How Cancer Challenges Our Beliefs About Goodness, Fairness, and God
As I read the CT report with my heart beating in my throat, all last bits of hope that it wasn’t cancer left my body. It was cancer. Pancreatic cancer. A tumor that was starting to spread to other places. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Anxiety overwhelmed me as I slammed my computer shut and went out to my bike. I unlocked it gasping for air as I went into a full-blown panic attack. I finally ripped the bike lock away from the pole, wrapped it up, and got on my bike. I sprinted harder than I’ve ever sprinted for a mile to better cell signal. I called my mom as soon as I could, out of breath and desperate for her to pick up.
“Hello?”
“Mom,” I cried heavily into the phone, “he has cancer,” sobbing and gasping for air.
“Oh no,” she said in the knowing voice of someone who has lost a loved one to the same thing, “that’s what I was afraid of… I’m so sorry hon…”
I melted onto the ground, a pile of fear and anxiety and sadness and anger and hate. Why him? Why me? Why the fuck is this happening???
My partner and I have been together for 5 and a half years, living together for 4 of those, and we were living our version of the dream when this news hit. We’ve been living in Yosemite Valley for the past 3 years, working, playing, and adventuring.
My partner Hans is obsessed with rock climbing and previously climbed religiously. Sometimes we would climb together and other times I’d go backpacking with friends. We had a great balance of togetherness and independence as we both pursued our love of nature in our own favorite ways. He was a bike mechanic and I was a naturalist guide. We lived in a 1 room cabin close to the river with a view of waterfalls and half dome right out our front door. Hans was getting stronger and working up to his bigger climbing projects… but now those dreams were dissolving rapidly in the wake of a serious truth.
Hans had been in pain for 3 months and we went through the multitude of tests required to come to such a diagnosis. But in the meantime, his pain was getting worse, he was losing more weight, he had to stop working, and he became incapacitated in bed… only able to slowly walk to the bathroom and back.
Every time we took the brutal 3-hour drive to get medical testing done, the anxiety worsened as the reality of what this could be was setting in for us both. Hans had to lay in the back of my van in the bed the whole drive down, in too much pain to even sit in a chair.
I realized that if it was cancer we would have to move back in with family in southern California to be closer to medical care. So when the diagnoses hit, we were quick to pack up and relocate. But not without challenges. Here I was trying to care for an ill person, pack up our van for the next few months, coordinate his appointment with an oncologist, apply for a leave of absence from work, talk to his family about what was going on, see his face losing hope by the minute, and try not to lose it every 10 seconds. Not an easy task…
But we made it down and here we are. He was admitted to the emergency room after the oncologist saw his awful condition and intense pain… He was hospitalized for 4 days while they got him hydrated, pain managed, and did lots of testing. We have another few days before finding out the type of cancer and treatment plan. We know it isn't operable so it's chemo and radiation. Maybe it'll work, maybe it'll kill him, maybe it'll do nothing and the cancer will kill him… I don't know, but pancreatic cancer is not for the faint of heart.
Through all of this, I’ve had so many burning questions that I scream out to no one in particular, just the universe at large. How does someone who exercises like crazy, eats really well, doesn't drink alcohol or do drugs, and generally lives a healthy lifestyle get cancer??? How does someone as kind and gentle as Hans get cancer? He doesn’t seem like he would have bad karma. He’s spent his life painting, climbing, and picking up garbage in nature. He’s one of the best people I know… a hardworking man with integrity and drive.
In the hospital room there hung a small statue of Jesus on the cross. I wanted to rip it off the wall but it was nailed tightly in place… maybe they anticipated people wanting to throw it out the window when things got terrible. What a weird thing to look at in a time of sickness… some guy hanging dead and limp after being brutally tortured to death. So if we become a perfect person… the best version of ourselves possible… our reward is certain pain and death? I DON’T GET IT!!! WHAT KIND OF MESSAGE ARE YOU SENDING GOD?!!!!!
It almost seems like the better human you are the more you get fucked over in the end.
Nobody has a good answer for me because no one knows why these things happen. For those who would tell me God has a plan… what's the plan? To suffer over and over again until you truly wonder what the point of life is and if there's any being out there who truly cares about us humans?
For those who talk to me of good and evil I tell them if God is everything then God is both good and evil… a thought almost no one wants to face when speaking of the matter. If we can’t count on someone to be all good all of the time then where does that leave the rest of us?
Life is full of mysteries and uncertainties and sideswipes and detours. I keep asking questions. To myself, to other people, to the universe. Questions are important. My dad who died when I was 18 told me to always question everything. A timeless lesson I won’t soon forget. I’ve been thinking of him a lot lately and asking him to be with me if that's even possible. To give me strength as I go through the loss of the main man in my life for a second time. As I go through anger and heartbreak and sadness and love and joy and everything in between.
Fuck this is going to hurt…