I’m Not Dead Yet (I.N.D.Y.)

I hope folks had a great 4th of July holiday.  My family and I traveled to Mason, OH for a reunion of MaryBeth’s side of the family.  Ignoring the 9+ hours in the car there and back, the reunion was a lot of fun.  One of the things that I really like about MaryBeth’s family is that when they get together, they tend to do things TOGETHER.  There was breakfast and dinner together; playing cards, going to the pool, doing some other activity together; at dinner there were skits and stories or slide shows together.  It was an immersion into her side of the family (out to 2nd cousins).  As I said, it was fun, but I got home on Monday thinking I needed a vacation to recover from my vacation.  Just check out this crowd:

So about the title, the other day I was cruising along the Internet and I decided I’d go check out the Johns Hopkins Pancreatic Cancer discussion board.  I remember that going to the discussion board when I was more actively dealing with my cancer was less helpful than I would prefer because most of the stories I saw were negative.  People were dying.  People were responding badly to treatment.  People were despondent because there was nothing to do. 

I know that all of these response are thoroughly valid.  The only known possible cure (surgery) is only available to 15-20% of the patients.  For the others, there just really isn’t any proven treatment (which is largely why I have become an advocate for PC research and education).  That’s why I thought I would take a moment to post what I thought was a hopeful message that people can survive PC.

Well, most people were very supportive about my post and providing congratulations and prayers for my continued success.  The second post I read, though, was from someone who was not particularly pleasant.  Essentially, the poster pointed out that the majority of people with PC cannot have surgery and where was the hope for them and then said my post seemed to be critical of people who cannot have surgery (something like, “You’re saying that people who cannot have surgery are not trying hard enough.”)

I get that the poster likely has or know someone who has PC and is not a candidate for surgery.  As I said earlier, I understand the anger and frustration.  I just wasn’t ready for someone to so completely misunderstand my post (one of the challenges of electronic communication).  But if I have learned one thing during my journey it has been the importance of LIVING life. 

For a long time, I was letting the cancer define who I was.  I spent a lot of time thinking about what I would miss in the future and not a lot of time thinking about what I could be doing now.  That’s a natural reaction.  The challenge is moving through those steps of grieving quickly enough that one doesn’t miss the opportunities and experiences they have now.  If my cancer comes back, my family and I will deal with it then.   We will not, however, spend too much time worrying about it and certainly not to the extent that it interferes with other activities.  I go to work everyday, I continue to teach karate, I am getting more active in the Boy Scouts.  The fact that I am a cancer survivor is just one facet of who I am (and a facet that is largely irrelevant to my daily life, except that I have to take enzymes at meal time).

Well, this is much more wordy that I expected.  Thanks for bearing with this blathering.  More later.

Merle

Tags: Cancer News, Family, Main, On my honor, I will try, The Martial Arts, Theology/Philosophy // Add Comment »