I hate cancer scholarships. It feels so degrading, like I'm a monkey in
a zoo. I get that the entire point of a cancer scholarship is that
you've had cancer, so that's the thing they have you write about,but It
just feels wrong. I feel like there's a lot of pressure to spin it into
some happy story, even when it really wasn't. Also, when I read previous
year's winner's essays, I feel so shit about myself. Like there was one
where the guy wrote about how he ran a 5k a few months into his cancer
treatments, and another where the guy was in college while doing cancer
treatment. Like, I totally get that those people should be getting
scholarships like this, but their stories make me feel like shit. Maybe
I'm just a crybaby bitch, but I was not strong enough of a person to be
able to continue on to college during my treatment. I think I might be
in the minority though, and that makes me feel like shit even more. Ever
since finishing treatment, I've felt like I'm not truly a survivor. The
only real reason I lived was because I got lucky. The only thing I had
to do to survive was lie in a bed and take the medicine my doctors gave
me, and that makes me feel really guilty a lot of the time. That's
something I've been working on with my therapist ( yeah, I finally
started seeing a therapist), but a lot of the time, it still makes
me feel like I'm not really a "cancer survivor", just a guy who had
cancer. It probably also doesn't help that I kind of built a reliance on
cancer. I got used to going to doctors appointments, and taking my meds
every morning and night, and going to the hospital when I got sick. Now
that I don't do all of that anymore, I don't really know what to do.
Cancer kind of broke me down and made me it's bitch, and that's pretty
upsetting.
update
2.29.24
College
I figured I'd look into scholarships for cancer survivors, and while
there is quite a lot, I don't think I'll be applying for any. It's kind
of a waste to not apply for any of them, but I don't think that I really
feel comfortable writing about the cancer related prompts yet ( and
I have enough money saved to pay for a few semesters without a
scholarship). I didn't really realize it until I started the
scholarship essays, but my experience with cancer (and even more
so, the sepsis) has really affected me mentally. I think at my
doctor's appointment on Monday, I'm gonna see if they have any
recommendations for good therapists in my area, as I haven't really
talked about how this whole process has made me feel. Anyways, for the
past few months since the end of my treatment, I've just been doing
phsyical therapy to try to better manage my back pain, and I've noticed
it helping a bit; however, I think I'm just gonna have to get a job and
try to work through the back pain because I fucking hate not working. In
other news, I got my port out on January 17th, and the doctor did a good
job of covering up the scar from it being put in, so now the port scar
won't be as noticeable. Honestly though, it doesn't really matter to me
how obvious my port scar is because my scar from my bowel perferation
surgery is much, much larger, and both scars are fairly easy to cover up
with a shirt anyways. Going forward, I hope to work on my site more
outside of just the occasional spurt of word vomit about my life, but
motivation is hard to come by nowadays. Though I do appreciate all the
well wishes and compliments on the site. Sorry for the word vomit,
hopefully I can find some motivation to work on the site soon, until
then, have fun in your internet travels bros. o7
thought
10.20.23
It's been a long journey
I went into the doctor's on Wednesday for my monthly blood check, and
while I was there, we had my bell ringing ceremony. They also suprised
me with a notebook of notes of encouragement and expressing pride in the
things that I've overcome. It was very sweet of them, and it does give
me a lot of motivation to continue to push forward towards my goals,
even if I feel a bit lost right now. It's crazy to think that 2 years
ago, I was avoiding looking in the mirror because I was scared of how
awful I looked. I was really pale, my eyes were sunken in, and I didn't
really recognize that skeleton in the mirror that looked back at me.
Now, two years later, I'm looking like myself again, with renewed
confidence. I think moving forward, I'm going to go through schooling to
become a nurse, and I would also really like to mentor/volunteer to work
with kids and teenagers that are in positions that were similar to mine.
It would be a waste to not use my experiences to help others that are in
situations similar to what mine was, and I feel like if I could make
even one person feel the way that many of the nurses and hospital staff
made me feel, then it would make my life. I think everyone wants to make
their impact on the world, and while I had previously hoped that my
impact would be as a physicist or a mathematician, I think I've come to
realize that while those jobs might put your name in a textbook, you
won't be truly making an impact on people. The type of impact that I'd
like to make can only really be achieved on a personal level, and I feel
like being there for people at their lowest is one of the biggest ways
you can make an impact on someone (looking back on it, I feel that
that's quite obvious to most people).
update
10.6.23
847 days
After one cancer diagnosis, a bowel perferation, sepsis, a seizure,
multiple compression fractures, countless hospital stays, and 847 days
of chemo, I've finally finished treatment. I've been in remission for a
very long while now, so the last year to year and a half has been just
maintenance chemo. However, that's finally done as well. I still have to
go into the doctors every month for the next year before we space out to
every two months, and over the years it will slowly get less and less
often until I'm only going in once a year or so. This is just to get
blood work done though, to make sure the cancer doesn't come back. I
should be getting my port out within the next couple of months, and I
should be off the gabapentin and all the other meds in that time as
well. From there, I plan on finally getting into hitting the gym to
increase my core strength and hopefully get rid of some of this back
pain. I think I've also decided that I want to become a nurse, as I feel
like a lot of the nurses that I had in the hospital made a big
difference in my recovery and were major factors in my motivation to get
out of bed every day. I think I'd like to possibly be that for someone
else one day, thus coming to the nursing decision. I think a computer or
physics related field would become boring to me anyways, as I've always
seen them more as hobbies. Anyways, that's all, as of 8/4/2023, I've
finished chemotherapy.
update
7.29.23
I took a break
I took a break from my site as I haven't been feeling good for the last
few months, but now I'm back. I'm hoping to get back into glitch art and
datamoshing, as well as continuing to work on my site.
thought
1.4.23
4AM Thoughts
It's 4AM and I'm sitting on my couch. Feeling my eyes slowly adjusting
to the darkness around me. I can feel those thoughts coming, the one's
that are always there, no matter how happy you are. The ones that you
know will be waiting for you every night if only you stay up long
enough. The ones that make you consider if life is really worth living
or if you should just throw in the towel now before you get in too deep.
The ones that you can only escape by playing into them until you
eventually tire yourself out enough to finally fall asleep. What are we?
Just electrical signals passing from node to node? The most complex
computer in the world? One with a CPU so complex that it bypasses the
calculations and simple math interpretations to see the world in it's
entire, raw self. Or maybe one so simple that it can only take in
simple, surface level observations about the world around it, never
truly understanding what any of it is, instead being forced to break it
down into simple rules to explain what's happening around it. One that
knows just enough to know that it doesn't really know anything at all.
update
8.19.22
Anxiety?
I don't know if it's really anxiety. I'm on meds for anxiety, but I
still get the feeling all the time that no one really cares. I feel
paranoid that my friends don't like me, that my siblings resent me
because of how much attention and time my parents spend with me because
of my cancer, I feel like they blame me for my parents never being
around as much as they should. I just feel paranoid in general. I know
most of the stuff that I feel paranoid about is irrational and most
likely isn't happening, but I still have an overwhelming feeling in my
chest that creeps up telling me that my paranoia is correct. I feel like
a loser because I have a grand total of three friends, and I have no
motivation to do anything with my life. I think I really need to talk to
my psychologist about upping my dose of meds, or maybe I need to get a
therapist or something.
update
8.18.22
I'm not dead, lmao
It's been nearly a year since I've written anything here, but I think it
would be fun to start doing it again. Over the last year, I've been
attending doctors visits, physical therapy, and just learning how to do
this life thing all over again. It's crazy how much balance and muscle
you lose when you lay in a bed for 3 months. Even now, almost a year
later, I still walk with a cane; however, I am working on walking
without the use of any aid. Anyways, I plan on working on the website
more over the next couple of months. Hopefully I stick to my word this
time.
update
10.14.21
A Wild Imagination
While in the hospital for my cancer, I had a bowel perferation, which
means that my intestines got too full and decided to burst. I was
immediately rushed into surgery, with many of my doctors believing that
I wouldn't make it. The surgeon told my parents that I was at a 9.5/10,
and that he's only seen one case worse than mine in which someone
survived. I was put into a sort of medically induced coma for eight
days, most of which I spent cut open before they finally reconnected my
intestines. Once they finally woke me up, my earliest memories are
situations and people that I imagined because of the high amount of
nausea and pain meds I was on. I imagined an entire person, who I
thought I got fired because he tied a bunch of strings from my bed to
the walls and ceiling. I thought he hid from his boss in my room behind
my dad, during which, I saw all the walls roll down and a bunch of
nurses surrounding us. Then, for the next week I thought that the guy
was outside trying to kill me. I also thought a few of the nurses were
trying to kill me. I would imagine that nurses with 10+ years of
experience were actually not even real nurses and were actually there to
kill me. I saw them taking my blood from a machine that was acting as my
liver and thought that they were injecting me with something to kill me.
Once, I even stayed up for 36 hours straight in fear that if I went to
sleep, I would die. I was a whole mess, and those strong meds didn't
help. Those hallucinations combined with the pain from my surgeries made
that one of the worst times of my life.
update
10.13.21
https://fauux.neocities.org
If you've spent any amount of time browsing Neocities, chances are,
you've seen Fauux's site. In the early days of the site, a lot of people
thought it was some kind of secret society or ARG because of the login
page that the site has ( even though the login button does
literally nothing). Lately, he's posted a few puzzles for people to
solve, one of which was already solved when I found the site. Now the
other puzzle that he posted has yet to be solved, at least it appears
that way on the site. I originally found the puzzle way back in January
of this year, a month after it had been posted. From that point, I
worked on the puzzle for about a week before hitting a dead end and
ultimately giving up out of boredom; however, I've decided to come back
and work on it a little as well as document the progress that I make and
have made.
update
6.19.21
Cancer be like brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
I'm currently writing this from a hospital bed a week into my roughly
one month stay. As you can probably tell by the title of this post, I
was lucky enough to be diagnosed with Leukemia! Now I know what you're
thinking, Mosh that doesn't sound like a very fun time, and I would have
to agree with you there, however, it could always be worse. The doctors
have said I should be able to make a full recovery with no long term
effects on my health (apart from the years of chemo and doctors
appointments) I was lucky enough to be diagnosed with a well
researched and somewhat well understood form of cancer, and I'm actually
pretty grateful for that. Sure, I have to go through roughly two and a
half years of cancer treatment, but at least I'm not dead. The only part
that's really rough for me is the timing of my diagnosis, I graduated
high school on the 2nd of June, and then the doctors told me that I had
Leukemia on the ninth. Not exactly how I wanted to start out my life
after just graduating high school, but I guess we'll have to make due.
The doctors told me to expect to hold off on schooling and work for
around a year, as my most intense chemo treatments will take place in
the first eight months. Good thing I'm into IT, all I have to do is sit
at a computer, so I can continue with it even through the treatments. Of
course, I'm sure that overtime this shit is gonna take a big mental toll
on me, and I'm sure I'll still struggle to continue to do even simple
things, like work on my site, but at least I know that I always have
something to come back to on my good days. Overall, I would say that I'm
pretty grateful that my situation isn't as bad as it could be, and so
far I've been pretty ok with it, trying to take it in stride, but
sometimes it does get overwhelming. Sometimes you just get thinking
about the situation you're in, and you just feel helpless. Today, I was
walking around the hallway(I'm not allowed to leave my floor
because weak immune system and all that) and I just looked down and
saw my class of 2021 shirt that I had on. Not gonna lie, I teared up a
little knowing that the few plans I did have for graduating were flushed
down the drain. I also tear up and sometimes cry a little when someone
comes into the room to talk to my mom or when someone sends me a card
telling me how they're there to support me. It's really upsetting to
know that my cancer isn't just effecting me, but instead it's effecting
everyone around me. Sure, I can handle a cancer diagnosis and a few
years of treatment, but it makes you feel like real shit when you know
the people around you are gonna have to go through that with you. Not to
mention the massive amount of medical bills I'm sure this will pile up
for my family. I didn't want to go to college to start my life out in
debt, but I guess I'll be starting my life out in debt in medical bills
anyways. At least I might be able to get a scholarship or something out
of this, though I don't know that I'll want to accept something just
because I was one of the lucky few that had some cells turn bad. Either
way, my plans to move out before I'm 19 are not looking so likely now,
which means I have more time to perfect my Javascript, and hopefully get
a decent paying web dev job. Then as soon as I'm able to move out, I'll
be able to. Enough about after cancer though, let's talk about what it's
like to be in the hospital with cancer. First off, everyone is super
nice to you, cancer makes people feel bad for you, and that makes people
pretty much bend to your will. I've already noticed it even in my own
family members, my mom insists on doing pretty much everything for me,
even when it's something as simple as moving my bedside
table(that's on wheels) There's also a few charities that come
through, like every Tuesday, a charity comes through and provides us
with a meal from a pizza place or from Zaxby's(a chicken
place) and I'm allowed to spend $150 on whatever I want to make my
initial month long hospital stay a little nicer, but I feel bad taking
from these charities and shit just because I have cancer. It feels
wrong, I did nothing to get cancer, so why should I benefit out of it at
all? Of course, anything that they provide me with, I'll be paying ten
fold in medical bills, but still, it just doesn't feel right. Aside from
the charities, hospital life is pretty boring, sometimes I have to get
blood transfusions because my platelets or hemoglobins will be low and I
have to go to the clinic and be put to sleep for the occasional spinal
tap to make sure there's no cancer hiding in my spinal fluid. Besides
that, it's mostly just laying in bed, taking steroids, and then getting
chemo meds pumped into my body every Monday and Friday. The chemo
sometimes makes me feel like shit, and other times it actually makes me
feel better, but I think it's mostly just based on how active I had been
that day. I could go a week without chemo, but if I just laid around in
bed for that entire week, then I would feel like complete shit. And the
complete opposite is also true, I could get chemo pumped into me, and
then feel great in the same day if I got out of bed and moved around a
lot. For example, the last few days, I've felt like complete shit. I
skipped my showers on Thursday and Friday, opting to just wipe down with
the wipes they provide(I have to wipe down with them even if I do
take a shower) and I just laid around in bed both days, sleeping
well into the afternoon. I would wake up in the morning, feel like shit,
go back to sleeping until like four, and then continue to feel like shit
the rest of the night. Finally, I decided to take a shower today, and
after getting out of bed and walking around, I didn't feel so bad. I
took a walk in the hallway, and just two laps around were enough to make
most of my nausea go away. I even had enough energy to request for my
mom to bring in this shitty webbook thing for me to work on my site
from. I just have to remember when moving forward that even when I feel
like shit, I need to get out of bed because that improves how I feel by
a ton. Even if it doesn't physically improve how I feel, I can at least
know mentally that I made an effort that day and I didn't just give up
on myself. I have a feeling that that's gonna be one of the biggest
struggles going forward, giving up and giving in to the struggle. I can
sit around and feel bad for myself all I want, but is that really going
to make anything better for me? The only way to make the best of the
situation is to make sure that I keep going. I can give up on learning
Javascript because I have cancer and I don't feel good, or I can keep
pushing on and keep going even when I feel like shit. Of course, it's
easy for me to say that now when I don't feel like shit, but that's what
the struggle is gonna be, getting out of bed even on those days I feel
like my body has been thrown off the roof and my stomach has been
twisted a hundred times. I also think it's going to be a struggle to not
feel bad for myself or to be jealous of others because they don't have
to deal with this shit, but all I really have to do for that is remind
myself that getting caught up in feeling bad for yourself is just
another way to become a bitter, sad person. Besides, I don't actually
have it that bad. I have to go through a couple of years of treatment
and I'll have to be a skinhead for a little bit, but it could be worse.
Besides, I'm gonna have a beanie made that says "I have cancer,
dickhead" on it. That way everyone will have an answer to their stares
when they see me walking around with no eyebrows and no hair on my head.
Ok I've been writing for a while now, and this has started to get very
unorganized a long time ago, so I think I'm done writing for now, but I
plan on working on the site more and writing more about my experiences
with cancer, so you have that to look forward to.
update
3.29.21
Please help, I'm addicted to iron oxide
Yesterday, one of my friends hit up our group chat asking if anyone
wanted to play Rust, so of course, I was like "yeah dog, let's shit on
some kids." Then I spent literally 8 fucking hours playing that game,
and today I got back on and played for like another 6. I have to be
really careful about how I play it though, because a couple of years
ago, I was like heavily addicted to that game. I would stay up past 2 in
the morning playing it, and then get up at 6 to go to school the next
day. I did that for like a solid 2-3 months, which caused me to almost
fail a few classes because I stopped doing my homework and I slept
during class. Thankfully that was at the end of the school year, but I
continued to play it literally all the time which was an issue. Even as
late as December of last year, I was struggling with trying to get my
addiction to it under control, but now it's much easier, as I've kind of
grown up a little and I don't feel like playing games pretty much ever.
But yeah, that's pretty much all, I don't really know why I bothered to
write this down, but here you go.