What I Got

I have this nagging thought. People keep bringing up things like “strength” and “courage.” It’s flattering, and I greatly appreciate it when people refer to me in such terms, but I can’t help doubting whether I deserve it. To me, it doesn’t seem courageous to do something you’re forced into. I was never given a choice in any of this. The fact that I’m getting through it isn’t strength or courage. That’s just life. What else am I supposed to do?

“You’ve shown strength and character by not being bitter and wondering why this happened to you,” someone will tell me, for example.

Really? To me, that’s simply acting like a man and not being a bitch about this. I never spent one second wondering why this happened to me because I honestly don’t care. Would it make me feel better to find out why? Would it change my situation at all? And did I really need cancer to teach me that life isn’t fair?

I do, however, think I’m stronger today than I was six months ago, because strength comes with perspective, wisdom, and appreciation. Last year, I was like many others, I suppose, who had never been exposed to cancer and can’t understand anything about it. Any time I ever heard about someone having cancer and going through chemo, all I could think was, “That’s bad.” That was all it could be to me.

Now I understand.

Chemotherapy is not medicine.

Taking medicine is turning to a friend in a time of need. Undergoing chemotherapy is shaking hands with a terrorist because you’ve got nowhere else to turn.

Medicine cures your ailment and makes you feel better with no strings attached. Chemotherapy says, with a grin, “OK, I’ll make you feel better eventually, but first I need a few things. I’m going to take the hair on your body. Hope you have a lot. I’m going to take any athleticism and stamina you had before for safe keeping while I work. I’m going to put a little animal inside your stomach, and try to be nice because this little bastard has a furious temper. You never know what will set him off. I think he finds it funny when he throws a tantrum in the middle of the night. Oh, and I’ll need your ego and pride as collateral until we’re done.”

I used one of my fight analogies to explain this to a friend. Your body grows accustomed to medicine. They work together. Your body is in a two-fisted battle with chemotherapy. The punches in the first round get your attention, but you shake them off, thinking you can take more. By the eighth round, the impact is growing, as you’ve taken a few good shots by now. Your recovery time gets longer and longer, and you start to wonder if you're really as tough as you boasted when the fight began.

Doesn’t this sound like a blast? Of course it doesn’t. But there’s nothing else to do.