ten years up
I woke up today feeling groggy. Stuffyish nose, still tired out from a heavy Saturday of gigging, after a week of not feeling great or being able to get much nutrition.
At some point along the way today, though, I smiled, because today marks the tenth anniversary of coming out of chemotherapy. That is to say, on this day ten years ago, I was further from a chemo infusion than I'd been since I'd started that January.
My episode with cancer wasn't, I think, one of those things that changed my life or colored my perception of everything that came after. It was just a crappy situation that I had to get through. I knew going into it that the particular kind of cancer I had (testicular cancer, spread all up and down my aorta in late Stage II, and beginning to spread to the lungs) was very chemosensitive, and that, since I was young and otherwise healthy, they could practically kill me and therefore stand a very good chance of killing all that cancer.
I remember thinking on that April day that, for the previous four rounds, I would always reach the point of beginning to get better only to get knocked down again, but this time there would be no knocking down. I would just get better and better.
Here are my thoughts from that time:
Onward indeed, through a rich life. One day in April of 2003 I walked to the mailbox and back by myself — a major victory for me. (It still is, and for you too.) Since then, I've married Catherine, fathered two children, traveled the world, made music with great musicians, and more. More!
At some point along the way today, though, I smiled, because today marks the tenth anniversary of coming out of chemotherapy. That is to say, on this day ten years ago, I was further from a chemo infusion than I'd been since I'd started that January.
My episode with cancer wasn't, I think, one of those things that changed my life or colored my perception of everything that came after. It was just a crappy situation that I had to get through. I knew going into it that the particular kind of cancer I had (testicular cancer, spread all up and down my aorta in late Stage II, and beginning to spread to the lungs) was very chemosensitive, and that, since I was young and otherwise healthy, they could practically kill me and therefore stand a very good chance of killing all that cancer.
I remember thinking on that April day that, for the previous four rounds, I would always reach the point of beginning to get better only to get knocked down again, but this time there would be no knocking down. I would just get better and better.
Here are my thoughts from that time:
I recently saw an old friend who mentioned that I didn't seem like the type to go through life wearing my cancer-survivor status as an identity. And I think that's probably right. It has forever changed my eyes: I can spot a cancer person a mile away now, and have some idea what they're going through. But I actually look forward to being just me again.
In the depths of the chemo, I occasionally would emerge to play a gig or half-gig, and I was really refreshed to think that people didn't see me as Cancer-Barry, but just as a particularly (or typically?) worn-looking jazz musician. They had no idea what was happening in my body at that moment, and I was sort of glad. It's nice to be anonymous that way.
But it's also nice to be the recipient of such care. People I didn't even know would pass me at church and say, "We're praying for you every day." I'd get random emails from not-very-close friends who were deeply touched and concerned, and expressed lavish support. I now see those people in a totally different light, having seen their previously unshared depth.
So. I'm writing some songs, doing some recording, playing gigs, teaching Sunday school, inventing meals to cook, building a new big-enough bookcase.
Onward.
Onward indeed, through a rich life. One day in April of 2003 I walked to the mailbox and back by myself — a major victory for me. (It still is, and for you too.) Since then, I've married Catherine, fathered two children, traveled the world, made music with great musicians, and more. More!
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