Archive for the ‘Stories of HOPE’ Category

Jill Feldman

Finding the Silver Linings

April 10th, 2013 - by Jill Feldman

I have always wondered why people refer to their cancer diagnosis as a gift. Gifts are supposed to be exciting, fun and come from love. If being diagnosed with lung cancer was a gift, I would have returned it a long time ago!

But, I am a believer in silver linings; finding the positive in a situation no matter how unpleasant, difficult or even painful it may be. I know it’s easier said than done, but after losing my parents and other loved ones to lung cancer at a young age, I learned that it was my choice about how I respond to and handle the inevitable adversity we face in life.

I have chosen to find the silver linings. Finding the silver lining (which isn’t always easy!) provides balance and perspective during tough times. The ability to find something positive among the negative is empowering, and to find meaning in tragedy helps give both physical and emotional suffering a purpose. That purpose, and meaning, gives me a reason to keep going, to believe, to have hope.

Over the years I’ve learned that silver linings can be as small as your first walk to the corner after surgery or as big as being told you’re cancer-free.  I’ve learned that silver linings don’t take away pain, sadness or isolation, but they do help lessen the blow at times. Most importantly, I have learned that finding the silver lining is a choice ~ sometimes it’s hard to find, but it’s there if you look hard enough.

In the very large dark cloud of lung cancer that has tormented me for 30 years I have found several silver linings. Below are just a few:

 

  • Inexplicable tragedy can create an opportunity to take anger and sadness and turn it into positive change. For the past 11 years LUNGevity has been a vehicle to redirect my negative feelings into action, which has helped me reconcile with losing so many people I loved to lung cancer. It also helped me because my involvement with LUNGevity armed me with the weapons (knowledge, friendships and relationships with doctors and nurses) I needed to face my own lung cancer diagnosis with courage and not fear.
  • Ten years ago lung cancer was the invisible disease. That is no longer the case, and I am honored that I have had the opportunity to play a critical role in the growth of LUNGevity and the fight against lung cancer. There have been more advancements in lung cancer research in the past 7 years than the 25 years prior. I have options that mom, dad and so many others didn’t like targeted therapy and focused radiation; these are major silver linings in a disease previously associated with very little hope.
  • I have developed lifelong friendships and relationships with people I would have never met if it weren’t for lung cancer. Friends who understand a part of me that no one else does. Friends that I can’t imagine not being in my life.
  • I have a story that matters. A story of purpose that involves all the people who have touched my life and whose lives I have touched. There is both good and bad woven into my story and sometimes it feels like the bad plays a major role, but this quote says it all, “Life is like photography, we use the negative to develop.” I do not know how my story will continue to develop, but it’s a story I am proud to tell.
  • It takes a village  The far-reaching unconditional support my family has received from our small community has been touching and humbling; from the sheer number of people who want to help to the unbelievable measures many have gone to support us.

 

The silver lining in my community reaches far beyond me personally. I am still in awe of the teenagers at Deerfield High School. The awareness and funds for research that they raised in just three weeks is mind blowing.  I’m not sure they really understand that their efforts will have an impact on those affected by lung cancer for years to come. And last year our small community of 18,000 people attracted over 1,300 people and raised more than $140,000 for Breathe Deep Deerfield (a fun-run & walk) ~ something cities with millions of people have never done. The overwhelming community support gives me strength and hope.

I am excited that we have expanded the reach of our event across the northern suburbs of Chicago to create Breathe Deep North Shore. I can only imagine the impact we can have if the surrounding communities join in the fight against lung cancer.  Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

We are that small group of thoughtful, committed citizens and we can change the world of lung cancer.  Please join me at Breathe Deep North Shore on April 28th at Deerfield High School.  To register or donate visit www.lungevity.org/northshore.

Of course not everyone believes there is a silver lining in their cancer experience and that’s ok.  No matter where I am in my cancer journey, I will continue to find the silver lining.  Why?  Because it’s beautiful and it gives me hope ~ no cancer, pain or suffering can take that away!

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A Message to Lung Cancer Professionals

October 15th, 2012 - by admin

Teri Simon, a long-time survivor, author and advocate who passed away from stage IV lung cancer in 2012, gave this speech to an audience of medical professionals last year. We are honored to be able to share it with you.

“On December 2, 2009, I was diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic Adenocarcinoma of my right lung.  It was a stunning diagnosis, mostly because I had NO predisposing factors for any kind of cancer whatsoever, let alone LUNG CANCER.  Over the next couple of months, as I tried to recover from that shock and became a subject in a clinical trial for Tarceva (yes, I am an EGFR mutant), I recalled an old, old riddle:

Why did the Flying Elephant crash to the ground?

Because somebody told him that elephants can’t fly.

It occurred to me that perhaps one way to survive this Lung Junk business was to combine just the right amounts of realism, denial, and hope together.  Thus, I became a Flying Elephant.

(Teri Simon has written two books, created an active blog and spoke to patients and medical professionals from the viewpoint of someone with stage IV lung cancer)

“In addition to being a Flying Elephant, I am a number of other things:  a mom, a social worker, a friend, a writer, and a Jew.

When I was young, my mom was my Hebrew teacher.  She taught that the central part of a Jewish prayer service, the Amidah, was broken down into 3 segments:  Goodies, Gimmes, and Thank You’s.

Goodies are the sucking up to God part:  God is great, God is awesome, yay, God.

Gimmes are petitions:  Gimme this, gimme that.

Thank you’s are self-explanatory.

So here are the Lung Cancer Goodies:

Man, y’all (medical professionals/researchers) ROCK!  I participated as an audience member in a LUNGevity webinar a few weeks ago.  One of the researchers announced that he’d been working in the field for 15 years, but that it’s been in the past 2 or 3 years that advances have been made at lightning speed.  It made me think back to when I was first diagnosed.  I never asked “Why me?” but I often asked “Why now?”

Lately, I recognize how lucky I am to have been diagnosed now, now when advances and new discoveries are a daily experience, when there have never before been so many treatment options, so many options for personalized treatment.  It’s because of YOUR efforts, YOUR imaginations, YOUR drive, YOUR collaborations.  Like I said before, y’all ROCK!

Now the Gimmes….Y’all, I have a loooooooong list of petitions, but for the sake of time, here are my top 5 requests:

  1. Consider taking tobacco OUT of the lung cancer equation. I spent my life believing that if I never smoked, ate right, and exercised, lung cancer would never happen to me.  Well, I was misled. I was duped. I was wrong.  If I had a nickel for every MEDICAL provider who asked me if I had been a smoker, I’m pretty sure I could pay for a chemo treatment.  Sometimes it doesn’t matter WHY we get a disease, especially when it can’t be UN-DONE.  Sometimes it only matters THAT we have the disease, and what we’re going to do about it.  The smoking stigma doesn’t help, in fact, it hurts.  A lot.  As if I deserved this….Anyway, please consider taking tobacco out of the equation.
  2. Appreciate your study subjects, especially in Phase I trials.  These people are literally risking their lives to help make a difference in someone else’s.  This deserves gratitude, reverence, attention, and kindness.  Your advances are spectacular, but they’d be impossible without those brave study souls.
  3. Collaborate your efforts and check your ego at the door! You’re brilliant and dedicated; that’s undeniable.  But if you work in a bubble and insist on things being “my way or the highway,” you will never appreciate the fullness of discoveries that only happen through sharing.  Researcher A might have part of a question answered, but without Researcher B, the rest of the question remains a mystery.  Work together and ALL of you can get the Nobel Prize you deserve!
  4. Don’t forget  your humanity.  You have lives, your subjects have lives, your patients have lives.  Those lives now intersect.  Lung cancer sucks.  It’s scary and painful and deadly.  You might be immersed in numbers and facts all day, but your patients, well, they’re only living THEIR lives, so your “old” information is “new” to them.  Please try to remember that in your interactions.  To you, it may be all numbers.  To us, it’s our lives.  Your compassion is VITAL.  Truly.
  5. Care for one another.  The only way we, any of us, can manage through this lung junk is if we support one another.  The day you experience a clinical triumph may be the very day a colleague suffers the loss of a patient.  You know it happens like that.  I encourage you to support one another, celebrate together, mourn together. It’s how you’ll keep the drive to keep going.

So now, the Thank you’s.  This is the really easy part:

Thank you for getting up every day and being willing to beat your heads against a wall of frustration.  Thank you for hoping against hope for your patients.  Thank you for thinking outside of the box to get the job done.

Thank you for your passion, compassion, brilliance, drive, and ability.

We appreciate you.  Please don’t stop.”

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Flexing My Hope Muscle

October 3rd, 2012 - by admin

by Susan Gamble


I am not an optimistic person by nature. I am more of a facts and details person. So when I was told, “You have NSCLC adenocarcinoma, Lung Cancer,” I had to find out all I could find. Thus, began my search for the facts. A few weeks later, I found out my cancer was at stage 4. I could not be cured, but they would treat me and try to give me as much time as possible. The statistics were stacked against me.

I kept a smile on my face and began chemotherapy. I got weaker and it became a big accomplishment to make it from the main floor of the Cancer Treatment Center, up the elevator and down the long hall to the clinic. Eventually it became a feat to make it from the bedroom to the bathroom and at the Cancer Center I needed a wheel chair for any trips for CT scans, x-rays or MRI’s. My smile was fading, my hair was gone and my friends and family still told me to stay positive and keep up my Hope.

I could still smile on the outside, but inside I wanted to scream at them and say, “Do you know what Stage 4 means? Have you ever had chemotherapy or cancer?” Not wanting to be difficult or ungrateful I kept my feelings to myself. Others often seemed uncomfortable when I expressed what I was actually feeling. Hope seemed distant and impossible to cling on to.

I came home just before the Thanksgiving holiday. My tumors were not smaller, but they had been stabilized. My oncologist felt it was safe for me to wait 90 days to try another treatment. He gave me the choice. It felt like a stay of execution. My last holiday season with my family. So, I reached deep down and pulled up a tiny crumb of Hope. I could barely stand, but managed to mix up and bake gingerbread cookies for my grandson to help me decorate. My strength was so low I could barely stir the dough, but I pushed myself and did it anyway. We had to sit at the table to decorate cookies because it was too painful to stand. I prepared a Christmas prime rib dinner that I could hardly eat.

I made it through the holidays and kept that smile on my face. It was hard. I started getting sicker, my cancer was growing again. My oncologist started me on a new treatment. I was his second patient to use this genetically targeted therapy. It was a twice a day pill, so I could stay home and only went to the Cancer Center every 3 months. The treatment began to work. My collapsed left lung began to open and fill with air. I began to get stronger. I could drive a car, I could cook a meal, and I could carry my groceries in from the car. This did not happen all in one day. It took months to strengthen the muscles that had become so weak. This was not a cure, but I could now live my life.

Then there was still the issue of Hope.

My sisters made me aware of LUNGevity Foundation and their Lung Cancer Support Community (LCSC). I found other lung cancer survivors and caregivers there, online, who understood what hopelessness felt like. Yet they now seemed to have Hope. I was a bit reluctant at first, but it seemed to be working for these people. They seemed to be genuine and I soon made friends.

I kept flexing that Hope muscle.

It was pretty weak at first. I then began to feel better. My mind and emotions were getting stronger just as my physical muscles had done. I have grown and become stronger in so many ways. I did not do it alone. I did not do it in one day. My Hope muscle is helping me push through each day, through each decision. I can experience joy and happiness in my life with cancer.

There is still work to be done, but now I feel I have the strength to do it. I have the strength to keep trying and I have the power of Hope to help me do it.

____________________________________________________

 

*Susan is surviving stage IV lung cancer one day at a time.  She is a blogger and will be contributing to our “Lung Cancer Survivors” section of the LUNGevity Blog.  She has also volunteered with LUNGevity’s online support community as a moderator and offers support to others.

 

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Celebrating 6 Years of LIFE

September 7th, 2012 - by admin

by Lois Green

I am a runner, and I was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006.

I didn’t have any risk factors. I was relatively young and healthy, and by sheer luck at a company health fair I was encouraged to see a specialist for my asthma. The rest is history.

The year that followed my lung surgery was EPIC!!! The support from my friends, family, and colleagues was OVER THE TOP! The letters I received are treasures etched in my heart forever. I ran my next marathon 9 months after surgery with my daughter Tara at my side through every mile. We raised $20,000 for LLS. (Leukemia and Lymphoma Society) That was incredible!

But not everyone is as lucky as I was to have found their lung cancer in its earliest stage or to have the support from friends and family during their cancer experience.

Lung cancer impacts one in 14 Americans and kills more than breast, prostate, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers combined.
Currently, only 16% of people diagnosed with lung cancer survive 5 years post-diagnosis, a percentage significantly lower than that for each of these other cancers.
While colon, breast, and prostate cancers all have reliable early detection tests, lung cancer does not.
About 55% of all new lung cancer diagnoses are among people who are never-smokers or former smokers. I am a never-smoker.
Lung cancer claims approximately 160,000 lives per year.
Fewer than $2,000 of federal cancer research dollars are spent for each lung cancer death, compared with about $25,000 for each breast cancer death and $11,000 for each prostate cancer death.

I feel like the media focuses on a variety of cancers but often overlook lung cancer because of the stigma associated with the disease. Many people think that smokers should know better and expect related health problems when they smoke. As a nation, we don’t give enough attention to lung cancer treatment and prevention.

And the public should know that never-smokers get lung cancer, too. Anyone with lungs can get it, like me.

Earlier this year I attended a friend’s dinner party where I was among several doctors and their spouses. We had finished dinner, so I excused myself from the table to indulge in the variety of desserts only to discover on my return that I was the topic of conversation for being a lung cancer survivor and a runner. The doctor sitting next to me turned and said, “You’re a lung cancer survivor? That is amazing because when most people are diagnosed with lung cancer, it is already too late.” That moment raises an emotion in me, and I am reminded of how lucky I am.

On May 4, 2012, I attended the annual HOPE Summit for LUNGevity in Washington D.C. On arrival we met with everyone we bonded with at last year’s Summit, and it was even more exciting when we learned that the number of attending lung cancer survivors tripled this year! The HOPE Summit agenda is always packed with fascinating people and events. The second morning of the summit, I entered the conference room and “HOPEtastic” was everywhere. Survivors who have written books had brought copies to share. Keynote speakers shared their incredible stories, research doctors educated us on many topics, and media were there to video personal testimonies.

Randall Broad, author and stage III lung cancer survivor, reminded us all that “It’s An Extraordinary Life…Don’t Miss It.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the room when Randy told his story.

Jorge Gonzalez was 47 when he was diagnosed with stage III lung cancer on May 28, 2011. He was young, relatively healthy, and a non-smoker without risk factors. He is married with two daughters and treasures the time with his family. Jorge says, “The biggest fear I had when I was diagnosed was over my family. I didn’t know what to do, so I made arrangements. I wanted to make sure things were taken care of in case I didn’t survive this.” But he did. “Every day above ground is a good day.”

Then there was Sara Ratzenberger, who arrived in a wheelchair with an IV and nasal cannula for added oxygen. Nothing was going to stop this brave little girl, young lady, from attending the HOPE Summit. Sara came with every ounce of determination she had. She is a stage IV, 1.5-year Survivor. When I see Sara on Facebook, she is pure Sunshine and lives every day to the fullest. Sara is pretty, with blonde hair, blue hair (for LUNGevity), or sometimes very little hair. We all love Sara. When I am less motivated to run, I peek in on Sara and I have sudden purpose. Sara recently had a second thoracotomy.

I recall the tender moment after my surgery, when I could barely open my eyes. My dad (who was a smoker) came in my room alone and placed his hand on mine over the IV and said, “I hope I didn’t do this to you.” “No, Dad, you didn’t.”

People!! This is NOT a smoker’s disease. Lung cancer does not discriminate.
I cannot fathom a second thoracotomy. I had a pity party when my ICU nurse assisted me out of bed for my first walk on the metal walker. With lines/tubes extended from my neck, my arm, my waist, and my back, I sobbed during those first steps until my nurse, ”Mary,” said “Lois, you will run again.”

When HOPE Summit concluded, our cup ranneth over with friendship, renewed spirit, and Hope. I didn’t write a book. I wasn’t a keynote speaker. I didn’t arrive in a wheelchair. I never had chemotherapy or radiation. My dear friend, who I worked with in the East Greenbush plant, is going through chemo right now. I asked him to describe chemo to me. The list was long, and he concluded with, “Lois, I’m going to be a survivor like you.”

Our survival inspires others and gives others Hope too!

On November 4, 2012, I am running the New York City Marathon with my daughter Tara and my dear friend Jenny Lee. We are representing LUNGevity Foundation.

LUNGevity is the largest lung cancer nonprofit funding research into early detection and effective treatments of the disease. Our fundraising commitment is $8,000. The President of LUNGevity, Andrea Ferris, personally invited me to be their first entry in the NYC marathon.

Our mission is to raise awareness that LUNG CANCER IS THE NO. 1 CANCER KILLER and if it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

I’m not a loyal sports fan. I have my favorite teams, but when the event is near I always find myself rooting for the underdog. This is how I feel about LUNGevity. I have been given the platform to raise the awareness NOW… LUNGevity’s mission is to improve survival rates and promising research for early detection. That will save lives!

Will you join me in the fight against lung cancer? Every step is a step closer to a cure.

I believe in you…Thank you to my friends, family, and supporters (and LUNGevity!) for believing in me.

Lung cancer didn’t just happen to me. I believe it happened for me―so that maybe I can make a difference against this disease and for others.

With LUNGevity, I have HOPE.

On August 31, 2012, I celebrated LIFE and 6 years of being lung cancer-free!

Please celebrate with me by showing your support of lung cancer research.  

Please donate
http://events.lungevity.org/goto/teamgreen

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I Still Got This

August 29th, 2012 - by Jack Rogers

In September 2004, after ignoring an annoying throat for months and attributing it to way too much time on planes doing the corporate law gig, I was diagnosed with Stage IV squamos cell carcinoma of the head and neck. The tumor started in my left tonsil and the cancer wrapped itself around the palate and jumped over to the right side eventually circling around the jugulars and carotids and taking a ride through the lymph nodes. The treatments were brutal. I received chemo and radiation for five months, lost seventy-five pounds, lost my hair, had feeding tubes and TPN infusions hanging out of me, and quickly tired of the constant nausea and the mucositis and sores that stretched from my lips to my colon. My neck was raw and singed from the radiation (like overcooked microwave popcorn that gets tossed away) and I could no longer swallow. At one point, after a long and particularly brutal chemo session in which I went into anaphylactic shock, I actually gave up. I figured – what was done, was done. My wife, who had been driving me to my radiation session with the reckless abandon of a NYC cab driver while pleading on her cell phone for the radiologists to stay late as she battled particularly suffocating NYC rush-hour traffic, pulled the car over and yelled at me as if I was five years old and had just asked how long the ride was going to be because I had forgotten to use the restroom before we left. She said it was no longer about me – it was about all the people that were dropping off meals at our front door, the people that were leaving religious relics and prayer cards in our mailbox, the people that were lighting candles and saying prayers for us around the world, the people that were shuttling our three kids to school and to their sports and music activities, and the third grade class that had committed to eating broccoli once a week as a sacrifice in my name. She was right – it was about them. She is always right. So, I went to radiation where I swallowed my own vomit for fifty minutes while clamped to the table under my Hannibal Lecter-like chemo mask with thoughts of brave (yet squirming) third graders eating broccoli filling my head.

I’m told there was no medical explanation for my surviving that battle, but I did. After all the surgeries and treatments, I lost much of the shape to my neck as well as my jugular veins (I’d be great in a knife fight). More difficult than the physical challenges I faced post-treatment, were the mental challenges. I had so many questions. What was next for me, I wasn’t sure. Was I supposed to just suck it up and go back to work? Join a commune? Become born-again? What did it all mean? Where was I going? I had no idea.

When I was in the hospital during treatments, I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why things happen. All I figured out was I wasted a lot of time trying to figure out why things happen. Also, as I lay in the hospital bed I would hear the families of the cancer patients crying – either around my bed, the next bed or down the hall. They were crying for elderly people that were far too tired to keep battling. They were crying for young mothers that were far too young to be battling for their kids. They were crying for children that were far too innocent to be battling for their lives. The patients didn’t cry during the day in public. I’d hear them after visiting hours were over. They (really, we) cried in silence – long and hard. When we were home, we’d cry alone. But we’d never let the families hear us – we’d stop when the families came back. No one tells you how to deal with that. You quickly realize that you weren’t supposed to survive and the medical community, miracle-workers that they can be, don’t know what to do with you post-treatment. It’s kind of like when your parents pat you on the back and put you on the school bus for the first time in kindergarten – after all your parents’ obsessive research about buying the safest car with air bags and child safety seats, the bus pulls up with some Ted Nugent lookalike contest winner at the wheel and the last time anyone used a seat belt on the bus was probably when they were tested at the factory. Your parents just sort of stand there half-smirking while giving you one of those Queen Elizabeth type waves as you drive off with your nose pressed to the window realizing quickly what prison bus rides to Sing Sing must sound and smell like. Your parents have no idea if you’ll be ok, but what else are they supposed to do – home school you until you’re twenty-two? Same with the medical community – post-treatment you get the “atta boy” pat on the back and you’re out the door with a subscription offer to CURE magazine and a reminder to take two Aleve and call if there are any problems – despite the fact you’re in a daze and have no idea what the hell you’re doing.

The only advice I received post-treatment was from one of my surgeons who said, “You have a beautiful family and a beautiful life. Now go live it.” Easy for him to say – he probably still had both of his jugulars, the skin on his neck didn’t look like some Thanksgiving kitchen disaster where the turkey got way overcooked, and he probably didn’t suffer horrific neck and esophageal spasms every time he swallowed food. What the hell did “living” mean anymore? I had no idea. But slowly over the next few months and years, with my family, friends and faith at my side, I did just that – I got back to living. Running helped me leave dying behind.

On and off throughout my life, I have been “running” from something. Not sure why I’ve been given this lot in life, but I have a theory about my “running” and my life and where it takes me: I run down the path in front of me because that’s God’s plan. I run without slowing down. If I’m slowing down, I’m not running. If I’m not running, I’m catching up to all that is chasing me. If I’m running, I’m not stopping for directions or reading any signs. I don’t want to know what they mean or where I’m going anyway. If I’m running, I’m not stopping at any of those free water stations either where Good Samaritans stand there in the elements and offer sustenance. The need for sustenance makes me weak. I don’t mind being vulnerable – in fact, I welcome it – but I hate being weak. Sometimes I run in groups, but if I’m running in a group, I’m not running, we are. So I leave the group when we approach a fork in the path. Then it’s just me running again. Running down no particular path other than the one in front of me. But I’m taking notes as I run, otherwise I’m doomed to keep turning left. You can’t keep turning left (hint – you run in circles if you do).

Fast-forward to August 2011 – my wife, three kids and I entered a 5-K run on the eastern part of Long Island to help raise awareness for some beach-related environmental issues. My wife and kids all run – the kids do so competitively for their respective schools – my wife does it for the peace (mainly from me). This day was supposed to be a “fun run” for our family – despite the knowledge that once the gun sounded all pleasantries would be tossed aside and we would aggressively elbow each other for position and compete to see who would have the fastest time. A funny thing happened on the way to the finish line, though…. Soon after the race started, I was gassed and couldn’t run up the first hill. In fact, I couldn’t run much at all. I finished last in our family and even lost to kids no older than thirteen years of age that ran part of the race backwards. I’m no Frank Shorter by any means and my wife and kids are really good runners, but we all knew something was up. It sure was – late stage non-small cell squamos cell carcinoma lung cancer is what was up. I had a very large tumor in my left lung that was in a bad spot, had spread to the trachea and was pressing on my pulmonary artery. The cancer had also spread to the surrounding lymph nodes and outlying areas. After completing chemo sensitivity and resistance assays, the doctors surmised it was a twin primary tumor from eight years ago that somehow hid itself, survived the prior treatments and was now rearing its ugly head. That’s the funny thing about cancer – it hides until it’s ready to come out and once it does, it’s often at an advanced stage, especially with lung cancer. Surgery was not an option for me because it was too dicey. Four months of chemo and radiation ensued. But I never gave up running. Running was my coping mechanism. Running was my escape. Running was my way to keep going as I was going through hell (to borrow a battle cry from Winston Churchill). Running was my way to get back to living again. Running was my way of leaving dying behind again.

As a result of the disease and related oh-so-enjoyable treatments and surgeries, I have now lost most of my left lung and am learning to live life in NYC on one lung (i.e., by less audibly bemoaning each new horrible Knick signing and Mets loss as well as each new Michael Bloomberg pedestrian mall and ban on personal vices). And, I’m still running.

Throughout this most recent part of my journey, I needed a focus. I needed to turn the conversation from sickness to health, from worse to better. I needed a new path to run down. I needed a challenge I could control – instead of the cancer, the treatments and the doctors being in control. I needed to get back to living again. And, I needed it to involve running. Everest? No – I’ve never heard of anyone running up Everest, let alone on one lung. Running with the bulls? No – I’ve been gored enough by my surgeons and I run to get a seat on a train and fight for walking lanes on sidewalks every day with NYC commuters, who are much more threatening than any bull. What then? I’m a New Yorker. There’s nothing bigger or more challenging or more majestic than NYC itself. And, there’s no better way to conquer NYC than by competing in the streets among the people. The ING NYC Marathon would give me the opportunity to do just that. I’m was in. I’m was all in.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Marathon, though…my wife pulled the car over again. After my doctors approved my running in the Marathon, my wife said it couldn’t be about me. It had to be about something else. That something else became the LUNGevity Foundation.

The LUNGevity Foundation and its mission to “have a meaningful and immediate impact on improving lung cancer survival rates, ensure a higher quality of life for lung cancer patients, and provide a community for those impacted by lung cancer” connected with me. So did Tom Labrecque’s story from the “Run as One” movement. Running the Marathon under the banner of the LUNGevity Foundation and the Run as One movement would allow me to honor those that have fought the fight before me and to raise funds for lung cancer research. There’s no reason people shouldn’t learn from my journey. There’s also no reason for those battling medical challenges to spend their time as if they were a living portrait of Emmett Kelly with sadness dripping from their veins and darkness lining the tracks of their tears.

In addition, anyone that sponsors me and donates to the LUNGevity Foundation will have his or her name written on the shirt I wear while running in the Marathon. After riding their backs for the past eight years, it’s time I carried them on my back (well, their names anyway). And, carry them I will – all 26.2 miles to the finish line.

So train every day I will. No jugulars. One lung. Another round of aggressive chemo that will last through December 2012. No sweat. I don’t worry about death. I don’t worry about how much time I have left. I don’t worry about being in control of that time. I just live. Oh, how I live. And, I’m going to enjoy the walk as I begin the run down the path – wherever it takes me. I finally found my path – it’s the one to mindfulness and grace. It took a long time, but I know I’m there. And, I have plenty of sustenance for the journey – a lifetime full of faith, love, music, dance, red wine, black and white images, sunsets and wet sand.

I still got this.

To support Jack’s efforts please click here http://events.lungevity.org/site/TR/2012TeamRaiser/General?px=1705406&pg=personal&fr_id=3520

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Posted in Lung Cancer, Spotlight, Stories of HOPE, Testimonial | 11 Comments »

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