At your age . . .
I met with my urologist to discuss treating and defeating my cancer. Our discussion didn’t go as I thought it would. It seems at my age, according to my urologist, the average American male’s life expectancy is 78 years. This means I’ve got five years any way you look at it.
The doctor’s argument was that treatment, no treatment, cancer, no cancer I had five years regardless. They could remove my prostate or radiate it. The results were the same. And whether they got all of the cancer or not . . . there was that five-year thing.
He told me that his father died at seventy and that he didn’t plan on living any longer! Well, I’ve outlived mine for six years so far and I plan to extend that as long as possible.
The doctor discussed two treatment options both with lots of downsides like incontinence, which is not international travel, erectile dysfunction aka ED hereinafter referred to as “Mr. Ed,” male menopause, and cancer reoccurrence.
All of these possibilities to men are seriously bad. Maybe not as bad as dying from cancer but close. Wearing a diaper, Mr. Ed a gelding, man boobs, mood swings, hot flashes, while getting cancer all over again just seems like there are better alternatives.
To quote the movie Shawshank Redemption. Actor Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a man imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. Andy tells Red, played by Morgan Freeman, “I guess it comes to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.”
So, I looked up the Social Security Actuarial Life Table and discovered that I’ve actually got another 11.82 years to live! Instead of a plan to die, I’m working on a plan live! I know that I could get hit by a bus, more likely a golf ball, or some other catastrophe but however much time I’ve got, I want to do what I can to make it meaningful. Abraham Lincoln, whose life was cut tragically short, said, “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”
Only to be followed up by the greatest America writer of all time Mark Twain, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did.” Like writing this blog for example and playing golf at St. Andrews with my son, visiting Normandy, and where St. Joan of Arc was tried and burned at the stake, hiking Switzerland, and lounging on a Mediterranean beach. All that in a later blog.
Whether it’s twenty years or 11.82 let’s all get out and do stuff. Experience stuff. Make stuff happen. Live, love, smile, laugh, pray, sing, hug your special someone, children, grandchildren, and greats if you have them. Be a blessing and bless those around you with the time you have.
Proverbs 11:25-26 “Whoever brings blessing will be enriched.”
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Life with Cancer 
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