OffKilter

Back in the day, I used to do aerobics.  It was a very 80's thing to do, and I was an 80's girl.  I remember being in the class with the uber fit little sprite of a girl leading the charge and saying, 3 more, 2 more, 1 more NOW 5 more!  That's very much how I felt after I slogged through 6 weeks of hell - well, really about 3 weeks of treatment hell.  Only to have my Doctor turn to me and say that the 2 weeks after radiation ended would be worse.  And, that I would only see the light at the end of the tunnel in about 6 weeks.  Oh, and some of the side effects MAY be permanent.  

And, then, gotta love this guy.  He looked me in the eye and said, you look kinda down.  Really?  Is that much of a surprise?  But at least it was over and I could stop my mind from running around in circles wondering if I should have ever consented to this treatment.  The decision  to put my life on hold because my Doctors told me that I had a better chance of not having a reoccurrence if I did was far easier when the costs were thereotical.  Before I knew what the side effects would really feel like.  Even though they warned me, repeatedly and somewhat eagerly, about how unwell I would feel.  Give us six months of your life, they said, and we will work to prevent a recurrence of a cancer that is not 'salvageable' if it comes back.  

When the cost was low, it was easy to comply with what they asked of me.  The trouble for me comes when people start telling me what I 'have' to do.  I really, really hate being told what to do.  Is that because I am the youngest?  Just the way I was made?  Who knows, but it's been something I've struggled with my whole life.  

To make matters worse, I didn't fit nicely into their protocol, so they would tell me what I 'had' to take and when I did it would cause more problems than solve.  They have a little path you take, your mouth erupts into a million sores making it feel like there are razor blades lining your throat every time you swallow.  The pain of a sip of water would cause tears.  So, they prescribe some hydromorphine for you.  And, some anti-nauseau medication.  And, give you samples of liquid sustenance - ensure, boost, resource.  Sugar laden, high calorie stuff.  Suggesting anything out of the protocol - holistic options for managing the mouth sores for example, was met with more resistance than I could counter. 

The problem for me was that I couldn't get my protein shakes down, and the other stuff would make me throw up.  And, convincing them of that was an uphill battle.  Frankly, spending hours throwing up with a throat lined with razor blades feels as good as it sounds.  And, of course, the narcotics would also make me throw up.  It seemed endless until I found a balance of a lot of anti-nausea medication and a little narcotic to take the edge of the pain.  And, through it all I counted the days until it was all done.  Luckily for me, I had miscalculated when my end date was so finding out that it was three days earlier than I thought gave me the lift I needed to push to the end. 

So after I rang that lovely bell and was done with my last radiation treatment, I really hoped to be able to beat the statistics and heal a bit faster than predicted.  I went straight away to my friendly acupuncturist, a lovely fellow who was able to abate the razor blade pain and get the nausea under control in one treatment.  But just like the outside of my neck was horribly burned, the inside of my throat and mouth was burned and started to 'peel'.  Creating oodles of thick, smelly, disgusting, revolting mucus.  That I would cough up all day and all night.  One entire weekend I spent on the couch with a bucket, watching the entire Walking Dead series, and wondering how to get a medically induced coma.  

But  s l o w l y  it started to get better.  Far more slowly than I would like, and not better every day.  But the razor blades are gone, yesterday was the first day that I went to bed and wasn't hungry, and my mouth and throat are just moderately sore.  I still don't speak very clearly, and it hurts to speak which I find inordinately frustrating.  I'm still coughing and spitting up phlegm and blood from my poor healing throat and have started antibiotics in case the swelling is related to an infection, but am moving steadily towards a healed mouth and throat.  And, will wait and hope that the most limiting side effects don't stick around forever.  

It'll be interesting to see how I feel in a month or two.  Right now, if I could be teleported back in time to April and asked if I wanted to go ahead with this treatment, I would say "HELL NO!  Absolutely not.  Not a chance".  Hopefully this will all have been worth it, and my Doctor is right.  By his way of thinking, the law of averages means that some good luck should be coming my way soon enough.  

And, I do have more blessings, more kind and generous friends who have supported me with their words and actions, than I could have ever hoped to have.  

Website of Lovely Acupuncturist  -  http://www.brucecawdron.com/

Do you know that I have a bar code?  Yep, I have a little slip of paper with a bar code, and rather than telling a clerk that I've arrived for my radiation appointments, I just scan my bar code.  Then wait and the radiation technicians come and get me for my quick, efficient and streamlined irradiation. 

We've moved light years passed Henry Ford's first assembly line to bring his cars to the masses.  Whether you know it or not, everything you have is made in a factory - including the food that you eat.  It has struck me more than once, that I'm very much like the little piggies that get moved from pen to pen in their specialized swine housing, the little piggie factories.  And, just like the unease that happens when you think (well, at least when I think) of animals being treated as parts of such an industrialized process, I'm not that comfortable thinking of myself as part of the cancer factory.  

See the picture below?  Is that what you thought a pig farm looked like?

Just like the guidelines on how to house little piggies, treat them humanely, feed them so they grow quickly, manage all that manure, treat them so they don't get sick, there are written guidelines and protocols about how to treat my type of cancer, surgery, radiation, management of side effects.  Now, one certainly hopes  the goals are very different - rather than fattening me up for slaughter (although I've done a good job of that all by myself!), the goal is to eradicate the cancer and keep me around a lot longer.  

But the means to the goals, the search for efficiencies drives to the same process.  For the piggies, the protocols and guidelines strive to most cost effectively manage their short little lives, and convert them from wee little Babe like piglets into pork.  For cancer patients, it is to rid the patient of the cancer, as quickly as possible.  So many people are so often surprised to learn about where we get our food from, I often encounter folks who had no idea that their idealized vision of meat production belongs to a different century.  

With millions of people to feed, efficiency and cost savings are king.  It only makes sense that with thousands of people to treat for cancer (is it millions in Canada - interesting question that!), we have a assembly line approach to treatment.  When I'm in a happy mood, I like to think of it as a cancer village.  But, then sometimes I feel like a cog, just a barcode in a huge industrial complex.  

In so many ways, as a society, we have progressed so far.  But all this information and specialization drives us away from being personally connected.  As organizations become larger and larger, they need to weed out inefficiencies wherever and whenever possible.  I know that I am a series of statistics and numbers to my radiation doctor.  I'm a T1N0M0 with a 3mm margin.  

Don't get me wrong, everyone at the cancer centre is great - they are kind, interested, polite, engaged and efficient.  But sometimes I think it would be nice for my Doctor to pause for a moment, and say hello to me.  Not to T1N0M0, lateral tongue resection.  

On a sidenote - when I think of assembly lines, I always think of the famous I Love Lucy episode, which I included because I love it so much even though it has really very little to do with the blog. 

And, if the whole factory farming bit bothered you, one of the easiest and best things you can do to encourage the more humane treatment of animals is to stop buying cheap eggs!  Free run or Nest Laid eggs are easy to find, and each and every time someone spends the extra dollar on those eggs, they send a message to the industry that people do care about how animals are treated.  More on that later!  

Like the nerf ball I am, every time I think about my upcoming radiation treatments, I end up with the Spiderman theme song stuck in my head.  Not the new Spiderman, the 21st century fancy computer generated special effects Spiderman, but the dorky cartoon Spiderman from the 1960s.  A little radioactive blood and Peter Parker was using his spidey senses and spinning webs across the City - I wouldn't mind a spidey sense or two! 

I'm been thinking about Spidey since it has been almost eight weeks since the surgery, and now that I'm starting to feel well, it's time to start the radiation treatment.  

I've got my mouth guard and my freaky little radiation mask.  It is a wee bit like a Spidey mask - not nearly as cool though.  Getting it was sort of an adventure.  There were two very sweet young guys explaining the process, the machine and then outfitting me in my new friend -  mouth propped open, mouth guards in place and this mesh stuff molded to my face.  The mask will be snapped into place each and every appointment to make sure that they get the same spots each time I get zapped.  

A real highlight of the appointment was the piece of wax that will protect my scar.  They carefully placed the warm wax on my scar, the scar on my NECK and then I had multiple hands pushing down firmly. And, by firmly, I mean enough to make me think that I watch too much Criminal Minds, and start to wonder if they've ever accidentally choked someone.  It was a relief to be out of there, and tomorrow I'll see the results of their handiwork.  

Tomorrow is number one of 33 treatments that will stretch until July 4th.  I'm hoping that it won't be as bad as billed, and that I'll be able to have a bit of a life in the next month.  I'm planning on heading to Toronto on the weekend for the last cheer competition of the year, the Wonderland competition, where the girls really just get to have some fun and strut their stuff.  Oh, and maybe do a bit of shopping.  From the amount of times the subject has popped up in the last week or two, I'd say they probably have detailed plans already laid out of what stores they have to make it to in our two days in Toronto!  

I think I could fill up my pool with a dripping faucet faster than I can read this freakin' book.  It's is so irritatingly, maddeningly picking on a what seems to be a very raw nerve.  

What has me up tonight is the constant theme in this book, and to be fair, in most pop psychology, that the root of all evil, all the quirks and problems with how we are built, stems from our childhood.  Go see any therapist and just like the ubiquitous kleenex box in the soothingly lit room, questions about your childhood, and how you perceived your parents and your siblings, will be asked.  These questions serve as the tea leaves for them to build the story of why you are the way you are.  

Was your mother needy or jealous, neglectful and self-absorbed or a saintly martyr?  Were you the middle child?  An only child?  Last born like me?  Answer those questions and you'll find the reasons why you behave the way you do.  Do you crave attention, seek out conflict, have an air of superiority or disassociate when times get tough?  Well, how could you not, you were reacting to the way you were raised!  Pull together the pieces of your childhood, read those tea leaves, and the reasons, dare I say, excuses will be laid out for you.  

This approach makes victims of children.  And, by default, the parents become the criminals - the villains.  I look at my girls and wonder what stories they will have to tell.  What faults in my parenting will leach into their souls when they are 30 years old?  Will they remember their childhood as a frenetic, chaotic time or with that unrealistic rosy filter we drape on the moments of time that we want to keep precious? 

It also takes the faults of the child and plops it squarely on the parent's lap.  No matter how old the poor parents are.  When my girls are 30, I hope to remember to tell them to suck it up.  So what, we didn't do a perfect job.  So what, we fought, we had problems.  If you have some unresolved or deep seated problem with how you were raised and you are an adult, it's on you now.  Most parents do their best, and sometimes it is woefully inadequate.  

What is rubbing me raw with this book - with this line of thinking - is that people get sick because of the way they are built.  Which may be true.  But the second part of this thesis is that your childhood is the factory that builds you, so it is to blame for all your glitches and problems.  It's such a cop out, just like the drunk driver who pleads not guilty because they are an alcoholic.  Or the abused child who grows up to be an abuser.  

People who had great childhoods owe it to their kids to do even better than their parents did, but people who didn't have great childhoods get to see, first hand, the consequences of bad decisions, bad morals.  And, those lessons are expensive if you have to learn them yourself.  

* * *

Augusten Burroughs, Running With Scissors

"If you have one parent who loves you, even if they can’t buy you clothes, they’re so poor and they make all kinds of mistakes and maybe sometimes they even give you awful advice, but never for one moment do you doubt their love for you–if you have this, you have incredibly good fortune.

If you have two parents who love you? You have won life’s Lotto.

If you do not have parents, or if the parents you have are so broken and so, frankly, terrible that they are no improvement over nothing, this is fine.

It’s not ideal because it’s harder without adults who love you more than they love themselves. But harder is just harder, that’s all."

Last year I went to Wonderland with my girls for a cheerleading competition and I rode a huge, scary Roller coaster, aptly named the Behemoth.  This most ridiculous of steel monstrosities drags you to the top of the world and then lets you plunge down, too scared to even scream, in a type of free fall torture where you spend three minutes of your life in terror until you finally reach the end and let out what remains of your shaky, panicky breath.  

On that slow creep up to the tippity top, while my blood pounding through my veins, I remember thinking - I want to go back in time - I will not choose to go on this ride.  I just need to go back 4 minutes.  Okay 3 minutes will do.  The anticipation of the plunge down, the build up of fear, that is the hardest part.  The plunge down, that is when you make your peace with God, and figure you will either survive or be one of those splatted safety statistics.  

That is what having cancer is like.  You get some news, then you wait - to find out more, to have surgery booked, to have treatments booked.  This last little bit, this lead up to radiation, the wondering about whether the recent biopsy would yield negative news, these weeks have felt like a slow, jerky creep up to the top of that Behemoth.  I'm hoping that my anticipation of what radiation will have in store for me will be worse than the reality.  My little medical village, the doctors, nurses, naturpath, nutritionist - all tell me how sensitive the tissues of the mouth are.  How difficult this radiation is.  Each and every time I'm told about how bad it will be, it feels like another creaky jolt upwards, just another foot higher.  I don't even know when this roller coaster will start going down.  Nothing has been set yet, so I continue to build up the anticipation, on hold, and pondering the bad things promised once I reach the top.  

I can take solace that lately I have been getting good news lately rather than bad.  I went today to get my biopsy results.  Only to find out that my appointment was cancelled, and the Doctor was supposed to call me to tell me that she wouldn't need to see me until September.  My biopsy was fine.  I'll take that any day over the recent weekly appointments to check the little spots on my tongue that don't look quite right.  And, late last week I heard that I won't need chemotherapy, that my cancer isn't advanced enough for me to be eligible for the clinical trial.  More good news.  

Those bits of good news, of progress in the right direction, I'm hoping that they will foreshadow a radiation marathon that is less unpleasant than promised.  Until then I continue my creaky ascent - and try hard not to pack a backpack and run away to Mexico or Costa Rico.  

Dear select readers, how many of you related to that first image?  Hands up ladies!  Knowing my friends who might read this, I'm betting many of you.  Now, this image is a pitch for some supplements, but I found it because I've been reading a book at the recommendation of my newly found cancer naturpath, "When the body says NO" by Gabor Mate.  It's been a really hard slog for me to get through.  Not because it's isn't well written or interesting, rather because I read a few pages and stutter.  And reflect.  And put the book down to think a little about why it keeps making me react.  I'm reacting more to this book that even the Sheryl Sandberg leadership manifesto that made my blood boil.  

I'm not through the book yet and I keep seeing myself in it, over and over again.  The author is a palliative care doctor, and he writes from his own experiences with patients with diseases such as MS, Crohns, cancer and the like.  The book explains some of the research done in an area called Psychoneuroimmunology.  It is an area of study that focuses on the connection between the mind and the nervous and immune systems of the human body.  When I think of the mind-body connection, I always think of my mother, who would always, always, get a horrible cold  or some ailment whenever there was a funeral that she was supposed to attend.  It was never a feigned illness.  She hated going to the funerals and her body, without fail, was happy to find a reason to make it impossible for her to attend. 

This book, while careful not to blame the patient, pulls on the connecting threads between chronic stress, repression of emotions and these life altering, life reducing or life ending illnesses.  It begins to explain the connections between our complicated immune system and  our psychological state.  Much of the book focuses on the childhood experiences and stresses of the patients.  Some is rubbing me the wrong way as I've never met a perfect parent, perfect family or perfect child.  I've always felt that we are all the victims and benefactors of our upbringing, and we all have the choice to benefit from the good and learn from the bad. 

But if you start to think this through, if chronic stress or rather an inability to cope with chronic stress causes not just your run of the mill, depressed immune system, cold/flu, your hypertension or migraines, but also diseases like cancer or MS, what do we do with that?   For someone like me, where I have a disease that from a statistical point of view, I shouldn't have, it seems logical to blame stress.  

It's a pretty easy leap, really more of a hop, to say that the unremitting stress of last year and the feeling of being totally out of control in my life was a catalyst for an immune system that was not up to the job of catching the growing cancer cells.  But if how we are built makes us sick, what do we do?  If your life is built on loyalty, family and love, what do you do?  Unmake ourselves?  Be people that we aren't?   

I think often about something that a former colleague used to say to me ALL the time.  Whether talking about work or home, just about every day, he would say "Yes, it's a problem, but it's not YOUR problem".  I've always wanted to solve problems, jump in and carve a path forward.  Push for a resolution, a decision, a direction.  But in reflecting on this connection and the few studies that have shown personality types being associated with diseases, I am starting to ask myself some uncomfortable questions.

I've spent a lifetime trying to live up to my expectations for myself, and trying to drive down my expectations of others.  Maybe I need to find a new balance.  

More later as I continue reading and reflecting!  

This weekend my oldest girl, my horsie girl, spent the weekend at a riding clinic.  Watching her ride far better than I ever have, even when I was young and brave, makes me so happy.

Even before I started leasing a horse, I started my oldest daughter in lessons.  Hoping she'd be bit by the horse bug as I was.  She never really seems to love it, but she persevered, liking it enough to keep going.  Her turning point seemed to be when I decided to buy both my girls a pony - suddenly for her it seemed that riding became more than just an expensive hobby.  It was a madly impulsive decision, but I wanted both my girls to have the opportunity to ride.  Truth be told, I thought my youngest daughter would be the natural rider.  She, who will never have an issue explaining her point of view to man or animal.  

But life happens and never in ways we predict.  An incident involving bossy mares, a pony, some ice and Mom being run over left a pretty nasty aftertaste in my youngest daughter's mouth.  She decided that she didn't like or trust horses at all - something I blame myself for because I pushed her too hard, and even as a toddler, she was very clear that she won't ever be pushed around -  the pony was sold, and we began the odyssey to buy THE mother/daughter horse.  Safe for Mom, and athletic enough for daughter.  

My oldest daughter started to really enjoy the competitive aspect of riding, she loved perfecting her skills and began to see herself as a rider.  Much as I groan and moan about how the mother/daughter horse rapidly became the daughters horse, and Mom was relegated to the difficult to ride and not very athletic, super sweet mare, watching my daughter develop the determination, kindness and focus necessary to train a horse while learning herself makes me one very proud Mama.  

And, the time we spend going to and from the barn, talking about shows, coaches, equipment, farriers is time well spent.  The friends we have made, our barn family, is a huge part of our life.  And, this time is my hook into my private and contained teenager, this soon to be adult, who just yesterday was my tiny baby girl.  

Back to the land of the cancer updates.  Like I ever really left, eh!  

After last week's appointment with the surgeon, where she explained the pathology reports and expressed concern that the little devil cancer cells might already growing back on my poor abused tongue, I met with a bunch of other folks.  And, this got me thinking about the little health care village that I have around me.  Much like the village that Hillary Clinton talked about to raise a child, this village is apparently needed to drive out a cancer.

My village has three separate little communities.  My regular health care community, the GP and dentist that I feel fortunate to have.  I was so touched that my GP reached out to me not just once but twice to express her sadness at my diagnosis and to ask me to let her know if there was anything she could do.  Then, my dentist, who first sounded the alarm at the innocuous white spot, and then gave me a hug and very reassuring words when I went to pick them up uber detailed package of records she had prepared for the new 'cancer' dentist to review.  

Next community, is the BIG C community or my slash and burn group, as I like to call them.  They wield the scalpels, they plan the radiation treatments, they run the chemo trials.  They include the surgeon who sliced open my tongue and scooped out the cancer (the cancer that is hopefully not already making an encore performance - more on that later!  Or hopefully, nothing to tell about that later!!).  Her very sweet administrative assistant who makes sure that the forms are filled out, and that appointments are remade even when the other arm of the hospital messes them up.  My new radiation oncologist, who I hope knows what he is doing and recommended 6.5 weeks of radiation, all the while being VERY frank about the risks and side effects.  Although I did wish for a bit of sugar coating here and there.  We can add in the nurse assigned to my case, the chemo clinical trial nurse and the physiotherapist, who I have yet to met but hope to meet with sooner rather than later.  I would eventually like to be able to wash my hair with two hands!!  And, we can't forget the hospital dentist, she who isn't much of a believer in my unhappy, doesn't like to open, already abused before the 5 hour surgery, jaw.  Her job is to fix my teeth up so that they are as ready as they can be for the assault of radiation.  Although it's hard to ask a dentist to sugar coat information, the little tidbit that sometimes jaw bones can break if there are issues with your teeth after radiation, GULP, was yet another eyes wide, mouth shut moment in this journey. 

My last little community is a more holistic little group that I stumbled upon and am very happy to have found.  The Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre (http://www.oicc.ca/en) are a group that consists of naturpaths, nutritionists, psychologists, massage therapists, acupuncturists and more, who assess the whole person, and look beyond the cancer to try and help the person coping with cancer to rebalance their bodies and their lives.  Oh, and of course, manage the cancer ordeal to have the best possible outcome.  From the young and kind naturpath who made me eliminate coca cola, that sugary, tasty bubbly staple of my mid-mornings, to the Australian nutritionist who seemed to instantly see the stress that I have been trying to cope with, and discussed its affects on me as a whole, their calm and kind approach has been inspiring.  Teaching me about my beleaguered adrenal system, and instead of making me feel guilty about all the things that I haven't been doing for myself, they are nudging me towards taking better care of myself.  

These little steps, making better protein shakes, taking some little capsules of vitamins that are proven to aid in the prevention of cancer, or that help manage the side effects of radiation, makes me feel like I'm being proactive, that I am part of my own treatment.  While I would infinitely prefer to not need this village, to never need to visit the Cancer Centre, to have never heard of the OICC, I'm glad that they are there to help me through.  

Special Note:  I just found the video above on the OICC site, I have to say the last half is too much of an advert for my taste, but the start of the video, that hits home.

It's a funny thing, this cancer thing.  It dominates your life, even when you don't want it to.  It controls your conversations, dictates your schedule and messes with your mind.

People keep telling me how strong I am and it makes me wonder, what is strength?  I think about the friend who lost her son to cancer, just a wee boy who would never get to have a first kiss, play sports, dance at his wedding.  Or my friend whose nephew has been in and out of hospital for leukaemia and probably only remembers a life of blood tests, transplants and doctors.  Or the little girl with cancer who won a pony for a year, only to get sick again.  Those mothers, fathers and families trying to pull their children through, doing what needs to be done even when it's beyond what they can bear, that to me is strength.

Last year, I cried an ocean of tears.  During my hubby's twisted path towards the light, my eyes watered and voice cracked at almost every turn.  During this cancer crapshow, I've barely shed a tear.  Sure, there have been tears at each disappointment, but they are a drop in the bucket to the tears shed last year.  It feels easier to consent to scars to ward off cancer, to deal with discomfort, to (hopefully) cope with a treatment that sounds ... horrifyingly unpleasant.

Easier because the choices are mine to make.  Advocate for a neck dissection or don't.  My choice.  Consent to the recommendation to do radiation, my choice.  There is uncertainty, but it pales to the uncertainty of witnessing harm happening to someone that you care for and feeling powerless to fix them. 

The one thing that I should have learned by now is that things never happen as you predict, no matter how many times you run it through your mind.  

I wasn't really obsessed about today's appointment, except for last night when sleep eluded me and there was enough silly family drama to distract.  I arrived promptly at 1:15pm for my pre-arranged post-operative appointment.  Those who know me know that I have two options for arriving at appointments or meetings, on time or on 'Lisa time'.  Early happens just a few times a year, and only really to daze and confuse those who've come to expect my 'just on time' approach.  So, today like all others, I was running a smidge late, and to make it there exactly at 1:15pm, I had to leave hubby to park the car and dash up to my appointment.  

Once there, I found myself surrounded by... what looked like a group of very well seasoned, very old boozers.  Seriously old and seriously rummy looking crowd.  Suddenly I felt... youthful.  Good Lord, between the watery eyes, faint whiff of beer and canes and crutches, I felt kinda healthy. While I'm waiting, an old fellow just saunters right into the line in front of me.  Eyes big, I figure that even though my shoulder is aching and I did just have surgery - meh, he's probably not super steady on his feet, so have at it, take my space in the line.  After what seemed like hours, finally the nurse tells me that I was supposed to meet the Doctor at 9:15am.  This is now the 'liver' doctors time.  Oops, thanks to the hospital that gave me the wrong time.  But, at least, this crowd in this waiting room makes more sense!   

Luckily, they were able to squeeze me in to the cancer clinic and down there I waited, expecting the worst and hoping for the best. I had mentally prepared myself for the news that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes and that I would need radiation. I also prepped questions in case I heard that we were all clear, it was all good.  But, best laid plans were out the window and yet again I ended up in a world of unexpected events when first I heard that they were worried that the cancer was already coming back because of the small red spot on the underside of my tongue.  Huh?  Of course, I still can't see it but then the overall grossness of the whitish yellowish 'tissue' and sutures might be blinding me when I look into my mouth.  Next, and for a final kick in the shins is the detailed explanation (only partially retained) about margins around the tumour on my tongue, pre-cancerous tissue, percentages of recurrence, and their recommendation for radiation.  Oh, and we'd also recommend that you do a clinical trial of chemo.  

My radiation doctor seems very kind - says that the first strike against cancer is most often the most successful.  Your choice, he says. Radiation of the mouth is very difficult, he says.  Towards the end you'll think I'm trying to kill you, he says.  And, words that I've feared since I first read about oral cancer, do you have good teeth, he asks?  

WTF? Again, I'm kinda stunned.  Again, I'm trying to shake some meaning into any of this.  But perhaps there is no meaning and that's what I'm supposed to get.  People get cancer, heart disease, strokes and die of tragic accidents all the time.  Superman falls off his horse and is paralyzed, tricks of fate are as plentiful as the stars in the sky. 

So if shit happens, we just need to get on.  Maybe forcing yourself to eat a side effect laden apple will make the good apples taste all the better.  

My guess is that there is no real recipe for strength, for courage or for life other than to say that we will choose to move forward, live, or die trying.