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Saturday, August 03, 2002 Page: 3A
OPINION Cancer kills. It also maims, tortures and terrifies. Cancer shreds
plans, crushes dreams and strains friendships. It drains life and
life-savings. It defies defense and defines indiscrimination.
Cancer causes confident people to pretend they are immune or indifferent.
It makes cautious people cower behind sunblock and all things “safe.” It
transforms the ignorant into stunned statistics, or into the blindly lucky.
True, these days cancer loses more often. But it still sports an impressive
winning percentage. And when someone beats it, the scars are deep and the
price profound.
But it does lose. In fact once – and so far, only once – cancer got
whumped. Pummeled. Pulverized. Atomized. Whipped worse than a sadist’s horse,
thrashed like wheat caught in a combine, vaporized like sweat in the Sahara.
And when cancer takes a world-class beating, what arises is world-class
hope. We need hope.
Weeks ago a friend – a woman who, through a sibling, became part of the
family – entered the ledger of cancer numbers. Another battle for the
statisticians to watch and tally.
Except this statistic hugged me after she and I mustered an unexpected
victory over my older brother in “Trivial Pursuit.” This statistic grilled
steaks when my wife and I visited in February. This statistic sang carols with
us Christmas Eve.
This statistic offered comfort in hard times.
It’s my turn.
And the best I could provide beyond prayers and personal experience – a
different friend beat cancer years ago – is the saga of a Texan who excels at
something Americans prefer to ignore … like cancer.
Cyclist proves formidable foe
Lance Armstrong is Dead Man Biking. He’s a corpse wearing the cycling
profession’s most coveted garb: the Tour de France winner’s yellow jersey.
Don’t know what it all means? Why should you?
Because Lance Armstrong suffered testicular cancer and was given a 40
percent chance to live. Lance learned the cancer had spread to his brain.
Lance endured surgery, chemotherapy and depression.
And then he won one of the world’s most grueling sport events, the Tour de
France bike race – not once, but four times – in a row.
This year’s race was a relatively short distance. Lance pedaled a bicycle
2,046 miles in three weeks. Want perspective? I cycled – touring, not racing –
coast to coast in 1990 with a friend – a year after she beat Hodgkin’s cancer.
The first 40 days we went from Asbury Park, N.J., to Wall, S.D. – 2,096 miles.
Lance did the equivalent of biking more than halfway across America in 82
hours, 5 minutes and 12 seconds total time – averaging about 25 miles an hour.
Lance Armstrong didn’t just beat cancer, he obliterated the beast. He did
something every person who ever faced cancer – directly or through a loved one
– yearns to do.
He spit in cancer’s face.
For my friend, and for anyone facing cancer, I can offer no better hope:
Win, like Lance.
Call Guydish at 829-7161 or e-mail [email protected].