Tomorrow I go to a hospital. I’m going to see the latest pictures of my brain: black and white scans on a computer screen, pixels loaded with implications for me.
Because tomorrow we talk options. “The tumour’s behaving like a glioblastoma,” said my surgeon a few weeks ago. It doesn’t look like we can wait anymore. Glioblastoma multiforme is the deadliest form of brain cancer. Median survival is fifteen months. No one survives.
Tomorrow I stroll into the cancer clinic, shake hands with my favourite oncologist, and he’ll lay my options out for me.
Which chemotherapy sounds best to you? There are plenty to choose from. And I’ll wade my way through treatment. Still, sooner or later, I’ll die. In the meantime, though, as cancer debilitates me, I am not dying.
I am living.
On Battles
They say I’m in a battle. That I’m a warrior. Sometimes I feel like that. The problem is that battles have winners and losers, and a warrior’s calibre depends on their bravery, determination and strength. Battles have endings, and mine only ends one way. If I “lose the battle,” that means I wasn’t brave, determined or strong enough, and cancer is not a matter of your character. It boils down to odds: will your particular cancer respond to a particular treatment? Flip a coin. It’s a question of probability, chance, sheer divine luck.
And my tumour is in my brain. Everything about me – my personality, my intelligence, everything – is located there. The tumour probably developed with my brain in childhood. It almost certainly shaped the person I’ve become. It differs from other cancers in that it isn’t just part of my body, it’s part of who I am. Rather than turn the tumour into a monster, rather than single-mindedly fend off death as long as possible, I prefer to live as vibrantly and joyfully as possible. I shift my focus from battling cancer to dancing with cancer. I don’t spend every waking minute trying to find ways to erase every cancer cell from my body; that’s not what beating cancer means. The only battle here is the fight to live gracefully, purposefully, happily. It’s as much a dance as it is a duel. If this is a battle, and cancer steals my pulse before Christmas, I’ll still have won.
If I’m 25 and still laughing from my deathbed, if I lived every day to appreciate the world’s beauty and change a little of its ugliness, if I strived for love and grace, then I won.
So tomorrow we talk options. Then, sometime, I’ll do more treatment. Sometime after that, I’ll die. Let’s hope it’s later rather than sooner, but either way, if it’s cancer that kills me and not a car crash or a serial killer or rabies (hey, even with terminal cancer, you never know), please don’t say I lost my battle.
I’ll win in the only way it matters, and I’ll be dancing on the way.
be11a1oma 