Look, still moving, albiet slowly

I’m back. Writing here. I want to say that I have survived, and to see it up on the screen, which in today’s world makes it real, even though it could be fake news. How can I tell? I don’t know if I can even believe the doctors. But I’m here, and mostly healthy. That’s the data.

Those doctors went after those mutant cells by slashing (two surgeries), poisoning (chemo) and burning (radiation). Those things all took their toll. More than the doctors told me I should expect — but I also learned that is almost always what happens. They tell you not to worry, even though there is a lot to worry about. But since worrying doesn’t help, why bother?

There were side effects. Some pretty difficult to deal with. They hurt. They knocked me over. They made it difficult to breathe. During a six month period I had about six days when I could stand up straight. and I had it relatively easy. There are other side effects that will continue for years. Those are a bother. They bother me a bit right now, as I type, but they are not that painful or severely limiting. Yet they remain, and they always will, although no one says that out loud.

Being older, seventy-four, doesn’t help. It makes it confusing. How much of the crankiness and lethargy is normal for Grampa Simpson? How much of these aches were there before? I was never going to feel they way I did at thirty-nine again anyway. How much energy is still being sapped by the six weeks of radiation. “Take a breathe…zappppp…breathe.”

I am told that I am otherwise healthy. I am pretty fit and and getting stronger every day, except for the days when I’m not, and feel exhausted I am very happy to be told that I’m cancer free and that there is a good chance that it won’t come back. It’s also clear that they can’t say that with any certainty. One thing in my favor is that the tumors I had were slow growing and I’m old. It could take them ten or fifteen years to grow back. I’m taking a pill to slow them down. If they come back in ten years there may be better treatments, or I may have lost my mind and won’t care, in which case my kids will be relieved.

I had cancer and it started to spread, but it didn’t go far, and they got rid of it. There were moments when, despite what they were telling me I thought I would be dead soon. There were moments when my body felt like it couldn’t function, but that was just the treatments. You know, the drug they were dripping into me was similar to mustard gas. Not fun. The only reason anyone decides to live through something like that is because they are told that they will die if they don’t. So I did.

As a result of that experience my moods now vary all over the place. Most days I realize that I am alive, with no pain, and I can see, walk, have fun with my family and friends, digest my food, and do most of what I want to do except move quickly. I can feel very happy, almost elated. just looking at the tree blossoms or watching the tide come in brings me the joy of existence. As people have told me, it’s good to be on this earth, and not in it. I appreciate just breathing and watching. I am still alive. They told me I would be. I AM STILL HERE!

But other times, even though I can get very busy, and I have a loving wife, friends, children and grandchildren, and I am learning and teaching, and trying to do something about how awful things are in the country and the world, I am struck with how useless and meaningless it all is. It is clear that I’m not going to last, they are not going to last, we all, the best and the worst of us, just come and go. The only thing that unites us is our insignificance. All we are doing is just spending some time. But when that time runs out, it’s over. Totally over. So I am trying to appreciate every minute of this meaningless, frustrating, often boring existence.

Still, despite all my cynicism, I often feel a strong responsibility to work to get rid of Trump et al, so that my grandchildren can have a society, and a planet in which they can lead happy, exciting, productive lives, whatever that means. I have already done my bit for my family and community. I also fulfilled my genetic imperative and had a couple of kids to keep the species going. Now they each have a couple of kids, to whom, as I mentioned, I feel responsible. I am really fond of all of my descendants. They are doing a good job of being who they are in the world, even if we are just playing with a string of attached paperclips, which is what I did with the four year-old the other day; a productive day.

While I was going through all the pain and aggravation necessary to drive out those mutant cells, many of my friends were very attentive to me. I found that very helpful, even if I could tell that they thought I looked quite like a ghost. Shockingly, just as I began to recover, one of those good friends, a man slightly younger than myself, had an unexpected heart attack and died. Poof.

He was a man of great accomplishments, who was always using his skills and talents to fight the good fight. He did things like write software and set up systems to bring health services to people who didn’t have them and could’t afford them. He was a big man who was soft spoken, very knowledgable and caring.

Sometimes, as I struggle to get the feeling back that I can do something that matters, I realize that that person was very active and doing a lot, and now he doesn’t care at all. Poof! None of this matters at all to him now.

There is also the frustration that comes from getting older, constantly facing mortality, and realizing that despite the many amazing changes, inventions, discoveries and “progress” made during my lifetime, I am still a member of a very flawed species. The world is now full of competing forces and goals. It always has been that way, but now we see it more clearly. One difference is that we now have the knowledge and technology to make significant changes, changes that could make most the lives of almost everyone in the world easier, healthier and happier. But it isn’t happening. People, our species, can’t seem to let go of their short-term interests. We still don’t trust each other. With good reason.

I find that sad. Not really surprising, but sad.