Offensive Thinking - BT Edition

Status Update 2024

2024-04-21T07:12:47Z

I’ll make this brief: yes, I’m still here, living my life. Nothing new on the tumor front, which is good. Oh, and to spare my body a bit of the contrast agent, I decided to only do MRIs every 6 months now instead of every 4 months.

This blog is more or less in maintenance mode, since I don’t have much to say at the moment. I have removed some stuff: the obsolete Twitter link since I don’t use it any more, the Disqus comments since I don’t think it’s relevant any more. Maybe at some point in the future, I revive the blog and remodel it. For now, just deal with it ;)

What Happened Then?

2022-10-23T06:53:06Z

Did I get you with the title? I didn’t really know what to choose, so this is what I came up with. The answer is: Not much, but I owe this blog at least one entry every year, and it’s already July, so I better hurry up.

Update: Uh, yeah, so now it is October and I still didn’t publish this post. I’m writing this after reading a WaitButWhy post from 2013 about procrastination that I found while reading the comment section on Reddit. Go figure…

Because of the Pandemic, it really feels like nothing much happened until the last time I posted. The tumor (or what remains of it) is still laying low, so I consider myself lucky. Especially after I read about Liz’s recent brain tumor adventures. She rocks, check out her website!

I switched from bodyweight only to additional Kettlebell training recently. I’m following a very simple routine, because I don’t want to think too much and it is very satisfying to just pick heavy things up and put them down again.

Guitar practice is also continuing slowly but nicely. I worked with an online teacher for some months and took away a lot of cool ideas from that. By the way, Life Pro Tip: If you have some weird idea of when to get your practice done, remember that due to the wonder that is the Internet, you can get online teaching from anywhere in the world! I like to get up very early (4:30am), so I booked this really nice Australian guy living in New Zealand (hey Dave!). With a time zone difference of +10 hours, I was able to get my lessons at 5am in the morning!

The kids are growing like crazy, I can’t believe that since August, two of them are in school and not only one. Feels like our oldest just started, and now she’s already reading books so fast we can barely keep up with buying new ones.

See y’all next year.

10th Tumorversary

2021-02-14T07:07:42Z

Wow. Today marks the 10th year of my brain tumor journey! On February 14th, 2011, I woke up with a seizure, and from there it all began, leading to this post. Now I’m sitting here typing for this (neglected) blog, thinking about how time flies and how grateful I am to be where I am right now.

What happened in the past year? Nothing in the tumor department fortunately, everything’s quiet, I really can’t complain. MRI sequences look like they got copy-pasted for the last years (hmm, maybe I’m on to something here…). I’m still on my four months Intervall for MRI checks, since that’s what I feel most comfortable with.

This is what I can still remember, I’m sure there’s loads more.

I turned 40. No sudden dramatic life changes came out of this (surprise), only that doctors urge me to visit them more often for regular checkups now (unrelated to the cancer thing).
Finally got one of my fitness goals: The ring muscle-up. If you don’t know what that is, just move along. If you do: High-five me if you see me. Wait, don’t, there’s still a pandemic going on. Maybe, give me a knowing nod or something. ;)
Started learning the guitar in February 2020, am now deep diving into (folk) fingerstyle. Currently learning “Dust in the Wind”. This was one of those “Best time to start was 25 years ago, second best time is now” decisions, and I really don’t regret it.
Survived 10 years with a brain tumor and luckily didn’t have to visit the hospital during the pandemic yet.
The kids continue to grow, the oldest is a first grader now. As I said, time flies.

Hopefully I can continue like this for at least the next ten years, when old people blogs like this one will be perma-banned from the Internet and online documentaries will have full twenty second episodes explaining what “blogs” and “written articles” were before they cut away, to not overtax their viewer’s attention span. Now get off my lawn!

2019 Review

2020-01-09T16:33:49Z

As a man of integrity, I’m proud to stand true to my promise in January 2019 not to deliver any blog posts in 2019. ;)

Which is my fancy way of saying that first of all, nothing happened in the brain tumor department. All three MRIs clear, no new epileptic episodes. The only thing making my brain explode these days are my kids. Like the little bugger in the picture, who I can’t believe is now also almost a year old. That’s 24 more years until I can give in to the tumor, since my goal is to only die when my last child has reached the age of 25. No, that’s not a promise to just keep on spawning children, my wife would like to have a word with you… ;)

Next year is going to be the big 10 (years living with a brain tumor), see you then!

...And Another One

2019-01-27T12:10:57Z

I didn’t think I would manage to top the hiatus I described in my last blog post, but here we are: Only one post in 2018. Which apologizes for not blogging in 2017. How about that?

On a positive note, this shows that again, nothing major happened in the brain tumor department. Clean MRIs. Nothing new regarding the epilepsy. I didn’t have any episodes in a really long time now, ever since the radiation therapy.

Fatigue is something that, as a parent of one four and one two year old toddler, is ever-present, tumor or no tumor. Maybe it is there because I’ve had a malignant mass removed from my brain, maybe I’m fatigued because the two little monsters feed on their parents’ misery. I have no idea. Just kidding, I love them to pieces! ^{please send help!}. Oh, by the way, did I mention that we were mad enough to spawn a third monster, who is with us for a couple of days now? Another reason why I guess 2019 will not be too different regarding my blogging frequency, at least not if the tumor doesn’t grow back.

Now off you go and enjoy life, it’s short enough!