Marching Toward Monday Morning

First, I want to thank all of you for the tremendous outpouring of support, good wishes, and prayers. I cannot thank you enough. As we all know, a life with cancer includes moments of fear and loneliness. But remembering that we are all in this together can banish those feelings and give us the strength to keep walking down this road, no matter how difficult the next step may be.

As I get ready for my surgery, I know that there are so many others out there, getting ready for their own procedures or their next chemo appointment. Or just trying to get through a difficult day. This is not an easy life. But it's the only life we have, so we might as well get on with it.

I'm not really nervous about the operation. After all, I'll be asleep. I trust my doctors, they're good at their jobs. And in my case, there really is no choice. But I went into the meeting with my surgeon yesterday with my mind made up, anyway. This is what I was going to do.

So now I'm running around like crazy, trying to get everything done before Monday. It's a little like getting ready for a vacation, except that you know the food won't be great, there's no pool, and they certainly don't serve frosty drinks with little umbrellas in them. But the dress code is pretty casual, so I guess that's one plus.

If anything, I have to keep myself from getting impatient. Monday will come soon enough. And there's one tumor that has no idea what's coming. I like that.

Leroy Sievers

7:13 AM ET | 09-28-2007 | permalink | comments (142) | e-mail post

What's a Spinalectomy?

Spinalectomy. That's the new word for the day. That's what I'm going to have on Monday. It will be an eight-hour surgery, and the doctors will remove the vertebra and the tumor. They will replace the vertebra with an artificial one. When it's done, and after a long recovery, I should have less pain, maybe even no pain. And that tumor will be gone for good.

There were other options. They could remove just part of the vertebra and follow up the surgery with very precise radiation. But the tumor is so close to my spinal column now that they probably wouldn't be able get it all. Which would mean that after the operation -- and all the pain that comes with it -- the problem wouldn't be solved. The tumor could grow again. And if that happened, there'd be no other options except maybe chemo. It was pretty easy to reject this option.

The procedure I'm going to have is usually done when someone has primary spinal cancer, and there aren't any tumors in other parts of the body. When someone like me comes in, with mets all over, doctors will normally say it's not worth it to do something like the spinalectomy. I think it is. And luckily I have doctors who agree.

Still, when you listen to the list of things that could possibly go wrong, of the risks involved, it's pretty sobering. Out of all the procedures I've had, including brain surgery, I think this one will be the most complicated, and the most dangerous.

I'll be in the hospital most of next week, so the blog entries won't show up regularly. We'll try to put up updates as we can, and I should be back online the following week.

Leroy Sievers

7:05 AM ET | 09-27-2007 | permalink | comments (197) | e-mail post

Eliminating the Tumor, Once and For All

Well, at least we think we finally know what's causing the pain I've been feeling. My last scans showed something strange on the vertebra we had glued. The consensus now is that it's tumor cells. For whatever reason, they survived the hot glue treatment that should have killed them. They may just have been growing on the outside of the bone. In any case, they're dangerous. My doctors think they could start having an impact on my spinal cord in as little as a month. That's very bad.

So it looks like I'm going to have back surgery. I had joked before about becoming a bionic man. Well, I'm not joking anymore. The surgery would remove that vertebra and replace it with an artificial one. The doctors will look at the vertebrae on either side of the one in question, too.

I think this is going to be a big deal. Not that the other procedures haven't been. But the recovery time for this one is probably going to be about eight weeks. So once I have this, I may be away from the blog for a little while. We'll have to see how it goes.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The good news is that this surgery will eliminate that tumor once and for all. As painful as back surgery is, or at least as everyone says it is, we hope this will end the pain that has kept me from sleeping the past several months. And that will be a huge relief.

I'm still trying to process all this. I'm meeting with the surgeon this morning, and I'll know more then. This stuff just never ends.

Leroy Sievers

7:00 AM ET | 09-26-2007 | permalink | comments (116) | e-mail post

Does Cancer Make Us Cowardly?

I was watching an old episode of Boston Legal the other day. I won't try to summarize the plot, but a cancer patient was on the stand in a trial. In the course of his testimony, he said, "Cancer makes cowards of us all." It's one of those lines that grabs your attention. It was clearly meant to. And I kept thinking about it long after I was done with the episode.

I think it's wrong. Wrong meaning incorrect, not morally wrong. Cancer, as we all know far too well, is scary. It's more than scary, it's terrifying. It's worse than any horror movie out there. Sometimes the fear it brings can be almost paralyzing. Except that it's not. I think cancer tries to make cowards of us all. And fails.

To me, a coward is someone who runs away, who fails to act out of fear. No cancer patient is a coward, for one very simple reason. We're not allowed to be. How many of us would love to run away from our disease? From the treatments, the side effects, the pain? At some point, we have all felt that. But it's just not one of the options. We can't run away. So we are left with only one choice. Stand and face it.

We've talked before about how often people tell us how brave we are. I don't think that's right either. We are challenged by this disease, and we rise to the challenge because there really is no other choice. People are much stronger than they think. It's just that many people are never tested.

My cancer has scared me. It scares me pretty much on a daily basis. It scares me when it hides, when it grows, when it surprises me. But make me a coward? Never.

Leroy Sievers

7:03 AM ET | 09-25-2007 | permalink | comments (67) | e-mail post

Waiting for the Showdown

The following essay is from the NPR My Cancer weekly podcast:

It's the climax of just about every Western movie. The good guy and the bad guy, wearing the appropriately colored hats, face off in the middle of Main Street. Eyes squinting. Hands poised over their guns. Waiting for the other guy to make his move. All the women and children have run for cover. Someone's about to die.

Well, that's pretty much the situation I'm in with my cancer right now. It's in there, sitting on my spine and in my lung. Growing a little, but not enough to raise any alarms. Waiting. Watching.

I feel okay these days. We've killed a lot of the tumors. Now we're waiting to see what the cancer is going to do. Where it's going to strike next. It's not an immediate threat right now. If there's a growth spurt, or a lot of new tumors show up suddenly, then we'll react. We'll fire back. But in the meantime, we wait.

And that's not easy. Let's face it, we're trying to kill each other. We both want it over once and for all. I want the cancer dead, all of it. The disease is clearly trying to kill me, and it's trying pretty hard. This feud has gone on longer than anyone expected.

So we wait. Waiting for one of us to blink. To twitch. To go for a gun. It's nerve-wracking. It's exhausting. It's hard to face the disease every day. But there's no other choice.

I don't think real gunfights were anything like what we see in the movies. First of all, the guns weren't very accurate. And the cowboys weren't very good shots. My great-great uncle was an outlaw. Got in a fight over a woman in a bar, killed a man, and lit out for the hills before a posse could get him. At least that's the way the story's been handed down. I doubt very much that he and his adversary stopped everything, walked out into the street, faced each other, and then had their gunfight. It's very possible he shot that guy in the back.

And that's okay with me. I have no problem with a dirty fight, especially the one I'm in. I'm happy to cheat, shoot, or stab ... or radiate the tumors in the back. Go after them whenever and wherever they least expect it. I'm fighting for my life here. I see no reason it has to be a fair fight.

Leroy Sievers

7:00 AM ET | 09-24-2007 | permalink | comments (44) | e-mail post

Learning to Live with Pain

The desk where I write looks out into the back yard. Our yard seems to be a favorite with the local deer. There's one that comes back every year to give birth, this year to twins. There are so many deer around, and they seem so unafraid of people, that you just get used to them after a while. They are a true hazard at night, though. They really do stand by the side of the road and then step out right in front of your car.

Recently a buck has sort of taken up residence back by the fence. He's a pretty good size, antlers and all, and he has a bad hind leg. My guess is that he was hit by a car, and the leg has healed as much as it's going to. He can't put any weight on it, and limps around the yard. But he comes and goes, so I guess he's pretty mobile in spite of the bad leg. I watch him limping around, and it's hard not to identify with him. After all, what other options does he have?

I'm still in pain. There's no obvious source for it, and unfortunately that makes it pretty difficult to treat. It's possible that it was being caused by one of the tumors on my spine. Maybe a bone fragment was rubbing on a nerve or something. When we put the glue in, we may have made that situation permanent. And unfortunately the pain seems to be totally impervious to pain medication. It's funny how near-constant pain can affect you. I'm not sleeping very well, haven't been for months. And the pain just starts to wear you down, affects your mood, certainly affects your concentration.

But I may just have to live with it. And I certainly can, if that's what I have to do. I think back to some of the people I saw in the chemo room earlier in the week. They were in pain. What I'm feeling doesn't come close. So sometimes I sit here and watch that injured buck. As a matter of fact, he just walked out of my yard. If he can make it every day, so can I. After all, there are no other options.

Leroy Sievers

7:00 AM ET | 09-21-2007 | permalink | comments (50) | e-mail post

Minor Events That Measure Our Lives

Okay, let me get the embarrassing stuff over with right at the top. High school prom. Both my junior and senior years, I wore a light blue tuxedo, actually just the coat was light blue, the pants were black. That to me is a crucial point. In my attempt to salvage any dignity, black pants are slightly less horrifying than the total blue tux that Elvis would have loved. And yes, the shirt had ruffles.

Tuxedos don't change a lot over time. Usually the changes are fairly subtle. After all, there's not that much you can do with them. But over the years, I've worn ruffles, no ruffles, black, blue, velvet, the whole gamut of tuxedo fashion for good or ill. Now, what is the point of talking about this, aside from my humiliation?

Well, I have a couple of black-tie events in the coming months, and I needed a new shirt. My old one had a wing collar. That was the style when I bought it a few years back. But now wing collars are almost impossible to find. The regular collar has come back, along with long ties instead of bow ties. Again, pretty subtle changes, but earthshaking in the black tie world. So my new shirt is in keeping with the current style. A current style that will probably last for a couple of years before it changes again.

But it's the little things that can sneak up on you when you have cancer. When I bought the shirt, I wondered to myself if I would be here when the styles change again. Would I live to see my brand new shirt go out of style? We all tend to mark our time here by the big events. Birthdays, holidays, weddings, and so on. But sometimes it's the relatively minor things, the almost meaningless events, that measure our lives as well. Or at least they serve as reminders that our time may be limited.

In the meantime, I have a new shirt, and I think I look pretty good in it. And to the two girls I took to our proms, I'm sorry about the blue tuxes. Really.

Leroy Sievers

7:13 AM ET | 09-20-2007 | permalink | comments (55) | e-mail post

Another Day in Cancer World

I won't bury the lead. The scans showed that the tumors on my spine have grown a little. Not a lot, but enough to be obvious. Funny, that passes as good news these days.

It was a long, long day. Got there at 7:30, had the MRI, then blood work, then met with my oncologist, then a quick infusion of a bone medicine. And then, back to the MRI because some of the radiologists saw something they couldn't quite understand and wanted more pictures. It took the nurses three tries to get an IV in to inject the contrast for that last session. That was fun. Finally got home about 6.

So all in all, another day in cancer world. I had to go back to the chemo room for the bone medicine infusion. I recognized some people, which means they've been on chemo for a really long time. There were, sadly, plenty of new faces, too. And always, it's striking how differently this disease affects people. Some were clearly very sick, and your heart goes out to them. Others, myself included, don't look sick at all. I know that I look at those who are clearly having a tough time and wonder if I'll look like that one day. I'm sure the family members of those patients, keeping a lonely vigil while the machine pumps poison into their loved ones, must wonder why their patient wasn't as lucky as we have been.

I met a woman -- actually, she came up to me while I was sitting in the hallway -- who recognized me from the Discovery program. That always surprises me. She has breast cancer that has moved into her bones. She's now taking an experimental vaccine, and was about to have the scans that would show if it was working. She was amazingly cheerful and funny. Like me, she didn't look sick at all. When she talked about the pain in her bones, her earlier loss of hair, having to raise four young children while fighting the disease, I realized what a tough time she's had. But her laughter was still strong and loud.

The worst part of the day was that the hospital was crowded. Standing room only in some places. The chemo room and waiting room were packed. The area where they take the blood samples was backed up, almost every chair in the waiting area filled. I hated it, not because it was crowded or the waits were long, but for the obvious reason. So many people with cancer. It just seems so, so wrong.

Leroy Sievers

7:18 AM ET | 09-19-2007 | permalink | comments (48) | e-mail post

Hoping for a Cease-fire

Today is another scan day. I'm back up at the hospital, this time for an MRI. There are still tumors on my spine, and we need to see what they've been doing while we've been busy elsewhere. And those new tumors in my lung, the ones that were almost too tiny to see last time? We need to see if they've grown. Chances are, they'll all be bigger.

What is it about cancer than makes it so unrelenting? Doesn't it ever get tired? After all, trying to kill me must be hard work. Why don't we just agree to a cease-fire? A year would be nice, but I'd settle for six months. Just a chance for everyone to catch their breath. Then we can start again.

There was a famous incident in World War I. Actually, it probably happened more than once. One Christmas, the soldiers on both sides decided to stop killing each other for a day. They climbed out of their trenches, shared what food they had, and sort of made friends. Then, when the holiday was over, they got back down in their trenches and went back to work.

I think that's what I would like. Just some time when I don't have to worry about whether the tumors are growing, or where new ones are going to pop up. Just enough time to get off the roller coaster and let my stomach settle. Then I could get back on again. But I know that will probably never happen. As Hunter Thompson used to say, "Buy the ticket, take the ride."

I don't mean to sound down today. I'm really not. I think I'm just tired. I know that by the end of the day, I'll either know whether things have pretty much stayed the same, or that a new crisis has begun. And then it will be time to get on with the next step, whatever it turns out to be.

Besides, if I remember that story about World War I correctly, all the officers who were involved got in big big trouble. The generals don't like anyone to interrupt their wars. I'm sure there's some sort of lesson there.

Leroy Sievers

7:03 AM ET | 09-18-2007 | permalink | comments (63) | e-mail post

What Would You Choose to Forget?

The following essay is from the NPR My Cancer weekly podcast:

Amnesia. It seems to only happen in soap operas and movies. It's the perfect solution for a writer who has no idea where to go next. Let's just wipe the person clean and start over. Sort of like they did with my computer when it had a virus. In fact, there's a TV show this season about a woman with amnesia. If it fails, maybe she can just forget she was ever in it.

I'm about to try a new drug to help with the pain I've been feeling. Like always, there's a long list of side effects. I usually don't pay that much attention to the side effects. It's like those TV ads for drugs when they hire the absolute fastest-talking person they can find to read through the possible dangers. My doctor was telling me about this drug, when he came to the next possible side effect. Amnesia. We actually both started laughing. Can that be for real?

And what exactly do they mean? You forget the last five minutes... or the last five years? Is it temporary? Will I have to worry that maybe I've done something wrong... committed a crime and don't remember it? That's another lame plot device in movies and TV. Should I write my name on my hand, so I can look down surreptitiously if someone asks me?

On the other hand, this could come in really handy. It's the perfect excuse. Who could argue with real amnesia? Get stopped for a speeding ticket? I forgot there was a speed limit. Don't pay your bills? Sorry, I forgot. We've always joked that there ought to be some benefit to going through all this, and maybe I've found it.

Okay, no more kidding. If I could forget the last two years, would I? Wouldn't it be better not to remember the look on that first doctor's face when he told me I had a brain tumor? That conversation when they said I had six months to live -- that would be forgotten. All the pain, physical and mental, gone... just like that. Some new pain drugs block your short-term memory, so you may be in pain, but you don't remember it afterwards. Maybe this is like that... only on a larger scale.

Still, I don't think I'd be interested. It's not the easy times that make us who we are. It's the tough times, the challenges, the setbacks. That's how we learn about ourselves. These last two years have made me who I am today. That's not something I'm willing to give up. That's something I hope I never forget.

Leroy Sievers

7:00 AM ET | 09-17-2007 | permalink | comments (41) | e-mail post

When Cancer Becomes Old News

A couple of you wrote in yesterday to say you wanted more feedback, more follow-up, on things I've said or things that have happened, like my last procedures. It's true, I do try to move on each day to a different topic. I rarely go back to something we've talked about before. Maybe I can blame a life spent in television news, which is notorious for never following up on stories, always looking for the next one.

I realize one thing we haven't talked about in a long time is the whole question of when, and how, to tell people about our disease. I used to write about that a lot. I think it's because when this blog first started, it was an everyday issue. My cancer was still new. There were a lot of people who didn't know. These days, it doesn't seem to come up so much. Certainly just about everyone I know now knows that I'm sick. There are times, in conversations with strangers, when I have to ask myself whether to tell. But most of the time, I don't say anything.

I guess the novelty has worn off. When I was first diagnosed, I remember I was sort of bursting with the news. Even though it was bad news, I couldn't keep it inside me. It was just too big. Well, that was a long time ago. These days, the cancer feels like old news. It's just part of my life. If someone asks me how I am, unless they specifically ask about my health, I usually start talking about other things.

If you had asked me in those early days if I thought I would ever get used to all this, my answer would have been an emphatic, "No." But eventually, your adrenaline runs out. Your brain slowly calms down and you realize this is much more than an instant crisis. Some days there are just things that are far more important to talk about. And I think that's actually a triumph of sorts.

Leroy Sievers

7:11 AM ET | 09-14-2007 | permalink | comments (51) | e-mail post

The Body I Live in Now

We talk a lot about life before cancer. Looking back, it was much simpler in many ways. Life post-diagnosis seems to have a black cloud over it, even on the sunniest days. When I stop to think about it, one of the things I miss most, aside from not worrying about a terminal illness, of course, is the way I used to feel. I felt pretty good. I was working out a lot back then. I was probably in the best shape I'd been in for a while. Lifting weights, walking five or six miles a day, tai chi.

Oh, I had little complaints, of course. My left knee gave me some trouble, but that was because of some stupid things I did back in high school and college. I had the normal aches and pains of a man who'd just turned 50. But all in all, I felt pretty good. I miss that.

These days, I feel different. The last two years have taken their toll physically, as well as mentally. There's still pain from my last procedures. That's a constant reminder that things have changed. I don't have the energy I used to have. There are some days I feel much older than 52.

But that's me. That's the body I live in now. I don't mean to whine. This is just the way things have turned out. I found an old Far Side cartoon the other day. It's titled "Horse hospitals." I'll try to describe it in a way that does it justice. A number of horses are lying on beds, each with a leg taped up and on a splint. Doctors are walking through the ward, each with a clipboard and a rifle under one arm. Behind the curtain at the back of the room, you hear a "BLAM!" The other horses' eyes have gone very wide.

I love this cartoon. It's very funny in a very twisted way. And it stops me from feeling sorry for myself. After all, no matter how I feel, no matter how many aches and pains I may have, how old I may feel on a given day, I'm not ready to be put down yet. And I haven't seen any doctors with rifles yet, but I'm keeping my eyes open.

Leroy Sievers

7:13 AM ET | 09-13-2007 | permalink | comments (42) | e-mail post

The Many Forms of Fear and Courage

I was up at the hospital the other day, and for some reason I was paying attention to the family members who came with the cancer patients. It's pretty easy to tell who's who, though not always. They all shared something in common. They all looked scared. Oh, they were trying not to, they were laughing, trying to be positive, trying to be strong. But you could see the fear in their eyes.

It's a different kind of fear than the patients show. The family members are all afraid of the same thing -- the death of the patient. It's even deeper than that. I think they're afraid that their loved ones will feel pain, that their loved ones will be hurting. And there won't be anything they can do.

I watched James Gandolfini's stunning documentary on HBO, Alive Day. He interviewed a number of soldiers who had been seriously wounded in Iraq. In one case, he interviewed the mother of a young Marine who had been hit twice in the head and had suffered traumatic brain damage. While he spoke quite clearly a number of times, it was obvious that his injuries had had a devastating effect. The documentary showed video of him before he was wounded, laughing and dancing in the barracks with some of his fellow Marines. It was heartbreaking.

I was taken by his mother's strength. She tried to be positive, tried to encourage her son, tried to be strong. I cannot imagine the pain she feels. And in that sense, she's no different than the family members I saw at the hospital. If only just saying the words were enough. If only saying, "It will be all right," could make it so. But it doesn't.

Courage comes in many forms. Many people are never tested, never have to reach down inside themselves to find enough courage to do the simplest thing. To manage a smile when they want to curl up in a corner and cry. But I think that those who are tested, in ways they never expected, find something within themselves that they didn't know was there. If only courage were enough.

Leroy Sievers

7:05 AM ET | 09-12-2007 | permalink | comments (58) | e-mail post

Taking Stock of the Remaining Options

I've been joking for a while that my goal is to have every type of procedure possible to try to stop or slow down my cancer. And I've done pretty well: brain surgery, colon surgery, chemo, radiation, brain radiation, RFA, cryoablation, vertebroplasty, gamma knife. But I may be running out of options. Chemo is still sitting out there, and a number of my doctors think that's the right way to go. I'm not very eager, though, as most of you will understand. I know how it will make me feel, and chances are, it won't be all that effective. But there's always that slim chance. What if I am one of those lucky people whose cancer will be stopped by the chemo -- and I don't try it? The obvious answer is that I'll never know.

If the cancer continues to spread, if new tumors keep popping up, then trying to kill them one at a time may not make much sense any more. As always, we'll know more after the next scans. But there will come a point, maybe sooner than later, when I may end up like the little Dutch boy as the dike springs more leaks than he has fingers. What then?

It's funny, before I got sick, if you had asked me, I would have said that of course you do whatever you can to stay alive. You take any chance, no matter how slim. Then I had chemo, and quite honestly, I'm not sure I want to go through it again.

So what's left? There are always clinical trials, something that I hadn't really thought about before. I sort of figured that I had more options, more procedures to try, before I got to that step. But there are researchers trying amazing things. And at this point, I'm more than willing to offer myself up as a guinea pig. I mean, what have I got to lose? At best something like that could help me, and at worst, I'd be participating in research that might help others down the line.

Now, I really know nothing about how those trials work, but it's something my doctor and I are starting to talk about. After all, I could always use another treatment to add to my list.

Leroy Sievers

7:13 AM ET | 09-11-2007 | permalink | comments (60) | e-mail post

The Tortoise and the Hare

The following essay is from the NPR My Cancer weekly podcast:

I'm waiting. I'm in that weird period of limbo known as "between scans." I'm still healing from the procedures I had a few weeks ago. Actually, I'm still pretty sore. So we're giving my body a bit of a break. Time to catch up and repair itself as best it can. In a few weeks, I'll have some new scans. Then it will be time to act. At least that's what I expect.

I have tumors on my spine. The last time we looked, they were pretty small. I also have new tumors in my right lung. They're very, very small. Too small to really do anything about right now. So it will be the spine next. If the tumors have pretty much stayed the same -- no huge growth spurt -- then maybe we'll just continue to watch. But I doubt that's what we'll see. My cancer is pretty aggressive. I expect we'll see a fair amount of growth. And of course, there's always the chance -- the likelihood -- that there will be new tumors somewhere else, too.

In the meantime, I wait. Now, I'm not a particularly patient man. I'm used to instant gratification. I spent my adult life in television news, an industry with an attention span measured in seconds. I was used to being in control. Used to being able to make a decision and have it implemented right away. Life moved on my schedule. At least that's what I thought at the time.

Things have changed. And so have I. I have learned patience, because I've had to. My life and my body no longer move according to my demands. I don't set my own schedule any more. And surprisingly, I'm okay with that. But then I guess, when you don't have a choice, you have no choice but to accept the way things are.

So I'm not counting the days to the next set of scans. We haven't even scheduled them yet. And if they find something, then we'll come up with a plan.

We were all raised on the story of the tortoise and the hare. Of course, we all secretly sided with the hare, right? After all, the moral of the story, "slow and steady wins the race" is hardly the kind of line to fire the imagination or adopt as a motto for life. But it turns out that it's really true. This is a long race. There's still a long way ahead of me. The tortoise was right after all. Who knew?

Leroy Sievers

7:00 AM ET | 09-10-2007 | permalink | comments (50) | e-mail post

Community Brings Both Support and Sadness

This blog is generally considered a success. Lots of people read it. Lots of you write in, some of you every day. Pick whatever industry term you want -- hits, eyeballs, discrete visitors -- we have a lot of them. And I guess that should make me feel good. Except when I stop and think about it. I look at the numbers, and have that same sick feeling that I get when the garage at the hospital is full. There are so many of us. Too many.

Just about everyone who reads or posts on this site has been touched by cancer in some way. And this community is just a small part of the larger cancer world. I guess I just wish I could go out of business. That NPR would shut down the site because there aren't enough people. People with cancer. But of course, that's not going to happen, at least not any time soon.

In some ways, being part of this huge community makes things easier. We see each other at the hospital or on the street. We can find kindred spirits fairly easily. We are shown, day after day, that we are not alone. I don't know much about other diseases, but I suspect that cancer is unique in just how many people it affects. Many hospitals have a cancer wing, or even a separate building.

I can't imagine how lonely it must be for people who have a rare disease, or a less common one. I just imagine that they have as hard a fight as we do, if not harder, because they have to go through it without a community behind them. Or at least not a community as large and active as ours.

And there's that same trap. "A community as large... as ours." I wish that I wasn't able to write those words. I wish that the parking lots at the oncology centers were empty. That the chemo rooms were gathering dust. I'd be happy to stop writing this blog and find another job. But unfortunately I don't expect to see any of those things happen. And that makes me sad.

Leroy Sievers

7:13 AM ET | 09- 7-2007 | permalink | comments (81) | e-mail post

Cancer Is a Disease, Not an Identity

This is my third try at writing the blog for today. For some reason, I'm just having trouble putting my thoughts down in writing. I started out writing about the differences between the normal world and cancer world. While we spend most of our time in cancer world, there are times when we cross back over the line into the world where everyone else lives. Those are the times when we're not cancer patients, when no one knows we're sick. We know, but it's possible to forget, even if only for a few short minutes. Or am I kidding myself? Do the people who know we have cancer ever forget? Do they ever see us the way they used to, as just normal people? That's the question I was trying to get at.

My second try was a slightly different take on the same issue. Do we ever see ourselves the way we used to? Can we ever step back into our own lives, even for a short time? Our minds may let us, but our bodies have a habit of reminding us just how battered and bruised we are.

After I had cancer the first time, I never used the term "survivor." I didn't want that to be my identity. Cancer wasn't who I was, it was just a disease I had. A disease I thought was over. This time, it's tougher. Sometimes it feels like everything has been reversed. Cancer patient is who I am, that's my identity. "Normal Leroy" is something I was, but that's over.

I think this is more than just semantics, or my desperation to find a topic for today. It's really the issue of identity, of who I am. Of who we all are. I think it really comes down to resistance. Almost two years into this fight, I'm still reluctant to give in to the disease, to acknowledge the extent to which it has taken over my life. I still try to think of myself as someone who just happens to have a disease. That's harder some days than others. Maybe I'm just kidding myself. Maybe resistance really is futile. But I don't think so. I am a realist. I know what's happening to me. But I hold on tightly to the idea that that's all it is -- just something that's happening to me.

Leroy Sievers

7:11 AM ET | 09- 6-2007 | permalink | comments (84) | e-mail post

Snippets of Inspiration

I tried to write a book once. It was much harder than I realized. That was before this blog existed. I realized I probably had a good pamphlet in me, a strong 20 or 30 pages or so, but that was about it. So I look at every book with great admiration. Even the lousy ones.

I do try to keep track of random lines I hear that I may want to use later. I like to think that's a writerly thing to do.

Sometimes just a single line, something someone says in a post on the blog site, will be enough to trigger a whole piece for me. Other times, those random lines just buzz around in my head, looking for a home. That's pretty much what's happening today. There are three lines I can't get out of my head. They're like an annoying song, but none of them trigger a whole blog. Here they are, anyway:

"What happens to one of us, happens to all of us." A couple of people have said that in their posts, and it grabs me every time. What finer sentiment could there be? And I think that all of you, every day, show that's not just talk. You all live it in your support for each other.

"I'm not dead yet." Now, how many of you read that, or said it out loud, in the proper Monty Python voice? And let's be honest, we all do Monty Python voices when no one else is around. That, of course, is from the brilliant sequence at the beginning of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If you have never seen it, go get the DVD today. If you know it, you can probably act out the whole scene without any help. I laugh every time I see it. Or think of it. But that scene really does summarize our daily experiences in a lot of ways. "I'm getting better." "No, you're not." Trust me, it's funny.

"Not today." Again, someone said this in their post a while back, and it stuck with me. I think that's really all a cancer patient, or their loved ones, need to say on any given day. Those two words encapsulate all the defiance, and all the hope, that we try to hold on to. "Not today." Period.

Leroy Sievers

7:08 AM ET | 09- 5-2007 | permalink | comments (39) | e-mail post

Autumn Without Urgency

The following essay is from the NPR My Cancer weekly podcast:

We're past Labor Day and it's still summer in Washington. The temperature is in the 90s and so is the humidity. The signs that fall is coming are starting to show up, though. There's a branch of one tree in my yard that always changes first. Its leaves are bright red now. But I'm talking about the more traditional signs. Lots of ads for the coming season of TV shows. Granted, the new shows can't come soon enough. We've endured enough garbage this summer.

I go into this fall a little surprised. I wasn't supposed to be here. I remember writing a year ago that I was going to make a point of enjoying that autumn because I might not see the next one. For someone who grew up in Southern California, where there really are no seasons, the colors when the leaves change, and the crisp weather, whenever it comes, are truly miraculous.

But here I am a year later. And I'm not sure what to think. It's been a hard year in many ways. I'm certainly a little more beat up. In terms of my cancer, though, I'm probably in better shape than I was last fall. Just not being on chemo makes life much better.

I think I've just lost some of that urgency I felt before. I plan on enjoying the changes of seasons, but I don't think I'm going to spend much time worrying about whether I'll be around a year from now. I'll be here or I won't. I guess that for a good part of this past year, I was looking at everything through the prism of death. My death. I just don't think that way as much anymore.

I do have one thought though. If this is my last year, I sure wish that there would be something better on TV. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Leroy Sievers

7:00 AM ET | 09- 4-2007 | permalink | comments (56) | e-mail post