Cancer: Out in left field

By Debbie Kerr

---

As a teenager, I played on my local softball team. I was pretty good. I could hit. I could catch. I played nearly every position on the team at some point or other. I was proud of my play until there was… the incident. 

This incident went on to be the one aspect of my ball career that my family remembers. Not the great catches or the hits to win a game. They remember the time when I was in left field and I ran to where the ball had been hit. All I had to do was pick up the ball and throw it to the correct base, just like I did many times before. Unfortunately, this game was different. When I bent down to pick up the ball, I accidentally kicked it. I ran to get it and I kicked it again. I just couldn’t seem to pick up the ball and I heard my father yell, “Throw a basket over it.”

Believe me, at that point, I wanted to climb under the basket too. 

Little did I know, as bad as that experience seemed, I would be in a similar game in the future, but it would be for much higher stakes.  I would be playing in a game against cancer and would, once again, be out in left field.  

Player introductions
Breast Cancer and I first met in 2011, and the relationship between the two of us was rocky right from the start. In fact, it set up a life-long rivalry. Breast Cancer threw ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) and invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC) at me, but I was able to knock both those balls right out of the park with a mastectomy, chemo, and radiation.  The crowd (at least in my head) went wild. 

However, even with my win, everyone was concerned that Breast Cancer would return and no one, especially me, wanted a rematch. To help keep that from happening, I drafted Tamoxifen to be on my team. During the seven years I was with Tamoxifen, my cancer didn’t return, but it didn’t mean that Tamoxifen and I always got along. In fact, it was Tamoxifen that started swinging and sending balls out to left field. 

The rules of the game
Ironically, in a game against Cancer (or anything related to cancer), there are no rules.  There is no structure so you don’t know how long you will be playing. You don’t know exactly what will be coming your way. You don’t know if it will be the same ball you had last time (in my case breast cancer) or if it will be an entirely different ball (for example, uterine cancer). Since Cancer is a switch hitter, you don’t know if the ball will come to the same spot as last time or someplace entirely different.

As if that doesn’t make the game difficult enough, you don’t know for sure when the game starts. What you might think signals the start of the game, for example, a lump, could mean absolutely nothing. You could start a game when there really isn’t a game in town. Each time, whether there is a game or not, your adrenaline levels go up as you prepare to do battle. Any kind of game with Cancer, whether or not there is a rematch, can be emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting. In fact, you might feel like you played an actual game. 

Game prep?
Here are a few tips:

• Don’t practice. When you don’t know if a game is ever going to happen, why prepare for it? Instead, focus on other aspects of your life. With any sport, you don’t want the opponent to get into your head and psych you out. If you let the fear of recurrence control your life, you are letting Cancer beat you when there doesn't have to be a game.

• Stay calm. If you see a ball come your way, don’t assume that it is Cancer and it wants to play a game. Even if you are going to have to play ball, it will be harder to do if you panic.  
• Be aware. While you don’t want to be obsessed about having to play ball again, you have to be vigilant. Have regular testing. Know your body and when something just doesn’t seem right.  Don’t assume there is a problem, but don’t assume there is nothing to check. If you are going to play ball, you want to know you are playing ball as soon as you can.  

Perhaps one of the biggest things to remember is that sometimes parents make mistakes. While my dad told me to throw a basket over it during the ball “incident”, when dealing with Cancer, it is better to have the basket under the ball rather than over it for the following reasons:

• If the balls come into play, you can see what you are dealing with.
• If the balls are scattered on the field, you can control some of the chaos if you pick up each ball, deal with it, and then toss it in the basket. 
• If the balls are in a basket, they can’t roll out for you to deal with again, and there is no danger of you accidentally kicking any of them so that they are beyond your reach.
• Regardless of what Cancer throws at you, it will always fit in a basket but it cannot always fit under a basket. 

With Cancer, you may feel like you are in left field, but that doesn’t mean there is even a game. All you can really do is be calm and be vigilant while you live the very best life that you can.