June 2, 2023 - Doing What It Takes

     I have spent a considerable amount of time lately in waiting rooms or four-pod treatment areas with others who are also dealing with cancer.
     From my view I am the healthiest looking one of the bunch as I look around at others taking treatments.  That looks to change when I return to Mayo in the late summer for the stem cell transplant.
     After spending a day in consultation with the two doctors at Mayo Clinic who are handling my care, I have concluded that I will be like so many people I have seen.  They are cancer warriors, like others with difficult illnesses, who are willing to do whatever it takes to give them a better chance to live.
     Sometimes we do that on a lesser level when we change our lifestyles like I did last summer when I had some high blood pressure for the first time in my life.  I lost weight, I removed salt as much as possible from my diet, and I got in shape, well somewhat in shape for me.
     Lots of folks do that.  They change their diet and lifestyle when diagnosed with diabetes or some other illness.
     But on a much greater degree, folks with an illness like cancer are willing to do whatever it takes to battle it.  I am willing to travel back and forth to Rochester as many times as it takes.  I am willing to take two mornings a week to spend at the hospital taking the chemotherapy treatments.
     And in the late summer I am willing to have the stem cell transplant, along with everything that entails as explained in yesterday’s blog.  For one reason: to give me a better chance to live a longer life.
     As I was pondering about that I started thinking, “Why are we willing to do everything that we can to live longer in this life, while at the same time we don’t make the same effort or the same commitment or the same lifestyle change when it comes to our eternal life?”
     Somehow it just doesn’t make sense to me.  We do everything we can to live longer from a few weeks to several months to possibly 15-20 years for me with myeloma, but we fail to do the same to live forever. 
     Why wouldn’t we consider living forever a much greater priority than to live some extra time in this life?  Forever is a very long time.
     Looks to me like we might just have things upside down.