Why d-coda and why this blog? I have cancer again and this time (number four if you’re keeping score at home, as they say in baseball) the current oncologist said that there is nothing that they can do about it except maybe extend my life for some time, primarily by use of those nasty poisons we know as chemo-therapy. Well, I’ve been there and done that-not interested! At least not while there is this alternative that my loving wife had suggested during the last cancer episode called The Gerson Protocol.

Some of you know that I tried to fund that last time through a go-fund-me page and I am forever grateful for the donations, which I did put towards starting the process. I ended up opting out of that soon after because the Mayo clinic was saying that it was basically now or never because my tumor was “advanced and massive” (quoted because that was how the described it repeatedly) and had to be removed immediately, in part because it had wrapped itself around a blood vessel that they said were ready to rupture any day and if it did then, adios amigo! Maybe the protocol would have worked over time, but the time had run out. Plus there was conflicting information swirling around that made it kind of sketchy anyway.

So I did a special type of radiation which is called proton radiation of which there were 5 facilities in the world that have these machines. My radiologist told me on several occasions that I was receiving as strong of a treatment as she has ever given anyone and frankly the cure almost killed me, literally.

From the start the prognosis was not good and when I finally got to treatment I knew that it was either going to kill me, or be very hard on me. At the time I spoke to those close to me of how I hoped that it would help me transition to a better version of Dakota, whatever the outcome. I assumed that meant being more spiritual if I came out the other side alive assuming that what I have learned about the spirit/ego dichotomy is correct, which is that the way that our spirit comes forth and will blossom more until it comes into full flower as we become less “ego”; that is to say less self-important. The irony isn’t lost on me that I did point out to those close to me that I would choose to be known as simply “D”, having become even less than Dakota, egotistically speaking. If the logic and irony is lost on you, trust me, it’s a bit too convoluted to explain even if I had a good reason. Just know that it made sense to my funky/fancy thinking at the time.

 Even though I felt as though some of that goal of ego reduction was achieved through the last cancer episode there wasn’t so much so as to warrant insisting to be called “D” all the time, as I had when I transitioned from “Mike” to “Dakota”. Still, the idea of it has enough merit to come into play at this point of describing the reason for the website name to include the next funky/fancy thinking;

Regarding “coda”; if you were to look up the word you will find that it means the finale part of something, or, as a definition I just stole from Google says “a concluding event, remark, or section”. Well then as I embark on this healing journey once again I choose to imagine that this is the “coda” of my life. My hope is that this “coda” lasts decades, but realistically in this Universe where all of our mortal lives are just grains of sand on the beach of time, no matter how long we live, I’m not attached to the longevity, so much as the value I might bring to being here however long that might be.

Notice that I said “healing journey” and not “end of life journey”. I have no illusions about “miracle cures”, but I’m not going to fight this shit-stain nor poison it away. With the help of Diana we are going to try to cleanse body and soul and love it back to wherever it came from. If you care to read this blog and see how I plan to do this, I will do my best to share the honest details as they unfold in as interesting a way as possible. If Creation has other plans for me and I’m out in some months than, hey, it’s probably been nice knowing you, helping many of you, and, after all every one of us is “…only dancing on this world for a short while”, to borrow from Cat Stevens.

This is a narrative of that journey…

Additionally I have some other stories to tell…

Some of you who have known me for a while have heard me share stories about my own often dark history to share when I thought it might be of benefit. But nobody on earth, not my closest friends, my family, my wife have the slightest clue how (allegedly) interesting and detailed some of these stories are. I have decided to write as many as I can and if I live another 20 years I’m really not going to be able to get them all written out. Part of the reason is that over the course of my life I have heard people tell me that I should write a book and that after hearing just a smattering of things I’ve gone through. But, there are just too many different ways to go and I’ve never figured out how to go about it making a cohesive story out of it. So I am going to put out a story here and a story there and not worry about a single cohesive story but of different stories. What I have experienced I know people will have a hard time believing. I do know that people like a redemption story and I have one mother-fucker of a redemption story, if nothing else. I am currently editing the 28 pages criminal history narrative that glosses over years of criminal events and by far doesn’t even begin to detail all of that stuff, but touches on the finer points, with some personal detours that I think might interest the reader. Even though the heavier stuff doesn’t get going until the middle pages, just pick any 5 to 10 pages and see if it doesn’t grab your attention. If it doesn’t then perhaps some of the milder stuff might appeal to you, like how I went from a fervent atheist to a spiritual guide, magical and unusual trips to exotic places, running away from a meth addled fiend in the Mohave Desert shooting at me because he thought I was an informant, the girlfriend how ventilated my sleeping back with a kitchen knife while I was trying to sleep on the couch, the time I was about 2 seconds from hitting the ground in a skydiving incident, twice nearly drowning, and the one in Aruba I’m saying…I got REAL lucky with that one!….hey…I have some stories worth telling!