An incidental question

There was a moment in the hospital last week, a turning point that changed everything from that instant forward. It was an incidental question that I asked my doctor, thinking that I already knew the answer but wanting to hear it in his words. We were discussing the aggressive liver tumor growth seen on my ct-scan and what its implications were. I had already done hours of detailed internet research on the topic and when I asked about my prognosis, I was referring to the course of disease. I expected to hear how the tumor would gradually impair my liver functioning as it grew larger. Then, I would hear more talk of experimental treatments and people who had beat the odds, which we had already talked about at length earlier. When I asked: “What is the prognosis?” my doctor skipped over everything in the middle and went right to the bottom line: “12 months.”

That is the first time anyone had talked about time. I had seen many survival charts and paid them little attention. I would be one of the people at the farthest point on the chart when everyone else had already fallen off. I mean, look at me! I am not sick. I know what the scans and blood tests say but obviously this cancer is not affecting me the way it does others. I am an anomaly. Which is true to a point - I am told that most patients at this point look and feel much sicker. The reality of his words is that I can still be all of that, but that the cancer growth is real, too. I have to deal with it. These were the thoughts that launched me into my philosophical meanderings in my last blog entry.

I am glad the conversation occurred. I was not paying enough attention to the possibility that I may not be one who beats the odds. I was still hedging my bets and not taking action or making decisions about what I would want the next 12 months to look like if they were my last. I look forward to beating the odds and looking back on 2008 as just a wonderful year of personal growth and travel mixed with lots of breathless moments with friends and family.

So what’s next? Bobby is flying in from Los Angeles tomorrow and will spend Thanksgiving week here with my family in Pittsburgh. Then I roll-out Breathless Tour 08. First stop Maui and my buddy Blaise, a friend from LA who moved there five years ago. While I was on the transplant list, I had to be within two hours drive of UPMC, but not anymore. I have some frequent flyer miles saved up and I’m-a-thinkin’ that it is time to use them. The week after Thanksgiving, Bobby and I will be leaving the cold behind for a few weeks to soak up some Maui sunshine. It is truly one of the most beautiful places on earth, breathless at every turn, and a very healing and inspirational setting to contemplate the heavy topics at hand.

I see this blog as a celebration of living life in the moment. That is my intention. I have no idea what shape it will take as time passes, but I promise to keep sharing. I hope that in my writing some inspiration may be found that will help someone else through a very difficult time, as the reading of other’s experiences has helped me. Although I have kept a personal journal since 1988, this is the first time I have shared my writing in any type of public forum. It feels a little awkward to me right now, but I expect the words will flow more easily and frequently as this blog becomes more a part of my life.

Follow-up that I wrote later that day:

“If you were told that you only had twelve months to live, what would you do?” I always imagined that I would have a sudden sense of urgency to see things and do things that I had been putting off. Surprisingly, that is not what I feel.

I have lived most of my adult life with the awareness that time is precious and fleeting. I attribute this to coming of age in the early days of AIDS and seeing so many friends die while they were still in their 20’s and 30's. I have traveled the world at every chance. I have pushed my body to physical extremes simply because I could…marathons, 700-mile bike rides, rock climbing, and such. I took weeklong road trips with my parents, just the three of us, and got to know them in a way that I never knew them as a child - like best friends out on an adventure. I never turned down an opportunity to spend a weekend in New York with my mother to catch a weekend of Broadway shows and then afterward go to Barrymore’s where the waiters and bartenders knew her by name - “Jo”- not Grandma.

I am relieved to find that I feel calm. The only imperative I feel is to pay more attention to the special moments that play out in life each day. It could have turned out very differently if I had waited until tomorrow to do the things that are now my favorite memories – I am referring to the tomorrow that turns into next month, next year, and then becomes regret. Live like you are dying.