The Lesson and Gift of Cancer
My recent cancer experience had a profound lesson. Although I think I'm mostly successfully through it, the state of despair it took me to was so poignant that I think it's a big mistake just to let it go, and go on with life's normal routine.
So, therefore this monologue. I want to capture:
The sense of doom the words ' you've got melanoma' brought
How my ‘world lens’ was shattered and how the ‘life or death lens’ became my total focus
The powerful sense of proportion and values the cancer brought
The urgency of time cancer brings
If I have survived the cancer was truly a gift - I don't want to forget it. I want to look at its lessons every hour; and choose to live that hour as if it were my last.
Cancer brought love, proportion, and appreciation. My next hamburger was the best I ever ate.
Cancer finally gave me the focus to attack the real enemy: complacency, boredom, and obsessions with a whole raft of things that mean absolutely nothing.
I know these lessons are so so obvious for the multitude of poor souls stricken with cancer. The lessons sound like hollow echoes for the many of us that take our heath for granted. My humble intent is to share the feeling of the cancer experience, so others and I can begin to appreciate the precious gift of life we have left.
I want to survive the cancer but not the cancer experience. I lived more than ever, and did more work of the soul, while my cancer outcome was in doubt. I pray that this terrible disease has left my body. I pray with equal force that I can live the rest of my life with the spiritual focus that cancer brought.
I. Bad news
The first section deals with the experience of getting the news.
Well, we have a melanoma
The first was a biopsy; what was the answer?
Hope against hope that I wouldn’t have to enter the starship cancer
My own world is comfortable and nice,
I’m scared to death of this big bad cancer price
For a researcher who knows all the self-absorbed trivia to impress,
Couldn’t get myself to find out what happens if the answer is yes
The feeling was numbness, disbelief
Made myself comfortable with the grief
If the gloom suit is mine, well I’ll wear it well
The beginning of letting go - to oh so many meaningless things, it was farewell
The spiritual spring-cleaning wasn’t complete, of the hang up and obsession attic, that had life defrauded,
But an inexorable cleansing had started, reluctant at first but now applauded
Which created space to do what? --- To live, do you believe it, to live life unconparable
The obsessions, hobbies, hang-ups, were all anesthesia against life’s pain unbearable
After cleaning out the attic, the cancer put a loving light on what had been life’s pain, become karma,
The obsessions, life pain, and induced karma went away --- thank you cancer dharma
And created time and space for life, for heart and life, for laughter and life sublime
Ah, but how much time?
II. Three weeks waiting for the gland biopsy
After hearing the words “ Well, we have a melanoma” there was a 3-week hiatus waiting for the biopsy. It wasn’t just waiting; the surgeon cut a wide margin of safety around the melanoma and removed the nearest sentinel lymph node. But the waiting was transforming me; reconciliation was taking place and the possibility of cancer deepened in my psyche.
Life shows up while waiting
Before the cancer, after distractions my mind would return to a self-conscious home
The mind’s home was comfortable, reassuring, confident, a self assured clone
Active serotonin, warm endorphins, could feel healthy neurobiology down to the bone
With cancer the self-conscious home feels like dread and doom, disease and unease, something gone terribly wrong
Which begets the need for yet more distractions, which when needed are all gone,
And then self-consciousness reasserts it's troubled nature --- there's something gone terribly wrong
An uneasy peace settled in, an almost holy mood
Not in a rush to find out, was enjoying even the interlude
If the news were bad, the waiting would be the last days lived free
Can’t stand waiting some relatives said, not me,
An uneasy peace was better than a death sentence, don’t you agree
Not ready for the tortuous chemo fight
Body disfigured, stomach upset, hairless, I prefer flight
Rather have the good memories and go out whole
This shows the soul’s immaturity, to prefer the grave hole
Cause the death sentence would make the remaining days more fine
What irony, the shorter the fermentation, the sweeter the wine
Saw people laughing and loving, that’s what I desire
Realized, for the first time in my life, that’s the goal, there’s nothing higher
Also realized how rare love is and that I had become its foe
Spent most of my life chasing the wrong rainbow
Realized these could be the last days before the trip above
Last trip to SF, last tennis game, last sushi, last love
Sadly realized there had not been enough love, laughter, fun, reaching out
Realized this is to be first on life’ agenda, not last, with no clout
To be OK, to be childlike and play, this is the last chance no doubt
Envious not of youth, money, looks, … but of health, longevity, more time
Of days left, savored like the last sips of a great wine
Like the last days of a child’s summer vacation,
Relishing the present with full appreciation
It hung over me; it hovered closely above my head, a halo casting a dark and ominous chill
Every mental paragraph and even sentence was interrupted with the cancer shrill
Wasn’t like depression – would welcome and applaud the frivolous all day long
Even though it was like a death metronome interrupting life’s song
The dark worries dismissed, triviality was its mother tongue
So depression it was not, but it hung
Even the shame of failure was finally excused, all the success hang-ups completely flung
Finally such clarity, but it hung
The hovering turned from dreaded numbness, to a strange companion, and then a friend
The theme turned to living, form cancer it did transcend
I was laughing, feeling, loving, with complete acceptance, without reservation or expectation
But with total presence, and clarity, and appreciation
The waiting was loved, didn’t want to let it go, relishing the present before we say ciao
At times was actually elated, I had made a new friend, it was a friend called NOW
Made a strange and selfish deal with my dear Lord,
Vowed to really live if life He would afford
Not to go to church, or be more devout
But to laugh, love, cry, and really reach out
Was roughing out plans either way
If only a short time would just do a few great things, but with cache
If OK, really let loose and live baby - this is your only time
The NOW friend was so strong, it demanded my presence, said this is thy prime
Don’t dwell on the plan; the short plan is best, you’re wasting time
And then there’s hope, really afraid to hope, and build expectation
Equally afraid to fear, and dwell on the worse desperation
Best to stay in suspended animation, neutral but present
Fully here in every moment, as if a witness, to let in the feelings without lament
To let the thoughts dance,
No judgments, no projections, no critique advance
No grandeur, ambition, or fame
Just here, open, present, alive without blame,
For the first time, for the very first time, is this what it took?
Thank you cancer, you were not a crook,
For it was while I was waiting for you cancer, that life showed up
III. Good news
It’s probably obvious the news was good, two gland biopsies were negative. I walked into the doctor’s office suspending expectation; it was an incredible relief. It didn’t hit me in the face; it gradually sank in that I had another chance. If the news had been different I’m sure this piece would have not been written. I apologize to cancer victims, I’m sure they consider this trifle; the depth of their grief and their courage exceeds anything I could express here.
At a variety of seminal events in my life – college graduation, marriage, getting a graduate degree, starting a company – I wrote lists of success goals that I’d had to work hard to achieve. The results are mixed, about as good as a decent baseball batting average.
I also have a list of goals stimulated by this cancer event; not success goals but rather life, laughter, and love goals. My batting average is going to go up.
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