Cancer - What's your expiration date?

The other morning I was driving into Bend to pick up some supplements from my naturopath. I left early so I wouldn't miss any more work than necessary. I was listening to a CD full of songs from my teenage years. "Dust in the Wind" was playing and I was thinking about the lyrics and how they still ring true.

With cancer slowly receding in my rearview mirror, the idea that we all return to that former dust-like state really hit home. I was thinking how I'd really prefer to become dust in the wind a long time from now and that there's no guarantee on any of our expiration dates. Just as the song reached its crescendo, I got a reminder of just how vulnerable we all are.

A man driving a big white pick-up came around the corner after Bend Equine and drove into my lane. In those few seconds, I laid on the horn and noticed he wasn't talking on the phone or looking down, he was just zoned out. On about the third honk I could see him rejoin the world and swerve back into his lane. We missed each other by a foot - if not inches.

I kept singing "Dust in the Wind," a bit louder and with a bigger dose of emotion as my adrenaline slowly receded. That was almost it. In my little Subaru, I would have been toast if our vehicles had hit head-on. I was reminded that the chances of me dying in a car accident on Highway 20 driving the 10 or so miles into town are much more likely than cancer taking me anytime soon.

I thought about the many times well-meaning friends and acquaintances have asked me the dreaded question, "What's your prognosis?" First of all when I hear that, I go back in time to that television show, Marcus Welby MD, where I first heard that question asked by one of the doctors. It sounded so official and important. But what exactly does that word mean? I looked up the synonyms and found these words: forecast, prediction, projection, scenario, diagnosis and prospects.

We'll I'm here to tell you I don't know the forecast for my expiration date any more then the local weather man knows what the weather will be like in Central Oregon. Each step I take and thought I think alters that outcome, making a prediction impossible. I could have been taken out by that white pick-up, or slipped on the ice or had a heart attack.

And frankly, I don't want to think about what my chances are after a cancer diagnosis. I prefer to live each moment the best way I can and think about wonderful experiences that lie ahead. It motivates me to live a more healthy life, think positively and focus on what's good. When I hear that question it slams me back into that nebulous place with no answers.

With a head full of duck-fuzz masquerading as hair, it's no wonder people are reminded that I'm recovering from cancer. I think the operative word for me is "recovering," not holding the knob on death's door and knowing when it'll open. No one knows that, not the doctors and definitely not me.

In the meantime, I do have a choice in how I live my life, what I focus on and who I love. Those are the things I can control, the rest is yet unwritten. For me it's another lesson in letting go of the false idea that I have full control over what happens next in my life. I'm finding that all I really need is faith that everything I've experienced so far, both tough and tremendous, is all part of my life experience.

I imagine myself in a soul suit that God gave me to walk around in and live my life. It's an amazing, complicated, finicky machine but it's my vehicle for living on this planet. When it's my time, I'll release my body and rejoin those who have gone before me. Until then, I'm not going to ask myself how long I've got left. More importantly I'll focus on how I plan to live my life from this moment forward, however long that might be.