Survival Rates

Today’s newspaper reports on cancer survival rates. Colon cancer has a 59% five-year survival rate for men. I take that in. Right away I see my thinking: is the glass half full or half empty? 59% can mean he’s likely to survive, better than 50% or I could say that 59% is pretty poor and that people with most other cancers have better odds of surviving their disease.

I have moved back and forth on this question of prognosis for months now. Three years? Five years? Two years? What does this mean for John? What does this mean for me? Should I keep believing that we’ll have time together? Should I accept that this relationship is time limited? And if I accept that this is time-limited, then what does that mean in terms of how I spend my time, money and emotional energy?

The bad news is obvious. I may lose him, may be losing him right now. We may not have time to make a married life. But the good news is also present in the limits of our time and that is all about being in the present. I say to myself: “Stop thinking about the future. Stop thinking about later and married. Be here now. Be in this relationship –as it is—now”. Can I do that?