I am not Bowie

David Bowie was one of my favorite musical gods, don’t get me wrong. And I realize that he desired to lead a quiet life with his family in New York, unharassed by paparazzi and tabloids, which is why he hid the news of his illness from cancer from all but his very nearest friends and associates. But the press release announcing his death referred to his having fought a brave battle against cancer. Both things –hiding the diagnosis as though it were shameful, and viewing cancer as a battle or war to be fought – are completely contrary to the way I’ve treated my own cancer.

I’ve blogged before about not wanting to fight a war or wage a battle. I’m a lifelong pacifist who has watched too many friends fall to this disease, which they viewed as a struggle to be fought with every weapon at hand. Cancer-as-a-battle is a trope that I have turned my back on. And I don’t believe in cancer as a shame-to-be-hidden. I have told everyone I have encountered, cheerfully and without gloom, that I will soon be gone.

Instead of brooding darkly on my inability to change my fate in the face of this inexorable disease, and instead of hoping with false optimism that I’m going to live long enough for a cure to be discovered, I have done my best to maximize the satisfactions inherent in each additional ordinary day of life. I get up each morning knowing that I will probably not leave the house due to the frigid winter air mass outside, but finding happiness in simply being able to hang out all day in my lovely little ranch with its bright colors. I have a craft project I’m finishing up, and when it’s done I’ll start another one just to keep my hands busy. I have three books that I’m currently reading. I peruse the news of the day online. I look at Facebook, but I lurk silently more than I post anything. It’s just nice to see what my friends are up to, out in the world, untrammeled by disease.

Life is good, even the impaired life I’m currently leading. It’s good to still be able to eat. In fact it’s splendid news that I’m still able to eat, because this won’t last, so I make sure to enjoy each mouthful. I relish each minute of companionship when friends drop by to see me. I look out the windows when the winter sun emerges from behind cloud cover and marvel at the white sparkling quality of the snow on the ground and branches. I savor each minute of my life right now, and this is how I prepare for my impending death. Hopefully my death will be as good as my life for the past twelve years has been.

I’ve said it before, and will say it again now: despite having cancer, and despite the past twelve years being so generally excellent in general, the last twelve months of life with cancer have certainly been the happiest of my life so far in terms of daily happiness. I urge anyone else who has a new diagnosis to consider living well as the best way to respond to the challenge.

Bowie spent his last year dreading what was going to happen to him, and preparing music, drama and videos that all spoke of death and loss. If these things reflect the darkness and fear that turned over and over in his mind each day, then I am truly sorry for him. I only wish he could have experienced some of the happiness that I’ve discovered through cancer.

On food, and on nostalgia

I stopped eating mid-morning on October 28.

It’s not that I dislike food. But due to the growth of an incurable tumor that’s blocking my bowels (sorry for these grisly details), food that enters my body at one end is now unable to exit at the other end. I won’t describe the long week that led up to the decision to stop eating; but I guarantee that if you had experienced that awfulness yourself, you would understand my choice.

Because there is no Death With Dignity law in my state – no option for physician-assisted-death – I am very calmly starving to death. I can drink water, but I can’t drink smoothies, shakes, etc. because my body perceives them as solid foods.

Oddly, I felt no hunger until nearly three weeks into my fast. The sensation of hunger is now quite different than it was in the pre-cancer days, when I’d get cranky if my breakfast was forty minutes late.

I perceive hunger nowadays as visual images of the foods I used to love in the long-ago days of childhood, along with memories of how delicious those foods were. The main image I see is that of my father’s soft-boiled eggs, which he would cook for my brother Jim and me on Sunday mornings. Dad readied the eggs and prepared the toast using his watch’s second hand to ensure that both parts of the meal would be ready simultaneously. I can still clearly see, smell, and even taste those memory-eggs, yolks broken and spreading out slowly over slices of golden-brown buttered toast, with fresh fruit to follow.

Because eating at this point has become purely theoretical, a harmless exercise in nostalgia, I’ve begun compiling a mental list of foods that I find pleasing, comforting, or simply delicious. Let’s begin with apples. Because I was born in upstate New York, the heritage variety Northern Spy was the first apple I ever tasted. To me, it’s how an apple ought to taste: packed with juicy flavor, both sweet and acidic at the same time.

Using Northern Spies, or the tartest substitute apples she could find, my mom baked exquisite apple pie throughout my childhood, featuring plump raisins and molasses. Later on when I worked as the baker at the old Uptown Café (1980-’81), I used her recipe. The wait staff told me that one regular Friday night customer used to drive down each week from Indianapolis just to eat my apple pie.

Another outstanding sweet childhood comfort food included homemade tapioca pudding. – But hold on! At this moment, a large number of readers out there are exclaiming “Tapioca? No way! YUCK!!!” based on their memories of the horrible “fish-egg” commercial pudding of their youth. But tapioca pudding is wonderful when made by hand and eaten warm from the stovetop; and because it’s mainly milk and egg, it’s modestly nutritious as desserts go. I always lessen the amount of sugar and use large farm eggs with orange-colored yolks for best results. Ambrosia of the gods! (Sound of lips kissing fingertips in ecstasy.)

Home fries are fabulous, especially when cooked in bacon grease, and hash browns are basically a different form of the same thing. Last year I achieved a state of perfection in my hash browns: evenly browned and without any tendency to stick to the pan. Here’s how to do it. While the frying pan is heating a 50/50 blend of cooking oil and butter, shred one to three potatoes (it’s great fun to use spuds of different colors: yellow, purple, white). Taking this moist lump between your hands, stand above the sink and squeeze out as much as possible of the starchy juice. Then spread the shredded potatoes evenly across the bottom of the hot skillet. Apply seasonings and then press flat with the spatula, frying gently. When the hash browns turn medium-brown around the edges, it’s time to lift and flip. Hash browns prepared this way will lift up in a uniform mass, much like a pancake.

Great meat foodstuffs range from humble to high. I will never forget the sandwich from an old-style Jewish deli (a real East Coast deli, not a yuppie deli with pretenses) consisting of a mountain of rosy corned beef piled between thick slabs of rye with tangy mustard. But then again, how can one say one has really lived until one has eaten pork chops complete with all the succulent crispy fat around the edges? But, more suitable for summer picnics, and situated at the opposite end of the meat spectrum, I remember mountains of Hebrew National bratwursts drenched in ketchup and mustard. Back in the day, Hebrew National’s dogs popped enticingly when you bit into them and they were far tastier than other brands like Oscar Meyer, Vienna Beef, etc. But like so many other things, they may have degraded in quality over the years, and now we’ve got a wide selection of artisanal sausage products. They’re undoubtedly made with superior meat, but still, I can’t forget those Hebrew National brats and hot dogs of my youth.

As for great vegetable dishes, I love mixed baby veggies sautéed together in butter at the opening of each summer. It’s heavenly to eat fresh cherry tomatoes warm from the sun, plucked off the vine and eaten right there in the garden. And there’s invariably a feral butternut squash vining and twining from the compost bin, the taste of which is incomparable.

For dairy dishes, give me a large, heavy portion of traditional cottage cheese/sour cream noodle kugel. Or homemade kefir, which I kept in a glass on the counter and regarded as a useful pet that lived in the kitchen. This, with a smudge of dark cherry concentrate stirred into it, was divine on a hot summer’s day. And of course I should mention The Milkshake Diet, which I spent some time on in the summer of 1984 when I was young and unemployed and living on less than two dollars a day. For breakfast: a leftover carrot or apple or banana. Nothing for lunch. Around mid-afternoon, when the hunger pains began to mount, I’d take my two bucks and go to the Indiana Sweet Shop for one of their enormous quart-size sludgy chocolate milkshakes, where the coldness of the huge drink would immediately induce a small localized headache in the center of my forehead. The caloric value of the milkshake meant that I would not be hungry again until the following morning’s breakfast. And thus, in a single meal, I had carbs, protein and fat, the three building blocks of nutrition (or so I assured myself).

I no longer eat any of these things. But I remember them with enormous fondness, and they are what is now sustaining me in these last weeks on earth. Who knows: if there is a Hereafter, I think perhaps I’ve earned a good seat at the table.

Accessing Cancer’s Silver Lining

[This public presentation was delivered at The Venue on July 21, 2015.]

My name is Carrol Krause and I was diagnosed last year with an incurable cancer. All the same, I’m leading a happy life right now, thanks to the upside of cancer. The upside, what you could call the silver lining, is something that very few people talk about, even though it deserves to be much better known.

The word “cancer” is almost always a word that makes people shudder. We associate cancer with pain and suffering, and death and loss. In our minds we think of cancer patients as wracked with pain, emaciated, weak, and bald.

But many of our assumptions about cancer are stereotypes that don’t necessarily hold up. Right now I’m living with Stage Four cancer, and look at me! I still feel good, I’m not yet in pain, and I’m extremely happy to be here.

I have learned that cancer doesn’t necessarily have to be something that’s bleak and dark. It’s a question of shifting my attitude to perceive the glass as half-full instead of half-empty. Instead of lamenting the fact that I’m going to die sooner rather than later, I’m busy enjoying the time I have left, to my fullest ability.

Each cancer patient, of course, approaches their situation in a way that’s completely unique and valid and right for them. I’m in no way suggesting that my way is superior to anyone else’s. It’s simply the way that I reacted to the biggest challenge of my life. I put it forth here in hopes that it might prove helpful to other people with cancer, or people who are experiencing other serious difficulties.

I responded to my cancer diagnosis by promising myself that I would live my remaining days to the best of my ability, and that I would enjoy every moment possible. I have remained active, I exercise daily and I continue to set projects and goals for myself. Although I quit my beloved job as “Homes” journalist for the Herald-Times, I continue to write blog posts.

My approach is based on having lost my two best college friends to lung cancer. Statistically, this is nothing unusual. Most of you have already experienced the loss of a friend, associate or family member from cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately a third of all Americans now living will develop cancer in their lifetime.

But back to my friends. They were the women who knew me when I was young and fancy-free. They knew me better than anyone else on earth, other than my husband. So the way in which they lived and died could not help but make a very powerful impression on me.

One of these two friends reacted to her diagnosis with fear and anger. She basically turned her face to the wall and died. I can’t blame her, she had two small children and a career that she loved and had struggled for, and cancer came along and ruined everything. My other friend fought her cancer valiantly and chose to become a soldier in the struggle against her disease. She succeeded in winning a remission of a year and a half, against all odds, which is something she should have been happy about.

But I was horrified and grieved when she told me that she had never enjoyed a single day of that remission. Her disease hung over her head like a dark cloud. She constantly fretted about her health instead of enjoying herself. She knew it would come back and she would have to start up the fight all over again, so she lived in constant dread throughout her remission. And it DID come back, just as she had feared. She experienced increasing levels of panic until the day they took her to the hospital for the last time. When she finally accepted the fact that she was dying, and there was nothing else she could do about it, she whispered “hallelujah.” By this she meant: thank goodness I don’t have to fight any more. She never spoke again, and died soon after.

It made my heart ache to think that she never had a single joyous day with her husband during the entire time she had cancer.

Every person who loses a loved one to cancer is deeply affected by the loss. After my own diagnosis with cancer, I thought constantly about my two departed friends. And I realized I didn’t want to live and die like they did. It just isn’t my style to wrap myself in fear and anger like my first friend. And I didn’t want to become a soldier fighting ceaselessly against cancer either, like my other friend.

Here’s where we come to one of the most common stereotypes about cancer: cancer as a battle. You’ve probably noticed that the obituaries of people who die from cancer are almost always phrased as “John Doe died after a long battle with cancer,” or “Jane Doe died after bravely waging war on her cancer.” To me, this is a bad metaphor. It’s a trope. It’s a lazy habit that we automatically adopt without taking the trouble to consider alternative ways to look at cancer.

I myself tend toward pacifism. I don’t want to fight anything or anyone. Nor do I want to engage in battles or wage wars. I was a child during the Vietnam War. I lived through the war in the Gulf, the war in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq. I’ve also seen the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, and the War on Terrorism. (Those all went down “well,” didn’t they?) I have never known a successful war in my lifetime.

For me, the word “war” has come to mean a struggle that’s impossible to win. So if I were to adopt the metaphor of waging war against my cancer, it means it means I’m committing to a hopeless fight that’s lost from the start.

Therefore, instead of battling my illness I have chosen to embrace health instead. And my doctor and I are “treating” my cancer, not waging war against it.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there are a number of other worn-out stereotypes and formulas clinging to the idea of cancer. For instance, many people think of cancer as something that’s intrinsically “other,” some kind of hostile being embedded within them, like in the movie “Alien.” Many cancer patients refer to their own cancers in a way that objectifies and separates them. They talk about “the cancer,” or “it,” as though it was something separate from their bodies. “The cancer isn’t responding to treatment. It requires another round of chemo.”

But my cancer isn’t an alien thing.  It’s “my” cancer. It’s part of me. It’s curled up delicately between the organs in my abdomen. It grew from the cells of my own body. I talk to it. I tell it “Hey, if you keep on growing, you’re going to kill both of us. But if you stop right now, we can both live on together for quite a while.” Even if it can’t hear me, or respond, I still regard it as part of my body. And because I claim ownership and possession of it, it helps me feel some degree of control over the situation, instead of being merely a helpless victim.

One of the most common formulaic things that many people do when they hear that someone has cancer is to ask “Why did this happen?” I hate to break it to you, but this is really a pointless question, and a waste of time, because in most cases there’s no easy answer. My cancer was not caused by an inherited genetic defect. It was caused by a random mutation which sprang up all by itself, perhaps with help from solar radiation, X-rays, the aging process, a virus, who knows? But I ate organic food for 20 years, exercised moderately every day and maintained a BMI within acceptable ranges. I had none of the known risk factors for ovarian cancer. This stuff simply happens.

Another stereotype, another assumption, is the idea that cancer is something that’s completely horrible, a disease from which you can derive no comfort whatsoever. It CAN be horrible, certainly, but it isn’t always. After all, more and more people today are living with cancer instead of dying immediately. I had major abdominal surgery followed by four or five months of pretty nasty chemotherapy.  It was not a walk in the park by any means, but I was very happy to be alive. I continued working my job with the paper, I kept on seeing my friends, and I scheduled my interviews for the period during each four-week chemo cycle when I had the most energy. And I even derived a grim satisfaction from the sight of the long scar on my belly, and the cancer port on my chest. “Hey,” I joked to my friends, “those kids are all out there getting tribal tattoos and piercings and big plugs in their earlobes, but I’ve got something in the way of body modification that’s WAY more bad-ass!”

So I started with a good attitude at the beginning of my treatment. But when I turned to the Internet for information and comfort during those first few months, everything I found there was indeed horrifying.

My particular kind of cancer is known as Malignant Mixed Mullerian Tumor, MMMT. It’s also called carcinosarcoma. Neither of those names inspires a feeling of confidence. It’s commonly referred to on the online cancer forums as “a beast” and “a monster.” It grows rapidly and there is no cure.

Ordinary ovarian cancer affects about 1.5% of all women. My cancer in turn represents about 2% of that 1.5%. There are probably fewer than 200 women with this disease alive in the US right now. And that’s not particularly comforting. Because it’s so rare, there’s very little research being done on it, because it doesn’t represent a source of profit for the pharmaceutical industry.

So I had to manufacture my own comfort somehow. I thought about my two friends and how I wanted a different path than theirs. I thought about how there is no cure for this disease, and ultimately, no hope for me. Then I began thinking about how I was alive instead of dead. And I went over in my mind all the things that make me happy, all the things that make me feel most myself.

One day I happened to be listening to the WFHB’s Golden Age Radio and I heard the old song “Accentuate the Positive, Eliminate the Negative”. Something clicked inside at the sound of those words. It became a sort of mantra for me, because it was exactly what I needed to do: eliminate the negative, and accentuate the positive. The positive was that I was still alive after almost dying before my condition was properly diagnosed.

So I resolved not to be angry or fearful. I also decided that I needed to accept the inevitable. After all, death is a necessary part of the life cycle, and to be born is to receive a death sentence. All of us learned during childhood not to sulk or get mad when we got fairly beaten in a game. We all have to lose a game sometimes, and fairness has nothing to do with it. It’s the luck of the draw, it’s the cards you happen to be dealt. We all know that our lives are finite, and this fact is simply not negotiable. So I felt it best to try to be a good sport about it all.

I have no intrinsic objection to the fact that at some point I need to get out of the way and leave the earth to other people. I have no desire to live on as a “brain in a bottle,” as one or two of my friends hope to become. To me, the idea of being stored inside a mass of circuitry, unable to walk in the sunlight or smell honeysuckle on the breeze, THAT would be a cruel death indeed, a living torture. I’m very happy that I was born, happy that I am here; I will not file an objection to having to leave when my time is up.

So I accepted the fact that my life was going to end sooner rather than later. And to my surprise, I found that the act of acceptance turned out to be extremely calming.

When I told my surgeon that I accepted whatever happened, and was not panic-stricken or fearful, he was impressed. He shook my hand and said “Congratulations! You have just skipped to the finish line of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages of Dealing with Grief.” (Those stages are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.) So, after leading an ordinary life for 56 years, it appears that I have finally become an enlightened being!

Here’s where I come to the Silver Lining. I must have done something right, because to my surprise, and without consciously intending to do so, I find that living each day with cancer has become far more delightful. I wake up happy just to be alive. I never gripe about the weather nowadays, because whether it’s hot and humid, or cold and sleeting, I’m just happy to see it at all.

And I feel things more keenly nowadays. It’s a lot like being young again. Think of how deeply children are touched to the core by their senses and their experiences. When we were young, everything was intensely new and fresh and wonderful. We thrilled to the sensations of our young thoughts and feelings. And then we got older, and now we find that we’re bolting our food down without really tasting anything beyond the first bite. We skim the headlines instead of reading the articles in depth. We drive with cruise control instead of really paying attention to the road. We make assumptions without waiting for all the facts to come in first. And slowly, bit by bit, this is how we lose the ability to savor the little lovely things that surround us.

Well, cancer reconnected me to those little things. I find tears of joy swimming in my eyes simply when I hear the sound of an orchestra playing, or when I gaze at Monet’s paintings at the museum, or when I look at a new baby. It’s exquisite to catch the aroma of flowers in the garden, or to see a wonderful sunset. I get really excited nowadays just seeing cottonwood fluff floating through the air, backlit by the sun. To see and feel things this way again, after so many years of not really paying much attention, is incredible. It’s a gift. And this gift is definitely worth a death sentence. This is the Silver Lining of cancer.

Despite everything that’s happened to me, I still consider myself to be a very fortunate person. I love my family, I love my friends, I loved my job for eleven years. And I actually achieved my childhood dream of becoming a writer and an author! Despite having cancer, I’m very happy with the way my life has turned out.

I spoke recently with a friend about all this. Now, this friend has had a hard time in life, and she has many regrets. She’s currently working a minimum wage job in a rural area with no cultural resources and she’s saddled with massive credit card debt. She told me mournfully, “But Carrol, I’ve made a lot of mistakes. If I got cancer right now, I would be pretty depressed about my life.”

She was thinking that her glass was mostly empty, simply because she didn’t have the stereotypical markers of American “success”: a picture-perfect house, a happy family, and lots of money. Well, she’s not alone. Most people nowadays in this new economic and political environment don’t have a glass that’s brimming over. Most of us have glasses that are only partly full. And because of my cancer, my metaphorical glass is a lot less full than other people’s. My glass doesn’t have money inside it, either. But my glass does contain a lot of glowing sunsets and cottonwood fluff.

My friend has a lot more going for her than she thinks she does. She’s going to live longer than I will, for starters. She is also a gentle, kind, and compassionate soul, which in an ever more callous world is something to be very proud of. Despite having no training, she has become one of the best nature photographers I know, someone whose work is worthy of being in National Geographic. When she gets home from work each day, she takes long walks through the nearby woods and along the river, and these walks recharge her emotional batteries and refresh her spirituality. She has a beautiful dog who arrived at her door as a starving stray, and who gives her unswerving companionship, love, and comfort. She collects beautiful small objects that have meaning to her. And she has a large network of friends who care deeply about her wellbeing. She’s got a glass that’s definitely at least half-full, if not more.

My point is this: When times are hard, or when life itself is dwindling, we all need to look at our glass again, and re-envision it as half-full instead of half-empty, and then think of all the wonderful things that are represented inside it. To do this requires an adjustment of attitude, but it is well worth the time and effort. The contents of that half-glass can definitely pull you out of depression and renew your life.

It’s good for all of us to consider the many things in life that give us joy. All of us possess inner riches which have nothing to do with money or conventional markers of financial success. To have loving friends, to engage in a creative activity, to take long walks in the woods, to simply grow a garden: these things are priceless, and beyond the value of money.  These things thrill our hearts; these things reward us. These are the things that truly make us happy.

When life is stressful, or when life itself is nearing its end, most of us aren’t going to reach over to caress our checkbook and credit cards. We will reach out instead to our loved ones, we will cuddle our pets, we will admire those orange sunsets, and we will hug and kiss the people who inspire us with good feelings. These things make us human; these are the things that make us more humane. When we’re at our lowest ebb, these things will give us new inspiration and emotional strength. And this is why I am filling the remainder of my life with flowers, birds, walks, conversations, weaving and spinning, meals with loving friends.

Lastly, having cancer has taught me the importance of expressing my gratitude. I am indescribably grateful to be able to see and feel things so keenly again. I am also grateful that I’m not in worse physical condition than I am despite being Stage Four. I’m grateful to my friends and my family, and for their ceaseless love and support. I’m grateful to the many people who prayed for me.

I’m grateful to be able to walk each day, and to inhale the sweet scent of my lilies in bloom. I’m grateful to have seen one of the best firefly displays since my childhood. I’m grateful to have seen my blueberry bushes bent double to the ground with the most massive crop I can recall. And I’m grateful to all of you for coming here today.

It might seem odd, but I found that the very act of expressing gratitude in turn makes me feel even more grateful. So each day I mentally go over the many things I’m grateful for, because in some strange way, doing this nourishes my soul.

As the old man said in the Monty Python skit, “I’m not dead yet!” Despite being Stage Four, I’m still alive, and newly awakened to the joy that surrounds me. I’m avoiding the old tropes and stereotypes that only hold me back and make me feel worse. I even planted a garden this spring, not knowing whether I would make it until the harvest. But here I am!

My hope is that our outmoded stereotypes about cancer can be replaced with more wholesome attitudes that will truly benefit patients. I feel very strongly that each person who gets a cancer diagnosis should be able to obtain some form of emotional health support. And this can be done by helping new cancer patients to understand that there IS a silver lining to cancer, a beautiful one! It’d be great if each new cancer patient was shown how to focus properly on the half-full glass that they’re holding.

Even when a glass is half-empty, there’s still a good drink remaining. And even when it’s nearly gone, when you get down to those last few sips…if you maintain a good attitude, those could be the best sips of all.

Half-full or half-empty?

Living with cancer, I can’t deny that my glass is definitely half empty, probably more than half empty. Some people in my position would fret over the fact that there’s so little left to enjoy. But I look at the water that remains at the bottom and tell myself “Hey, there are still several good sips remaining. I’ll enjoy each one of them as much as I can.” It’s simply a matter of perspective.

Another way of looking at it is to think of a coin which represents cancer. One side is pain, suffering, and death. The other side is the life that still remains to be lived, the good times with friends and family, the things that are still capable of being accomplished and enjoyed. Everyone with a serious disease—or a serious problem in life—can learn to flip that coin over and access the good side, the same way they can learn to enjoy the last sips of water left at the bottom of the glass.

This isn’t necessarily easy. I have to work on my own attitude every day, and I’ve had plenty of darkness to ponder over the course of the past thirteen or fourteen months. But over time it grows easier. The daily mental exercise of altering one’s perspective is a discipline akin to practicing scales, or meditation, or exercising.

I have an incurable rare cancer that will take my life, and I can’t help but think of that every day. But I also ask myself “What can I do to fully enjoy this unique spring day?” Right now I am doing all the things that I really want to do. I’m working on creative projects; gardening; playing guitar and singing; spending time with my family and dearest friends; and taking long walks. This is how I enjoy those sips at the bottom of the glass.

Also, I recently threw myself a party called Carrol’s Last Chance To Dance, inviting guests who for the most part represented my youth in Bloomington in the early 1980s when I worked at the original Uptown Cafe.

Photos are silent, but wonderful music was playing and people were in the groove.

I wanted to recreate a time and place when I was young and optimistic and healthy. Old friends came from all over the nation to help me do this, traveling back to Bloomington from Las Cruces, New York City, Chapel Hill, and rural Wisconsin. One dear friend even flew from Zurich, Switzerland. People went to great effort and much expense to come to this event despite having very little advance notice.

It was indescribably wonderful to be surrounded by such love and support. There was more hugging than I’ve seen in ages, as old friends, colleagues, and ex-lovers all met again in one place, united by a single cause: to dance and have fun with me. I danced for three hours running, just as if I were young again. Indeed, with the sense of vitality and happiness that filled me, it felt as though I could live (and dance) forever. Not bad for a 56-year-old woman with a fatal disease; although some people undoubtedly wondered how I could party like this, knowing what lies in store. But that’s exactly why I did it! I want to make the most of my time on earth, to flip that dark coin over to its reverse, to sip from that sweet drink at the bottom of the glass.

My glass is half-full, not half-empty, and the top of my coin is bright and shining. Cancer has taught me that we all need to create and share as much joy and laughter as we possibly can. So if my health holds, perhaps I’ll throw another dance party.

🙂

The silver lining

Everyone fears cancer. It’s the bugaboo lurking in the dark corner of the room; it’s what killed Aunt Lucy, and neighbor Kim, and the bald man who used to work in your office, and the kid in your child’s class. It’s the Big C. But as a person living with cancer, I suggest that it also has a silver lining that’s too often overlooked.

A cancer diagnosis makes you reassess the important things in life. It gives you permission to step out of the rat race and redirect your energy. It shows you the love that exists on all sides. It lets you revel in the loveliness of sunbeams, or newly-fallen snow, like a hippie blissing on LSD.

My silver lining is filled with love and beauty. Cancer can make each moment very similar to a mindfulness meditation. It enhances the importance of life itself. I relish each day that passes in a way I could not imagine back in the days when I assumed that life would go on and on indefinitely. Life is good, life is sweet; and all the more so after you realize that it is finite.

I’ve spoken with several people with cancer who agree that they have also found a silver lining in their lives. So why does our culture at large not publicize the fact that there can be an up-side to a cancer diagnosis?

Our culture has forced our idea of the disease into a one-size-fits-all mold of dread and fear. But not every cancer is alike, and not every diagnosis is a death sentence. More and more people are being successfully treated, or are managing to live for a while with the disease. Cancer is no longer something to speak of with hushed tones in the next room, out of hearing of the patient (or a dread fact to conceal altogether from the patient, as they used to do in the old days).

A cancer diagnosis is a serious matter, of course, not to be laughed at. My own form of cancer generally proves fatal within one to three years, even after chemotherapy. But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t enjoy myself in the here and now. I believe that all cancer patients should be told that there is an up-side to be found. It’s baffling that emotional-health counseling is not yet automatically part of every cancer care package. Counseling is not considered to be an important and intrinsic part of the treatment, but is an extra that must be sought out, and paid for, by the patient.  Counselors should emphasize the fact that there CAN be a bright side to a diagnosis. This will make a huge difference to patients’ well-being.

It will be a huge step forward when each new cancer patient is shown how to uncover that silver lining and use it to best effect in his or her daily life. Good health begins with healthy attitudes!