The Journal of a Prizefighter

after the blizzard

These were taken in Inwood Hill Park in Manhattan's northernmost tip after this week's monster blizzard. It was a beautiful morning the day after the storm. There were very few people in the park that morning. It was so peaceful. Magical really. Two of the people I walked by were skiing!

Wishing everyone happiness, health, and prosperity in the coming new year!

my year at sea

In December's The Atlantic, Christopher Buckley wrote a beautiful essay titled My Year at Sea, which explores the lure of travel by freighter. In addition, he speaks to the heart of why this mode of transportation is so special in our time and in part, why I remain so fascinated by it: "a freighter passage might just offer what our relentlessly connected age has made difficult, if not impossible: splendid isolation."

monitoring late effects of treatment

Create Standards to Monitor Late Effects is another good article in CURE about the importance of follow-up care after cancer treatment.

the cost of living

In the winter issue of CURE, The Cost of Living offers insight into the physical risks and challenges that survivors of radiation therapy face long after treatment. For blood cancer survivors, such as myself, who have received radiation to the chest, lung damage, cardiac disease, and secondary cancers are some of the potential risks.

In this article, Eileen Gould, the editor of Bridges, the Sloan-Kettering newsletter to which I contribute, shares her remarkable story about the challenges she has faced following life-saving radiation therapy.

more from this summer

Sapa, Vietnam

San Francisco, California

Hanoi, Vietnam

upcoming young adult webcast

On January 5th, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society will host a free interactive webcast for young adult cancer survivors titled Living Life, Managing Cancer.

Learn more and/or register here.

day +1218

Thank you for your generous thoughts following my passionate, heartfelt post last Sunday. Please forgive me for not acknowledging them earlier. On average, my posts have been quite banal since the early days of my recovery, but once in a while I still manage to pop out an whopping piece.

I love photography. I'm on winter break now and have been reveling this opportunity to capture some of the many Harlem River landmarks that are on my long list. On both Sunday and Monday, I braced the frigid dawn to photograph the Hooper Fountain, a graceful 1894-built fountain topped by an elegant lamp, which is located at the corner of 155th Street and Edgecombe Avenue in Harlem. This section of Harlem is known as Sugar Hill and has a rich history. For example, it was the home of the New York Baseball Giants, George Washington's HQ during the Battle of Harlem Heights, and such notables, as Duke Ellington.

This photograph was taken yesterday morning.

It's not bad, but I think I can do better. I might have to go back. In addition to the Hooper Fountain, there are a number of other sites, predominately bridges (of course), that I hope to shoot while on break.

In other news, I was back at Sloan late this afternoon for a scheduled check-up. The report was very good as expected. Nothing new, really. My counts remain stellar: WBC: 8.4, RBC: 4.98, HGB: 16.3. At today's appointment, my next PET scan was scheduled for March, which will be one year since the previous one. I was told that I'll most likely receive another one in 2012 and then, that will be it with regards to scans unless a specific reason warrants it. The Survivorship Program doesn't require scans after 5 years post-transplant assuming that the individual is cancer-free for good. And my next check-up at the hospital is not until late June.

My doctor is, however, looking to see if any of my medications will be tapered or ended completely. Tacrolimus remains the tricky one of the bunch. It was the tapering of this powerful drug that ignited the GVHD flare-up two years ago.

lunar eclipse and more

This afternoon I heard a poetic and beautiful quote attributed to the late Elizabeth Edwards: "The cracks let the light come in." After a little research, it appears that it was coined by Saint John of the Cross, a sixteenth century Spanish monk and mystical philosopher, after a much earlier saying.

And if you can't fall asleep tonight, look out for the total lunar eclipse beginning at 1:32 AM EST. (Assuming your skies are clear.)

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

in the news

The continued saber rattling on the Korean Peninsula is making the suspicion and tension worse. Let's hope the South doesn't conduct these exercises in a few hours but if they do, that the North's response is tepid at best.

day +1209

One weekend ago, I was reminded of what someone once told me: you can always walk around the block and start again.

Meditation practitioners are encouraged to take retreats or extended periods away from the normal grind of life in order to reinvigorate and deepen their practice. These retreats can be as short as one weekend or as long as several months. Some travel as far away as Bhutan or Nepal to find both inspiration and the peaceful space needed to work with themselves. Then, there are folks, like myself, who try to do the same amidst the frenzied bustle and honking horns of Manhattan.

The focus of last weekend's retreat was what in Buddhist-speak is called tonglen, which translates as "sending and receiving." It is a particular meditative practice that works on cultivating compassion for everyone with the aspiration for all people to be happy and free of any suffering. In tonglen, the practitioner visualizes taking onto oneself the suffering (whatever it may be) of others on the in-breath and on the out-breath giving happiness and well-being in return. This willingness to open and feel the pain of others is an incredibly powerful and courageous practice. The aspiration that your efforts on the cushion are helping to alleviate that person's suffering also brings great joy.

In the practice of tonglen, practitioners are encouraged to send gentle kindness not only to others but also themselves. Ultimately, this is where a practitioner or any person should begin their journey to improve the world. It begins with ourselves. This retreat, consequently, came at a poignant moment for I too needed to be more forgiving and compassionate to myself.

For the past several weeks, I have felt increasingly unbalanced, unsettled, tired, and run over. Between Halloween and Christmas, work is intense. Activities and papers, reports and meetings fill up the calendar. Between long hours at work and my habit of going to bed late, I began to bypass my morning workout in favor of that coveted extra hour of sleep. I confess: I procrastinated at times too, which contributed to these longer hours. With deadlines to meet, on the weekends I wasn't even able to hang out with my friends or photograph the city landscape, a deep passion of mine. The plain and simple truth is that I had just fallen into a rut, a ditch along the road. My struggle for equanimity, therefore, was in part due to the fact that both my mind and heart were not in sync.

The popular ideal, I think, that many people have of survivors is that after their cancer experience life is somehow smoother or free of most if not all of our normal, everyday struggles. Somehow the pages of the past are turned and the challenges that one struggled with before their diagnosis just disappear. The survivor is enlightened now. This perception of survivorship as a win all, zero-sum game has its roots perhaps in our cultural consciousness, which tends to view a cancer diagnosis as a call to arms. With very specific militaristic language, we use words such as "fight," "battle," and "war" to describe our cancer experience. In this language of aggression, which is symptomatic of our society's relationship to itself and others', there is only victory and defeat, life and death. Using this language, there is no room or openness for any other possibility. There is just aggression towards the self. So, what happens when the patient emerges victorious but still hasn't addressed his or her own insecurity, confusion, addictions, regrets, or habits that preceded the diagnosis? Is this still a victory?

To be clear, certainly, cancer or any life-threatening experience softens our sensitivity to the preciousness of our uncertain existence and that of others. Having smelled the scent of Death, we, as survivors, do cherish deeply our restored hope and new lease on life. We lead more invigorating lives. But we are still human! We still find ways to do stupid stuff.

The greatest gift of cancer may be in reminding us of what truly is important in life. It is in this spirit of courageous hope and possibility that we begin to view cancer not as an all-out enemy but simply a challenge, a difficult experience of a specific manifestation - albeit lethal - to be overcome. (I know this is easier said than done especially in the midst of the stress of treatment.) In what we hope will be a long and rich life, we acknowledge that our journey will be filled with moments of pain and joy, suffering and happiness. Cancer just happened to be one of these moments.

Meditating on the cushion during the retreat, our instructor told us that if we had difficulty visualizing sending loving-kindness to our subject to feel our heart center. Feel, press your heart, he said to us. I put my hand over my chest searching for the beat of my heart. "Ahh! There it is." Its beat is raw and unfiltered. It is nature at its most elemental. It is life. Yet I could not recall when I last had taken a moment to feel its sweet sound.

I immediately felt more grounded and relaxed. At this moment, all was right with me and the world. "This is it. This is what it's all about. Nothing more." In sync with my heart center, I began to send wishes of happiness and well-being to myself having been reminded that regardless of what I felt or did before, I can always come back home and start again.