I haven’t posted in this blog since 2018. After that post, I started thinking more about living than dying. That led to cycling across the US and posting in my cycling blog instead of this one. More recently, I stopped posting here when I was looking for work, in case employers (or any member of a hiring committee) would hesitate in hiring someone with advanced cancer. I’ve now been working for 8 months and just saw an article that I had to write about.

It’s written by an MD who also has stage 4 cancer, but I’m sad to say that his is much worse than mine.

When Cancer And Coronavirus Collide: Fear And Resilience
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/22/818863524/when-cancer-and-coronavirus-collide-fear-and-resilience?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news

It wouldn’t bother me at all if you didn’t read the article. It starts sad, and all of us have a tougher time with sadness right now, after living with the virus for just a couple of weeks. I’ll briefly mention one part of his article.

Many people with stage 4 cancer have chemo, and chemo weakens their immune system. One of the worst parts of cancer is fear, and now, people getting chemo are getting hit hard from two sides—the fear of advanced cancer and the fear of a weak immune system with a widespread virus and no cure. And of course, they also have the side effects of chemo. On a good day, they can worry about little things like having enough groceries or not being able to go out to eat.

I hope that writing this hasn’t made you more sad. That wasn’t my intent. To be honest, I’m not really sure what my intent was, in writing in this blog again. I think one reason is to ask everyone to keep helping others—make a phone call to anyone having a tough time, send an email, maybe give some groceries to a food shelf or someone who needs it.

For me, anybody gets bonus points if they talk with friends who are buying too much, which makes it harder for others. Bonus points also go to calming down friends who are spreading fear, let’s kindly talk them off the cliff. And if that doesn’t work, tell them to shut-up. To borrow a phrase, “Let’s have more faith than fear.” That could be religious faith, faith in the good people we all know, or faith in the simple yet important Golden Rule.

A lot of you have read my book about Mike. Two quotes at the start are more appropriate than ever.

• For sudden, the worst brings the best to the brave.
• When you’re going through hell, keep going.

I’ll end with how this blog post started, about people getting chemo. I feel so sad for them since I came very close to getting chemo. I wasn’t facing this virus, but I still felt very scared. And now, I feel lucky, even though that feels selfish since others are not as lucky.

My cancer will probably catch up to me someday, but the new treatment I’m on has let me live years longer, hopefully many years. That’s forced me to figure out what matters most in my life. Keeping in touch with all of you and other people I love is most important. After that, I must use whatever skills I’ve picked up to help people.

One of my skills is cycling, so I encourage people to get on their bike and enjoy the outdoors. I teach classes about bike touring and lead bike rides. Something else I have to do is write. With my books, I try to entertain people and show what it’s like to get through tough times, like my book about Mike. I try to do the same with my long blog posts. Thanks for reading, love you, and please, try to help somebody today.

I used to keep quiet about my cancer since my job could be at risk. I’ve learned to trust the people at my work, but more important, I want to help. If you think this blog post will nudge others toward help more, please click one of the share buttons below.