Article by David - A fellow cancer survivor.....

In today's article, my good friend, David A. talks about what his friends did to help him when he had cancer. David is  an incredible photographer. We met in 2011 when we were both recovering from cancer, he was interviewing and photographing cancer patients for a book he is writing on surviving cancer.

If you would like to check out his work go to:

http://www.asiamahphotography.com/

Here is what David writes about what helped him most when he was in cancer treatment:

Sitting and Doing Stuff: What my friends did that helped me cope with The Suck

 

I can start by saying that in reflecting back I may be attributing some meaning to aspects of my experience that may not have been true in the moment.  I know I needed more than anything a sense of normalcy and those privy to my experience at the time conscious or not or perhaps because I requested it, provided as much.   If I can simplify the value of the experience with my friends I would place the helpful experiences in two categories, sitting and doing stuff.

 

Treatment was boring.  Sitting for five-six hours with God knows what being pumped into your body offered perhaps a chance to be reflective but I appreciated the company most of the time.  I was selective about who came because very few could sit there without the compulsory sad face to go with it.  Most conversations were about work or what I was reading at the time.  My friend Greg offered an endless supply of graphic novels to help me pass the time.  Sometimes it was the morbid outlook of some of the people around me.  Sometimes I would sleep through the visits.  I remember that I found some comfort in another’s (David S.) teenaged experience with the same type of cancer.  Another friend Gelila would come hang out with me every Sunday evening during the week of treatment (The Suck) and watch animation domination.  As much as I hated her asking if I needed anything every five seconds I came to recognize that she gave me something to look forward to.  It was an opportunity to hang out and I was more inclined to focus on her company than how I was going to be feeling.

 

When it came to doing stuff, Clark was my enabler.   Clark would pick me up (driving seemed to make the nausea worse) on a few of my really horrible days to attend parties and offer opportunities to chase women I had no business or real interest in chasing.  I was stubborn enough to fake my way through most events without anyone catching on and the one or two observant folks who did so were easily thrown off with some nonsensical excuse they rarely if ever chose to press further. 

           

Above all else, my experience showed me how much I valued my ability to create.  Having friends attend shoots as assistants was helpful.  I came to appreciate the little things like the offer to carry my pack.  Sometimes they got in the way of the work but the fact that they made it possible for me to be out there creating was a blessing.  There were some ill-advised beach and mountain trips (Edisto and Asheville, respectively) that I found incredibly refreshing if only for the change in scenery and the opportunities to create somewhere else.  The way I saw it, I could feel crappy at home on the sofa or I could feel crappy doing something fun some place else.  The some place else offered a number of things, the most important being the opportunity to get to know someone a bit better than for some reason other opportunities had failed to provide.  There was never a question at least that I can remember of whether I felt up to doing something.  It was usually “hey, you know what would be really cool?”…And away we went.