The marathon versus the sprint
“So doc, give it to me straight. What are my odds?”
“Well, that is a hard question to answer exactly. The tough news for today is that your cancer is stage 4. That means that your cancer is generally considered incurable, but very treatable.”
“How long do I have to be on treatment?”
“That is another tough question to answer. In many cases, stage 4 cancer is treated continuously to control the disease. There can and will be breaks to rest and recover, but untreated metastatic cancer will eventually grow and spread again.”
“So I’m going to be on chemo for the rest of my life?”
This is where I usually pull out the analogy of the marathon versus the sprint. Much of life today feels like a sprint from one thing to the next. Racing from clinic to the hospital. Or from the office to a parent-teacher meeting. Or quick to the gym before dinner. Or even worse, the sprint of the mind…from one thought to another, one worry to the next, top of the to-do list to the bottom.
Metastatic cancer and other chronic illnesses unfortunately but realistically do not lend themselves to the sprint mentality or culture. It would be great to run really fast and hard through treatment, knowing that it will be done after some brief length of time…at least the tough part. This is the way it can be for many curable cancers…surgery, 3 months of chemotherapy, 6 weeks of radiation treatments.
But for those of us facing the longer road, the analogy of the marathon can sometimes be helpful. We have to pace ourselves. Run too fast with intensive treatments, or take no breaks along the way, and the runner (or the patient) can wear out from exhaustion or side effects too quickly. Expecting the long haul, garnering support for the journey, listening to one’s mind and body to understand what it needs, giving oneself permission to not do the very most possible all the time. This mentality builds fortitude for the road ahead. Sometimes the slow and steady pace allows time for new treatments to be developed. Other times it allows one to learn more about life, more about oneself, more about what matters most. In a world that tells us to always be sprinting, taking it slower and preparing for the longer journey ahead might be the best advice we can give or receive.
