When a survivor meets a survivor in the wild
Over the weekend, Stacy and I were packing in the fun stuff and it was great. We were on the scooter looking at houses and going to brunch with Drew and Deborah - just enjoying a great summer morning in Atlanta. On the way home in the afternoon, we stopped by the Grocery to pick up all the stuff to make quiche for our make up Mother's day which we had postponed because Mom was traveling the previous weekend and I was bed-ridden still.
Enough background info - we were rushing through Publix trying to remember how much of what goes into a quiche, when a guy stopped me and asked if I was going through chemo. You'd think that it would be weird that someone stops you in public to ask something so personal, but it's not at all. Anyone who would have the gall to stop you and ask you that must have a story themselves, and I'm finding that the majority of survivors LOVE telling their story - almost like war veterans.
I told this guy that yes, I had just gotten out of chemo a few weeks ago and he gave me some great compliments about how well I'm doing. I took those very well because I am pretty darn proud about how much energy I have and how good I feel so far - I'm doing much better than I should be doing at this point.
Turns out that he is a leukemia survivor - the kind that doesn't need bone marrow transplants - it's a different kind that is much more survivable. Stacy later told me that his chances were about equal to my chances. He though that I had it worse off with the TC, and I thought that he had it worse off with the lymph node cancer - so we were both patting each other on the back at about the same rate. He has been in remission for about a year, which is the next milestone that I hope to get to, and it's a great relief for someone to reach the year mark - because it normally means that the cancer isn't going to come back in any major strength, even if it does come back after the year mark.
He brought up that he was a lawyer by trade before his diagnosis and he talked about how his life is completely different now, and how he has very different priorities than he ever had. The way he was talking about how his life had changed, I'll bet you that he was one of these pompous arrogant lawyer-type guys who only cared about his career and bragged about social status and had the country club membership and had no respect for anyone outside of their firm, and hated anyone above him inside his firm. Maybe that's a huge assumption on my part, but I'm telling you that he focused on this for a few minutes and it was almost like he was getting it off his chest. The point is that his life is completely different and after I told him that we were engaged, he looked at me and Stacy and said that we had already figured out what was important in life.
He had a fiance when they were in their 20's and the ended up breaking off the engagement because they were too young to get married - his words. They maintained a friendship in life, then later she passed from cancer - he didn't mention the type. Sad story. But now, this guy really has it together and he has a zest for life that comes across in a 10 minute conversation in the diary section with a stranger. When the talk came to an end, we shook hands and I said it was a true pleasure to meet him, and he told me that I made his day - then he said he was off to find some ben and jerry's ice cream, because he deserved that little pleasure in life - I couldn't agree more.
Stacy and I got back to our shopping and then it hit me - that guy made my day too. It was so cool to meet some stranger outside of the chemo room who I know has the same thoughts and feelings about life as I do now. Just some regular guy who knows how precious life is and who will take the 10 minutes to share some of that with a like-minded person in the middle of the grocery. That's pretty cool. As luck would have it, we ran into him again in the parking lot and I got to shake his hand again and tell him that I eventually figured out that he had made my day as well. We agreed that we'd be on the lookout for each other in the future, and went our separate ways to enjoy our separate lives - both enjoying our lifetime memberships in the cancer club.
Enough background info - we were rushing through Publix trying to remember how much of what goes into a quiche, when a guy stopped me and asked if I was going through chemo. You'd think that it would be weird that someone stops you in public to ask something so personal, but it's not at all. Anyone who would have the gall to stop you and ask you that must have a story themselves, and I'm finding that the majority of survivors LOVE telling their story - almost like war veterans.
I told this guy that yes, I had just gotten out of chemo a few weeks ago and he gave me some great compliments about how well I'm doing. I took those very well because I am pretty darn proud about how much energy I have and how good I feel so far - I'm doing much better than I should be doing at this point.
Turns out that he is a leukemia survivor - the kind that doesn't need bone marrow transplants - it's a different kind that is much more survivable. Stacy later told me that his chances were about equal to my chances. He though that I had it worse off with the TC, and I thought that he had it worse off with the lymph node cancer - so we were both patting each other on the back at about the same rate. He has been in remission for about a year, which is the next milestone that I hope to get to, and it's a great relief for someone to reach the year mark - because it normally means that the cancer isn't going to come back in any major strength, even if it does come back after the year mark.
He brought up that he was a lawyer by trade before his diagnosis and he talked about how his life is completely different now, and how he has very different priorities than he ever had. The way he was talking about how his life had changed, I'll bet you that he was one of these pompous arrogant lawyer-type guys who only cared about his career and bragged about social status and had the country club membership and had no respect for anyone outside of their firm, and hated anyone above him inside his firm. Maybe that's a huge assumption on my part, but I'm telling you that he focused on this for a few minutes and it was almost like he was getting it off his chest. The point is that his life is completely different and after I told him that we were engaged, he looked at me and Stacy and said that we had already figured out what was important in life.
He had a fiance when they were in their 20's and the ended up breaking off the engagement because they were too young to get married - his words. They maintained a friendship in life, then later she passed from cancer - he didn't mention the type. Sad story. But now, this guy really has it together and he has a zest for life that comes across in a 10 minute conversation in the diary section with a stranger. When the talk came to an end, we shook hands and I said it was a true pleasure to meet him, and he told me that I made his day - then he said he was off to find some ben and jerry's ice cream, because he deserved that little pleasure in life - I couldn't agree more.
Stacy and I got back to our shopping and then it hit me - that guy made my day too. It was so cool to meet some stranger outside of the chemo room who I know has the same thoughts and feelings about life as I do now. Just some regular guy who knows how precious life is and who will take the 10 minutes to share some of that with a like-minded person in the middle of the grocery. That's pretty cool. As luck would have it, we ran into him again in the parking lot and I got to shake his hand again and tell him that I eventually figured out that he had made my day as well. We agreed that we'd be on the lookout for each other in the future, and went our separate ways to enjoy our separate lives - both enjoying our lifetime memberships in the cancer club.
posted by Bill McDaniel at 6:00 AM
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