Ted Koppel and Living With Cancer

I just wrote a lengthy post about Ted Koppel's documentary, "Living With Cancer," that was on the Discovery channel last night. (The post went flying out to Internet Purgatory.) The documentary will be aired again tonight at 8:00 Eastern time. If you have a friend or family member who has cancer, this program can be very helpful.

Leroy Sievers is Ted Koppel's best friend. He is dying of colon cancer that metastasized to several parts of his body. He is in Stage 4. That diagnosis almost inevitably ends in death. Elizabeth Edwards (who participated in the town hall meeting shown after the documentary) has Stage 4 breast cancer. No matter where the cancer travels, it will always be colon cancer or breast cancer. Just in a different location.

I can't imagine suffering through the treatments only to postpone death. We're all going to die, but some of us have medical proof that we're going to die sooner rather than later. There will be an end to Christmas lights, an end to friendships, to all of those daily things we tend to take for granted.

Since about halfway through chemotherapy, I've been almost certain that I would not choose to go through it again. Even if it meant dying. Of course, when I was first diagnosed, I thought I would refuse chemo and radiation. In retrospect that was profoundly naive. So maybe I would do another round of chemo, another round of radiation. I guess that's just one of those things you don't know until you get there.

All of the people at the town hall meeting were either currently being treated or had been treated for cancer. Without exception, everyone could see some positive things about having cancer. It certainly changes your perspective and clarifies priorities. It measures the level of inner strength you possess. I have attained heretofore unknown amounts of suffering. I care less now about how my hair is looking every day than to celebrate having any hair.

Cancer changes everything. It robbed me of all of the things I thought defined me. I'm trying to get some of them back. Some of them were inaccurate measures of who I am and needed to be left behind. Some of them are things that frustrate me, make me angry and cause me great sadness. Nonetheless, I'm still here. That's a lot. I know that I will live every day until I die and I will learn to love whoever replaces the person I used to be. No matter how hard that may be.