As I previously read, one should also ask "why me" when good things happen. Stay strong.

Sent by Jane | 1:39 PM ET | 09-15-2006

I read your blog today, like every day.

I don't know why this happened to you or what the hell is going on. I do think the deeper meaning IS your blog. For myself, it gives me hope, laughs and some tears every day. I don't have cancer but have lost family members and many friends to the disease and have many other friends affected by the disease. Your blog helps me through the day as a caregiver and a friend. So, thank you, for documenting your thoughts, feelings and wanderings for all of us.

Sent by Tammy Pearce | 1:46 PM ET | 09-15-2006

"Could there really be no greater meaning to this?" is a question that jumped off the page at me. I was diagnosed with breast cancer almost 10 years ago. The Dr. told me that I wouldn't survive and here I am. I have to believe that we are each here for a reason even if we don't know what that reason is. In your case though, Leroy, the reason seems clear to me. You have reached so many people with your work and your words. Your dialog has made me and others confront our feelings and attitudes about cancer, and life. You have given a forum to people to express whatever is on their minds and that is a powerful gift. Disease doesn't make sense, life makes sense. Live until you die.

Sent by Mary | 1:49 PM ET | 09-15-2006

Actually, I think everyone should be asking themselves similar questions, cancer or no. Cancer forces the issue for us, but I have found the pondering of life questions to be useful and motivating. How did I get here? Is this where I want to be? If not, can I and how can I make change happen? What can I change and what must I accept? What is the meaning of life, anyway?

Sent by Stephanie | 1:55 PM ET | 09-15-2006

Leroy, I really appreciate you blog. Your descriptions of your journey I find helpful and the blog format lets so many folks add their thoughts many which ring so true to me. I liked how you described the "roller-coaster" journey of people facing a dastardly disease. I heard someone describe the journey through diagnosis, treatment and then into the post treatment phase as being a sprint, a 10 K and then the marathon. I personally felt I was running the 440 hurls during treatment.

One topic you've touched on before is how to answer well meaning questions. Right now in my journey (Stage IV Ovarian Cancer). I'm in the marathon part of this journey called NED (no evidence of disease). I have a monitoring plan set up with my doctor for blood work and exams. I guess as time goes on Ill get a bit more comfortable but the possibility that the cancer can return does haunt me.

I am often stumped by questions like "What's you prognosis?" I know that the questioner means well but I don't know how to answer that. I know they don't really want to know the answer to that. I got six months, I got two years, may make it to five.

I come to realize that folks don't get it. They must think cancer is like the flu. Yes, I've had a bout of cancer this year, doing much better now, thank you. I must be looking well as folks ask, "Well, is it over?" or "Are you cancer free?" they ask. I explain that today I am well and I have a monitoring plan set up with my doctor. Then I'm asked, "How long will they monitor you?" "Forever" I reply.

But in reality we have come a long way from Cancer not being spoken of only in whispers (my mothers generation) to the open discourse we have today. The remarkable tale of Lance Armstrong has given may hope. In actuality, there has been big changes in cancer treatments and survival within the last 15 years. Knowing this allows me to not to dwell on the grim statistics of survival rates for ovarian cancer as these statistics are dynamically changing. That said, I definitely feel that procrastination now longer has a place in my life and I am busily planning a trip to Italy for the spring.

Thank you again for sharing your experience.

Sent by Susan | 2:02 PM ET | 09-15-2006

I've gotten past "why me" — it's obvious to me that I had no control over it — I couldn't pick my grandparents who had colorectal cancer, or my parent who had breast cancer (now a link between breast cancer and colorectal cancer too). So while I loved my grandparents and parents, they passed on some bum genes that left me with stage IV colorectal with bad liver mets. Nothing I can do about it except move on through my treatments, the latest of which came yesterday. The news that came with it was not as good as I had hoped — the latest scans were not as good as we hoped, and Ill need to go through more treatments before I can hope for liver resection and ablation to get the tumors there gone. But until that happens, I too am stuck with the bigger question of what it all means, and the meaning of life now and after treatment.

I may have to start at the ridiculous end of this question to cheer me up. I think a viewing of Monty Pythons "The Meaning of Life" may be in order first before I move on to anything heavier.

And since I can't think optimistically enough to buy a new house, my home PC just died, and Ill need to buy a new one so I can keep checking your blog. Again, I'll be faced with the question of extended warranties — and whether they'll last longer than me. Maybe that's not the right way to think optimistically — I'm still working on this part...

Sent by Bob Maimone | 4:21 PM ET | 09-15-2006

Actually, I think everyone should be asking themselves similar questions, cancer or no. Cancer forces the issue for us, but I have found the pondering of life questions to be useful and motivating. How did I get here? Is this where I want to be? If not, can I and how can I make change happen? What can I change and what must I accept? What is the meaning of life, anyway?

Sent by Stephanie | 3:24 PM ET | 09-18-2006

Why me? Because you had to start this blog. Why not you? I thank you for this avenue... you don't know how this has helped me to accept that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Never would I have thought that I could have a healthy relationship (with my doctor) a new family (nurses at the cancer center). I guess my Christmas list will be longer this year.

Keep it up Leroy.

No one gets out alive.

Sent by Meredith | 4:51 PM ET | 09-18-2006

I was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer a little over a year ago. I'm only 40, young for this diagnosis. I've never really asked the question "why me?" I guess I've never felt so special that I was immune to the bad things that happen to people. They just happen, and I happen to be the unlucky winner of a terminal cancer diagnosis. The question I woke up with today was how can so many people be diagnosed with cancer and other horrible diseases but there be so little help out there when you lose your job, your health insurance, your savings and to make it all extra special, your friends. It troubles me that our society is so self absorbed that we don't think where we might be if it happened to us. Medicaid and Food Stamps are for those deadbeat lazy people who don't want to work. We allow our lawmakers to make ridiculous laws that force a person into poverty before we might get any help. We look at cancer patients with pity when they walk around bald as a baby, but silently say to ourselves "that will never happen to me." That's why I worked for months, all the while in pain as the tumors progressed up my spine, until I just couldn't stand it anymore. That's why so many people spend what's left of their lives struggling to make ends meet. Perhaps less time should be spent asking "why me" and more time should be spent shouting "it could be you!" Perhaps then wed see proper public assistance programs and better funding for breast cancer drugs instead of Viagra and Rogaine. Pity parties are a necessity, I understand. But when you have the power of the internet and a radio station behind you, its time to get over yourself and encourage others to do the same. If we all spoke up, what a powerful voice we would have.

Sent by Lisa | 5:05 PM ET | 09-18-2006

I read your blog and related so well. I don't have cancer, but I do have a severe traumatic brain injury. I spent time in a coma and months in an ICU. So that "why me"/"why not me" question has certainly crossed my mind. Why did I live? Why must I live with this for the rest of my life? There was a reason. Learning to live in the moment is one of those reasons. To have more understanding of another's suffering? More patients? More love? All things I've considered. It seems the answer is within me. Keep on living in the moment.

Sent by Kristina | 5:20 PM ET | 09-18-2006

Leroy, you ask "Could there really be no greater meaning to this?" I struggle with that question, and others of us with cancer must as well. Is there meaning to our cancer diagnosis? Meaning to our suffering, whether it's physical pain, or the side effects of treatment, or the emotional pain of receiving a diagnosis of a life-threatening illness? Is there meaning to having our lives turned upside down as we ride the roller coaster of cancer?

Four months ago, I was hospitalized and had surgery to clear a blocked bile duct and remove my gallbladder. The surgery revealed gallbladder cancer, and I have been recovering from that surgery and reeling from the grim diagnosis ever since. On my last night in the hospital, I had a dream, a dream of healing "beings" offering some of their energy to me.

When I woke from the dream, I knew that it wasn't saying I would be physically cured of the disease (although it didn't say I wouldn't, either), but the message of the dream was that my suffering has meaning. That I was not suffering and would not suffer in vain. The dream did not say what the suffering means, only that it has meaning. I think there is a difference to knowing what the meaning is, from knowing that there is a meaning, known or unknown. So, the quote in your blog saying we may not be able to make sense of our lives is much bleaker than saying our lives have meaning, whether or not we can articulate what that meaning is. And perhaps our task, healthy or not healthy, is to make our own meaning of our lives.

It was my dream, and so speaks powerfully to me, and provides a touchstone when I feel I am suffering, over my cancer diagnosis and all it has brought. I don't know that I can generalize to others, and I can't adequately convey to someone else with cancer the peace that dream brought to me. But, I can say that feeling that my suffering has meaning is very powerful for me. And, while I can't speak for you, I agree with Mary, above, who says that your blog provides immense comfort and meaning to others. Is it the meaning of what has happened to you? I certainly don't know.

But, I think that if my dream suggests that my suffering has meaning, it also suggests that for all of us with cancer, our suffering has meaning. I don't think that Im special with this, I just think I was lucky enough to have a dream that provides some comfort, and one answer, to this question.

Sent by Lynne Dahlborg | 5:29 PM ET | 09-18-2006

Leroy,

I do wonder if you have ever read anything by Viktor Frankl. Frankl addresses the issue you are tossing around. The book is not long but it is profound. It's titled Mans Search for Meaning.

I do not mean to imply that you will find the meaning you are searching for by reading Frankl's book. But, Frankl searches for meaning during his experience in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. His search for meaning gives him meaning.

Your blog has built a community that is validated by each entry you send sailing over the internet. Many feel less alone, less frightened, less isolated. I speculate that you also feel less alone, less powerless and less frightened by the support you receive from this blog.

From the outside perspective, you have changed the world of many more people than you could possibly know.

And, in my book, that is quite meaningful.

Sent by Melissa Thompson | 3:30 PM ET | 09-19-2006

Meaning. Yes. Well, meaning is a problem.

Although I strongly agree, meaning matters, absolutely, matters a lot. Not seeing a meaning hurts. Still, it's a problem. And pseudo?answers feel good at first, but their comforting effect expires almost immediately.

Now, I think you join here two questions under meaning: WHY did it happen and HOW did it happen. The following is primarily about the why. Though the how is also a problem.

There was this man -? I don't remember the details, but the general story is this: He was wrongly accused of murder at his early adulthood. He was jailed for many years, then his innocence was proved and he was released. Not much later he died in a car accident. I've read his story and thought: NO! No way. Unacceptable. But a person of faith may see it differently. A person of faith may trust there is importance to that man's life being such a saga of waste and consider your life, and mine, just as meaningful.

Your latest installment made me recall a poem by the late Israeli poet Leah Goldberg: "For those who don't believe, life is difficult this year. The fields ask for blessing, the sea asks for some faith, and you -? you don't ask for anything."

And yet, to the non believer, you are certainly in a different position than that unfortunate man. It came through this blog many times. Your life was and is full with meaning. This blog is full with meaning and importance, as it touches so many lives. And this has to do both with luck and with decisions you took and accomplished. You should be proud of yourself ands satisfied. You continuously give meaning to your life.

But this isn't really satisfying, right? The main thing is missing. I can celebrate your past and present. But the meaning you really need, the meaning all of us, I think, need, is related to the future. Something to live by. Say, no more cancer, and you would now pop TWO broccoli pills with each cheeseburger (how) and not only smile to your neighbor when you see him, but also shake his hand vigorously (why). Even if a variation of this will actually happen, as I hope, and you will get a lot more life, you will not get a signed, guaranteed meaning to it. At best, you will speculate.

My point is, whether there exist a God or not, I can't think, nor imagine, anything that will make me realize -? ah, OK, this is why HIM. (or me, though in a different way). It's OK then. Not the amazing contribution of this blog -? we don't deserve your suffering. Not that you were blessed in many ways ?- why, don't you deserve to be blessed? And not anything transcendental either. Maybe there exist a God that can see why you. I can't.

Sent by Gal Levin | 5:22 PM ET | 09-20-2006

The question "why me?" is relevant when we think about us, but when we think about the larger picture of the complex machinery of the body and gene interaction one should often think, why I don't get cancer.

Sent by Janet | 5:52 PM ET | 09-26-2006