Thanksgiving Time

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I hope everyone is taking the time to truly think about what you are thankful for.

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I looked back at my blog post from last Thanksgiving -- my first Thanksgiving with cancer. I have to say, I'm thankful for the same things as I was then: my doctors, and other healthcare givers; NHL researchers; my job; music; my support group; my blog readers -- those I know and those I don't know; my parents; my brother; my kids; my wife Isabel.

If anything, I'm twice as thankful for all of that this year, having had another year to appreciate them all.

This year, I want to add to that list. I'm thankful for time. Time, for me, has been a gift.

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"Cancer victims who don't accept their fate, who don't learn to live with it, will only destroy what little time they have left." -- Ingrid Bergman

If you've read Lympho Bob in the past few weeks, you know how I feel about being called a "cancer victim." But, hey -- we're talking about the beautiful Ingrid Bergman, so I'm not going to harp on her terminology. The more important thing is what she has to say about time.

Maybe Bergman was a "victim"; when she died, cancer was still something that didn't get talked about in public too much. Breast cancer, especially, was something women were made to feel shameful about. So in that way, she was truly a victim -- of the time she lived in. And she made that statement when she did, indeed, have little time left.

Which is where she and I are different, I guess. I've said before that I have "the luxury" of having an indolent, slow-growing cancer. Maybe "luxury" is a little bit of an exaggeration. There's nothing terribly luxurious about cancer, no matter what the type. But it's a whole lot different from, say, having Burkitt's Lymphoma -- fairly rare, and very aggressive. I think about Joe Andruzzi sometimes; he played for the New England Patriots after graduating from Southern Connecticut State. When he was diagnosed with Burkitt's, he was given just a few hours to decide what to do. Just a few hours. Burkitt's Lymphoma is so aggressive, the tumors can double in size in 24 hours. I don't think my nodes have doubled in size in two years....

So I'm thankful to have had time. I've had time to learn more about what's going on with my body, with the world of lymphoma, with the world in general and how it affects me as a cancer patient. I don't know how I'd react to all of this if I had four hours to decide my fate. I'm happy I've had time. I work better that way, when I can know what to expect and think things through. I like to look down the road and know what's coming.

When I turned 40, some colleagues wanted to have a surprise party for me. Isabel warned them that I don't like surprises. I don't know if I don't like surprises -- I just don't like unhappy ones. (They pulled off the surprise party, and it was a happy surprise.) I know lots of people who wouldn't want to know what's in store, wouldn't want to think about it until they had to. I'd rather be prepared. Expect the worst and hope for the best.

So I'm thankful that I've had the time to do all of this the way I'd want to.

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It's a cliche that no one knows how much time they have, and like most cliches, it's true. I've seen a ton of quotes from cancer survivors, cancer patients, cancer victims, who say that we have to live for today, and live every day to the fullest. It's a lesson that cancer patients are supposed to learn.

I'll be honest -- I have a hard time doing that. Maybe that's tied in to the whole "luxury of time" thing -- if I thought I had X number of days left, I'd try skydiving, or travel to the Taj Mahal, or do whatever else Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman did in The Bucket List. But I don't feel that kind of desperation. (I'm thankful for that, too.)

Sometimes I wonder if I should be doing more with my time -- if I should be acting more like a cancer patient is "supposed to," relishing every moment of every day. If I'm thankful for time, I shouldn't be wasting it, right?

I haven't exactly made a conscius decision NOT to be that way, to not smell every flower I pass, and run through every pile of leaves.

But a few months ago, I did decide that I would try to make one small change, one small way of making sure I don't waste the day. It isn't something I do every day, but I try not to shy away from it if the opportunity arises.

It was last March. I was driving home from work, listening to ESPN radio. They were replaying Jim Valvano's famous "Don't give up, don't ever give up" speech from the 1993 ESPY awards; it was the anniversary of his having given the speech. Valvano was a college basketball coach, whose underdog North Carolina State team won the national championship in 1983. Valvano went on to become a (very funny) college basketball commentator on TV. In 1992, he found out he had bone cancer, and that it had metastasized. The following March, he was awarded the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian award at the ESPYs, and that's where he gave his speech. If you've never heard it, or haven't heard it in a while, it's worth watching.

At some point in his speech, the teleprompter signals to him that he has 30 seconds left to speak. Valvano laughs and says, "They got that screen up there flashing '30 seconds,' like I care about that screen. I got tumors all over my body and I'm worried about some guy in the back going '30 seconds'." I was fighting back tears in the car.

Early on in the speech, he says this:

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."

I remember how much that struck me -- laugh, think, and cry. That really is a full day.

And, when you think about it, while that makes for a full day, it's not even a whole day. Thinking is easy; I do that anyway, it's part of the job. I can take five minutes to sit and think, and some days, it seems like five minutes is about all I have. Laughing is easy, too, at least for me, anyway. Takes no time at all -- a 30 second Family Guy clip on Hulu.com usually does the trick for me.

Crying? That's tougher. I can't say I cry every day. But I don't avoid it. And crying doesn't take much time, either. The support group always has plenty of inspirational stories, links, videos -- some sad, some joyfully moving. Like things to make you laugh, there's no shortage out there of things to make you cry -- a two minute video, a few tears, and you're done.

Add it all up, and it's about ten minutes. Ten minutes and you have what Jimmy V called "a full day."

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So maybe I'm not able to do the "cancer appreciation" thing very well, living every moment to its fullest. But I can give ten minutes a day, most days, for a thought, a laugh, and a cry. Even if I do "waste" the rest of the day, I haven't wasted time.

I'm too thankful for time to do something like that.