Dry eyes and feeling inspired by "Take One Step - A Conversation About Cancer"

Phew. Made it through this one without emptying another box of tissues. "Take One Step - A Conversation About Cancer" is a half-hour panel discussion tacked onto the PBS special "The Truth About Cancer." Hosted by Linda Ellerbee (who is totally fab and a breast cancer survivor), the discussion features four doctors, three of whom are oncologists, all of whom are also cancer survivors. Linda led a Q&A that was insightful and uplifting, and made me wish that one of these guys had been John's oncologist (who, instead, was a burly dude with no bedside manner or inkling of empathy).

A couple of points really stood out to me, and I know I will be trying to keep these things in mind as I continue my reading and research and the introspection that comes along with it. First, Ellerbee and Dr. Paul Brenner talked about how cancer is ennobling. How cancer shows the "nobility of what it is to be human." It's still a crappy and horrific disease... but it brings out the best in people. It boils life down to its bare essentials and its true priorities. I think the term "ennobling" hits the nail on the head - it captures in one word what I was trying to describe at the end of my post yesterday. And it's so true.

The other most wonderful part of this program came right at the end, when Ellerbee asked the panelists, "How do you restore hope to those who have lost it?" Dr. Brenner replied that he believes in the power of visualization, that he asks patients to write down their life stories, to make a video, to write letters to people they love, to "finish unfinished business."

Then he said, "I ask them to see themselves in health and stay in the present. I ask them to really look at their life because the only thing that really counts in the whole journey through life is love."

Word.

Ellerbee went on to conclude, "Cancer is a part of our past, it is a part of our present because we choose to speak about it and for the same reason will be a part of our future but it is not who we are. Cancer is not who anybody is."

And that's true too. For the first few months after John died, all I could think about, and see in my head, was his diseased, ailing body as it broke down more and more each day until, finally, the cancer won. I was both fascinated, on a very primitive level, and horrified, and overflowing with grief as these thoughts of his decline consumed me. I still think about it from time to time, because witnessing the total breakdown of a human body is just such an odd thing - on the one hand, it's one of the most natural processes in the world (as Dr. Brenner said on the show, "We are all born terminal."); but one the other hand, it is, thankfully, not something you see every day. Now, though, for the most part, when I think about John, it's the pre-cancer memories that are foremost in my mind. Because cancer was just one small part of John's life - granted, it's what ended his life, but the disease in no way defined him. Cancer was just a roll of the dice.