Dancing with NED

I have danced this happy dance before but that doesn’t make it any less exhilarating. It’s that heady feeling you get when the tests are done and the word comes back—No Evidence of Disease (NED). Then you can let out the breath you didn’t even know you were holding and inhale the elixir that is life.

After the first hours or so of gratitude and elation, I tend to resume my usual worrying ways. What am I supposed to do that is so important that I have been spared to live longer than I expected?

Today was my follow up mammogram. It has been almost two years since I discovered the lump that started my most recent bout with cancer. I realize just how often I have taken it for granted that my mammograms would be just one of those routine precautions that responsible women take. “Make Time for the Girls” and all that. Yet, even with a previous diagnosis of cancer, a new one still came as a shock. I was braced for a recurrence--not a brand new cancer. Once I got past my unreasonable expectations that I couldn’t get a different cancer, it all fell into a familiar regimen of surgery and treatments. I got into patient mode, stepped onto the treadmill and followed all the standard protocols. It worked for me in the past and so I did all that was recommended and hoped for the best possible outcome—NED.

Now, here I am, two years out and dancing with NED again.

It’s a very good feeling but it makes me wonder if I am supposed to do something in exchange for the blessing of finding myself once again cancer free. What do we owe the universe for the blessings we enjoy? Does God expect repayment of some kind or other? In my particular denomination, we believe in Grace, not works. So does it follow that if we can’t “earn” our way into heaven, we can’t repay the generous gifts we receive by doing earthly penance in the form or charitable deeds or kind acts? If that's so, what’s the point of doing good in the world? Is it enough to do good things just for the sake of doing them? Or maybe just for the internal satisfaction of being a good person? Or at least as good a person as you are able to be? I have wrestled with this question before and my conclusion has been that we should strive to be the best person we can be if only because we have to look at ourselves in the mirror and face ourselves in our dreams.

My idea of hell, if there is such a place or thing, would be to have to endlessly see all the mistakes and careless words and actions we have inflicted on others and feel what they felt. I imagine it as a grainy sort of bad U-Tube production that plays on an endless loop inside my eyeballs. That all by itself is enough to keep me in line most of the time.

But just NOT doing bad things is not at all the same as doing good things. It is merely protection from my private version of hell. What if by doing good things you can create your own version of heaven? What if you get to see the fruits of your good actions and know that you made a difference? Some people say that at the time of your death, your life flashes before you. It seems to have been said enough times to make me think there must be some small grain of truth in the idea.

I have also read that in the moments before death, the brain releases a huge load of endorphins that eliminate pain and create a feeling of euphoria. It is this effect that accounts for the many near death stories of seeing loved ones, experiencing comfort, warmth and other positive sensations. It may also be responsible for the perception that one’s life flashes before them. If this does happen, wouldn’t it be wonderful if that life was filled with good memories and satisfying accomplishments? There is almost nothing we can do about the bad memories or failings in our life so far. We can use the AA model and make amends where possible but while that might ease our conscience it wouldn’t change the fact that we have those bad memories.

Maybe if we layer enough good memories over the bad ones, it might work as a sort of “majority rule” experience and overwhelm the negative memories and experiences. Unfortunately, I know that doesn’t work and I have the bad dreams to prove it. So what can we do? What should we do? And does any of it matter anyway?

Here is where I have to fall back on a conclusion I have reached in the past. I would rather live as if there was a heaven and be wrong than to live as if there was nothing after this life and be wrong about that. Even if there is no great end of life accounting or heavenly reward for good behavior, we still have to account to ourselves and knowing the torture I can inflict on myself for even small transgressions, I think I would prefer to err on the side of good. It seems like a good way to live—to try doing more good and less harm. I really can’t see the down side--unless it’s my own overactive guilt-o-meter. I probably feel guilty about the wrong things anyway and hope those final moments will unravel all my misconceptions and set me straight. I do hope I get to see the people I love again, even if it is an endorphin induced illusion. And I hope all my amends are accepted whether I have spoken them aloud or not.

So I will be happy to dance with NED again and allow myself to feel the need to pay back a little to a universe that has been kind to me yet again.

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