The night before brain surgery ..

Another extract from Lance Armstrong's book entitled "Its not about the bike". Some parts of the book really connected with me. Here is the one that resonates the most ..

How do you confront your own death? Sometimes I think the blood-brain barrier is more than just physical, it's emotional, too. Maybe there's a protective mechanism in our psyche that prevents us from accepting our mortality unless we absolutely have to.

Jenny - 'A little tidy up of Jenny's hair - it was always my job to do this.' - Kirrawee - 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)
The night before brain surgery, I thought about death. I searched out my larger values, and I asked myself, if I was going to die, did I want to do it fighting and clawing or in peaceful surrender? What sort of character did I hope to show? Was I content with myself and what I had done with my life so far? I decided that I was essentially a good person, although I could have been better—but at the same time I understood that the cancer didn't care.

Jenny and Geoff - 'off we head to the Hospital' - Tue 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)
I asked myself what I believed. I had never prayed a lot. I hoped hard, I wished hard, but I didn't pray. [..]

I believed, too, in the doctors and the medicine and the surgeries — I believed in that. [..]

Jenny Collage - The Night Before Brain Surgery - The White Markers were placed on Jenny's head before an MRI - they would be used by the Nuerosurgeon to assist in precisely locating the Tumor from a digital scan of the MRI. - St George Hospital - Tue 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)

Beyond that, I had no idea where to draw the line between spiritual belief and science. But I knew this much: I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe— what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery.

Jenny with the Flowers from Julia and Todd (photo to come), and Pacific Dragons - St George Hospital - Tue 16 Jun 2009 (picasa)

To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be.

Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very definition of cynicism and loss of spirit. So, I believed.

Jenny, Joanne, David and Geoff - "Jenny takes a photo of us all just before she heads out to have a 4cm brain tumor removed. She had no fear and looked forward to quickly recovering to resume the treatment of the tumors in her liver." - St George - 6:30am Wed 17 Jun 2009 (picasa)

Will try add some more photos (partly done now - Geoff 10 Mar 2009) and maybe some of my own recollections and thoughts on Jenny's Night before brain surgery. There is a bit of story here if I can find the strength to write about it.

Jenny - 'Just before heading out for surgery.' - St George Hospital - 7am Wed 17 Jun 2009 (picasa)