Here's a question I have spent many moments pondering...What would you do if your doctor told you that you had 6 months left to live?
Would you fall into a deep dark depression and die before the 6 months came up? I think many people do this. They are told they'll die, they accept it, and they never really recover from it.
Would you quit your job, sell everything, move to Hawaii?
Would you divorce your husband, move out of your house and live the life you always wanted? (I had a friend who did this).
Personally, I don't know what I'd do, myself. I make an effort to make every day count. My sponsor's tag-line is "Live Like You Mean It" so I suppose I'm kinda forced to think about it. However, faced with a decision like this, it's hard to say how'd I spend my last days, knowing I'm ultimately getting ready to die.
I do, however, know what Jane Tomlinson did. After she was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer and was told she had 6 months left to live, she continued her job (as a medical radiographer), and she went out and got herself a gym membership.
Then she did her first 10K run.
Then she ran her first Marathon.
Then she went on to do an Ironman - the full banana. Knowing what I know about what these races entail, these achievements are considerable. They would have been a lifetime's worth for many people, especially considering the pain she must have been dealing with.
Through the course of her treatment for cancer, she also developed chronic heart disease. She kept going.
Jane Tomlinson went on to ride the length of the UK - from John o' Groats all the way down to Land's End. She did another long-distance ride, "Rome to Home" - across Europe.
She did the London Marathon 3 times (once while she was still on Chemotherapy), and the New York Marathon.
She did a few half-iron Triathlons.
Then she rode her bike all the way across the US - 6781.8 km (that alone would have killed me).
She was a mother and a wife, she lived and she loved. She did all this, in order to raise money for Cancer Research. Even so, there were many in the breast cancer realm who wanted her to have a lower profile. She took a lot of criticism from others who believed she should have spent more time at home with her family. She was accused of faking it (the cancer, not the racing).
She was living her life because it made her happy, and she wasn't in it to be a role model or a poster child for cancer survival. She said, "I've never sought to make people think they have to go out and run marathons; it's simply my way of staying positive and to keep my life moving forward."
She was successful at what she set out to do - in the end, she raised about 3.5 million dollars. She received an MBE and a CBE from the Queen. She showed us that anything is possible.
She was dying of breast cancer, but she didn't stop living. She went on to live a full 7 years after her initial diagnosis. She died Monday, at age 42. She may have had cancer but by God she sure wasn't going to make it easy for cancer to kill her. She lived like every day was a gift - because for her, it was.
What would you do, if you only had 6 months left to live?
What are you waiting for?
21 comments:
Oh, man. I need to get off my ass.
I bet her lust for life and her determination to go after her dreams are what kept her alive for 7 years v. 6 mos. What a woman!
Pirate, hope you don't mind me peeking in at your blog. Ever since I came accross Geekgirl's, I'm hooked on reading these triathlete blogs! What a great question. (warning...novel ahead)
In 2001, my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer and died 4 months later. She was only 56. Watching her die was the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. I think GG put it best in one of her blogs when she said "it's like mile 21 of a marathon." When I read that, I got a big lump in my throat. Seeing how she handled her illness was a great example for me though. She was positive, but honest. My youngest son was 8 at the time, and he asked her what she would want to do if she had one whole day with no pain. She teared up and said she would spend it with all her family having fun at the lake like we had done many times before. In her last 4 months, she did the things she wanted, even though she was probably in pain.
If I had 6 months to live, I hope I wouldn't get depressed, but I know how easy it is to go to the "dark side." I hope I would appreciate every minute with the ones I love. And, on a lighter note, skydiving would be cool!
(end of novel...sorry for hoggin' up all this space)
Ooooo, here is the existential twist…we are all faced with death from the day we are born, some of us face that fact and some do not. Those who do not are no different than those with an immediate death sentence hanging over their heads, they succumb to the dark side of human nature, they procrastinate, they negotiate with life, and they loose sight of what it can mean to live.
I don't think my response is simply intellectual trickery, I saw too much of death while I was in the Marine Corps…men taken out at a moments notice in the robustness of their youth and vigor, something I very rarely mention but I am moved to speak by this question every time. I hope that I live life like I mean it and I hope that it is evident to those around me. I try and avoid falling into a mindless versus mindful state of existence and I succeed to varying degrees. I would hope that I would do no worse if I were provided an actual date.
Finally, it is not, I hope, enough to claim the personal riches that life may bring but like Jane Tomlinson find ways, in the immortal words of Bill and Ted, to "Be excellent to each other"
Party on dude!
That is a truly remarkable story - what an inspiration.
I would sell everything and get my kids to go exotic places with me. And I would race.
I do race. And I live really frugally in part so that I can save money so that I can become the Mom who takes her kids on exotic vacations. I think I'm doing okay. Could do better but at least I'm on the right trajectory.
An excellent post, Pirate.
Almost twenty years ago I had a near fatal accident. The biggest gift was the opportunity to truly take stock -- to understand that for the most part I was happy in my choices, particularly in the people I care about and who support me.
i loved your post and i loved reading the comments.
i don't know that if i were given six months i would do anything different than i do today. i've had so much death around me the past seven or eight years that it has given me a different perspective on things. i try to live each day to the fullest, to do my best, to tell those close to me that i love them. i'd like to say that i'd have no regrets. its probabaly not completely accurate, but i'm trying to get there each day.
but, one other thing, and this might be controversial in itself, i don't think i'd tell anyone. in my experience, even though they don't mean to - people treat you differently. i wouldn't want anyone to feel obligated to be nice to me because i was dying. does that sound horrible?
wow!
Great post. Great question. Which also begs another question: why aren't some of us living the lives we want to right now? While I certainly don't think it's physically or psychologically possible to live every day like it was your last, I think it is important to continually define and refine one's purpose. To take risks, do those things we think we can't, and to live just a little wild and dangerously.
faking it? people are crass.
i don't know what i'd do.
Like Momo, I hope that I would continue to live my life much as I do today -- with intention and gratitude and joy and a little bravery sprinkled throughout. What a gift. Thanks for this post and reminder. - Robyn
wow. from the sidelines I'd like to think I would take advantage of what time i had - make good memories for my children, but then I have to think - why wait to live and make memories until there's no time left. I have the chorus of a song written on my white board in my office to serve as a reminder - "We live, we love, we forgive and never give up. Cuz the days we are given are gifts from above, and today we remember to live and to love."
Took me a few days of thinking on this. I do not think I would do much different than I already do. I try to live my life as full as I can. I try to show everyone I care about affection and devotion. I saw what momo had said and I think I agree with her. I would not want anyone to treat me any different because of a terminal illness and I do think people act differently towards someone they know has a terminal illness. I do not think they do it on purpose like she said, they just do. I would want to meet some of the great people in blogosphere that have inspired me and countless others.
That lady was awesome. God must have needed another superstar for his tri team.
6 months....6 months..... well ive already thru hiked the AT so I would want to hike the CDT and PCT as well, visit antartica, have sex one last time...sorry its been over a year, ride a double century and the die doing what i love doing
Dunno, but I would be seriously tempted to start looking for a new wife for the Dadguy. Not that I think he would go for such a thing, I just would want him to be happy and taken care of... and that's my twisted first-blush idea.
I would make sure and write down everything i could remember while the girls slept, and make more memories with them during the day.
i would be tempted to homeschool Birdie, instead of letting her go off to KindyG, but I doubt that I would.
I had the pleasure of racing alongside Jane at IM Fla a few years back....she beat me too, if I remember right.
Get busy living....or get busy dying.
I know a similar story of woman with a terminal illness, who decided to do everything and travel everywhere before she died, and then continued to live. I envy her because she no longer had fear (I don't think I could ever bungee jump), and she expanded her horizons in ways I probably never will.
I had a near death experience, and it didn't make me "take stock" of my life--instead I found it incredibly peaceful.
I don't know what I'd do, but I think I'd probably spend the rest of my time with my sister, and we'd just be crazy sisters together.
BTW--as soon as we finished the Time Trial, Mr. T said, hey--where is Pirate? We missed you. Do you think you might do the Double Eagles next year? I haven't done so, but might try the series.
BBTW, my blog is a commentary on those nefarious societal influences that make us feel not quite a good as we should--thanks for the feedback!!
The timing of your post, so close to the disappearance of Steve Fossett, is a bit poetic. He certainly doesn't look like an athlete, although many claim he was. But he lived every minute like it counts (yes easy to do when you're a gazillionaire). Money doesn't make you who you are, but if he's dead, he certainly lived fully - more so than several lives put together.
Tomlinson had warning. Fossett didn't. Either way, your challenging question to us, "What are we waiting for?" is so good.
I guess I wouldn't change much. I've had two close-calls. The first is all it took, and even then I was content that I had lived fully and regretted nothing, but I still cranked-up my life.
Like Tomlinson, I'm criticised. My parents and siblings proclaim that I'm a narcisist that's going to hell. My friends say I inspire. I don't guess I listen too closely to either praise or ridicule.
When we push ourselves beyond where we've ever been, we're explorers. We live in these bodies all our lives, and then we still find new territory to explore in how far we can go - what we can do. We rediscover who and what we are; we rediscover what life is and means.
Meaning isn't static or coincidental - it's dynamic and created. We have to make meaning. We do that through living (the verb).
I've certainly got some regrets, but they aren't huge. The only people who don't screw up are people who do nothing. I guess I don't regret my approach, so I wouldn't change a thing.
Another question (devil's advocate):
If you won a gazillion dollars, how would you live? Eh? Does that reconcile with how we would live with a death-sentence? Shouldn't they be nearly identical?
Thank you for posting that. It means alot how we live. To us and those around us.
I am vascillating between traveling eveywhere i would want to go and spending every minute with my family..Going all out partying like it's 1999, smoking, drinking, eating all the chocolate I want or would I do more races, try to be healthier? What a question..
wow. you just kind of blew my mind.
I would hope I had the courage to do what she did. Good for her! What else are you going to do with your time, when you really don't know when your "time" will come? Only God knows that, and to think you have any control over that is crazy. She kept going, because what else could she do?
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