What, if anything, have you been focusing on differently before the Ca Dx and now?

What, if anything, have you been focusing on differently before the Ca Dx and now?

 

 

 

Before the Dx:

 

I did plan to retire. I envisioned a fifteen or twenty year retirement, plenty of time to do whatever I wanted.

 

Plan one: Goof off and travel. Our daughter, Kathy did that after she got out of college. She, and some of her friends, borrowed my wife’s minivan and traveled around the country for some months. It was a spontaneous journey reminiscent of the old TV show, Route 66, except that they didn’t ride around in a Corvette, and they didn’t solve any murder cases or rescue any endangered damsels. I was jealous.

 

Carolyn and I had been focused on grad school, med school, work. We had a son by the time we got our respective doctoral degrees, and we just kept on working. I was envious of Kathy’s trip. I wanted to do a similar trip.

 

Fortunately, Carolyn shared my interest in this travel plan.

 

After the trip, I’d get around to saving the world. You have to have priorities.

 

The way I was going to save the world was to go back to college and become a mechanical engineer. I’d get my bachelor’s degree. Then I’d invent something that would harness the power of the tides and waves to provide electricity. The design of that invention, and a working scale model would be my Master’s thesis, and the actual working full scale generating plant would be my PhD thesis.

 

So then, I was diagnosed with lung cancer four months before my planned retirement. I had surgery, experimental immunotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania, and adjuvant chemotherapy back home in Elkton. That caused a delay in my trip, but it also made me rethink my long term goals. I could no longer plan to live long enough to do all that educational and inventing stuff. Fortunately for the world, other people are working on using alternative forms of energy to free us from dependence on fossil fuels.

 

When I had a recurrence, it delayed my travel plans. But now, I’m cancer free yet again for a while, and am going back to the travel plan. But I need something to do after that. I actually have a new plan. I’m going to join Americorps. If I can’t save the whole world, I’ll save a bit of it right here in Los Angeles.