Five Years

Who wants to read about Cancer? 

I ‘m not sure but I felt compelled to start writing some of this down after the five year mark. I could say more but am not sure how deep to go – if there any questions please ask, hopefully I can be of more assistance. Please skip to the sections that interest you, I won’t be offended.

As I write this sentence I just got the absolute clean bill of health an hour ago from my Doctor..so relieved and excited. This weekend I start mentoring for the Pablove Shutterbugs. I'm teaching photography to a teenager who is going through Cancer. I'll never tell him about my experience but I think that I can help my student or I can't wait to try! 

Five Years

It’s been 5 years since I finished treatment for Testicular Cancer. I’m now “cured” which means that I’ve been in 5 consecutive years of remission and there hasn’t been a trace of Cancer in my body for 5 years.

“Five years” is also one of my favorite David Bowie songs.

I’ll be checked annually for safe measure but I can officially call myself a Cancer Survivor, for now. I don’t mean that to sound pessimistic but pragmatic- it’s just my hard won  perspective.

Our cells are in a constant flux. Death, rebirth, multiplication and division.

There is a gentlemen’s agreement between them to make way for one another.

Sometimes rogue or fatigued cells refuse to cooperate with the system and bond together and grow into a zombie like form that feeds on life and multiplies.  

A Tumor.

There are lifestyles can enhance and encourage healthy cell growth. Yoga which brings oxygen into the body and stimulates blood circulation. A diet that is as preservative free as possible also keeps the body metabolizing in an efficient way. Basically you want to optimize your body’s functions as much as possible – but there are no guarantees. The healthiest people discover cancer as well as smokers, etc.

I believe Cancer is within us all and in time it becomes active and it becomes a question of managing it. I live a healthy lifestyle but I’m not under the impression that it will keep Cancer away, it simply feels better and I live in California. You know the rest..

What did I learn?

Prepare for the worst but always expect the best.

 I’ve learned to feed the skeptic and the optimist within. It’s possible to keep both alive and functioning, they argue like siblings and also thrive on one another. Each have been the dominant perspective at times and both are equally misinformed and susceptible to prejudice. For me, optimism offers the most possibilities and is a more fertile state of mind for creative thought. In my case creativity helped me transform suffering and not be wholly defined by it. That said, when awaiting news on a scan or checkup it’s best for to accept the worst possible outcome and think through the scenarios that follow and once it’s clear put it to the side and rest knowing you’ve done your homework if bad news comes.

 Speaking the language of “Suffering” opened my world

 Cancer is a destination. I literally & emotionally traveled to another dimension.

All of the components that made “me” soon became irrelevant.  I couldn’t tap into my Buddhist practice because the sound waves from chanting made me nauseous. Any event that changes my perspective and takes me so far away from normal life that I forget what it’s like is a vacation of sorts. I know the word “vacation” may be a stretch but it is my Cancer and I’ll call whatever I want to and I’m an optimist – see above.

I’ve tasted the ashes from a funeral pyre in India and had a private tour of the Taj Majal at sunset. I filmed a music video with Frank Sinatra and witnessed him freak out on Bono/U2 and call him a “nobody” and in Africa I managed to catch the kick of a baby inside of his Mothers stomach. That’s a few jobs and I’ve had countless over the last 20 years. The sum total of my travel and work have informed and molded me miles and wisdom gained are symbolized by a stamp in the back of my passports. Cancer is also a destination.  

Chemo turned me into an Alien and most people couldn’t relate. My skin paled and I lost all of my hair. You know the story. I call it getting  “dirty” because there are sufferings that you don’t want to endure in this life. The premature death of a loved one, extreme violence, a tragic accident or illness. I was now in that place where no one wanted to be. A new member of the Suffer Club. Not that people were shooting at me but facing your mortality sucks….at first.  But, once you’re “dirty” the veil drops and you can relate to anybody that’s dirty, being accepted by the living is another matter.

Certain animals separate themselves from a weak or ailing one within the herd and people can be the same. I was a person marked by suffering in a physical sense and that created a separation in any place that I was. I had a friend recoil from my touch because of their fear of contagion (it took a long time to forgive that one and I’m not sure that I fully have). When you’re in treatment you see concerned faces, forced smiles, private conversations about you, all the while this drug is curing and poisoning you drip by drip. It reversed my senses which navigate the world. I couldn’t eat salad, drink water, play guitar, talk, listen to music, have sex. Any of the pleasure that defined my happiness before were meaningless.

Simply put – when you live for a period of time free from your usual attractions it changes you by re-evaluating what it is you really need to be happy. Which also gives you a break from all that you crave and suffer – it opens your mind and broadens your perspective – like a trip to Cambodia.

As a Cinematographer I “see” for a living – Any thing that can enlarge and deepen my perspective is a plus, a benefit, like a trip to Turkey.

That’s why I wish my passport was stamped  - although that would be superficial and not important because the most important lessons are the ones that’s we carry within.

CAREER

I have suffered the slow times and rejoiced in the busy ones as freelance Cinematographer. To some I’ve made it and established myself and to me there are still people that are further ahead of me and I feel cheated. My entire adult life has been seen through the prism of how well or badly my career is going. Kind of limited huh? For someone who lends perspective and point of view I had such a limited one for my own life.

I found out that my Cancer had spread. I was stage 2, there was a 9mm “golf ball” size tumor on my lymph node. 3 months of Chemo was the “silver bullet” treatment, the same as Lance Armstrong.

(I considered other options and simply put my family wouldn’t have been behind it, being a Dad, husband and son is a great responsibility and I found it best to go with the conventional wisdom, much to the chagrin of the non-traditional healers that were around me)

I had to put a lot of things into perspective quickly. The survival rate is 95% if caught early. Those are good numbers but I was forced to look at the inverse – The chances of having Testicular Cancer is 1 in 300 or .03 percent.

I couldn’t deny the fact that I was in the minority in having Cancer – Why then should I assume that I was in the majority when it came to survival?

Why would the numbers suddenly be in my favor?

In my heart of hearts and deep within my bones I knew that I was going to survive. I was so sure of this fact like when I saw my girlfriend Amanda walking across a field after we had been dating for a few months I knew that I wanted her in my life forever and she still is but as my wife. I knew the moment my kids were conceived and I knew that I wasn’t done in this life and there was more to contribute and share.

 I lived for 6 weeks not knowing if I would survive – That kind of pressure creates clarity. What’s important stays in focus and the bull shit falls to the side. However my Ego measures life’s accomplishments is complete bullshit. Anything that satisfies my Ego doesn’t stick or last, like curing hunger with a tootsie roll.

After viewing life (20 years) through the narrow prism of work and career I resolved it in 15 minutes of reconciling.

A-   I’m not where I want to be but I tried my hardest and am further along than when I started. “A man’s reach should far exceed his grasp.”

B-   I did it with integrity and tried to be nice along the way.

C-    I had shot a great film, (Stephanie Daley) The kind of film that sticks to you like a scent and filters your experience in the world for a few days.

(all I ever want  is to shoot something that’s transcendent and helps someone escape and return with new perspective)

That was it. Summed up and ready to move on. I was ready to set it aside on a shelf and focus on my treatment by being as open as possible. On a more practical note I had taken out life insurance a couple of years earlier and there was enough to set up my family and educate my Two kids through college. That’s not to say that all a father is what he can provide but that fact gave me peace – again taking pressures off of the treatment phase and allowing me to focus on being “the best patient possible”

FAMILY

I had missed a few vacations and trips here and there just to make a few extra dollars. My treatment was during the crash of 2008 and I saw it unfold from a La-Z-Boy recliner while mainlining various cocktails of steroids and chemo. What a great perspective! Money just seemed abstract and meaningless, I had missed part of my kids growing up and that money I made was invisible, useless. It was either in a bank earning nothing or lost if I had invested it. What was truly lost was the time with my kids – not that I was an absent Dad, I certainly had time off and had a close bond with them but I was greedy for the time that was missed. I would NEVER miss out on any Family time for the sole purpose of profit again – You can’t always be so cut and dry but that became a new guiding principal, which I honestly struggle with today, 5 years later.

During treatment I disappeared, my opacity diminished, the nausea and pain rendered me ineffective, at it’s worst I was 5% of my capacity in terms of vibrancy and energy. The kids would walk past me and not even take notice, like I was a pillow on a couch. It was their survival mechanism. I understand how elderly people feel now, you enjoy basking in the company of others but have nothing to offer – Once my treatment was done my daughter who was 11 was like a stranger to me, I remember having to reacquaint my self with her and restart the relationship.

I’m not a content person by nature; too much time at home makes me crazy. It’s important to rest and reflect but a Cinematographer is like a wild beast in a way.

We crave new experiences, adventure, meeting new people and the challenge of finding beauty in every place you may travel. I like looking through a lens and the pressures that come with that. I have to honor that and that means that I travel, I have to leave for long periods of time. It’s the way my cloth is cut – I hope my family understands that.

My Mom My Mom My Mom. Any single adjective would be a cliché and I’ll wait for Mother’s Day to do that.. She’s attentive without being suffocating, present without being invasive. loving without being needy. She’s my sun and I’m her shadow, that’s how connected we are. She came out from North Carolina and stayed with us for the duration of the treatment. By side everyday in Chemo, a watchful companion keeping tabs on the nurses and my doses without being abrasive. I certainly learned from her. I could write this entire blog about my Mom but some things are left best between two people. I will say that I owe my kids in their adult lives the same loving attentiveness that my mom gave to me. Being under the care of my mother at 42 and actually letting it happen was just a silver lining to this “vacation” as I like to call it.

FEAR

Hard cut to examination Room – I’m lying backside on exam table, a first class seat of sorts – a cool, unflavored gel covers my family jewels, a first!

The same machine that transmitted the first images of my children in vitro. Fuzzy Black & White digital etchings, like a transmission from a distant moon now showed the ravaged home of my children’s origin.

“I see something troubling, your testicle has metastasized into a tumor, you have to have it removed. Get dressed and meet me in my office”

Hard Cut to black

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..FUCK!!!!!!

After this news from my Doctor I was flushed…a cocoon of……I’ve never had the Bends everything I’d read about it seemed to be happening to me.

I thought of Woody Allen and his cancer scare scene, I’m serious.

“A Tumah”

Technology is indiscriminate I no longer had a “ball” or testicle It was now something to be removed.

Oy

I VIVIDLY remember getting dressed, feeling emasculated and over whelmed I looked out of the 6^th story window at the street below, there was a woman walking her dog. Sniffing the grass and curb I wanted nothing more than to be that dog. Not a worry in the world and something other than me in that moment.

As I buttoned and zipped I had a crystal clear thougt.

 As soon as I step out of this door I will be a “Cancer patient” in everyone’s eyes. “YOU BETTER KEEP YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR” was the only thought I had, That marching order enabled me to open the door into a new existence and greet it with grace and perspective.

That said – 5 years later I joke about death, Cancer, fractured masculinity, the perfect symmetry of one testicle, 1/2 tranny, 1/3 Enuch and other dark musings that make my loved ones cringe. I can’t help it. It’s fucking funny.

Humor is fears most powerful anecdote. I think if you loose your humor you loose hope and we all know when that’s lost it’s all over. Even today when I’m on a set and we’re way behind and the pressure is closing in I find t what’s funny in a moment always brings me back to my calm place. A place of absolute relative confidence and clarity.

Attitudes

You can tell a lot about a person by watching them in treatment. I was in large room with 30 chairs only separated by a curtain, I spent about 100 hours there and I got to know a lot of people. A lot of women in particular, it was a party of ovarian, Breast, eye and jaw cancer, there were cancers I’d never heard of.

I honestly felt lucky in that mine was a 3-4 month ordeal and some I met had been in treatment for 2-3 years. I don’t know how people survive that; even Cancer patients measure their degrees of suffering.

The people who were happiest were the ones that fully accepted their lot in life and took each step with grace. The ones who didn’t fare as well always had a grimace and a surly nature. They would yell and create drama with the nursing staff, basically a cloud of misery sat on them like a bank of fog.

How we live is how we die.

I went in one morning pissed off, after a fight with my wife. It took the nurse 45 minutes to find a vein that would accept the needle for the IV/Chemo drip. That had never happened before, I realized what the internal effect of tension is, it constricts blood flow and literally closed my body up like a clam. I started breathing and letting go my anger in that moment and then the needle found it’s home.

5 years later – I still practice that, I try my best to not carry Anger, resentment or stress. Many wise one’s have spoken to this and that must be because it’s true. Maya Angelou said it best for me – “Anger and resentment do noting to change the situation or person you’re angry with, it only poisons you.

IT’S NOT WEED, IT’S MEDICAL MARIJUANA

There’s not one easy day in this process, even for an optimist.

Maybe in the morning when you awake, the fist 15 seconds is bliss and then your brain starts chattering.

I took my son to a soccer game one Saturday before the treatment started and the word was out, droves of well meaning parents and friends would invade my space molest me with caring eyes. I honestly hate that attention and it seemed like a good time to get high. One friend was talking to me and asking questions and all I could notice was her nice gums, so clean and perfectly pink. There are jewels all around and all we have to do is look and let them inspire. I figured that my body and the drugs would do all of the work; there was no pint in over-thinking it. Just stay open and willing.

Getting high (medicating) makes a day of treatment or recovery exciting. I was bound to have an insight or question or spark that would lift me out and beyond my current conditions.

There was a sign on the restroom wall at Tower.

“Chemo patients please flush twice”

I followed directions but when I got home I refused to because it seemed like such a waste of water. After a little research online I found out that flushing twice was a mandate created 40 years ago in England when porcelain was more porous and harder to clean. I presented these findings to my nurse and her superior and after a few hours they pulled the signs down! That saved so much water for LA. It removed some of my guilt for creating so much waste.

The nausea is crippling and all consuming. Worse than sea sickness, I’m not sure about birth but I doubt it, that has to be the most heroic and selfless gesture that we humans make.

But, the anti-nausea medication has side effects and the trade off isn't worth it. MM neutralized 80% of my nausea and had no side effects, except for forgetting what I was thinking 5 seconds earlier. Which is not a bad thing because whatever I thought was constantly new and interesting.

 It also gave a much needed attitude adjustment. Being medicated for 5 hours invites creative thought, the possibility for something to happen, it elevated me beyond the chair and the poison dripping in my arm.

Thankfully the attitudes for Marijuana are changing. I’m an advocate and can honestly say that it’s a healing plant and it’s medicinal powers are undeniable.  Especially now there are new strains that are low in THC and high in CBD’s which makes it ideal for kids in that they receive the benefits without getting “stoned.”

So, there is more to write and I will when it needs to escape.
Seriously, if any of you have or know someone going through this please feel free to reach out.
davidrmorr@gmail.com