If I have eight months to live, there is a lot of fun to be had. Just enjoy life, stay awake and see what happens. She is still holding out for miracles, while my view is that a miracle would be great, but I'm not going to wait around for it, so why not play. This jump to acceptance is a little premature for Kathy. I am focusing on the playful parts of life: Buying concert tickets, traveling while I still can, enjoying nature while the weather is still good. I have been living my bucket list for some time now, and when I was first diagnosed, it came to me that the real list in my life was not the places I wanted to see, but the list of friends in my life with whom I want to spend my time. Instead of being mad at the hand of fate, I am focused on what is going on - mentally, physically, and emotionally - with myself and those that I love. Yet after almost 30 years of meditating, I have learned to embrace optimism, gratitude and the knowledge that I am not in control over my life or death. I can assure you their suffering makes me sad I wish this weren't happening. It may seem peculiar that I am calm while others in my life are suffering. On most nights this works well, as I remind myself that, though I am in pain, this will pass or I will pass, but it will not be forever.Ī sense of peace prevails. I have also spent the last few weeks in pain from my cancer's spread, sitting up and meditating to distance myself from the mental agitation of suffering. I am powerless in my dying, aware that those whom I love are hurt by the news. I have spent the past weeks telling people about my prognosis, watching them get sad, angry or depressed. All I could do was to hold my wife of 28 years, while she suffered with the thought of losing me.
I could seek out other therapies (and I did, consulting friends in the alternative medicine world about what was available for me now that the allopathic world was only talking about pain control), but I had no control over the final outcome. At night, Kathy would hold me and say, "Don't leave me." What could I do? Whether I died or not was not my choice. On our family vacation the next week, we laughed and had a great time. Outside of a miracle, it seems that I am toast. There are lots of stories of miraculous cures out there, lots of programs to beat cancer, but none with consistency or solid evidence.
Now, two days before a family vacation, all had come to a halt with the news that I have eight, maybe 12, months left to live.
I was planning my career moving forward and preparing for my book tour - blocking out dates, scheduling talks and travel - for Enjoy Every Sandwich Living Each Day as if it Were Your Last, which is being published in November. Despite a 90 percent mortality rate, I felt hopeful.
I had endured eight months of chemotherapy and radiation, and for the past year, I have been cancer free. Two years earlier, I 'd been diagnosed with metastatic adenocarcinoma of my esophagus.
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