Chapter 37: Living vs Surviving

Pre-COVID hugs with one of my best friends and co-residents, Stephanie. Laura Ann Photography

I start chemotherapy in 4 days, but today, I wait. I feel like we’ve all had far too much waiting lately, don’t you agree? Waiting to leave our homes, waiting to see our family and friends, waiting for restaurants and stores and gyms to reopen, waiting to learn when we can book our next vacations.

Isn’t it strange- to wake up day after day and feel like we are still just…waiting? Waiting for an answer, from someone, anyone. I’m an MD, yet, like most of you, I don’t know when this pandemic will end. I know that, at least in Minnesota, we are collectively doing a good job of staying at home and flattening the curve (nice work!!); however, I don’t yet know what this means for the future of our economy, our social gatherings, our life as we once knew it.

I have a strange thought experiment for you. Imagine if this waiting, this wondering, this waking up day after day without answers on timeline was going to go on for the rest of your life? Well, welcome to having incurable cancer! Sounds like fun, huh? Obviously kidding, it’s a nightmare.

I don’t mean to sound like my problems are worse than anyone else’s. Rather, I think this pandemic has brought about a very unusual phenomenon of the whole world collectively feeling the unknown that a cancer patient feels every day, all at the same time. It’s almost spooky how much we can all relate right now.

Imagine living your entire life with this same sense of unknown and “when will…?” When will stores reopen? When will my cancer progress again? When will we know if my chemotherapy worked? When will my next brain scan be? When will my MRI, show that my treatment is working, or when will it not? When will I need another brain surgery? When will I lose my ability to remember, to speak, to walk, to think, or will I ever? When will social distancing end? When will I be able to go back to Demi to try their summer tasting menu? “When will…” may be the single worst phrase in existence when no one can answer it for us.

How do we live with this uncertainty? I wish I knew! However, I will say, I had about two months before the rest of you to try out some strategies, given my cancer diagnosis came around two months prior to COVID-19 spreading to the US. I still don’t have a magic answer, but I have decided that there is a large difference between living and simply surviving.

If we want to live, we have to find a way to switch “When will…?” to “Today, I will…” That is the most magical answer I have found so far.

How do we remain happy when we have control over nothing? Especially us type-A planners? I don’t know. But Thich Nhat Hanh just might. This quote is from his book “Going Home:”

“I am very happy every time I touch the beauty of life around me. Sometimes I feel deeply moved because there are so many beautiful things around me and also inside me. Sometimes the trees are so beautiful, the sky is so clear…There are people capable of loving, forgiving, and taking care of other people…I am inspired by the beauty around me and by the capacity for loving around me.”

This is lovely. But, if you think I’m trying to say “just be happy, it’s easy” I’m not. It is not easy. Thich Nhat Hanh goes on from this quote to say…

“That does not mean that I do not suffer.”

To me, this part is key. No one is simply happy all of the time without suffering. It’s ok to suffer, this is a normal part of life.

But, why do we have to suffer? And how can we suffer a little less? How can we counter the suffering enough to continue truly living, not just surviving?

When I wake up and think “When will…?” I suffer, but when I switch this phrase to “Today, I will…” [go for a run, call my friends, FaceTime my family, walk my dog, help a few patients, cook a delicious meal, read a new book, laugh at Tiger King memes, sit in the sun, etc], I am able to remember the beauty of life and around me and I start to think that “When will…” doesn’t really matter so much after all. I’m just going to enjoy my day.

Fondly,

Courtney

© CB2020