Many of you may have seen the powerful and eloquent statement in the New York Times by Oliver Sacks, the eminent neurologist, in which he announced that his ocular melanoma has metastasized to his liver. (WarrenS posted about Sacks' announcement the day it appeared.)
I'm sorry that Dr. Sacks, a wise and kind man by all accounts, has joined the group of people who will be taken down by cancer. We all will die somehow, sometime, of course, and I suppose there are worse ways to go. As one might expect, Dr. Sacks is treating this development with considerable equanimity. He writes
It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.
and also
I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.
Few of us have anywhere near the professional success and international fame that Oliver Sacks has accrued in his lifetime. Yet we all have the opportunity to do our very best with the time we have after a life-threatening diagnosis (assuming there is some span of time between diagnosis and death).
I don't think I'm inordinately morbid, but I do think of this topic a fair amount. I suspect it's a common reaction for most people who must confront their mortality rather sooner than they expected to do so.
I've mentioned several times in the past few diaries I've posted for the MNCC how mindful I am this year of my diagnosis anniversaries: yesterday it was four years since my surgery, and tomorrow it'll be four years since I learned the severity of my condition. But the cancer diagnosis itself happened a month prior to each, and this whole month I've been thinking especially hard about what I've been doing since diagnosis, and what I still hope to accomplish with whatever time I have left.
A great deal of my energy has gone to getting well. Where the full credit should go for my success to date, I cannot tell. But considering just how sick I was, and how much better I am, there's plenty of credit to go around. I am happy to thank my oncologist, my Ayurvedist, and my acupuncturists for all doing their very best to help me regain my health.
My next greatest effort has gone into parenting. My younger daughter is now in college, a big accomplishment considering where we were four, three, two, or even one year ago. She's much farther along the way to being an independent, self-sustaining adult, and I am enormously grateful to have seen her arrive at this place.
And a few months ago, apprehensions about my long-term health notwithstanding, my husband and I made a huge leap of faith and bought a house together. Now, like all houses, it will likely become a money pit; there are a couple of projects that already await better weather. Still, I am delighted to have been able to put down roots again to this extent, and we all feel much better and more productive in our present environment. I am exceedingly grateful to be well enough to take this risk and savor what it has already brought. Certainly I have had moments that have surpassed my expectations of what this dwelling place would provide, including my sighting just a few days ago of a Bald Eagle flying past my office window!
Even without a major life challenge like cancer, this would be the moment when I would expect to have to take stock. Children grown, or nearly; degrees earned; a measure of financial and geographical stability achieved (though not at all from my own doings)--all these signify a time to consider yet again what I want to do with my own life, apart from being a parent, a child, or a spouse.
I wish I had some solid answers, something dramatic to announce. I've been toying with a book project or two, and there is some chance that one will become a high priority by the end of the year. I've become far more involved politically, helped along in no small measure by my presence here at this site, at Netroots Nation, and from being a DFA Scholar to NN12 in Providence. I have plenty of room to expand my local involvement in environmental and social justice activism, opportunities that satisfy my need to be of use.
But I still yearn on some level for something more transcendent. It's in that vein I share with you the experiences and insights of a woman in Australia who has advanced uterine cancer, which at this point may not be treatable by conventional means. Please join me after the jump for a little bit of her story.
I participate to one degree or another in several online support communities for women with gynecological cancer, in addition to the in-person support group I attend weekly.
My involvement in them ebbs and flows with what I have to say, to ask, or to share. Of late, the group that's received most of my attention is a Facebook group for women with uterine cancer. There are some helpful conversations, and some interesting questions posed, and the FB format does make it fairly easy to take part (for good and ill).
Last week, a woman with a recent diagnosis of advanced cancer asked if there were any survivors of Stage III cancer in the group. Many women spoke up, which I found encouraging in and of itself. But the responses of one woman, PT Hirschfield, stood out.
This woman explained briefly that she'd had a diagnosis at Stage III in the summer of 2010, but that she'd had severe complications from the get-go: wound infections to start, and then after recurrence several other problems requiring multiple surgeries. A few months after the latest crisis, her doctors had told her she was terminal.
Upon considering what little her doctors could promise her from another debilitating round of chemotherapy and radiation, she decided to opt for "scuba therapy" instead. Whether it's choosing quality of life over quantity of life, she cannot tell. Who can? But for as long as she has, she's determined to live as deeply as possible.
Most of what I am reposting here comes from her blog, PinkTankScuba, in which she writes about her illness, her adventures, and her devotion to the sea. In most of her blog posts, she uploads some glorious videos of the creatures she encounters (human and otherwise) while on her dives. I strongly recommend a visit to her blog for the sake of her videography, and for her bright, indomitable spirit. (Yes, I do have her permission to share her story and her blog here.)
Here's a passage from her post, Live to Dive Another Day:
When I am underwater, I truly feel fully alive, and I bring that life back with me to the surface to sustain me until I can descend again. Having cancer reminds me how precious life truly is and only inspires me to celebrate being alive even more intensely. Every day is a gift from above and every dive is a blessing below. Every life is a wonder to behold, whether critter or human, ending young or growing old.
By sinking to the ocean floor, I transcend the worries of the world above, returning each time with something unique to celebrate. I intensify my joy by sharing my passion through my underwater photography and videos, encouraging others to deepen their own sense of awe and wonder about the glorious planet they too will only inhabit for a time.
What's particularly impressive in her account (corroborated by some of the comments on her blog posts) is that she describes herself as "the most fearful person you could ever meet.... I am a very different person today.... My only fear [now] is that I might waste a single moment of the life that has been given to me...".
I can't imagine undertaking the kind of physical adventures that make PT's heart sing; that's not my gift. But I definitely can relate to interpreting my diagnosis of cancer as a wake-up call. I don't know yet if there's any other discovery I need to make--but I will definitely keep my eyes and ears and heart open.
What about you? What motivation have you derived from your diagnosis? Do you see yourself as having a before and after in terms of your interests and goals? Where do you hope to be in one year, five years, ten?
As always, this is also an Open Thread. Thanks for coming to read tonight. And please do yourself a favor and check out PT's blog.
Monday Night Cancer Club is a Daily Kos group focused on dealing with cancer, primarily for cancer survivors and caregivers, though clinicians, researchers, and others with a special interest are also welcome. Volunteer diarists post Monday evenings between 7:30-8:30 PM ET on topics related to living with cancer, which is very broadly defined to include physical, spiritual, emotional and cognitive aspects. Mindful of the controversies endemic to cancer prevention and treatment, we ask that both diarists and commenters keep an open mind regarding strategies for surviving cancer, whether based in traditional, Eastern, Western, allopathic or other medical practices. This is a club no one wants to join, in truth, and compassion will help us make it through the challenge together.