Live for Today « Cancer

No, I don't have cancer.  At least not that I know of.  Cancer is on my mind, though, on this day following the death of Steve Jobs.  In the ensuing media coverage, I happened across an interesting article written by an oncologist detailing the experience of one of his patients.  I could relate to what he described she and her husband had been going through trying to fight her disease.  I thought others with Meniere's might relate to this, too.

Even though Meniere's is not a life-threatening condition, it is definitely a lifestyle-threatening disease.  The symptoms, at times, can be so debilitating that you begin to feel as if you are dead.  Or at least life as you know it is.  So when you are able to sit up and read again, it is easy to become obsessed with finding a cure.  It can become all-consuming, this search for relief.

The problem with searching for a cure for, or even relief from, Meniere's disease is the fact that it is classified as an idiopathic condition, meaning no one knows for sure what causes it.  In fact, there may be more than one cause.  And the cause, whatever it is, is likely multifactorial.  So discovering a cure is no easy task, especially for a layperson with only the internet at their disposal.  Certainly if there were an easy answer, it would pop up in a Google search, right?

There are, however, treatments for the worst symptom, vertigo.  The least invasive options available often result in short-term or incomplete relief.  The more permanent, yet destructive, procedures are, of course, destructive, meaning that one ends up with permanent hearing and/or vestibular loss.  And because the progression of the disease in an individual is very difficult to predict, it becomes a tough call whether or not to go that route and when.  Somewhere in between, it is easy to become lost in the land of complacency.  In that place, not only does the physical suffering continue but the mental agony can become overwhelming and all-consuming.

Back to the cancer patient.  In the beginning of the story, she had been afforded a relatively brief remission from her disease thanks to chemotherapy, during which time she resumed living a full life.  But, when the cancer returned a year later, threatening to take her life, her husband dove headfirst into finding a cure for the beast. Together they devoted excessive amounts of time pursuing and attempting alternative therapies which not only didn't cure her cancer, but also contributed greatly to her physical and emotional suffering.  At the end of the story, and by the sound of it, near the end of her life, the patient and her husband returned to the oncologist in despair.  He was struck by the amount of additional suffering they were experiencing through their futile attempts to cure an incurable disease.  The doctor pointed out that she was not living what life she had left to the fullest extent still afforded by her condition and, perhaps even worse, wasting what valuable little time she did have left to enjoy the simple pleasures of life.

While I am not a complete pessimist, I have to say that there has to come a time where one must find balance between hope and reality.  The trick is knowing where that line is.  Just as I don't believe anyone should suffer any unnecessary physical pain, I also believe one should seriously give consideration to whatever destructive procedure is available to end frequent, debilitating vertigo.  We can't help ourselves sometimes and become paralyzed by the fear of missing out on the path not taken.  We certainly don't want to intentionally burn any bridges for a future cure but, in the absence of a guarantee, we sometimes just have to accept the best the moment has to offer and carry on with life and all its imperfections.