"And the Oscar goes to......"

NOTE: As I have mentioned before, cancer is not like any other disease. It's nature is crafty, it's nature is deceptive, it's nature is subversive, and as such 'once-a-cancer-patient-always-a-cancer-patient' is about as accurate a description as is possible for those of us hit with this disease. Without boring you with all the statistics, it is a well known fact that the majority of patients who 'beat' cancer once, will eventually be killed by some other form of cancer - or cancer related complication - at some time in the future. Sadly, there is pretty much no getting around this fact. Hell, we are all mortal anyhow, why we think that every one on the planet should be able to live to 100 is beyond me anyhow. Now, I am not rushing the end, by any means, but it seems to me our concentration on extending life to the last possible breath - while disregarding quality of life along the way - is not only costly economically, but draining emotionally and psychologically to those around us (patients) as they wait around for us to 'finally' kick.

So, how do 'we' do it? How do we, faced with some form of poor diagnosis, go on, day after day, knowing that our 'some-day' is probably closer than we think, and how do we live our lives in such a way that we don' create an atmosphere of pity that drags down our friends and family as we 'do our best', 'figh the good fight', 'keep on trucking', 'keep our chins up' etc, etc, yadda, yadda, yadda.

We do it by acting. With a son in college studying the 'Theartre Arts', I often times am tempted to call him and say, "Hey, you want to do a 'character-study' or 'research a role'... come on home and I will put you in touch with some of the best actors in the world (I humbly put myself in this category!)... Patients with terminal illnesses (whether terminal means next month, next year or 10 years from now) should all get awards, Oscars, I tell ya, for their ability of mask and unmask feelings, emotions, concerns, happiness, sadness, joy, confusion, hope, fear and other emotions that we as a group go through on a minute by minute, day by day basis.

I am sure there is a psychological term for it somewhere out there - this masking  process - that people use to either express or hide what is really going on. I also remember a photography project that one of my professors did years ago in college where he created self-portraits of himself with various expressions and the displayed them in a huge grid... I might just try something like that as a visual parallel to this blog post.

In the Theatre world, where the changing of masks is relatively easy - unless the mask is adhered to the actors actual face - the actor goes off stage, puts one down, grabs the next, reappears on stage, alters his demeanor to fit the mask and away he goes... and if he does a good enough job the audience enjoys the show and he is applauded for his efforts...

In the world of the cancer patient, things ain't quite so easy. We display many faces which may or may not reveal what is going on inside the 'actor'. We start with the mask of 'symptoms', move on to the mask of the 'diagnosis', then on to the mask of the 'informer'. Take a deep breath, maintaining and controlling the emotions that go with these masks is very difficult.

Next come the masks of 'treatment', 'surgery', 'recovery', 'more treatment' and then 'relief', when treatment is done. These are the EASY ones! All along the way, there are other important masks we must wear those of support and optomisim; included in this group are the masks for spouses, our kids, relatives, co-workers, friends and the general public. As if this was not tough enough we must HIDE all the negative masks, they must be kept in a trunk, locked away in our own personal mental-prop-rooms.

Unlike a Shakespearean tragedy, we as patients are not allowed to bring out the ones no one wants to see... Believe me they are in there... as well crafted as the positive ones we are expected to display. Masks of fear, doubt, sadness, insecurity, death, pain, unhappiness, concern, self-pity, worry, loneliness, loss, sickness, anger etc. No, THESE masks are the ones that must remain hidden. For me I wear them at  home when no one else is around - or awake - late at night, early in the morning, in the first few hours of the day when people have left for work and school. When the house is quiet, and I am faced with only my thoughts, my fears, and my masks... Sometimes I wander around aimlessly, touching things, reading things moving things around, anything that might trigger a 'mask-change' to something more positive. It doesn't always work.

I get asked all the time - because people can read 'something' in my face - some mask or other - "What's wrong?" or "What's the matter?" ---- and in that instance, I have to decide which mask to grab, the fake one that hides what is really going on, or the real one that reveals the truth? This is the dilemma that make me think that somewhere down the line, someone owes us an Oscar for day to day acting performances by those trying just to hang on to survive one more day, while not bringing down the audience with too much 'reality'.