For years, I've thought of myself as a warrior. The one who didn't die. The Amazing Cancer Boy® who kicked that bastard's ass. Since then, I've fancied myself to be a maker of champions, a builder of cancer victors. I've helped some people, and done some good. I've worked with survivors who have lived and a few who have died, and always my message was the same. Don't you ever give up. Don't you ever stop fighting for your life. Don't you quit on you.
I get a lot more credit for beating cancer than I deserve, I think. That's not false modesty, I'm being candid. People around me shot me full of chemicals and radiation, pumped food into my stomach tube, walked me to the bathroom, cleaned my piss and vomit off the floor. People lifted prayers and wrote notes and sent gifts and visited on the mornings when I wasn't passed out. I make myself out to be this mighty champion, but the truth is all I really did was just lie there and take my pills, too stubborn to die while the real heroes did all the work.
The one thing I never did was to stop fighting. When they told me my cancer was gone, I started fighting my way back to life. I walked around the block. Lifted weights. Jogged on the treadmill. Registered for a 3K, a 5K, a 10K. I joined the Y and found coaches and trainers who helped me take my battle to a broader field. I fought beside other cancer warriors, other survivors who refused to yield. Ran a handful of half-marathons and two full 26.2 mile marathons. And I became a coach. Thirteen years later, doctors send their patients to me and I help those courageous people to find the grit and strength to climb back to life, just like I did. I am a warrior.
I didn't start out that way. I was the fat kid. The last one to the finish line and the last one picked, whatever the sport. I worked hard at the things I was already good at, and when I wasn't good, I quit. I learned that people liked to hear me sing, so I sang. They liked to laugh when I told jokes, so I became a comedian. I went to school and became an actor and entertained strangers in the dark. When I didn't like a job, I quit and got a new one. When I didn't get the part, I blamed the world. Once, when I decided that I didn't like living, I even tried to die. I was not prepared to be a fighter. I was prepared to be a star.
Cancer had another plan for me. I could fight or I could die. So I learned to fight. And with a lot of help, I won.
But that was a long time ago. I was a young kid of 50, back then. I'm an Old Soldier now. I growl at the cocky kids and I whisper the old war stories and I remember the fallen. I have memories that will never go away, and while I wouldn't call it PTSD, there are certain medical sounds and smells that can trigger me into a state of near panic. And in the past few months, I've learned that I have some war wounds that I didn't know were there.
I've seen more specialists than I can remember, and one of them told me, "I expect these arterial occlusions started with your radiation treatments. They've probably been getting worse every day since then." So the treatment that saved my life is also slowly starving my brain of blood. Hmm. That's a lot to take in.
It isn't going to kill me. But it is going to change things. And I need to be prepared to live with the reality that I have no idea how things are going to change.
I have a great team on my side. A whole bunch of smart-as-a-whip kid-doctors and a couple of geezers I really know and trust. I saw those two today. First was my GP. She's been my doc since before the cancer, and she knows me well. (Please don't tell her I called her a geezer. She would not take it well.) We went over last week's fainting episode, and she made some changes to my meds. We're working to manage the chemistry that may be leading to my spells. I'll let you know...
Then I saw my shrink. We don't go back nearly as far, but this guy really gets me. If you have ever gone looking for a therapist, and found the wrong one, you know how scary that search can be. Finding this funny old guy with the crazy hair and the shabby office (yes, he even has a funny accent) was a godsend. We talked about things today, and he said some really helpful stuff. "So, what have you learned about these spells?"
"Well, I almost always feel them coming on. If I stop and sit down, they pass. If I try to fight them off, that's when I pass out."
"Ahh..."
He loves to say "Ahh..." almost as much as I love hearing it. It usually means that I've answered my own question. Then we both laugh.
"So cancer taught you to be a fighter. Fighting has kept you alive. But now fighting knocks you on your ass. Was do you make of that?"
"Maybe fighting this won't work. Maybe I have to accept that things are different, now. Like an old man who has to live with gout or seizures."
"So what? You just give up?"
"No. Hell no. I'm not going to stop living because I'm afraid. But I how do I live if I can't fight for my life?"
"Maybe you just live."
He loves to say this kind of shit, too. We never laugh after these moments. I look at the carpet, (which hasn't been vacuumed since the Clinton administration,) and at the sun setting in the filthy windows and the books stacked on shelves and tables and in brown paper bags, and I check the clock to see how much of the hour is left. Then I stick a toe in the water.
"I just live. OK...? Annnnd...?"
"Maybe you live your life, and you make room for this new thing that is part of it. You don't like it. You didn't invite it. You wish it were not true. But there it is. You will get dizzy sometimes. You will have to stop and sit and gather yourself sometimes. And then it will pass. And then you continue living your life. Do you think that's possible?"
See what I mean? The old kook gets me. I have always liked doing the things I already knew I was good at. I was good at singing, so I sang. I was good at acting, so I acted. I was good at fighting cancer, so I fought.
Well now, I finally have to learn to do something that I'm not good at at all: I have to learn to be weak and restricted by something that no amount of will power can overcome. I've spent my whole life wanting to be a hero. Now I have to learn how to be a human being.
My battle days are over. The Amazing Cancer Boy® has hung his sword over the mantle and tucked his cape and tights in mothballs in the bottom dresser drawer. I still have work to do, warriors to train, hearts to inspire. But not as a superhero. Not anymore. Never was, I guess. Today, I'm a wounded warrior, weary and battle scarred. Once, at great cost to many people, I kicked cancer's ass. I will carry the marks of that victory on my body for the rest of my life.
Others have paid so much more dearly. I'm so very lucky to be here. I intend to stick around for a long time. But I'm going to have to learn another way of life. Fighting isn't the answer. Cancer has left me a little reminder of our time together, and I can't fight this. But I don't have to let it win, either. I can learn to carry it along with me. We can live together.
Old soldiers do die, eventually. But if they are lucky, before that happens, they learn a new way to live. That's my new job.
So, the next time you see me siting on the end of a treadmill, boxing gloves at my feet, slack jawed and glassy eyed, don't worry. Stand my water bottle back upright and give me a fist-bump. I'm just chilling with my new training partner. But we ain't quitting.
We still have a lot of races to run together.
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