Certainly I am not your typical cancer patient, but cancer does not discriminate. I live in New York and keep a webpage dedicated to house music and write a weekly column on the club scene and things related.
It is my hope that everything I wrote about having Burkitt's Lymphoma help others that might find themselves in the same situation. This is an unfiltered patient perspective.

On December 10th, 2000, I wrote the following. Little did I know what would happen next. 

12.10.00

Above you see me as I looked when I died last week. Lying flat on the ground - pale, unconscious, and nearly blood-free.

The downside to being human, or at least simulating being human, is that this human body is prone to weakness. It has been ill since last Tuesday and a trip to the doctor only made it worse after she took two tubes of blood from my left arm which were then 'contaminated'. I believe they were dropped and then my blood sizzled through the floor, killing a youngster below.

I was forced then to give two more tubes of blood from my right arm. By the time I got home I nearly fainted and then I slept for 15 hours. I'm sure I must have looked like a heroin addict. I have been very weak ever since.

Someone needs to rethink visits to the doctor. The first irritation is having to wear that short paper robe which was probably designed by the same person who invented lunch bags. I'm sure that Gaultier could donate an hour or two to re-think this 'robe' and make it fit properly. As it was, I felt like the trashy homeless version of Jennifer Lopez in her dress.

But enough of this, I am slowly getting better, and if I am not well by tomorrow, I will visit a mechanic.

The end of the year is approaching and I welcome it.

Over two weeks later, I finally updated again with this:

12.28.00

From Rollo & Sister Bliss in 1996, here is the wonderful:

'I Want To Live' by Grace

Hello friends. By now most of you know that I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer last month. I must thank you all for your emails of support, which I have found very, very inspiring.

As I write this, I have already lost my hair to chemotherapy although I have only had one session so far. The next session is scheduled for the week of the 22nd and I do not look forward to it. I will also be getting chemotherapy injected directly into my spine because doctors' fear the cancer may be spreading through my spine to my brain - a horrific thought to be sure. In addition to these tortures, I will also have a bone marrow extraction sometime in the next two weeks. No pain, no gain, I suppose.

I'm hanging in there despite feeling completely fatigued, nauseous and beaten down for the last month - mainly because for lack of a gun I have no choice.

Originally I had planned to detail my excruciating original two week stay in the hospital here but I now find that I cannot go back there even in writing, and besides, why should I subject you to the gory details of the worst two weeks of my life?

Details may slip out. Obviously this is the most shocking thing that's ever happened to me.

I am going to try to update every Monday as usual but there will be no new house music. Instead I am going to focus on progressive house and trance, eventually having the best trance songs arranged by year as I do for house music. House purists should fuck off and learn to love trance, an amazing and beautiful form of dance music. Here you will hear only the best of the form.

Here from 1994 is: 

'I Can't Take Your Love' by B Real
'You can live, you can die, there ain't no time to wonder why.'

From Rollo & Sister Bliss in 1996, combining the best of house and trance, here is the wonderful:

'I Want To Live' by Grace

Lastly, a song whose opening chords never fail to send me to the warm, sunny spring of 1993, when I was young:

'Lush 3.1' by Orbital  
 

until next week and every week thereafter, remember..
when you dance, we are a part of what you feel.

If you'd like to read more of my cancer-themed updates: