Bum Briefing #6

Hippo’s run faster than humans on land, they swim faster than humans in water, so the only way you’re beating a Hippo is during the bike portion of the triathlon. One of my friends has done the Iron Man triathlon three times and this had to be his motivation. I cannot think of any other reason a rational human being would put themselves through a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bicycle ride and a marathon 26.22-mile run, raced in that order. At the time he was an avid biker, more supporting evidence he wanted to avoid a hypothetical encounter with a hippo. When he was doing the Iron Man as a normal entrant by the time they finished the bike portion he was in the middle of the male professional pack of athletes. I was watching his progress online and decided to head down close to the finish line. Watching an Iron Man is like the worst parade ever, all you see is people going past in what can only be described as various amounts of misery.

A lot of people think I’m in misery going through chemo. I’m really not and I’m starting to think I’m like an Ironman athlete going through my cancer treatment. There are definitely bad times but it’s really ups and downs. I imagine my mindset has to be similar to going through the Iron Man. The average finishing time for the Iron Man is about 12 hours and 35 minutes. You can’t think about the entire race for over 12 hours, you have to focus on the time and task at hand. Right now I’m going into the 5th round of 8 in the first phase of treatment. I feel I’m basically half way through the marathon, 4 months of chemo are half done. Then it’ll be on to 5 weeks of radiation followed by two surgeries.

There are a few sayings that sum up my mindset. “Embrace the suck”, “Lean into the discomfort”, and “Be the Bison”. The first two are self explanatory, the third I heard from a friend at work. The story goes that in the plains, when the storms come over the rockies, some animals will run away from the storms. But when the Bison see the storms coming they know if they run into the storm, the time they must endure the storm is shortened. I don’t view the entire treatment plan as the storm. That’s too much to think about running into and it also won’t shorten the time anyway. But each step that’s uncomfortable, I lean into it and think that it’s only temporary.

Beth has been an invaluable resource during this time. She is really my gold medal logistical olympian. She’s always getting everything ready the night before for the day of chemo. She wanted something to organize it all so I let her use one of my empty ammo boxes. She calls it the chemo caboodle.

Well, after this round. Only three more rounds. That doesn’t sound so bad.