WHAT TERMINAL CANCER HAS TAUGHT ME… SO FAR…

 by Pierre Filion   pierrefilion@bell.net

 

Yes, I was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer three years ago. Terminal is the same word in French so I clearly knew what it meant. Today I feel I need to talk about it in relation to the game of lacrosse; as there is a link!

 

PLAYING AGAINST THE LEAGUE’S BEST TEAM BY FAR

 

I received a terminal cancer verdict with 12 weeks left to live. ‘’You won‘t make it to 12 weeks; make sure your will is written; look at giving some stuff to friends and family and make sure you say goodbye to everyone you loved’’.

That’s exactly how it was presented to me by an oncologist who clearly lacked empathy. In symbolic terms I was going to play against the league’s best team; the obvious league champion. The one who never loses. I didn’t stand a chance. I was doomed.As are so many lacrosse teams when they prepare to face the league’s obvious champion. Their sticks are heavier.

When my wife and I walked out of the oncologist office we somehow decided that this was not going to happen to us, that we would defy science and win against this invisible foe.

Coaches who prepare their teams before playing against the ‘’obvious league champion’ ’ask their players to give intense short shifts concentrating on defense and then to run to the bench trusting that the other unit of five would also play intense defense on short shifts. Everyone would be trusting each other to play the best intense defense possible on short shifts.

That was my challenge; intense short shift defense. Trusting that we would win; not necessarily by a big score but just simply win the game. It would be a combination of an attitude and of an intent. I did not want to die. I wanted to play more games. Period.

But chemotherapy treatments were to be 18 weeks long and of 8 hours a day six times. Not quite short shifts. An 8-hour day is a long day, plugged here and there and sitting still while receiving the poison to kill the invisible foe. I had to break up 8 hours in 8 one-hour shifts; still one hour is a long shift! Reading one hour; sudoku for an hour; lunch one hour; siesta for one hour; rehashing positive souvenirs of lacrosse related events; preparing an article for THINK LACROSSE; you get the point. It required discipline and imagination. All things that take the mind away from the threat posed by the invisible foe.

The days in between treatments were also divided in short periods of time and in limited investments until I realized that my body was getting tired and that the energy required was not sufficient to face the battle.

 

 

 

‘’YOU’RE EITHER ON THE FLOOR OR IN THE HOSPITAL’’ (Jim Bishop)

 

Yea, that was Bishop’s style and his unique demands. If you’re hurt you’re in the hospital; if not you’re on the floor.  ‘’If your hurt stay away from the team as an injured player is bad luck and could create negativity within the team.’’

I needed to withdraw from circulation; my energy was definitely not overflowing and the invisible foe was there to be beaten, but I needed more energy to fight the foe. My goalie stick was heavy. Everything was a mountain.

Withdrawing (and symbolically going to the hospital) required trust that my wife and partners would and could cope with all that I would not be able to do. Withdrawing from the team affects one’s mind and creates doubts about one’s ability to defend, to fight back, to attack and obviously to win!

A symbolic presence in the hospital (which was, in fact, being in bed 16 to 18 hours a day) required, as mentioned, trust in your teammates and in their ability to get the job done. Trust is a large part of sport as everyone cannot always be trusted and often trusted ones don’t live up to the expectations placed upon them.But sometimes the trusted ones sparkle and perform beyond the call of duty mostly because they were trusted and did the job. This happens in life and in lacrosse.

So, I withdrew from the crowd around me and accepted the fact that I was not with the team (!) but learned to develop trust; and I began trusting others; it made me feel good. It probably made them feel good also.

 

BUT, SOMEHOW YOU SHOULD STICK WITH THE TEAM

 

I created a support group for myself; a group of friends I would send emails to and from whom I would receive comments or encouragements. 

Receiving emails from friends is a unique form of encouragement which creates an opportunity to remember the good times spent with those who write; an opportunity to fill miserable days with the souvenirs of successes and positive endeavors with them. A support group is a lacrosse team in itself. An encouraging team always remembering past successes and, obviously, creating the needed enthusiasm for one to succeed against the invisible foe.

‘’Remember the beer we had in Czechoslovakia after the first ever lacrosse clinic in Prague in 1987’’. ‘’Remember the passionate Belgian physed teachers after a two-hour lacrosse session’’. ‘’Remember the lecture at the French annual session of teachers involved in new sports for all’’. ‘’Remember the German teachers asking questions in German’’. ‘’Remember Lithuania’s Ceslovas Garbalioskas who, at a seminar in Hungary, was constantly saying ‘’Lacrosse fantastic’’. And so on. The souvenir of past successes and the longing for those memories were there to create the conditions for an attitude conducive to winning. Because that’s what a fight is all about; winning.

 

AND LISTEN TO THE LEADER

 

One day John Davis called.

I had seen John Davis play with the Montréal Québecois in 1974 and 1975. God, he was good! Maybe even he was God on the Forum floor. Later he managed the Montréal Junior lacrosse team and was a driving force behind that team’s success. I got to know him as a passionate administrator and a great lacrosse promotor.

And one day in 2023 he called. 2023 is a long way away from 1975 …48 years to be exact; yet he called!

And I listened. As one should always listen when legends talk. Shut up, listen and learn.

His message was simple but so clear. Never give up even if you seem behind on the scoreboard. Because the game is not over and because you must win because you deserve to win. And because you are a fighter. That goes well for players who have tools and time. 

I wondered what tools I had to fight the foe. And I realized that the only tool available to me was my attitude and my will to win.

I had no control over the chemo or radiotherapy treatments; but I had control over my attitude towards life and my will to live; to see things positively instead of complaining and feeling down on myself.

How often did you see teammates, on the bench, when your lacrosse team was trailing who simply had given up? Their body language spoke volume. That was not to be my attitude. 

Was the glass half full or was it half empty? My answer was to simply fill it up. It would be full and that would solve the matter. Same attitude towards cancer. Was I going to win or was I going to lose? Fill my glass with optimism, which I need say, is not an easy task when the foe is presented as a killer! But attitude and a good mental stability are important tools available to everyone fighting cancer. It’s a tool for goaltenders also.

I wonder how John Davis was in the dressing room!

 

MAKE THE SAVE

 

Chemotherapy was a success; I now needed to face radiotherapy. Five one-hour life-saving treatments. I was presented with the risks; it could backfire and ‘’I would not play the game any more’’ or we could be successful but I would live with significant and embarrassing secondary effects. It was my call.

I wanted to have the opportunity to make saves a few more times; I wanted to live, obviously. We didn’t travel all this way to quit and fade away. Go for it doctor. Let the magic carry us all.

In my mind it was this great player coming in on net, all alone. I wanted to make the save to ‘’keep the team in the game’’; I wanted to make the big save. I never thought he was going to score. I trusted myself. I’m going to make the save. And I did.

 

AND THE BUZZER RANG

 

‘’Pierre, we burnt it all. There are no traces of cancer as of today; it’s all gone’’. That was from the radio oncologist who saved my life with a strong radiotherapy treatment. Disbelief, obviously. Just like the disbelief that runs through a team when it beats the future league champion and wins the game. Sure, by a short margin but who cares, a win is a win. And I had made the save.

And tears, obviously, because THAT was not supposed to happen. In such occasions, in sports, players congratulate each other; they know who scored the important goal; they gather around the goalie because he was overworked and performed miracles; they hug the coach because he might have had something to do with the win. 

A cancer survivor hugs and kisses but can’t really explain what has happened. ‘’It’s gone; the doctor said it was gone’’. But will it come back? It has the potential to come back and then worries shape up, creep up and part of the fun of winning is taken away. Because we are going to play that team again and they won’t have forgotten their defeat. So might cancer. It might already be prowling here and there. Smelling revenge!

 

BUT TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY

 

The game goes on; you’re somehow back in the lineup but you don’t play as often as you did before. And you know why; you just don’t know how long you’ll be in the lineup as some have seen a certain lack of strength, a certain lack of speed and slower reflexes. Some cover for you; some show case your weaknesses; some don’t care.

And then you’re not in the lineup any more. You’re not even a healthy scratch. You’re just not there. You’re not with the team any more. It’s the loneliness of the surviving old athlete; the heavy weight of unbearable absence; the agony of personal defeat. It’s not that cancer has won; it’s that you can’t run as fast as you did before; and you know it. It’s about learning that you are older and vulnerable. And somehow, useless. And alone.

You want to remain ‘’within the game’’, in another function, in another position. Gone are the days with the guys. You now play solo. No, you don’t play solo, you play with the fear that ‘’it’’ might return one day and just destroy you.

And that fear remains; it’s there, every day, and it colors your perspective on time, distance, efforts and relationships. Your former teammates are not there anymore as, in their mind, the fight has been won. The members of the ‘’support group’’ are busy doing something else; they worry not about your fears and hesitations. They live their lives fully and they expect you to do the same.

But you don’t. At least I don’t. Constant fear has become my lonely partner.

The phone rings, it might be bad news.

I might not make the save!