Towards the end of his life these two activities dominated my brother’s attention like no other. He was bound by his lost leg to do the former and restricted from satisfyingly completing the latter due to his failing heart and a lifetime of smoking cigarettes. This came to my mind this morning whilst I was meditating as I was encouraged to focus on these two activities as closely as I could. I have no idea how Ian felt about his final days and weeks, he was a very private man when it came to his internal thoughts and feelings. I don’t know how frustrated he felt by not being able to get up and stretch his leg, hips and back and I can’t imagine how frightened he might been, desperately trying to get his breath. I also never quite knew how bad things were physically. Obviously, when he had his leg removed that was a hint as to the extent of the damage to his arteries but prior to that event I just knew he had some ulcers, indicating poor circulation, that meant he had to wear a moon boot to the footy. I attended many hospital and doctors appointments with Ian in the final few years and whenever I asked him how things were he would just say it was all good. There was one appointment when his wife asked me to go in and hear what the consultant said as she suspected Ian wasn’t sharing the extent of his physical problems. She was right, of course.
As you must be aware I have just come through an episode with cancer. Two years ago I was diagnosed with prostate cancer after detecting some mild urgency in my need to empty my bladder. My father had suffered with prostate cancer so I was already primed to keep an eye out for any small indication that I might follow him down that path. Sure enough, I did, and I am now recovering from a successful surgical intervention. If I am totally honest I feel a bit if a fraud. When Anne went through her treatment for the chordoma they found at the base of her skull she had to endure 12 hours of surgery followed by 8 weeks of daily proton beam radiotherapy at the Christie. A friend of mine went through years of surgery and treatment for their bowel cancer and due to his ‘revised plumbing arrangements’ leads a very different life to the one he had before. In the last few weeks another friend has had to come to terms with a double mastectomy in an attempt to halt the spread of breast cancer. These are major interventions with life-changing consequences whereas I have to perform twice daily pelvic floor squeezing exercises to help control my urinary function. I can no longer come but can go anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Inconvenient but that’s about all.
I think I have been the beneficiary of some good fortune when I consider how simple my treatment has been compared to that of other people I know. When it comes to a disease like cancer there is clearly an element of luck involved in how one emerges from the experience. My cancer could have been more aggressive and it might have spread elsewhere. It wasn’t and it didn’t and for that I am very grateful. The only thing I can commend myself for is that I reacted swiftly to the change I detected in how urgently I needed to piss. I am not writing that in some smug, self-satisfied way, there are conditions, as Anne’s was, that are entirely undetectable without the help of medical professionals but I did notice and I did act and here I am.
I mentioned earlier that I meditate and I do think that this helped me but only insofar as I spend time each day paying attention to my breathing and my sitting (amongst other things). It didn’t help me detect that I had cancer – in that I was fortunate – but it has changed the way I think and feel about what and who I am. Ian changed in many ways throughout his life but he remained stubborn in his fatalistic belief that when your number is up there is little you can do about it. He might have been correct but I think most of us get a few hints along the way that our time is limited so to self-restrict it by ignoring warnings and signs, however small and insignificant they might seem, is a bit daft to say the least.
So do take a little time today to examine how you feel (in every sense of that word) and if you have any concerns (and if you want to keep breathing), don’t just sit there, say something to someone before it’s too late.