From the Bench
GETTING PERSONAL ...D-DAY, JUNE 6
Fifty-nine years ago today, June 6, 1944, the largest amphibious invasion in history took place on the beaches of Normandy, in northern France. Ironically, a personal D-Day begins for us this morning at 9AM.
I call it "The Big C War", chemotherapy vs. cancer. Our body, the battlefield, like most, is an innocent bystander that just happened to get in the way, and would just as soon not have.
In Normandy, the combatants were the Germans, better known to us as the "Axis", vs. the Americans and British, the "Allies."
In this current war, the enemy is one of the hundreds of kinds of cancer…this one called intermediate type lymphoma. It is the second attack in the past six years. A lower grade was repulsed three years ago by two armies of chemotherapy, cytoxen and fludarabine.
This newest battle will be fought by four armies, cytoxen, rituxan (a new kid on the block), adriamycin and vincristine. The names alone should strike fear into the enemy. They sound like monsters out of science fiction.
Like the "embedded" correspondents during the Iraq war, we will always be on the scene and try to keep you posted.
The battle plan is for a one-day attack every three weeks from now until September. Hopefully, the enemy will again be driven back, but not without civilian casualties.
This is endemic to a battlefield. The innocents, the non-combatants, the civilians, often fall victim to the war. The psychology of war, and the strategy, prey on this. Sometimes they are the key to victory….or defeat.
Destroy the will to continue. This is no less true in the battle against cancer than it is in the battle for the hearts and minds of men. In both, the human spirit and all that that entails is often the margin of victory.
There are no illusions that the battle will be easy. We have been there before. The nausea, the chills and fever, the gut-wrenching pain. They will return, as those of you who have been there can attest.
Our will has been tested before. It has faltered, but not surrendered, for behind the chemical armies doing battle on our behalf is an unseen army of far greater importance.
It is an army comprised of faith and prayer. It will stand with us when all else fails, and no matter what the outcome, so long as we remember who is in charge, we will win.
So let the battle begin.