Summer                                                                        Recovery Moon

Been thinking about luck and fortune. The meanings are slippery and often adjust themselves to rationalization. For instance. I was lucky to find my cancer early enough for successful treatment. Well, yes. But. I was unlucky to find cancer at all. It was my good fortune to find, with Kate’s help, competent and caring medical professionals in Colorado. Again, sure. But. It was my bad fortune to need as much of their competence and caring as I did.

Over the last few days since the catheter came out I’ve had this thought, “Boy, was I lucky. I had cancer, but it was treatable. And, I found it and treated it quickly.” The facts are true. I had cancer. It was treatable. It was found and treated quickly. But lucky seems askew. Lucky would have been to have never had cancer at all. Lucky described my state prior to diagnosis, not after. After, it was data, decisions, actions.

I write this because I’ve been tempted to another line of thought, too. I was lucky; I had prostate cancer, not lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, any cancer that most often defies treatment. There is a tendency to diminish the severity of our own situation and compare it to the dire circumstances of others. This helps psychologically, but it changes neither the fact of my situation nor theirs.

Each situation is as it is. Cancer is bad, no matter what type, no matter its response or lack of response to treatments. This disease is not one, but many; it is polymorphous and diverse. I’ve had friends with terrible cancers that eventually caused death. I’ve heard the stories of many men who’ve had the same arc with prostate cancer that I have. And others who have died.

Lucky and fortune play no part, save as soothing conceptual anodynes. Facts. They are what matter. Love and friendship can give aid in real time and I’ve experienced it. But that was not luck. That was kindness, compassion.