Thursday, January 14, 2016
Ziggy, Severus and Perspective
Time might be fleeting but it can also weigh heavy.
Without doubt it has been a rough week for fans of David Bowie and Alan Rickman and if you are a fan of both...it was a double whammy of unexpected death. When I worked at CBC's The Journal, years ago - when Television Current Affairs had the power to shape a national dialogue - whenever two famous individuals would die in close proximity we'd nod our heads and remark aloud that death came in threes and wonder who would be the third. As of this moment, I am still waiting for the name and desperately hoping that whoever it is, they don't die of cancer.
And if you are crazy about Dancing in The Streets and fabulous acting and you happen to be dealing with a cancer diagnosis then you might be even more bummed out by those seemingly inevitable lines: "died after battling with, struggling with, years of coping with cancer." Don't get me wrong, I am not sitting here awash in doomsaying or worrying deeply about my impending death. The opposite, in fact. But when I read the obits, something I have done for decades, and cancer is the reason for the death, especially an early death, I get glum for a few minutes. I suspect that is inevitable. After all what else do I really share with Rickman and Bowie, other than my incredible ability to carry a tune or portray evil so effectively (not), than the fact that all three of us have (had) cancer? But in reality, and this is what really truly has me writhing, I don't even share that. And just at the point where I was about to get truly dark, I open the New York Times and read a review of Clive James' latest book of poetry, Sentenced to Life. You know the man was diagnosed with terminal leukemia in 2010...and since then he's written 6 books. I think he's the model I'd emulate.
Cancer as a diagnosis never comes without a designator... cancer of the liver, breast cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and so on. And each cancer has a different prognosis, origin, treatment options etc. Cancer scares people and it saddens people. But making sense of cancer actually does demand that you pay attention to odds, treatments and possibilities. Paying attention to these issues allows you to actually wrestle with your situation in a constructive fashion, in ways that help.
And if this sounds like inside baseball, it is actually. These types of distinctions matter to me, to Debi and Jane, probably not so much to obit writers, Snape fans, Glam aficionados or the recently deceased. But these are the thoughts that come to you at four in the morning when it is dark and the house is quiet and you are on hold.
I am on hold. My chemo and radiation is done and my CT scan doesn't happen until early February. I have to wait that long to see what's up with the tumor and whether surgery is possible. My surgeon's nurse tells me that on average surgery happens about four weeks after the scan which would mean early March. On one hand, this is really normal, on the other hand this is crazy making. Waiting for surgery is anxiety inducing on its own ( trust me I know this from too much experience), waiting to see if you can even have surgery is a whole new order of anxiousness. That's what they invented meditation for, trying to sort out the true difference between normal and crazy making and, of course, it is all in the perspective.
So now at four in the morning, I ignore the obits and watch old movies staring Alan Rickman (God, he is good) and YouTube videos of Major Tom.
Oh and just as I was about to post this, Celine Dion's husband has just died, after a two decade struggle with cancer. That's number 3.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Phase one done: what next?
Before the end of the first week of 2016, I am done with phase one of dealing with this Cancer thing. By Thursday the 7th of January I have had 25 radiation sessions and 4 rounds of chemotherapy. In the radiation suites there is a bell and the tradition is that when you are finished you ring the bell three times. Trust me, I rang the bell so hard you could hear it where-ever you were on the floor.
For the most part, and I am knocking on wood here, the impact has been minimal. Fatigue, at times deep fatigue, but otherwise few serious side effects. I know all kinds of people have been laid low by the sheer impact of chemotherapy or radiation or a combination of both. But me, I have for the most part skated. My doctors tell me that it is sometimes the case that people sail through and then at the very end get whacked. I am OK if that happens, I'd prefer it not to happen but if needs be, let me wrestle with it at home in bed without the daily commute to Hamilton.
I have watched people having to cope with the knock-out punch that chemo/radiation therapy can throw at you. One day I was travelling from the lobby of the centre to the floor below where the radiation suites are. A woman was heading for the elevator and I held the door for her. She slowly shuffled in. She was bald, wrapped in many layers as if freezing ( and the temperature that day was balmy) and once past the doors she thanked me and leaned against the elevator walls. In the short time it takes the elevator to go down one floor...we are talking a handful of seconds....she was sound asleep and I had to wake her when the elevator announcement, " Floor Zero" didn't. She thanked me, shuffled out and headed for the radiation suites. Being tired can wear you out...watching someone so tired and knowing why can make you tear up.
So phase one is done. Now it is 3,4,6, maybe 8 weeks of rest and rebuilding the immune system. Chemo did knock the stuffing out of my immune system. I am prepping for surgery, which everyone (meaning the medical team, Debi, Jane and me) assumes will take sometime in February. The idea is that having zapped, attacked and brutalized the tumour with radiation and chemo, it is shrunk and dying and cutting out what is left is the next stage. Part of the reason for waiting and resting is so that my esophagus can heal from the havoc that radiation wrecks on cells and tissue. The doctors all speak as if the surgery will happen though everyone acknowledges that there is a small percentage of people in my position who for some reason can't do the surgery but we are told we will deal with that if that contingency proves true.
Strangely enough, this phase might prove to be tougher than phase one. Not seeming to do something to battle the disease is anxiety inducing...shouldn't we be doing something? Can you really beat a fast moving disease by sitting still?
One more shot, I guess, at learning to worry about the things I can change and not worrying about the things I can't.
Tuesday, December 15, 2015
Week Three Goes Nowhere Near According To Plan
One thing I have learned in my lifetime of exposure to medicine is that the old cliche about it being more art than science isn't quite right. There is loads of science, constantly shifting and evolving science, and there is also lots of art rooted in experience, judgement and a mix of expectation on the part of the doctors and the patients. And these two elements are all wrapped up in the unknowable, how the individual in question, both the conscious being with a name and an identity and that being's body, are going to react to any given experience, any given treatment.
When the options were laid out during the oncology consult, the doctors were concerned that the option that involved months of chemo might not be compatible with my immune system. Well given that my immune system, or the white blood cell component of my immune system, doesn't seemed to have coped well with two weeks of chemo-radiation, I can at least conclude that they were right about that.
Measuring things is complicated. On Monday, after having blood work down, one of the pharmacists, explained that one of my counts was at .9 and that they were really uncomfortable proceeding with chemo when a white blood count was lower than 1.5. So no chemo for me this week. I have to admit I immediately conjured up the image of the Soup Nazi in Seinfeld telling Elaine, 'No soup for you'. It was a blow, I am in the chemo waiting room surrounded by all kinds of people waiting to get on with being treated and listening to a very kind pharmacist explain that we just can't go ahead this week gets me down.
See, I have been doing relatively well with the chemo. Other than fatigue, none of the expected side effects have been occurring. I just imagined everything was going according to schedule. What I now know is that wiping out the immune system is one of those intended-unintended consequences of chemotherapy and when you combine chemo and radiation the possibilities are increased.
What most bummed me out about my conversation with the pharmacist was her response to my question: "so what do I do to boost my white blood count?" She looked at me and replied, there is nothing I could do. ( There are things that can be done apparently but those things are out of my control.) I hate these types of things being out of my control. ( I know, I know...worry about the things that are in your control....yada yada yada)
So this week, no chemo but the radiation marches on. Also this week, consultations with my oncologists about how we get past this roadblock. As I said, I am an optimist. I do believe that, and I have good reason to believe that this is simply a curve in the road, a google maps snafu if you will.
The science is still there, the art and the best judgments that make up the focus of medicine are clearly a bit more of a fudge this week.
What most bummed me out about my conversation with the pharmacist was her response to my question: "so what do I do to boost my white blood count?" She looked at me and replied, there is nothing I could do. ( There are things that can be done apparently but those things are out of my control.) I hate these types of things being out of my control. ( I know, I know...worry about the things that are in your control....yada yada yada)
So this week, no chemo but the radiation marches on. Also this week, consultations with my oncologists about how we get past this roadblock. As I said, I am an optimist. I do believe that, and I have good reason to believe that this is simply a curve in the road, a google maps snafu if you will.
The science is still there, the art and the best judgments that make up the focus of medicine are clearly a bit more of a fudge this week.
Sunday, December 6, 2015
One Week Done...
In about 12 hours I start my second week of chemo/radiation therapy.
Week one went well, all things considered. All things considered of course include the pumping of powerful chemicals into my body, getting bombarded by radiation every day and spending two hours a day driving to and from the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton. It is not quite as wearing as it sounds, for me, but it is much much more boring than it sounds. The actual process of chemo infusion and radiation bombardment lacks real observable impact. You lay there, you sit there. Things are done to you but you are at the moment of it happening largely physically unaware that it is happening. Mentally, you are very aware.
People say to me, you look good. I think they are afraid that they will find me wasting away, gaunt, sickly looking and, for most part, none of that is the case. A couple of weeks ago I said to a friend, who had remarked that I looked good, you know if it wasn't for the swallowing thing, I wouldn't know I was sick. That's not quite true but the swallowing thing is the key indicator.
What I mean by swallowing is that it is very hard. At the moment, it is better than it was thanks to the three brachytherapy treatments I had before starting the real treatment. Before that, for a time, I could barely swallow and every bite threatened to make me gag. Now, the threat remains but I gag less and less and can get some food down. My oncologists, my nutritionist, tell me that it could get worse, swallowing could become an increasing problem as the esophagus become irritated by the treatment.
It is more than just swallowing. Eating is a true chore and the taste of food no longer brings any pleasure. The combination of those two things means eating is something I would seriously rather not do. My doctors see this as a real problem. My weight can not change during the chemo-radiation. Everything is calculated on weight and body dimensions. For my weight to change is to throw everything into a tizzy. I have never been lectured as much about anything as I have been lectured in the last two weeks about my weight staying the same. The oncology team also stress that food is a problem for all cancer patients because the cancer tumours emit chemicals into the blood system that decrease appetite.
On Thursday, we met with the nutritionist on the team taking care of me. She believes and insists that I need to eat an insane amount of food, with an equally insane proportion of protein to stay right for the chemo-radiation and to be ready for surgery in the winter. It almost makes me nauseous to contemplate the food she wants and needs me to eat.
Finding things to eat is a challenge. Fish is great, beef not so much. Eggs work. Smoothies laced with whey powder are filling and really help with the protein quota. The staple of the aged, Ensure, I can handle. Coffee is no longer a true pleasure. Beer lacks taste. My subconscious seems to crave Cheetos and my conscious mind thinks my subconscious is an idiot. I have to eat standing up, I am embarrassed to eat in public. I never know in advance what will cause me to choke, gag, throw up. Being told that at the moment my eating is pretty good but it might worsen down the road frankly scares me. Friends knowing what we are going through have been overwhelmingly generous bringing soups, puddings, juices...even a couple of low cost cases of Ensure. It has blown me and Debi away and has seriously eased the burden she is carrying in trying to make sure I can and do eat.
When you are sick, when you are ill, you learn truly interesting things about yourself. You learn about limits, you wrestle with inadequacies and with personal disappointments. I have done this in the past and often surprised myself. This wrestling with food is making me confront issues of desire, satiety, need, want and choice. This is new and this is perplexing.
What isn't new is my understanding that some things just need to be done and sometimes you just need to do the things that need to be done.
Debi tells me I have one job. I have to beat this thing. It is the work I have taken on. And I will do my job. I just never realized doing my one job would mean finding a way to eat as if I mean it.
Week one went well, all things considered. All things considered of course include the pumping of powerful chemicals into my body, getting bombarded by radiation every day and spending two hours a day driving to and from the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton. It is not quite as wearing as it sounds, for me, but it is much much more boring than it sounds. The actual process of chemo infusion and radiation bombardment lacks real observable impact. You lay there, you sit there. Things are done to you but you are at the moment of it happening largely physically unaware that it is happening. Mentally, you are very aware.
People say to me, you look good. I think they are afraid that they will find me wasting away, gaunt, sickly looking and, for most part, none of that is the case. A couple of weeks ago I said to a friend, who had remarked that I looked good, you know if it wasn't for the swallowing thing, I wouldn't know I was sick. That's not quite true but the swallowing thing is the key indicator.
What I mean by swallowing is that it is very hard. At the moment, it is better than it was thanks to the three brachytherapy treatments I had before starting the real treatment. Before that, for a time, I could barely swallow and every bite threatened to make me gag. Now, the threat remains but I gag less and less and can get some food down. My oncologists, my nutritionist, tell me that it could get worse, swallowing could become an increasing problem as the esophagus become irritated by the treatment.
It is more than just swallowing. Eating is a true chore and the taste of food no longer brings any pleasure. The combination of those two things means eating is something I would seriously rather not do. My doctors see this as a real problem. My weight can not change during the chemo-radiation. Everything is calculated on weight and body dimensions. For my weight to change is to throw everything into a tizzy. I have never been lectured as much about anything as I have been lectured in the last two weeks about my weight staying the same. The oncology team also stress that food is a problem for all cancer patients because the cancer tumours emit chemicals into the blood system that decrease appetite.
On Thursday, we met with the nutritionist on the team taking care of me. She believes and insists that I need to eat an insane amount of food, with an equally insane proportion of protein to stay right for the chemo-radiation and to be ready for surgery in the winter. It almost makes me nauseous to contemplate the food she wants and needs me to eat.
Finding things to eat is a challenge. Fish is great, beef not so much. Eggs work. Smoothies laced with whey powder are filling and really help with the protein quota. The staple of the aged, Ensure, I can handle. Coffee is no longer a true pleasure. Beer lacks taste. My subconscious seems to crave Cheetos and my conscious mind thinks my subconscious is an idiot. I have to eat standing up, I am embarrassed to eat in public. I never know in advance what will cause me to choke, gag, throw up. Being told that at the moment my eating is pretty good but it might worsen down the road frankly scares me. Friends knowing what we are going through have been overwhelmingly generous bringing soups, puddings, juices...even a couple of low cost cases of Ensure. It has blown me and Debi away and has seriously eased the burden she is carrying in trying to make sure I can and do eat.
When you are sick, when you are ill, you learn truly interesting things about yourself. You learn about limits, you wrestle with inadequacies and with personal disappointments. I have done this in the past and often surprised myself. This wrestling with food is making me confront issues of desire, satiety, need, want and choice. This is new and this is perplexing.
What isn't new is my understanding that some things just need to be done and sometimes you just need to do the things that need to be done.
Debi tells me I have one job. I have to beat this thing. It is the work I have taken on. And I will do my job. I just never realized doing my one job would mean finding a way to eat as if I mean it.
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Changing the Name of the Blog, the Road Map
It is three weeks since I was told I have cancer and the three weeks have been an emotional roller coaster and a real introduction into a world I was only vaguely aware of. The corner of the universe that is assigned to cancer patients, their families and the people who treat them is much larger than I had imagined, much more varied and complicated than I'd ever expected and oddly an almost secret club. The number of lives that have been touched by cancer, the percentage of the population that has coped with or is coping with cancer and its impact is layered, wide and at times scary. On one hand, I know this, I read news accounts, see statistics, read mortality and illness tables. On the other hand, looking around the pharmacy, the massive chemotherapy waiting area and the radiation labs and suites in Hamilton's Juravinski Cancer Centre where I being treated, I am struck repeatedly by how broad the swath, how hard the toll, how complete the damage of the diagnosis and the treatment really is.
I am truly coming to fully understand the expression, "The Kindness of Strangers." Getting a cancer diagnosis can give you real insight into who you are and who the people around you are. I am overwhelmed by how much love and encouragement people have offered and communicated, I am occasionally moved to tears by the completely unexpected offers of assistance, some times forms of assistance I never knew I might need. I am overwhelmed by the sheer genuine concern, patience and interest that all the people on the team trying to care for me show every time I walk in the door. I am, to use a cliche, blessed.
And this week, I am 'blessed' with a road map.
This is what we know:
My CAT Scan and PET Scan indicate that I have cancer of the esophagus and that it has spread to some nearby lymph nodes but no other organs, making it Stage Three cancer. The treatment that we have decided on is five weeks of chemotherapy (once a week ) and simultaneously five weeks of radiation ( five times a week ). At the end of the five weeks my body will be allowed a month to recover and then I will have surgery. The other option was five months of more intense chemo and radiation but no surgery. The team was concerned that my medical history is such that my immune system might not cope well with the five months but they were convinced that I would have no problem with the surgery. According to the team, the outcomes of either plan are roughly the same.
Treatment begins on Monday; surgery is expected to take place in February. I was told by the radiation specialist that the main side effect I could expect was sheer exhaustion. I was told by the Chemo specialist that the main side effect I could expect was exhaustion. I asked if that meant I might be doubly exhausted and the answer was...well, yes.
For me, and for Debi, whose slog through this all may well be as hard as mine, the main positive moment was when one of the oncologists warned that for the next five years I would have to keep a close watch on my increased chances of getting pneumonia. He warned that if I felt I was getting a cold or flu, I was to come to them and not a pharmacy. Debi and I agreed that being advised on what you needed to watch for during the next five years is a positive discussion in an oncology briefing.
I don't have any illusions that this whole thing will be easy. It won't. But there is a plan. It is a way forward.
I am truly coming to fully understand the expression, "The Kindness of Strangers." Getting a cancer diagnosis can give you real insight into who you are and who the people around you are. I am overwhelmed by how much love and encouragement people have offered and communicated, I am occasionally moved to tears by the completely unexpected offers of assistance, some times forms of assistance I never knew I might need. I am overwhelmed by the sheer genuine concern, patience and interest that all the people on the team trying to care for me show every time I walk in the door. I am, to use a cliche, blessed.
And this week, I am 'blessed' with a road map.
This is what we know:
My CAT Scan and PET Scan indicate that I have cancer of the esophagus and that it has spread to some nearby lymph nodes but no other organs, making it Stage Three cancer. The treatment that we have decided on is five weeks of chemotherapy (once a week ) and simultaneously five weeks of radiation ( five times a week ). At the end of the five weeks my body will be allowed a month to recover and then I will have surgery. The other option was five months of more intense chemo and radiation but no surgery. The team was concerned that my medical history is such that my immune system might not cope well with the five months but they were convinced that I would have no problem with the surgery. According to the team, the outcomes of either plan are roughly the same.
Treatment begins on Monday; surgery is expected to take place in February. I was told by the radiation specialist that the main side effect I could expect was sheer exhaustion. I was told by the Chemo specialist that the main side effect I could expect was exhaustion. I asked if that meant I might be doubly exhausted and the answer was...well, yes.
For me, and for Debi, whose slog through this all may well be as hard as mine, the main positive moment was when one of the oncologists warned that for the next five years I would have to keep a close watch on my increased chances of getting pneumonia. He warned that if I felt I was getting a cold or flu, I was to come to them and not a pharmacy. Debi and I agreed that being advised on what you needed to watch for during the next five years is a positive discussion in an oncology briefing.
I don't have any illusions that this whole thing will be easy. It won't. But there is a plan. It is a way forward.
Monday, November 16, 2015
Ten Days In and This Blog's Name is Changed...it just doesn't appear that way*
It has been less than two weeks since I was first diagnosed with cancer and I know for certainty two things. I am surrounded physically and virtually by an incredible amount of love, well wishes and heartfelt offers of help. The outpouring of support has been overwhelming. How overwhelming can be measured by the fact that I have shed far more tears of gratitude than I have of fear. The second thing I have learned in the past ten days is that time really can slow down, and shift and become totally confusing. So at the same time I am having to wrestle with cancer I am confronted by a heavy course in the metaphysics of time.
On Saturday afternoon, we went to see a movie on the big screen. Debi and I both find that the theatre allows you to get lost for a couple of hours in a way that is just not possible watching a movie at home. Getting lost isn't the best coping mechanism in the world, and it should never be a steady diet but it can and does lift our spirits. The movie we saw, Bridge of Spies did so in a couple of ways. I am a bit of a sucker for Tom Hanks and Spielberg is always good for a big screen extravaganza. I loved in particular the way they were able to recreate late 1950s and early 1960s Brooklyn and East Berlin. But what most pleased me about the film was the reaffirmation of a life lesson.
It has been too much a whirlwind. We saw an oncologist on Tuesday: he had me doing a form of radiation therapy on Wednesday and Thursday and put weight on getting a cat scan done on Friday. And if the speed with which the folks at the Juravinski Cancer Centre stays steady, next week is going to be truly intense. I don't mind the intensity but I am eagerly looking forward to the day the oncologists sit down and draw the road-map in greater detail. As a friend wrote earlier this week, one of the great eases of anxiety is a sense of action. And while that is very true, I also need to wrestle with the idea of anxiety.
And that's where the life lesson from Bridge of Spies comes in. I have always loved the Dalai Lama's explanation for why there was never a need to worry. In short he says there are only two types of things that happen. There are things you can control and things you can't. If it is the former, don't worry, just do something. If it is the latter, there is no point in worry. In the movie, Bridge of Spies, based on a true story, an accused Russian spy, Rudolph Abel is being defended by an insurance lawyer, James B. Donovan. If convicted he could be executed. And everyone wants him convicted even if rules need to be broken to do so. At several points, Donovan delivers bad news or potentially bad news to Abel and Abel just nods. Donovan at one point says, "Don't you ever worry?" and Abel replies, "Would it help?"
Of course there are some significant differences between a man being accused of spying and a person talking with doctors about cancer. For the spy, so much is out of his control, for the cancer patient there are second opinions, advocating, decisions to be made so it is not a complete parallel but it does somehow speak to me.
So do I worry? Of course I worry. Does it help? Of course it doesn't help.
I am learning Not to Worry about things beyond my control, all the other issues I am tackling head on.
* It is harder than I imagined to change the name of the blog but I am working on it. I will plead being distracted by other matters.
On Saturday afternoon, we went to see a movie on the big screen. Debi and I both find that the theatre allows you to get lost for a couple of hours in a way that is just not possible watching a movie at home. Getting lost isn't the best coping mechanism in the world, and it should never be a steady diet but it can and does lift our spirits. The movie we saw, Bridge of Spies did so in a couple of ways. I am a bit of a sucker for Tom Hanks and Spielberg is always good for a big screen extravaganza. I loved in particular the way they were able to recreate late 1950s and early 1960s Brooklyn and East Berlin. But what most pleased me about the film was the reaffirmation of a life lesson.
It has been too much a whirlwind. We saw an oncologist on Tuesday: he had me doing a form of radiation therapy on Wednesday and Thursday and put weight on getting a cat scan done on Friday. And if the speed with which the folks at the Juravinski Cancer Centre stays steady, next week is going to be truly intense. I don't mind the intensity but I am eagerly looking forward to the day the oncologists sit down and draw the road-map in greater detail. As a friend wrote earlier this week, one of the great eases of anxiety is a sense of action. And while that is very true, I also need to wrestle with the idea of anxiety.
And that's where the life lesson from Bridge of Spies comes in. I have always loved the Dalai Lama's explanation for why there was never a need to worry. In short he says there are only two types of things that happen. There are things you can control and things you can't. If it is the former, don't worry, just do something. If it is the latter, there is no point in worry. In the movie, Bridge of Spies, based on a true story, an accused Russian spy, Rudolph Abel is being defended by an insurance lawyer, James B. Donovan. If convicted he could be executed. And everyone wants him convicted even if rules need to be broken to do so. At several points, Donovan delivers bad news or potentially bad news to Abel and Abel just nods. Donovan at one point says, "Don't you ever worry?" and Abel replies, "Would it help?"
Of course there are some significant differences between a man being accused of spying and a person talking with doctors about cancer. For the spy, so much is out of his control, for the cancer patient there are second opinions, advocating, decisions to be made so it is not a complete parallel but it does somehow speak to me.
So do I worry? Of course I worry. Does it help? Of course it doesn't help.
I am learning Not to Worry about things beyond my control, all the other issues I am tackling head on.
* It is harder than I imagined to change the name of the blog but I am working on it. I will plead being distracted by other matters.
Thursday, November 5, 2015
Why This Blog is Getting a New Name
I am changing the name of this blog, both in order to reflect a new reality and to declare a new determination.
When I started the blog, it was to mark the publication of my book, The Man Who Learned to Walk Three Times. It is a book and an accomplishment that I am proud of and that makes me smile inside and out. Learning to Walk is hard and demands attention and true effort. Learning to Walk is difficult and problematic and deserves a record, an account.
Now I have a new goal, a new determination, a new milestone.
For a couple of months now I have been experiencing difficulty with swallowing. I saw doctors, took tests and for a while wrestled with the whole shitty idea of being ill yet again in a life filled with illness. At times, especially in moments where even taking another bite filled with me with dread, it seemed too much. But I would always come back to my touchstone point. Life is what it is. You deal with it as it comes at you.
Today, I was told I have cancer of the esophagus. There is still much to be determined, still tests to be done, treatments to be considered. But I know one thing. This will not defeat me.
As our truly delightful Jane noted today, this is the third time I have been diagnosed with cancer. 12 years ago I was told I had colon cancer. I had the surgery and it turned out the diagnosis was wrong. 6 years ago, a doctor made a preliminary diagnosis that I had a virulent blood cancer. Within 24 hours he had changed his mind and said he was wrong. In both cases misjudgments were made but in both cases I was determined that I would beat whatever was happening to me. In both instances, I had to peer inside and ask what I was capable of.
This diagnosis might be more accurate but it is just a diagnosis, it is not determinant, it is not the final word. Where we go from here is partly up to the medical system and partly up to me.
This will not defeat me.
Wrestling with cancer is hard, difficult and problematic. It demands true attention and true effort. It deserves a record, an account.
This blog is now known as The Man Who Beat Cancer Three Times.
When I started the blog, it was to mark the publication of my book, The Man Who Learned to Walk Three Times. It is a book and an accomplishment that I am proud of and that makes me smile inside and out. Learning to Walk is hard and demands attention and true effort. Learning to Walk is difficult and problematic and deserves a record, an account.
Now I have a new goal, a new determination, a new milestone.
For a couple of months now I have been experiencing difficulty with swallowing. I saw doctors, took tests and for a while wrestled with the whole shitty idea of being ill yet again in a life filled with illness. At times, especially in moments where even taking another bite filled with me with dread, it seemed too much. But I would always come back to my touchstone point. Life is what it is. You deal with it as it comes at you.
Today, I was told I have cancer of the esophagus. There is still much to be determined, still tests to be done, treatments to be considered. But I know one thing. This will not defeat me.
As our truly delightful Jane noted today, this is the third time I have been diagnosed with cancer. 12 years ago I was told I had colon cancer. I had the surgery and it turned out the diagnosis was wrong. 6 years ago, a doctor made a preliminary diagnosis that I had a virulent blood cancer. Within 24 hours he had changed his mind and said he was wrong. In both cases misjudgments were made but in both cases I was determined that I would beat whatever was happening to me. In both instances, I had to peer inside and ask what I was capable of.
This diagnosis might be more accurate but it is just a diagnosis, it is not determinant, it is not the final word. Where we go from here is partly up to the medical system and partly up to me.
This will not defeat me.
Wrestling with cancer is hard, difficult and problematic. It demands true attention and true effort. It deserves a record, an account.
This blog is now known as The Man Who Beat Cancer Three Times.
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