Live Your Life

I have some advice. It's probably especially good for people who were diagnosed recently, but it's a good reminder for all of us:

Live your life.

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Last night, I saw my son for the first time in almost a month. He had been away in Peru, working on a project in the rain forest. He studies environmental science in school, and had the chance to go do some work down there for a few weeks.

My son has been obsessed with the South American rain forest since he was about 3 years old, when he started watching videos and reading books about the area. To have the chance to actually go down there was something he just couldn't pass up. My wife and I were all for it. We'd both had the chance to travel when we were younger, and we know how great it is to see a world, and meet people, unlike what and who you encounter in your every day life.

So we've been hearing stories for the last few hours. He saw animals he had only seen in books -- macaws and tamarins and butterflies. He ate plantains and cacao that he picked from trees and fish that he pulled from a river. He was bitten by a fire ant and stung by sweat bees and stalked by a puma. He met people from all over the world at a research center and got beaten by them in volleyball. He stayed with some friendly folks in a rain forest community and got beaten by them in soccer. He came back with stories and pictures and fell asleep before he could tell us and show us even half of it all.

(I've had readers from about 80 countries, but I don't think I've had any from Peru. If you're out there, based on the photos I saw and the stories I heard, you have a beautiful country and wonderful people. Thanks for taking care of my son.)

I'm so glad he went. Obviously, millions of people live in that part of Peru, and his experience was just day-to-day life for them. But it's the complete opposite of his own life, and as strange as it might sound to some, I know it takes some courage to do something like that. I live about two hours from New York City, and when I'm in Times Square, I'm annoyed at all of the people just staring and taking pictures of neon signs. I have to remind myself, as I listen to people around me speaking a dozen different languages, that maybe their lives are the complete opposite of Times Square. It took courage for them to get on a plane and go to a city with millions of people.

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All of this took me back, strangely, to when I was first diagnosed.

The first month or two after diagnosis was a blur. Doctors appointments and tests, worry and fear and uncertainty. For a Follicular Lymphoma patient like me, who had very few symptoms, life was actually kind of "normal," at least in what I was physically able to do. I was watching and waiting, not dealing with treatment or its side effects. I was going to work, because work was a good distraction from it all.

But after things settled down after a couple of months, and I had a better idea of what I was going to be dealing with, I got back into my old routine of work and family life. But something had changed. How could it NOT change? A cancer diagnosis is always going to change you.

What had changed was that I found myself saying No a lot more than I used to.

I like my job, a lot, and I'm lucky enough to have a job that gives me lots of opportunities to do things that I haven't done before. And I would always say Yes to those opportunities. I like new challenges.

But after I was diagnosed, I started saying No. It wasn't that I couldn't do the things I was being asked. It was more that I was afraid that maybe, possibly, in the future, I might not be able to do those things. Why say Yes to something when, six months into it, I might have to stop doing it because watch and wait is over and I need treatment?

And then one day, after looking at other people doing the interesting things I could have been doing, I played this out in my mind. I said No to X because I might need treatment someday. So if I said No to that, maybe I should say No to Y, because that could also affect X. And if I say No to X and Y, I should really say No to Z, too.....As I thought it out, I came to one conclusion -- there was really no point in even getting out of bed in the morning. Anything I do could be disrupted by the possibility that maybe, sometime in the future, something could happen and it could ruin my plans and everyone else's. The only logical thing to do was to just stay in bed.

Of course, that's ridiculous. I still had no idea, just a few months after I was diagnosed, of where my disease, and my life, were headed. But I also knew that, whether it was months or years of life ahead of me, I didn't want to spend it lying in bed worrying. That was no way to live a life.

So I started saying Yes to more things. Not to everything -- I still, 12 years later, "play the Cancer card" to get out of things I don't want to do. But I don't let cancer be an excuse to keep me from doing things that will give me joy.

Of course, for many, cancer and its treatment and side effects really do keep us from doing things. Obviously, I wouldn't want anyone to harm themselves doing something that they aren't able to do.

But for many of us, the barriers aren't physical or financial -- they're emotional.

And I think that's especially true when we're first diagnosed, and we just don't know what the future holds. Better to say No or step lightly than take a chance on the future.

So my advice is this -- Live Your Life.

Maybe it's traveling to a rain forest, or to New York City. Maybe it's taking a project on at work, or at church, or at the kids' school. Maybe it's going to the gym more or eating less ice cream. Maybe it's vowing to enjoy yourself, and eating more ice cream.

Whatever it is, find the courage to do it. Don't let uncertainty hold you back. You're here now. Do the things that bring you joy now.

And when you get back, share the photos and the stories.