Last Days: The One Thing I Wanted To Do After Learning I Had Cancer and How It Changed My Life.
Essay on health, well-being, and living.
You never know how you truly want to live until you think you might be dying.
A few weeks ago, I had some intense belly pains that sent me crunched over to the emergency room. At midnight, I cozied in for a CT scan, hoping it would reveal what it did five years prior when I went to the ER for similar pains: severe constipation.
When the doctor came in at 3 a.m. to give an update, I was overtired and still in pain. He said what I expected to hear. “You’re constipated.” Ok, I thought, wondering how constipation could charge this much pain in an abdomen while at the same time cursing myself for eating too much greasy but oh-so-delicious pizza two nights prior.
Then the doctor got a real serious face, sort of like when your mom or dad looked at you sternly as a kid, and you knew, you just knew whatever they said next wasn’t going to be good. But because I have a childlike spirit and it was five hours past my bedtime, not to mention the pain that was traversing back and forth in my belly, I was a little out of it. So, I thought he was kidding when he said these eight words I will remember for the rest of my life, “There is a mass growing inside your abdomen.”
This mass was not on the CT scan from my 2018 ER constipated encounter, so in the last five years, a mass measuring 24 x 33 mm had grown inside me. Small, but potentially mighty.
Awaiting my next appointment, I spent the following couple of weeks in curiosity, without a lot of worry or fear. I am a romantic but a practical one, and I knew there was nothing I could do to change this mass. Whatever will be, will be. Que sera, sera. Sure, I was a bit afraid, but I also knew that worrying wasn’t going to change the outcome of this tumor and whatever it entailed.
My practical approach, however, did include musing on the afterlife, my beliefs, and whether I was ready to die. There was an element of the ‘what ifs’, and as a precaution, I sat down and made a bucket list of everything I wanted to do before I died: places to visit, things to accomplish, and concerts to attend.
Molly’s Bucket List (4/14/2023)
Visit 50 countries
Visit 50 States (49)
See a taping of a live TV show
Attend SNL
See Sting Perform
See Blondie, Pearl Jam, Peter Gabriel, Madonna, Adele
Tour the White House
Be part of a movie focus group
Visit
Glacier
Acadia
Black Hills
Teddy Roosevelt
Yosemite
Redwoods
Tucson
Seattle
Charleston
International
Peru-Machu Picchu
Venice – St. Mark’s
Santorini
Florence-David
Croatia
Prague
New Zealand-campervan
Toronto
Vancouver
Banff
Amsterdam
Zip Line Costa Rica
San Juan, PR
I looked at that list, wondering if I didn’t have that much time left, how much of it could I accomplish?
Two weeks later, I underwent a procedure that included something down my throat (endoscopy) and something up my butt (colonoscopy). Lovely.
As I emerged from my anesthesia, the doctor came in for a visit. “The cells look atypical,” he said straight-faced. “We’re highly suspicious the tumor is malignant.”
Gulp.
“We’ve sent the biopsy to the lab, and they’ll have the full results in 2-3 days,” he said. This was on a Friday. It was going to be a long weekend.
The drama queen inside me, the one who, more often than not, rises to any occasion to let out her theatrics, whether it’s at a never-changing stoplight, a sneaker whose laces got set free, or a misinterpreted text, fully delivered.
Without further knowledge, my reigning crown rose to this occasion; I knew I was dying. I knew that my tumor was malignant and that I only had a few months, maybe a year. After convincing myself I lived a good long 45 years, I told myself I was OK with death not so gently knocking on my door. And I was. Truly. It may be hard to understand, but there was a letting go and a certain freedom that came with the “knowledge” that I was dying. There was a sense of relief in letting go of how I lived my life, which was mostly in my head. I constantly mull over what my meaning is in this world, how to make an impact, and what I am doing to make the lives around me better. I’m an overthinker, and my brain doesn’t shut off. My dreams are vivid and memorable. Perhaps this is the reason I’ve never done drugs; the psychedelics in my cranium are already fully there.
The following mornings, I spent time in quiet reflection, first watching the waves of the great Gitche Gumee roll endlessly in, then recording in my journal, with each entry starting with Day One, Two, Three, etc. of Living with Cancer. After writing my entry, I would read a selection from Frost and ponder the beauty of poetry and the beauty of breath.
For the next four days, I spent considerable time musing over the meaning of life. If this was your last day on earth, what would you do? You’ve heard the question before, I’m sure. I asked myself this question many times throughout the years. If this was my last day on earth, what would I do? Visit family? Take a walk in the woods? Or if I knew this was my last year alive, would I finally go to Peru? See Adele perform one last time? Go skydiving? Visit Yosemite?
For the first time in my life, I thought my days might be numbered. I looked back at my bucket list and it suddenly felt very flat and empty. Nice goals for someone who might have many years ahead of them, but for someone whose days are numbered, not so much. I became keenly aware that if I only had six months or a year to live, I didn’t care to “accomplish” or “do” anything. I realized that I had spent many years chasing after doing and accomplishing and that there were too many days robbed of truly living.
My awakening was furthered by setting my true desires straight. I realized that if I only had a year to live, I didn’t want to spend it traveling, a hobby I thoroughly enjoy. I had no desire to go skydiving. I didn’t even want to become a published author. What I really wanted was… to be.
I wanted to be with myself. And Frost. I wanted to be with my husband. My mom. And nature. Along the trail at Lester River. Walking the shoreline of Lake Superior. Playing cards with family. Laughing with friends.
Living my days as if they were my last was not about doing or even about accepting; it was simply about being. It meant being fully present to whomever I was with, like talking with my husband about an article he had just read or listening to mom tell me about which birds she had already spotted in her backyard this year. It meant playing soccer in the mud with my four great-nephews, while not worrying about my white sneakers getting dirty, which they did. Pre-tumor Molly would’ve been unhappy with this, but new, alive-thinking-she-was-dying Molly saw its beauty and embraced it.
It meant letting go. Of the little things. Dirt. Stoplights. Unanswered texts. And it meant not letting things aggravate or get to me as I allowed them to do before. And the best part, it didn’t take work. It just was. I just was.
That weekend and the days after, I spent being more intentional and more personal with my time. I read more poetry. I looked out at the lake more. I sat with my husband more. I listened more. I listened better. I listened presently. I didn’t worry about how my pants no longer fit or how I had yet to become a published children’s book author. I didn’t think twice about how I hadn’t been to Peru or how I still had one state remaining on my goal to visit all 50. Instead, I lived. Each day. Fully. Presently.
The following Tuesday afternoon, my results came in. “Hi Molly, it’s Dr. Bakken. Your biopsy shows a Grade 1 carcinoid tumor. This is much better than I expected as it is a slow-growing tumor,” he explained. “I think we will be able to surgically remove it and stop the cells from spreading.”
I wasn’t dying.
Breath.
When something like finding out you have a carcinoid tumor growing inside you happens, it really puts life into perspective. My hope1 is that the mass is removed and doesn’t grow back, but even more so, I hope to maintain the peace I found, and the desire and ability to live in the present moment. Because what I’ve found is that living a few full days is more meaningful than living many empty years.
I wrote this piece a year ago, and a lot has changed. My surgery was successful, and I remain cancer-free to this day. I am grateful for glimpses into how to live more freely, more fully, more presently, however, old habits are hard to break, and I find myself falling back into my old ways of thinking. Re-reading this brings me back to that place of being present. I hope it does the same for you.
I love the footnote. That is the thing... keeping on the path when the adrenaline does not make life, death and eternity seem in focus.
Doing nothing often leads to the very best thing of something -Pooh bear
Thank you for sharing this Molly!! What a great reminder to just be. Savor the little moments. No need to be marking plans off lists (which is my normal state of being).