Jim Brown is a paramedic and firefighter living in Olympia, Washington with his wife Regina and three daughters.  He was diagnosed in 2015 with Stage 4 Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer and is currently on his 3rd line of treatment.  Jim is a member of the 2018 Peru Tribe.  

The Right Place 

November 8, 2018.

Yesterday was my 51st birthday.

I started my day very early like 5:30, that is so not my thing.

But I was awake so I took advantage of the time.

Our lodging sits on a bluff above the ocean, there is a really nice grassy point.

I sat on the point with my coffee and opened cards and letters from home while listening to a birthday playlist that my family uploaded to our Apple Music account.

It was 45 minutes of laughter and tears. There I was sitting by myself reading these letters laughing and crying like a madman.

I am in the right place right now.

My soul needed this trip.

It seemed like such an impossible thing so many months ago when I started the application process. It was a carrot dangling out there 9 months away, to somebody with my disease that feels like an eternity. 3 months at a time, that’s how I have been living my my life for the last 3 years. Gritting my teeth, keeping my chin up, doing everything I can to to be the tough guy.

The disease progression identified on October 10th has turned our world upside down. It felt like initial diagnosis all over again, it is why us Stage 4 cancer patients don’t often plan 9 months out.

This progression has the genesis of a new journey inside my heart.

Something has shifted inside me.

I’m not sure that I can continue to wear the mask that has been my “go to” for so many years. I cant tell you where I am going to land but I can assure you that Regina and the girls are behind me 100% and we are going to lead with love.

My work assignment is at a preschool in a barrio – in a suburb of Lima called Villa Maria Del Triunfo, and I can assure you it is a rough neighborhood.

I don’t have to wear the badass cancer fighter mask at the daycare.

These kids know nothing about my story and they don’t care.

They are living day to day in the toughest living conditions I have ever seen.

The daycare is a sanctuary for them, they are safe there at least for the 6 hours a day that they spend there.

I’m not gonna change their lives, but they will change mine.

For 3 hours a day I am just a silly gringo who speaks very little Spanish but likes to make faces, play games, and wrestle on the floor.

Yesterday I sat with a little girl during lunchetta, she was eating an orange, and as she did, she slowly picked out each seed and handed it to me to throw away. No words, she asked me to do it with her eyes and gestures, we just quietly sat there and did that together, it was a highlight of my day and nobody but her and I shared it.

Perspective Jim Brown.

And then there are my brothers and sisters who also carry the cancer burden.

Each one placed in my life for a reason.

Having a rough day? Think you have been down a rough road?

Spend some time with 18 other cancer patients and you will be set straight.

Immediately I met my soul sister Cheryl, I liked her from the minute I saw her and I told her so. She has survived 2 types of cancer, but her and I also share other demons in our lives, she told me that looking at me is like looking in the mirror.

Guess what!!!??? She lives in Seattle, my soul sister is right in my back yard.

I also met Joey. He has the same cancer I have, and is a 13 year survivor, yes you read that right 13 YEARS. He is on the same medication that I just started.

Like I said before I am in the right place now, EXACTLY the right place.

The facilitators are caring and nurturing, they all carry their own battle scars from cancer and hold an insight and empathy that you can’t possess unless you have been closely touched by the beast. They have a well structured program to help us deal with our own emotional wounds and scars that is helping us all and meeting us in the place that we are.

I will come home a changed man, even after 5 days I am altered in a way that wouldn’t be possible without this experience.

The powerful and experimental medication that I have started to combat the recent brain and bone progression, has its own set of challenging side effects, I am still learning how to manage them as this journey continues.

They are challenging enough that my trip was in jeopardy right up until the last minute, we literally made the call with my care team at 12pm last Friday and then I got on a plane to South America at 11:30pm.

I had to hold the meds for 4 days. This creates its own anxiety as I don’t like the feeling I have when “something” isn’t fighting the cancer at all times.

We made some changes to some of my other meds and I restarted Loralatinib on Tuesday. I am in daily contact with my amazing care team back at SCCA in Seattle.

I am 5000 miles away from my family and my care team.

It seems crazy that this is the right place for me, but it is.

Tomorrow our journey takes us into the mountains starting with Cusco and the Scared Valley, and culminates at Machu Picchu on Sunday.
ONCE IN A LIFETIME type of shit right there.

Don’t know what my connectivity will be like in the mountains but be assured that I am ok, and I am in just the right place.

#holdfast
Jim