I watched the sailboats on Casco Bay as Sheila and I made our way home from Maine Medical Center this past Saturday.
 
I had cancer last time I drove this way and didn’t even know it (click here if you need to catch up on my story), I thought. Last time I was on this highway. Last time I was in my house.  I had cancer when I was sitting on my couch. When I was last at a restaurant. When I was at my cousin’s wedding in April.
 
It might sound weird, but these were the thoughts I was having as Sheila drove me home from the hospital after what turned out to be an 18 day stay. Basically, I was trying on the word cancer for myself.
 
It’s a new part of my identity.

I'm a cancer patient.
 
Years ago at my brothers’ wedding reception, he came up to me to ask if I’d seen his wife. Then he stopped.
 
“Feels weird to say that,” he said. “Wife. My wife.”
 
I find myself trying on the word cancer in a similar, though less exciting, way. I feel like it’s a shoe that doesn’t fit – that shouldn’t fit. And yet the more I say it to myself, the more it becomes mine. Because whether or not I want to own the reality, it is indeed mine to own.
 
If you signed up for this newsletter to follow my cancer journey, I hope you’ll forgive that I can’t help but think of habit and behavior change when it comes to everything, and that has been no different in walking the early parts of this new path.
 
Most good habit books will, at some point, discuss identity as a big part of making a habit change. Because aside from taking small steps, how we think about ourselves can play a huge role in our ability to make and sustain lasting change.
 
If you want to procrastinate work a little longer (procrastinator is part of my identity too), try this exercise: pull out a sheet of paper and write down all of the words that you feel describe you. Mine, for instance, might include: health and fitness coach, golfer, runner, Pittsburgh sports’ fan, gym goer, guitar player etc.
 
Another way to think about this is to finish the sentence “I am the kind of person who….”
 
Because sometimes we limit ourselves just in the way we think of ourselves. Take the guitar for instance. Have you ever wanted to learn to play, but told yourself that you're not musical? Basically, you're rejecting the identity and leaning, sometimes unknowingly, into self-limiting beliefs.
 
Is there something that you want to be doing, but you're telling yourself that you're not that person? Do you want to run a 5k? It sounds crazy, but go out and buy yourself a Nike t-shirt that says "Run" on it and wear it around. Do you want to surf? Buy a surfing t-shirt. Or a sticker that says "love to surf."

It doesn't matter how you do it - but if you truly want to make a particular change, find a way to own the identity - it's a great way to kick start the process.

No, habit change isn't necessarily that simple. But trying on the identity the way you might a new hat is a great way to start shifting your mindset. Right now, I'm thinking of myself not only as someone who has cancer, but someone who is fighting cancer, because the identity I most want is cancer survivor. That is my focus. That is my new hat to try on.

I suppose there are words you never expect to hear in your life, or at least, words that I never expected to hear uttered to me. 

You have the list in your head, whether or not you know it: cancer, divorce, being let go, fired, incurable…..

But what they don’t tell you about those words, the big moments in which you hear those words, is the death by 1,000 papercut moments that precede. There are three and four second exchanges that do more than niggle at you…niggle is too nice of a word…but I’m going to go with it 

I had my first niggle in mid-June, while home for my niece’s birthday. I’d been coughing a lot at that point, and knew I had bronchitis. Then I felt like I had indigestion and just couldn’t swallow very well. It almost felt like there was something in my chest getting in the way.

Maybe it’s cancer, I thought, for the first time. The thought crept in the way it does in the movie Kindergarten Cop when Arnold Schwarzenegger tells a kid that his headache is not a tumor. 

My next niggle was in early July, while watching an ESPN special about Jim Valvana. It was about his iconic ESPY speech, and I watched it that night, still with this indigestion, still not feeling well, still assuming I had some form of long covid, but the niggle was there - a bit stronger - and I pushed it down.

July 26th, 2023 wasn’t the day I found out I had cancer.

It was the day of my third niggle. Ok, not a niggle exactly. This time, it was pure shock when the doc said I had an opaque structure in my chest cavity. My Primary Mediastinal, to be specific. I looked up at the ER doc and, for the first time, let myself absorb the idea that something was really wrong with me. Not like, bronchitis or long covid had turned into pneumonia, but that something was really, really wrong. 

July 26th was when I started to really hold onto the small pieces of….I don’t know, hope or denial, I guess? Your blood work is good so there’s that must mean no cancer. I’d been exercising about until a few days ago, I couldn’t do that with cancer right? Yes my heart was basically running at tachycardia, but that’s why I’m here and that doesn’t have to be cancer right?

Also, hey, this could be two other things that you can’t remember because the last thing the doctor said was that it might be a malignant lymphoma and anything mentioned before or after that doesn’t matter, because malignant lymphoma. 

I looked up from my laptop, where I had basically been knocking out work to pass the time, and barely gave the doctor a passing glance at the news.

Maybe she expected more questions. Maybe she expected some tears. Maybe she expected me to suck in my breath, as my wife did, gasping as she sat in the chair next to me. 

“Ok,” I said. And turned my attention back to my work. My insides were buzzing like bees, sure. But what could I do? I didn’t know what the mass actually was. There was no solid news to grasp onto, just a lot of maybes.

I spent the next 52 hours in the ER. And I write this post to you on day 14 of my hospital stay.

I haven’t been home since July 26th.

The actual cancer diagnosis came to me, but not until August 3rd. I was flattened at that point, not only by the news, but by two invasive chest tubes implanted in me in order to drain fluid around my heart and lungs.

There was a lot of hurry about and wait for the first five days, and then procedures happened so fast.

Everything has happened. So. Fast.

I don’t know how I feel.

My friends have asked. I don’t know yet. I’m ok. I always preferred playing the game to watching the game. This feels no different.

I can tell you that the first big LOL moment from a higher power was the thought that I was going to be upright and controlling the narrative and the way I communicated with friends and family members, when or if, I wrote a post like this.

The universe was like LOL M*** F*****!!!!!

You have zero control.

We know this. We’re told this. We learn this.

We quickly forget this.

The second LOL moment was any hope that my being as healthy as possible was going to be any kind of get out of jail free card. Being mindful of your health helps. It’s helped me get this far with a 7.5 inch tumor in my chest. It’s helped me during this hospital stay. It will continue to help me.

As I reflect on what I know to be true for me, right now in this moment:

I am in a safe hospital with an amazing care team at Maine Medical Center. My nurses and doctors and CNA’s are humans who treat me as human.

I have a wonderful network of friends and family, and I thank all of you who have texted, called and left messages. I read them at my lower moments and take great heart in them.

I am a personal trainer.

I have cancer.

My official diagnosis is Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. I’m in the first of six rounds of chemo that started yesterday. I’ll deal with it in the way that I’ve dealt with most other personal trials – through journaling and being as open as I can about my journey, as much as I’m able and feel called to do so. There are many, many, many of you who may read this who have faced a similar journey and experienced, or are experiencing your own 1,000 papercut scenarios.

I have found in the past that sharing our stories can open up the hearts of others, and I can think of no better reason for allowing some of the inside stories out.