The start of a different journey!

I suspect that it is impossible to hear a cancer diagnosis and not experience some degree of anxiety. A mixture of anxiety and depression inevitably accompany at least these early days of cancer, and may intensify at critical junctures along the way. The most difficult moment so far is the diagnosis, the start of active treatment, losing one's hair, the completion of active treatment, and, if relevant, the period around a recurrence and any later progression are all things I will experience but the diagnosis was the hard part.

On October 8, 2014 I found out definitively that I had Renal Cell Carcinoma with complications. The tumour is the size of a walnut in the mid-section of my left kidney combined with a 7cm kidney stone in the same kidney; just to top it off. Now, add in cysts on my right kidney, or so they think and Ya me I have cancer with complications. Mom always said; “go big, or stay home” just not sure she meant this.

So what does it all mean…well it means perspective! It means changes. Oh did I forget to tell you Morgan was let go from her job on the same day. The same job she was passionate about and worked alongside me for 2.5 years. Why? Well, if I knew I would tell you and honestly I will have to get back to you on.

One of the most unforeseen benefits of living with cancer is the intimacy it creates with individuals we barely know. Affections spring up with surprising force.

About a succession of complaints, Virginia Woolf believed that “the best of these illnesses is that they loosen the earth about the roots. They make changes. People express their affections.” I considered Woolf’s words when we were coming out of the Polar Vortex, much of which I spent hibernating,

More people have come out to wish me luck, to let me know I can do. Ya for Facebook! Don’t take me wrong at all it is wonderful to see and the support is more than welcomed. What it did for me is one thing….I started to think about my funeral.

No the cancer is not that bad (knock on wood) but hey it is natural to think about this when you start out on this journey of living with cancer. My wife and I spoke about what I want and what she wanted. It was a GREAT conversation not weird at all. Then I started reading and learned of something new…A living funeral. You heard me; a living funeral; look it up if you don’t believe me. I read and the more I read the more I wanted it. I mean honestly; what is a funeral for, THE LIVING! I would be dead and what I am going to care what happens. Not like I am going to get up and say; hey I object. It is for the living!

So then I thought about Facebook and how all these people support me and would it not be nice to see these people one last time before you died. To say thank you (or something) before it was to late and they or you couldn’t do it. Think about it….you died and everyone come out of the wood work. Why not come out before you die?

So amid Thanksgiving festivities, stop and think what you want to say to the living. Take the opportunity to do it know. Don’t sit in shock to receive a message.

Don’t wait for the call “He’s no longer with us,” as one holds back tears.

Will the word “irreplaceable” hang in the bruised air, while grief lingers for what we should have done.

I recall a famous epitaph:

Remember me as you pass by,
As you are now so once was I.
As I am now, so you must be.
Prepare yourself to follow me.

When I imagine hearing these words, they sound less like an ominous injunction, and more like a cordial invitation to contemplate the (inconceivable yet inevitable) moment when I will cease to be. So I say the words once stated in a song I love…”Parting Glass”. (which will be play at my funeral) and let the word truly relate to who I am!

 Of all the money that e'er I had
I spent it in good company
And all the harm I've ever done
Alas it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit
To mem'ry now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be to you all

So fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
And gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all

Of all the comrades that e'er I had
They're sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that e'er I had
They'd wish me one more day to stay
But since it fell unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all

Fill to me the parting glass
And drink a health whate’er befalls
And gently rise and softly call
Good night and joy be to you all

But since it fell unto my lot
That I should rise and you should not
I gently rise and softly call

Good night and joy be to you all