Greetings from Cancer Camp!

Hey oh! This is DotCom (my camp nickname), coming to you live from First Descents Surfing Trip in North Carolina. Our fearless leader, Pita, asked if I'd mind writing up a paragaph or two on my first couple of days here at Cancer Camp. As they (and you) all know by now, brevity ain't the Berg's (or the Com's) game, but I will desperately try to fill you in on what this experience is like, and why it is so important for cancer patients to connect with each other.

In case you don't know about First Descents, it's an awesome organization out of Denver, CO that brings young adult cancer survivors on outdoor trips. (Rich readers: Give them all your money so we can keep coming back, because First Descents is awesome. Also can I borrow five dollars?) The trips range from surfing to rock climbing to kayaking, in an ever-growing list of beautiful places both here and abroad.

Although I'd been encouraged by friends for years to go on an FD trip, I was hesitant to come on this trip for a variety of reasons: I'm lazy and was afraid I'd suck at the physical challenges; I was afraid my cancer wasn't legit enough to come; I was terrified the ultra-healthy menu didn't include Entenman's Pop 'Ems and Evan Williams whiskey.

But I should not have feared. This experience is one I had to have.
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On Saturday, our first night here, our lovely camp counselors asked us to write down our first impressions of the trip. The literal first thought I had when we were all together around the dining table, all fourteen of us was: CANCER!

Everyone here at First Descents Surf Camp in Nags Head, North Carolina has totally had cancer.

That was my literal first impression.

It's not a keen one. Duh, we all have or had cancer. But this was the first time I'd been around such a large group of young adults facing serious health and lifestyle endangerment due to illness. I have a host of friends, but their worst ailment is an STD or nine. (JUST KIDDING! They all have healthy sex parts.)

This was gratifying but scary too: my cancer was relatively easy in comparison and I felt like I was taking advantage. But then I remembered all them other diseases and relaxed: this wasn't a one up game. And there's been a real shortage of whining about our shitty luck and failed immune systems. In fact I've only heard myself, but ONLY because I stubbed my toe jumping in our backyard pool and it really hurts.

The kid gloves are off; there's no prompting us to share our feelings or even what type of cancer we had, which prevents a lot of the little known cancer game: My Stage Is Worse Than Your Stage. Illness can make us self-centered and insecure, but this retreat encourages us, very subtly to listen to each other, and find ourselves through our cancer similarities.

Simply put, it's organic and natural, just like the hippie dippy almond milk they serve us.
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We've only had one day of activity so far, but the challenges are very real and about to be amped up in about 15 minutes when we hit the ocean for surf lessons. I was thinking about my own exercise attempts as of late--running and hiking after years of laying down and eating those Pop 'Ems in bed--and how the pain is almost like a drug to me. It's something I created because I was willing to challenge my body to do something productive.

It's a choice we are all making this week. Our bodies are not perfect. They have failed us in very big and real ways. But the value in challenging us to live beyond that, and to share and connect with each other in real and meaningful and silly ways, is immeasurable.

And so, so necessary.
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Check out First Descent's web page to learn more about the organization. And definitely go on a trip if you are able to! Thanks, FD!
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Keep Going

I sat on the beach a few weeks back and thought I might go for a walk. It'd started to seem like I moved to this great city with great weather yet I spent much of my time sleeping, or working, or reading in my bed. Watching marathons of The Wire as my muscles atrophied, as my body gave in to the disease. I sat on the beach thinking that I had come out here to find more, to seek more, to do more. I got up and walked a couple of miles and when I came back, I felt good.

I've always been fairly athletic but after a lupus flare or hospitalization, I tend to give up. To lay down. For a long time, I let it make me lazy. I let it take control. And I was tired of feeling that way, so after my walk on the beach, I went for a jog. And then a run. And then a hike. And it hurts but it hurts in a good way, the pain proving the change, the change I need.

Sometimes a good distance feels like a slap in the face to my sore muscles. So I stop and stretch my legs, pulling them, forcing the air into spaces tight and mad. The stretches feel like stopping for gas after you hit 100 miles and the E is blaring and you're tired and thirsty and out of fuel. I stretch, switch the song on my iPod, and continue on. I look at my wrist: KEEP GOING, written in black marker before I left the apartment. I go higher.

Soon, I will turn around and go home and feel anything but defeated because even though I struggled and my breath was short and my legs are tired, I am doing more. I am pushing myself. I am seeing beyond the disease.

I am not my disease, I am me.

I am in love with this city.

What's new, Kel?

It feels like it's been a winter in Los Angeles. Like, I moved here to escape the gray but somehow the gray found me. I'm only saying this because the past two days have been cloudy. Gray's not LA's color and it doesn't look good on it. When it’s not sunny, the streets seem even more unfamiliar to me and I get lost and do K-turns (more like circles, I can never do it right) in my car and my breath catches and I have to put on a Hanson song to reset myself. Oh, there I am. Singing along to MMMBop (still), passing the In & Out I went to when I first arrived, back when I was trying to be a vegetarian, knowing I'd fail.

What's LA like? People ask me this. It's not that different. I think I might be a little different. I hope to have changed a little. Sometimes I feel like I am in between places. This is not where I will be forever, but it's where I am now. Lately I've been thinking about Chicago. I don't know why. It's too cold. I know no one.



Goodbye, mirror.



Last week I was driving to meet a friend for a drink. And I wasn't paying attention, or wearing my glasses and I slammed into the side of my building. There was an awful noise. A noise you feel in your legs and toes and fingers. Fuck, I said. I didn't yell. I stopped the car. I went out to check the damage and my passenger side mirror was dangling from the side of the car, all stupid looking. A man walking his dog said "Your mirror's off" like I didn't notice.

I went to Pep Boys. I know nothing about cars. I thought it might cost $500 to fix. I didn't know. I went to the man and asked him if he could glue the mirror back on. He looked at me like I was crazy. I just wanted a temporary fix. I tried to look cute. "Come on," I said. "I'm sure we could just glue it on." He said no. I went back inside and found someone else. He suggested I rip out my shoelace and somehow hold it together. Then I looked at HIM like he was crazy. "It might look a little ugly," he warned.
 

Daily Beast Article

Hey guys! I wrote a piece on my "puffy face moment", inspired by Ashley Judd.

Please check it out here: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/13/inspired-by-ashley-judd-my-own-puffy-face-saga.html

thanks for all the support!

xo
kb

east hollywood, 3 am

It’s almost three am in East Hollywood. I live on the border between East Hollywood and Los Feliz. It’s easier to say Los Feliz, it paints a better picture. Oh, I know that, they say. Do you go to that restaurant?

I usually say no. I live sort of simply; I live in my bedroom and I get out when I get out. This week I spent most of my hours sleeping. I would be awake and then I would drift back down to my bed. It’s complicated; I work from my bed because there’s nowhere else and then I fall asleep. This week’s been worse than most. The drugs won’t let me sleep at night (that is the first factor) and then I make up for the sleep during the day (second factor) and it all leads back to this: 3 am and reading things on the Internet.
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Real Talk by KPB

The wind is howling and I cannot sleep.

This morning, I woke caked in sweat and moaning out in pain. I was confused when things finally came into view; the sun was blaring through the curtains and I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I was not home.

My body speaks before I do.

I slept on and off most of the day because every moment I am awake is a song sung by the rhythm of this nasty, unwavering pain. I struggle through each second, and I pretend I am somewhere else but I am never anywhere else.

I’ve had back to back to back flare ups since February, or maybe it was October or maybe it was 2009. I can’t remember the last time my mouth wasn’t hurting me, or my knees weren’t aching.

I hang with certain people who believe that we are responsible for the negative energy that our bodies process into weakness and illness. I am not totally on board with this theory, but I started an inspirational journal on my computer just in case.

I write cheesy, needlepoint phrases that ultimately, I believe to be stupid. And it’s that black, unbelieving thought that some might say is the reason I cannot seem to get better.

And I can’t: the debts are accumulating in my body. I have not been to the doctor since February, when my health insurance expired. I thought it was coming back April 1st, but I have to wait another month. When I went in February, I was told I needed to undergo an insane battery of tests, and I have a list written down of things I must attend to, but it will wait until May.

You can get through another month, I wrote. You can do this, I wrote again. Every moment is worth living! I write these things over and over again.

But it’s not! It’s not!, I want to write. THIS MOMENT SUCKS, I want to say.

I don’t know how to try anymore, how to write more positive things on a blank Word document and fully embrace and believe them. I want to be earnest, and I want to be positive, and I want to believe that things are getting better...