Livestrong

February 2005, my stepfather Jack was diagnosed with lung cancer. It had already reached stage 4 when they discovered it, and it began to move into his bones and liver. The prognosis was not good, and after a ton of initial tests and procedures, he was to begin a course of chemotherapy.

I visited him just before his first chemo treatment and gave him the LIVESTRONG yellow wristband I had been wearing for two years straight.

Although I hadn't had a struggle with cancer, my particular disease was hyperthyroidism. I had gone from over 200 pounds to about 165 in very little time, was very weak and very crazy for the better part of a year, until I got radioactive iodine treatment, which knocked my thyroid into a below normal state (hypothyroidism), but one which is much more easily treatable with meds.

My road back to health was on a bicycle.

Lance Armstrong's story, and my love of cycling, were pure, unadulterated inspiration for me, and I can quite truthfully and without irony say that I don't think I could have made it without that inspiration. The next year, I put over 1000 miles on my bike, sweating and straining around the block, then around the neighborhood, then (eventually) around the countryside. Slowly I put on weight, gaining health along with fitness. And all along those many miles, that yellow wristband with its simple message was constantly there.

I gave Jack my wristband that day, along with one of the Armstrong bios I happened to have. It meant a lot to me to give it to him. He told me it meant a lot to him to get it.

Jack endured his chemo better than expected over the weeks to come, and in fact got to the point a couple of months ago that he stopped the treatments temporarily, so good were the results. They planned on letting him regain his strength before conducting more tests to see what needed doing next.

Unfortunately, things turned for the worse.

I got a voicemail from his wife, Donna, on a Monday -- yesterday, in fact, as I write this. His health had deteriorated rapidly, and this past Friday he was officially put into hospice, at his home. Basically, hospice means that there is little or nothing they can do for him except to make him more comfortable. The disease he had fought so strongly over the summer had returned with a vengeance. Donna said I should visit as soon as possible, as there was no telling what might happen when.

I almost postponed seeing him till tonight, Tuesday, but decided to go ahead and go over that same night, Monday.

It was so very hard seeing him.

We talked for a short time -- he was pretty exhausted, but we were able to have some heartfelt, heart-wrenching moments. I told him that I loved him, and he told me the same. He was beginning to drift in and out of sleep, from the strain of the day, from the visits, from his painkillers. I told him I would stop by the next evening as well to visit, in order to let him rest.

He was still wearing the yellow wristband. Live Strong, it says. I have a new one that I wear now. I stared across at the one he wore before I left him to sleep.

I called this afternoon, to find out if I could bring anything for them on my way over, to see what would be a good time to stop in. When someone else answered the phone, not Donna, I knew something had happened.

And it had.

Jack passed away today, Tuesday, a few minutes after noon.

Donna came on the phone to give me the news, and we talked quietly and sadly for a little while. She told me how much the wristband had meant to Jack, how he had always talked about it with everyone he met. She was wearing it now, and offered to get it back to me, but I told her she should keep it. I am so very grateful that he was able to find such peace and happiness these past few years with her, that he had such love surrounding him.

When I first gave Jack my old wristband, it felt so strange not to have anything on that wrist. I was in effect always reminded of Jack and his struggle by the band's absence. Eventually, I did get another one to replace it, but not immediately.

Today, my heart is so very heavy -- this grief is raw like a newly opened wound.

And yet I feel a measure of relief that Jack is no longer suffering, no longer in pain. No longer struggling for breath.

In the next day or so, I will head out of the driveway on my bike, on my way to an open road or a steep hill. And that wristband will go with me, reminding me every moment of the message: live strong.

You can find out more at livestrong.org.