Cured by Cancer

Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles: 

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My friend Steve is dying of cancer.  Within a month, he will likely be dead.

I’ve known Steve since he first tried to get sober 16 years ago.  He’d constantly call but rarely take our suggestions.  As a result, he stayed out…for years.  When he finally got sober, he got nearly six years before trying his hand at pills.  They didn’t work for him either.  Steve has clearly had some difficulties overcoming our common disease, that is until just over two years ago.

Steve came back into our Thursday night men’s meeting with a few days under his belt.  We hadn’t seen him in years.  He explained he had been going to many meetings in the area, but couldn’t bring himself to come back to this meeting and see the familiar faces.  He was embarrassed and he couldn’t stay sober.  Regardless of how many meetings he made elsewhere, sobriety didn’t stick.  If you’re unfamiliar with recovery, you might be tempted to think it’s because our Thursday night meeting is something special; it is, but that’s not why Steve couldn’t stay sober.  Steve couldn’t stay sober because he was unwilling, unwilling to pocket his pride, and come back to a room full of people who had been praying for his return.  If you’re having trouble relating, I’d encourage you to recall a time, perhaps in high school, when you got busted and while you could face one parent knowing, you dreaded having to face the other when they found out.  It’s kind of like that, and most people can’t face the music unless they have to. Steve had to and as a result, he finally got and stayed sober.

From a young age, Steve had a knack for holding a room.  He had a passion and a gift for making others laugh. He’d entertain his family and their friends with funny faces, funny stories and impersonations.  Laughter was his lightning rod and the positive attention he received was electric. He made it his job to attract it as often as he could.  It seems a lot of Steve’s self-worth was grounded in the attention of others.  Growing up in a Jewish household, his Hebrew name was “Chaim” meaning “life” and whenever at family gatherings they would raise a toast and shout “L’chaim!” (or “to life”) Steve thought everybody was celebrating him.  When he got older, it saddened him to learn the truth.  He set out to correct this.  Pursuing acting in college, before being kicked out for lack of work and poor attendance, Steve committed himself to his craft of comedy.  He cut his teeth doing stand-up in Pittsburgh and Boston, adopting his stage name, inspired by a random childhood experience and a TV dinner.  Along with Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes was a peach cobbler crowned with a single, errant bean.  Imagine one green lima atop your delicious dessert.  It was so unusual and distinctive, it spawned countless jokes over the years before culminating in a decision to commemorate the unlikely event with a name change.  Steve “Bean” was born!

Early on, he had success.  He was voted “funniest in class” and won a few awards.  As far as Steve was concerned, fame was his destiny.  He thought it was only a matter of time, before his name would be in lights.  After moving to Hollywood to pursue this dream, sometimes it was.  He landed a few small acting roles and even wrote for a couple shows, including “Tim Conway’s Funny America”.  They never took off.  Steve persisted.  So much so, when he was without work, he refused to “settle” for jobs that would pay bills but were not in entertainment. He lived like a college student, and the thought of bagging groceries would mean he had made a mistake.  To Steve, his flirting successes were proof enough his instincts were right.  He couldn’t understand why we couldn’t appreciate his destiny.  Steve clung defiantly to his belief.  He fed it, nourished it and refused to let it go. It wasn’t until his eventual diagnosis, that he relented.  And then he released not only this obsession, but the remainder of his will.

Upon his return to our meeting, he brought us up to speed on his most recent history and recounted one of his low points; his resourceful but unconventional method of scoring drugs without money…yard sales.  He wasn’t looking for what was for sale, he was looking for what wasn’t.  He’d wander around Pasadena (home to many estate, garage and yard sales) looking for posted signs and furniture-filled lawns and when he found them, he’d stop, browse the offerings, strike up an innocent conversation showing concern for whatever prompted the sale (a move, a death in the family, etc.) and he’d ask to use the restroom.  Once inside, he’d scour the medicine cabinet, the drawers, anything, in fact, that might hold his elusive prize of pills and if he found them, he’d steal them. He fed his habit this way for three years.

While that was his low, Steve eventually shared what he felt was his high point, his son Jake.  To demonstrate, he recounted a simple story that revealed his son’s enormous character and his own unintentional success as a father.  In his freshman year of college, Jake, it seems, had lost a family heirloom.  He had been given his grandfather’s ring to wear and while dining in the cafeteria on campus at Berkeley one day, he lost it.  That evening, he called his father and confessed his crime.  Both Steve and Steve’s father took it for what it was, a harmless but painful mistake.  All was forgiven.  What stood out to Steve, and what brought him to tears while he retold this tale, was that Steve would never have done this.  Though he would have lost the ring, he never would have admitted to it.  Instead, he would have done what he had done all his life, he would have lied.  Steve marveled that he had succeeded in raising a son whose standing was superior to his own. While every father hopes his son will grow up to be a better man than he is, not every father succeeds…to his great comfort and with the help of his long-suffering wife and Jake’s step-mom, Caroline, Steve had. Sadly, he didn’t share much else about his Caroline except to further admit he had been hiding his behavior from her for many years. So guilty was he, he couldn’t bring himself to confess this fact to her.

Seven months later, Steve showed up at a meeting one Thursday night and talked about going in to see a doctor.  He had some lingering and persistent nasal congestion.  Subsequent tests showed a mass growing behind his nose.  A biopsy revealed cancer.  Recommended treatment was more than radiation and chemo, it was surgery and the removal of his nose and upper pallet.  He would have to wear a prosthesis, and talking or chewing would become laborious.  I remember being taken aback not only by the news but by the way Steve delivered it, it was somewhat matter-of-factly.  Though Steve was obviously disturbed, he was composed, thoughtful, prudent. Previously, he had never been any of these. Even during his five plus years sober, he was worried, pessimistic, dissatisfied and discontent.  Facing cancer seemed strangely like a source of strength.

In the weeks and months that followed, Steve’s composure magnified.  In the face of more difficult news (the cancer had not responded to treatment, had spread and required more surgery) Steve was steady, deliberate, patient and accepting.  There was an air of dignity about him, a grace that I did not recognize, either in him, or in others who had faced such disturbing news.  What was all the more shocking was the dramatic contrast this was to the man I had previously known.  Steve was nearly unrecognizable, not because he had paid with a pound of flesh, but because of his change of character.  In private, I would comment that cancer was the best thing that had ever happened to Steve, because it certainly brought out his absolute best.  He even had a sense of humor about his condition.  At the meetings, our men’s group would lovingly tease him with all manner of off-color humor “you’re paying through the nose”, “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”, etc. we’d say.  Not only did Steve laugh, he shared some of his own witticisms.  Far from being inappropriate mockery, it was bond building and camaraderie.  If you’ve ever heard grown men call each other “asshole” or “cocksucker” all the while hugging and smiling, you’ll understand.  It’s the way men are and the men of our meeting are no different.

Beneath the warmth, there was also some worry, but beyond that, there was faith–a deep and abiding faith–and no one had more of it than Steve.  To this day, I don’t know where it came from.  Granted, there were periods where Steve’s mortality would touch him (it was during one of these instances that he wrote an article about his experience).  He would fall victim to his own self-obsession and negativity, the kind one might expect from a man in his shoes, but within weeks, he’d rebound.  I was in awe.

If Steve could discuss things with such candor, honesty and humility the least I could do was be honest with the men at these meetings about my own struggles.  Without knowing it, Steve was my quiet inspiration.  I wouldn’t announce it to him, but I would often look to him in the middle of meetings.  He would sit quietly, sometimes closing his eyes, perhaps even from discomfort, and on his face, I could make out a faint smile.  I could see it, and in it I saw not weakness, but strength the likes of which I’ve rarely seen.

Even over dinner, while I ate a burger and Steve sucked a vanilla milkshake through a straw, he would patiently and without complaint suffer the indignity of involuntary intermittent tears and dripping dairy as it seeped from beneath his prosthesis, over the top of his upper lip, down his cheek and to his chin.  What made this doubly memorable was his reaction. Rather than get frightened or frustrated by the repetition, he’d simply wipe his face with a napkin, mid-sentence, and carry on.  Steve was my hero.

Shortly thereafter, Steve invited me to his home.  While Caroline was away, we talked in his living room.  I sat on the sofa.  He sat in his chair.  My curiosity finally got the best of me.  For some time, I had wondered what Steve looked like without his “nose” (our nickname for his prothesis).  This time, I did something about it. “Steve, would you allow me to see you without your nose?” I asked.  “Peter, I don’t think you’ll want to” he laughed.  “Many people are startled to see me with it.  Without it?” his voice raised “it’s disturbing.  I have a hole in my face.”  “I understand.  If you don’t want to show me that’s perfectly fine, but if you’d allow it, I would like to see.”  “Ok” Steve responded simply.  He reached up to his face and carefully peeled back the tape that attached his nose to his face; one side, then the other, finally the strip on top before lifting the cosmetic completely away. His eyes waited to register my reaction.  I looked intently as I absorbed the experience then smiled.  “That’s beautiful” I said.  Steve’s eyes widened. “Wow” he said softly. “What? Did you expect me to be startled?” I asked.  His eyes softened.  “No.  I knew you wouldn’t be startled but I didn’t expect you to see beauty either” he explained.  “Why not?  It is beautiful” I assured.  Steve smiled, nodded and re-attached his prosthesis. Though he wouldn’t know this, a fifteen-year-old student of mine in China once rightly pointed out “Peter, you love things that aren’t perfect.”  My curiosity satisfied, we carried on.

Beginning two months ago, Steve no longer had the strength to join me for dinner. Instead, we chatted one weekend afternoon by phone.  By now, after repeated but mostly failed attempts to kill the cancer, the cancer was killing him.  It had taken his nose, his pallet, his upper teeth and now his right eye.  In public, he wore a patch.  On the phone with me that day, he didn’t.  He had greater things to worry about.  “I’m not at peace and I’m having trouble with acceptance” he confessed.  The irony of this made me laugh.  Here was a man dying of cancer and rather than complain about his condition, he hoped for more serenity and acceptance.  Some of his friends had encouraged him to “fight” his terminal condition.  I was not one of them.  There was nothing to fight.  Steve had lost the war, despite winning every battle.  I didn’t play games of hoping for recovery and neither did he.  After all, there’s nothing wrong with death.  It’s a very natural, although often troubling, part of every life.  “My choices are more chemo which might, at best, add a month to my life, or hospice.  I think I know what I want to do but what do you think?”   Steve was making phone calls, talking to family and friends, consulting his wife and child and reaching painful but obvious choices.  My job was simple and painful; to listen to a man face his own mortality and applaud his ultimate choice to die at home with discomfort rather than on the way to and from nauseatingly-sickening and strength-sapping chemotherapy sessions which offered no hope of recovery.  I was cautious.  Despite my own convictions, I thought it best to let Steve make his own choice.  He did.  He would choose death with dignity.  Soon, I was to discover he would choose much, much more.

A month ago, before bed, I was doing my dailies (daily devotionals for sobriety) when I read a passage asking if I had come to see my alcoholism as the blessing it is rather than the curse I first thought it to be.  That was an easy question. I had (see The Miracle of Death for details).  If you’re not in recovery or are new to it, you might have your doubts.  Trust me when I tell you being an alcoholic is the best thing that’s ever happened to me, but that’s a story for another time.  I considered my good fortune, put the book aside to pray and immediately thought of Steve.  I wondered whether cancer, like alcoholism, might be a blessing in disguise.

I also remembered Lance Armstrong, the disgraced cyclist.  I had read that shortly after being diagnosed with cancer he received a letter congratulating him on his affliction.  Thinking it must be some kind of sick joke from a morbid fan, he read on only to discover the author, like himself, was a cancer patient and was sincerely sharing her kind wishes on what she discovered to be an unexpected blessing.  Much impressed with the memory of that story, I decided I would ask Steve about it the next time we talked. That time came about two weeks later, and rather than be bitter or burdened with his fate, Steve was at ease.  After catching up, exchanging some personal stories and applauding his attitude, I recounted my reading and the question it posed.  “After all,” I said “God doesn’t hand out curses, only blessings.”  Steve agreed.  Luckily, I know Steve well enough to know he wouldn’t interpret this as an uncaring, cruel breach of personal protocol.  I knew he’d see it as a serious question, that he did is very revealing.

Steve paused for a moment before answering, “Hmm, that’s a good question.  I hadn’t thought about it to be honest.  Let me mull it over and I’ll get back to you.”  I should say, that Steve would even consider such a question, one as challenging as this, speaks volumes about his grace in handling his grim reality.  His poise is remarkable.  Some days later, I realized I was afraid.  I was worried Steve might die before I heard his answer.

Last week, Steve and I touched base again.  He is lethargic, has no appetite and is in good spirits.  In other words, nothing has changed.  He talked of his beloved son, Jake; how lucky he is to have a son he’s impressed by and Jake’s plans to study abroad in the upcoming semester.  Steve hoped to see him off and greet him when he returned. Given Steve’s quickly worsening condition, it’s this second part that struck me as optimistic yet entirely unrealistic. I doubt Steve will make it much past the new year. Secretly, I suspect Steve knows this, but he doesn’t confess it.  At the end of our conversation, I revisited my question, “Steve, I’m curious, have you given any thought to our last discussion.”  “I have” he responded.  “And have you come up with anything?”  “I think so.”  I treaded delicately, “Would you be willing to share it?”  “I’ll try.”  Steve recounted with great precision three specific reasons he was grateful for this “curse” of cancer.  “The first, Peter, is because of cancer, I’ve discovered I have a deeper and greater capacity to love, to love Caroline my wife, Jake my son, the rest of my family, my friends, even the guys at ‘the Sallie’.”

The third Thursday of every month, I’m fortunate enough to take a panel of alcoholics into the Salvation Army Men’s Rehabilitation Center.  Steve was kind enough to come.  He didn’t have a nose, he didn’t have an eye but he had enough care and concern to give back what had been given to him.  We do that in recovery; we pay our debt forward, so to speak, and Steve showed up to pay his.  He found an interested and eager audience.  Often, after a long day’s work, the residents didn’t have much attention to give, but they gave it to Steve.

“I’m able to open up, to pour myself out and love more deeply than I thought possible.  I love that I’m able to love and I can because of my cancer” Steve explained.  “The second thing” he continued “is that I’m able to receive love more deeply and sincerely than I ever have.  After so many years of self-contempt and being disappointed in myself and in the way some things turned out, I’m able to embrace and accept the love that others pour into my life.  Caroline, Jake, my family, my friends, even the guys at the Sallie love me despite my failings and my weaknesses, and they love me with a depth and breadth I’ve never known or been able to appreciate.  It’s exquisite, Peter.  It’s remarkable and I’m so blessed to be able to receive it. Finally, before cancer, I thought the world was filled with unkind assholes.  I was so wrong.  The world is filled with kind, loving, considerate, generous souls who share their beauty with me every day.  People I don’t know, people I’ve never met, complete strangers show me a smile or a kind gesture or go out of their way to help me and I melt at how magnificent they are.  People are beautiful and wonderful and welcoming and warm.  They are kind and thoughtful and generous and now I’m able to see it.  I was blind and now I see.”

I was speechless.  I had no words.  I don’t know what I expected to hear but it certainly wasn’t that.  I certainly didn’t expect to hear Steve say anything close to that.  I think I sputtered a few “Wow’s” trying to get my head around the unimaginable.  It took some time to sink in.  It still hasn’t completely.  Though I’m able to appreciate and be grateful for my alcoholism, I can’t quite square it with cancer.  Steve can.

I raised the bar.  I wanted to go even higher than I had.  I wanted to find out if Steve not only had found the benefits in having cancer (he obviously had), I wanted to find out if Steve had discovered the blessing (the “this is better than that”).  “Steve, I want to know something.  I don’t know the answer but I think you do and I want to know.  If you could go back to before you had cancer and choose, getting cancer or not getting it, what would you choose?”  “I would choose cancer” Steve said.  He didn’t pause.  He didn’t ponder.  He didn’t contemplate.  He said “I’d choose cancer” and he said it quickly and with a quiet confidence.  Steve said he would choose cancer.

Would you?

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Epilogue:  Steve died last night, less than one month after the writing of this piece.  He was with his wife and friend, listening to The Beatles’ “Here Comes The Sun”.