Monday: March 12, 2012

Happy birthday to me. Today marks 53 years of my existence on this Earth. Let's hope there's another 30 or 40 years to worry about.

There was a time when I told myself I didn't want to grow old. What exactly “old” meant, I'm not sure.

I’ve observed my father at an assisted living facility and now a nursing home and knew I did not want that. I thought it would be okay if I could live in my own home, take care of myself and still participate in some of the activities I enjoyed. And, I imagined, Mary Lou would be around to help.

In other words, I’ve been willing to grow old on my own terms.

Cancer scrambles and rearranges one’s point of view. It feels like I'm running a desperate race with mortality. Another five years would be great; ten would be a huge bonus.

 

It's only in the last week that I've seen young patients in the radiation oncology unit. On Friday, I watched an attendant pushing a boy of 7 or 8 in a wheelchair, his father trailing behind carrying a stuffed animal. I shuddered to think what that father must be feeling.

The boy has drawn a genetic short straw for which he is blameless. My cancer is entirely self-inflicted.

  

There’s very little history of cancer in my family. There is plenty of heart disease, but recent tests have shown that despite cigarettes my heart is healthy and strong.Were it not for smoking, it would not have been unreasonable to think I might live as long as my father, who is 92, or my uncle, who died at age 97. That’s no longer the case.

So my birthday wish is to reach the ripe old age of 54 and be completely cancer free. Hell, I'll take cancer free and 53 ½.

Growing old really doesn't sound so bad anymore.