Good Mornings

"In my age, as in my youth, night brings me many a deep remorse. I realize that from the cradle up I have been like the rest of the race -- never quite sane in the night."

-- Mark Twain's Autobiography

Although I wouldn't quite say "a deep remorse," I find a lot of truth in Twain's quote. There's something about the darkness of night, lying awake in bed, when thoughts seem to cascade upon each other into an ocean of worry. 

To quote someone else that at least a few of you will recognize:

"Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder, where my life will lead, waiting to pass under, sleep's dark and silent gate."

Maybe it's that at night, my mind is relatively quiet, and so, free from the literal and figurative noise of a busy day, it turns to the more pressing worries that have been kept at bay. Maybe it's that my mind is just tired and harder to control. Or maybe it's just plain scarier when it's dark. 

Either way, when the light of morning comes, the problems seem to recede like low tide, becoming more manageable and making me wonder why I was worrying about them in the first place.

* * * * * 

It's really great being back at Dana-Farber, but it was a bit odd to see Dr. LaCasce (my oncologist) walk into the room at a meeting I was in. 

* * * * *

Some housekeeping. We've narrowed it down to three possible names (four if you count leaving the blog as My Untitled Blog ): One Thought At A Time, The Write Path and Thinking Out Loud.  If you're so inclined, feel free to comment directly on the blog. To do that, you have to follow the link in the email. I think you should get two links -- one which is called the name of the post (in this case, Good Mornings) and then one which is linked on the name of the blog, for now, "My Untitled Blog." Either one will take you to the blog address at msbuller.blogspot.com, where you can comment for the world (or the 10 of us who are currently invited to see this blog) to see.

What's in a Name?

This blog did originally have a name, but I didn't like it. So I'm asking you, my vast legion of readers (all 9 of you) What should I call this thing? And secondly, I've been playing with the idea of a) writing shorter, more frequent posts and b) making it public - which doesn't mean I'd promote it or anything like that, but that I'd let it be visible in the blogosphere. My only reason for b would be in the possibility that other folks like me might stumble upon it. What do you think? --michael

A Word Cloud - It's All Good

This is a word cloud, which is a graphic generated from a word document (or documents) where the more often a word is used, the more prominent it appears in the "cloud". I like that Good is the most prominent word.

A word cloud of my blog posts from the last couple months. 

Take That

Every now and then I get in a kick when I start doing 20 push-ups on days when I don't run. I've been doing that on and off for years, just because I don't like to have days with zero exercise.  I haven't been on that kick for a couple months now but started again the other night, and when I finished, I said,  "Take that, cancer!"  Really. I didn't just think it. I said it. And I kinda smiled. Either I amused myself, or I liked the thought. 

Read anything that's written about cancer patients -- whether they are in treatment, remission or have died and you will always find what's best described as violent or war-like metaphors. Steve Jobs "lost his battle" against pancreatic cancer, for example. There's even been some debate at places like Dana-Farber's Communications Dept and elsewhere whether that constant reference to battling cancer, being strong, fighting valiantly, etc, does survivors a disservice. How the constant language cheapens the struggle. One interesting article talked about how it puts a burden on survivors -- an expectation for them to be braver, stronger, more stoic than they want to be.

Maybe.

I think the language evolves out of a need for people to take control. Patients put so much trust in their doctors and nurses. We ask questions. We have discussions. We make decisions. Maybe we make some behavioral modifications -- stop smoking, eat healthy food, exercise. But we're kidding ourselves if we think we're in control. I'm not just talking about cancer here. There are studies that show a link between exercise and a reduced risk of cancer. But as Stacy points out, I've been exercising and running my whole life.


No control.


So I keep running. And I'll continue to run - not because I have cancer and not in spite of the fact that I have cancer. It's just what I do and what I've done since I was eight. I'll have bad runs where I feel slow, and sluggish and tired.  And I'll have  good runs where I feel like I can run forever. And maybe once in a while, after those good runs, I'll say: Take that cancer.