Latest posts by Martin Moodie (see all)
- Discovering a fresh philosophy in Shenzhen and talking Trinity in Ho Chi Minh City - April 24, 2024
- How I overcame Severe Tire Damage to become the oldest influencer in town - April 20, 2024
- Free as a (Kiwi) bird and flying high in Haikou - April 13, 2024
‘I ain’t saying I beat the devil. But I drank his beer for nothing and then I stole his song’ – Kris Kristofferson, To Beat the Devil
I’m not saying I beat the devil either. But for now I have at least successfully confronted the brute of a disease they call the ‘Big C’ and gotten through all the progressively harder tests it threw up against me.
Today, my final round of chemotherapy came to an end. Now, after months of treatment, both surgical and medicinal, a sort of normality is restored. No more visits to the Royal Marsden Hospital for over two months.
It hasn’t quite sunk in yet – I still have the chemotherapy-induced nausea of recent weeks and much of the mental uncertainty – but already the feeling of relief is overwhelming.
Like many people in my situation I will be subject to scans every six months for the next five years. As my doctor said yesterday, I’m officially ‘on watch’ but that’s a whole lot better than how it looked back in June 2010 when I was first diagnosed. Living with such doubts will pose its own challenges, but the key word here is ‘living’ – not an option for most cancer patients two or three decades back. The pace of research into this disease is remarkable and there have been monumental gains in the survival rate as a result.
So I’m preparing a quiet celebration. As mentioned previously, when I started this journey on the day of my diagnosis (6 June, 2010) my wife and I opened (and signed) a bottle of New Zealand Pinot Noir called Mount Difficulty (above). Both the name and the origin seemed singularly appropriate.
Tonight I will close the journey (or at least this stage of it) with a Shiraz called Journey’s End, produced by The Cape Doctor winery in South Africa, and kindly given to me by my colleague Sarah Genest. The only sort of doctor I want to meet in the future…
The allusion with the concept of journey (for that is what every cancer patient embarks on) was rendered more poignant by a very special gift I received from Ed and Debbie Brennan and Lynn Arce of DFS a few weeks back. It was a beautiful leather-bound book, inscribed with the words ‘My Journey’ on the cover. Inside, it contained words and lyrics from this very Blog. The back pages of the book were left vacant to allow me to add my own further thoughts and reflections as the journey continued. I open it every week and reflect on what has taken place, my evolving mental and physical state, and what might lie ahead.
On the eve of the conclusion of my treatment, I received yet another e-mail from a member of the industry’s ‘cancer survivors’ club’ – Zoila Antonie from Duty Free World in Miami. I have known Zoila, a delightful person, for many years. But I had not known that she had challenged and beaten this disease, having been diagnosed with breast cancer 11 years ago.
“My dear Martin, reading your Blog brings back memories,” Zoila wrote. “You are so right, people think that the worst part is to hear your doctor say ‘the biopsy came back positive’ when actually the treatment IS the nightmare.
“To be in the waiting room seeing people like you (or worse) all wondering how will I come out of this? Then, after the regular check-ups for 2/3 years… until they tell you that you are in remission! Then everything goes back to normal… pretty soon the same will happen to you…you’ll see!”
Indeed I hope so. I never thought the word ‘normal’ would become one I craved so deeply.
Zoila’s is just one of hundreds of notes and calls I have received in recent months. Correspondence has become my biggest task and I apologise if I have not replied to everyone. I have been touched by so many people’s support along the way, a support I will never be able to repay.
All of them have kept me going. Many have told me that writing about such a personal subject via this Blog is a good thing for both reader and writer, and not in any way self-indulgent (my prevalent fear). This beast, bully and tyrant of a disease can and must be stood up to and it is important for others to read that it can be challenged, and, yes, even defeated.
Have I beaten the devil? No, not yet. But I have at least, as Kristofferon wrote, stolen his song. And tonight I shall mark the scaling of Mount Difficulty and drink, literally, to the Journey’s End.
Footnote: Tonight my 10 year-old son Ali (below) surprised me by asking to play a tune on his violin for me to celebrate the end of my treatment. It was Ode to Joy by Beethoven. The beauty and innocence of children is just one of the many riches, indeed joys, that lie ahead.
Martin, Just keep believing and keep up the fantastic resistance to all that has been thrown at you. You know that we are there with you even though we often don’t have the words to express our true feelings. I will match anyone’s Mt Difficulty with my Ata Rangi Pinot Noir if you will promise to meet me at Eden Park for the opening game against Tonga and, by the way, for any subsequent game. Thanks for sharing your uplifting journey and for allowing me to enjoy seeing all your dear friends raise their heads above the duty free parapet and show you the love and support that you deserve.
I still wonder about your blind All Black judgement but I’d be delighted to be proved wrong—just this once!!
And as for your family—believe me, we are all there with you.
Nick Hillyard
You give all of us hope that we too will be able to rise up and do whatever we have to do to keep on with life’s journey. Because no matter how much uncertainty we may face, it is still the excitement of hearing Ode de Joy when you may least expect it that gives us that sense of wonder and possiblity, always the posibilities for our future…whatever that might be….
Enjoy that wine…looks great….
Hugs to you all….
Debbie
Martin,
A few words from another scribe (Oliver O Mbarara)and from a website poemsofsoul.com that echo your personal struggle and the Haitian struggle with a perception that gives a hope, a chance, and a blessing in the events of life, assists victims of sad events recover from their loss and pain, or to help the writers release their feelings of hurt or sadness and to replace them with feelings of hope, forgiveness, and release.
Haiti, O Haiti
Your sons and daughters suffer the trail
Of a tragic tremor of seven magnitudes
Corpses and carcasses liter the street
Limbs and houses crushed and crumbled
Haiti, O Haiti
Your children cry and weep and wail
For many loved ones are hereby gone,
But in their eyes, I see resolve and hope
In their strides I see strength and courage
Haiti, O Haiti,
Your children suffer, yes they do, but
History knows your children are brave
Sole masters of their land and freedom,
For the ancestors and for country unity reigns
Haiti, O Haiti
Your children are tested once again
And your children shall by this unite,
The battle is ahead and shall be met
For the Haitian will is even stronger
Haiti, O Haiti
Your children shall stand and walk again
For this tragic tremor shall not win.
Over the shaken lands they shall march, for
Even in death there’s beauty and Haiti shall live again.
Oliver O. Mbamara ©
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