Anecdotal Hell

I know I’ve written about this in the past, of how people, sometimes total strangers, find out what you are going through and want to share some story about a friend, acquaintance or family member who is or has gone through something similar.

Today someone came up to me to tell me about their dad who, like me, was diagnosed with bladder cancer.  At the time of the diagnosis, according to this person, their dad was given a choice between having his bladder removed via radical surgery or having chemo therapy.  What they didn’t tell him was how incredibly aggressive this cancer is.  He chose chemo.

About three years later the cancer came back, in the words of this person, with a vengeance.  It had spread throughout his body, particularly following the lymph nodes up the vascular pathway into his chest cavity and presumably on up through his neck and into his brain.  Needless to say none of this is good.  Of course his only option now is radical surgery on steroids, as in removing all the effected lymph nodes and locations where the cancer has taken root.  The prognosis, according to this person, is bad.

Now, I appreciate the occasional person who really wants to impart hope even though I know that the words “Everything is going to be okay” or “You’ll beat this” truly ring hollow.  We don’t know if I’ll beat the cancer or whether it’ll beat me.  I guess what keeps me going is the sense of ambivalence I feel about it.  To put it simply, it either will or it will not kill me.  I don’t know which it will be but I’m not about to fold up and wait for the inevitable.  No, I’m going to go on living my life to it’s fullest.  You know, damn the torpedoes full speed ahead.

Still, I kind of wish people would stop doing that.  It isn’t very helpful.  I do appreciate being asked how I am doing.  It is, after all, about me.  And I really appreciate it when someone offers to pick up some of the load I’m carrying around so that I can rest.  But the others, however well meaning they are, they are not helping.

Today’s anecdote noted above is a classic.  There was no hope there at all.  Dad simply is going to die from his cancer because of a decision he made three years ago.  About all I got out of that, aside from the status of this person’s dad, was to question whether or not I made an error in judgment in years past.  Honestly I don’t know.  I suppose keeping my previous Urologist on board for so long was a biggie given he didn’t find the cancer.  There are other decisions I could question but to do so only submerges me into that pit of self pity I am trying very hard to avoid.

Sure, my life is important to me but my wife, Marvina, hers is more important.  So too is my daughter, my son and my grandchildren.  They come before me.  If I elevate myself above them then they suffer from neglect.  They might not know it but they do.  So I push my concerns regarding my own cancer to the back burner and try focusing on them.  In so doing I’m not cavalierly setting aside my health but rather distracting myself from it by investing the majority of me in them.  Turning inward, for me, is not a good thing.

I am severely tired today.  I went to bed very late last night and got up early this morning.  So my exhaustion isn’t so much a product of the chemo therapy but simply a lack of rest.  I’ll make up for it tonight though.  Tomorrow is the one day of my work week when I start my shift an hour later than normal.  I’ll use that hour to catch up on sleep.

At least I’ll try to.