I'm Back (from Italy)!

I've been reminding you that I'd be hard to get a hold of for a couple of weeks, but now I'm back. I was on vacation.

My wife and I spent 12 days in Italy.

We've been talking about doing this for 30 years, and a few years ago, we decided we would go there to celebrate our 30th anniversary, which was earlier this year. (Note that I was confident that I'd still be healthy enough to make the trip.) We went on a tour with Road Scholar (and if you're over 50, enjoy learning, and are hoping to travel abroad from the U.S., I highly recommend looking into what they offer). We went to Rome, Florence, and Venice. 

I can't really describe it all yet, but it included some wonderful experiences -- an after-hours, private tour of the Sistine Chapel; a tour of the olive oil production works (and a farm-to-table dinner) in Fiesole; a slow afternoon walk through the maze that is Venice; the many incredible works of art that fill Rome and Florence. Maybe just a few of the many pictures that we took will give you a sense of what we saw and did.

You know a trip was great when you're on the plane home and you're already planning the next one. We're still deciding where it will be. But there will be a next one.

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So what does this have to do with cancer? This is a cancer blog, after all.

There are two things.

I decided the first connection to cancer long before we ever made it to the airport. It's a lesson I hope we all already know. Cancer makes us prioritize. We need to do the things that we want to do. It took my wife and me 30 years to do it, but we did it. It's easy to want to pack as much into a life as possible, and easy to be disappointed if things don't happen immediately. But that doesn't mean they never will happen. Find the things you love and work toward them.

A few months ago, I saw a meme online. And while I don't think internet memes are meant to be a guide for life, this one hit me hard. It's a quote attributed to Buddha, but it was actually from a very modern book that was about Buddha. Yet the sentiment still stands:

"The trouble is, you think you have time."

Cancer patients probably know the truth of that more than most people. I've burned it into my brain. I knew it before this trip. But still, I want it to guide a lot of things I do.

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The second way this relates to cancer has to do with someone I met on the trip. Of course, she is a cancer patient.

The tour we went on included 16 other people. They were all amazing. Over 12 days, we had the chance to get to know each of them, hear their stories, hear their experiences. They were all the living embodiment of "The trouble is, you think you have time." 

As much as we tried to get to know everyone, we spent more time with one family than the others, a married couple and her mom. Wonderful people. And as we talked and shared our stories, it came out that the wife was a cancer patient, diagnosed with a form of lung cancer about two years ago. (I'm trying to respect her privacy, so I apologize if the lack of detail makes things a little harder to follow).

She and I have similar backgrounds, as far as work and education go. She's a writer and a Cancer Nerd, too. We traded blog addresses (she started one very soon after she got her possible diagnosis), and I read hers that night.

It always amazes me that our cancer stories are unique to us, but the details show how similar we are. She had gotten a Peloton bike just before she was diagnosed. As she was waiting for test results, she thought, "I can't have lung cancer. People who ride a Peloton can't have lung cancer." It reminded me so much of my own experience, running in 5k races, being in the best shape of my life, and thinking, "How can I possibly have cancer?" There were a bunch of those things in her blog, experiences that she wrote about that were so much a part of her own story, but at the same time so much a part of mine, and of all of our stories.

So here's this woman who has a story like mine, who lives clear across the country from me, and we had to travel to Europe to meet each other. (And in a weird coincidence, a couple of people that I love very much live within a half mile of her.)

I guess cancer has a way of connecting us. There are experiences we share that others just can't really understand, no matter how much they'd like to, and try to. And we somehow have a way of finding one another. 

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The ASCO conference started today, and I haven't looked at any of the information yet. I'll get there, and I'll write about what I see and read. Probably next week. Still enjoying that post-travel glow a little bit.

I wish you all good health, and the time to enjoy it.