What does a good life look like?

What does a good life look like?

I attended the funeral of a wonderful woman on Saturday. She fought and beat cancer once, then when it came back decided not to fight it again.  Within weeks she was gone.  The funeral was filled with an eclectic group of folks.  It showed how all the parts of our lives affect so many and is interesting when these all intersect.  Another interesting and touching part included the people who spoke about coming to see her in her last days.  This part was surreal to me.  I somewhat projected here but wondered what my visitor ratio would be…by that I mean the number of people who came to pay respects versus the number of people who came to make sure I was dead.  Of course that is tongue in cheek, but it made for some interesting thoughts.

Later that night I was watching the Bengals completely implode against the Steelers.  The Pittsburg quarterback Ben Roethlisberger came back into the game after what was a noticeably bad injury to lead his team to the win (with help, but that isn’t germane for this).  The point is it’s the playoffs and so what if he gets a little more injured?  He’ll have all off season to recover if they lose.  Kind of like the line Sam Elliot drops in the movie Roadhouse, “I’ll get all the sleep I need when I’m dead.”  I mention this because a lot of people came to visit our friend in the hospital during the end game.  And many may have been worried about whether or not she needed rest.  As in life, she was gracious, sweet, and conscientious of the travelers time and sacrifice.  I hope I can remember this and show equal grace when my time comes.  But either way, when that time does arrive…come visit me.  I don’t care if I’m tired and need to rest, WTF would I possibly be saving my energy for?  When you stop the chemo and decide it’s time…it moves fast.  So come on down and bring your best stories, jokes, a guitar, bourbon, whatever.  And I’m not being overly dramatic.  We are all dying, some of us know it, and choose to live in between.

The day of my surgery I said "No visitors" So these four showed up until they wheeled me into Pre-Op

 

My friend’s daughter is a poet and a lot of poetry was read/shown at the funeral.  One that really stuck out on me was by Ralph Waldo Emerson, it was his definition of success:

“To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest citizens and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to give of one’s self; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to have played and laughed with enthusiasm and sung with exultation; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—this is to have succeeded.”

I was able to visit with some of the Aggie Yell (cookbook) guys for a lunch on Friday. That was fun and we talked about football and cancer at the end.  It was nice to get to put some faces to names/handles and enjoy the comradery.  Again, “From the inside you can’t explain it, from the outside you can’t understand it.” Good Bull fellas.

The powerball frenzy is up right now.  $900 Million on Saturday (no winner) and 1.5B on Wednesday night.  What would you do with all that money?  Part of the fun is the anticipation isn’t it?  What would you do with this life changing amount?  Obviously when there is a B in your bank account, the answer is “anything.”  But what is more fun is the planning isn’t it? Which of your friends’ houses you’d pay off.  What color your new Maybach might be.  Would you sign a net jets agreement or just buy your own plane?  Where would you visit first?  (As an aside, I did not win, but I would have taken very good care of all the folks who donated time, food, and to the gofundme campaign… sorry my numbers didn’t match). But the point is, doesn’t the excitement force the creation of a type of bucket list?  When you strip away the impossible, it leaves you with some tangible things you can do today.  That is kind of like living with cancer.  Instead of a windfall of money, you get the urgency to do those things you haven’t done and to be more present in your friends and families lives.  One of the things the pastor said in the funeral on Saturday was that our friend’s death reminded him of Winnie the Pooh.  When Pooh was asked what his favorite thing was he said he didn’t know the word for it.  But it was that moment right before you ate the honey.  Makes you want to go do something doesn’t it?  So go do it.  And I hope this comes across as inspirational and not preachy.  Do what you want, it’s your life.  The greatest thing about living in the USA is we can choose any path.  I’m choosing to live for today, my kids, my wife, my friends, and family.

The opposite of the powerball excitement is the stock market reality.  There is a lot of paper disappearing from people’s accounts.  That sucks.  One of my blogs a while back was, “Where’d all the money go?”  The funny thing is at times like this I wonder which would be more miserable:  Not having travelled and not having the experiences Nita and I had? Or just sitting and watching numbers disappear in an account on the internet.  Luckily we did travel, we lived, and unfortunately we are still watching the disappearing act.  Hopefully like all things it will come back when we need them or when Nita is at retirement age…she should be funded if she needs them sooner.

What is more exciting than the college football National Championship? Infusion day!  Yep, time to mosey on over to Texas Oncology, get my port accessed and start the drips.  The nausea is getting progressively worse, but still controllable with meds and the diarrhea has stepped up its game.  My appetite is purely there for show at this point.  I just have to watch the clock and eat when it’s time to eat.  Nita has been putting hand lotion on and my hands are getting a little better.  She also very sweetly said that she wished she could take some of the burden.  I told her that I wouldn’t give it if I had the power, and for now I can take it for the family.  But there is great news too.  My tumor marker (CEA) results came back in the normal range going on 2 weeks in a row, and getting progressively lower.  This is significant because I originally thought it was a marker for net new growth, but I found out Wednesday that it includes “killing the cancer.”  So the treatments are working!  Which is great news because my daughter Josie made me pinky swear that I would get better, and “daddy always keeps his promises.” And if you’ve been following the news we lost my aforementioned friend on Christmas Eve, David Bowie last week, and Alan Rickman (Snape) yesterday…all from cancer.

Additionally this is my seventh treatment, so I’m over the hump on my first round I hope.  February 28 will be a big milestone.  If you go all the way back to the first blog post, I mentioned that one of the doctors said, “10 years ago, you would have been given six months to get your affairs in order.”  Six months is the number they gave me prior to some of the new technology, so that is effectively the first gate.  I’m hoping I can spend the end of spring and summer taking only maintenance medications and not the hard core chemo. 

I am reminded that I finally listened to the whole song Live like you were dying. Good song, great meaning.  In one of my earlier posts I talked about the Refiner’s touch.  I opine that perhaps this was my lesson to change some of my habits, and take charge of my happiness. Well, even if this victory is short lived, I believe I’ve found that, and I’m hearing from some readers that they have too.  So that is another victory for the good guys.  And if this is truly the path to winning the first round, I hope to keep living, well like I am dying, because it is a gift.  I sure plan to anyway, and I hope y’all will join me.