The Hindu Business Line : Cancer is not a form of death

It's true that people die, however much we may not like the fact. "But there's another truth, too. People live... in the most remarkable ways," writes Lance Armstrong in his book It's not About the Bike, from Yellow Jersey Press (www.randomhouse.co.uk).

"There are two Lance Armstrongs, pre-cancer, and post," writes the biking champion about how cancer changed his life. "Cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me," he declares, looking at the way it did wonders for him.

"I thought I knew what fear was, until I heard the words `You have cancer'," he begins, in a chapter titled `Bad to worse.' That statement made him feel as if all his blood was flowing in the wrong direction, he narrates.

"My previous fears, fear of not being liked, fear of being laughed at, fear of losing my money, suddenly seemed like small cowardices. Everything now stacked up differently."

It was humbling to be so scared, he recounts. "More than that, it was humanising."

Reminiscing the night before brain-surgery, Armstrong writes: "I thought about death. I searched out my larger values, and I asked myself, if I was going to die, did I want to do it fighting and clawing or in peaceful surrender."

There are crucial insights in a chapter named `Conversations with cancer.' Such as: "I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday."

Don't miss reading, in the `Chemo' chapter, Armstrong's chat with LaTrice Haney, the `angel' nurse, about biking. "Lance, listen to your body," she advises. "I know your mind wants to run away. I know it's saying to you, `Hey, let's go ride.' But listen to your body. Let it rest."

The last cycle of chemo. While watching the steady, clear drip-drip of the chemo sliding into his veins, Armstrong asks LaTrice, "Am I going to pull through this?" She assures, "Yeah, you are." Armstrong closed his eyes, but listens: "Lance," she said, softly. "I hope someday to be just a figment of your imagination. I'm not here to be in your life for the rest of your life. After you leave here, I hope I never see you ever again. When you're cured, hey, let me see you in the papers, on TV, but not back here. I hope to help you at the time you need me, and then I hope I'll be gone. You'll say, `Who was that nurse back in Indiana? Did I dream her?"

Recounting this, Armstrong adds: "It is one of the single loveliest things anyone has ever said to me. And I will always remember every blessed word."

In the concluding chapter, he says, "Cancer is not a form of death" and goes about redefining it thus: "Courage, Attitude, Never give up, Curability, Enlightenment, and Remembrance of fellow patients."

Inspiring read.

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