Ding Dong Ditch

My friend in Seattle, Chris, bought me a book "stronger than cancer" that was written by the family of Walter Payton. Walter Payton died after a courageous battle with a rare liver cancer in 1999. The book is a series of snippets from cancer patients, families of patients and children of patients and is full of wisdom about cancer. One of my favorite quotes is from a 16 year old son of a breast cancer patient…“ Never knock on death’s door. Ring the doorbell and run. Death hates that!”

Well, that’s sometimes how I feel. I feel like I am playing ding dong ditch with death. And if I run fast enough, death won’t find me. When you are battling cancer your life is a continual series of medical treatments designed to almost kill you, but not quite, just enough to beat back the cancer without doing too much damage to the healthy cells. I look at this latest round that has caused me to be neutropenic. The counter-treatment is shots to boost your white count, and the shots make you feel sick, so you begin to wonder, am I sick from the shots or am I sick from the cancer? Ding dong ditch.

Each round gets a little tougher to handle as the cumulative effects of the treatment build up. I mean, that is the reason that they do round after round after round. They want to beat down your body’s resistance to the point where the cancer just gives up and dies. In the meantime, the side effects are also wearing you down and you are trying to keep strong, trying to be courageous in the face of all the sickness, but the running game isn’t as easy any more. Your speed and swiftness have been compromised by the continual onslaught. But you know there is an end in sight. Ding dong ditch.

I think this is the point in the treatment where your friends and family become so critical. I share this with you so you can help not only me but people you know who are also battling this disease. We want to keep playing ding dong ditch with death. We want to keep cheating death, but after months and months our resolve starts to wane. We want to be strong, heck, we ARE strong, but we are tired. Tired of the battle, tired of the war. Because for us, it is every moment of every day for months, sometimes years, on end. I don’t think I’m doing to die, in fact, I know that I’m not going to die from this battle, but I’m tired. And I can see how people fighting cancer can get to the point where they start giving up, getting depressed and losing their ability to fight.

I want to make it clear, that I’m not there yet, and I don’t plan on going there! I plan on playing ding dong ditch for as long as my legs can carry me. I am no where near ready to end this fight, but I’m tired. And this is where you come in.

When someone is battling this disease they need your prayers, your words of love, your encouragement. Its not the big stuff, it’s the little stuff that gets me through each day. A card from a co-worker, an email from a friend, a word of encouragement from my family. Its knowing that there are people out there who are willing to play ding dong ditch with me, and if my legs falter, they will pick up the slack. Knowing that people are praying for me, knowing that they believe in my fight and they got my back…well that makes all the difference in the world.

I have people ask me a lot what they can do to help, and I frequently have people come to me because their friend or family has cancer and they want to know what they can do for them. The simple answer is to let them know you got their back, you are there if they need you, you are praying, you are thinking of them. Those simple words mean so much. Send them a card or an email every now and then. I can’t tell you how those little things brighten my day and give me that little extra boost I need to make it through. The battle makes us weary but our friends make us strong.

So don’t be afraid to say something, to encourage, to let us know that you are praying. Those prayers lift us up and give us a supernatural strength that we need when we are in the midst of the battle. When I least expect it, sometimes I just feel the strength and the power of the prayers going up around me. And it is there I find my running legs.

Ding dong ditch. Watch me run!