Now that I have been living with terminal cancer for a year, I am astutely aware of how I spend my time.  I’m not saying that I never sit at the computer and play more spider solitaire than I would actually want to log. And I am not saying that I feel compelled to “make every moment count.” There are days when I don’t feel like doing much besides watching another broadcast of British house hunting on Dabl or maybe Kelly Clarkson followed by Jeopardy. But mostly I am able to wake up every morning with an attitude of gratefulness and enough energy to accomplish some food prep and some writing. A few times a week, I venture out to give Joel a ride to work and attend a gentle yoga class and stop by my office.

Facing a terminal illness makes me thankful for the priorities I established in my life years ago. Even though I don’t feel like I have much energy, I am alive and pain-free and able to drive myself where I want to go. I asked a doctor last week if I would ever be able to regain the strength and stamina I’ve had in the past and she basically said, “no.” She pointed out how much better I am now than when she first talked with me 8 months ago and even said that if she saw me on the street, she would not know I have cancer. How I look is less important to me than it once was, but her comment made me reflect on why I am doing as well as I am.

A few key, deeply seated convictions have paved my way to doing well with a terminal illness. 

I made relationships important.

A key moment in my life was when I decided to extend grace to a son who was not deserving of much at the time. He was addicted to heroin and we were clueless about how to help him. Somehow, extending grace was the choice we made, “giving what was not deserved.” We made our relationship with him more important than his behavior. Tough as it was, it felt good to take him a bag of groceries and wrap a Christmas gift for him while his behavior was so difficult to see. Eventually, when he was ready for help, he was able to come to us because we had not rejected him.

That son came to visit us when I was about six months into my cancer trek. He is a nurse now and lives far from us. I think he needed to know that I was okay, that my husband was okay, and that we were both well cared for. The day he was leaving, I asked him if the visit had satisfied him. “Well, it’s not like we have anything we need to talk out,” was his reply. I was, once again, eternally grateful that we were led to extend grace to this wonderful human being. Extending grace has become a mantra of mine in every relationship and I am glad for it.

There was another time when I read that you will become the sum total of your five closest friends. At that point in my life, I was emotionally exhausted and I began to realize it was because I was the initiator, the giver in just about every friendship I had. I made the phone calls, I made the coffee dates, and I suggested times to connect. I considered the future if I was going to only have those women as my besties and decided I wanted women friends who would challenge me and make me better and who would not depend on me.

I identified a few other women I knew who were more successful in business than I was and who were women I would like to be around. I began to look for ways to communicate and hang with new women and broaden my sphere. Two of those women I identified a dozen or more years ago are now some of my most helpful supporters as I navigate living with cancer. Other relationships were and are important, but I chose to prioritize the ones that were reciprocal.

I found ways to volunteer as a way to give back and join in.

I’ve been a volunteer for as long as I have been able to offer something. Even as a kid, I was in the nursery at church and even had a brief stint as a “candy striper” at a local hospital. As an adult, I volunteered to run a home school support group, taught classes for kids and adults, and led the music team (to be clear, not because I am a great musician) at church. One of the most fulfilling volunteer roles I took on was running a food pantry at a community healthcare clinic.

The food pantry was really fun. The clinic had started a program they called “Food as Medicine” and I made it our mission to offer truly nutritious food to the guests who came to our pantry monthly. Finding the funds and resources for fresh fruits and vegetables was a labor of love that gave me more energy than it cost me.  During the pandemic, we were able to consistently get healthy food to 100 families, every week. Families who really needed our help as they did not have adequate resources.

Volunteering has always given me energy. It reminds me that I am very fortunate. I’ve made friends with people I would never have met, otherwise. I’ve been able to network and connect organizations and people who can help each other. The fact that I can is reason enough to give some time and money and to use my gifts to bless others. Though I am not able at this time to be actively volunteering my time and energy, I have so many positive memories from giving to others it’s a source of contentment.

I learned to enjoy exercise.

In 1988, the autoimmune disease that had limited my physical abilities for five years was considered to be in remission. The doctor assured me that I could go and build back up and be better than ever. It was hard to believe, but the idea was enticing enough to get me to the neighborhood YMCA to find some kind of exercise I would stick with.

Cardio has never been my favorite but I discovered I loved weightlifting. The constant improvement was motivating. Being able to do more, lift heavier, and try something new kept me going. I even made an agreement with myself that I would do 20 minutes on a cardio machine before I could do my free weights and believe it or not, it worked!

From rehabilitation from a debilitating disease to a life-long habit of staying fit was a gradual transition. Eventually, I joined classes, played racquetball, and hired an occasional trainer when I needed a push. Depending on where we lived, one of the first things I did was to locate a gym nearby to keep me at it. For a while, I was at the gym at 5:30 a.m. to make sure I got my workout in, even though I have always been more of an owl than a lark, i.e. not at all a morning person.

As I have aged, I have needed to adapt my exercise to my changing lifestyle and ability. Frankly, it has gotten harder to stick with it regularly.

One Christmas a few years ago, I took some time off from classes I had been going to. Travel and a full schedule made it easy to slack off working out. I was trying to find the motivation to head back in when I noticed my left hand was starting to close in on itself. In 2010, I broke my humerus, and during the surgery to repair it, my radial nerve was damaged. Initially, I worked hard to gain some strength in that hand but eventually, I just got used to accepting about 85% function and didn’t think about it. That December, though, the decline in the strength in that hand startled me and was a wake-up call. Probably, the rest of me was declining, too, though it was not as easily noticed. I found a workout partner and dove back in.

Now, after a year of treatment for cancer that is not curable, I find that I am low on energy and limited in activities. For a long six months, I was in constant pain, in bed, taking morphine, and laying on a heating pad. I lost twenty pounds, didn’t sleep well, and didn’t have the mental energy to read or write. At my last visit, my doctor pointed out, I am walking around pain-free, am enjoying bonus time, have gained weight, and “look good.” I’ve had to face the truth… I am never going to be better than I am now.

I’m wrapping my head around the fact that this is as good as it gets for me. I won’t get better. The cancer is still in me. It is a type of cancer that usually recurs. While the available treatments have had a significant effect, they are no longer tolerated by the rest of my body. We’ll watch closely (CT scans every 2-3 months) and consider possible options when we need to. In the meantime, I need to adjust to dialing it all down.

I can do that. And I can still be happy and content and thankful. I’m content that I have invested in myself and others in ways that carry no regret. I see so many benefits of my investments over the years that I am gratified.

While I am not as strong as I want to be, I find that in a gentle yoga class, I am able to participate fully. I enjoy a variety of relationships that include friends from all sorts of places. Visiting at our home, meeting for lunch, chatting on the phone, and even next week, going for a short ladies’ outing; I am able to enjoy friends and family.

Writing to share with others is a way I can use my time and energy now.

My heart is full.