(Catechism: "A set of questions designed to determine knowledge.")
What has cancer taught you?
Nothing.
What has cancer reminded you of?
All the things that I've let go unnoticed in a busy life.
Are you therefore grateful for these reminders?
No.
Why not?
There are many other ways of being reminded of what matters than having your abdomen sliced open.
So your cancer was in your gut?
It's wasn't my cancer, thank you very much, but yes, that's where they found it. Today, my upper colon is two feet shorter than it used to be.
Sounds like, as cancer victims go, you've had it pretty easy.
Yes. There was no evidence of spread. No need for chemo. On hearing that news, I fell to me knees in gratitude.
So, you're at least grateful to cancer for . . .
I'm not grateful to cancer for anything. Cancer is not a teacher. It's not God's way of saying "straighten up and fly right." It's not a wake-up call. It's a disease.
Getting a little touchy here, aren't we?
Let me ask you a question: What is it with cancer as a learning experience? As a path to self-discovery? As a TV series?
Hey. I'm asking the questions here.
OK. I'll answer my own questions then. To repeat, cancer is a disease. An affliction. An invader. A killer. There's been a "war" on against it for decades, and the good guys don't appear to be winning. It accounts for untold misery, uncounted trillions in research and hospitalization costs. It's ugly and devilishly resourceful. Its various treatments can bring as much pain and misery as the disease itself. It is nobody's friend. Nobody's teacher. And certainly nobody's excuse for a cute, edgy TV series.
Are you listening?
Yeah. You're saying cancer's basically good for nothing, right?
Wrong.
Wrong?!
Cancer -- or any other catastrophic disease or injury -- can be "good" for one thing: it can provide an occasion for something else to happen, to be realized, in a life. It can be the occasion for others to respond to a sudden, drastic need. It can allow a total stranger to demonstrate life-saving skills. It can bring a phone call from a long-lost friend, an awkward pat on the back from a tongue-tied colleague. It can be the occasion for a still-warm cream cheese bagel to make its way to a starving patient in a lonely hospital room. And perhaps best of all, its removal -- not its presence, never its presence -- can send a guy to his knees in gratitude.
With cancer, occasion is all. Maybe that's what "The Big C" will ultimately demonstrate. But you don't have to be hospitalized to live your life as if every day were your last. Ram Dass didn't wait until he suffered a near-fatal stroke before he urged people to "be here now." His is not an easy prescription, but it's a far better one than the kind an oncologist may one day give you.
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Erica K
Patty Kane Horrigan
Alan Milner
Christine Bollerud
Christina Simon
Ann Bancroft
Salon.com
Comments
And, well-done.
So, does this mean you now have a semicolon?
Damn skippy. And what ablonde and molly said.
BTW, Go There Later works, if now sucks.
Like the song says: "y'just Colon me brother, when you need a hand.." Wait. That doesn't sound right
Funny how we can think of pain, hurt and misery as something good just because people often react compassionately to the person struck by the tragedy. Twisted logic. Very glad you exposed the lie.
Monte
Ablonde: Amen.
Molly: Amen again.
Kathy: Thanks, ma'am.
Late: I'll admit I had my touchy-feely post-op moments, but again, my response to cancer brought it on, not the cancer itself.
Jonathan: Thanks man.
Lea: Ablonde gets another vote. Hope to see you & Jonathan come October.
Jim: You know what they say -- you can take the cancer out of the reporter, but you can't take the reporter out of the . . . or words to that effect. And I laughed out loud at your punctuation question.
ame: I think we're coming to a consensus here on the all-round suckiness of this freakin disease. My dad died of it too, sister has melanoma. I'm glad you've emerged from the worst of it.
Greg: Another vote for Ablonde! Will try Go There Later. Right Now. And that lyric sounds fine to me.
Monte: I didn't know what I was going to say about cancer & its occasions until I wrote the post. I just knew I felt like cancer being given a treatment on TV that struck me as wrong -- I've seen cancer cause a lot of things, but turning cartwheels isn't one of them. Thanks for your thoughtful comment.
Doc & Jim: We're sympatico, yes?
Gail: I'm honored to stand accused. Guilty! And if anyone's reading these comments, be sure and check out Gail's tale of urban travail, "Lost in NYC." It's a delight.
Christine: I didn't get noticeably odd until I was about 18. I've never had reason to regret it, either. If you're like me, quite a few book I read at that time pretty much escaped me but going back to them has been a pleasure. Hello, Mr. Faulkner. Mr. Hemingway. I'm reading "The Iliad" just now, which is about as far back you can go, having finally acquired the patience and interest in fundamental artistry. I'm sure you'll recognize a lot about yourself and fellow man in "Be Here Now." Thanks for stopping by.
"! Even that phrase, 'the big C', gives it too much credit. It's isn't 'big', it's small and sneaky and slithery."
I've always disliked that phrase -- to my knowledge, it was popularized by none other than John Wayne. "I beat the Big C," he or his publicist declared after surgery for lung cancer. Ultimately, of course, it beat him.
We don't seem to know what to make of cancer, so it's awfully hard to know how to describe the experience of it. For the most part, humor has been my recourse; maybe Wayne, being Wayne, had to deal with it in macho terms. Christopher Hitchens, I've noticed, has been just as tart and provocative in describing his experience of it as he is in describing anything else that he examines.
And yes, four feet of colon do just as good a job as six feet of it. I'm well and hope you are too after what sounds like the tour of a lifetime.
Acai Advanced
Nox Edge
Leanspa
Leanspa
Nothing beats having a good old boy conversation with yourself. Especially when the two of you two end up in agreement. Well done!
Steve