The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear. - Post a comment

“Hi, it’s Jeremy, doing my voice post again. It’s been a while. I haven’t really been feeling up to focusing on doing a voice post until today, but I do today.

I was in the hospital for a little over three weeks and got out on Friday the 26th. As part of that hospital stay I had a surgery, actually I had two surgeries. One where they placed an intrathecal pump into my side – it looks like a baseball…huge, and they also did some surgery on T-9 where they cleared away some cancer that could have potentially paralyzed me.

So, I’m still walking. In fact, I have gone on a few hikes. I went on a hike with my dad, and my uncle and cousin the other day - that was really sweet. I went up to Lagunitas and walked around a little bit. I’m slow because my feet are swelling and it’s quite painful, but at least I can walk.

…what else…

The pain pump is pretty amazing. It takes care of most of the pain I’m experiencing except the swelling pain; I’ve got this swelling pain and nerve pain shooting down my leg. But I can’t complain - the pump is definitely doing its job.

I also got this “PCA” – a personal controlled analgesic device which is hooked up to an IV in my arm and I can wear this little butt bag and I can basically give myself Dilaudid every ten minutes if I need to, so that combined with intrathecal pump which drips opiates directly into my spine and also all the oral opiates I’m taking pretty much take care of the pain.

I’m still trying to work on the balance of being as lucid as I can be, or as clear as I can be. That’s still taking some work. I don’t like to feel distracted by the pain, not the pain, but the drugs, so I’m still working on that balance.

Anyway, what else have I got to say…

Next weekend, we’re going to have a celebration of my life, a party/ living wake. We’re going to do it at Golden Gate Park, probably at the Redwood Grove which is where Bethleigh and I were married.

You can get more information about that by calling John Picone who’s just been totally awesome in organizing my life.

There’s a new phone number: that is 202-674-5576.

That’s Amazon Watch’s number; they gave the phone to John for this because he’s been running out of minutes. Call that number. Again 202-674-5576.

There’s going to be music, food there and some people speaking about me and also, I want to give people an opportunity to say whatever they want to say to me. And clear up anything or celebrate anything and so this is an opportunity to do that. We’ll have to figure out how to coordinate all of it – I don’t know if there’s going to be time limits or what. We’ll figure it out on the day.

That’s it.
I’m feeling pretty good today. It’s kind of an overcast day today in San Anselmo. It’s beautiful - fall has definitely hit here, so the trees are turning colors and dropping leaves and it’s quite colorful.

I’m just so incredibly grateful for my family and friends.”

cauch