In broad terms and given the opportunity to quote a cliché at this point, I will, …
… “eliminate the negative, accentuate the positive” …
Yeah, everything sounds easy after you win the fight, and I even think it comes across cocky having to expound a few words of wisdom, as if I knew all along I was going to be alive today. Truth be known, I cried, I suffered depression, I drank like a fish to escape reality, couldn’t sleep, marriage breakdown … wow, all sounds like I’m a candidate for a 10 minute segment on ’60 minutes’. Mr. 60 Minute producer, leave a message and we’ll negotiate my appearance fee and I’ll confirm my availability.
One ‘negative’ aspect in my life I had to eliminate, that now sounds obvious but it didn’t at the time, was that it was necessary to distance myself from negative people. I had to be ruthless and draw an uncompromising line containing the names of friends, colleagues, associates, family, wannabe’s, noobs and aliens.
The biggest mistake I made on reflection was that I allowed my emotions to influence that decision, … to the extent that I trusted one individual who habitually and frequently announced to almost everyone we met that I was going to die anyway. I was made to believe that death was inevitable and that I should not cause myself such anguish by thinking that I could be cured.
Anyway, long story made short, define who the positive influences in your life are because you will want to talk non-stop sometimes. You will want to rant, you will want to vent your anger … and only a good friend with invisible ear muffs and caring facial twitches will suck out those attacks, and not think of you as a looney tune, and that same true friend would shake that session off and encourage the next round. I call them, my best friends …. every single one of them.
To the unlearned an Oncologist is concerned with the diagnosis of Cancer, offering therapy, follow-up, writing an invoice with lots of digits to cover his mortgage repayments, and synchronising his, ‘aha’ with his, ‘I see’s. Peering over his glasses, and holding a fancy pen with his initials engraved on it.
I was really chuffed with my appointment last Friday morning, because Doctor Henry Woo used the word, ‘mysterious’ in our conversation. My latest PSA reading was only 0.03 and it didn’t appear to be the effects of the radiotherapy that caused the cancer cells to dissipate, … because the ‘internal sunbathing, no wait, internal sun burning ‘ was done about 3 years ago.
The word ‘mysterious’ may as well have been the word, ‘miracle’. I think Dr Woo was keeping religion out and science in, in his assessment. In fact, I reckon over a few Cognacs and a Cigar, playing Poker along with his medical associate mates, … I bet my name comes up and the conversation goes like this …
” … chaps, if I may interrupt our game for one brief moment, I have this good looking patient whose cancer has ‘mysteriously’ disappeared without any explainable medical reason. Shall I report it to the Medical Journal of Australia? If we all work on this one, I get first dips at the speech ceremony thingy …”
All the while, I’m sure Dr Woo also has the Nobel Prize in his sights.
My next blog post is going to cover the crazy diet I was on. I actually don’t have a name for it, like the Atkins Diet, or the Crazy Lemon Diet, Jenny Craig or whatever, … but once I find a PayPal image button, I’ll make it easy for you to send me donations.
