Everything has a Price
Every choice we make has a price, from the softest simplest decision to actions of incredible magnitude. In my cancer journey the prices were inflated, no matter what we do, we will feel a great amount of agony. Although we can’t escape the anguish, we can influence how much pain we are willing to pay to live. If you have never faced the big decisions of life and death, treatment, or no treatment these concepts are truly impossible to understand. You may be able to fantasize about what you would or wouldn’t do, but that’s all they are, fantasies. I hope you never have to face the cold air of cancer to discover what you would do.
Let’s dial it back a notch and imagine a simpler, easier place. Imagine laying on your comfortable bed, as you stretch and sprawl out you hear a soft pop. Now there is some slack in the fitted sheet beneath you because it has come loose from the corner. You lay there for a moment, you could get up and remake the bed and sure it might make the experience more comfortable, but you are going to lose the comfort you currently have. If it is a chilly morning you are guaranteed to experience the cold air outside your comfortable cocoon. In a lot of ways this is how cancer is, it sucks that the bed is slowly unraveling, however if you try and fix it, you are guaranteed to lose something you currently have.
I love the warmth of my bed in the morning, feeling those soft, clean linens around my body feels fantastic. Poking my foot into the cold air, then slowly sliding it under the warm blanket is such a magical sensation. This comparison reminds me of the first day I started coughing up blood. I was nestled in my bed, comfortably relaxing within my blanket burrito. The comfort slowly slipped away as I started coughing and hacking. Though I knew something bad was happening, I dreaded to see exactly what. My reluctance to reach into the cold air outside my cocoon has paralleled many terrifying moments of my cancer journey. There is peace not knowing, but it comes with a price. Eventually a time comes when we are forced to face our misfortune and taste its terrible consequences.
When the time comes for you to consider moving from your perfect pocket of warmth, ask yourself a few questions. What is the goal, what will you gain from this, what will it cost, and will it be worth the sacrifice? In the journey of life we all have a price to pay, that price isn’t in money, it is in pain. How much pain are you willing to pay to live?
When we get up to fix the sheets it comes with a fair amount of discomfort. We must give some to get some. With cancer it is much harsher, you must give a lot to maybe get a lot. It is a gamble, the bed you make might not be the one you want to sleep in. Whatever you decide it is your choice, no one else can or should make it for you. When everything is said and done, you suffer with the consequences of your action or inaction. Whichever decision you make it comes with a hefty price, and when it comes to cancer there are no small prices to pay.
