" Deal ... "

Since it cost a lot to win
and even more to lose
You and me bound to spend some time
wondering what to choose

I been gambling here abouts
for ten good solid years
If I told you all that went down
it would burn off both your ears

It goes to show you don't ever know
Watch each card you play
and play it slow
Wait until your deal come round
Don't you let that deal go down
Don't you let that deal go down, no
Don't you let your deal go down

~ Grateful Dead ~ Deal ~

***

When crisis hits your life, how do you cope, how do you deal?  Is your environment filled with calm or chaos, logic or heart, optimism or pessimism?  Oceans of emotions to choose from ...

Yet if I am completely honest, there is something really annoying about getting sick because there is never a good time for it.  We all have “things to do” and really it just messes with your life plan.  So when diagnosed with cancer, your life departs from coffee & dinner dates, travel plans, social activities and eating whatever, whenever you want ... to doctors, tests, rest, research, dietary restrictions, medications ... it is just downright inconvenient!  

With almost 21 months of the Gerson Therapy under my belt, I am managing my cancer and I am researching and learning more about how to help my body heal in the best way possible ... especially through the dark, rough moments.

open source cure ...

Which led me to this amazing video and website by Salvatore Iaconesi.  Salvatore is 39 year-old data artist has been diagnosed with brain cancer.  He is seeking a cure but not in a traditional way.  Salvatore is calling for an “open source cure”.  He decided to crack his own files and create an open format that anyone who want to can read them.  CT scans, MRIs, laboratory notes, etc are available on his website, La Cura.  His intentions ... we use these records in whatever way we want to and creatively.

Personally I feel that Salvatore’s request shows how we as a society can embrace all forms of healing in addition to medical advice.  Marrying the two for truly healing.  He suggests that we can “create a video, an artwork, a map, a text, a poem, a game, or try to find a solution to my health problem.  He welcomes “artists, designers, hackers, scientists, doctors, video makers, musicians, writers.”  

going beyond the walls of hospitals and physicians’s offices ...

What Salvatore does is places the ultimate challenge on us to use his personal medical information plus imagination to create something of meaning in response to his diagnosis.

 offer something of value to an individual who is confronted with the ultimate existential situation, 
one that most of us would prefer to ignore ...

Perhaps a daunting task for some who are facing the same situation and have been told there is no medical cure.  But maybe there is another version of a “cure”.  Personally, living life on my own terms with a sense of peace, grace and gratitude regardless of the prognosis ... living wholeness as a person with cancer.  For all this, I am so grateful to Salvatore who allows me to travel in his journey of trauma and loss while experiencing the transformative potential within myself.