Sometimes you just have to vent.

So I’ve been sitting in this coffee shop for about two hours. I mean, as far as I’m concerned I’ve been in this damn place for all of purgatory, i.e. the past year. Today though in particular I’ve downed one French press, which is about three cups of coffee and then I decided to follow that with one “regular” cup of joe. It’s rocketing through my veins. Needless to say, I have the jitters. It’s a toss up from the sensation of falling ten stories down and insomnia. I’ve been listening to Wilco, The War On Drugs and Slyvan Esso. So it’s been a fine mixture of folk and electro pop, basically the most common type of music that I’ve been blasting as of late. It’s been a year since I fractured my pelvis jumping a rain soaked fence at Skyridge hospital in Cleveland Tennessee after the birth of Bonnie Leigh Cotton. Since that day I’ve heard in multiple ways, “Brady, thank God you’re a dumb ass... I’m so glad you’re retarded... being stupid just saved your life...” and so on. But I’m currently at a stale mate, how do I look back upon the last year? Should I still be thanking my stupidity or start reflecting on my victories? If my stupidity is truly the unsung hero, then was it in fact a dumb move or a divine act of God that I ignored my typical statement, “I don’t do dangerous things.” And as for my victories, are they really my victories? Being a cancer patient I’ve been at the whim of blood tests and doctoral prognosis’, I never once leaned over during a procedure and said, “You should do this differently” or told them the proper medication to give. I was a mouse in a laboratory and now everyone hails my courage and stubbornness as if I had saved my self. The most courageous act that I’ve done is lean on others who are much stronger than I.

Bone marrow biopsy.

I’ve been through heavy radiation, blood and steroid treatments. I’ve had chemotherapy, bone marrow biopsies, skeletal surveys, radiated scans and stem cell transfusions. I’ve survived it all. Each time I’ve “gone under” I’ve made sure to make my nurses laugh, my doctors smile and have even tried to wipe away the tears of family and friends. Some nurses would tell me, “Even though I hope you never have to come back, I hope to see you again... You’re a great man” while others would scoff at my candor, tattooed body or sailors mouth. I once even got one of my oncologists to “cut up” with me after a series of hesitated laughter about how long I have to live. He said to me, “Ha ha, yeah... you did get knocked on your fucking ass.” We laughed; he shook my hand and told me to be back next week. But there have also been other doctors who’ve brushed me off. One in particular, during the first week of my battle walked into my hospital room, put his hands into his hair as if he just watched a child fall from a high chair and exclaimed, “I...I can’t do this...” But at least he was nicer than the one who scolded me and angrily said, “what you have is not life compatible...” as if this were my fault.

Even after all of this my little sister Kelly still hugs me, loves me and sometimes even purposefully annoys me like nothing has happened. My closest of friends still continuously rip me apart; get me drunk and debate the ridiculous nature of women -- like nothing has happened. We’ve kept our game faces and held our heads high. When I reflect on these memories I am reminded that I am truly blessed, cancer or no cancer.

When I was released from the hospital back in July I grabbed my computer one evening and tried to accurately describe how “it all went down.” The end result isn’t completely factual but it reflects inner turmoil that I had experienced. I ended up writing a weird short story where I inhabit two different forms of my self. The first “self” is the young and reckless buffoon that only cares for the shimmer of the moon, the size of a girl’s rack and beer in his gullet; I named him Matthew. As for the other, the narrator, me -- well I’m just a kid that looking for the sincerity in love, the open ticket to move forward and move on. I was searching for any sunrise that would brush my windshield and paint a smile on my face.

Before the accident, well I guess we can call it that; I was researching jobs on the west coast while passing the time as a key holder at the GameStop in Cleveland. I was considering Los Angeles, Seattle and even my old stomping grounds of Oakdale California. In Los Angeles I had my old roommate and co-conspirator Jordan Duke who at the time had been begging me to move out there with him. Then there was Scott, another old roommate of mine who would always say, “Bro! Seattle was made for someone like you” and after much research I found him to be right. There was even a moment where I asked my boss at GameStop what it would look like to transfer out there and he told me one drunk night at a bachelor party, “oh, very doable.”

Jimmy & I.

I was living in a two-bedroom apartment with my friend Jimmy. That apartment was my favorite that I’ve ever had. We had a tiny kitchen with large wooden cabinets and in the adjacent trash room lurked a stolen portrait from Lee University with two young girls smiling brightly at the camera, it was ill fitting for Jimmy. He would often grimace each time he went to dispose of an empty Miller Lite box. But our living room was my favorite part of the apartment. It was neatly decorated. It looked like the poor hipsters version of a Crate and Barrel add; old paintings and aged knick-knacks from Michigan were nailed to the wall. The best part of the living room though was the “dad chair” that sat next to the record player. Between the two of us we had a probably 70 records. Jimmy and I, after a long day would put on a record, open the balcony windows and let the sound carry outside out on to porch. We’d enjoy the cool Tennessee air; a smoke and a chilled can of Miller Lite. We were living simply and took everything a day at the time. If there was ever any drama it was the simple and good kind, the sort of drama that breaks a dark comedy with a touch of light. 

If I told you that at that moment there was no girl in my life, I’d be lying. There’s always a girl and her name was Maggie. We “met” in April even though at this juncture I had never seen her face-to-face. Everything about Maggie was stunningly loud. I knew she was something special when she told me my “Mustafar joke was hilarious...” Her very voice was eye-catching and alluring. It was as if Ross from friends was screaming “Pivot! Pivot! Pivot!” 

I called her the “unicorn” to co-workers and friends because how else could you explain a girl like her? Eventually people became accustom to asking, “How’s the unicorn?” then I'd weave a tale out of our most recent two-plus hour conversation and how important it was. We never had a dull conversation.  We’d talk on the phone for hours and even Skype for the same amount of time. Maggie would go on and on about life in Florida, skateboarding, Super Smash Bros, Star Wars and or Star Trek. In fact the very first conversation we had on the phone was right after I saw the latest Star Trek installment. Maggie called late that evening with a nerdy intensity that I’ve never experience before. She explained the nuances of that sci-fi series for what seemed like days. To this day I have never let anyone ever talk to me about Star Trek that long. Every time someone mentioned her name it was as if it was a password to my heart. I’d open like a locket and read aloud a memoire written in red.  To this day I’ve never met a girl like Maggie and I’m afraid that I never will again. Eventually we met, face-to-face. All my premonitions and forecasts of what she was like in real life were true. And on that day, the day I got discharged from the hospital, it was the happiest that I had been in years... but that’s another story for later.

So, here I a still am. Sitting on the stool at Mean Mug, the coffee shop off of Market St., reflecting on everything. I am brimming with anger, but I’m also thankful for what has happened to me. I have become separated from my old life and have had to let those old dreams die. Over the next several weeks I am going to make it a point to document and write down what I’ve been going through this year and share them with you. I have had a head start on the source material because one of my best friends, Robert or better known as “Pookie”, gave me a journal in July when I was still in the hospital. It’s full now. Every page is soaked with prayers, unsent letters, anger as thick as pavement, sadness as permanent as the scar on my chest from open heart surgery and lists upon lists of what to do next; distracting tomes of stories of old that still makes me chuckle. I am a stronger person today than I was a year ago. But to quote a close friend of mine, “Brady, this is a man maker... at the end of this, you’ll be a man.”

I think the best way for me to process this is to share with you the short story/narrative that I penned. We’ll start with the beginning of it all. But I’d rather let a professional have the last word...

“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.”

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I saw Matthew in the reflection of the puddle on the pavement, that blonde bearded bastard. The night was a cool whisper on my face and the moon wore a skimpy layer of white-laced clouds. “I can see her legs.” Matthew said looking up at the moon giving me a naughty wink. It was late July, tomorrow is my older sisters birthday. I feel terrible; I haven’t bought her a thing yet. So many things on my mind, the rents due soon and I had barely gathered enough cash to afford a road trip to Florida. My apartments so dirty too. My roommate will be pissed if I don’t clean the apartment before I leave.

I looked up to see Matthew skipping along on the glimmering pavement waving my keys around. He looked a drunken penguin with an old police baton and it’s a safe bet that his “Look Mexico” shirt was still a little wet from the beer he had spilled earlier.

“Look Mexico...*burp* they’re just like, like Built to Spill but... but then again, they are so not. No one’s like Doug Martsh.” That’s something Matthew would say defending his shirt and why no one has heard of the band. I was at the town bar; a watering hole that housed cave trolls for patrons when I got the call. “She’s having the baby!” then John hung up as fast as he said the words. Matthew spilt his brew and I grabbed the keys and we bolted for the hospital. After an awkward and tipsy conversation with John’s relatives by the vending machine John’s baby girl was born. I only got to see her for a second before the nurses whisked her off to the intensive care unit for infants. “You don’t have to stay man,” John said as he placed his sweaty palm on my back.

Johns face was glowing. He was now a daddy and you tell by the wholeness in his voice. We were keen to get home and drink some celebratory beers in due honor of John’s baby girl, Bonnie Lee. John and I had been looking forward to her birth for months now, obviously. I was to be an “uncle” and John, finally a daddy. Ms. Lee had some of the biggest cheeks I had ever seen on a baby, and oddly when I looked into her eyes I felt… paternal. As we walked, the hospital was at my back, the heavy grey car garage looming straight ahead in the horizon and a tiny fence on my left that forced people leaving the hospital this late to walk through that creepy grey box.

But right now that beer had my name on it, it had Bonnies name on it, Johns name on it and if I didn’t beat Matthew to the car he’d beat me to the beer. If I didn’t beat him to the beer then he’d beat me to “drunk” and last time Matthew beat me to drunk I ended up having to talk his ex girlfriend out of from coming over to stab him. If you’ve ever met Maddie, the ex, then you’ve seen the reason why the biker bar stopped doing “ladies night”. 

Matthews blonde fo-hawk bobbed up and down like the arm of an old teddy bear as we neared the entrance to the car garage. I could see my car; it was below us parked all alone in the lot. As I investigated the lay out of how to get to my car it dawned on me how pointless it was to have walk all the way through this dungeon.  I heard Matthew, as if he was in my head “You know man, I kind of want to be a da…” but his sentence suddenly became unintelligible due to sound of branches breaking and bushes wobbling. He was poking around where the fence had connected to garage in the bushes.

"Wha...what did you say? Mathew?” I couldn’t see him anywhere. The bushes were moving to the flow of the night breeze and apparently Matthew trudging around at their roots.

Matthew poked his head from behind the fence; apparently he had the same idea as me, just jump the fence. “I saaaaaid! It kind of made me want to be a Dad,” he sang in his “jazz” voice as he plucked twigs and leafs from his perfectly disheveled hawk. I couldn’t disagree with him; I kind of wanted to be a Dad too. “What are you doing back there man? You know we could just walk along through the car garage?”

He just shook his finger at me. “You’re such a lame-ass Brady.”
We were now walking side by side, separated by a two foot thick, three foot high and twelve-foot long “ego” walk to the chain link fence ahead of me. I leaned over and punched him in the shoulder. “You can’t do that! Stay on your side,” he scoffed, “If you don’t jump that fence, the Wild Things and Max are going to cry alone tonight... jerking it.”

I had to laugh at that one, but still…way to far.
That’s totally my favorite ‘pretend’ childhood book.

"Ok!, what do you want me to do now, stroke face?" I retorted. He hated that name. I didn’t even have to look at him to feel his vile and strikingly similar Steven Seagal angry face pungently thinking of comebacks. Matthew pointed at the fence and mouthed at me, “Global Guts!” then sprinted off past the fence towards the car. He was always so impatient. I never understood it either; he was like a child with ADHD that got bored after “AD…”

"Hey man!" I screamed, "Wait up dude. It’s not like we are in a hurry…" But his only response was "Mike O’Malley here introducing the lime pink pussssssssys!!!" and it was on repeat. Fuck it.

I started to climb the fence. As I got higher I couldn’t see him anywhere. I saw my car, but no Matthew. It was silent, narrator was gone and I was all-alone at the top of the fence. I tried yelling his name again, but still nothing.

"Matthew?"

He must have gotten distract by some bird or a puddle. So I started to climb down. I was never meant to be an urban ninja. I sucked at climbing. I placed one foot on what felt like a open link on the fence but it was still wet from the rain. My sneaker slipped and it let out a rubbery squeak. For a spilt second I lost my footing and my whole body went numb I was probably only four feet off the ground, but it felt like a mile.
My rubber sneakers skirted over the metal rung like wet jellyfish over an even wetter jellyfish. My fingers wrapped between two chain rungs and pop, my shoe caught on the fence.
I caught my self about three feet before I hit the bottom. 

"Matthew!!"

"Matthew! Did you see tha…"

But before my words had finished their meal my foot slipped again and I fell. My right heel slipped into a hole in the dirt with what seemed to be full of twigs and mud. Something cracked as my foot entered the hole and my side went fuzzy like a freshly shaved head. My body flopped onto the wet dirt; palms in the mud, ass wet and leaves were in the folded cuffs of my jeans. As I looked down at the hole, there should have been twigs that snapped or branches that would have cracked, but there were none and my side was still numb. I leaned back, just a few inches further and saw the moon. I saw my friends’ faces and I cried out in pain...

"John?"

"Blake?"

"Ryan?"

"Rob?"

            “Dad...?”

The next day the doctor came into my room. I was lying on a sterile bed with several needles imbedded into my flesh, two in the forearms and one deep torn in the neck that was gurgling morphine into my system. She asked sternly what I was doing leaping over a fence. I told her I got bored chasing my shadow, that I was kind of tipsy and just wanted to get home after a long day. “Well Mr Effler, there’s no real easy way to tell you this...” She closed the curtain behind her, peered over her glasses and held my hand. “Can I call you Brady, is that okay?” My hand had never been held like this before. She shook like the change in my pocket on a roller coaster.

“You... You fractured your pelvis...

And there’s a growth... about the size of a soft ball that has been eating away at the bone...

You have cancer Brady"

My thoughts clipped like an old reel of film.

I called all their names one by one. Hours later each name that I called looked at me through damp eyes and held my hand.

I never thought I’d be home for Christmas.

Two weeks on, one week off. 

Two weeks on, one week off. 

Two weeks on, one week off. 

Two weeks on, one week off. 

Two weeks on, one week off.

And on and on it goes, this repeating viper. Curiously my mind hasn’t dried up yet from repetition, just a methodical regurgitation and inhalation of recycled thoughts. My months have been lined up like pews. Doctor visits have become confessions and the voices in my head get louder after each “hail marry”. Like an empty cathedral my positivity gets lost within the arches and stained glass walls. Sometimes an echoed thought will come back in a different octave. When I fail to recognize that it’s my own projection, I laugh at its awareness’s of my current state. It will make me chuckle and I’ll hear my self say, “Haven’t heard that laugh in a while.”

It seems as though each injection, whether self induced or nuzzled in by the beaks of motherly nurses, has more than just life altering chemicals. They all burn but the skin only feels a fragment of what the rest of my “body” feels. Every single injection of this liquid cure burns like gunpowder. My veins might as well be dry grass as I feel the fire crawl under my skin and peel my insides like burnt bark.

On days when I sit in the treatment room’s chairs I’m struck with a reflective silence. I play a quiet game. 

“You’ve been sick for years, you found out last year, oh and you over there... well it looks like you don’t give a shit anymore”. I’m quiet while I watch “my peers”; separated by decades, receive the same type of treatment. I wonder, are they jealous? I make up conversations in my head.

“You’re so lucky. “ They’d say, “You’re so young. Here we are, wrinkled and gray while you ink your skin, playing for big gain and new dreams.”

Sympathetically I’d reply, “But aren’t we equal, we both dream of flying. “ And perhaps they’d call my dreams a niche in this mortality market, or maybe they think the same thing as I do: I didn’t know what it was like to dream till I lost sleep over... my mortality.

My safe place, whether you believe me or not, is on my bathroom toilet. No, nothing crass; it’s just me sitting down on the toilet lid. I’ll prop adjacent window open allowing the breeze to swirl within my pearl cream-white tomb, light a candle and stare out my window. Sometimes when I have it too I’ll smoke a little pot. Takes the edge off my nausea, chemical fatigue, self deprecating thoughts and I found out that I smile a bit more as well. Can you blame me? I can sit there for what feels like hours because I can’t hear anything else going on in the house. It’s hard to not be alone. I’m a magnet. One half will follow a friend to space and the other feels the need to repulse to a distance where they can never touch me. Even on that toilet I can’t decide if I like people or not. Sometimes, if I have my record player on, I feel like I separated my self from a cool party. “Oh hey, they’re playing Built To Spill... those must be some rad people. I wonder if they have any Otis Redding records” It helps me feel normal again, that sort of music snobbery that I used to use to separate my self from freshmen girls.  But my safe place is not always my safe place. On days where I have to inject my self I find my self-staring into the reflection pool of my bathroom mirror. 

My mental check list becomes a military battery. Or if it's not a bundling of rations, it's as if I am stuck in the film Trainspotting, just waiting to freak out. Luckily, none of my medication has any sort of hallucinogenic properties, so my concept of reality is still stable.  Either way, my mind is racing every time. 

Rubbing alcohol, check.  

Cotton ball, check. 

Cap off the needle, check. 

Love-handles clean, check. 

Okay, go.

I lock eyes with this dude looking straight back at me. He looks scruffy and uncomfortable. He holds the needle in his side like a pen, but his sides... His poor sides, they look bitten by a farm of red ants. And then I feel it burn and burn some more. The needle withdraws from his belly like a wasp and a droplet of blood wells up like a teardrop. Oddly and recently he’s smiling back at me. He whispers, “I’ll be home for Christmas”.

Over the past six months friends, family and strangers have blessed me. I have been experiencing Christmas since July. Its moments like that I wonder if I can ever effectively communicate my thankfulness. It reminds me of the speech from “The Great Dictator”, and how befuddled Charlie Chaplin’s character was. But at the end he was able to express one of the greatest gifts that God has given us, the ability to create happiness.

“In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure...”

In October I thought I’d be in Nashville for the holidays. I was originally going to be crammed into another hospital while every one I knew would be back home. But that has all changed when I had the blood clots at the beginning of November. Perhaps it was a miracle in disguise because I got to have Thanksgiving with my family. Now I’m home for Christmas. This month is important for me. On Christmas day I’ll be celebrating life. Back in July the doctor told me that I’d have six to nine months to live if I didn’t receive treatment.  Well here I am in December looking forward to not only 2014, but also 2015 through 20...70 something.

I hope that everyone has a blessed Christmas. May the light of our Lord shine down upon you no matter who you are, for if you have given me joy then you have brought joy to the Lord as well.

Also here's the full speech below with awesome music by The Album Leaf. 

Blood Clots & Swollen Feet.

Updates come as updates go. As far as this update I can’t tell yet if it will be short and sweet or long and compelling. Perhaps we’ll both find what we’re searching for at the end as my fingers figure it out. While I write this, not but five minutes ago, I had just finished my self injection for the night. 80 milligrams of drug that thins blood and leaves tanned bruises on my love handles. The embarrassment of the injection is far greater than the sting of the needle. You may wonder, “But Brady, why are you embarrassed?”. Perhaps the embarrassment comes from old photographs or seeing old friends. A time before blood clots, radiation treatments, blood work and hushed waiting rooms. I remember a time when I used to party all night. I’d stay up to greet the sun with a wicked grin and an embossed stench of male camaraderie. I’d toast to youth or hug my bed like a teddy bear. But now my feet swell, my joints ache, my stomach is bruised from chemicals and if I really stop to think my face burns. It doesn't burn like it used to though. Instead of becoming ill tempered over silly girls leaving goodbye notes, an over-drafted bank account that cancelled 75 cent taco night or a prose fight with a close friend, it burns because I miss how tragically wonderful those moments were.

On November the 2nd I came home from northern California in an odd misery that I've never felt before. A pain in my chest knitted my lungs closed with needles. It spread from my lungs to my joints as if someone had ripped thousands of industrial stickers off my bones. That night I looked in the mirror and asked God for one night of rest. He granted me just that. I slept for about five hours. When I woke the pain returned and in a greater magnitude. I stumbled into the bathroom, closed my eyes and began to heave and spit. As I opened my eyes I saw blood on the toilet seat and bobbing in the water in minefield of mucus. My parents had just come home so I walked down stairs, and confessed that I wasn't feeling well. Ever feel guilty for being sick? Well I do and I have hard time shaking that attitude. I told my parents that I honestly thought about driving my self to the hospital the prior night because I didn't want to be burden. But I have to let people take care of me... one of the hardest lessons I'm learning. 
Moments later we called my doctor.

“Describe to me what’s going on Mr. Effler?” he said with a bald tongue. I explained to him what I had just experienced. With each detail he’d clear his throat and make a noise to let me know he was nodding his head. “Sounds to me like you have blood clots in your lungs, but I’m not certain… Can you get to an Emergency Room right now?”

“Um… yeah.”

“Okay, well go to the Emergency Room right now.”

“Yes sir.”

I spent six days at Memorial Hospital. Every day I had to ring the bell for the nurse to take me to the bathroom. I couldn't even shower without help. Every day I received injections to keep my pain level from a “seven or eight out of ten” to a “two or three out of ten”. Every night I slept in a fox hole. And every few hours my eyes opened with my chest rattling. Blurred by tears my hand would grip the call button. 
They’d always come. 
The nurses, they’d always come... eventually. 


On the third night it really sunk in that four hours of sleep was a major victory. After multiple tests it was confirmed, two major blood clots had traveled from my legs to my lungs. Each day I got better, stronger and was able to breath easier. But like all rehabilitation, I started crawling and now today I can stand on my own once again. 

After I was released from Memorial I isolated myself to my room and made good friends with the wall. To those of you that tried to connect with me, I’m sorry about the the lack of communication but it wasn't personal. I just needed time. I don’t know if this or was my darkest moment, but I’m having a hard time finding the light switch every once in a while. Not only do I have multiple tumors from a rare cancer but now I’m at risk consistently for blood clots. These blood clots just teased me though. “We’re so glad they stopped at your lungs Mr. Effler… For if they found their way to your heart…” Doctors find ways of turning good news into moments of me counting my lucky stripes. If it is luck, I hope it doesn't run out anytime soon. 

Today is a new day and tomorrow will happen no matter what, and I want all of tomorrow. I’m starting chemotherapy again. Four more cycles of blood, shots and pills. The doctors want my body, or more so my lungs, to be healed before the stem cell therapy. So for valentines day I might have a cute date with transplanted cells in Nashville. I’m not facing it alone, and honestly sometimes I need to be reminded of that. Sometimes I need someone else to find that light switch for me. And sometimes I need someone to sit with me in the dark. I have love for all of you that have supported me thus far. I may not seem like the most thankful turd at times, but I really am. I’m not gracious when it comes to receiving gifts or acts of kindness but none of it goes unnoticed. So thank you, all of you. So, updates come as updates go. Turns out it was longer than I expected or even intended to be, but I can’t help it. But, one day I shall toast to the rising sun again. With a wicked grin and glazed eyes I’ll pour a two drinks. One for me and one for the Myeloma. I’ll finish mine but the cancer, well… it won’t be around to drink its portion.

Personal: CT & IVs

Not dying, far from it.

Yesterday I went to memorial, pensively and very worried I drank the hospital kool-aid while waiting for my CT scan. Luckily I had my friend Jill with me. She asked at the last minute if I wanted company, and secretly I wanted to scream “Yes, yes, yes!” but I have really a hard time displaying my excitement, especially when it comes to the hospitals. I didn’t want to feel like she was taking a grumpy puppy to the vet. I asked her several times if that’s what she really wanted to do on a monday morning. I mean, there are so many other cool things to do on a monday...Right?


“It’s going to be boring…and there are sick people... you’ll just sit there... I’ll be cranky... needles make me cranky… it’s a hospital not a jump house… I’ll tell horrible jokes… like real cranky… really?” She smiled and said something along the lines of “Yes Brady, I’m sure I want to go with you.” I beamed, but not bright enough to see hopefully. After multitudes of treatment visits its going to feel nice being one of those people with someone in the waiting room. I debated on taking a picture, but I don’t know if that would have been real appropriate or even genuinely decent thing to do. Hospital selfies? I mean I do have cancer, so who could get mad? I could see the tagline on the photo, “So this is Jill and I in the Cancer ward. Ignore the mummy in the wheelchair. All smiles!”


Since July my mind has been overloaded with statements concerning mortality rates, life altering side-effects and self deprecating thoughts. I've seen a slew of medical staff that range from the gentleness of a warm cloth upon my forehead to those with the subtly of smashing a cinder block through a car-window. After I finished my chemical beverage I walked to the CT room and lied down on a matted table awaiting robotic directions. The nurse took ten minutes to find a vein in my right arm -- nothing. She then searched the left. Nothing. She looked confused and perplexed. Scratching her brow she pressed a buzzer,


"Stacy, could you come in here for a moment."


Stacy, an older women with a buttered brunet bob of a hair cut waddled in.
"Can't find a vein can we?" She chuckled, "We'll it's a good thing I know a thing or two about sticken'!"
I didn't really know what to do, so I chuckled with her. "Yeah, it was always hard for me back in the college days too... Ha ha..." My joke trailed like a kid who hadn’t been invited to the party. She then began to slap the top of my wrist. She was probably killing two birds with one stone: If that joke is true Brady you deserve more than just a slap on the wrist and where is that vein?!
"Oh boy, well this will have to do."
"Are you ready?"
"This will hurt."


She plunged the inch and half long needle into my wrist. I twinged and grunted.
"I know... I know it hurts but it's only for a second."
She dug licking her lips. Such a concentrated face for one who is currently inflicting pain.
Then, with a smile, "Ah! There we are."
She plugged a tube into my wrist and connected it to bag full of liquid pus.
"Now lie still and just follow the instructions... You may feel warm and queasy but it dissipates quickly."
I nodded my head and rested it upon the paper towel covered pillow.
The machine buzzed and lit up like an engine on an age spaceship.
*beep, wirrrrrrr, beep*


"Please, take a deep breath."


A voice from deep space began to vocalize its authority like an old speak n' spell.


"Please, hold your breath."


*clank*


"Your cooperation is necessary."


*clank*


"Thank you for your cooperation. You may breathe normally."


I slide beneath a radiated hula hoop like a pizza.


"Please, stay still. Thank you."


*wirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*


"Please, hold your breath. Thank you for your cooperation."


"Thank you. Your scan is now complete."


I got off the table feeling warm and fuzzy. The nurses assured me that the feeling would go away shortly. And I hoped it did because the warm feelings downstairs made it feel like I had simultaneously pissed and shit my self. If I was drunk I might have asked for a reward, but no, sober as a bell and double checking every inch of pants for a sign of wetness. None, okay we’re good
I walked back to the waiting room to find Jill waiting for me. If comfort had a face, she created it. I was one of those people again, not alone.
"You ready?"
"Yeah... Let's go home."
The rest of the day I couldn't think about anything else than that the robot. It had all the answers. In its data banks it contained the prevalence of how my body was handling the tumor. It was a long day.

So, this morning I woke up knowing that at some point I'd have to see my oncologist. It was like knowing that an ex girlfriend was waiting for me at school, probably by my locker with a slew of ugly information. My gut told me pack an extra pair of pants in the car. I sat in the waiting room; I was not one of those people today, I was alone. I was called by the sweet ladies over the intercom to the lab so they could draw my blood. No sign of him. They stabbed me, drew my bloody and gave me a unisex band aid.


Lame.


I went back to the waiting room and sat there twiddling my thumbs. Wheelchairs zoomed in and out with crippled bodies hacking up god knows what. The overheard conversations were just like the ones I myself had my first day; people holding back their bruised faces and old ladies drawing bible study quotes from their slacked jaws. Overwhelming. Still no sign of him.


The intercom buzzed.


"Brady Effler to the nurse's assistant area please."


This is it.


I walked back to their desk and there he was standing in large white cloak holding his clip board.


"Brady, good to see you. The nurses are going to take care of you, but we need to talk. I'll find you soon, okay." Every thing was said with a smile. But they always smile. “We need to talk?” People still say that these days?! No one should ever say that. He wandered off down the hallway, cloak billowing flashing his striped socks every other step. Was this how Harry potter felt when Dumbledore said some cryptic shit -- frustratedly "special"?


The nurses came up to me and I did what they asked of me. I felt like a bear in the circus. Hop up on this, get down from there, stick this in your mouth, clip this on your finger, wave to the crowd, don’t scowell, etc...


After about 15 minutes of performing in the center ring, they moved me from the crowd and into a holding pen, aka just another waiting room, but smaller and built for face to face conversations.


As I was waiting I heard my oncologist outside talking to another voice, and everything was muffled.

"... tell him ..I'll be...


shortly ... discuss ...


...don't.... results... take


treatments are... preliminaries..."

The door opened and a blonde lady stepped through the door with fuchsia Nikes' indiscreetly grabbing my attention. Just her shoes. That's all I know.


"Hi! I'm Amy. Dr. Daniels assistant. How are you today."
With really no time to process what I didn't hear, I had no other option besides.
"Peachy, yeah. I'm just ... Peachy."


She asked me the typical questions:


How's your pain? - fine


Pelvis bothering you? - not as much


On a scale of one to ten? - one


Are sleeping alright? - sort of


Pooping well? - yes


Sexual activity? - no


Any rashes? - no


Numbness in your hands? - no


Numbness in your feet? - no


Taking all your pills? - yes


Any loss or change in sexual drive? - no


Nausea? - yes


Any case of vomiting? - no


Any blood in your urine or fecal matter? - no


Sunlight bothering you? - no


In general is everything okay? Sure







There was a knock on the door.
Finally.
Thank God.
Dr. Daniels peaked his head through the door and smiled.
"You all set?"
I wanted to scream, "just fucking tell me!" but I just nodded and said, “Yep…”
Amy nodded her head and gave him a binder. He waved it away, instead he walked up to me and reached out his hand. "We'll congratulations Mr. Effler. You tumor is dying."


If he had gripped my hand any harder or smiled any wider I would have lost it. My eyes were like cages, trying to keep a flood of mice like tears from running down my face. This was the first set of good news since... Well ever since they told me I was lucky that I even found out about the cancer. I felt lucky and I felt I undefeated.


Amy was smiling too, but her shoes combined with the higher archaical placement of sexual and bathroom questions made me want to give the least amount of attention. Ever.
"Your tumor is no longer looks like a sphere. Rather is collapsing in on itself and becoming more of a cone shape. So all in all. It's dying and this is exactly what we wanted."
He was like the hot girl where you felt like superman after 5 second conversation, “Yeah, it’s 10:15”... . I just wanted him to keep talking. Come on baby don’t stop. Keep talking. Any time he seemed to veer off track I made it point to come right back. I'm not letting this one get away.
“Your blood levels look excellent, your kidneys and liver are functioning extraordinarily well and you look very healthy.”


May I cry now? No, still more questions. I gotta keep this babe talking before she goes off and finds the quarterback, aka that one patient with the glittery crown that makes all the nurses laugh. What a show off. I have cancer too you know… I’m just not old and cute. The rest of the conversation was about my meds, my pelvis and how stem cell surgery will be the catalyst.


“Well that’s all I have to say Mr. Effler.” He shook my hand and smiled. “I hope you have a good day.”


As I left the hospital, I may have skipped, or at least to best of my ability. You know, fractured pelvis. I knew I had to tell everyone… It’s now a reality to me. I can fight this. I have a future. Somewhere out there is the one, somewhere out there is the house, somewhere out there is the job, somewhere out there is life.


And if I stay focused, I’ll make everyone remember me, forever.

Cancer Update Video's

Cancer Update Diaries/vlogs. 

So I've been working on my video blogs (vlogs) and I have decided to post them up on this site.
Video #1 is only on my Facebook page because it was made the day after I got out of hospital, so I just "winged" it.
Most of the time I will try not and make cancer the primary focus of this blog because my cancer does not define me, but right now it's kind of in the drivers seat. The videos contain good music, some cool photos and the story so far on my battle with Multiple Myeloma.

So here they are.

Video #2

Video #3

My name is Brady Effler and I am currently unemployed because I am going through chemo treatments. I was diagnosed with Multiple Meyloma at the end of July 2013, and now I'm fighting the good fight. If you liked what you read, please feel free to donate. I am currently trying to pay off my student loans and other bills (pills, hospital visits, etc...). Anything you give is awesome. Thanks again for reading. I'm not begging, or trying to pull the wool over anyone, just being honest.