Chicken Soup for the Cancer Survivor's Soul (16 page)

Norman Cousins

The Centerfold

My wife, Ellen, was lying in a hospital bed, a copy of
Playgirl
by her side. Suddenly, she opened to the male nude centerfold and insisted I put it on the wall.

“I think it’s too risqué for the hospital, “ I said.

“Nonsense,” she replied. “Just take a leaf from the plant over there and cover up the genitals.”

I did as she requested. This worked well for the first day. Everything was okay for the second day. By the third day, however, the leaf started to shrivel up and reveal more and more of what we were trying to conceal.

We laughed every time we looked at a plant or a dried-up leaf. The duration of our levity may have lasted only 10 or 20 seconds, but it brought us closer together, revived us and steered us through our sea of darkness.

Humor instantly took us away, even if only for moments, from our troubles and made them easier to bear. It gave us a breather. It was like a mini-vacation that allowed us to regain our strength and pull our resources together. Ellen’s long illness was hardly a fun time; there were many tense and tearful moments, but there were also periods of laughter. Frequently she poked me in the ribs and admonished, “Hey, stop being so morose. I’m still here. We can still laugh together.”

Allen Klein
from
The Healing Power of Humor

The Power of Laughter

T
en minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.

Norman Cousins

Allison Crane, executive director of the American Association for Therapeutic Humor, recounts one story originally told to her by a middle-aged pastor:

I had a very serious accident a few years ago; it was amazing I survived. And, of course, I was in the hospital for a very long time recuperating.

Because I was there for so long, I became rather nonchalant with the nurses about the procedures they subjected me to—you can’t keep decorum up for very long with no clothes on. I was also having trouble finding a relatively painless spot to put yet another injection of pain medication....

One time I rang for the nurse, and when she came on the intercom, I told her I needed another pain shot. I knew it would take just about as long for her to draw up the medication as it would for me to gather the strength to roll over and find a spot for her to inject it. I had successfully rolled over, facing away from the door, when I heard her come in.“I think this are a here isn’t too bad,”I said,pointing to an exposed area of my rear. But there was an awful silence after I said that. that. My face paled as I rolled over slowly to see who had actually come in—it was one of my 22-year-old female parishioners! I apologized and tried to chat with her, but she left shortly thereafter, horribly embarrassed.

Well, about 30 seconds after she left, the impact of the situation hit me and I started laughing. It hurt like you can’t imagine, but I laughed and laughed and laughed. Tears rolled down my face and I was gasping when my nurse finally came in. She asked what had happened. I tried to tell her, but couldn’t say more than a word or two before convulsing into laughing fits again. Amused,she told me she would give me a few minutes to calm down and she’d be back to give me my shot.

I had just regained my composure when my nurse reappeared and asked again what had happened. I started telling her, got to laughing again, and she started to laugh from just watching me, which made it worse. Finally, she left again,promisingtotrybackin15more minutes.
This scenario repeated itself a couple more times, and by the time I told her what had happened, I felt absolutely no pain. None. I didn’t need medication for three more hours. And I know it was an emotional turning point in my recovery.

Allen Klein

from
The Healing Power of Humor

Victim or Survivor

Although the definition said, “A cancer survivor is anyone who has ever been diagnosed with cancer and is alive today,” the first time I read it, I didn’t feel like a cancer survivor. Cancer victim seemed a much more accurate term. But then the dust settled, treatment began, and I realized the “victim” thing just didn’t fit.

I tossed the victim/survivor issue around and finally came to the conclusion that a victim and a survivor are the same thing—almost. The differences are subtle but at the same time enormous. The first thing I realized is that a survivor is a victim with an attitude. After I understood that, things were a little better. I had a choice about something— I could be a cancer victim or a cancer survivor. I liked the idea of having an attitude and I liked the sound of being a survivor.

Next, I thought about a friend of mine who had metastatic breast cancer and was the epitome of a cancer survivor. To Barbie, survivorship was a state of mind. Despite the moments of sadness and pain, she never lost her ability to laugh about some of the absurdities of cancer and cancer treatment. She treasured every moment and faced each new situation as best as she could. Eventually, the cancer got her body; however, she never allowed it to reach her spirit. I think of her as a survivor in the truest sense of the word.

Very slowly, the differences between being a survivor and victim became clear, and I started making a list. I’m sure every survivor can add one or two more. This is just a start.

• Being a victim is a state of body. Being a survivor is a state of mind.

4
ON
FAITH

I
have found that four faiths are crucial to recovery from serious illness: faith in oneself, one’s doctor, one’s treatment, and one’s spiritual faith.

Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.

Going for the Prize

It takes a lot to get my mind off golf. Like most members of the Professional Golfers’ Association, I eat, sleep and drink the game. That’s the life of a pro. Or at least that’s what I used to think.

Dr. Jobe called me unexpectedly on Friday evening after the second round of the 1993 PGA Championship at Inverness Club outside Toledo, Ohio. The PGA is a big tournament, one of the four “majors” (along with the Masters and the U.S. and British Opens).

At the time, I had the dubious distinction of being known as the best player in the world never to win a major. Sure, I had come a long way from salad days struggling to make the qualifying cut at the PGA “tour school.” Back at the 1987 British Open, I had held the lead all week on the misty, windswept fairways of Muirfield in Scotland, only to suffer a devastating loss to Nick Faldo on the last hole. Though I won a lot of other tournaments, a major title still eluded me.

At age 33, I was at the top of my game and feeling pretty invincible. I was in good shape going into the third round at Inverness, just a couple of shots off the pace behind Greg “the Shark” Norman, an Australian. My family was in Ohio with me, which made golfing even more of a pleasure. It was a heady feeling competing for a $300,000 purse in front of a global TV audience. The pressure was definitely on. That’s why it was strange that Dr. Jobe would call me at my hotel. My wife, Toni, handed me the receiver with a quizzical look and hushed the kids.

I had been having trouble again with nagging pain in my right shoulder. Dr. Jobe, one of the premier sports physicians in the world, had operated on my shoulder in 1991, and I had recently seen him in Los Angeles about the recurring soreness. Now he got right to the point: the X rays he had taken concerned him. “Paul, I want you back in Los Angeles for a biopsy as soon as possible.”
Biopsy?
I thought.
Is he crazy? I’m in contention here. I have the rest of the tour to finish and the Ryder Cup. I can’t take time off now!

Dr. Jobe finally relented and agreed that the biopsy could wait until later in the fall, when I would be in California for a tournament. Until then I would survive on anti-inflammatories, aspirin and prayer.
Tendinitis,
I told myself, and banished it from my mind.

I went out the next day, a boiling hot Saturday, and shot a solid 68 to climb one stroke behind Norman. At the end of Sunday’s final 18 holes, I was in a tie with the Shark for the Wanamaker Trophy. Then, on the second hole of sudden-death play, Greg missed a tricky putt for par and I made mine to become the PGA champ. I had my title! Not one to take things mildly, I leapt into the air. Next I gave thanks to the Lord, which is what I had always promised to do when I won a major. With Toni and our daughters, Sarah Jean, seven, and Josie, four, at my side, I went to raise the regal trophy high for all to see. Suddenly a sharp pain sliced through my right shoulder. It was all I could do to lift the silver cup.

I was determined not to let the pain lessen the thrill of victory or undermine my plans. I went to England and played with the United States team against the Europeans for the 1993 Ryder Cup, which we retained that year. But the pain never went away. By late November, when I finally saw Dr. Jobe in Los Angeles, I was barely able to operate the stick shift in my car. In fact, sometimes I drove and depressed the clutch while Toni shifted gears. As I sat on the table in Dr. Jobe’s examining room that Monday morning at Centinela Hospital, showing him the spot on my shoulder that was now red-hot to the touch, he was irritated that he let me talk him out of doing a biopsy earlier. He took a pen and gently drew a line across the hot spot. “I’m going to make the incision right here,” he said thoughtfully. “Don’t shower that line off tomorrow morning.”

As I dressed, for the first time I felt a stab of fear.
Come on, Zinger,
I reproached myself.
It’s probably nothing.
That’s what I told Toni that night back at the hotel while we talked quietly in our room and the kids went to dinner with Mildred, their sitter. What was the worst it could be? A stress fracture or some infection? I would be back on the course in no time. The next morning Dr. Jobe scraped out about a capful of tissue and bone for testing. We waited a few days for the results.

That week—a week of worry and prayer for Toni and me—I thought a lot about our life together and how intertwined with golf it was. We married in our home state of Florida in January of 1982 as soon as I got my tour card, and Toni was a golf wife from the start. In those hard, early years Toni and I traveled the country in an old camper, chasing the tournaments. In the off-season back in Florida, she worked as a bookkeeper while I practiced, practiced, practiced. It might be my name up there on the leader board when I’m playing well, but really, Toni’s should be there too. She’s been as much a part of my success as I have.

When Toni and I went back to see Dr. Jobe, I dispensed with the usual pleasantries. “How am I?” I blurted out.

He looked me right in the eye. “Paul, you have cancer.”

One simple word. Cancer. Impossible. It was a good thing I was sitting. Toni gripped my hand and I rocked back and forth in my chair, shaking my head. I had been worried about my career, not about dying. Suddenly everything changed. “Paul, if the cancer is still localized, then it is treatable.”

Something like a silent explosion overwhelmed me. “I need the restroom,” I gasped, rushing out the door and down the hall. Bent over in that tiny bathroom, I put my head in my hands. I thought about Toni and the girls, about our life. I thought about golf.
Dear Lord, help me. I’m scared to death!
Then I cried until I heard Toni knocking on the door, asking gently, “Paul, are you okay?”

After I pulled myself together, Dr. Jobe brought me in to see an oncologist, Dr. Lorne Feldman, who put me through a battery of tests to determine if the cancer had spread beyond my shoulder. Late in the day, Toni and I went back to our hotel to struggle through a weekend of waiting for the test results. As I played with the kids I thought about the PGA title, and what a cruel twist it would be if it turned out that I should have been in the hospital instead of competing with Greg Norman in the heat and humidity at Inverness.

We took Sarah Jean and Josie to a mall on Saturday to take our minds off our situation, but all the Christmas decorations going up just made me more anxious. Early Sunday morning a false fire alarm roused us from bed. Toni noticed a sign in the lobby announcing church services in one of the ballrooms. “Want to go?” she asked me.

Toni and I had become Christians back in the days when we were bouncing around the country in our old camper—happy, carefree, uncomplicated days, they seemed now. Sometimes it is when you have the least that you are most aware of how much the Lord provides. We always managed to put enough food in our mouths and gas in the camper. We took turns driving and reading aloud from the Bible.

Now Toni, Mildred, the kids and I slipped quietly into the back of the ballroom where services were being held by a local church whose regular facilities were under construction. The big room was full and smelled of cut flowers. That false alarm had not been so false after all. There was a fire in the air, a spiritual charge I felt throughout my body. I sensed I was face to face with God, and an excitement I hadn’t felt in years came over me. I knew that Christ wanted not just my cancer, or my golf, or my fears about my family, but all of it—my whole life, if only I would give it to him and recommit myself to faith.
I need you now more than ever, Lord,
I whispered silently.

That afternoon my parents flew in from Florida, and the next day we got the news from Dr. Feldman that as far as they could determine the cancer had not spread beyond the right scapula. I was immediately scheduled for six chemotherapy treatments, one every four weeks, administered right there in his office, starting that day. Between treatments I could return home to Florida.