on Facebook or through a few random texts here and there. But my connection to Marianne has never been stronger even though our lives have taken very different paths. We met in high school and, at that age, she was the love of my life. Years and years later, though she only got more attractive over time, we became friends, and we've never looked back since. 

I think knowing each other so closely as long as we have, and having grown up together and experienced life together at such an early age, it gives us a special kind of bond that's distinct from other friends I met in my 20s and 30s. No matter how much our lives change and how far the distance that separates us, when we start texting it up again or have that rare phone call (I hate phones, to Marianne's dismay), it seems like time never passed, and it's the same old friendship.

Marianne was always wise beyond her years, even as a teenager. She seemed to always be the socially-smartest and most with-it person in the room. I was initially attracted to her for the way she seemed so confident and sure of herself. She was 'cool.' She always knew the latest indie music and the coolest place to go in town. She was definitely hipper than me in school. She was a free spirit, and she helped me bust out of a pretty deep shell I was in back in those days. I learned to have fun through her, real fun, not nerdy video game fun.

What made me stay, though, is her deep well of kindness, her compassion for others, her giving nature and the way she made everyone around her feel welcome and supported. As we get older and 'cool' doesn't matter anymore, these are the rare traits that draw me to people. She still knows the latest music and the coolest club. But what I cherish about Marianne is that, even on her worst day, she's kinder than most people. 

When most people first learned about the cancer, they all registered surprise and shock, verbal support, empathy/sympathy. Some asked if there was anything they could do. A few offered to bring me soup or a warm pair of socks or some other gift. Some even offered to attend a chemotherapy, or visit me in the hospital.

When Marianne learned about the cancer, she sat down at her computer and wrote a webpage on Go Fund Me, about my struggle and about who I was as a person. She sent that page to me and all her friends, and told me she was going to raise money to help me. She set the minimum limit at something like $5,000, and over the course of a couple months, the outpouring of support busted that limit wide open. Many people saved my life this year, but Marianne did it by very literally creating a way for me to afford my treatment. I can never thank her enough for this, and for everything else she has done for me over the years. Love you Maybo, and see you in Jacksonville some day soon.

Meredith.

OK so, a bunch of people have asked how I'm doing. Before I get into today's special someone, a quick classic update on my condition.

I'm 13 days away from my final chemo and the end of this nightmare. After that, nothing will happen for awhile. I'll eventually get my chest port out. This blog will finally go dark - I'll be updating you on my Facebook wall instead. Within a couple months, I'll get a CT scan. If that clears, they'll declare the cancer is in remission. To brighten that up a bit, the cancer is already informally in remission; there's no visual sign of it in any of the places it used to dwell. So a lot of the scanning and waiting is a formality. The chemotherapy will be over, the poison no more. 

In the meantime, I'm off work for a few weeks and resting comfortably at home. I'm working hard on producing Great Highway's forthcoming Spring '18 album. I'm writing this blog. I'm hosting a few good friends for sleepovers and wine and cuddles and movies. I'm staying away from anything strenuous and stressful. I'm pretty whipped by chemo #11 out of 12, and my body is screaming at me in protest. But I'm surviving.

So, now lets talk about another person who's helping me out with said survival.

Meredith Whelan joined Great Highway in December 2014, two days before New Year's Day. We'd gone through two DJs since turning the band into an electronic outfit. Our first DJ, Breckin, has already been written about in this space. He was our formative DJ, helping realize our dream of bringing us out of the acoustic space and into a bonafide sample-based percussive act. When he quit, he left his rig to our 2nd DJ, a gal named Jade who was a roommate of a couple of the bandmates at the time. She played with us for about a year, mostly as a favor to us and because it was a weird cool thing to do once or twice a week with friends. 

When she quit the band to pursue a new career in software engineering, we really paused and thought about how we could fill the DJ slot with someone who genuinely cared about the music. We wanted someone who would do more than push buttons. We wanted someone to help us innovate, to co-write material, to show real energy on-stage. We found that person in Meredith. 

Since joining over two and a half years ago, Meredith has sung solos and harmonies, written original percussion lines for songs, penned a song herself, upgraded our DJ rig significantly with new boards and even learned to play keyboard herself, co-starred in a music video, played live drums on stage, recorded drums in the studio, even overhauled our DJ table with a sweet new LED-lit outfit. 

To me, personally, that's all less important than what she contributed to the band socially, and as a friend. Over time, the group has come together in a close personal association, and then snapped away from that, back and forth like a rubber band (no pun intended) depending on the changes in our lineup. We've had over 10 different members since our formation in 2012; some of them have prioritized drawing our friendships closer together, while others have been there to make the music and not to fraternize. And still others have straddled the line with little 'cliques' or subsets of members who made friends with each other and not the rest. 

Meredith has come in for every Wednesday rehearsal open to socialize, work and hang with anyone and everyone in the room, even when she was exhausted from work that day and pushing her last reserves of energy. She came in as Sarah's friend from work, but opened her heart to everyone. She is the closest thing I've ever had to a creative partnership specifically in the studio, working alongside me to continually elevate our sound to the next electronic level. Others have written songs with me, rehearsed extra rehearsals before a big show. But no one has ever, in our history, devoted as much time as Meredith staring at that color-coded Ableton Live screen.

My only regret is that I've never been able to push more out of our friendship and our creative partnership. Meredith has always spread herself across a bunch of different activities, and Great Highway has never been her big focus. As talented a bandmate and musician as she is, she's always been an avid traveler, a devoted girlfriend to a really cool gal, and a hardworking manager at a publishing company. She has big plans to join a police force in Oregon, and I know we're going to lose her, maybe sooner than later. I wish we'd had more time together. When she goes, she'll leave a hole that I don't think we'll ever fill. She is our third DJ, but she's the first to make real magic out of the job. 

I would also like to add that she's been sweet as a button about the cancer stuff, coming across the pond from Oakland all the way to Pacific Heights to sit with me and work on the studio or just talk life shit. She drops me messages between rehearsals to check on me, and like all the other folks I've mentioned in this blog, I know she would always come running if I really needed help. She's a key member of my support network, and a lifesaver in the world of Jason. Thanks Meredith - see you at rehearsal buddy. 

Najla.

Hello all you Facebookers and blog readers and friendly friends! 

Well, I'm sitting comfortably at home, trying to feel not-dizzy/nauseous/super-weirdomatic, and enjoying day 6 of my month-long leave of absence. I've got 11 days left on the clock before chemotherapy is FINALLY over. In the meantime, I've got just a handful of folks left to thank for getting me through this difficult time.

Najla is one of my most sociable, energetic friends, and as such we haven't always known what to do with each other. We have a great time sitting and talking at a diner, bumming around the house, sharing life stories over Indian food. But she's definitely a go-out-er and I'm more of a stay-in-er, especially this year while I've been working through, you know, all this crap. 

I think what I love about Najla is this: we met out of love and closeness to another person, and we've been friends in part because we're linked to others in a shared network - polyamory and the randomness of San Francisco and life in the big city and yadda yadda. Yet I get this feeling that even if we had just met at a bar or on the street as strangers, we would still have found that quick, easy and relaxed conversation between us. 

Our friendship is still pretty new. But when I got cancer, Najla was on the front lines, offering to cook for me (she made me some pretty freaking rad enchiladas), offering to come by and help out with basic life stuff, checking up on me regularly and even volunteering to attend a chemo with me.  

I think my friendship with Najla is largely untapped, and it's one of the things I'm most earnestly looking forward to when I recover. I want to get to know this hilariously funny, high-energy, unpredictable, fashionably city-hip person that came into my life this year. I think she's one of those people who can challenge me to come out of my shell when I first emerge from this dark time, squinting up at the sun and trying to figure out how to restore my life to normal again. 

Najla, I appreciate your generosity and your kindness through this process, and I look forward to adding you to my list of Jason's-blackout-time sleepovers. We can scheme and plan and talk about how to have amazing adventures together when I'm a real boy again. Thanks for being sweet to me. 

my parents.

There are 9 days left of my treatment and I couldn't be more excited to come back to life. This cancer took more out of me than anything ever has in my life. But I'll talk about that in the last blog entry, at the zero-day mark. Before that little post-mortem, there are still just a few people to thank: a best friend and bandmate. A very special life partner. But before that...a few words about family.

My mom and dad are political and fiscal conservatives living between the border of Georgia and the Disneymania that is Orlando. They still live just minutes away from the beach town where I grew up, right outside the massive suburban sprawl of Jacksonville, Florida where I went to high school. In a lot of ways, we have next to nothing in common - it'd be hard to imagine meeting anyone like them in any of the places I've lived in the last 15 years of my life.

They drive me crazy sometimes. They complain constantly about San Francisco and rarely visit. They think it's too cold, except when it's too hot. They object to the liberal politics, of course, and they don't take well to the inability to just drive and park wherever they want to go. They don't really understand my hippy west-coast-y relationship choices, and I think I baffle them a little with my zig-zag career in tech and my strange affinity to making music as a serious hobby. They feud sometimes with my only brother, or he feuds with them, or whatever, and they frequently insert me in the middle of that drama. Our last visit together was three days of them complaining about him and him complaining about them, and everyone looking at me as though to ask, "what are you going to do about it?" 

I'll tell you something though. I wouldn't trade them for a minute. I wouldn't ever want another set of parents who, for example, were more like me and had more in common with who I am, but cared even 10% less about me. My parents have loved and cared about me every day of my life, even in the darkest days. They sent money when I needed it. They came to visit when I was down and out. They sent gifts and letters in the mail. As I write this, I'm listening to my Amazon Echo that they sent me when I was laid up post-hospital and lying in bed with a needle in my chest. They put my health problems first and foremost, and worried for me even when they had health problems of their own. Their entire community of friends and neighbors in Jacksonville pray for me on the regular. I can't say I fully understand something like prayer; just as it did when I was getting my 7th grade Catholic First Communion, I'm baffled by organized religion. But I'm always humbled and honored when somebody says they put me in their highest thoughts like that.

I could have a pair of liberal parents living nearby in Marin County or Berkeley, who ask me how my band is doing before they ask me how my career is doing. Maybe they'd talk to me about their favorite Great Highway songs, and ask me how I wrote them and what inspired me, the way my girlfriend's parents do (lol). We could talk together about what a miserable job Donald Trump is doing, what a better country it would be if third parties were taken more seriously, and how desperately we need universal health care. That'd be nice, but...you know, I have a whole bunch of friends just like that. Lots in fact. And I don't really need my parents to be like those people too. As an adult in my late 30s with cancer, all I've ever needed from my parents is love, support, and a helping hand. And even on their worst day, they don't fail for a second to give that in abundance, to tell me they love me, to call and wish me well. 

My dad likes to say "you know, you choose your friends, but you don't choose your family." It's an old old saying, but it's truer than most. I love my family, and I always will. I know plenty of people who are not nearly so fortunate as me in the parents they got stuck with. I'm lucky and blessed, and thankful for their vital help in saving me during this terrible, terrible year.

Thanks mom and dad. See you in Jacksonville next year. 

Sean.

This is the third-to-final entry I will ever write on this blog. Next Monday, I go in for the final chemotherapy, and yes, I'm terrified of what it will do to me. Morale is low, and there's some deep heavy stuff to talk about this week. So I've put together a rare three-part blog entry. As always I'm going to write another post about a very dear friend and loved one in my life, and end with the usual countdown to my #1 favorite Great Highway song. But in the middle of that text sandwich, I want to write a few words about pain, and loss.

First: prior to 2013, Sean McAllister was a frontman in a regionally successful folksy group that toured wineries and rocked the local clubs in the Mission and out in SF's neighbor towns. When that group broke up, he made a decision to find another band and shift his perspective and his role. He wanted (so he told us) to take a 'back seat,' retreating from the spotlight and doing background guitar. His life resumé included an ambitious senior role as a senior grant writer and a high-level manager in a technical and scientific field, not to mention raising a kid who was barely in elementary school. So he wanted to be less directly responsible for the welfare and continuation of his next band. He preferred to leave the day-to-day duties of keeping rehearsals running and gigs booked to other senior members of the group.

That's a funny sentence to write, given all that's happened since. For all his talk of hanging in the back seat, Sean has influenced the sound, the business, the success of Great Highway like no one else. 

For starters, Sean saved the group's slumped booking. He got us all the first clubs in San Francisco. Through him, we gained reputations and friendships at all the early places, the El Rio club down in SF, the Starry Plough in Berkeley, Chit Chat in Pacifica. Until our ambitious, hardworking and talented team of Sarah and Makiko took over our gig management and online marketing, all we had was Sean sitting at his laptop swearing this was the last time he'd do this :)

That's just the tip of the iceberg. Sean's mellow, smooth guitar lines have been flowing over our tracks for over four years now, with poise and grace in the best lush traditions of giants like Pink Floyd's David Gilmour or George Harrison during and after the Beatles. Great Highway has had no less than twelve members in its storied history, but I think few of them have had Sean's level of tremendous and powerful influence over the band's sound. 

Maybe more important is the influence he's had over all of US. He is consistently our most upbeat, optimistic and energetic member. A running joke about the band is how we all live in fear of the tyrant guitarist who cracks the whip on us each week and is never satisfied with our performance. Sean has a smile for every minute of every rehearsal, even when our tech is broken or our wits exhausted or just when we can't quite get our parts right. When I was ready to throw my bass guitar out a window, Sean was right next to me, reminding me hey, at least we were sounding better than last week.

More personally, Sean has saved my life on more than one occasion. Friend-fans who are very close to the band know the long, storied and sad tale of the rise and fall of Emily, our depressive and angry ex-lead-singer. What some people don't know is that the band probably would not have survived if Sean hadn't been there, by my side at even the lowest moments. He sat with me for long hours at the Napper Tandy down the street from our old rehearsal space, nursing a beer and talking about how on Earth we would keep going when the chips were down. He strategized how to keep rehearsals running when Emily left, then came back, then left again.

Certainly our other old members Jade and Tiffany stuck it out through the process, and I give them full credit for it. But Sean was the one who came up with real solutions - how to audition for a replacement singer, how to find a new practice space (since the old one was also Emily's apartment), how to keep the group's morale (and my personal morale) up in the face of crippling emotional tension. God bless him, Sean was there for every minute, and he never stopped smiling and putting a reassuring arm around me when I needed it most.

Years later, most of us don't think about those days much. Our newer members don't know much about what happened, or much about the scope of the group's fallout in 2013. In the years since, we have had drama, and uncertainty, of course - what band doesn't? But we've never reached the precipice like in those days. Each member that's joined since has brought their own version of camaraderie, maturity and responsibility. But Sean brought it first, in a time when we needed it desperately. 

This year, Sean has been on the front lines of my recovery. He invites me over to soak in his hot tub and share a glass of wine. He sits with me at the local bar, just as he did all those years ago, and listens to me talk about the fresh hells of my life. He's patient, smiling, always with a word of optimism. Things haven't changed much.

I don't have many close friendships with men. In general, I usually don't trust them or understand them the way I trust and understand women. Sean's a rare breed, a stand-up guy, the kind our country is searching and sifting for amid a lot of really terrible examples of the male species. He is my best friend, and I thank him for saving my life. 

Sean, see you this weekend for hot tubbing and wine. You know - same old, same old.

A few words about pain, and loss.

I've hit one of the 'low points' of my treatment cycle. Sonic is back in the lava level again. But it's not just me. Seems these days like the whole world is living that lava. 

Late on this past Sunday night, well over 500 people were shot by a rich, lonely, probably crazy white man at an outdoor music festival. He had some outrageously ridiculous amount of apparently-legal automatic weapons, and a grudge against humanity. The recipe for ultimate disaster: hatred, and guns. 

I have been alive for a lot of tragedies in the world. I've seen shootings on the news before, both in the U.S. and abroad. I have lost people in my own life to tragedy like this on a smaller scale - my uncle was shot in his own home by a burglar when I was just a kid. 

But this Vegas shooting also hit closer to home than I expected. Outdoor music festivals are one of my most passionate annual hobbies; I probably attend between 4 to 8 every year. I have been in crowds that look exactly like the pre-shooting photos of that crowd in Las Vegas. In the photos of the happy, jubilant music lovers taken minutes before more than 50 of them died by bullets, I recognize myself. It's terrifying, horrifying, paralyzing. It's also so, so, so incredibly sad.

I wish I had words of encouragement, of hope. I'm in day 174 of a 180-day dark road to recovery from lymphoma cancer. And when I read about stuff like this, I just don't find those kinds of hopeful words down deep in my gut. I don't have any wisdom, any thoughts about a better world. I sure as hell know we need gun control in this country. We needed it a looooong, long time ago. And I understand also that our society needs to find a way to help and heal and nurture the kind of people who descend into these dark spaces, BEFORE they end up alone in a hotel room surrounded by automatic weapons, poised to ruin the lives of hundreds of fellow human beings.

But beyond that, I just don't know. I am just a fawn, an infant in the ways of pain, and loss. This year taught me I still have miles and miles of learning to go. 2017 took everything from me. It started with a horrible and devastating end to a promising long-term relationship, punctuated with deep overtones of anger and conflict, with threats to my own personal and financial life. It continued with the loss of a full-time job that I threw my heart and soul into, my first design job out of professional school. which I was ejected from heartlessly by people looking to step over me in their own careers. 

And then it moved into Spring time, and instead of growing hope and love in my life, it grew cancer in my throat, armpits and chest. Through a 180 day process of digging that cancer out of me, I lost at different points my smile, my laughter, my hope. I lost my hair, my health, my energy. I experienced physical pain like I had never known before, sharp stabbing aches in my neck and across my skin, deep rashes, inflammation everywhere, skin rashes, night sweats, constipation, cold sores, strange tastes in my mouth and throat, joint pain, insomnia, dizziness, faintness, my nails have turned yellow-purple and cracked open, my heart still palpitates, my toes and fingertips are numb, my bathroom is a wall of daily medications, I gain and lose weight like a celebrity, and then of course, the worst of all of them: the nausea, the endless, endless nausea, like a powerful hand squeezing my midsection and reminding me constantly not to feel too good or hope too much.

And even though my community has rallied around me like never before and my support network is heartwarmingly strong, it's just inevitable that I haven't been able to see my friends and loved ones as much as  I usually would. Sickness and weakness means you just don't get to do much sometimes besides sit at home, in bed. TV, books and music become your new best friends while your friends post photos of their amazing experiences out and about. The steroids they feed me, combined with relentless nighttime symptoms from the early sweats to the later joint aches, mean that I sometimes sleep through days and lay awake at night staring at the ceiling for hours at a time. At times it was so bad that I just dissociated, floated away from my own feelings and watched myself from some distant point. I saw this bald, pale guy in bed, with a box in his chest, and I wondered, "who is this strange ogre of a person? And what are they doing in Jason's apartment?"

I have never complained like this on this blog, and I never will again. I have made a concerted effort to keep this blog upbeat throughout. It's a way both to reassure you, the reader, but also to reassure myself and remind myself that happiness has existed even in the worst moments of this horrible year. But it's hard when so much sorrow is happening out there, and not just the shooting. I grew up listening to Tom Petty. I can still remember discovering his supergroup the Traveling Wilburys and listening to "End of the Line" on repeat, a power performance by him alongside George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan. I wondered yesterday what Bob thinks about being the last Wilbury alive, and I cried, and cried. 

Then, of course - because it's not over, not yet - 2017, and this treatment cycle, continues to take from me. I have a legendarily poor memory, something Sean and I bond over regularly. That weakness, combined with a deep miscommunication during a complex, tricky and delicate conversation a couple months back, is right now causing someone else dear and loved to be pulled away from me. I fear they may be gone for good if the mistakes of the past do the maximum damage. It's no secret that I haven't been at my best these last few months. I've made more mistakes in my personal, professional and creative life than probably any other time in my 37 years. I've tried to hold my head up and focus my eyes on the chalkboard, but sometimes life class has been just too damned challenging, and I'm forgetting to take the right notes. It's enough to make my PTSD extend to gazing out the window of my apartment, wondering in fear what terrible thing is coming next instead of going outside.

I guess I write all this for two reasons. First, I want to let anyone out there who is suffering in their own lives know that, hey, misery loves company. We ARE in this together. If you are hurt - if you feel pain, physical OR emotional or both - I am here with you friend. I understand. And if anyone who is reading this knew somebody who was part of that tragedy in Vegas, then...God. I am so, so, so sorry. I have lost loved ones, but nothing could compare to this tragedy. I grieve with you.

Second, when my treatments are finally over, I'm going to close down this blog. But I'm going to save it, too, and keep it pinned to the internet. I'm going to do this because, I know that better times are coming - for me, for all of us. But I also know that darkness will descend again some day. Life really is a roller coaster - you can't stop it from being wondrous and magical, and also terrible and sad. It will do as it pleases, and all you can do is hold on for dear life and ride. 

So I'm going to leave this blog here to remind myself to ride - to strap in, to smile like Sean McAllister smiles, when it's wondrous, and when it's very sad. To quote a beloved cheesy pop artist: 

When the rain falls down;

When the lights go out;

And then, when it all turns around;

It's just the beginning.

This isn't the end.

Sky.

Well, it’s early Sunday morning, and I’m sitting in a cabin along the Russian River in Guerneville, California. This is band retreat weekend for Great Highway, the 5th in as many years. I’m in a bright sun room under a thick blanket, watching the trees sway. It’s cold, but it’s going to be hot in just a few hours. I’ve had an amazing time this weekend, lying with my bandmates for hours on a beach by the water, staying up late watching cartoons, editing tracks for our upcoming album, singing at the top of our lungs while we jam on acoustic guitars and violin. It’s been so good that, at times, I’ve forgotten that I’m standing at the edge between two phases in my life. It’s monumental and, when I think about it, overwhelming. 

This evening I will get back to the city, sit down, and edit this blog entry, my 2nd-to-last. I’ll wake up in the morning, publish it; pop a xanax, rub numbing cream over my port, and strap a big bandaid over my chest. Then I’ll call an Uber for the hospital, one last time. And when I get home that night, dizzy and exhausted from chemo, I’ll be done. Just like that. No more cancer Jason, no more chemo Jason. Just, Jason. I will wake up the next morning, a Tuesday, and my life will be quietly, unceremoniously handed back to me. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about that moment today. I realized for the first time that, I might not exactly remember how to be “just Jason.” For so long, this cancer has come to define me and my life. It is the theme of 2017. It will forever be remembered as the cancer year. And it occurred to me that it’s going to take time, a long time, to pick up the pieces, to put this in the past, to live, to BE. 

Fortunately, I have many people in my world who can help me with that. Towards the bottom of this page is a link inviting you to “read about” all the people who have helped me survive this year. This alphabetical list includes all the people I’ll be relying on to bring me back to myself, and there’s one special person left to add. It’s fitting that she closes this list, because of the enormous support she provided.

Each of the people I’ve written about have eagerly and happily scooped up a fair share of the tasks involved in keeping me afloat in this turbulent time. But I think Sky often took on the very unhappiest tasks, the hardest, the most burdensome. 

Sky has spent hours this year talking to doctors on my behalf, speaking with insurance representatives, admins, schedulers. She yelled at the people who were negligent, and demanded better treatment. And she thanked and blessed the ones who made my treatment even a little easier. She asked all the right questions. She sat on the phone with strangers, waited in pharmacy lines. She created spreadsheets representing the often difficult and mazy finances involved, calculated best options for places to go and people to see and drugs to get. She researched symptoms, enlisted aid from her vast scientific contact network. When her own ambitious and demanding job in science pulled her in 17 different directions, she still found time to help me manage an overwhelmingly difficult process on a day to day basis. Sky has been an advocate, a fighter, a defender.

She did this all on top of being a life partner, a confidante, an emotional support when the chips were down. She listened to me when I was at my most exasperated, horrified by my own symptoms, overwhelmed by the crushing financial burdens. And when I was done wailing and crying, she quietly found solutions and strategized. She has been lighting a dark path for 178 days, dashing ahead into that darkness and clearing the weeds, so that as I stumbled and lurched forward, I never strayed too far from the road. 

Sky had already demonstrated time and time again her incredible kindness and generosity, long before this year started. I knew through our relationship that she had infinite reserves of compassion, for me and other loved ones, for casual friends, for strangers. Almost everyone who knows her understands the deep well of charity and social responsibility that exists within her. I never planned to draw upon that well so deeply in our time together, but life is what happens when you’re making other plans. 

I can never, ever, ever thank her enough. It would take me years to even begin to try. Fortunately, thanks to her hard work and diligence on my behalf, we HAVE years ahead of us. So I will spend them trying, and living, and loving.

To Sky: Thank you, my boo. Our future’s so bright, even the Hanks are wearing shades.

......

Oh PS...it probably goes without saying that Sky is gorgeously beautiful, charming, crazy-smart and talented beyond belief. She might not realize I would gladly date her just for all that. She doesn't ALSO need to be one of the kindest most giving people I've ever met. Buuuut, I won't tell her if you won't.