Why we fight

This has been one of those weeks when a flurry of events remind you that life is full of possibilities and revelations -- some wonderful and some terrible. The same day I got the job at the Playhouse (which has gotten off to a great start and has kept me running all week), I also heard that a friend who has already fought two battles with cancer must now gear up for one more. When she went in for a doctor's appointment to determine what was causing her painful cough, she learned she has seven new tumors scattered all around her body.
News like this instantly puts all the other problems in the world in perspective. Suddenly, my laundry list of issues (set up a post office box, buy new black shoes, see "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," etc.) looked ridiculously petty.
After a certain age, I think we all realize we are very much mortal and none of us is going to live forever. Even so, with the amazing strides medicine has made in the last 10 or 20 years most of us see ourselves living into our 80s or even our 90s; my friend is barely in her mid-50s.
The news is, of course, devastating to her. "I don't know how long I have left," she wrote in an e-mail. "My doctor just keeps staring at her shoes when I ask her."
I sent a reply immediately. "Whatever you do, do not allow yourself to give in to despair or resignation. People do come back from the edge, and a lot more often than they used to. Don't give up hope yet. Being realistic does not have to mean preparing for the worst. You have an indomitable spirit and a strong circle of support around you, as you well know. Get your rest, take it all at your own pace, keep looking for new information whenever you can and don't allow your doctors to avoid your questions. Above all else, if at all possible, envision this as a struggle you have to get through and not as the end of everything."
Perhaps this sounds hopelessly hopeful, but I was not playing Pollyanna. In conversations with doctors, therapists and healers over the years, I have heard again and again how crucially important it is to face a health crisis with a positive attitude. If you admit defeat right off the bat, it's as if you have opened up the doors of your home and said, "Come on in, burglars: I'll show you where all the valuables are."
I knew a young man who worked as a publicist in Chicago in the 1980s. He went to Ireland for a vacation, came home and realized he wasn't feeling quite right. He went to the hospital, expecting to hear he had food poisoning, or stomach trouble. Instead, when the bloodwork came back, the doctor told him he was HIV-positive and the man instantly began fearing the worst. Within a week, he was dead. Granted, this was in the late 1980s when the concept of living with HIV seemed almost like science-fiction. But who knows how much longer my friend might have had if he had chosen to put up a fight instead of literally laying down and dying?
When I was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2002, I thought back to that particular case and what a tragedy it was, that someone so young (he wasn't even 30) let go of life so easily. I vowed I was not going to allow that to happen to me. I gave myself 10 minutes to sit at home, alone, and run through all the worst-case scenarios and get extremely worked-up and emotional. And then, at the end of the 10 minutes, I said, "Now, let's get on with it." I pushed all that melodrama and misery out of my mind (and no, it was not easy) and concentrated instead on finding out as much as I could about my disease, about the surgery I would need, available post-operative treatments, side-effects, etc. By the time I started telling my family and friends about my condition, I could also tell them about the exceedingly high recovery rate and what I would need to do. It wasn't tears and screaming and hand-wringing and making funeral plans.
I would go in to my doctors with a notebook and print-outs of information I'd picked up. One of my doctors found this very disorienting, apparently. "I've never seen anyone do this kind of thing before," he said, as I sat taking detailed notes about seminomas and their response to radiation. I replied I wanted to be as well-informed as possible so that I could make intelligent choices. He was used to people breaking down and going to pieces. "I could do that," I said. "But what's the point? The more I know, the less I feel afraid."
Well, you might say, that's all good and well for you, but not everybody can do that, especially if you've been told you have seven tumors. Of course, that's true. But you have to make an effort. You have make a commitment to get through this situation. I feel confident once my friend gets over the initial shock of her diagnosis, she'll brace herself once again for another war with cancer. She has no choice. It's truly a matter of life and death.