(Note: This is the story of a twenty year adventure with two forms of cancer, lung cancer and lymphoma, as experienced by my wife Doris Williams Morrison. Written in the form of an allegory, it compares her battle with cancer to a Ten Round Championship Prizefight. In Chapter One Doris lost two rounds, won two rounds and one round was called a draw.)

Round six opens with a continuation of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. The burning sensation that resulted from the radiation therapy was especially painful Doris would open the refrigerator to allow the cool air to temper the heat that had been produced by the dreaded radiation procedure.

However, every therapeutic treatment brought Doris closer and closer to the desired goal of remission. We anxiously waited for the test results. Our trip to the doctor's office was filled with the silence of apprehension. I remained behind in the waiting room. I reasoned that if she came out with a smile on her face, it would be good news. So, I fastened my eyes on the door through which she would return.

Finally, the door slowly opened, and there she stood, but to my surprise there was no smile and there was no frown; there was only a look of firm determination. It was then that she made eye contact with me and a big, broad smile flashed across her face and I knew it was good news. She was in remission. She had won round six.

We eagerly looked forward to round seven, but before it started, I called on my memory to fill in the gaps of information that would allow us to take a close look at how Doris lived out her daily life.

I once said to a friend, "Do you know that Doris gets up at the ‘un­godly’ hour of four in the morning?" I was quickly corrected by the friend who knew Doris quite well. "No, that was not her "un-godly" hour. That was her ‘Godly’ hour." My friend was absolutely correct. Doris chose those quiet morning moments to feed her soul with spiritual food.

It is to the credit of hospitals and members of the medical profession that they now provide resources that speak to the needs of a person's spiritual health as well as mental and physical health. Once, when Doris was being interviewed by a young, inexperienced counselor, she kept giving a series of negative answers to the questions that were being asked:

"No, I don't give much thought to my illness; No, I don't talk to others about my cancer unless they bring up the subject; No, I don't attend counseling sessions that may be available; No, I don't wake up in the morning wondering how many more cancer cells were circling around in my lymph glands than there were the day before."

Visibly disturbed, the young counselor said in a stage whisper that she intended Doris to hear, "Complete denial." To Doris' credit she remained silent and made no comment to the counselor's analyses. She did not attempt to defend her own position nor denigrate the counselor's conclusions. She allowed the moment to pass, knowing in her heart that her own unique approach to her cancer was the way to follow. She had, with the help of her four o'clock appointment with the True Source of all wisdom, been permitted to advance beyond the available resources of the day.

Having received wisdom, she made it a practice to share it with others -- like the time she was in a crowded waiting room of a cancer clinic. Cancer patients relate to one another in a very strong and loving way.  Doris' outgoing nature enabled her to enter the ongoing conversation. As she spoke, the room grew quiet while she described how she had learned how to face the uncertainties of life as a cancer patient. She spoke of faith and fear; she spoke of hope and despair; she spoke of happy times and sad times, and when she finished an unexpected event took place. Her fellow cancer patients began to applaud, expressing their delight and appreciation. This confirmed that the path Doris had chosen to follow in her battle with cancer was the proper and correct one for her.

For twenty years I was a close observer of how one cancer patient was able to learn how to keep from being victimized. What I learned was educational, inspirational and sometimes very frightening. It was frightening because I was not always tuned in to the same source of wisdom and spiritual understanding as she was. So, the question became: How did she do it? How did she manage to live an apparently "normal" life with two deadly forms of cancer dogging her feet every step of the way?

Just before writing this paragraph, I thought provoking essay by Dr. Bernie Stegel in a book called “Handbook For The Soul”. He wrote, "In my work as a physician I've observed that people who face life-threatening illness are often able to recover the ability by the time we have reached adulthood - the ability to connect with the soul." After twenty years of observing Doris as a cancer patient, it is my conviction that she was able to connect with the soul in a most remarkable way.

She was able to visualize herself as one harmonious unit with the ability to comprehend the difference between the outer being and the inner being. She was able to understand the difference between the external nature and the internal nature, the conscious and the unconscious.

The other part of this harmonious unit is the inner being which I choose to call the spirit/soul part of the person. This is the part which Doris, unlike many of us, understood the supreme importance of the inner being and was able to keep in continuous contact with her soul. One time I asked her to describe to me what it was like to co-exist with an incurable illness. She was silent for a moment and then, with a questioning look on her face, she asked "Who are you talking about?"

Her question did not surprise me. This was her inner being talking. Her inner being did not have cancer; it was her outer being that was suffering the debilitating results of cancer. She was not denying its existence - her outer being experienced all the pain and suffering that other cancer victims experience. Doris was determined that her inner being (soul/spirit) would not be victimized. So, she chose her companions carefully. She firmly closed the door on fear and opened it to courage. She closed the door on pervasive anxiety and opened it to the possibilities that hope always bestows on the believer. Round seven ended with Doris winning a decisive victory.

(Note: Chapter Three will be found in the next issue of The Rapides Senior News.)