Running and Life, or, Running versus Death
Sub-8 Mile's Battle-o-Rama
(maybe this story will, in some way, help someone you know; if so, that's cool. oh, and F Cancer.)
Chapter 11
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Friday
Ok … ok. … all right. This is this. This ain’t something else. This is this.
I collect myself and stand up in the shower. The water washes my reddish-pink tumor down the drain. Gone but certainly not forgotten.
It’s Friday. My appointment is on Tuesday. I have to make it to Tuesday.
I focus. With measured movements, I towel off -- minimally, so as not to waste oxygen. I walk slowly to the kitchen and begin putting food into a bag. Not much; I can’t seem to eat anyway, and at any rate I’m not hungry, but I don’t plan on coming back downstairs except if I really have to use the bathroom.
On Tuesday, I quietly decide, I will still be alive, because I am making it to that appointment.
If the workout calls for a 1 hour hard run, then you know at the outset what it will be: 1 hour, hard. It will be hard at 22 minutes, it will be hard at 36 minutes, it will be hard at 55 minutes. And it will not be done until 1 hour is up. No more, no less. If you push the pace it won’t work out. You have to make it, in just the right zone of hard effort, for exactly 1 hour. As you begin, you are focused both on the end and on every moment of what it will take to get there. One long steady controlled effort, and then you will have made it.
I grab some water bottles and slowly - slowly - creep up the stairs, bag of food in hand.
****
Saturday
I’m in bed. Food and water are within arm’s reach. I am not moving.
I am breathing. I am alive. I am making it to Tuesday.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle. Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle. Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
This is a race. I must maintain this pace, this effort, steadily or I won’t make it. Too much effort and I may lose consciousness, possibly with insufficient oxygen to wake back up. Too much effort and I may cough violently, rupturing tumors deep inside my lungs and drowning in the resulting hemorrhage.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle. Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
In this race, I am being chased. Not by competitors who may pass. A multiplying mass of hundreds of nodules that will take me out if they can.
I’m counting on my heart, remembering the long-ago coach who enthusiastically said that someone with some speed and a low untrained resting heart rate like mine could do well if trained aerobically. I’m counting on my red blood cells, once tested at 50% hematocrit, apparently at the high end of the natural range. I’m counting on my lungs to keep getting oxygen into my bloodstream in spite of hundreds of nodules crowding the space in my chest.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle. All day. This is the pace. I am making it to Tuesday.
Stay calm, stay focused. I am making it.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
****
Sunday
I’m in bed. I haven’t moved, except use the bathroom once and to nibble a few bites here and there, and some sips of water. I can’t eat much; I don’t know why, but it’s fine. I am making it to Tuesday.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
Five years earlier, I spent a weekend waiting between diagnosis on Friday and surgery on Monday. Little did I know at the time, that weekend had foreshadowed this weekend, which I am now spending quite intimately with the cancer.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle. I am making it to Tuesday. Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
From Friday to Saturday, Saturday to Sunday, Sunday to Monday, Monday to Tuesday. That’s how far I have to make it. Four days. 4 laps on the track. Running the mile, as hard as I can while still finishing. Right now, I’m on the 3rd lap. The mile run is won or lost in the third lap, right?
I will finish this mile.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
****
Monday
Last lap. If you’re going to die, this is where it happens.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
A friend stops by to see how I’m doing. It’s nice of her, but I’m not sure it’s worth the exertion of having to leave the bed, walk downstairs, let her in, and walk back upstairs to lie down. She sits next to the bed, looking at my gray, poorly oxygenated pallor. Her facial expression tells me she thinks I may not make it. She has medical and end-of-life experience, so her unstated assessment shakes me out of my quiet focus.
“Will it hurt?” I ask her. She pauses for a second, glancing at the red-stained paper towels scattered about.
“Sometimes it does,” she says, very, very gently. “Sometimes the person just loses consciousness and doesn’t wake up.”
I’m not sure whether this reassures me. My heart rate begins to rise, and I can’t have that. I force myself to calm.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.
My friend agrees to help me get to the hospital tomorrow. She gets up and lets herself out.
I am going to make it.
Inhale. Exhale. Gurgle.