That bright dark night.

Best buds everywhere I turned. Campfires, Jameson and enough smiles to last me til tomorrow. Jalama was a blast!

Brothers and my Paps. Blood is thicker than.....EVERYTHING!

My best girl has been there when shit got super heavy and when things were a breeze. Always touting a huge smile and with more love than Elmo and Barnie combined. Best Kid Ever.

Me and this guy are like brothers, we didn't talk a whole lot through this cancerous journey but then again we didn't need to. I could feel it, he didn't need to say much, we communicate on a plane that is higher than the rest. Love you dude.

Had this radical fellow make me a new board while I was laid up, turned out ridiculous. I even got to session it at blasting Rincon! Thanks BJ, you're the man!

I picked these flowers for you!

These two folks were like my other parents, can't say enough about their compassion, positivity and support throughout the months. I found comfort and direction from them and their family when I needed it most. Thank You so much guys.

Tell me where to sign....

This guy has been there at the drop of a hat with a whole lotta wisdom for the stickman. Mr. Haney my hat goes off to you.

My therapeutic Sleep Shack

The rain riddled the roof of the van with a comforting ambience as I laid on my back drifting through the memories of the day and the months that had passed. I roamed through the vast entanglement of emotions, realizations and conclusions that I had amassed up to that point. Realizing that I had come thus far and that what I had daydreamed about so many times over the harshest couple hundred days was now my present reality, I was living my longing, aching, hopeful aspirations. I was sleeping alone in a van in the redwoods while the rain fell diligently from the sky as it does so well on the north coast. The ocean was so near and so were the waves and the stoke. My state of mind was something of a hazy glow as the uncertainty and pulsing gratitude of life filled me up. Sometimes when you're in something so deep you don't even realize what's going on, my ragged journey through what is now a confusingly scary and undefined acceptance of the situation has lead me down many thoughtful avenues. Lying there alone in the dark I felt defeated and devalued, I arose to the fact that I had cancer, that I was just another person out there who was stricken with the unfortunate and unjust chaos of the world. I felt crippled, and scared and as if I was looking down a dead end street with no alternate directions or possible outcomes to look forward to. It felt like knowing the end of the story before it ended type of thing. That was my first and only wave of sorrow and defeat I had felt throughout the whole thing, it was the only time since I discovered this horrible truth that I didn't have a bright, blooming positivity about my life. It was so ironic to be bottomed out in the midst of everything that was so perfectly right and long anticipated. That moment was the pinnacle of my self understanding and spirituality if you will. I found life to be a minute by minute gift and the people whom were a part of it were all that defined it. There was no longer a horizon to glance over or a future to report to, there was this here now with no answers, no promises, and no expectations. Get it while it lasts, enjoy them while they're there, don't close your eyes unless you have to. I found out more about myself and life in the big white econoline that night than I had in 28 years. I fell asleep tense and slightly discomforted but so profoundly reassured and alive.

The next morning followed by the next couple weeks I spent with people who have made me who I am over the years and have given me the gusto and fortitude to have been able to fight this fight. I can't explain how cussing unbelievably real and amazing the people are that I'm lucky to have as friends, family and acquaintances. As cheesy as it sounds there's a whole lotta love in the air these days. Suppose there always has been it just took me awhile to genuinely understand and appreciate it. Thanks for everything everyone! I gots mad luv for ya! Stick

"What are we gonna do tomorrow?"

Suite views eh....Too crust to partake so I must dream on......

I'm not quite sure where this whole dreamscape came from but I imagine this place had a lot to do with it.

Thumbs up! 12 down none to go! Love you guys!

If you were in my shoes right now, or more like in my bed right now you would see off to the right a giant picture window opening up to the the light of a beautiful snow encased High Sierra powder day at Squaw Valley. More importantly you would notice that just a few paces out the front doors of the building there is a ski lift gladly taking lucky souls up the mountain, filling people's stoke and granting yearning powder hounds with heaps of fluffy white goodness. For these happy folks this is a bursting bloom of pristine conditions just a few weeks shy of the end of what most around here live and breath for....WINTER. I unfortunately on the other hand get to watch this stoke go down from the safety and crustitude of my deluxe glass encasement which overlooks all of Squaw's peaks and glowing white bowls. This surreal outdoor white wonderment engulfs me as I stare out in awe while my imagination unravels. I soon depart from my body as I rise from my bed like some sort of old Disney or Scooby Doo ghost in a faint white night gown and hover out to the lift. All spooky and slyly glowing with a tinge afterlife blue-grey, I get on the lift as people stare at me uncomfortably with unease, some even aim their poles at me as a form of jabbing self defense or deterrent. I'm given lots of space as they must believe I'm a zombie and at any moment I may leap at them for a jugular bite or to steal one of their children. I'm most definitely misinterpreted as I am only looking for what the rest of these mortal looking peoples are looking for. Some soul swelling, spirit lifting, mysterious mountain stoke; tree lines, narrow little chute jammers, and maybe even a natural formation or two that could give way to some aerial endeavors. Calmly sitting on the lift, I am overwhelmed with the beauty and the complex innocence that surrounds me as I gaze out across the valley at the opposing peaks. Unsure of myself, I struggle to spark a conversation with the two middle aged ski people whom have distanced themselves from me as much as possible, making the six chair totally off balance as I am nearly hitting the lift poles and sitting about two feet higher up on my side of the chair. It is not until this point that I start to wonder why or what the reason is that everyone around me finds me to be such a frighteningly odd inconvenience, and why it is that I am being shunned like some sort of zombie? I look down at my feet where I was under the impression that my snow rider was strapped, but there is nothing there, heck, I'm not even wearing boots. My skinny cryptic toes cowardly curl and wiggle as the end of my tattered gown rests on my ankles, there are a few sly icicles dangling off of my feet. Upon further self acknowledgement I come to realize that I was in fact that token post mortem blue grey hue and that my fingernails were all gone except for two, which were packed full of dark dirt under the nails. Curiously my hands were all covered in dirt as would be if I had just dug myself up from the underground! "What the hell is going on?" I nervously spoke to myself. "Am I dreaming?" I hear a disgruntled mumble from the two on the opposite side of the lift, " He doesn't even have any teeth honey!" I nervously bring my hand up to my mouth to uncover the new and particularly horrific finding that in fact I have no teeth and my mouth has a slow bloody ooze coming from it which has created a very unpleasant and morbid look to my face. I imagine the disappointment, confusion and fear my eyes must display when people see them, further reinforcing their notion of my instability and their fear of me. In full nightmare panic I prepare to leap from the lift into the soft snow garden that we are quietly floating over. As I jump I hear someone call my name while I fall ghostly through mid air, gown flapping in the wind. Landing in the snow feels like I have found all that I was ever looking for, like my purpose was now fulfilled and the comfort of being encased in the soft blanket of snow has made all of my vile new self discoveries seem normal and not so misunderstood. Peering up to the lifts that are passing over me I hear some laughter and some endearing comments. Someone calls my name again, it's my Mom. She laughs and asks me how the heck I got all the way down there and why in the world I didn't have any snow gear on, and.... why the heck I had no snowsliding device with me. "What are you doing down there honey, did you just get out of bed?" I smile and try to talk but I can't, I burst into hysteric laughter while I cry, intercepting. I see my mom crest and disappear over the ridge on the chairlift with an echoing " HAVE FUN SWEETY."I lay looking up at the sky for a minute while I laugh, and cry and swallow intermittently, trying to define this emotional amalgamation. This is probably what they meant when they said "it will all come back to you someday." Earlier someone had promised me that someday I would find what it was I was looking for and I would one day be ready to take it all in and begin again with purposeful and compassionate fortitude. In that unparalleled solitude of deep snow I found my ghoul like, toothless, misunderstood and confused being transforming. I began to see the the sky turn from grey to blue and the trees from barren branch statues to lush, green keepers of the mountains. I looked at my terrible rotting feet for encouragement as they were beginning to heal and showcase some vitality. I stood up and looked around at the sea of surrounding white, lifting my chin to the sky I scream, "FOR REAL!!?" My teeth were coming back in as I licked away the blood around my mouth. At that point I had never felt so alone nor so encouraged. Just then I felt the spray of a powder curtain waft over me, I look back to see my brother's face emerge from the powdery fog. "Hey bud, you ready to go back now?" I smile and sniffle a tear away, "Yes, Please?" I say desperately. "Let's go man, you're all done dude" my bother says. "Put these on, here's your stick. Follow me, I got a rad line back to the room."My brother and I surf powder turns down the mountain for what seems like ten miles of endless perfection as my body tingles and begins to warm. When we get to the bottom I scream in disbelief and gratitude. I hug my brother and bury my head in his shoulder, crying once again. I say "Thanks so much man!" My head tilts back and I look up to the fourth floor of the glassy lodge. I see a vague silhouette of someone on a computer typing away in the window, raising their head to peer out after every fourth or fifth word typed. I barely mumble to myself "I wonder what that guy is writing about?" I think my brother hears me but he doesn't say anything. He throws his arm around me and asks me what we're gonna do tomorrow.

I have surpassed my final treatment and I am doggy paddling my way through this last week of dreadful sludge. I'm spending my final haggard weekend in a sweet ass suite up in squaw valley while my mom and crew enjoy powderful bliss. What an unexplainably scary, yet enlightening soul search it's been. How amazing it is to be done and to be able to go out and take a bite of this big tasty world and to enjoy all the flavors it once again has to offer. Six months of foreign, redefining and fearful thoughts have given way to a character of a completely different purpose and self understanding. Thank you all for your support once again, you helped me fight half this battle. THanks for listening -Sickstick-

Captive animal to be released in just weeks!

In a week from now I will most likely be laying on the couch or dozing in and out of another copious sedation from my last chemotherapy infusion and my shrine of med jars. I am crusting today as usual, floating through this dose like I've got water wings on or something. We were talking the other day about how cussing harsh this whole program has been and by the time I'm done with treatment 12 I'm gonna be like one of those stunt men guys like Knievel or something, where you see the footage of them after their blowout crash and their on the stretcher covered in bandages and blood but they still lift the arm up for a token thumbs up. That's going to be me next week after my last infusion, stick a fork in me I freaking done. What a weird dream it's been, and what a damn crazy different element of reality I've been living in. I feel like I stepped away from this world's grasp for six months and I was operating on some unexplored time continuum that only people on nine different drugs get to experience and or try to comprehend. I kinda romanticize that the world was just waiting for me to finish my business and wake up to the realization that I can have it all back, like time and everything I knew was twiddling it's thumbs waiting on me like a passenger waiting on a train. In a couple weeks I'm getting back on that train and back to a realistic neurological state of thinking and reasoning. I'm getting crazy excited to leave here and head toward the sea, sun, and friends, going over plans and camp spots, contemplating boards to bring and camping equipment to get together. Where to stay, who to see, what skate parks to scope and just what the hell is gonna happen when I see that blue wavy thing once again. Good times are a comin' down the highway.

So last time I went to the infusion center my white cell count was too low to get doped, so I had to get another stimulus shot which makes my bone marrow get all happy and dance and reproduce really fast. I had a count of 700 on my scheduled chemo day when I needed at least a 1500. So.....they stabbed me in the arm and filled me full of this uncanny reproducer, which to my total disbelief and frustration costs 1,500 per dose, making the costs just for those shots over the course of this treatment about 2o grand. WTF? Let alone the chemo at about eight grand a session, thank you lord baby jesus that I was able to have health insurance for the first time in ten years just so conveniently when I had to deal with this. I get so tripped out and sad imagining people who have to try to defeat something of this nature without any family support and without any health coverage. If i didn't have health insurance I would have been kicked around like a soda can on some back alley until some janky clinic picked me up for some experimental half researched recycling experiment. Please Support the Lymphoma Leukemia Society, they make it a whole lot better for people who aren't as lucky as I've been. Anyway, after they sent me packing on my scheduled infusion day I went home and felt exactly like I do when I do get flooded with the hell. I was totally brain tripping myself into gnarly bouts of nausea and fatigue and I hadn't even been treated, it was just from the thought and the smell after being there for an hour. Crazy how powerful the mind is, it will run game on ya! The next day I went back and my white count was through the roof at 6000, no escaping the IV this time, as a matter of fact this shit was the worst day of all, it took five different tries to find a trusty vein and get me an IV that wasn't running the risk of leaking any of the Roger Rabbit like, skin melting, body disappearing acidity onto my skin. Scary ass shit, as I said before this one drug can burn a hole through muscle, tendon and to the bone in seconds. FUCK! It's all good it's just going into my BODY! So after four hours session 11 was done, it is only now that I feel like I can even start to anticipate the end of this, only two more weeks seems like an easy enough thing to comprehend and take on finally. So there it is and here I be, I'll be off groundation and free to play in about fifteen days, (ask yer mom if I can spend the night that weekend). Thanks again for listening and caring, it means the world to me. Stickman.

Sunrise Rehabilitation Clinic

Hawhaaa? It's been almost six months since I left the coast to come back to my old home, the one that I lived in during my pesky, trouble making, skate rat days, where midnight curfews and borrowing the car were the highest of concerns. The place that etched a good part of my character and the one that still redefines the way I respect and admire my Mom. Ahhhh Ma's house, what better place could I be and what better comfort can you get than that from your the Mother when your feeling downright defeated. Well here's some clips of the house and the little environment I live and operate amongst on the daily. My chair and the publishing department of Sickstick sit just inside those front windows. Most all of my groundbreaking literary achievements have taken place in my black chair that rests calmly in the window, usually occupied by a thin haired, half baked, pasty pale lanky lurkmiester claiming he knows the meaning of life and how enlightened he has become since he's taken office. Aside from the grey ass, blistering cold, blustery slot machine of a weather pattern winter we've been having this place has made it all not so super bad.

As I've stated many times before, the grass makes things a whole lot better when you're laying on your back feeling edgier than a ski shop grinder. Actually, contrary to my usual green room antics, the stuff really just makes me want to be active. It makes my mind wander just enough to forget about my tweaky feelings and get me out rollin or pedaling. Yay green stuff.

Some really cool grainy, twisty, siding on the back of the house. In the day the wood soaks up mass heat from the sun and it gets all balmy back there. I lurk there sometimes.

We have treasures buried around the house, here's some sick booty.

Living with the healthy food wiz Liz and understanding the situation I am in as far as how important quality and organic food is for a healthy immune function and defending me against the chemo army, we have been having great colorful feasting abound. Also, having the benefit of Liz working at a health food grocery store has made my diet and nutrition that much more intrepid. I believe that the reason I have gained twenty pounds, not lost my hair and am able to maintain a pretty adequate energy level throughout the cycles is because of how good the food is that I'm putting in my body. You really are what you eat, I'm convinced my diet is helping me clobber this disease and these treatment side effects. Here's a gander at the ol' compost, the tail ends of some awesome nutritional inhalations.

Got the old radio flyer out to tow around some firewood. This thing is at least twenty years old, they don't make em' like they used to I'll tell you what. Another gem stowed away in the yard.

Get your garden boxes going, grow some tasty grub and get to know the vast array of tasty characters you consume. I'm looking forward to getting my green thumb attune this summer.

A Double lot makes for a huge yard full of bird feeders, finches, scrub jays,warblers, dog-like cats and a lot of space to just get weird......

Come on over, bring some brewskis, we'll have a shweet ol' time.

The place where I wait, where I wonder and ache. The place that has seen me through the best and the worst of times. A place I will happily be leaving for the month of April to go to the coast for some sliding adventures and some drop-in visits to some fine friends of mine. At this point in time I'm a week away from getting my second to last wash of chemo, making my last four hour lazy-boy IV drip outing March 31st. Oh hot damn! I went to see the radiologist the other day and got the breakdown on the effectiveness of radiation coupled with the chemotherapy I've taken and what the 5 year survival percentage rates are for someone with my story. With a relatively high cure rate to start with, getting localized radiation on the initial tumor site(my chest) for four weeks makes a 50% less rate of recurrent Hodgkin's. Amazingly the initial tumor size was about as big as a cantelope(larger than I thought) and at this point it is down to the size of a grape. The radiation is going to shrivel that little bugger into a raisen. The chances of being gifted some other form of cancer or heart disease from the radiation treatments are about 1%. So.... as in the very first episodes of this saga the daunting prospects of all that could go wrong and what might happen still seem to shiver me timbers a little bit. But hey, I've come this far and I've done this well and I'm ready to live this thing like I got firecrackers in my drawls. Life could have never been this special to me! I'm scared sure, but I'm just as intriqued and excited about looking at this life one day at a time. As ironic as it sounds it's strangely more motivating and romantic when my life certainly has a distinct and impending chance of unfolding completely differently than I once envisioned it would. Thanks for listening. Sickstick
New ripsticks always have the uncanny ability to conjure stoke and willingness to ride. My new device for sessioning all the insane terrain around the hood.

The ebb and flow.......

Big T on his first board, getting the first inclings of his backside attack. 1997

Stickman, lien ollie SB park 2000

Kev, sending the stale fish at a high altitude. Damn, that kid can ride! SB park 2000

Lizzy has been known to smoke the bowls here and there. Brookings, OR. 2003

Stick, backside floatness at the Reno skatepark on one of my first visits back after transplanting to SBtown. 1998

The Liz in the lap of luxury, PBR, cooler, camp stove, northcoast beach lurk. The guitar case says it all. Crescent City, Ca. 2003

Backside D in the Pac Northwest. 2003

My brother Kev posting an invert in SB, the biggest dude you'll ever see do the smoothest handstanders. 2000

Encinitas living room session, buzzing in the bee suit. 2005

Mr. North flowing in the Pala pool like only his twinkle toed, feather footed, style oozing ass could. 2003

Me on my first board. Some old ass yellowing pink nosed sixties Yater with a crazy D fin. I was still learning so I had a leash attached to the fin. I remember people used to kind of harsh me for riding that thing back then. Now days I'd be on the forefront of the surf hipster movement. 1000 steps 1997

Kev squeaking a backside tail while The Ringer looks on with approval. Goleta 1999

Scottie and his fresh new set up. This photo floods me with stoke. Check the socks tan! Solana Beach 2003

Little lip basher on a fun summer wind swell taken by my Paps. Cardiff 2005

Norte laying one back in the high desert mining country. Virginia City, NV. 2001

Kev lofting an indy air at one of the state fair demo/contests way back in the day. Reno 1996

Big T trunking it in north SB county on my dad's log. Refugio, Ca. 1996

Jon styling a backside four wheel slide in the beer cooler at WINCO foods. He does well around beer. Reno 2001

A few days ago at the ski place we grew up riding. Good times.

The kid's first day on the mountain in two seasons. Here forearms were super sore the next day from tensing them the first two runs anticipating a slam. HEHEHEHE....

Well here I am again, back in the blurring meltdown the day after treatment number 9 out of 12 which makes me 3/4 of the way through my chemo dream. Things are pretty much the same up in these parts, four or five days of fun and forgetfulness trying to surround myself with as much goodness and smile provoking folk and stoke before I'm back to the IV for another chemocation. The shit hits me a lot harder and quicker each time I get flushed. In the beginning I could be out and about for almost two days after my dose but now I'm already melting down before I leave the death lab. The last few treatments it takes all my power to hold back from gagging and puking all over my nurses and cancerous cohort. The smell of the saline they give me to dilute the tweak makes me a teetering vomitess mess. I can no longer make eye contact with any of the chemo drugs in the bag or while they are infiltrating my carcass. I Must hold back the nauseous puketitude at all costs, especially in the clinic. So.......FUCK! What can I say, the ride continues and I guess I'm steering toward the light at the end of the tunnel. The brilliant news is that two days ago at my oncology appointment I got back the results of my CT scan and my PET scan. These tests show swelling as well as cancerous areas which will glow on the image due to the radioactive dye they put into me before the test which is sugar based, sugar attracts to cancerous cells for some reason. Anyway, my funky ass is clean! No glowing, no massive tumorous inflammation and potentially no more CANCER? I have three more doses of mystery left and then I will have a month off before I go for my torching tenure of radiation which should last about another month. I'm twiddling my fingers here trying to figure out just what to do with myself on a month long sabbatical. I think I'm heading toward the sea, if you need me that's where I'll be. The weather has sure been nice around here the past week which has made the heinous days a lot better, feel like I've been stuck inside a snow globe for four months. Well I'm not feeling too wordy today, and what else can I say that I haven't said already. I think I've given enough prolific life advice and ideas to last me at least til the next posting. I wish I would post more but I think the more therapy they give me the crustier I get, kinda weird eh? Well there it is friends, I just went through a giant box of photos of mine that stirred up some great memories and happy happy feelings. Here's some pictures of me and my brothers and kids having some radical sideways standing times. I'm living vicariously through these photos! Thanks for listening and looking! Stick

I'm High.........

The road is long and I've been on it for quite awhile now, but i've got the directions to make the right turns and get to where I need to be. Exactly where the rest of you are, a place of well being.

Me and this thing these days are on a whole new trip, what I would do without it I can't begin. It's been there since I can remember and what it does for me now, well it saves me. Think I love skateboarding more than I ever did, funny cause it hurts more, I suck at it now, it's too cold here, and I'm pretty much my only friend when it comes to going to ride one. I step on it now and I transport to my own secret world of innocence, well being, and youthful satisfaction.

Well good day to you! It's SuperBalls Sunday and I just awoke from a thirteen hour substance induced sleepscapade. My dreams lately are so damn sick; comic book end of the world sagas, inflatable mat surfing mind benders, skateboard epics with iconic characters, snowsliding adventures with ollies from one mountain to the next. All of them having the oddly magical purpose of recharging my life and gifting my imagintation. It's a real gas living in this pseudo reality for the first couple days of these treatments, sometimes I have to remind myself about why it is I find myself on a bendy, half comatose magic carpet ride fueled by sweet little cookie monsters and those little white pills that come in the small ambiguous orange jar. Ahhhhhh..... yes, I must stay away from the dark side of the tweaky chemo zone. Typically I fancy a clear headed mind state in my (Real Life).... Notice how my pre-cancer existence is my (Real Life) and this melting swirl of soupy cognition I live and operate in now is something completely and ridiculously more complicated, though possibly more important. This thing here now, this state that I type from is a ground level view and a dismantled glimpse of how damn neat the things are that just go unseen and unappreciated in my daily human and earthly sense. In this life I see how cool it is that my mom fixed up, operated and glorified this little piece of property we live on. I see how important it is that my brother shed a tear after reading my last post. How crazy it really is that we can count on the planet to be on time all the time (mostly).How if you don't got great friends then you ain't gonna have great memories, and those are the only things that last in this life. I see how ironically wonderful it is to be back in touch with a whole hell of a lot of special people that I hold dearly in my life and how being squeezed into this situation allowed me the avenue to rekindle those relations. How magical and moving the sea is and what it does to my soul every time I think about it. It's not even about surfing anymore, it's about me asking her for forgiveness for all the things I didn't see or do on the days that I was on her shores. I was the weenus who only saw the Shred Zone and not the trees, kelp, sand, crabs, sun, sky, foam, my girlfriend, a magazine, a book, sometimes a sandwich......I see how this thing goes on and on and you can either take it in and fill it up or you can watch it pass by and dream it away. I think I may be having a little trouble self admittedly, on trying to get these pesky words and ill developed profoundings (not a word but it sounds good eh?) out of my weathered head today. I guess the main thing I want to re-iterate to myself and to those who may have given another moment of their life to read this is to slow down, look at the small things, examine the virtue, embrace the simplest moments, learn to be outspoken to the ones you love and most importantly always cherish what you have and where you've been, not what you want and where you're going. My theoretical renderings about being a better person and finding life's key points are on top of my agenda these days, simply because never before in my life have I thought seriously about losing them or losing you. Cheers, Stickman-

Broke the 200 Lb. mark at the doctor yesterday, the only kid to gain fifteen pounds on chemo while still sportin a full head of hair. POW!

Again, It was wonderful to hear all your letters of encouragement and embrace. Seth, Brian, Jelly, Shippy, Mateo, Nick, Devo, Sarah B., Malia, Jamers, Daniel, Erin, Amy, Jess, Andrea,Carina, Carmel, Nathan, Audrey, Remmers, Kim & Roger. It feels sooo great to have you guys with me! Man, I think I just squirt a couple tears..... THanks for stopping by. My email is onefintrim@gmail.com if you wanna......ya know......and stuff.

How I got this blog!!!

My nurse is a bit odd, but she cooks a mean roasted chicken.......

ALas, I am back on the blogness as I have now made it to treatment #7 of my predicted twelve. As I was told there would be a cumulative effect as I became more and more intimate with this poison. Seems ever since the beginning of my last treatment I just want to sleep and I'm having a different sort of fatigue. Oddly, this is almost better though because now I can just make the time blur away in a foggy mixture of family guy episodes, surf films and the back of my eyelids. Been getting an elixir down to help reduce my aches and my almost over the edge anxiety, a drug called adavan which is a pre-0p sedative and some special baked goods have turned this whole escapade into something nearly manageable I reckon. SO things get a little weird around here day after day by myself, the cats stare at me like I'm lazy and unemployed which I am I guess, but so are they those little bastards. It's been funny getting super deep into the computer cyberlife thing, lurking on facebook, writing two blogs and for once actually using my email to communicate with people. It's the little tasks I get to complete that would never get done or even hold a spot on my to due list. Like the other day I "had" to go get a new bulb for my Spiderman Lantern that I keep next to my bed, and also a tiny watch battery to put in another micro headlamp I have. There has been talk since I started the treatment about "chemo brain" though I hadn't really felt it I kind of wrote it off. Well now I know what those people who don't know what they're doing are talking about. I'm thinking about starting to wear a man purse around my waist to keep track of the five things in my life that I'm responsible for as to avoid leaving my wallet in the rental car, my water bottle at the hospital or the cereal in the fridge all of which were haphazardly executed this last week. "I FEEL LIKE I"M TAKING CRAZY PILLS! So, what the heck happened to the Stickman? How the what the fuck did you end up with cancer?

Last Christmas 08 I was home with the family having a generally saucy rip riding helluva good time. We got waist deep snow on Christmas day! When we got home from the mountain and for most of my visit I felt tired as the evening developed, more than usual though. One of the best times in Reno is going to the bars over the Holidays, surely something I never would miss. Well it was different last year, I was just too tired and not into it. Didn't really think twice about it other than maybe the pow days were just draining me. So we had a Christmas dinner toast and everyone wished for a better year to follow, expressively my brother who had just gone through a lame break up. Looking back now this gives me the goosebumps...... I remember thinking "This was the sickest year of my life, I'm the luckiest guy ever really, nothing truly rotten has ever happened to me" I honestly said that to myself!!!!!

When I got back to Washington I was working for LiB Tech building snowboards and had also been hired to work at one of the elementary schools as a TA in the special needs department. After my first official day working at the school I came home and my dad was putting up some siding on the house and asked me for a hand. From the time that I had had a faint cough at lunch break to the time I was fumbling to help my dad I felt like I had developed fucking malaria or something. For the next week and a half I called off work with a brutally deep yet dry cold and flooding amounts of exhaustion. In order to prove I was legitimately haggard to my employers I had to go get a follow up check up from the urgent care who had given me some anti-biotics to wrestle my symptoms down. In a possible out of step move, the nurse ordered a chest x-ray to ensure there was no pneumonia impending on my lungs. I left the clinic back to my house thinking this sickness was in the bag like the twenty others I'd waded through, " I don't have pneumonia" I said to myself. Two days later the phone rings and my x ray nurse tells me they see some surprisingly enlarged lymph node in my chest cavity and want to schedule me a CT scan.

"What does that mean"? I thought. "What do those lymph nodes do?""You have them in your chest?" "Why are mine so big?" With the news I eagerly broke out my computer and began researching what these findings could mean, Lymphoma, Leukemia, Lymphadenopathy....all daunting prospects. That day was the first day I had cried in years and years, I was so scared and confused. The cold grey Washington day felt so much darker and unjust.

I had to go to the University of Washington Medical Center for my first Biopsy which would be an outpatient surgery though I would be anesthetized. They stuck a tube and a camera scope down my throat and sliced a small portion off of one of the two now striking familiar and large toad nodes. The surgery was about an hour and a half and I woke up comfortably sedated and numb. My dad and my girlfriend wheeled me down to the car and off we went back across the Puget Sound onto the Peninsula. It took about two weeks for the results to prove that there was no malignancy and that the swelling was most likely caused by environmental effects like something I had breathed in while remodeling the house or working at the snowboard factory. Well Far Fuckin Out! I had no cancer, I just had to focus on taking care of this weird unknown lung infection. Happy Days were back!

After being confronted with such a gnarly scare I rearranged my life plans and decided it may be the best thing for me to get out of the snowboard shop, and head back to San Diego to complete my teaching credential studies. Arriving back in SoCal felt ok, nothing like I wanted it to feel like though. I had been scarred by the small town country roads, rural farming communities and huge glacial mountains in my back yard with peeling surf at their bases. The hustle and bustle that I was now back in the thick of was creating feelings of anxiety that I had never felt in my life. As it turns out the five months I spent back in San Diego going to homeopathic doctors, nutritionists and message therapists trying heal myself ,were not going to help and it was not the City, the move, or the people that were making me feel so tweaked. It was the cancer starting to really poke it's head out.

In July after a follow up blood test my inflammation rate was six times higher than it had been back in Washington and chest pains were feeling a bit too foreign and questionable to write off. I flew back to Reno where my Mom set up for me to have another Biopsy, this time they would take a full node from my collar bone region and have it tested at Stanford. Again It was an outpatient procedure and I was back on the plane the next day to San Diego to continue my life.

I had just come downstairs to grab my surf stuff to go slide when my cell phone rang. It was my mom so I knew she had the news whatever it be. I wanted to screen that call so bad.....I picked up the phone as my Mom's voice cracked and said 'I'm so sorry honey". Those four words was all she had to say as I swayed back looking for somewhere to sit down and deflate. That moment seemed like all the innocent childhood self perceptions I still clung onto were all taken away by some fuckin asshole bully guy named Life. He had hit me with a lead pipe right in the throat. I had no Idea what to do, I sat in the garage staring at all the artwork I had done when I was little and all the photos on the walls of me having great times. I cried, I couldn't believe all the innocence was gone, my life was no longer that great story I loved telling myself. I felt scared to call or tell anyone about the news, when I did call somebody I could only get through them saying "Hello" before my pre planned composure disintegrated into a muddle of tearful collapse. It took almost a week to fully comprehend the whole thing.

So off I was, I had to give notice on my killer apartment by the beach and leave my wonderful girlfriend to handle the final moving procedures. I packed my van with all I could stuff and drove to Reno in the beginning of October 2009. Leaving behind my jobs, house, girlfriend, school and happiness to go battle the unknown with my Mom by my side. The first week was staging, I had two heart scans, a CT scan, A PET scan, and a bone marrow biopsy. The bone marrow test alone will forever be the gnarliest most humbling thing that this experience will deal me. You never want one of those. So after two weeks and a stream of tests I swam away with Stage 2B Hodgkin's lymphoma. No organ or bone marrow infections. I get chemo every other week for 24 weeks and then a balmy dose of radiation in April to zorch whatever pesky death is left.

It's January now, over halfway into this mess and I'm having fun with it I suppose. It's weird to see how scared i can make myself and then how easy it is to bounce back by taking in the little things and thinking about all the people that encourage me and make me so strong. I miss you all so much. It was so great to hear from all you SB friends who I haven't talked to in so long. Believe it or not the comments I get on this lame little blog give me so much positive outlook and encouragement I find myself looking everyday to hear from a familiar face. I'm winning this because I have you all! LOve you guys, THanks for listening, SICKSTICK

I also write some potentially comical and insightful surf junk as Kenny Bloggins over at mitchsnorth.blogspot.com. Have a gander.