Tales from the Lung Void

Last Monday, I attended a funeral for someone close. It got me thinking - with Black Friday so close, I’d been hoping to score a deal on a burial plot. $20,000 to $40,000 feels steep for a tiny underground studio I’ll only ever see from the inside.

Early on, when my oncologist had to complete my insurance paperwork, she wrote "palliative," and I panicked. At our follow-up meeting, I asked her if this meant I was heading for end-of-life hospice care. She reassured me: "No, it just means the cancer is not curable." Over time, though, I’ve come to feel that the palliative label carries a more subtle implication for Stage 4 lung cancer patients: that proactive treatments which might extend survival aren’t typically offered unless symptoms demand it. I hesitate to say “the system is giving up on advanced LC patients” - the phrasing is too emotionally loaded - but there does seem to be an element of cost–benefit analysis at work. Something along the lines of: How much effort should be spent adding two months to the life of a terminal patient, at the expense of other patients or of investing in prevention and early detection? It’s a harsh calculation, but in a world of limited resources, it’s the kind of decision hea...

One of the most interesting features at the Brew Creek Centre—where the Callanish cancer retreat was held one week ago—is the farm . They grow organic vegetables both indoors and outdoors, supplying fine restaurants and a few exclusive local grocery stores. I visited one of their two geodesic growing domes. The air inside was pleasantly warm and humid, almost like a tropical garden. By coincidence, one of the growers was tending the dome at the time, and she kindly showed me around. She explained that this particular dome is devoted to edible flowers and plants used to decorate cocktails and dishes at upscale restaurants. The ones I’m munching on in the photo tasted a bit like radish.

I have a small tradition: I always wear a  colorful  shirt  to medical appointments.  My psychiatrist is the only doctor who ever noticed, even commenting on how cheerful my shirt was at our first meeting. When I walked in today, he glanced at me but was too polite to mention that my shirt was plain. I didn’t want him to worry that something might be wrong, so I reassured him: I’d simply run out of colourful shirts. To keep things interesting, I decided to do what many women do when updating their look—add an accessory.  I turned my back to him, just enough to reveal the subtle addition.  It was a fluffy, unmistakable white fox tail attached to my belt loop. In Meaning-Centered Therapy, humor is one of the ways to "connect with life." As Viktor Frankl wrote, humor is "another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation." It helps create the necessary distance from a situation to rise above it, even momentarily. The fox tail was proof ...

Wednesday morning’s group activity at the cancer retreat was about looking forward. In the centre of the table lay a collection of moon snail shells from Haida Gwaii. Each of us chose one in turn. I was last, so it was fate’s hand that the only remaining shell turned out to be the perfect one for me—cracked, and thus different and unique, even if not the most pleasing to the eye. We were given strips of Japanese paper, each meant to carry a written wish beginning with: “May I trust…”, “May I love…”, “May I find…”, “May I forgive…”. Then we returned to the circle to share some of our words, which would later be rolled tightly and placed inside the shells. Someone called them “Prayers in a shell.” My own “May I…” wishes are shown below. May I love Sheryl forever, and may Sheryl find another love. May the next game level, the boss level, be a never ending dream. That evening, gathered around the fireplace, we spoke about the day and how we felt about the retreat. I went first: “I read ear...

This morning’s group session at the Callanish cancer retreat began with each of us sharing how we felt about it being the last day. I didn’t want to offer any concluding remarks—they would have sounded too terminal. Instead, I said: “On the way from the lodge, by the creek, there’s a patch of red, flaming leaves standing out against the green grass. As I passed by, I thought I’d like to gather them and bring them home, to scatter around like rose petals—since I don’t think the gift shop [ed: there isn’t one] has anything Sheryl would like.”

This afternoon at the Callanish cancer retreat, I had a one-on-one session with the creative arts clinical counsellor. She began by saying we could take the meeting in different directions, depending on what I preferred. I asked if she could help me express my feelings instead of my thoughts. I told her I’m an analytical overthinker — as my psychedelic therapist once said, “feel more and think less.” During that session, I even had to increase the psilocybin dose just to let go, because I’m too cerebral. She spent the next half hour reassuring me that it’s better to stay true to myself than to force emotions or imitate the way others express theirs. I apologized for turning an art therapy session into counselling and asked if I could still create something. She smiled and said, “Of course — you can come anytime the room is open and work on it.” I chose yarn as my medium, though I admitted I didn’t know how to knit. She suggested using transparent glue to attach the threads to paper. My...

The second day of the morning’s group session at the Callanish cancer retreat included a grief ritual. The intent was to release feelings of loss that may have been bottled up, through a symbolic ceremony. In the centre of our circle was a table with a pile of stones, carefully picked up from the beaches of Haida Gwaii, with the permission of the elders. We were instructed to choose stones from the collection, think about loved ones we had lost, and inscribe their names on the rocks. I picked up just one stone, the smallest I could find, to stand for the infinitely small, insignificant grain of dust I represent in the grand scheme of things. On one side I wrote self. There wasn’t enough space on the other side for a long word, so I wrote not. I’m not myself, and I’m grieving for the loss of the self that is to come. I had time left, so I started making little animals out of rocks. The ritual ended by laying down the stones in a bowl of water and covering it with petals.

Sunday morning at the Callanish cancer retreat began at 7:45, before breakfast, with chanting, followed by mindful meditation. We continued with a Qigong practice and ended with a crystal bowl meditation—the part I liked most, because I’m fascinated by the way the vibrations seem to entwine and linger in the air. Afterward, we gathered in a circle to talk about our individual experiences—coping with cancer, or, for the lucky ones, navigating recovery. Then came a group activity: working with clay. As a tactile person, I’ve always preferred petting moss when it’s soft and green after the rain. Clay, on the other hand, is either wet and sticky or hard and cold. The instructions were to create something unconsciously, without worrying about aesthetics. As an analytical overthinker, I suspect my piece had the most details. I called it The World, and I . Most of the canvas was devoted to an idyllic, naive, childlike depiction of happiness: a flamboyant butterfly, a smiling yellow sun, baby-...

I read an article this morning: "Suzanne Somers's Canadian husband made an 'AI twin' of the late actress" : Alan Hamel, a Canadian entertainer and longtime TV personality, recently told People magazine that he's created an "AI twin" of Hollywood star Suzanne Somers—his wife and partner of 55 years, who passed away in 2023 from breast cancer. The AI was trained on all 27 of Suzanne's books and hundreds of interviews, "so that she's really ready to be asked any question at all and be able to answer it, because the answer will be within her." When Sheryl heard about it, she said: "I want one of these AIs with your personality." There's just one problem: what would we use to train it? There isn't enough of my own material to feed the machine. With EA's permission, we could use the source code I've contributed to over the past 20 years—but I suspect the resulting AI would only speak in half-finished comments and...

Vincent Lam, my friend and former colleague, passed away from lung cancer on Oct. 2. He was 50. Here is what I shared at his memorial service earlier today. I'd like to say a few words about my friend Vince. We met about 18 years ago at Electronic Arts. He was a model team lead—professional, kind, and thoughtful—a sentiment shared by many of his colleagues from Arista as well. After he left EA, Vince was the one who took the initiative to keep us connected outside of work, organizing lunches with former colleagues: myself, James, and Mike. Over the years, my wife Sheryl, Alven, and Vince shared many good times together—swapping travel stories over meals, taking in concerts and performances, and even playing in the snow. This is the kind of human Vince was: a natural connector, bringing people together. I’d like to jump ahead now to March 23 of this year, when I encountered Vince at BC Cancer as he was coming out of chemotherapy. I’ve always had anxiety around needles, so I asked hi...