This Book is Becoming More About "US" Than Me ***** REVISED EXCERPT ****

2

Comments

  • Kathleen808
    Kathleen808 Member Posts: 2,342 Member
    Craig
    Craig,
    Keep writing. You're incredible. You are giving a voice to so much of what everyone goes through.

    Aloha,
    Kathleen
  • jjaj133
    jjaj133 Member Posts: 867 Member
    congratulations Craig,
    It

    congratulations Craig,
    It sounds great and as hard as it is to go through, your are going through a kind of cleansing. When it is done you will probably break down and have another good cry. But you will also feel that a burden has been lifted.
    I can't wiat to read it. God Bless
    Judy




















    a
  • SandyL
    SandyL Member Posts: 218
    jjaj133 said:

    congratulations Craig,
    It

    congratulations Craig,
    It sounds great and as hard as it is to go through, your are going through a kind of cleansing. When it is done you will probably break down and have another good cry. But you will also feel that a burden has been lifted.
    I can't wiat to read it. God Bless
    Judy




















    a

    You the man, Craig!
    So glad that you took the advise of so many here and are pursuing the book.
    I know that you have the excellent abiity to complete this challenge and it will
    indeed be a gift to so many who are currently fighting the big C and give
    them hope. Your writing comes from your heart and that is the best you can give.
    Whenever I see a post from you; I know that its "for real".
    You've certainly been our rock, here.
    Sandy
  • Aud
    Aud Member Posts: 479 Member
    Dear Craig
    You ask universal questions here that are part of the human condition.

    "I began to ask myself if I would have been better off never having found the cancer board?"

    I know it's not exactly the same; I have asked similar questions which have been asked by others throughout time. Is it better to have loved and lost or to never have loved at all? I once wrote an essay in college with the theme: is it better to have freedom and lose it? or to never know freedom at all?

    In relationships (lovers, marriages, parent/child, friends, people/pets, siblings....), there is risk of losing and pain. Maybe I haven't experienced enough pain to know any better but I inevitably come to this conclusion: I am happy to have known and to have loved all those who are in and have been in my life.

    You have examined this yourself in Chapter XI and it is.....Beautiful.

    ~Aud

    (P.S. I will be in line.)
  • lizzydavis
    lizzydavis Member Posts: 893
    SandyL said:

    You the man, Craig!
    So glad that you took the advise of so many here and are pursuing the book.
    I know that you have the excellent abiity to complete this challenge and it will
    indeed be a gift to so many who are currently fighting the big C and give
    them hope. Your writing comes from your heart and that is the best you can give.
    Whenever I see a post from you; I know that its "for real".
    You've certainly been our rock, here.
    Sandy

    Hi Craig,
    Hi Craig,

    I can certainly relate to what you have written and that is why it is very special to me and the others here. Cancer survivors everywhere can benefit from it. Thank you for working so hard on it. I can't wait to read it from cover to cover. By the way, any chance we will see a new picture soon? lol

    Love and hugs,
    Lizzy
  • Sundanceh
    Sundanceh Member Posts: 4,392 Member

    Hi Craig,
    Hi Craig,

    I can certainly relate to what you have written and that is why it is very special to me and the others here. Cancer survivors everywhere can benefit from it. Thank you for working so hard on it. I can't wait to read it from cover to cover. By the way, any chance we will see a new picture soon? lol

    Love and hugs,
    Lizzy

    Liz:)
    Why? You don't like the current pic? LOL!

    Big Billy is going to be so hurt and crushed. LOL!

    He got all dressed up and posed for the pic and everything - he was so excited.

    Well, we'll see what I can do in the near future.

    -Big Billy aka Craig
  • jams67
    jams67 Member Posts: 925 Member
    book
    Thanks for writing the book Craig.
    The conclusion I came to that helped me most was realizing what "Thy will be done" actually meant and leaving the angst up to God. Ultimately, it is not up to me. I can help, the docs can help, you guys are a big help, but relax and know that there is a bigger picture. I think I was very anxious about "what if" for a long time, and now know that we all die of something.
  • coolvdub
    coolvdub Member Posts: 408 Member
    jams67 said:

    book
    Thanks for writing the book Craig.
    The conclusion I came to that helped me most was realizing what "Thy will be done" actually meant and leaving the angst up to God. Ultimately, it is not up to me. I can help, the docs can help, you guys are a big help, but relax and know that there is a bigger picture. I think I was very anxious about "what if" for a long time, and now know that we all die of something.

    Go Graig, Go!
    Craig,

    Looking forward to the day the book comes out. Your journey has been long and hard fought. I wish I had your reserves. As usual, you are an isnpiration. Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker. I'm sure you would be a hit.

    Don
  • tootsie1
    tootsie1 Member Posts: 5,044 Member
    Hey, Craig.
    Have I told you

    Hey, Craig.

    Have I told you recently how dear you are? You are PRECIOUS to me! I cannot wait to read your book!

    *hugs*
    Gail
  • Sundanceh
    Sundanceh Member Posts: 4,392 Member
    tootsie1 said:

    Hey, Craig.
    Have I told you

    Hey, Craig.

    Have I told you recently how dear you are? You are PRECIOUS to me! I cannot wait to read your book!

    *hugs*
    Gail

    Toots:)
    You sure did, sweetheart - TONIGHT as a matter of fact!

    And it feels so good too:)

    "Big Hugs"
    -Craig
  • Sundanceh
    Sundanceh Member Posts: 4,392 Member
    coolvdub said:

    Go Graig, Go!
    Craig,

    Looking forward to the day the book comes out. Your journey has been long and hard fought. I wish I had your reserves. As usual, you are an isnpiration. Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker. I'm sure you would be a hit.

    Don

    Me Speak?
    Hey Buddy

    Wouldn't it be embarassing when I opened my mouth and people realized that I didn't know "nuthin'" LOL!

    That type of spinoff would certainly be something though - thanks for your confidence as always, Don:)

    Be cool 'till I see you
    -Craig
  • jams67
    jams67 Member Posts: 925 Member
    coolvdub said:

    Go Graig, Go!
    Craig,

    Looking forward to the day the book comes out. Your journey has been long and hard fought. I wish I had your reserves. As usual, you are an isnpiration. Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker. I'm sure you would be a hit.

    Don

    Like
    Don,
    Wish there was a like button on this site. You are right, Craig would make a great inspirational speaker!
    Jo Ann
  • jams67
    jams67 Member Posts: 925 Member
    coolvdub said:

    Go Graig, Go!
    Craig,

    Looking forward to the day the book comes out. Your journey has been long and hard fought. I wish I had your reserves. As usual, you are an isnpiration. Have you ever considered a career as a motivational speaker. I'm sure you would be a hit.

    Don

    Like
    Don,
    Wish there was a like button on this site. You are right, Craig would make a great inspirational speaker!
    Jo Ann
  • merrysmom
    merrysmom Member Posts: 51
    Sundanceh said:

    Toots:)
    You sure did, sweetheart - TONIGHT as a matter of fact!

    And it feels so good too:)

    "Big Hugs"
    -Craig

    dear craig
    i am new on this board but you are a giant blessing. you have so touched my heart. i run in circles some days being so scared. you made me feel stronger. when your book comes out i will be reading it. God bless you for who you are. your friend, barb
  • Sundanceh
    Sundanceh Member Posts: 4,392 Member
    Chapter XI - "Recurrence" *** Revised Excerpt ***
    Ok, I think I've got it now. I knew I could do better.

    This is a feel good portion of the chapter and the book, because it talks of my self-discovery in meeting and intertwining my life with yours, for those that have let me in.

    The 'Recurrence' chapter is the longest so far at about 28 typed pages. The excerpt represents only a few pages, but carries a powerful meaning. There is a lot more to it than just the excerpt, but I thought I would keep it lite and share this nice portion with you.

    So, the "Semi;Colons" will make the book and you are a big part of my story, which as we're seeing is slowly but surely, becoming our story, after all. HAPPY READING - let me know what you think:)


    REVISED EXCERPT BELOW:

    [ I know this past recurrence shook up my belief system in a big way and forced me to begin questioning my future and challenged the thought process on my ideas of what I thought I knew about cancer.

    It instilled inside me a deeper level of self-doubt and caused my confidence to stumble somewhat this past year for the first time. It also revealed to me the “Ugly Side of Cancer” that nobody wants to talk about and exposed certain truths and realities that have taken me to places I never knew existed.

    Watching my other stage IV friends on the cancer board pass away before my very eyes gave me pause to begin thinking I actually might not make it and gave rise to the eternal question – “When Will the End Be for Me?”

    Prior to find the cancer board, I don’t think I truly believed that I would die. The “Thought of Dying” was certainly a topic I pondered and shuddered when I thought too deeply about it, but I still figured it would happen to somebody else and not to me.

    After all, I still had not personally witnessed the destructive powers that cancer had on the big stage. I did see a guy pass away at my cancer center in my early days, and it was the first inkling to me that something could go wrong with any of us during our struggles.

    Then, of course, there was the cancer board that I happened to stumble upon one day when I was doing some research on lung surgeries.

    Through this forum, I formed deep and meaningful relationships and friendships and became “Emotionally Invested” with everyone’s lives and their cancer fights, so now cancer took on a different shape – a shape that defined a person with an avatar picture and their story that was looking back at me every day. These are folks who had a life and families – folks who had hopes and dreams – and folks who had aspirations, with plans for their futures.

    And now, they were my friends – as real to me as anyone that I ever met face-to-face.

    Cancer really got ‘personal’ with me after that. In reading the posts of everyone’s lives, it became abundantly clear to me that we all share the same tears and fears, as well as the smiles and the trials. The only thing that separated us was where we are at in our individual cancer battles.

    I saw folks going down the paths I had already been down and they needed help. In my mind, I thought I could help them with the things I had been through on the physical, mental and emotional levels with this disease. My desire became my mission to provide hope, inspiration, and friendship to others who were looking for that.

    This was very important as the first five years of my cancer diagnosis; I learned everything the hard way – by trial and error and had no one I could share my experiences with.

    After finding this “Oasis in the Desert”, I felt if I could be here to help lessen their burdens, validate their concerns, and try and be a friend to them in their hour of need, then this was the place that I needed to be and more importantly, where I wanted to be. I could not unpack my suitcases quickly enough and my life has changed forever, as a result.

    From time to time, my friends have been very gracious and told me that I have been able to help them and they do value my input and support. I’ve found that this gives me the greatest satisfaction that’s left for me in today’s world. Next to providing for my family, they are the reason that I get up everyday.

    While traveling along this “Path to Enlightenment”, I would discover that I would find myself stumbling along to a different tune in the coming days. The first six-months were Nirvana to me and I loved being there with everybody so much that I began to see a time when I could no longer imagine a world without them in it.

    We were all friends here in our little corner of the world, and everything was wonderful. We were building life-long friendships and developing very strong bonds, we were propping each other up when we were down, we were sharing helpful information and strategies about our cancer fights, and we were laughing and joking wherever we could, while sharing the intimate side of our lives with one another.



    It seemed like the greatest place in the world to be. How could anything here ever go wrong? How could anything ever happen to my new found friends, whom I had forged such strong feelings for, and whose relationships I treasured and cherished, in a way that no one but them could ever really understand?

    How, indeed?

    After the first six-months, which we can colloquially call “The Honeymoon Period”, a new dawn rose and started showing me the other side. It was the other side that I did not want to acknowledge, yet I knew existed.

    It was ‘The Side’ that I somehow felt we were immune to and would never touch us as long as we remained together. I just figured we would go along ‘living with cancer’ and that all would be ok in our world forever.

    “What happened?”

    One by one, my friends began to pass away.

    After a couple of years of this, and as the pain of each fallen member became another sobering reminder of what we were really up against, I looked deep inside myself and began to have more questions than answers.

    I began by asking myself the following questions:

    “Would I have been better off never having found the cancer board?”

    “Was it doing me more harm than good?”

    “Did the benefits I was gaining, outweigh the risks and heartbreak that I was now beginning to feel?”

    “Would life without the cancer board, along with my own innocence, have given me a better chance towards mental survival if I had not seen first hand what I was witnessing happen to my friends?”

    “Would I have been better off ‘not knowing’ as opposed to ‘knowing’?”

    Or…

    “Was I better off at seeing the pointed realities of this disease and reaching a deeper level of understanding at what the true meaning of being a stage IV really meant?”

    Certainly, these are very difficult questions to answer.

    I’m reminded of the last conversation that I had with my first oncologist on our last consult, to go over some scan results. He told me that he was seeing “A Calm” over me that he had never seen before during our five-year relationship.

    I told him there was good reason for that. I explained that I had joined a cancer support board and that my life was now so full and enriched from the experiences I was having and that helping people go through what I had been through was the ‘missing link’ in my life.

    And then he told me, “But, Craig, some of them are not going to make it.”

    I was stunned and sat there in silence, giving him the look that he must be crazy or something. I thought, well, you just don’t know my friends.”

    “But he did know, didn’t he?”

    He knew what I would not permit myself to believe – he knew what I did not have the perspective in place to understand, even at that time, where I was beginning to enter that next growth spurt of my journey. That phase where I thought I had a good handle on the situation and knew what there was that I needed to know.

    I didn’t know – but he knew.

    A short time thereafter, as more and more folks began to fall by the wayside, I saw the swath of destruction that cancer had on real lives and what was left in its wake when it was all over.

    I felt powerless to stop it, yet all I could do was watch it happen. My words seemed so hollow and empty to me right now. What good were they really? There were many days where I asked myself why am I doing this, if this was going to be the end result.

    The pain of losing people you had recently met and felt so alive and connected with, were now gone, when only moments before they had been here with all of us in the community. This was just beginning to be too much to handle and it was like the dam had burst and none of us could contain the flood waters any longer.

    I guess, in my own innocence, I thought I could ‘save them’ and when I realized that I could not, it was yet, another step in my progression towards awareness and a very painful lesson, that is still very hard to accept, even to this day.

    As the losses continued to pile up, I thought maybe I should walk away from the board and once again shut the door to my heart, which I had exposed upon my arrival here.

    I could not bring myself to leave my new family and walk out of my friend’s lives. That’s not what friends do. I owed these people my allegiance, because they believed in me so much and they showed me what it was really like to have a friend – and more importantly, to be a friend.

    And I found that I liked having friends and wanted to be their friend, no matter what the cost was that had to be paid.

    I began to think that our fallen friends had worked so hard and struggled with so many issues in their fights, that WE as a community, had the moral obligation to not only mourn their passing, but also to continue on with our fights, as they would have wanted us to, so they would know that they did not die in vain, and that their stories would never be forgotten.

    We must always keep a vigil for them and never forget who they were as individuals – the impacts that they made on our lives – and the legacies that they left us with. For if we keep them forever in our hearts, then they truly will never perish.

    By picking up the flag and fighting even harder than we had before, we not only acknowledge our friends lives and their battles, but we also honor their memories, as they certainly would have done for us.

    It has been said, that one can “Share a Lifetime in a Short Time” and I have a much greater appreciation of that thought now than ever before, even though the lesson came at the expense of my friend’s lives, in order for me to grasp this concept and finally come to terms with it.

    I know my life has been blessed and my soul has been enriched every single day by knowing these folks. I feel very strongly that it was better having known them and becoming involved with their lives, than to sit idly by on the sidelines and never have gotten to know them at all.

    They have become a part of me and I know that I was a part of them - how could there ever be anything wrong about that?

    In the final analysis, I can honestly say that I am ever so glad that I did stumble onto the cancer board that day and invested the time it takes to get to know so many wonderful people and their stories – both past and present.

    For it is through them and their examples, that cemented the idea that as with any type of competition, there are going to be some of us that come out on top, while others of us do not. The fine line that separates those possible paths in our journey will always be a mystery, not only for us and our loves ones, but also for our medical teams that care for us.

    Cancer has taken off my rose colored glasses and in its place, has replaced it with the glaring affirmation that there is “No Single Answer to Cancer” – and no clear path that gets us there either. ]
  • mukamom
    mukamom Member Posts: 402
    Sundanceh said:

    Chapter XI - "Recurrence" *** Revised Excerpt ***
    Ok, I think I've got it now. I knew I could do better.

    This is a feel good portion of the chapter and the book, because it talks of my self-discovery in meeting and intertwining my life with yours, for those that have let me in.

    The 'Recurrence' chapter is the longest so far at about 28 typed pages. The excerpt represents only a few pages, but carries a powerful meaning. There is a lot more to it than just the excerpt, but I thought I would keep it lite and share this nice portion with you.

    So, the "Semi;Colons" will make the book and you are a big part of my story, which as we're seeing is slowly but surely, becoming our story, after all. HAPPY READING - let me know what you think:)


    REVISED EXCERPT BELOW:

    [ I know this past recurrence shook up my belief system in a big way and forced me to begin questioning my future and challenged the thought process on my ideas of what I thought I knew about cancer.

    It instilled inside me a deeper level of self-doubt and caused my confidence to stumble somewhat this past year for the first time. It also revealed to me the “Ugly Side of Cancer” that nobody wants to talk about and exposed certain truths and realities that have taken me to places I never knew existed.

    Watching my other stage IV friends on the cancer board pass away before my very eyes gave me pause to begin thinking I actually might not make it and gave rise to the eternal question – “When Will the End Be for Me?”

    Prior to find the cancer board, I don’t think I truly believed that I would die. The “Thought of Dying” was certainly a topic I pondered and shuddered when I thought too deeply about it, but I still figured it would happen to somebody else and not to me.

    After all, I still had not personally witnessed the destructive powers that cancer had on the big stage. I did see a guy pass away at my cancer center in my early days, and it was the first inkling to me that something could go wrong with any of us during our struggles.

    Then, of course, there was the cancer board that I happened to stumble upon one day when I was doing some research on lung surgeries.

    Through this forum, I formed deep and meaningful relationships and friendships and became “Emotionally Invested” with everyone’s lives and their cancer fights, so now cancer took on a different shape – a shape that defined a person with an avatar picture and their story that was looking back at me every day. These are folks who had a life and families – folks who had hopes and dreams – and folks who had aspirations, with plans for their futures.

    And now, they were my friends – as real to me as anyone that I ever met face-to-face.

    Cancer really got ‘personal’ with me after that. In reading the posts of everyone’s lives, it became abundantly clear to me that we all share the same tears and fears, as well as the smiles and the trials. The only thing that separated us was where we are at in our individual cancer battles.

    I saw folks going down the paths I had already been down and they needed help. In my mind, I thought I could help them with the things I had been through on the physical, mental and emotional levels with this disease. My desire became my mission to provide hope, inspiration, and friendship to others who were looking for that.

    This was very important as the first five years of my cancer diagnosis; I learned everything the hard way – by trial and error and had no one I could share my experiences with.

    After finding this “Oasis in the Desert”, I felt if I could be here to help lessen their burdens, validate their concerns, and try and be a friend to them in their hour of need, then this was the place that I needed to be and more importantly, where I wanted to be. I could not unpack my suitcases quickly enough and my life has changed forever, as a result.

    From time to time, my friends have been very gracious and told me that I have been able to help them and they do value my input and support. I’ve found that this gives me the greatest satisfaction that’s left for me in today’s world. Next to providing for my family, they are the reason that I get up everyday.

    While traveling along this “Path to Enlightenment”, I would discover that I would find myself stumbling along to a different tune in the coming days. The first six-months were Nirvana to me and I loved being there with everybody so much that I began to see a time when I could no longer imagine a world without them in it.

    We were all friends here in our little corner of the world, and everything was wonderful. We were building life-long friendships and developing very strong bonds, we were propping each other up when we were down, we were sharing helpful information and strategies about our cancer fights, and we were laughing and joking wherever we could, while sharing the intimate side of our lives with one another.



    It seemed like the greatest place in the world to be. How could anything here ever go wrong? How could anything ever happen to my new found friends, whom I had forged such strong feelings for, and whose relationships I treasured and cherished, in a way that no one but them could ever really understand?

    How, indeed?

    After the first six-months, which we can colloquially call “The Honeymoon Period”, a new dawn rose and started showing me the other side. It was the other side that I did not want to acknowledge, yet I knew existed.

    It was ‘The Side’ that I somehow felt we were immune to and would never touch us as long as we remained together. I just figured we would go along ‘living with cancer’ and that all would be ok in our world forever.

    “What happened?”

    One by one, my friends began to pass away.

    After a couple of years of this, and as the pain of each fallen member became another sobering reminder of what we were really up against, I looked deep inside myself and began to have more questions than answers.

    I began by asking myself the following questions:

    “Would I have been better off never having found the cancer board?”

    “Was it doing me more harm than good?”

    “Did the benefits I was gaining, outweigh the risks and heartbreak that I was now beginning to feel?”

    “Would life without the cancer board, along with my own innocence, have given me a better chance towards mental survival if I had not seen first hand what I was witnessing happen to my friends?”

    “Would I have been better off ‘not knowing’ as opposed to ‘knowing’?”

    Or…

    “Was I better off at seeing the pointed realities of this disease and reaching a deeper level of understanding at what the true meaning of being a stage IV really meant?”

    Certainly, these are very difficult questions to answer.

    I’m reminded of the last conversation that I had with my first oncologist on our last consult, to go over some scan results. He told me that he was seeing “A Calm” over me that he had never seen before during our five-year relationship.

    I told him there was good reason for that. I explained that I had joined a cancer support board and that my life was now so full and enriched from the experiences I was having and that helping people go through what I had been through was the ‘missing link’ in my life.

    And then he told me, “But, Craig, some of them are not going to make it.”

    I was stunned and sat there in silence, giving him the look that he must be crazy or something. I thought, well, you just don’t know my friends.”

    “But he did know, didn’t he?”

    He knew what I would not permit myself to believe – he knew what I did not have the perspective in place to understand, even at that time, where I was beginning to enter that next growth spurt of my journey. That phase where I thought I had a good handle on the situation and knew what there was that I needed to know.

    I didn’t know – but he knew.

    A short time thereafter, as more and more folks began to fall by the wayside, I saw the swath of destruction that cancer had on real lives and what was left in its wake when it was all over.

    I felt powerless to stop it, yet all I could do was watch it happen. My words seemed so hollow and empty to me right now. What good were they really? There were many days where I asked myself why am I doing this, if this was going to be the end result.

    The pain of losing people you had recently met and felt so alive and connected with, were now gone, when only moments before they had been here with all of us in the community. This was just beginning to be too much to handle and it was like the dam had burst and none of us could contain the flood waters any longer.

    I guess, in my own innocence, I thought I could ‘save them’ and when I realized that I could not, it was yet, another step in my progression towards awareness and a very painful lesson, that is still very hard to accept, even to this day.

    As the losses continued to pile up, I thought maybe I should walk away from the board and once again shut the door to my heart, which I had exposed upon my arrival here.

    I could not bring myself to leave my new family and walk out of my friend’s lives. That’s not what friends do. I owed these people my allegiance, because they believed in me so much and they showed me what it was really like to have a friend – and more importantly, to be a friend.

    And I found that I liked having friends and wanted to be their friend, no matter what the cost was that had to be paid.

    I began to think that our fallen friends had worked so hard and struggled with so many issues in their fights, that WE as a community, had the moral obligation to not only mourn their passing, but also to continue on with our fights, as they would have wanted us to, so they would know that they did not die in vain, and that their stories would never be forgotten.

    We must always keep a vigil for them and never forget who they were as individuals – the impacts that they made on our lives – and the legacies that they left us with. For if we keep them forever in our hearts, then they truly will never perish.

    By picking up the flag and fighting even harder than we had before, we not only acknowledge our friends lives and their battles, but we also honor their memories, as they certainly would have done for us.

    It has been said, that one can “Share a Lifetime in a Short Time” and I have a much greater appreciation of that thought now than ever before, even though the lesson came at the expense of my friend’s lives, in order for me to grasp this concept and finally come to terms with it.

    I know my life has been blessed and my soul has been enriched every single day by knowing these folks. I feel very strongly that it was better having known them and becoming involved with their lives, than to sit idly by on the sidelines and never have gotten to know them at all.

    They have become a part of me and I know that I was a part of them - how could there ever be anything wrong about that?

    In the final analysis, I can honestly say that I am ever so glad that I did stumble onto the cancer board that day and invested the time it takes to get to know so many wonderful people and their stories – both past and present.

    For it is through them and their examples, that cemented the idea that as with any type of competition, there are going to be some of us that come out on top, while others of us do not. The fine line that separates those possible paths in our journey will always be a mystery, not only for us and our loves ones, but also for our medical teams that care for us.

    Cancer has taken off my rose colored glasses and in its place, has replaced it with the glaring affirmation that there is “No Single Answer to Cancer” – and no clear path that gets us there either. ]

    So wonderfully put
    I wish I could put my thoughts and feelings and exeperiences into words like that...You have such a special gift and I thank you for taking the time to share with us, and soon...everybody!! I want a copy for Robert's oncologist's office, for the treatment room.

    Thanks,
    Angela
  • johnnybegood
    johnnybegood Member Posts: 1,117 Member
    mukamom said:

    So wonderfully put
    I wish I could put my thoughts and feelings and exeperiences into words like that...You have such a special gift and I thank you for taking the time to share with us, and soon...everybody!! I want a copy for Robert's oncologist's office, for the treatment room.

    Thanks,
    Angela

    wow
    craig you are truly talented.in 2008 during my first journey my mom(wolfen)found this site for me.i am so grateful that she found it even though i sit on the side lines a lot when i truly need someone to listen to me this board is always open.now that i am in my second journey with cancer i have got to know you better and i just want you to know that i truly hope you are a part of my cheering section.keep on writing and sign me up for a copy when your done....Godbless....johnnybegood
  • sharpy102
    sharpy102 Member Posts: 368 Member

    wow
    craig you are truly talented.in 2008 during my first journey my mom(wolfen)found this site for me.i am so grateful that she found it even though i sit on the side lines a lot when i truly need someone to listen to me this board is always open.now that i am in my second journey with cancer i have got to know you better and i just want you to know that i truly hope you are a part of my cheering section.keep on writing and sign me up for a copy when your done....Godbless....johnnybegood

    I dunno what to
    I dunno what to say...*sigh*...I mean, don't take me wrong, Craig. I am very proud of you, and I am glad you are doing something that you enjoy and want to do...I just feel that people tend to think, "oh heck! Those who left they left" and they all forget about them...I feel this all the time...I guess I'm just the one being stuck...but I'm still searching and hoping that Mom will tap on my window one night to let her in...will this feeling ever go away? I don't know....anyway, sorry. I am very proud of you and keep up the writing!!! Take care! - Sophie
  • lesvanb
    lesvanb Member Posts: 905
    Sundanceh said:

    Chapter XI - "Recurrence" *** Revised Excerpt ***
    Ok, I think I've got it now. I knew I could do better.

    This is a feel good portion of the chapter and the book, because it talks of my self-discovery in meeting and intertwining my life with yours, for those that have let me in.

    The 'Recurrence' chapter is the longest so far at about 28 typed pages. The excerpt represents only a few pages, but carries a powerful meaning. There is a lot more to it than just the excerpt, but I thought I would keep it lite and share this nice portion with you.

    So, the "Semi;Colons" will make the book and you are a big part of my story, which as we're seeing is slowly but surely, becoming our story, after all. HAPPY READING - let me know what you think:)


    REVISED EXCERPT BELOW:

    [ I know this past recurrence shook up my belief system in a big way and forced me to begin questioning my future and challenged the thought process on my ideas of what I thought I knew about cancer.

    It instilled inside me a deeper level of self-doubt and caused my confidence to stumble somewhat this past year for the first time. It also revealed to me the “Ugly Side of Cancer” that nobody wants to talk about and exposed certain truths and realities that have taken me to places I never knew existed.

    Watching my other stage IV friends on the cancer board pass away before my very eyes gave me pause to begin thinking I actually might not make it and gave rise to the eternal question – “When Will the End Be for Me?”

    Prior to find the cancer board, I don’t think I truly believed that I would die. The “Thought of Dying” was certainly a topic I pondered and shuddered when I thought too deeply about it, but I still figured it would happen to somebody else and not to me.

    After all, I still had not personally witnessed the destructive powers that cancer had on the big stage. I did see a guy pass away at my cancer center in my early days, and it was the first inkling to me that something could go wrong with any of us during our struggles.

    Then, of course, there was the cancer board that I happened to stumble upon one day when I was doing some research on lung surgeries.

    Through this forum, I formed deep and meaningful relationships and friendships and became “Emotionally Invested” with everyone’s lives and their cancer fights, so now cancer took on a different shape – a shape that defined a person with an avatar picture and their story that was looking back at me every day. These are folks who had a life and families – folks who had hopes and dreams – and folks who had aspirations, with plans for their futures.

    And now, they were my friends – as real to me as anyone that I ever met face-to-face.

    Cancer really got ‘personal’ with me after that. In reading the posts of everyone’s lives, it became abundantly clear to me that we all share the same tears and fears, as well as the smiles and the trials. The only thing that separated us was where we are at in our individual cancer battles.

    I saw folks going down the paths I had already been down and they needed help. In my mind, I thought I could help them with the things I had been through on the physical, mental and emotional levels with this disease. My desire became my mission to provide hope, inspiration, and friendship to others who were looking for that.

    This was very important as the first five years of my cancer diagnosis; I learned everything the hard way – by trial and error and had no one I could share my experiences with.

    After finding this “Oasis in the Desert”, I felt if I could be here to help lessen their burdens, validate their concerns, and try and be a friend to them in their hour of need, then this was the place that I needed to be and more importantly, where I wanted to be. I could not unpack my suitcases quickly enough and my life has changed forever, as a result.

    From time to time, my friends have been very gracious and told me that I have been able to help them and they do value my input and support. I’ve found that this gives me the greatest satisfaction that’s left for me in today’s world. Next to providing for my family, they are the reason that I get up everyday.

    While traveling along this “Path to Enlightenment”, I would discover that I would find myself stumbling along to a different tune in the coming days. The first six-months were Nirvana to me and I loved being there with everybody so much that I began to see a time when I could no longer imagine a world without them in it.

    We were all friends here in our little corner of the world, and everything was wonderful. We were building life-long friendships and developing very strong bonds, we were propping each other up when we were down, we were sharing helpful information and strategies about our cancer fights, and we were laughing and joking wherever we could, while sharing the intimate side of our lives with one another.



    It seemed like the greatest place in the world to be. How could anything here ever go wrong? How could anything ever happen to my new found friends, whom I had forged such strong feelings for, and whose relationships I treasured and cherished, in a way that no one but them could ever really understand?

    How, indeed?

    After the first six-months, which we can colloquially call “The Honeymoon Period”, a new dawn rose and started showing me the other side. It was the other side that I did not want to acknowledge, yet I knew existed.

    It was ‘The Side’ that I somehow felt we were immune to and would never touch us as long as we remained together. I just figured we would go along ‘living with cancer’ and that all would be ok in our world forever.

    “What happened?”

    One by one, my friends began to pass away.

    After a couple of years of this, and as the pain of each fallen member became another sobering reminder of what we were really up against, I looked deep inside myself and began to have more questions than answers.

    I began by asking myself the following questions:

    “Would I have been better off never having found the cancer board?”

    “Was it doing me more harm than good?”

    “Did the benefits I was gaining, outweigh the risks and heartbreak that I was now beginning to feel?”

    “Would life without the cancer board, along with my own innocence, have given me a better chance towards mental survival if I had not seen first hand what I was witnessing happen to my friends?”

    “Would I have been better off ‘not knowing’ as opposed to ‘knowing’?”

    Or…

    “Was I better off at seeing the pointed realities of this disease and reaching a deeper level of understanding at what the true meaning of being a stage IV really meant?”

    Certainly, these are very difficult questions to answer.

    I’m reminded of the last conversation that I had with my first oncologist on our last consult, to go over some scan results. He told me that he was seeing “A Calm” over me that he had never seen before during our five-year relationship.

    I told him there was good reason for that. I explained that I had joined a cancer support board and that my life was now so full and enriched from the experiences I was having and that helping people go through what I had been through was the ‘missing link’ in my life.

    And then he told me, “But, Craig, some of them are not going to make it.”

    I was stunned and sat there in silence, giving him the look that he must be crazy or something. I thought, well, you just don’t know my friends.”

    “But he did know, didn’t he?”

    He knew what I would not permit myself to believe – he knew what I did not have the perspective in place to understand, even at that time, where I was beginning to enter that next growth spurt of my journey. That phase where I thought I had a good handle on the situation and knew what there was that I needed to know.

    I didn’t know – but he knew.

    A short time thereafter, as more and more folks began to fall by the wayside, I saw the swath of destruction that cancer had on real lives and what was left in its wake when it was all over.

    I felt powerless to stop it, yet all I could do was watch it happen. My words seemed so hollow and empty to me right now. What good were they really? There were many days where I asked myself why am I doing this, if this was going to be the end result.

    The pain of losing people you had recently met and felt so alive and connected with, were now gone, when only moments before they had been here with all of us in the community. This was just beginning to be too much to handle and it was like the dam had burst and none of us could contain the flood waters any longer.

    I guess, in my own innocence, I thought I could ‘save them’ and when I realized that I could not, it was yet, another step in my progression towards awareness and a very painful lesson, that is still very hard to accept, even to this day.

    As the losses continued to pile up, I thought maybe I should walk away from the board and once again shut the door to my heart, which I had exposed upon my arrival here.

    I could not bring myself to leave my new family and walk out of my friend’s lives. That’s not what friends do. I owed these people my allegiance, because they believed in me so much and they showed me what it was really like to have a friend – and more importantly, to be a friend.

    And I found that I liked having friends and wanted to be their friend, no matter what the cost was that had to be paid.

    I began to think that our fallen friends had worked so hard and struggled with so many issues in their fights, that WE as a community, had the moral obligation to not only mourn their passing, but also to continue on with our fights, as they would have wanted us to, so they would know that they did not die in vain, and that their stories would never be forgotten.

    We must always keep a vigil for them and never forget who they were as individuals – the impacts that they made on our lives – and the legacies that they left us with. For if we keep them forever in our hearts, then they truly will never perish.

    By picking up the flag and fighting even harder than we had before, we not only acknowledge our friends lives and their battles, but we also honor their memories, as they certainly would have done for us.

    It has been said, that one can “Share a Lifetime in a Short Time” and I have a much greater appreciation of that thought now than ever before, even though the lesson came at the expense of my friend’s lives, in order for me to grasp this concept and finally come to terms with it.

    I know my life has been blessed and my soul has been enriched every single day by knowing these folks. I feel very strongly that it was better having known them and becoming involved with their lives, than to sit idly by on the sidelines and never have gotten to know them at all.

    They have become a part of me and I know that I was a part of them - how could there ever be anything wrong about that?

    In the final analysis, I can honestly say that I am ever so glad that I did stumble onto the cancer board that day and invested the time it takes to get to know so many wonderful people and their stories – both past and present.

    For it is through them and their examples, that cemented the idea that as with any type of competition, there are going to be some of us that come out on top, while others of us do not. The fine line that separates those possible paths in our journey will always be a mystery, not only for us and our loves ones, but also for our medical teams that care for us.

    Cancer has taken off my rose colored glasses and in its place, has replaced it with the glaring affirmation that there is “No Single Answer to Cancer” – and no clear path that gets us there either. ]

    Captured my sentiments Craig
    "I began to think that our fallen friends had worked so hard and struggled with so many issues in their fights, that WE as a community, had the moral obligation to not only mourn their passing, but also to continue on with our fights, as they would have wanted us to, so they would know that they did not die in vain, and that their stories would never be forgotten.

    We must always keep a vigil for them and never forget who they were as individuals – the impacts that they made on our lives – and the legacies that they left us with. For if we keep them forever in our hearts, then they truly will never perish.

    By picking up the flag and fighting even harder than we had before, we not only acknowledge our friends lives and their battles, but we also honor their memories, as they certainly would have done for us."

    Didn't think I'd cry, but did.

    Ride on, my friend,
    Leslie

    P.S. Looking forward to meeting you in person at CP-9!
  • jjaj133
    jjaj133 Member Posts: 867 Member
    Sundanceh said:

    Chapter XI - "Recurrence" *** Revised Excerpt ***
    Ok, I think I've got it now. I knew I could do better.

    This is a feel good portion of the chapter and the book, because it talks of my self-discovery in meeting and intertwining my life with yours, for those that have let me in.

    The 'Recurrence' chapter is the longest so far at about 28 typed pages. The excerpt represents only a few pages, but carries a powerful meaning. There is a lot more to it than just the excerpt, but I thought I would keep it lite and share this nice portion with you.

    So, the "Semi;Colons" will make the book and you are a big part of my story, which as we're seeing is slowly but surely, becoming our story, after all. HAPPY READING - let me know what you think:)


    REVISED EXCERPT BELOW:

    [ I know this past recurrence shook up my belief system in a big way and forced me to begin questioning my future and challenged the thought process on my ideas of what I thought I knew about cancer.

    It instilled inside me a deeper level of self-doubt and caused my confidence to stumble somewhat this past year for the first time. It also revealed to me the “Ugly Side of Cancer” that nobody wants to talk about and exposed certain truths and realities that have taken me to places I never knew existed.

    Watching my other stage IV friends on the cancer board pass away before my very eyes gave me pause to begin thinking I actually might not make it and gave rise to the eternal question – “When Will the End Be for Me?”

    Prior to find the cancer board, I don’t think I truly believed that I would die. The “Thought of Dying” was certainly a topic I pondered and shuddered when I thought too deeply about it, but I still figured it would happen to somebody else and not to me.

    After all, I still had not personally witnessed the destructive powers that cancer had on the big stage. I did see a guy pass away at my cancer center in my early days, and it was the first inkling to me that something could go wrong with any of us during our struggles.

    Then, of course, there was the cancer board that I happened to stumble upon one day when I was doing some research on lung surgeries.

    Through this forum, I formed deep and meaningful relationships and friendships and became “Emotionally Invested” with everyone’s lives and their cancer fights, so now cancer took on a different shape – a shape that defined a person with an avatar picture and their story that was looking back at me every day. These are folks who had a life and families – folks who had hopes and dreams – and folks who had aspirations, with plans for their futures.

    And now, they were my friends – as real to me as anyone that I ever met face-to-face.

    Cancer really got ‘personal’ with me after that. In reading the posts of everyone’s lives, it became abundantly clear to me that we all share the same tears and fears, as well as the smiles and the trials. The only thing that separated us was where we are at in our individual cancer battles.

    I saw folks going down the paths I had already been down and they needed help. In my mind, I thought I could help them with the things I had been through on the physical, mental and emotional levels with this disease. My desire became my mission to provide hope, inspiration, and friendship to others who were looking for that.

    This was very important as the first five years of my cancer diagnosis; I learned everything the hard way – by trial and error and had no one I could share my experiences with.

    After finding this “Oasis in the Desert”, I felt if I could be here to help lessen their burdens, validate their concerns, and try and be a friend to them in their hour of need, then this was the place that I needed to be and more importantly, where I wanted to be. I could not unpack my suitcases quickly enough and my life has changed forever, as a result.

    From time to time, my friends have been very gracious and told me that I have been able to help them and they do value my input and support. I’ve found that this gives me the greatest satisfaction that’s left for me in today’s world. Next to providing for my family, they are the reason that I get up everyday.

    While traveling along this “Path to Enlightenment”, I would discover that I would find myself stumbling along to a different tune in the coming days. The first six-months were Nirvana to me and I loved being there with everybody so much that I began to see a time when I could no longer imagine a world without them in it.

    We were all friends here in our little corner of the world, and everything was wonderful. We were building life-long friendships and developing very strong bonds, we were propping each other up when we were down, we were sharing helpful information and strategies about our cancer fights, and we were laughing and joking wherever we could, while sharing the intimate side of our lives with one another.



    It seemed like the greatest place in the world to be. How could anything here ever go wrong? How could anything ever happen to my new found friends, whom I had forged such strong feelings for, and whose relationships I treasured and cherished, in a way that no one but them could ever really understand?

    How, indeed?

    After the first six-months, which we can colloquially call “The Honeymoon Period”, a new dawn rose and started showing me the other side. It was the other side that I did not want to acknowledge, yet I knew existed.

    It was ‘The Side’ that I somehow felt we were immune to and would never touch us as long as we remained together. I just figured we would go along ‘living with cancer’ and that all would be ok in our world forever.

    “What happened?”

    One by one, my friends began to pass away.

    After a couple of years of this, and as the pain of each fallen member became another sobering reminder of what we were really up against, I looked deep inside myself and began to have more questions than answers.

    I began by asking myself the following questions:

    “Would I have been better off never having found the cancer board?”

    “Was it doing me more harm than good?”

    “Did the benefits I was gaining, outweigh the risks and heartbreak that I was now beginning to feel?”

    “Would life without the cancer board, along with my own innocence, have given me a better chance towards mental survival if I had not seen first hand what I was witnessing happen to my friends?”

    “Would I have been better off ‘not knowing’ as opposed to ‘knowing’?”

    Or…

    “Was I better off at seeing the pointed realities of this disease and reaching a deeper level of understanding at what the true meaning of being a stage IV really meant?”

    Certainly, these are very difficult questions to answer.

    I’m reminded of the last conversation that I had with my first oncologist on our last consult, to go over some scan results. He told me that he was seeing “A Calm” over me that he had never seen before during our five-year relationship.

    I told him there was good reason for that. I explained that I had joined a cancer support board and that my life was now so full and enriched from the experiences I was having and that helping people go through what I had been through was the ‘missing link’ in my life.

    And then he told me, “But, Craig, some of them are not going to make it.”

    I was stunned and sat there in silence, giving him the look that he must be crazy or something. I thought, well, you just don’t know my friends.”

    “But he did know, didn’t he?”

    He knew what I would not permit myself to believe – he knew what I did not have the perspective in place to understand, even at that time, where I was beginning to enter that next growth spurt of my journey. That phase where I thought I had a good handle on the situation and knew what there was that I needed to know.

    I didn’t know – but he knew.

    A short time thereafter, as more and more folks began to fall by the wayside, I saw the swath of destruction that cancer had on real lives and what was left in its wake when it was all over.

    I felt powerless to stop it, yet all I could do was watch it happen. My words seemed so hollow and empty to me right now. What good were they really? There were many days where I asked myself why am I doing this, if this was going to be the end result.

    The pain of losing people you had recently met and felt so alive and connected with, were now gone, when only moments before they had been here with all of us in the community. This was just beginning to be too much to handle and it was like the dam had burst and none of us could contain the flood waters any longer.

    I guess, in my own innocence, I thought I could ‘save them’ and when I realized that I could not, it was yet, another step in my progression towards awareness and a very painful lesson, that is still very hard to accept, even to this day.

    As the losses continued to pile up, I thought maybe I should walk away from the board and once again shut the door to my heart, which I had exposed upon my arrival here.

    I could not bring myself to leave my new family and walk out of my friend’s lives. That’s not what friends do. I owed these people my allegiance, because they believed in me so much and they showed me what it was really like to have a friend – and more importantly, to be a friend.

    And I found that I liked having friends and wanted to be their friend, no matter what the cost was that had to be paid.

    I began to think that our fallen friends had worked so hard and struggled with so many issues in their fights, that WE as a community, had the moral obligation to not only mourn their passing, but also to continue on with our fights, as they would have wanted us to, so they would know that they did not die in vain, and that their stories would never be forgotten.

    We must always keep a vigil for them and never forget who they were as individuals – the impacts that they made on our lives – and the legacies that they left us with. For if we keep them forever in our hearts, then they truly will never perish.

    By picking up the flag and fighting even harder than we had before, we not only acknowledge our friends lives and their battles, but we also honor their memories, as they certainly would have done for us.

    It has been said, that one can “Share a Lifetime in a Short Time” and I have a much greater appreciation of that thought now than ever before, even though the lesson came at the expense of my friend’s lives, in order for me to grasp this concept and finally come to terms with it.

    I know my life has been blessed and my soul has been enriched every single day by knowing these folks. I feel very strongly that it was better having known them and becoming involved with their lives, than to sit idly by on the sidelines and never have gotten to know them at all.

    They have become a part of me and I know that I was a part of them - how could there ever be anything wrong about that?

    In the final analysis, I can honestly say that I am ever so glad that I did stumble onto the cancer board that day and invested the time it takes to get to know so many wonderful people and their stories – both past and present.

    For it is through them and their examples, that cemented the idea that as with any type of competition, there are going to be some of us that come out on top, while others of us do not. The fine line that separates those possible paths in our journey will always be a mystery, not only for us and our loves ones, but also for our medical teams that care for us.

    Cancer has taken off my rose colored glasses and in its place, has replaced it with the glaring affirmation that there is “No Single Answer to Cancer” – and no clear path that gets us there either. ]

    listen, and you will hear me
    listen, and you will hear me applauding through my tears.
    close your eyes and feel me hugging you.
    thank you for sharing.
    judy