Love is Live is Love is Live...

I've never felt so completely smacked in the face by my own mortality as when I was told that I had cancer. The news was couched more diplomatically than that by my doctor. She said to me that the scans showed that I had a large mass on my kidney that had all the signs of renal cell carcinoma, but my mind definitely heard her say "you've got fucking cancer mate!". What do you do with that kind of news? Everyone who has found out that I've had cancer has told me that they were completely shocked when they heard. It's pretty safe to say that the shock that filled me on hearing this news was complete and overwhelming. At various stages over the following days I visited my own funeral and saw a room full of mourners and a box at the front containing my lifeless body. I thought of my final words to my children and how I'd like to deliver them. I thought of Tori moving on in life with a new partner (I'd want her to do that - hopefully he's a decent bloke and treats her right). I was filled with sorrow of the events in my children's life that I'd never be around to see. I'm sure that this is common for anybody confronted with the real possibility of their own death. It is difficult not to grieve for yourself. "Stay positive", everybody says. Easy to say. And I'm sure that the more bleak the news, the harder that is to do. You don't really have control over your subconscious and mine tends to run wild on all possible outcomes of all situations. And here was a very confronting situation with some potentially grim outcomes of finality. As with many situations in my life, I turned to sport for the answer. My friend Paul, who some years ago had been through his own cancer battle, told me that he had approached it as a challenge; a mental and physical battle like we'd both experienced many times previously on our various sporting fields. That resonated strongly with me. I had an opponent I needed to triumph against and it would take dedication and effort to achieve the desired result. My mate Darren told me that I was batting in the corridor of uncertainty. That I needed to put my head down and play with a straight bat. I hoped that as I stood there with my bat in hand taking guard and looking up the pitch that it wasn't Michael Holding with a brand new cherry running down the hill towards me from the sight screen, gathering steam as he approached the crease and then hurling down a thunderbolt on to a bouncy deck that reared up off a length around my helmetless head. That image filled me with fear, just as I'm sure it did to batsmen the world around back in the day. I took some solace from the lifeless MCG Boxing Day pitch, preferring the image of me batting on that, facing some below par English medium paced change bowler who'd been fielding in the baking sun for two days and had just been thrown the old ball by the skipper. I could even see myself  gloriously cover driving a wide half volley to the boundary as my innings became more confident. Which type of bowler I'd be facing and on what type of pitch was going to largely come down to the details of this cancer. How aggressive was it? Had it spread to my lymph nodes or other vital organs? By the time I met my urologist I'd moved on from cricket to footy. I need to not get ahead of myself; to take this whole thing one game at a time. I can only control the controllables so might as well not get bogged down worrying about the things outside of my control. I pictured Lenny Hayes managing to walk off the ground unaided with a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament, and the way that he methodically went about his rehabilitation to return an even better footballer than he'd been before. And Robert Harvey, who on being told that his partially torn planar fascia would have been easier to treat if it had been fully torn, continually jumped off his kitchen table on to that foot until it was. In short I guess I decided that however things were going to unfold, I was going to do whatever I could to give myself the best possible chance of being fit for this year's final series and whatever would be would be.

It all started with a pissing episode just prior to Christmas. I woke in the middle of the night and stumbled half asleep to the toilet to relieve myself, trying not to wake up too much in the process so that I could drop straight back to sleep afterwards. I began to piss, or at least thought I had, but nothing was coming out. Bone dry, so to speak. I was fully awake now. Pissing muscles fully engaged, but nothing. After a few minutes of changing positions and squeezing for all I was worth, it finally gave and out came a flowing torrent of urine and blood. The bowl was red and I was freaked right out. Things cleared up the next day, but clearly I needed to see a doctor.

Over the few months prior to discovering I had a large tumour in my body, I hadn't been feeling brilliant. I'd been low on energy. Often tired. And I'd had a few sporadic brief bouts of depression that had been far deeper and darker than anything I'd ever experienced before (for a glimpse of how deep and how dark, see my post on The Black Dog). I'd put it all down to being too busy and stressed with work and over indulging in the runup to Christmas, which I'm sure did play some part. It amazed me that only a week or so after my operation when I'd recovered some from the physical trauma of it all, and then recovered further from all the opium based painkillers that had been fuzzing out my head and turning my stomach in knots, I felt loads better than I'd felt for months. When the pathology report indicating that the doctor had successfully removed all of the cancer had fully sunk in and I'd moved past spontaneous bouts of cathartic sobbing, I also felt emotionally better than for quite some time.  When I told this to my urologist, he wasn't surprised. He said that my body would have been expending a huge amount of effort to deal with a cancerous growth of that size. How long it had been there nobody can say. Apparently it was quite an aggressive form so whether that means it was growing for six months, twelve months or longer I have no idea. I'm just glad now that it's out. And I feel loads better than before I even knew it was there.

One huge positive to come out of the experience was the tidal wave of love that came pouring over me from friends located all round the world. I've always known that I've had strong connections with the many amazing people that I've met through my life, but the flow of beautiful words and deeds has been truly humbling. People bringing over meals and healing treatments. Offers of assistance for anything should we need it. My social media was overwhelmed with messages of love and support and I have endeavoured to respond to each one individually. While typing into my phone from my hospital bed, I was inundated with subliminal messaging from my phone. Continually when I intended to type "love" the display showed that I had actually typed "live". Was my phone trying to tell me something? I'm sure I typed "love". But it says "live". I know that the keyboard proximity of "O" and "I" coupled with my fumblingly inaccurate fingers is the likely cause, but I saw a message through it anyway. There's lots of people who love me and who I love. And they want me to live.

So...my life must change. I need a new approach going forward. 

Hi. My name is Greg. I have only one kidney. I don't drink alcohol. I don't smoke. I don't do drugs. I don't work too hard. I eat healthily. I exercise regularly. I do qi gong. I spend a lot of time in nature. I play guitar and write. I have regular acupuncture and take chinese herbs. I have relaxing bowen treatments. I drink ginger and lemon tea, as well as a load of water. I hang out whenever I can with my family and with my friends. I'm early to bed and early to rise. If I don't take this whole episode as somewhat of a serious warning sign that change is essential, then what the fuck would I ever take as one? When people think of a cancerous growth in their body, the tendency I believe is to think of it as a foreign body that has somehow grown inside of you. An alien structure that doesn't belong. But in fact it's a part of you. It is your cells that have gone a bit haywire and started replicating in a way that they shouldn't. So somehow in my previous existence I have created a situation where my body has responded in an unfavourable way. Certain of my cells have gone berserk and created a large growth to form on my kidney that is as much a part of me as the kidney itself. Or at least was a part of me. They are both gone now. Sorry right kidney that I didn't treat you better. The doctor has told me that this type of cancer tends to attack when the immune system is weakened. And I've certainly been doing my best over the past twelve to eighteen months to shatter it. Staying up until 5:30am in full flight party mode. Travelling to the USA for work and still doing several hours of my Australian work remotely each day after an eight hour day onsite with a US customer, while simultaneously trying to come to terms with jetlag. And then while exhausted from that week, going straight to the airport on the Friday and flying several hours across the country to meet up with good friends and a load of drinks in North Carolina, before flying back on Monday morning and going straight to work to do it all again. Madness. So that has now ended. Instead I am going to nurture my body. It seems like a massive change but I'm hoping it's sustainable. I'm not very good at moderation. I find abstinence much easier. So in regards to drinking, that's the approach I intend on taking. While acknowledging that it's possible that this or some other cancer could come back regardless, and that I'll be shitting myself waiting for the results of each of the regular scans I'll be having over the coming months and years, I'm happy to consider myself cancer free at the moment and will do what I can to make it so. The doctor has said that with some holistic health that strengthens my immune system, there is no reason why this cancer should come back. It doesn't occupy my mind or affect my mood at all at the moment. I just feel grateful that for now it is all over. And grateful for my beautiful family and friends who have supported me. And grateful for fantastic doctors with compassion and skill. And grateful to have what seems to be in some ways a second chance. It seems hugely ironic that having cancer could potentially make me a much healthier and happier being. But I feel better for it already.