Re: Ill ask because I don't know...
It is simply that there were a few other options I could have chosen but getting the damn cancer out of me overwhelmed rational thought! I didn't think the "side effects" would be as depressing for me as they are! 19 years ago I watched helplessly while my wife of 25 years fought courageously but inevitably slowly succumbed to ovarian cancer. I KNOW cancer up and personal! My father also died from prostate cancer though he too fought it vigorously! Excuse my pessimism today but I'm not sure that fighting is always the best option. I'll likely feel better about it tomorrow!
You are alive and get yet another day on this miserable planet..... Alive is better than the alternative and no one has ever come back and told anyone what the other side is like.
When the doctors found mine, I was dumbfounded. I had no symptoms, wasn't ill, was doing everything I normally do, everything was just peachy except I was getting tired easily and that I equated to my age. After all, when you get to be 70, things slow down a bit.
Then after the tests, when my doctors told me I had a best, a 30% chance of surviving, I went into a state of self denial. That cannot be right, not me, no way. Then the colonoscopy and the real bad news, the colonoscopy doctor could not get the instrument past my blocked colon. I was 85% blocked. That is when everything got really serious. Had the exam in the morning, that afternoon I was surgically fitted with an infusion port (which I still have in my left shoulder) and immediately afterwards I was given my first (of many infusions of chemo). Of course prior to the colonoscopy I had a couple meetings with my cancer docs, and was told up front that 10 years ago, there would be nothing they could do but send me home and ultimately I would die a morphine induced death.
I had 2 distinct choices, put my life in my doctors hands and God or die a horrible death. I took the first choice and took my chances and while I'll never be 100% whole again, I'm alive and productive and to me that is everything. Besides, my wife would be lost without me to pick on...
I have a pretty good friend who chose the second path. He's still alive, he's certainly not whole either and for the rest of his days, will wear a colostomy bag and his anus is sewn shut, plus he now has cancer elsewhere because it spreads if unchecked. I feel for him and we talk everyday. he's thankful I chose the path I did and I wish his path was a better one.
So here I am, went hunting in Nebraska and bagged a nice Mulie and planning a New Mexico Elk hunt next fall and maybe, just maybe an African big game hunt the following year, doing my farming thing and all is as good as it can get. I have no expectations about how long I'll live but I will say I thank the Lord and my doctors and their skill, every time I open my eyes in the morning and every morning when I get up, I say a silent prayer to God for allowing me to survive.
Life is about compromises. We all make them everyday. Some are more profound than others but in reality all are just that, compromises. Life is very fragile. You could walk to the mailbox (like I do every morning) and get run down crossing the road. That quick you could be gone, or worse, be incapacitated to the point where your quality of life is worthless.
I have my quality of life (barring some issues) but I knew going in there would be. There are no guarantees in life, never has been.
I fix what I can fix and deal with the rest, best I can.
Like I said earlier, not everyone survives like I did. I don't wish that on anyone, I prefer everyone champions cancer but it don't play that way sadly.
Tomorrow will be better when you awake, open your eyes and greet the new day.
