Fighting on

With chemotherapy fading into the past, I realize that no one is helping me anymore in my battle against cancer.  I don’t take any medication.  The treatment options have been exhausted for now.  Medicine makes no effort to defeat the cancer.  I’m on my own.

I’m still  fighting the cancer, except now the only tools I have are my immune system and my good spirits.  I’ll keep living and eating healthily and continue to exercise on alternate days.  I would much rather prefer to lounge on the sofa and read books or watch movies (projector bulb permitting), but that doesn’t cut it.  The cancer forces me to be a better person than I am.

It’s in my hands to give myself the best chances of survival.  The diagnosis might be grim, but resigning oneself to it has no benefits.  I might not want to sit on a stationary bicycle sweating like a pig at the end of a long day at work and evening with the children.  But I do it because otherwise I’d be hurting myself and I might be hurting those close to me.  I’ve never been much of a fighter.  I’ve usually picked the easy path, taking decisions that were obvious or expected.  This will not do anymore.  I don’t want to hurt my chances of survival.

There was a story on the BBC today about whether to use martial language in the context of disease.  Boris the Clown is apparently a fighter, which is why he made it through COVID-19 and is now recuperating.  Does that mean those who fell victim to the disease were feeble spirits that didn’t fight hard enough?  Some sensitive souls imply this, but it is of course utter nonsense and counterproductive.  If a disease is too strong or too serious, there’s no way to win, no matter how much you fight.  You wouldn’t have beaten the disease if you had fought any harder.  But if you don’t fight at all, you’re giving your disease an edge it neither deserves nor needs.  If you just lie there having therapy happen to you, you stack the odds up against you.

If you just sit on your sofa and accept the disease as your fate, your chances of a cure are slimmer than if you involve yourself in the healing process and put your energy into facing down the enemy.  To beat cancer, the best non-medical intervention is regular exercise.  If you don’t do this, you’re willfully decreasing your chances of survival.

Last night, I didn’t ride the trainer, even though it was the day for it.  I was exhausted and didn’t feel good.  Two sores had appeared at the side of my tongue, which made eating and drinking painful.  I skipped the session.  But I only skipped it because I knew I would make up for it the next day.

This morning, I went out on my bike for a purpose other than commuting for the first time since last summer when my grad school room mate Sean and I blasted (he) and whimped (me) down Mt. Hood.  For a similar experience I would need to travel to somewhere in the Alps.  Instead, I rode on the extended hill that stretches behind our house.  It’s criss-crossed with fire roads for nearly endless riding.  Today I also noticed for the first time the single tracks crossing the roads every once in a while.  I didn’t dare go down any of them on my stiff, barely mountain-worthy bike.  I was out for nearly an hour and rode a number of sustained climbs that forced me into the lowest gear I have.  No way I could have done this in September.

Last Saturday, I had my first proper climbing experience on the trainer when I rode Rattlesnake Corridor near Missoula, Montana for the first time.  This long but gentle climb starts improbably enough with a jump into a fast and twisting single track.  It’s easy to be fooled by the footage on the screen, but it’s better not to try the jump on the trainer.  After a wild descent, a steady climb over 22 km takes you up 500 m and deep into the forest.

I felt great riding this.  No comparison to before the cancer was diagnosed.  At Mt. Hood, I almost gave up on the short climb that connected the end of the downhill with the parking lot where we had left the car.  I was dangerously low on oxygen because my blood was depleted of hemoglobin.

After today’s ride, in contrast, I felt lousy.  Last night's exhaustion and mouth pain were back.  I had a little lunch to reload and then fell into a bed.  There seems to be a common pattern here.  I thought this would be a thing of the past after chemo, but I’m only one week out of it, and my immune system is far from its usual strength.  I developed a bit of a fever that should have made me call the hospital, but as I’ve ended chemotherapy, I felt the rules don’t apply anymore.  After a few hours, the fever came down and felt alright again, strong enough at least to write this post while the children played outside in glorious sunshine.  Life is good and worth fighting for.