Carpe diem. Seize the day. This expression has guided my life for many years. I seize every moment for what it's worth. Good thing. Last month, I was diagnosed with cancer.
I guess I'm writing this entry for a number of reasons.
First, I want to let regular readers know why I just sort of disappeared. I've been preoccupied with other stuff.
Second, I need to just write this down, to see it in black and white. I had surgery yesterday. It's all still a bit surreal.
Finally, and most importantly, I'm writing because my current situation does underscore something I've written about many times before. For example, when I wrote about Randy Pausch's Last Lecture I shared his words of wisdom about why we need to use our time wisely. He wrote, "Time is all you have. And you may find one day that you have less than you think."
I don't know how much time I have. I hope lots, but the thing is, we don't know. None of us does. Our time is precious, not to be wasted.
My story began on January 30th. I collapsed in pain while walking back from a local pond where we skate. I was rushed to the hospital where generous amounts of morphine eased the pain. A kidney stone was the first diagnosis, and I was sent home. An ultrasound the next day indicated my kidneys were stone-free, but there was a mass on my bladder wall. A follow-up ultrasound revealed that it wasn't a blood clot or something else less sinister. Mid-February, an urologist explained that it was a tumor. A CT scan followed, then the surgery, and the story is unfolding. Now I await the pathologist's report. On the basis of the surgeon's work yesterday, I am hopeful this is in an early stage.
Carpe diem. After the appointment with the urologist a few weeks ago, I loaded my dog team into my truck and kept to the plan that I made to go camping. In fact, I had delayed my departure a day to accommodate this appointment. The trails and camp were a perfect place to digest this news, to embrace it in fact.
Embrace it? "It" certainly means this cancer diagnosis specifically, but I also mean life more generally. My life. This cancer is what it is. I will do whatever I have to with assistance from everyone who can help me to deal with it, whatever that means. However, the real focus is on living.
My focus is on living fully today; living fully with my wife and my children. In fact, that's always been my focus, so that hasn't' changed at all. I do have to draw on Jai Pausch's useful advice about what to do when "dark thoughts" invade. That is to say, "not helpful."
It's not helpful to catastrophize and worry about the future. I take the action I can now, and I live fully now. Carpe diem.
Living fully. My kids help with that. They have no conception of anything different, so my life marches forward as if nothing is happening. That's a good thing. The dogs are the same. On the trails in Algonquin Park, they were just my dogs wanting to run, and my focus was there, running dogs. Living. I will just keep living. That means writing too. I'll be back soon with a post!
Carpe diem.
UPDATE, MARCH 18, 2011: I have some very unexpected good news. Excellent news in fact. The pathologist's report on my tumour showed no evidence of cancer! Although my urologist had told me that it would be a cancer, it is not. I'm elated and relieved.
MANY THANKS to all of the PT Readers who wrote here on the blog and to me personally by email. Your kind words of support meant the world to me.
