And the dreams that you dare to dream, Really do come true.
My Christmas wish is for everybody to have dreams for 2020, and dare to dream big. Then, go out there and make those dreams a reality. I dream of running marathon number two, despite having metastatic cancer and with a lifetime of active treatment ahead of me.
There’s two reasons for me having such an apparently crazy dream: Last year I dared to dream of running half marathon #7, and pulled that off with great success. It went so well that in retrospect it almost feels like it was a publicity stunt. After all, it was well less than three hours of activity, how hard is that? For me, it felt much less strenuous than a normal workday, and I got to nap in the afternoon.
The second reason is that I have unfinished business with the marathon distance. I was lucky enough to be able to run the Boston marathon in 2011. It was the best of times and the worst of times. I was running the most famous marathon in the world with my friends in the running club, but as an athletic performance it sucked. I was under trained and not mature enough as a runner. But there was a qualification waiver available and to this day I’m very glad I didn’t pass up the opportunity. For a runner, a Boston waiver is like getting the golden ticket to the chocolate factory.
I vowed to do better in my second marathon. I vowed not to be “one and done”. I subsequently developed overuse injuries in every attempt to train for another marathon.
My cancer diagnosis has given me permission to try again, and a reason to focus on just finishing the race and not worry about time goals. I’m not crazy, I only expect to pull this off by approaching the race differently than in the past, but the details of that are the subject of a future blog post. Suffice to say marathon #2 won’t be Boston. It will be a smaller race that’s friendly to walkers and with a generous time limit, and I don’t yet know which specific race it will be.
Perhaps it’s a side effect of the medical marijuana, but I’ve come to view a full marathon as being on the other side of that rainbow Dorothy sang about decades ago. I dare to dream of running another one. I want to get to the other side of the rainbow and shout back to other cancer patients “It’s okay to have dreams! Come join me!”. It doesn’t have to be a marathon. Just choose your rainbow and find a way to get over it.
Other people have already run marathons after receiving diagnoses similar to mine. I won’t be the first one to reach the other side of this particular rainbow. I’m simply following in the footsteps of others who are already on the other side and are shouting back to me. I hear you Randy!
Of course, such paths are rarely straight and without a fair number of bumps and twists and turns along the way. A marathon is much more than twice as difficult as a half marathon. For me, half marathons were and now again are a solved problem. Running a marathon was extremely difficult for me before diagnosis. Being 9 years older and having had two cancer diagnoses won’t make it any easier.
But just imagine how epic it will be when I cross that finish line! After crossing this rainbow, what will my next dream be? A complete and durable remission? Perhaps a cure? My cancer is considered incurable, but there are fluke cases where men get off treatment and the cancer doesn’t return. Failing that, a prolonged response to my current treatment may allow time for a breakthrough in immunotherapy or some other new treatment with curative potential. There are men alive today who are having success keeping their cancer under control with treatments that didn't exist when they were diagnosed more than a decade ago.
Anything resembling a cure is a very long shot, but people dream of winning the lottery. Arguably, my chances of achieving something resembling a cure in my lifetime may be better than the chances of winning the mega millions jackpot.
Some day I'll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemondrops
Away above the chimney tops
That's where you'll find me
p.s. Scrubs is one of my favorite TV shows of all times. It’s like M*A*S*H in its ability to combine comedy with moments of true drama. And it was filmed in a former hospital, allowing for scenes both inside and out. Just think of the planning and effort that went into getting that sequence at the end of the video in one continuous shot with no edits!
p.s. 2, Sam Lloyd, who plays the inept lawyer “Ted” on Scrubs, was diagnosed earlier this year with inoperable and widely metastasized cancer, but appears to be responding to treatment. Off the set, he’s in an acapella group called “The Blanks” that has been written into the show on numerous occasions. That’s him, second from the left on the rooftop.
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