August 17, 2006 - Day 2 - Week 20 - Cautious Optimism

There is one side of me holding me back, the other wanting to stand on a rooftop and shout to the world.

It was much easier calling or writing friends and family to tell them I had cancer than it has been to say the cancer is not detectable at the moment.  Notice the equivocation even now?  It is hard to believe my own story,  and therefore part of the reason why it is hard to tell people what has transpired, especially in person.

I do not want to raise expectations or offer false hope only to have those feelings dashed to the ground sometime in the future.  The sequence of bad news to good news is wonderful, the pattern of bad news, good news, bad news is debilitating and defeating, even to those with the strongest of spirits.  Thus, I am hesitant, almost apologetic, yet grateful and blessed at the same time.

This is perhaps a learning that others can further amplify for me.  Cancer touches individuals and communities at such a profound level, both spiritual and emotional, that new understandings are most likely birthed with each new situation.  The human body, and the spirit that infuses that combination of flesh, blood, organs, bones and stuff, is an amazing instrument for good or ill.  We can choose life or choose death, as Deuteronomy intones, and with cancer, whether we survive physically or not, is a choice during the process of being spirit filled or defeatist.  My body has been given a reprieve; for how long and to what an extent I do not know.

I inquired of the radiologist who read my scans if I am technically in remission.  He was a bit hesitant to proclaim and all out victory, and cautioned that remission is more about time and purity of body combined, than making an arbitrary determination.  I interpreted this to mean that if things stay as they am I will be in remission sometime in the foreseeable future.  Am I cured, probably not?  Will I work to prevent a reoccurrence, yes to the best of my ability?

Thus, my internal conflict will take awhile to sort out.  When you are declared cancer free as opposed to cancer filled there begins, at least for me, there has begun an adjustment period.  Cautious optimism might be the correct public stance as of now.  Not quite ready to get on the roof, but at least on the ladder, and on the way up.

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