How cancer can effect me!

I have cancer in my body and my job is to keep it out of my spirit! The shock of cancer can only be understood by those who have it. I have known many who had cancer and felt empathy for them but did not get the gut-wrenching shock until my doctor said, “you have cancer!” My mind went to almost shut down as he talked, and I am sure I heard little of what he had to say. The first impact of cancer was a profound loneliness and a guttery level of fear that I have never experienced.
The early days of being diagnosed were a mess of ignorance and fear, two forces which can do a number on your mind and spirit. I could distract the fear though information, reading and talking with others. However, there were those times like sleepless nights or just a flash of the possible treatments that could send me into a tailspin. Sure, there was comfort in reading other guys success stories and with that come the unsuccessful stories which seemed to overwhelm the success stories.
Cancer is a lonely disease. Support groups, forums and the like take the edge off and there are just times that the Dis-Ease sets in in your heart and drags you down. The other force which makes it so difficult is the slowness of treatment decisions and how the medical system moves. I find it discomforting to hear “take you times, no rush, etc.” While this is good advice to learn and understand your options, the fact that months must go by to get to a treatment decision is not comforting.
Having cancer is a physical ailment and if I am not careful it will become a spiritual and mental ailment also. This is when fear overwhelms logic and trust. I have had hours of deep confusion and near despair because I let cancer get in my mind and in my spirit. And those around me also suffer due to my discomfort.
It is critical for me and those around me that I show up strong and ready to be the best I can be today with cancer. I cannot change that fact, but I can choose how I show up today. I cannot predict how my disease will manifest, how effective the treatment will be and what side effects will happen in the future. But I can decide to be as healthy as I can be today. I can help those around me, be grateful for the life I have today. Yes, I can choose to be grateful with cancer! I have already met dozens of guys who share the disease and we have laughed and worried together, have share advice and experiences, and shared hope and courage.
As Movember approaches and our disease will get some awareness, I am committed to keeping my spirit grateful, to be clear about being the best I can be today, and to move forward on the cancer journey.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. ~Ambrose Redmoon

Subdenis said:

"It is critical for me and those around me that I show up strong and ready to be the best I can be today with cancer. I cannot change that fact, but I can choose how I show up today."

Well said.

Back in March, 2014, I started a thread entitled "People's top 5 regrets about their lives when dying (a nurse's observations)":

www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=35&m=3008735

This very topic of control over one's own destiny came up during discussion, and in a later post on that thread I noted:

"I recently read an extraordinary book, which, as I read through its pages, reminded me of you [Purgatory] and your situation, in a way relevant to your quote above.

The book is "Man's Search for Meaning," by Viktor Frankl, who was a distinguished Austrian psychotherapist in pre-WW2 Vienna. When the war started, being Jewish, he was seized and sent to Auschwitz, where he suffered horribly during the war, especially as he learned that his wife and parents had been killed in the camps.

But he survived the Holocaust, returned to his practice following the war, and wrote important philosophical works for several decades, including the above.

A major tenet of his work is described by his experience in the concentration camp. He came to realize that, while he had no control over the cruelty and brutality that was being forced upon him, the one thing that he did have control over was how he reacted to it.

He couldn't stop the beatings or the starvation, but there was no way that his oppressors could force him to have a particular attitude toward what was happening to him. That was his choice and his choice only.

In his own words: "… everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." — "Man's Search for Meaning," p.65-66.

Is that not the ultimate power that each of us has in this situation? Perhaps we can't control the diagnosis, or the progression, or the pain of this disease, or of the other sufferings that we may be forced to endure, but the one thing that we can control is how we choose to react to them."

I'm reminded of the "get busy living, or get busy dying" speech from The Shawshank Redemption.

Yes, we get to choose how we respond to the curveballs that life throws our way, and yet, the night terrors come around again, and we let ourselves chase the white rabbit down the rabbit hole, and we have all pretty much lost all our dignity (just HOW many digital exams have we had?), and yet we all are finding ways to celebrate and enjoy life. And that, my friends is the key.

This hearkens back to a recent thread that began with a Time magazine editorial about using militaristic language to describe our treatments. The use of 'fighter' and 'beating it' types of words, and about ascribing courage to us, and how that language in itself can demean us when we get in the dark places.

We didn't catch cancer. Cancer caught us. Learning how to laugh at it is the only choice.

My sister died of breast cancer at age 47, my dad died of a heart attack in his early 50s, my sweet mom-in-law died from melanoma in her early 70s. Then a VA derm doc found melanoma on my arm in the very same area my mom-in-law had. That was a HELLO wake up call and quite a shock.

Then a few years later I received my PCa diagnosis. More shock. Then the Gleason was upgraded by MD Anderson. More shock. Then pathology upgraded my Gleason yet again and as a bonus I had a positive node. Then I started thinking, how much worse can things get?

It was a really, really difficult two years but I have adjusted and I think I've grown from my personal tribulations. My faith and sweet wife have been a perfect counter to the dark days.

Stay busy, remain positive.

Again good points. These forums are great and u wish we had more support groups live. I had the pleasure of attending the PCRI conference and spent a weekend with 8 other couples who had PC. And the most valuable part was sitting around chatting and sharing. We must keep doing that! Denis

MM hang in there we have this and all we have to do is stick together and keep sharing! Denis

Matt this is true. For me there is more the Immediate reality of the serious treatment needed. I am fortunate to have lived a really healthy life. The most dangerous medical thing I have had is colonoscopy which is dam near routine. I am grateful for my healthy life.

Now I face a more serious treatment and the reality of living with the disease and wondering if it is cured.

However wondering is in the future. I was told once if we have one eye on yesterday and one eye on tomorrow we are cockeyed today! Be well Denis