a new protocol

"Could be cancer" is a curious thing to hear from your Doctor... especially since I didn't even have a Doctor two days prior.  I don't get sick.

In the past three weeks I have seen three Doctors who have poked, prodded, and plumbed the depths of my inner being. Tests confirmed their suspicions- a malignant neoplasm in my lower GI region... a fancy description of something that shouldn't be there.

It is said that people think of time in one of two ways:

   Those who see time in a linear direction, from left to right, with the past to their left and the future to their right, 

                    and

   Those who see time as spatial; the past is behind, the future is ahead, with distractions to the periphery. The former are observants, biding their time as life passes; the latter are participants, taking steps toward the mystery of a journey. I choose the latter. 

A diagnosis is not a distraction; it is a signpost, indicating a necessary change of course, a new protocol.

I visited Ed Currie yesterday. Ed is the founder of PuckerButt Pepper Company and breeder of the world's hottest chili pepper- the Carolina Reaper. Last year I interviewed Ed (you can read the interview here), shortly after receiving official status from Guinness World Records and receiving a House Resolution from the South Carolina House of Representatives for his contribution to South Carolina and medical research. I told him my diagnosis and that I wanted to include his pepper as part of my protocol.

He gave me a bottle of his latest test batch- HP63T, Test Batch No. 1.

It is the hottest Ed has developed to date... in the vicinity of 2,000,000 Scoville Units.

Carolina Reaper

Ed and I will have more conversations in the days to come.

Ed Currie and me in the sorting room at PuckerButt