What's The Plan

I looked back at my journal today. I landed on the 8/8/07 entry, the day after I found out I had cancer. "I will NOT let this cancer beat me. I am going to be an advocate in the cure for cancer. Bet on me to be the voice. The voice of a cancer SURVIVOR." That's what I wrote. That was the start of the plan.

Plans are funny things, ya know? You can make all the plans you want, write them up, put them in a power point presentation, tell them to anyone who will listen 'cause damn it we have a plan here we gotta stick to. You have to have a plan to make it real, right? Plans have structure. Focus. Commitment. They are written. Revised. Approved. We make plans to make plans. (This is starting to sound like a George Carlin routine.)

Got plans for the weekend? Have you made plans to get married? What's the plan for me? What's the Master Plan? Did you plan on that happening? Did I plan on one day having cancer? Hell no. There's no planning for that. You don't ever think of that. That happens to other people. Not me.

So much for making plans. Whatever was so important before, just got the life choked of it. All other plans are put aside. Time to make new ones. Time to make the true Master Plan––beat cancer. Beat it into submission. As Cap would say, "kick it's ass."

I remember my family's reaction when I told them I was not ready to die. I am going to beat this. There's a greater purpose for me. I don't know what it is yet, but I know it's out there somewhere and I need time to find it out. I was looking into the eyes of my family, trying to convince them that I'm going to be OK. It's gonna be hard on all of us. But I will not let cancer beat me. This was now a competition. And I hate to lose. Losing was not an option. As Al Davis would say, Just Win, Baby. They weren't buying it––at least that's what their eyes said to me. They believed me, but this is cancer not the league championship at the local Optimist Club. We know too many people, too many family members, who fought. And lost.

This was the biggest news my family had ever had. Bigger than the "we're moving 2800 miles across country" bomb I dropped on them in 1994. Bigger than anything. We needed something just as big. We needed something to get us through this huge life-changing event.

We needed a plan. The one I started on 8/8/07. I plan on seeing it through.