DAY 2041 - Day 1808 in Recovery Paradise

Well, here we finally are - big DAY tomorrow.

9:45 am - meet with Doctor Mathew, my ENT Cancer doctor that made the onerous diagnosis five very long (and yet, sometimes very short) years ago - "You have Tonsil Cancer".

This appointment is supposed to be my last one, EVER.  It is said that if you make it five years you are classified as a 'Survivor' and you get a new life - a 'do-over' if you will.

There will be no more x-rays, CT-scans, invasive throat diagnostics, emergency room visits, dry-heaves with razors in your throat, lost hair (ha - like that matters now), sleeping the only way you can  - sitting up-, feeding tubes, blah, blah - related to this Tonsil Cancer diagnosis.

Something else may be lurking around the corner, but tomorrow I will officially be done with this one.

Took a break from my bass guitar for the past few months, as we are prepping our home for sale, but as things settle down in the day to day - am looking forward to picking it up again...here is the last song I learned - will be good to pick it up where I left off....ROCK ON.


Billy Squire - Everybody Wants You

rlw

DAY 1433 - Day 1191 in Paradise

Well, here we are in a new year (2012) with new resolutions and resolve to move our lives in a more productive direction.  The advantage of being diagnosed with Cancer, is that, if one is lucky that should be the wake-up call to embrace your resolution list, as if there is no next year.  I heard that news one thousand, four hundred and thirty-three days ago.  I successfully (so far, so good) competed hellish nightmare of radiation and chemo treatment to gain more time.  To be exact, I have gained one thousand, one hundred and ninety-one more 24 hour days.  How often would I have thought about that under "normal" conditions?


It is truly amazing how much one can accomplish when almost all the sand is gone in the hourglass.  Time becomes more precious and hopefully on becomes a better judge of how that time should be spent.


Although I still have a couple of years left to reach official retirement, my mind says "now is a good time to start practicing".  I moved to part-time status at my work and embraced the 4-day work week.  I am picking up speed on accomplishing more  things on my "B"list...as I have successfully beaten the clock and accomplished everything on my shorter "A" list.


I resolved to create a blog about the value of time and post it daily for a year.  I started it on Christmas day 2010 and logged my final post on Christmas Eve 2011.  Whereas, some people have read it off the net and I have force-fed members of my family, (I did get 3443 views over the year) the greatest value was what I personally received by creating it.  I thought long and hard about time, what mine means to me and what would be the best use of the unknown quantity I have left.


Isn't it sad that people put more thought, desire for success, energy, conviction, creativity and resolve into planning their seven day vacation than they do for their life as a whole?  Seems a bit odd, don't you think?  When you know you are going to only get one vacation this year...think of all the planning we put into it to make it the best ever...but not our life.


We would be abhorred at the thought of flying to Paris, Rio or Cancun and sitting in our hotel room, watching TV, until the return flight was taxiing down the runway.  Wouldn't we want to cram all the excitement and joy into those days as we could? Why not our life?


It is because we think we have plenty of time and it won't run out.  We get just the one turn, unless you get a wake-up call, as I did, re: one's own mortality and take a peak at your life clock clicking away whether you like it or not and whether you do anything with your minutes or not. 


Every day, people pass away unexpectedly (meaning we all probably expect to die, but not just yet).  Who wouldn't choose being diagnosed with Cancer vs. being hit with a bus?  One has a lot more time and opportunity to get it right, to be the person you should be, and build your legacy for family and friends.


I an luck and I am grateful.  I started a new blog on Christmas Day    http://gratitude-alittlegoesalongway.blogspot.com/    (as a present to myself and to my family) to succeed the blog about the value of time and replace it with another daily blog about Gratitude and what I am thankful for.  Very powerful to FOCUS on that EVERY day.  It is like winning the lottery everyday...we are all very rich in the important things which, of course, are not things at all, are they?


rlw




SPIRIT IN THE SKY   -  Another Day in Paradise band

-         Robert Welton: Twitter           Follow me on Twitter

-         Robert Welton: FaceBook        Follow me on FaceBook

-         Robert Welton: LinkedIn        Follow me on LinkedIn

·        My Blogs              

   

-       http://sunriseandtime.blogspot.com/   

-       http://robertweltonremembers.blogspot.com/

-       http://robertweltonanotherdayinparadise.blogspot.com/

-       http://gratitude-alittlegoesalongway.blogspot.com/    

-       http://rwelton.hubpages.com/

        Write Your Own Hub

 “A bend in the road is not the end of the road… unless you fail to make the turn.” - Unknown

DAY 1237 - Day 995 in Recovery Paradise

CANCER is an overwhelmingly fearsome and ugly enemy.

I have found that my mind can choose to play offense or defense in this unasked-for battle.  I was diagnosed with Tonsil Cancer in 2008.  Since I got my unwilling turn in the arena with this formidable (but, not unbeatable) giant, I have become a far more positive–minded person than I could have ever imagined. 

That said, I have not yet discovered anything that keeps the blues, worry, depression and fears of life totally away - it is more in the category of 'manageable'. I have tried them all (maybe some twice) – back in 1970, it might have been grouped under sex, drugs and rock-n-roll.  In 2011 it is closer to hugs, a half-glass of wine and rock-n-roll (some things remain constant – ha).

For a big and current instance - my throat got really sore yesterday in the exact same spot where I first discovered my tonsil cancer.  This was just out of the blue.  Interesting side note: In 2008, three years ago, when I was first diagnosed with Tonsil Cancer, we had just won a charity auction for a resort week in Vancouver, Canada.  I delayed starting my treatment to go on the trip. I was figuring it might be my last chance to do so (you know the 40% survival crap they feed you).

Fast forward three years – last week, we won the exact same resort vacation week at the 2011 charity auction (Orlando, Fla. next year) and I had all these flashbacks to 2008 and hunted up and re-read some of my early blogs – ‘Another Day in Paradise’.  I woke up yesterday with the same pain, in the same spot, in my throat as before.  I couldn’t even swallow water without grimacing. I have to honestly say that worry was creeping under the door, like an ominous, intimidating, eerie fog in a bad B movie, again.

Once treated, hopefully, we can live for another fifty years, but the worry never really goes away.  It is the wolf outside our door.  I can ease the daily worry of the wolf by building my mental house of bricks, but when I allow myself to think about it, even for a minute, my mind is capable of imagining that the damn monster is still sitting out there in the shadows, just beyond the gate.

So, I played my custom, motivational music CD.  I watched my new YouTube video of me finally learning how to play electric bass after fifty years and then actually playing in public with a couple of friends at the local pizza parlor. I read and re-read my best motivational books.  In addition to the world not ending on May 21, 2011 as predicted, today I am back to good as it gets - no soreness and no symptoms (I am drinking a cold one as I write to celebrate the very unappreciated miracle of being able to swallow without fears and tears). 

Our mind is an awesome and powerful tool. I figure that if nothing is really wrong, but involuntarily (at least sub-consciously) my mind can imagine that it something is, I must, conversely, have the same power to consciously invoke my mind to imagine that nothing is wrong, when I have a tendency to think that it might be. I feel that there will be time enough to deal with the real if (not when) it happens.

Depression and worry is an ugly and dark maze we conjure for ourselves.  We each have to find our own light to discover the way out of this maze or we will be consumed by it.  Life holds enough real issues to worry about without us adding to it with our over-active imaginations pitching in to help do the Devil's handiwork.

When I was trying to pull myself out of self pity, worry and depression following radiation and chemo treatment, I placed my borrowed motivational thoughts on 3 x 5 cards and posted them everywhere (literally – not figuratively), in every room of the house, on all the mirrors, the outside and inside of the cabinets, my sock drawer, next to the toothpaste, in the cars, even inside the refrigerator, ha.

Have you seen those commercials about how to go about learning a foreign language and so you put the Spanish word for everything on post-it notes throughout your house?  For me, it was akin to hanging garlic everywhere to ward off the vampires from the dark regions of my thoughts.  I highlighted certain positive words and phrases with a yellow marker (live forever, dream, win, perseverance, courage, defiance, success, 'every day is a gift', friends, love, appreciation, power, control. gratitude, etc.).

Sometimes, I would be near tears, because I was not in control of my life and things were happening to me I seemingly could not fix.  I would shuffle over to the nearest 3 x 5 card and read it as best I could (my eyesight was very messed up during radiation - normal for me is 20/1250 in each eye with high power trifocals; so I was half-way to blind already..ha).  

I would repeat it over and over (mentally only, as my mouth was so dry and my tongue was so sore I couldn't speak).  For those few seconds and minutes, I discovered I wasn't wallowing in self-pity.  I was not “THINKING” about my situation. I stepped it up and for me, it was a Godsend for a Type A personality control fanatic that was not in control. 

I had discovered that there finally was something I could proactively do to exert positive control over the out-of-control negative experience of Cancer and the ensuing kick-my-butt, but necessary, chemo and radiation treatment.  

Did it work all the time, 24-7? NO.  My mind-over-matter plan became increasingly powerful, but it was not invincible. On a really good day in the beginning, maybe 50% of my waking hours, I could successfully stave off the demons.  Because I couldn't sleep - I had a lot of waking hours, far more than I wanted. For me, it was far better to get up and do something, anything, rather than lie there, letting the hob-goblins into my thoughts, while everyone around me was sleeping like an innocent.

I liken the experience of proactive, positive motivation as a defense to hold off the enemies of your biggest battle until (for you old folks) John Wayne rides up (or for you younger folks) Gandalf on a white stallion, with ‘Thank God, they are here’ reinforcements.  We do what we have to do to, just to keep the enemy from coming over the walls and breaching our last barely defensible mental position. 

I had thought I was an Iron Man for going to the end of Cancer treatment without a feeding tube and still be able to sip soup and water and walk by myself to the bathroom.  Several trips to the emergency room and a four day hospital stay later after not being able to eat or swallow water for a week, I often felt that I was a beaten man.

My personal Goliath was not seemingly affected by my little sling full of motivational stones, but I kept at it, as it was the only weapon I had.  As I am not an overly religious man and any conversation with God to ask for divine intervention would have to have first been prefaced with a request for a explanation of why I got this damn Cancer in the first place.   My take-away from my early experience with the Bible had always been ‘God helps those who first help themselves’ and I always have had an inherent personal disapproval of being a whiner.

Finally, the day arrived when I was felt I just a tiny bit better than I was the day before.  Albeit, it was about two months after treatment ended.  That was the day for me that John Wayne and Gandalf and my reinforcements arrived with a little bugle blowing faintly in the wind.

My iPod with my positive, or at least, and my “you are not alone – I CAN relate to it" music was one of my new best friends. ‘Help’, by the Beatles was good for that.  Who knew that John wrote that for me?  I heard it at least a thousand times before I finally listened to it and have it touch me.

Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me, help me, help me, oh.

While the whole song isn’t compatible with cancer survivor circumstances, how about  ‘Yesterday’, also, by the Beatles…

Yesterday, 
All my troubles seemed so far away, 
Now it looks as though they're here to stay, 
Oh, I believe in yesterday. 

Suddenly, 
I'm not half the man I used to be, 
There's a shadow hanging over me, 
Oh, yesterday came suddenly....

Zig Ziglar, Benjamin Franklin, Helen Keller, Roosevelt, Dale Carnegie, William Earnest Henly, Winston Churchill, John Lennon,Yoda, Hunter S. Thompson, Charles Bukowski and my favorite, ‘Anonymous’, became my newest and wisest best friends.  Their inspiration was there for me in ways I couldn't have imagined.

Has battling Cancer changed me forever?  I would say, Yes.  Will I still experience worry and doubt?  I have to say, Yes.  Will I find courage in having discovered my sword of positive motivation, forged in the midst of battle, from inspirational words of steel?  I say, Yes.  Will I succumb to future opportunities to experience depression and tears?  I hope not.

Should I ever pat myself on the back because of my new found strength and even begin to imply that I discovered this powerful mental ally to keep the demons at bay? 

I have friends that, as they have had more conversations with God than I have, would probably say  “You know Bob, because you did choose to help yourself, therefore, is it possible that God……..?”

rlw

DAY 1232 - Day 990 in Recovery Paradise

Living the dream

Old dogs can learn new tricks

I belong to an international Tonsil Cancer forum and we support each other through our posts and emails.  A caregiver in our group posted concerns about the possibility of the Cancer returning to her husband's lymph nodes and the worry they share that accompanies that fear...  My shared thoughts:

Damn those lumps.  That is a tough one.  All of us, caregivers and care receivers alike, are constantly tested on our abilities to stay positive and our strength to harbor hope.

Since tomorrow, May 21, 2011, is proclaimed by some to be the "End of Days" this may be my last post - so I thought I would ramble a bit with my observations.  If we are still here in 48 hours, my profound apologies for taking up so many pixels on this forum.....

My two-cents worth would be to fill the mind to overflowing with positive thoughts daily.  Have him start a diary or blog and fill it daily with "half-full" vs. "half empty" thoughts and his personal 'Gratitudes'.  There are many, many, many things for all of us to be grateful for: our family, our ability to love and be loved, our small, but important accomplishments, our impact on earth, our personal legacy and yet another Sunrise each day…a daily miracle,  to add to our life experience.  Overfill the mind and imagination with the positive YOU CHOOSE to put into it and there will be little room left over for anything else.  

This is a never-ending process that should be used forever 'til the end of our days. Someday, far-far into the future, it will be our last day.  That day, while inevitable, is not written by a predetermined fate or in stone. Our attitudes can make that day closer or farther away (…if we are not here anymore after tomorrow - I was wrong, but just in case...).  

Become at peace with yourself and who you love and WHAT you did with the TIME that God gave you and WHO you became as a result of your thoughts and actions, not where you went and places you saw. Start today, it is never too late. There is still plenty of time to maximize the value of our remaining hours.  Read the news - how many famous people will be remembered forever by their last poorly chosen acts, not the wonderful deeds they accomplished before.  I believe the reverse is also true.  I have not always made good choices in my earlier years; however, if my remaining days are full of positive choices, I hope to be remembered that way.

Everyone works at this task differently.  I love to collect quotes that fill my mind with hope and fill my imagination with who I still might still become and the impact I can still have on others, as my legacy.

Look at all the great literature, music and quotes that have sustained the masses for eons.  Many are authored by "Anonymous'.  That is easily any one of us.  We don't have to write the Bible, the great novel or become the Beethoven of our era.  One person we loved and showed them through our actions or one thought or gesture we shared that positively impacts someone who lives beyond us is infinitely more valuable than the experience of seeing the Alps, Taj Mahal or the Golden Gate Bridge from the window of a speeding tour bus.

On Christmas day, 2010, I started a new daily blog for me that, although I share it with those I love, it is mostly for me:  SUNRISE and TIME.   Some times I ramble, but mostly I post a just few quotes about the use of the TIME given us. That is what I choose to put into my head each day.  A lot of the quotes I post are from people that are long since dead.  Do they live on in my posts?  Is my life richer by reading, internalizing, applying and sharing their thoughts and observations?  

Some quotes are famous, some are not.  They all have a thread that we all share.  How valuable is our time?  Long or short, how do we choose to invest it and use the hours we were given.  Centuries ago, human beings were dealing with the same crisis of how they used the time given them and how much of that illusive gift of TIME they might have left.  Nothing has changed, other than we are richer for the thoughts they left behind.

When that final day comes for me, my hope is that I will accept the moment, regretting little, knowing I have loved much, lived well and hopefully, positively impacted a few.

Is life unlike a relay race of our time through eternity?  At the end, weary and spent, regardless of the sound of the crowd, I have to ask myself:   Did I run my leg of the race well?  Did I use my head, my experience, my strength and my heart to do all that I could?  Did my 64 seconds count?  Did I let my teammates down?  Will my effort be remembered in a positive way? 

Would it be beneficial to the final results for me to conjure up all that I could be from the inner depths of my being and give it my all to have a final, fantastic spurt of energy at the end of my leg of the race? Did I give my teammates an advantage in their start?  Did I pass the baton so smoothly that their results will harbor a small part of me? 

My 64 years in this race across eternity is so insignificant in the vastness of time that it will not be even recognizable in the broad picture…but, if my team does well, I will have contributed and that is what really counts.  If I stumbled, fell and lay sprawling in the blood and dust; did I lie there feeling sorry for myself, giving up, cursing that fate had cheated me, impossibly begging to start over or did I pick myself up and recommit myself all the while, running in the middle of the race, to become the winner I was capable of and provide inspiration to those that yet, had their legs of the race to run?

One of the quotes I especially like is "We don't fear dying as much as we fear not being remembered."

Not everyone is a Christian by chosen faith, but here is a Christian version that probably resonates within all of us:

"Everyone wants a shot to fame don’t we? That’s because we think that’s how to be remembered for the longest time. Yes, that can be true, but how long is long? About a hundred years? Two? Maybe a thousand or two? People know a handful of guys from three thousand years ago. How is that compared to eternity? It is but a short strand compared to an endless highway.

The fear of oblivion can only be present when you know you will be forgotten. If you are assured that you will be remembered, the fear will not exist. In my case, I do not fear it. In this world, my fame might not spread and I don’t need it to because everything in this world will fade away. In other words, everything this world holds is subject to oblivion. What I’m concerned about is if the eternal being – God, will remember me. If God remembers me then I am satisfied and my fear of being forgotten has been buried."  Personal strength can come from many sources.  This particular quote comes from "God and You."  

I also enjoy reading Hunter S. Thompson:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!" 
— Hunter S. Thompson

and Charles Bukowski.

"For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command nor faith a dictum. I am my own god. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us." 
— Charles Bukowski

Atheists and religious believers alike face the same challenges.  "Perception is reality." Our truth is merely what we choose to BELIEVE what is true.  

No one can live for you and no one can die for you.  We travel that journey alone.  We put into our heads the information and experiences that form our beliefs by choice.  Choose well.  You are loved.

Damn those damn lumps.

"Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way." 
— Charles Bukowski

DAY 1117 - Day 875 in Recovery Paradise

Old Dog Learns New Tricks

I recently shared an email with a fellow Tonsil Cancer survivor (we proactively refer to ourselves as survivors) regarding a special moment she recently had, watching her son receive the highest honor in Scouting - The Eagle Scout award and how proud she was.

This kind of shared Golden Moment is just the right medicine needed for those Tonsil Cancer innocents at the crossroads to choosing the dark path of radiation daily for two months and several Chemotherapy treatments or letting fate take its course.

You are generally feeling  pretty good at the moment when you are diagnosed with Tonsil Cancer, but to fix you the doctors have to make you feel really, really bad for about six months  The gamble is that you are asked to trade one half of a year of your life for more time on the other end and pray that it works). 
 
You are first fitted for a full faced, highly claustrophobic, heavy plastic mask to hold you down during precision radiation treatments (don’t move for fifteen minutes – fairly easy task as the rest of your arms and legs and body are also strapped down).

Your hair falls out, you can’t swallow, your saliva glands and taste buds are destroyed and you can’t even swallow water (which tastes like moldy swamp water anyway). 

You lose 30 to 50 pounds, even if you don’t have it to lose.  You can’t eat, so you have a surgery to install a feeding tube into your stomach, so you can hold your arm up like the Statue of Liberty for about 40 minutes (try it – bet you can’t do it) letting gravity drain two or three cups of Ensure, or the like, into your stomach to keep you from starving to death…oh wait…you get to do this eight times every day. The upside is that is a surefire weight-loss program.


In between feedings, you shuffle around like you are a hundred years old.  Because your head is being radiated, your sense of hearing, sight and balance gets whacked.  If you are lucky (unlike what happened to me) you won’t fall down a flight of stairs, on your back, in the middle of the night, because you thought you were stepping into the bathroom. 

That sort of opportunity definitely enhances the Cancer treatment experience (that is what I got for saying before I fell- “Well, at least it can’t get any worse that this.”….just to show that you never get too old to learn something, I learned to shut up after that…trust me, things can always get worse).

Newly diagnosed Tonsil Cancer innocents (I never liked the term ‘victim’) often wonder if what they are about to go through will be worth it.  I have had people say to me, after I (in detail) described the six month endurance run through Hell to keep Cancer at bay (you only get the Iron Man/Woman title after you make it through), that they wouldn't go through that.  They said they would just let the Devil take its course.

That is an unfortunate example of choosing to be a ‘victim’.  One can choose to be or not be the ‘victim’.  It is our decision as to how we handle the stones thrown in our path. To me, it is similar to saying that, faced with the ordeal of fixing a mouthful of really bad teeth, you would choose to let all of your teeth rot out, rather than going to the dentist and having them pulled and replaced with false teeth (perhaps the analogy would be clearer if I added: without Novocain...ha).  A year from now, would I rather be eating Filet Mignon and peanut brittle or sucking mush over my gums?

Project out a year; where do we want to be; having gone to our deathbed full of regrets or experiencing things like watching your child receive the highest honor the Scouts can bestow?

Every golden moment for all of us going forward after enduring the very invasive, but necessary procedures to do battle with a Tonsil Cancer diagnosis is blessed with the enhancement of knowing that if we had not chosen the S & M masked radiation/chemotherapy experience, we would most likely not be here today to enjoy another glorious sunrise or Golden Moments yet to be shared.
 
Sharing a post treatment Golden Moment is the lantern we hold up, offering light and hope for Cancer innocents still on the opposite shore or halfway across in a leaky little boat, tossed about on dark and stormy seas.   Shared Golden Moments from Cancer survivors provides strength to those that still endure the darker moments, providing a sign of the rewards waiting for them on the other side.  A shared Golden Moment is a great visual to inspire us all to hang on - Never Give Up - and to gather as many of these moments as we can cram into our new gift of extended time.

Note: the choice we make to voluntarily endure the boat ride through Hades and 'cheat the reaper' for one more turn, returns rewards, not only to us, but more importantly, to those around us if we wish it.  Even if it is for just a few more months or years.

"Like tomorrow was a gift,
and you got eternity,
to think about what you’d do with it.
An' what did you do with it?
An' what can I do with it?
An' what would I do with it?"

... Live Like You Were Dyin' - Tim McGraw

Here is my most recent Golden Moment to share.

Recently, my seventh grade daughter got "called up" to the big high school orchestra because of her skill with the cello (Principal Chair/Cello for the Intermediate School Orchestra), for a tour bus trip to Disneyland, to perform on stage and cut a CD this coming Friday. Is Dad taking a vacation day, driving ten hours down to Anaheim, buying a day pass to Disneyland, and stand in the front row at the concert with the movie camera?  Absolutely! 

This will be a Golden Moment I would not have had, if I had chosen the weaker course of action in 2008 and not gotten fitted for my custom claustrophobia mask, had two months of radiation and chemotherapy treatment and six months of recovery.

Will this cherished Golden Moment extend beyond me?

Absolutely.
 
My gift to my daughter, from all of this, will be her being able to look up from her music stand, on stage in front of a huge crowd in Disneyland (she is still young enough to know this is way cooler than Carnegie Hall) smiling at her Dad beaming with pride, and actually SEE me in the front row of her momentous concert, rather than having to say "I wish Dad could have been here to see this.  He would have loved it." 

I won’t be able to see all of her future moments, but I won’t miss this one.

Our choice to brave the exorcising process to rid ourselves of the Demon Cancer irrevocably shows our strength of character and provides not only benefits to each of us, but more importantly, to those that care about us. 

Are they proud of us?  Would they think less of us if we just gave up and did not choose to take our little wooden sword into the battle with the windmill (thank you, Cervantes)  to fight for our life? Yes and Yes.

As we are proud of our loved ones as they work hard and receive accolades, we admire them not just for the reward they received, but more importantly, for the lessons they learned in the process that brought them to that moment.  The admiration and pride we feel is not for the trophy, pin, or certificate.  Rather, it is for the process, the perseverance, hard work and character they showed, without giving up and just going to the mall with their friends.  It is knowing they will use this process they experienced for all of their life and will be a better person for it, long after we are gone.

The trophy is but a three dimensional reminder of what one can achieve when we don't quit, take the easier path and "let life just happen to us."  Our fight is their example, as well as an inspiration to our friends and all those we come into contact with.  That is our silver lining to the cloud of Cancer.

None of us will live forever.  We can however, choose to not go quietly into the night.  Which would we rather have as our legacy - curling up and passing into dust with a whimper or fighting a glorious fight, snatching our little victories here and there and persevere to the bitter end and arrive at our final destination with character? I choose the latter. 

rlw

"Fight the unbeatable foe, Strive with your last once of courage to reach the unreachable star.”  'Don Quixote'/Cervantes