A friend of mine who reads this blog on occasion and is a
professional therapist recently wrote a blog about how men in particular
struggle with the reality of being human. It was about 4 men struggling with cancer,
one of them myself http://goodmenproject.com/
This is demonstrated over and over in my last couple of
years… this makes for good stories, the guy who sneaks out of hospitals to go
running, who puts off brain surgeries to run marathons and qualify for Boston,
the guy who wins Austin’s first ever brain cancer research race. And let’s make
this clear, I’m proud of that and the reason I did that was through hard work
on the body… But a quick overview of the patterns of last year tells you
something, I want to hold onto what’s important to me as much as I can. But
like many things in life, some of that’s not really demonstrated until push
comes to shove, until you can only choose one because in life you can’t have
everything. The first time that Livestrong had it’s cancer and relationships
class I went because there was no conflict, the second time, I had a track meet
and I chose to go there instead. I went to a wedding in Miami and ended up
leaving early because the hurricance could cause me to miss my daughter’s first
day of school. I am already signed up for wonders and worries parenting class
and I won’t be missing those…
Yesterday, I went to DARS and because of some of my doctors
medical concerns right now they want to limit some of the job possibilities… I
went to meet with a counselor for Livestrong and signed up for the men and
transition classes. It’s an exercise class where men who have lost different
functions workout and then talk about some of that. For most cancer patients,
it’s physicality and they talk about some of those losses. For me, clearly that
hasn’t been lost but I am hoping that somewhere in the echo of their emotions I
find some touchstones of hope. I signed the disability thing yesterday and
today I meet with Austin’s first ever neuro-oncologist and we try to figure out
this thing that we’ve been trying to figure out for oh 2 years now. And the
continuation of the conversation of playing with meds continues… a conversation
very annoying to the guy who didn’t take pain medication after a biopsy and a
surgery…
Still, I walked Kiana to school today as I have all but 1
day since it started. I read to her last night and argued with her this morning
about how if she doesn’t get up promptly she can’t redirect me on the fact she
doesn’t like what I made for breakfast (here’s where you chime in about how she
should never be able to redirect me, she’s been getting in trouble some at
school for correcting the teacher and we’re working on it but if there’s anything
I’ve learned from this cancer experience that I thought well before all this is
that even the smartest people are nowhere near the correct answers sometimes).
Last night I went to the toughest trackwork out I’ve ever done, 4.5 miles of
speed work.
The year before this all started I went to Costa Rica,
Italy, Toronto, Florida and Philadelphia… since then well, I haven’t been much
other than cancer related events. That’s not lost on me and some days it’s
harder to absorb it than others. But the entire time, Kiana has gotten to keep
the roof she was born into over her head and have food on her table (even if it’s
not always exactly what she wants). I’ve continued to help the communities like
ultimate and running that I was part of before all this started and tried to contribute
to the ones I joined since, the cancer in general, brain issues in specific,
and starting next Thursday the PTA. I hope my deathbed is far away but whether
or not it is, a few days after a brainpower 5k which didn’t go my way, I hope
that’s where my brainpower is focused on.
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