I am still finding this process to be or at least feel unstable at times. It has been 114 days since they told me I had cancer. One hundred and fifteen days ago, I had no idea and couldn’t imagine that I could have cancer. It was the last thing I thought was wrong – or more to the point, it hadn’t occurred to me. Right from the get-go, it was a shock. The next few weeks, as they did surgery and testing, and gave me a stage 4 diagnosis 20 days later, it felt as if I was in the boxing ring with Mike Tyson; the hits just kept coming. One day I was working at the college, fishing with some success, hunting ginseng also with some success and training a lot on my bicycle. Literally, the next day, I found out I have cancer.
As these 114 days have passed, I’ve been up and down, sick and well, angry and at peace – but generally settling down to a belief that I am going to be okay. The oncologist is withholding any final prognosis until after my treatments in about April. There is some real uncertainty that is not just in my head. Even if it ends up that I will not be okay, I am still okay with that, at least some days.
I am finding my mood changes from moment to moment about everything. Everyday, except for the very worst during my treatments (and sometimes even those), I get up, get cleaned up and I go somewhere. Anywhere; perhaps just to eat a bite of lunch. At times it is genuinely an arduous task just to take a shower and get dressed. On those days, I usually get back home pretty quickly and spend the rest of the day resting. Even on my best days I can not function, in a physical manner the way I have my entire life – not even close. For instance, I can’t imagine taking a fishing trip like those I was going on just before the discovery of cancer. At that time, I was also riding my bike 20 to 30 miles a day and some days, up to 60. I went for about a 7 mile ride the other day, and while that was very nice, the 7 miles was all I could muster.
To say this has all had an effect on how I live both physically and emotionally would be an understatement. But then, that goes without saying. The single most difficult aspect in all of this is the uncertainty. I know that I could simply decide that I was going to survive it, and proceed as such. I do often attempt this, with some or at least more and more success. Then I have experiences like I did yesterday while I was out Christmas shopping.
With no chemo drugs in my system, and the idea that I am not returning for treatments until January 3, I am feeling generally pretty good. So I was out shopping and I decided to take a “window shopping” detour through the outdoor goods, especially the fishing equipment. With some stunning force, it occurred to me that I may have little future need for such equipment, and dispite my generally positive outlook, I became saddened. I became saddened enough, I left the store without making any purchase at all.
I came home to rest and I did that in a manner befitting my status as a seriously ill cancer patient. When the rest was over, I found myself renewed and returned to a state of generally good outlooks.
With the doubts that come and go; all the voices in my head and heart that say completely different things at times, and all of the uncertainty at this point in the overall process, I find it helps to self designate myself a “stoic”; proceeded with life – proceeding with my little projects with no proof I will be able to finish them.
Without any medical information regarding the cancer in me at this moment, I am forced to live completely within a certain faith; a faith that allows me to rise each day, ready myself and do something productive that is completely unrelated to my recovery.
I have to keep living a daily life, and while I could have never imagined having to do this just 114 days ago, I find that I am doing it; poorly at times – and that is the both harder and easier than I thought it would be.
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