This, That, and the Other

A few weeks ago now, I made an appointment to see my new Primary Care Physician after waking up in the middle of the night and discovering that I was coughing up blood. Not a LOT of blood, mind you, but to my way of thinking, ANY blood is too much blood in a situation like that...so I went to see my doctor, and, sure enough, a subsequent chest X-Ray and CT scan revealed a "mass" (I'm told I'm not allowed to call it a tumor until my MD tells me it's a tumor) in my right lung, approximately the size of a tennis ball (assuming you could squeeze a tennis ball into the shape of a Jalapeno pepper).

Since then I've had a PET scan, a bronchoscopy, and another CT scan (of my brain, and yes it's still there), with a bone scan still scheduled for next Monday. This morning my case went before the interdisciplinary Thoracic Oncology Panel, who will give me a formal diagnosis and outline my treatment options later this afternoon. But having smoked two packs of cigarettes a day from the age of 18 to the age of 33, I have a pretty good idea of what the odds say that diagnosis will be.

I can't control that though, so I'm not going to invest too much time or emotion worrying about it either. It is what it is, and what will be will be. Mostly now, I want to focus on the things I CAN control. Even so, it's hard not to think about preparing for the worst while one hopes for the best. That's the advice I've always given people facing similar situations in my 30+ years of parish ministry. I certainly don't see any reason why I shouldn't practice what I preach.

Facing a potentially life-threatening cancer diagnosis is obviously a scary experience for anyone, so I'm actually a little surprised by how calm I feel. Don't know whether it's simply profound denial, or maybe just that all this expensive theological education really was worth the money after all. For most of my adult life I have earned my livelihood by living the life of faith: by walking with trust and confidence thorough both the benevolent and the afflictive dispensations of Divine Providence, even in the face of uncertainty, even in the midst of doubt, even in the presence of ambiguity and the unknown and the mysterious and ultimately unknowable. I may not actually reside in the valley of the shadow of death, but my office is just around the corner and I walk by there all the time. So I understand that some things are beyond our control, no matter how much we may wish otherwise...and that the ONLY meaningful thing we can do is to try to take them in stride.

It's not just about hope and optimism and good humor and maintaining a positive attitude either. Ultimately it's mostly about trust, and tenacity, and resilience. I've known all along that there were three potential outcomes to this story, all of which are basically just variations on the same theme.

The first is that I struggle with this illness and survive it, live another 20-30 years as a much better and stronger person as a result, only to die of something else later on.

The second is that I struggle with this illness, survive it for awhile, but that ultimately it comes back again to kill me anyway at some undetermined future date.

And the third of course is that I battle this illness and it beats me, and that my life expectancy is now measured in weeks and months rather than years and decades.

The good news is that even just a generation ago, Outcome Number Three would have been the ONLY possibility on the menu. Yet even with all of modern medicine's magnificent science and technology, there is still much that can be learned from the wisdom and the experience of our ancestors. Even though it may seem as though death always wins in the end, if we do our job of dying properly, death never REALLY wins. So if I am indeed destined to die sooner rather than later, I can still honestly say that I have lived a rich life filled with many joys and accomplishments, and harbor very few regrets. And this is actually a very comforting feeling, at least for me personally.

I just don't envy the person who gets stuck sorting out the HUGE mess I will doubtlessly leave behind me when I go. That thought alone really puts a lot of pressure on me to try to get my affairs in order sooner rather than later....