The Drive to Survive

Last night, Sheryl and I watched the “Living with Cancer” special on the Discovery channel. There was a lot of information for the common man, and it sort of inspired cancer survivors.

The show included a “town meeting” with Lance Armstrong, Elizabeth Edwards and Leroy Sievers.

I had been listening to Sievers’ podcasts for a little while now, and it was interesting to add the face to the voice. I had found while listening to these podcasts, that Sievers was often dead on in speaking about things that cancer patients and survivors think.

A lot of times, it’s hard for me to listen to the podcasts, because it hits home. But at the same time, I feel it’s important to hear what he says because I need to be reminded.

It’s like rubbing your fingers repeatedly over a nasty scar, this reminder, and it’s important to survival.

In the deepest depths of chemotherapeutic hell, I constantly wondered if I had accomplished what I was supposed to accomplish in my life. It was a miserable reminder that I had to survive. I had to do something more important than piss red Adriamycin and endure self-administered Neupogen shots.

Leroy Sievers last night reminded me of that tortuous question.

When I was in high school, I had a profound moment of awareness. I realized that in order to be remembered – and therefore allow your memory to live on well beyond your rotting corpse - you have to do something huge: good or bad.

If I were to ask people to name the person in history who epitomizes “good”, I suspect that they would respond “Jesus Christ”. On the other hand, if I asked who epitomizes “evil”, many people would respond: “Hitler”.

So that was my dawning realization: People in history are remembered for their total goodness or total evil. And since I don’t have many evil bones in my body, I needed to think about how good I can be.

Not to mention, that I have always had a big heart. As a child, I went Christmas caroling with a friend of mine, and although we ended up splitting $3 between us (no doubt we were given money to shut up!), I gave my share to the church.

I often wonder why I decided to torture myself with the planning of yet another Gilda’s Riders event. Yet the answer is simple: I need to help. It is me.

In the inaugural “Heal” magazine – a magazine about living beyond cancer – they talk about the growing number of cancer survivors. The Lance Armstrong Foundation is now calling it an army.

The bottom line is that we are on the verge of a movement – a cancer survivors’ revolution. This revolution was not spawned by the summer of love. This revolution is spawned by the strong minds and hearts of fragile, healing bodies.

No one can afford to turn their backs on this army. No one can quiet the growing rallying cry. We are human beings, for crying out loud, and need to respect one another.

At my moment of death, when the tunnel of light beckons me, I expect to be asked if I had accomplished what I had intended to accomplish on this planet.

I will likely be disappointed that I could not do more.

But like a virus, I can only hope that while my body no longer remains, my soul will infect others, who will take things even further than I was able to do.

Luck

"I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."
~Thomas Jefferson

I never cease to be amazed by luck, and karma, so I need to give it kudos.

Saturday, I got some new tires, and while waiting, I took a stack of old e-mails that my former boss sent. See, I printed them out because I thought they showed questionable ethic and morality. It was my intent at one point to hold onto these e-mails just in case I was wrongfully dismissed from my position.

Well, I was blessed with the opportunity to quit that job and give the respect back to my boss that he had given to me (none). And my life has been amazing since.

Recently, I've heard that my former boss is being investigated for some of those ethical and moral issues I mentioned. So I thought that I would go through these e-mails and see what I could do to help things along.

I debated about whether I was being petty and drudging up a past that didn't need to be drudged up. But I also thought that no one should go through the mental distress that I had gone through.

Halfway through the e-mails, karma stepped up and gave me a harsh warning to stop - the tire shop pointed out that my front coil springs were broken and the cost to replace them was outrageous, considering that I've got 100,000+ miles on the vehicle.

Disappointedly, I decided that I would shop for a new car. I had originally wanted to wait for another year before that happened, but I accepted my fate.

I also threw away the e-mails.

"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

On a whim, I went online to see why it cost so much to replace my springs... maybe there was a special one-time use tool they had to use or something.

Well, to my surprise, I ran across a few message boards that spoke about my vehicle and broken springs. There was a recall on some models and there was an extended warranty on others.

Could I be so lucky?

As it turns out - yes.

My springs did happen to be under recall.

So at 100,000+ miles, I will be getting new springs for the vehicle I love. Free of charge no less!

Was it the right move to pitch the e-mails? Absolutely, it was! No good would come out of that.

And you can believe that I will be contributing a positive event into the universe to thank my luck, or karma, or cause and effect.