Trego's Mountain Ear

Renata returned from church with the observation that a friend didn’t want an obituary that included “a valiant battle with cancer.”  I understood.  Simply enough, I felt the same way.   The thing about cancer is that the only person who lost the battle with cancer is Henrietta Lacks.  Her tumor survives, HeLa cells are in labs around the world, and have even traveled into space and back.  Usually the cancerous tumor dies – sometimes along with the host, sometimes the host survives.  Henrietta Lacks’ tumor seems to be immortal.

The same day,  comments were flying about Zelensky and Ukraine.  And I realized that the cancer experience provides an understanding that the Z-man lacks.

Staging is important – my melanoma was stage two.  I recovered, with only a large, recognizable scar to mark the experience.  I’ve known a couple of stage one breast cancer survivors – their scars aren’t nearly so impressive.  My colon cancer was stage 3.  The visible scars don’t show – but there are a lot of limits that make me say I survived the big C . . . recovery not so much.

Ukraine is like a stage 3 cancer.  The good thing I learned from stage 3 was that I could survive – but in a lot more limited way than full recovery.  The radiation hurt – but I recovered.  The chemotherapy was basically putting enough heavy metal through my body that I could survive it and the metastasized cancer cells couldn’t.  By the time the chemo was done, I had chemo-induced neuropathy – numb from the soles of my feet past my knees.  I remember the impossibility of holding a bar of soap.  I could no longer sign my name.  There was some recovery from the neuropathy – I again have a recognizable signature – but the feet never got much feeling back.  Walking on numb feet makes falling a whole lot easier.

The semi-colon I was left with after surgery reduced my outings – I can still get out and about, but it requires a lot more planning, deciding which meals to miss and when to swallow down imodium so I can spend time in public.  I’m not complaining – I went through the surgery and chemo knowing what to expect.  Even a reduced quality of life beats being dead.  Ukraine can survive – but it’s going to survive without the Donbas or Crimea.  Survival doesn’t mean recovery.  On the other hand, it beats hell out of an obit that describes “a valiant battle with cancer.”

Someone, somewhere, may have fought that valiant battle.  I didn’t.  I looked at the statistics and knew I would survive.  My Oncologist wasn’t so sure – but I was, and am, a whole lot better at statistics than he was.  I was lucky – my cancer had just barely made it into stage 3.  Others – one was in the econ department a floor below me – made it into stage 4.  Perhaps he fought a valiant battle.  At any rate, his carcinoma died with him.  Call it a tie.

Zelensky is still in the valiant battle stage – he hasn’t accepted the losses required for survival.  The thing is, it’s illogical to expect Putin to lose just because he’s an evil bastard.  He’s a close evil bastard – and the rescuers are an ocean away.  Recovery and survival aren’t synonyms.