Aron - New beginnings: the triumphs of 120 cancer survivors

Copyright 2015 by Bill Aron.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Jane Sheppard

Cover Photograph by Bill Aron

Print ISBN: 978-1-63220-664-0

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63220-888-0

Printed in China

To the memory of our parents:

Eva and Samuel Aron and Sylvia and Moshe Ettenberg

Contents

Foreword

A s is often said of old age, havingand living aftercancer is not for sissies. But surprising though it may seem, and as Bill Arons book aptly demonstrates, manyperhaps mostpeople who survive the experience end up tougher, braver, more resilient and more compassionate than they were going in.

A cancer diagnosis is unquestionably a comeuppance. Few expect it and for most it is a life-changing experience that derails any preexisting intimations of immortality. Suddenly there is, for many, a need to make each day count, to not postpone important goals, and often to do things that might leave a life-enhancing lasting legacy.

It doesnt necessarily have to be your own cancer for such a dramatic redirection of philosophy and action to occur. I was sixteen and about to graduate from high school when my mother succumbed at age forty-nine to ovarian cancer. I vowed then to do what I could to avenge her untimely death by helping others lead healthy, productive, and hopefully longer and fulfilling lives. And I pursued that goal like a horse with blinders for the rest of my life.

By the time I got cancer sixteen years ago at age fifty-seven, I wasnt even scared. I considered it a speed bump, not a roadblock. I didnt ask Why me? Why not me? Just because I eat a wholesome diet and exercise every day and have never smoked or overindulged in alcohol does not render me immune to cancer. And even if you think something avoidable that you did had resulted in your cancer, nothing good can come from recriminations about the past. Rather than beating up on yourself, focus on what good can lie ahead.

In preparing a talk I gave to cancer survivors and their families, I looked up some inspiring quotes from others who have been through a cancer experience. I found very helpful statements like these:

Life isnt about waiting for the storm to pass, its about learning to dance in the rain.

We dont know how strong we are until being strong is the only choice we have.

When I received a diagnosis of breast cancer, my first thought was Its not about the breast . Rather, its about health in its totality. Its about life and how you approach it.

I had already left behind a body of work that would remain meaningful to millions of others for decades to come. And I vowed to do what I could to keep that legacy growing for as long as possible. I also continued to pursue the lesson I learned from my mothers early deathdont put off for some indefinite future what you want to do and can do today.

Knowing full well that whatever I had earned could not follow me into the Great Beyond, I chose to help others, both at home and abroad, pursue the kind of education I had been privileged to obtain. I articulated explicit values and put my assets to work to support them for my young relatives and for countless young people I dont know and probably never will. I dont believe in squandering money on fancy cars, boats, clothes and jewelry when so many people in this country and in the world go to bed each night hungry and without a secure roof over their heads, when so many children in the world dont have a book to read or the ability to read one if they did.

Im not suggesting everyone adopt my particular set of values or approach to life. But I am saying that whether its cancer or some other life-threatening condition you or a loved one might have, it behooves you to take stock before its too late and decide, as I did at sixteen, to live each day as if it could be your last, all the while with an eye on the future in case it isnt.

Whether you are destined to live weeks, months, years or decades after a cancer diagnosis, you will have achieved nothing worthwhile for yourself or others unless it changes your life for the better. I know scores of people who are cancer survivors. Some are living with cancer. Some, at the moment at least, are cancer-free. Others seem to have beaten the disease many years ago. The one characteristic that unites them all is a determination to make their remaining time on earth meaningful to themselves, their loved ones and many others theyll never meet.

Perhaps the most inspiring cancer patient I know is Wendy Schessel Harpham. Like the many survivors in this book, Wendy focuses on hope, not hope for a cure but hope for long, productive survival. Wendy is a physician living in Dallas. She was in her thirties, the mother of three young children and loving her medical practice when in 1990 she learned she had non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Wendy has had cancer now for twenty-five years. Shes currently in a long remission but has endured many rounds of treatment, some of them highly experimental, for periodic recurrenceseight of them to date.

Wendys goal is to get the best treatment available, live as long as she can, and, most important, live as fully as she can every single day. When Wendys illness forced her to give up her beloved medical practice, she turned to writing terrific books to help others through the ordeal of cancer. She also appears on national television, speaks to both lay and professional audiences about cancer survival, writes a blog for patients and their families and a column for oncologists to help them deal more sensitively with their patients.

Wendy has written: Cancer made it impossible for me to practice medicine, then led me to discover a different but equal passion and a way to reach more people than I ever could in my office.

In other words, Wendy has turned a sows ear into a silk purse. Every cancer survivor has the potential to follow her example.

Conquering cancer is really not about cure. Its about livingliving well for as long and as fully as one can. Wendy, who has had more experience and expertise at surviving cancer than most, calls it a journey. Journeys can be challenging, long, and difficult. But they can also be life-enhancing. How each person weathers the journey is a matter of choice. You can choose to rant and rail at the misfortune that found you, or you can make the most of however much time you have left and, in the end, be able to write your own epitaphan epitaph that would make others proud to have known you or wishing they had.

As Wendy put it, cancer is not a battle and its not a war. Wars, whatever their outcome, are horrific experiences that leave behind unimaginable devastation. A journey, on the other hand, can be meaningful and often joyful in and of itself.

This book can help you make it so.

Jane E. Brody