Living with Cancer - One Man's Journey

Until I was almost sixty, I was one of those disgustingly healthy people who almost never got sick; I rarely even took aspirin. Despite working at a job that had me flying across the country on a regular basis, confined for hours on end with countless coughing and sneezing passengers, I rarely suffered any ill effects. However, I have since learned, the hard way, that whoever said that “growing old is not for sissies” certainly knew what they were talking about.

Did you ever have one of those times when it just didn’t pay to get out of bed?

Although I have always taken fairly good care of myself, a non-smoker, non-drinker and a runner for most of my life, in 2004, I went back to school, got the degree that had been eluding me for many years and then proceeded to have a heart attack that resulted in the permanent implantation of two stents.

Next, in 2007, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer and, in 2008, had radioactive Palladium seeds implanted to kill the tumors. Last year, a routine blood test revealed that I now have a chronic, incurable form of leukemia. Talk about your  bad hair days!

Let’s face it. Cancer is a scary word, the veritable “boogie man” of terminal diseases. Add to that the word “incurable” and you have the stuff of nightmares and “things that go bump in the night.”  Having survived a heart attack, prostate cancer and a recent melanoma scare, leukemia is just another bump on the road of life.  My cancer of the blood has a rather bizarre-sounding name, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, CLL for short.

When talk turns to incurable diseases, you have probably heard a lot about people “dying” of cancer and leukemia but I’d much rather talk about “living” with them, a much more pleasant and feasible prospect, thanks to research and medical advances.

With the help of my wife, my best friend, I have always tried to meet my challenges head-on and leukemia is no different.  Armed with my terminal diagnosis and the wonderful world of Internet, I have attempted to learn as much as possible about my unwelcome guest. Apparently, over time, specialized white blood cells (lymphocytes) will continue to replace the red cells until my body eventually breaks down – not a very pleasant prospect. A normal white blood cell count is between five and ten thousand; mine is already at twenty-nine thousand.

Along the course of the disease, a veritable army of chemical cocktails can be used to cause temporary remissions that can last for years. Life expectancy, after the initial diagnosis, can be anywhere from five to ten years or more. 

I’m voting for the “more” but, then again, my stake in this particular “horse race” is a little more personal. My current course of treatment involves monitoring my blood count and “wait and see” before any form of chemo is attempted. 

Diet is always a major factor in fighting disease and maintaining an otherwise healthy body. I always ate what I thought were fairly healthy foods, limited sweets, with an occasional lapse into junk food but, with the help of a nutritionist who specializes in cancer and my very persistent wife, my diet has undergone a radical change. Missing are most of my breads, dairy products, potatoes, red meat, chicken, gluten, and white rice, to name a few.

In their place is an array of fresh organic fruits and vegetables, lots of beans of all varieties, wild-caught fish and even more exotics like quinoa, a member of the spinach family, reported to be one of “nature’s most perfect foods,” rich in protein and everything that is supposed to be good for you.  

My vitamins have vitamins! Even my water must be alkaline to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. Also gone are thirty-five pounds of unwanted fat that I have been accumulating over the years. It’s amazing what a really healthy, not “diet”, but actual “change in eating habits,” and working out in the gym three times a week can do for you.

Even my regular weekend breakfast restaurant, Ranch House, has “gone the extra mile” by allowing me to bring my own flax bread for toast, a thermos of boiling alkaline water for my organic, decaffeinated green tea, and special sweetener and spread for the toast. They even created an egg white and banana breakfast at a special price. 

Can you imagine the stares that I get from new diners? In case you don’t realize it, there really still are some nice people in this world, regardless of what the media tends to report.

If you have cancer, it is important to remember that you are not the only one living with it. It impacts both friends and family. After the initial shock of my diagnosis, I felt like it was something I needed to hide, to shield everyone from. Now I understand that people are naturally curious and I try to answer their questions honestly. 

Please don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean to trivialize it. Cancer is a serious matter, but it is does not have to be the end of the world. I refuse to allow it to control me. There are no guarantees in life. I intend to continue to concentrate on the quality, not just the quantity of my life. Like the recovering alcoholic, I will change those things that I can while accepting those I cannot … and that will be enough. 

To paraphrase a very wise man, “Life should not be counted by the breaths we take, but by those that take our breath away.”

This is dedicated to cancer patients everywhere who continue to “fight the good fight” every day and make a conscious decision not to give up.