Reflections

It is a new year and the season for resolutions. I hate resolutions. To be completely honest, I didn't even think of what kind of resolution to enter myself into this year until we were already a week into 2006. But in the spirit of new beginnings, the closest thing to a resolution would be my desire to hold on to the fact that I'm still alive.

2005 was not a kind year. Nor is it one that I would ever like to repeat. I'm bearing down on the one-year anniversary of my cancer diagnosis and it hardly seems possible. So much has happened and it is impossible to remember it all. I knew that it would be this way, and that I would forget, and it is one of the reasons why I kept a journal as best I could. It is why I shared my thoughts with you on the Internet. Sure there were other reasons like communicating my most urgent needs with all of you. Or simply communicating to each of you because I could not do so any other way. I remember the days when I desperately wanted to be able to pick up the phone and call a friend or family member, but couldn't because despite the fact I was on heavy pain medication my mouth and throat felt as if it were a pincushion--a black hole of pain.

Cancer does funny things to a person. For starters, it treats everyone differently. Some people can deal with it and others can't. I was somewhere in between--curiously removed from the captivity of my ravaged body yet desiring to hold on as if the pain was an act of cleansing. It is a type of baptism--sanctification through pain. I'm not 100% sure but I think that history has had its share of monks who have engaged in painful practice of self-abuse. If not outright abuse, than rejection of the body and full embracing of the soul. They willingly entered into this pain as a public renouncement of their bodies and turning towards the eternal, the spiritual.

Cancer doesn't care who you are or what you've done. It knows no friend and plays no favorites. I look back at the previous year with fondness, however. It's okay if you think I'm crazy. I'm the type of guy that if I knew I would live through a plane crash, I would want to do it just to say that I know what it is like. My cancer taught me a lot about life, and myself. It is a metaphor for life. I've been reading Lance Armstrong's biography entitled It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. I'm only halfway through and it has nearly brought me to tears on more than one occasion, but that's beside the point. At one point in his book, Lance compares the general fear of cancer to the loss of hope. Hope is slowly eroded through cynicism just like the body is slowly (or quickly) destroyed by rebel cells. In both cases, death comes slowly and painfully, yet sickeningly methodically--death of the heart in the first and death of the body in the second.

It's difficult not to be philosophical about pain after going through a hand-to-hand fight to the death with cancer. And make no mistake about it--it is a fight to the death. Think about it: either it goes, or you go. in any medical book you read there will not be a fun, heart-warming story of the cohabitation of cancer and healthy tissue. There is no third road.

This could easily become a book, because there are lots of things to say about it. However, I'm tired (as usual) and I want to go to sleep, so I'll keep my thoughts abbreviated. If nothing else, coming face-to-face raises your threshold for pain. Things you never thought you would be able to survive now become not just doable, but almost normal. Another day at the office. The human body can withstand so much more than what we inflict upon it. Another thing it did for me was provided courage with a shot of caffeine. Every day I survived the pain inflicted on me was another day that I could mark off the calendar and say to my cancer, "You haven't got me yet...let's do it again tomorrow." But the real reward comes in knowing that life is precious and never to be taken for granted. In a way, I feel as if I've paid my dues for whatever "normal" days I have ahead of me, if any. Fragility is part of this world and while our mortal bodies are curiously strong and able to withstand more than we think it can, they are also susceptible to attacks from within. When cancer has been allowed inside your defenses like a Trojan Horse, things can get pretty ugly in a short amount of time. Come to think of it, that's a pretty good metaphor on its own.