graduation!!

 

yeeeehaaaaaa!

 

Mia is officially a Master of Fine Arts this Friday!! YEAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Ma, Haeley, and me are driving down to Pasadena to attend her thesis show. I plan on screaming and smiling a lot.

It was three years ago that Mia and I left New York and drove cross country for her to begin studying at Art Center. This coming weekend will mark the successful completion of our mission!

Mia’s the greatest. I am so proud. 

just keeps going and going…

it’s been a couple of months since i last posted an update on my progress here and that’s because everything has been fine and uneventful. i guess i haven’t known what to say.

today is the last day of my fifth chemo cycle. i’ve gotten used to distracting myself from feeling nauseous, accepting it when i’m tired, and making the most of the time i have to feel all right. still i don’t like it very much. 

this thanksgiving will be the fifth anniversary from when i first presented with symptoms and my family realized that something was wrong. i am so happy to be going strong- and to be a part of it still. 

 

i take haeley to watch the sunset a few times a week

 

 

lightning

     i made this film to describe my experience of brain tumor diagnosis. it combines clips from boston’s brigham & women’s hospital with footage from wyoming to signify the at once wearing and enlivening forces of mortality. 

two doses in…

     thanks for all the good wishes and responses to my last posting! it was very fun to share the video with you. i spent friday at the doctors and my brain mri is somewhat changed- i think improved. Less of the picture is enhanced with contrast and my oncologist says he thinks that the remaining tumor looks “broken up.” 

    the chemotherapy should not have made a mark after just two doses, however the doctor concedes it is possible. Given how intense my side effects have been, he thinks my physiology may be more sensitive to the drug than the average- so it might already be working!

    also, my blood counts have been wonky. the numbers show that my counts dip slower than expected and also rebound half as fast as is normal. The doctor does not know why. On the bright side- if the chemo is hurting my bone marrow, it’s probably hurting my aberrant nerve cells too!! that’s rad.

The doctor has decided to half my dosage of chemotherapy and go from there, increasing if possible. This will reduce my risk of leukemia and maybe make me feel better too. i’m supposed to eat lots of steak in the meantime:)

That’s the story. Thanks for coming here to check in on me; it means a lot!

baby blue

i might have figured something out…! please watch this first of several short films i have recently edited from previous Super8 footage (Wyoming, 2007).

this first piece, entitled “baby blue,” collects images of the abandoned horn ranch, located not 2 miles north of the darwin ranch.

Merging the grand emptiness of the wyoming landscape and ruins of the horn ranch’s previous inhabitants, “baby blue” explores the elusory significance of personal origin.

update

Just an update since i haven’t posted in so long. This friday i meet with my oncologist and have an mri to see if the chemotherapy is working! the doctor said that it is unlikely that a change will be visible so soon- but it’s exciting anyway. I’ve been spending my days editing previous footage from my Super8 film camera. I’ve attempted to post the movies here, but alas no luck.  Hopefully my next post will include a short film:) 

Thanks to anyone who is checking in despite my long absence! Wish me luck for friday. I’ll let you know all that happens:)

more medicine days

i’m back from my serene vacation and on chemo once again. It is difficult to describe the way the chemo pills make me feel. I found this photograph of train graffiti that i took a few years ago. it gets just close enough to my experience:

chemo-zombie

i felt this way during the first cycle as well as throughout the start of this second round.

Then, the doctors, ma, and i made a breakthrough!

I was vomiting all of day 3 and the neuro-oncology nurses warned that if i couldn’t stop throwing up they would discontinue my regimen and send me to the ER- i hate it there.

They had one drug left to give me, so i tried it and it works!! i have kept all my juice down and mostly slept since this discovery:) Today is my last medicine day. It will be smooth sailing and three weeks of normalcy after that, hopefully passing blood tests and starting it all over again.

I feel so much more comfortable and very relieved!!!

Vacation!

My blood has not yet righted itself- turns out the platelets have rebounded (it clots normally) but the indicator for white blood cells and immunity has remained short of the requirement.

on my way

I’ve not been allowed to continue my chemotherapy.  The second cycle is on hold and I’m not sure what the ramifications of this pause will be.

All I know is that the next few weeks I can take for myself- VACATION! I turn 25 on the first day of August and it will be a day free of treatment!

I’m thrilled and I’m going to enjoy it:)

true blood

my second chemo cycle got postponed.  my blood counts are too low. i’ve got to wait until wednesday, then get checked again. The phlebotomist at Quest Diagnostic informed me that there is another Quest location in New Delhi, just down the street from her husband’s house. Her name was Lucky. She was good with a needle.

Maybe I’ll get her again on Wednesday. 

 

toxic landscape

This friday begins my second round of chemotherapy- and I’m scared! My first cycle turned out worse than I’d thought. it began easily enough, all cartoons and funny feelings. Then day Three dawned: nauseous and brain dead. By the end I felt positively poisoned, in pain and vomiting- incapacitated and not myself at all.   

It took me a few more days to emerge from the toxic fog.  I’m afraid of this second round- it’s a difficult thing to walk into. My landscape looks bleak but the doctor says I’ll adapt. Hopefully this won’t include webbed feet or extra thumbs.