Welcome to the Zero Club!

What a four months it has been since my cancer diagnosis in October. What a six years it has been since I lost my job at the College.  During that time I’ve sent Anthony and Samantha off to college, I’ve made a new and wonderful life for myself at the Academy--complete with new friends, new adventures, and new challenges--and it is one which has been far happier than the one I left behind.  

The interesting thing about staring cancer in the face for a few months is how it reorients one’s thinking.  It now appears as though the worst is behind me: I have recovered rapidly; I am back at work; the surgeon believes he got all of the cancer; and with each passing day I feel more like my old self.  I have held back very little in this blog so I’ll go ahead and say it:  to my great happiness, I was able to go back to school NOT wearing Depends! I only needed them for about three days.  And today I had my first post-surgery PSA reading and the results came back “undetectable.” Meaning no evidence of cancer cells.

I joined a facebook group for survivors of prostate cancer and it has been comforting, enlightening, helpful, and sobering all at once.  So many men are so much worse off than I.  (Recently we learned about an eight-year-old boy being treated for prostate cancer!) Many brave men on that site are facing hardships and incapacitation and bleak futures.  And even as they are, they take the time to encourage and support me in my milder case.  I posted my results on there today and one of my new friends said “Welcome to the Zero Club!” That is the club that everyone on the site wants to join.  My next date will be the end of June when I go back for my six-month reading.  My PSA will then be checked every six months until January 2025, when at the ripe old age of 65 I will be pronounced cured.  (You all are invited to a party on that day!) 

There were a few dark days early on in this adventure--when my numbers looked serious and my PSA level had risen significantly in three months--when it dawned on me “I may not make it out of this alive; I may not live to see my grandchildren.”  As the news has gradually improved since then, it has given me the impetus to ask myself that Francis Schaeffer question: “How then should I live?” What are my core values? Why have I let myself bog down on lesser details and problems? If this thing had gotten me, would I be satisfied with the life I have led? How would I want to be remembered?

As a part of the poking, prodding, and questioning I went through at Roswell, they determined an estimate (assessing multiple risk and longevity factors) that if the prostate cancer could be eradicated I could expect to live another 34 years  So now that (it appears) I have been given the precious gift of being around to bug you all for another three and a half decades….what should those years look like?  How do I want to set my sails for this sweet journey I’ve been given? This new lease on life is absolutely exhilarating! 

I don’t quite have a plan in place yet, I don’t have any plans to run off and join a traveling rock band.  I don’t make enough money to buy a Corvette and head out to see the world.  And I am blessed to already love the work that I do. But I do know that I want to worry less and laugh more.  I want to spend less time stooped over endless stacks of papers and more time interacting with my students and pouring myself into them and being sure that they know I love them.  I know that I want to travel more and I want to see my friends in real life and not only in facebook pictures.  I know that it is time to let go of Houghton College: that isn’t me anymore.  I have a new and happier life now; I need to jettison the baggage I’ve been carrying around since then.

 I already felt this way before my cancer, but feel it even more urgently now. I am going to live out my life myself, not watching other people lead imaginary lives on television.  Life is far too precious to spend it sitting and staring at a screen.  And I know that I am through putting off the things I want to do.  Do them now! We never know how long we are going to get.  Not everyone gets the privilege of a second shot at life. It is like winning the lottery, only better! I am grateful to God for this reprieve and I am grateful to all of you, my dear friends, for supporting me throughout this adventure.  Love to all!

PS – After I left Roswell today, I thought “as long as I am up here, I should go up and see Niagara Falls all frozen over.” But then I started with my typical thinking “No, it is too far, too cold, crossing the border will take too long, I’ll have to pay to park. I should just go home and work on lesson plans instead.’  But then I realized I needed to act on my resolution so I turned onto 190N instead of 190S. It was a bright beautiful sunny day and when I got up there, I pulled into a little parking area to see how much it would cost and a woman beside me flagged me over and said “How long are you staying?” I said only a few minutes because it was so cold and I just wanted a quick look at the Falls.  She said “Here, take my parking pass, there is a half hour left on it and I don’t want it to go to waste!” #TimsNewLife