Perseverance

I started this blog yesterday, with the title only, so, here we go again.

I’ve been reading the Lance Armstrong book It’s Not about the Bike, which someone leant me when I got into the hospital. Whatever might be happening in the world with him and his accolades, I’m more interested in the story of a man who overcame long-shot odds against cancer.

And the book is quite good, thanks, I’m sure, to his writer.

But, as I was reading it, he writes about getting on his bike even as he begins chemotherapy. That if he can just get on his bike, he can beat it. If he maintains some semblance of his old life, and his old sense of control, then he can control cancer. That if he can persevere through this by sheer will alone, all is not lost.

And, healthy or not, deluded or not – I like his line.

It’s only the first few days for me being back in hospital on my second round of chemo, and the first week is usually quite easy (she says with all her experience). It’s the second week when all your blood counts go down that you get that pallor and weakness we associate with cancer patients.

So, I’ve been walking around the veranda in the morning. My perseverance. I remember the first time I was here, there was a woman who I saw flaming past each day, pulling or pushing her IV pole, but each day, as I sat sick and listless in bed, I watched her fly past my door on the veranda, and was judgmental and jealous. Who does she think she is – outrunning this thing – how come I can’t do that – here she comes around again, the show-off. But, now, having the energy that I do, I get it.

There is a sense that if I can only move, I won’t be caught. If I can get my street clothes on, I’m not as bad as all that.

But, more what I wanted to say about perseverance was this:

I have never had to persevere in anything. As a relatively intelligent person with no real encouragement to excel from home, I have skated along on half-steam for the majority of my life, and done well enough. Adequately, as my friend would say. My life has been adequate. Nothing extraordinary, I haven’t pushed through any barriers or boundaries, and have generally continued to plod along for as long as I’ve been alive.

I haven’t needed to excel. I haven’t needed to persevere. Until now.

With each creative endeavor, as you know by now, I pull back at some point. Painting, acting, writing, singing. I will spend a few months active in pursuance of these interests, and then wane. I will talk myself back from it, in any number of ways, and move back into my mediocrity.

It’s not about being outstanding, mind you; it’s about being authentic. And, simply, being in the middle of a pack for me is not authentic. Having a plodding life is not adequate for me. I am and have more than that.

But, I have never needed to push through the fear that keeps me hidden. I have never been forced before to make the choice to go past the threshold, and continue on.

With cancer, I don’t have a choice. I simply have to push through, past the fear, past anything – because there is nothing but the choice for life. I simply have no other option except to persevere, except to push myself into excellence, out of the dark.

I have never had to fight for anything the way that I am having to fight for my life now. Nothing has ever been more precious. To be out of options for how to proceed is a gift at this point. There are choices that I’m going to have to make, and I’ve been presented with the concept of the “burden of choice.”, But with my life, there is no choice. There is no option to recede, to play down, to retreat, to ignore. I am being given the opportunity to persevere in a way I never had.

And, as I’ve said, this knowledge has become my talisman and my lighthouse. I will do everything in my power to be as healthy as I can for as long as I can, simply because I must. Simply because it’s the only thing that is.

I’m, in fact, glad for this opportunity, having never had it before, having before had the option to tap out, and say this is too hard or too scary. This, THIS, cancer, IS hard and scary. It is by far the most hard and scary thing I’ve ever had to do, yet in this situation, there is only one way forward, and that presents freedom.