A Secondary Benefit of Having Cancer

OK, there really aren't ANY benefits from cancer , but…

After a couple of years battling prostate cancer I decided to write a book about it. I enjoyed the writing and illustrations/cartoons (Real Men Get Prostate Cancer Too) and I think it was therapeutic – it kept me busy and positive. Of course it would have been nice if it sold a few thousand more copies. Oh well.

Now I’m writing another cancer book (about clinical trials) – with a partner this time. Tom is my oncologist and a well known cancer researcher. There is even a publisher who appears to be interested in it. Go figure!

I’ve been working on it - on and off – for more than a year. But now we’re looking at coming up with a finished manuscript in just a few months.

This is both exciting and a little frightening. There is a lot yet to do and so little time… My first book was self-published so I didn’t actually have to satisfy anybody but me. This time around there’s a co-author and an all-powerful publisher. I won’t have the same control but still all of the same responsibility – to myself, my co-author, and the publisher. Guess I’ll have to learn to live with the stress. Of course, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't enjoy it.

axman

How Terribly Strange…

...to be seventy

With apologies to Paul Simon (Old Friends from the Bookends album 1968 when I was relatively young); it IS terribly strange. Never in my wildest dreams and fantasies did I ever imagine being seventy. Not that I planned an early demise; but being that old just never seemed real or important.

In my younger days (see, I sound old already) many of the seventy-year olds I knew seemed decrepit, senile, and sometimes couldn’t even care for themselves - at least it seemed that way to me. Just like my kids and grandkids think of me now – at least sometimes. Certainly not all septuagenarians are frail, but numbers count – retirement age, Social Security, and Medicare are based on age and mortality tables. The government is betting we die before we collect very much. Ha! I'm already collecting!

Various and sundry body parts don’t work as well as when I was a mere 50 or 60 but I’m still able to walk and chew gum at the same time – if I’m real careful. Strangely, I don’t feel old (except for those sore knees and arthritic hands and a slipped disc or two). I’m almost always able to find my way home from the grocery store; but just in case there’s a problem I carry a GPS in the car with a Go Home button. It doesn't hurt to be prepared.

When do I start feeling really old? When did you? Let me know. Tell me twice; I’ll probably forget the first time.

axman