Cancer really makes me sick.
I was going to write a funny post about the possibility of waking up from surgery without a belly button (yeah, I know, right?) but just as I was working it around in my mind... I read the most heart-breaking email and I got good and angry.
The nephew of one of the women in my email group sent a message about his recent surgery. He had a tumor removed from his brain, and it turned out that the tumor was cancerous.
Right up the road from me at John Hopkins Hospital, there is a 6-year old little boy battling brain cancer.
SIX!
Teddy Kennedy just lost his battle with brain cancer and was lain to rest today. He was 77 years old. And while his death is a tragedy and I am sure that his struggle with cancer over the past year or so was hard... Ted Kennedy had the chance to live a very full and long life.
Meanwhile, a 6 year old baby is fighting for his life.
I HATE CANCER. I hate cancer. i hate cancer....
Where is the fairness? I know God is a healer and I am praying fervently for Elijah's full recovery but damn. Damn. I am absolutely stunned and stuck right now. Cancer really and truly makes me sick.
I just finished reading a really good novel, “The Living Blood” and one of the characters in the story was a 12 year old boy who had leukemia. The author (Tananarive Due) did an incredible job of describing his illness and how hard the struggle was for him to get through his treatments. Naturally, any discussion of cancer (real or imaginary) catches my attention and holds it for awhile. The book I picked up yesterday morning to read is “The Last Lecture” by Randy Pausch. This gentleman was a college professor who had terminal pancreatic cancer and decided to give a last lecture as a way of memorializing his career and to leave a visible legacy for his small children to see when they got older. I’ve only begun to read “The Last Lecture” and already I am humbled by the effort. Randy wanted his last message to the world to be one of hope for LIVING instead of a “how-to” book on dying. I found that so very commendable and it made me reflect on my blog and what perspective I am sharing with the world.
I hope that I am leaving a legacy of hope and persistence in my writings but a day like today, when you learn that a little child has to deal with something as devastating as brain cancer makes you wonder just how we manage to get through all the tough times that life throws our way. And that’s when I realized that cancer makes me sick. I’m not talking physical pain but just heart-wrenching, emotional anguish. I’m not typically a “why me” girl but I can’t help but wonder how much suffering will be enough?
I keep having thoughts and brief visions of my last visit to the cancer center. I tried very hard to really plug into the moment and focus on the details. Now that my physical pain is lessened and my emotional turmoil is quieter, I try to make sure to acknowledge within myself that each person there is an individual whose path crossed mine for a reason. But it is difficult when I look at some patients and they look like they are dying. As though they are fading from sight right before your eyes.
Every time I hear about someone losing a loved one to cancer, I wilt a little. After learning earlier this week that one of my sistagirls lost her mother to ovarian cancer (on my mother’s birthday no less), I had to really sit down with myself and think about death, dying and the possibility of a terminal cancer diagnosis down the line. I didn’t stay there long but I had to look at the possibility squarely and tell myself that if I ever hear those words, no matter what else happens… I am going to be okay.
Just like I know that little Elijah will be okay and I know that now Khadijah is okay as well. I suppose that no matter how long your life is, it always feels short in hindsight because you realize that there was so much more that you could do. If only you had just a little more time.
But all you have is what you have and none of us knows how long that will be.
Just before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I prayed to God and made a resolution in my mind that I wanted to live to see 100. Seems foolish now, my vain wish. Something like a child trying to out-scream a tornado. I have just as much time as God sees fit to give me, and not one second more. Death doesn’t frighten me, never has really, but it does make me wonder how history will swallow up my memory.
I think I could manage another 60 years. That’s enough time to forget all the foolish mistakes I have made as a young person and still enough time to venture out and see the world, learn new things, meet new people. But even if all I have is another 60 months or even 60 days... I hope that I leave behind a little more love than I accepted and a little more hope than is ultimately needed.
Cancer is a hard burden but its not impossible to deal with. Its just hard. At the end of the day, cancer or no cancer... Nicole is going to be okay. I just have to keep working at making sure all of my friends and family members know that I love them and its all going to work out in the end. No matter what that end is.
