Ever Hopeful and Still Waiting on Good News

This past weekend, I worked with a League of American Bicyclists’ National Coach at Yellow Bike Project to certify a new group of League Cycling Instructors, or LCIs. It was a long weekend: Friday night, a 12-hour Saturday for them (8 hours for me), and Sunday 8 AM to 5 PM for them (8 AM to 12:30 PM for me). Friday was challenging because I’m always kind of sick in the evenings. Saturday and Sunday, I was glad to start in the mornings, so I just fasted. 

As of today, it’s been 12 days since my immunotherapy treatment, and my stomach and head still aren’t quite right. I thought since I was now doing just that, I would feel fine. It was only after that that the doctor confirmed it would be like I have colitis.

Perhaps adjusting to fasting regularly will be a requirement. But I will admit to completely pigging out on Sunday after I got home! I thought: Stomach cramps, here I come! It is two days after my pig-out session, and I’m still paying for it.
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I’ve been waiting to write something new because I really want to write something with some finality. Something like: I’m done, or I’m cured, or it’s all over, not just one part of it. Instead, it’s like a drizzle-and-wait. I’m also so self-conscious about writing. I probably shouldn’t think about it so much, as it’s likely nobody else is or would. But this weekend I did think about those who have cancer or some other health issue and don’t talk about it.

So, I thought, if you have cancer and are out there, I see you. 

I see you carefully choose your food. I see you mask how terrible you allow yourself to feel when you’re alone. I see you hit pause on that show you’ve finally sat down to watch because you’re running to the bathroom every 5 minutes. I see you considering the timing of your own mortality. Will it happen now? Will this be it? Will it happen soon?

​I see you not wanting to check your bank balance because you know you don’t have enough, and watching what you do have dwindle away is painful. I see you try to plan for whoever might have to take care of your stuff when you’re gone. I see you think about how you might lose your house and think how it isn’t fair because all you did was get sick and get treated, and isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?

I see you get lonely, but at the same time not want to be around anyone because you feel terrible and might be running to the bathroom every five minutes. Besides, who wants to listen to you complain or moan and groan and then watch you have involuntary bodily evacuations?

Yesterday, a friend and I spoke of how to make a culture shift. This isn’t the first time this has come up in conversation with various friends. Over the weekend, it also came up. Some think they have solutions, and these solutions are going to work, so why aren’t we doing them? A sentiment I often feel. All you have to do is essentially hijack every general population event and talk about not littering, about being kind to cyclists, about resisting ultra-processed foods, about getting outside and cherishing nature, about saving the pollinators, about enacting smart solutions, about free medical care, about not being corrupt or corruptable, about helping our neighbors, about living up to whatever bible we say we follow, about teaching our children about all the good things together, about not being a part of the ‘banality of evil’, about adopting-not-shopping, about eating your veggies, about reducing your carbon footprint, about not being a racist, about not consuming too much alcohol, about normalising mental health, about how feminism is actually a good thing, about gender equality at the end of the day, and, finally, about safe sex. 

That’s all. 

Because otherwise we’re really just preaching to the choir when we have these health, cycling, naturalist, educational, ethics, churchy, scientific, philosophical, environmental fairs.

My friend’s family is coming over this week. Their brother just recently passed away from cancer complications, but he was a planner. The wife immediately set up a GoFundMe, which their church group immediately started funding, and they raised over $50,000. This is even though he had a substantial life insurance policy, and she will be receiving his salary for another two years. 

I spoke to my neighbor around the block, who drove himself to the hospital while having a heart attack because he didn’t want the expense of an ambulance. (I mentioned how dangerous that was for all the other drivers on the road!) The hospital ended up conducting a surgery and sent him bills totaling over $100,000. He was going to lose his house. He was a senior, a lively and feisty senor, but a senior nonetheless. How will he recover from this financial burden?

When my uncle died from cancer complications when I was a child, there was no GoFundMe. He probably had life insurance, as he was a “good provider”, but the house and bank accounts fell into probate, and my aunt, an immigrant, didn’t know what to do. Everything was frozen. This was the first time my aunt would go to a place like K-Mart. At the time, Marshall Fields was the fashionable place to go, and she couldn’t understand why my mom would go to discount shopping stores. Soon after, she would also get a job, sell her family home, and move into a condo that was much more affordable. Her church group would bring over casseroles, offer suggestions, and help guide the transition.

So, what’s the best way to create a culture shift? My atheist friend and I thought maybe we should start evangelizing and create a dirt church that is about bicycles and pro-vegetarian. Not in a dogmatic way, just to make it clear: The real “paleo” people were probably 98% vegetarian, primarily out of necessity. Now, in all our “abundance,” self-control is really what people need to harness. He thought “Bad Bicycle B*tches” would be a good name or motto. I’ll admit it was better than mine, which was something like, “Ride your bike and eat your veggies and don’t use pesticides!” Which is pretty wordy.

The real question is: What will it take? We went out, and on every screen is the FIFA game, and after people who’ve come here on vacation from other countries to watch the games are picking up the trash at the stadium. What is this culture?! Why is it that the location where my friend works had a Fourth of July celebration over the weekend, and although there were trash cans every 10 or 20 feet, the attendees could not seem to make their trash go in the cans? Why?! Why are people putting plastic bags with diapers in blue bins clearly marked “recycle”? Do they think anyone wants those to be recycled? Really. What else is in that plastic bag? 

We don’t care about a lot. Another reason, perhaps, for me not to care so much about talking about a thing that 3.5% of the population here in Texas has, about 474.6 cases per 100,000 individuals in Austin, where about 12-13% do not have health insurance, and a majority of the cases are people of color and LSES. Because maybe if we talk about it, if we talk about prevention, if we talk about the reality of these ailments, including the emotional, nutritional, and financial aspects (I mean the real real, feel me?), we can be models for change. Perhaps people will demand change.

There’s a lot of hate and anger in the world. For example, I’ll never really understand why people hate on other people riding their bikes around, but they exist. As an instructor of new adult cyclists, I’m glad I get to see the joy and experimentation and wonder - mostly about self - return to those adult faces. I love seeing someone try to figure out how to navigate balance and forward motion and muscle memory all over again, or for the first time. 

For it is true, I believe, as put by George Bernard Shaw: “We don’t stop playing because we get old; we grow old because we stop playing.” So, how can we help the motorist sitting in the AC be a tad more patient with the cyclists using their own power of propulsion out in the heat or other weather? How can our society as a whole create more equitable situations for people who fall ill without the resources? How can we further demonstrate that a thriving society on the whole benefits everyone and is more productive, not just the top 1%? I think that is proven: the happiest, wealthiest, and smartest countries have universal healthcare and education.

You can’t get louder if you’re not even talking about it. I say no to my doctors all the time. Let’s talk about it. To that grumpy motorist who told me to get in the bike lane when I was making a left turn, let’s talk about it. Until then, I guess I’ll remain ever hopeful and waiting for good news.

To visit my GoFundMe page with additional entries: https://gofund.me/b30cb8d5a