Luck of the Draw

This past week I heard from a couple of blog readers letting me know about their own experiences with cancer. This made me think that it's time for some acknowledgement of the fact that while cancer sucks, in some ways I'm actually fairly lucky. To wit:

I'm not a kid. -- Cancer has been bad enough as an adult who understands what's happening and can make his own choices about what he's willing to undergo. I can't even begin to imagine what cancer would be like as a kid who may or may not understand what's happening and, more important, is entirely subject to the decisions other people are making about his or her care. 

I'm not the parent of a kid with cancer. -- As hard as it must be to be a kid with cancer, how hard must it be the parent of a such a kid. Trying to make decisions about what the right thing to do is, not wanting to outlive your child. Again, I can't imagine what parents in that situation must go through, but I'd bet most would happily trade for a few rounds of chemo for themselves.

I have a nice white collar job. -- I remember talking with one of the nurses administering my chemo about a patient she had who was undergoing a chemo protocol similar to mine while working as a roofer. This guy was taking his infusion pump up onto the roofs he was working on, getting chemo while laying out shingles. My guess is he probably didn't have time paid time off, either. Comparatively speaking, my ability to miss work when the chemo gets bad and not have that lead to unemployment makes things unbelievably easier for me than they would be for the folks who lack the kind of protections I have.

I've had my nice white collar job for six-plus years. -- One of my former co-workers had the unfortunate experience of discovering her cancer as a result of trying to spend out her dental coverage before changing jobs. After more than a decade with her current employer she decided to change jobs, and between quitting and starting went to a dentist who discovered a lump that turned out to be cancer. How hard must it be to start a new job as a cancer patient? No one knows you, no one knows what you can do, and you're stuck trying to establish yourself in this new environment while dealing with the fact that you have cancer. Add to that the fact that a lot of the job protections like FMLA and so forth don't attach until you've got a certain amount of tenure in the job, and you're talking a very tough row to hoe. As noted above, cancer's hard enough without having to worry about it's impact on your job.

My cancer can't be cured. -- Clearly, it's a bit of a double-edged sword, but the fact that stage IV colon cancer is considered "non-curable" means the treatment protocol is actually easier than many of the alternatives. If they're trying to cure you, the oncologists will push your body as far as they possibly can before backing off. It's sort of the cancer-equivalent of "we had to destroy the village to save it," Thankfully, I was able to avoid that. 

I live in Seattle. -- Living in a big city clearly gives you advantages as a cancer patient. I've seen people in the infusion center who are driving five or six hours to get to their appointments. How stressful and expensive must that be? In my case, I've got numerous cancer treatment centers all within walking distance of where I live. 

Frankly, it doesn't really matter how long I live. -- Yeah, yeah, there are people will miss me. But by any reasonable measure, whether I die in six weeks, six months, or six years isn't really going to matter much to the universe. I don't have small children that will be left without a father. I don't have a spouse depending on me for an income, care, or anything else that would cause me to fight to stay alive. And while my absence at work would likely me noticed, I've been around long enough to know that when push comes to shove in the working world we can all be replaced. 

So while it sucks to have cancer, there are lots of folks whose experience of cancer is a whole lot worse than mine. So consider this acknowledgement that things could be worse, and in a lot of ways I've got it easier than many folks in similar positions. 

To put it another way, not everyone with cancer has the chance for a GCW Tour.