Staying Strong

In a few short weeks, it will be a full year since my last round of chemo. It seems like forever. I don't have another scan until September; my blood work looks fine; I remain, despite my tendency to think any ache is lymphoma-linked, symptom free. I am essentially living the same life I was prior to June 30, 2011.

Essentially.

I tried to think the other day of how I felt before I was diagnosed. What a day was like when the thought of cancer was as distant a thought as winning the lottery? I could only fantasize about either -- and the lottery was the better choice. It's been 2 1/2 years and it seems like this is how it's always been -- which doesn't mean I'm always thinking about cancer.  

But when I am thinking about cancer, and in particular, my cancer,  I occasionally think about dying. I think any cancer patient who says they don't is either trying to protect someone or very, very good at optimism. When I do,  it's always the prospect of missing out on things I'm looking forward to that's the saddest. (Ric Elias talks about this in his short Ted Talk, 3 Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed , which is worth a view.) When we're young, we think we're invincible; when we're older, we often think of ourselves as immortal -- that we're always going to be there.  

Even when the prognosis is good, cancer removes any illusion of that immortality. 

It's not that I often think of dying, but the idea of not being here will sometimes invade my thoughts at my weaker moments. It's been said that fighting cancer is as much a mental battle as a physical one. I'm not sure about that. But I do know that when I'm feeling tired, infected with a touch of symptom paranoia, or otherwise run down, it takes effort, real mental effort to keep those negative fantasies at bay. 

It's always tempting to live from appointment to appointment rather than take each day as it comes -- to carpe scan instead of carpe diem. When I find that temptation hard to resist, I resort to the best therapy I know. 

I run. 

I run for the exercise. I run to stay in shape. I run to counterbalance the ice cream I might eat later. I run to infuse energy into my body, to boost my mood, and my productivity. And some days, I crawl out of bed at 4:45 am and take a train into Boston so I can run to affirm my health. 

--Michael