Cancer is an Endurance Sport

What do you do when you find out your life will be shorter than you hoped? How do you keep going?

You keep going because everyday is a gift and everyday living means one more day with all the people you love. You do it by remembering to be grateful for what you have had. You take one step, one breath at a time.

I am trying to remember this quote from When Breath Becomes Air - "I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality has changed nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn't know when."

I am looking at this newest news about my cancer and really struggling to wrap my head around it. The cancer is still growing, we have exhausted the top shelf treatments. Now we go to plan B - immunotherapy - I can be on it for two years. It is an every 3 week infusion with the usual side effect nonsense (see scary commercial for Keytruda).. The goal: slow the cancer down. Yeah not talking remission anymore.

So maybe in those two years, I will get strong enough to tolerate chemo again, maybe a great clinical trial will come along and I will be eligible, maybe we can combine another medication with this immunotherapy to make it have more efficacy. A lot of maybes. Not the best news I have had in this year of living with cancer.

My cancerversary is December 15, that is when we discovered it was there. So what does one do on their cancerversary? I guess it depends on where you are along the journey. I just don’t think I want a cake or party. Maybe just big deep breaths is enough.

I don’t like the fighting analogy, see previous rant about that. I think a better analogy is endurance sports, specifically biking, because I know what that feels like. So this last year I rode the cancer century ride. It was rough, there were moments when I wanted off the bike, but I kept pedaling and I made it through year one. Now I am being asked to get right back on the bike with no break and ride a longer rider. I know it will suck, there will be moments when I don’t think I can pedal anymore, but I will.

To get this new big ride started I will walk everyday and get strong. I will try to eat even when I don’t want to. I will learn to live with my ileostomy (Mr. Sweet the stoma). I will sleep when I need to. I will visit with friends often. I will spend as much time as I can with Cherie and Anna. And between all that I will go happily to all my appointments. I will hope.