Ya Gotta Believe!
Posted on February 20, 2023
CLICK TO SEE THE PICTURES TAKEN ON THE CRUISE.
Click to see: ITINERARY: ENGLAND, NEW & OLD: NEW YORK-TO-LONDON CRUISE
Click to see: Cruise report 7-2-2023
My wife Jane had stage-3 cervical cancer three years ago.
The cancer was really bad... and the treatment was even worse. Because the disease was so advanced (it also 'took out' one of her kidneys), her doctors decided to do concurrent radiation AND chemo for twelve weeks. In most cases they do radiation followed by chemo... but Jane's cancer was too far advanced for that.
The one-two punch of radiation five days a week and chemo one day a week literally took her life away. She had no energy, felt sick all the time, she lost her sense of taste, and was in constant depression. This lasted for over a year. It was a tough time.
The doctors said it would take two years for Jane to be anywhere close to feeling normal. They said we had to have faith... and we had to 'believe.'
I told Jane that after this was over, when she was ready, we would go anywhere in the world she wanted to go. This gave her a 'goal' to 'work' for.
It was a hard time. Jane went through her therapy and we waited and waited for her to gain strength. There were times when we thought she would never have the energy to get off the couch much less go on a trip. We had many, many moments of great desperation.
Still we kept at the therapy, and even when things didn't look so good, we remembered the old Jewish saying, "I cried because I had no shoes... until I met a man who had no feet."
The therapy worked. She is now cancer-free!
The doctors told her that she had to walk... to fight through the fatigue and to push her body a bit. We walked, we exercised, and we always kept our eye on the prize... that one day, soon, if we believed, this would all be a memory.
As the months and years passed, things got better for Jane... a little at a time, but better. I started putting some money into an account for when "that" day would come. And over time the vacation fund grew.Finally, after so much work, effort, hope, prayer, and just plain old force-of-will, "that" day is almost here. In June we leave on a "Celebration of Life" trip... a 30-day cruise to England by way of the Canadian coast, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Scotland, Ireland, and finally London.
I know that when she walks up the ship's gangway (with her cane that also unfolds into a little seat), there will be a lump in my throat and a tear in my eye. We are on our way after two and a half years of cancer.
It can rain in Iceland or snow in London. I don't care. We have fought this disease, we have struggled against it, and we did not let it beat us. When I told her years ago that "as soon as you are well, we'll go on the cruise of a lifetime" I honestly believed that one day we would, and now we are.
Growing up a few miles outside New York City (in Great Neck) in the 60s, I was a Mets fan. They were an expansion team to take the place of the Giants and Dodgers who had taken the last train to the coast.
The early Mets teams set new records for being terrible, but they kept on going out there game after game, year after year. They did well in 1969 but then sank again into the "black hole" of baseball.
In 1973, they started the season with their usual loss after loss. But then they started winning some games. And they won more games. And they won even more games. I remember the motto of the 1973 Mets: "Ya gotta believe!" They won the pennant and went to the World Series that year. It was a miracle.
Walking arm-in-arm up that gangway will be just as big a miracle to me.
Ya gotta believe!
Ya gotta believe!
Ya gotta believe!
June 23 - July 23, 2023
About the Author
Alan Canton has been a writer and a publisher in addition to his lifetime work as high-tech consultant. He is the author of several books (long out of print) as well as the author of the long-running Saturday Rant blog (also now dormant.)
Alan Canton has spent just over 40 years as a high-tech consultant... have ticked all the buzz-word checkboxes... programmer, analyst, system engineer, systems architect and the latest... full-stack engineer. If it has to do with computer code, he has done it... or at least most of it.
He is the managing partner of NewMedia Create which designs websites for authors, publishers, and small businesses... most often for small biz people who have "no money" but who want a simple but nice site at an reasonable price.
Ham radio is his main hobby. His callsign is K6AAI. You can see his station at his QRZ webpage.
He also runs a QSL card company and has hams from all over the country as customers. See RadioQSL.com. His favorite ham radio quote is:
"I am often asked how radio works. Well, you see, wire telegraphy is like a very long cat. You yank his tail in New York and he meows in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? Now, radio is exactly the same, except that there is no cat."
- Attributed to Albert Einstein