Cancer as a Battle

… as you read this, unless someone has spoiled the ending, I do not know how this will end.  Will cancer be the means to my end?  I fear that it will be.  But then, if you’ve had cancer, that is what you live with day in and day out; although, as I said above, in remission it did not dominate my days.

Cancer as a battle

Battling cancer has a rhythm not unlike descriptions of war as written in Red Bad of Courage and other such chronicles.  Often, the patient, like the soldier, faces the long lulls between battles with little but redundant preparation overshadowed by anxiety.  The soldier cleans his weapon; the cancer patient reviews appointments and the logistics of keeping them.  The soldier counts his bullets, the cancer patient checks his meds and makes spreadsheets to keep track of them.  The soldier wonders how he will face the possibility of imminent death on the battlefield; the cancer patient contemplates how he will handle a diagnosis bereft of hope.  I have never been a soldier - for that matter, neither was Stephen Crane - but I have to think that a soldier’s situation at least has the possibility of a merciful and quick exit.  Even the most deadly and least treatable cancers like pancreatic, leave the patient with the prospect of knowing that there will be no “luck of the draw,” and in six months - give or take - a slow death will most assuredly and inexorably come.  Nevertheless, like Henry, I feel I have arrived at that place where, . . “He knew he would no longer quail before his guides wherever they should point.  He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death [and was for others]. . .”  May I have the will, pride, and endurance, not to whimper into that good night.

Endurance and Hemingway

I’ve always believed ala Hemingway that “Life is a battle.”  You win some and lose some, but ultimately, we all know that we will lose the war.  Welcome to mortality.  Beyond that, I always liked the idea that you face whatever comes your way with will, pride, and endurance, the Hemingway Code.  The fact that he chose to put a shotgun to his head notwithstanding.

This much I do know, when Hemingway said life is about living with will, pride, and endurance, well, will is an ego laden illusion.  I remember Michael Landon, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, declaring on late night television that he would “beat it.”  As I recall he did several one arm push-ups to demonstrate his presumed strength.  He succumbed within a few months.  I know from experience, when I am feeling reasonably well, the confidence that imbues.  But, as in battle, running into a hail of bullets, is foolhardy if not insane.  In regard to pride, well, anyone who has experienced any medical condition requiring numerous visits to the docs, knows that pride is the first thing to go out the window… Endurance makes sense.  Possibly, if Hemingway had heeded his own prescription, he might have found the courage to face life.  Whenever I find myself looking too far down the treatment road, I become very disheartened.  Then, I recover the sense that it is about looking at the ground immediately in front of you, just as you should live the moment, and doggedly taking the next step; and then the next.  It’s about endurance; nothing more, and nothing less.

Hope and Resignation

If a cancer diagnosis has some singularity, and I believe it does, it forcefully underscores life’s fragility…More importantly, I realized how many things have been left unsaid because I’d get around to it – there was time.  But, cancer informs you that you don’t really know there will be.  Unlike vicarious experiences, cancer screams “You are mortal.  You will die.  I’m no joke.” 

Night after night since the ominous skin legions appear and began marching across my forehead, chest, and now arms, I slept in a way I don’t recall ever having slept.  Deep, dream-filled, and unbelievable sleep.  Is this what a man experiences who’s been sentenced to death, has the execution date set, and  is given a reprieve?  Resigned to his fate, he sleeps.  Given a reprieve, he wakes again to the possibilities?

Cancer dominating life versus living the moment

Cancer has made me acutely aware of the fact that so many things we do and assume we will continue to do are not necessarily in our future; in fact, living is not about the future…

Understandably, once diagnosed, I think we tend to let cancer dominate our lives.  But life is not vested in anticipation of death being far down the road, life is about the here and now.  Only in savoring each moment aware that there may not be another are we truly living.  So, besides a loving family and some incredibly and indescribably great relatives and friends, my edge remains in knowing that staving off cancer is a means to the end of gaining a few more moments.