Lance Armstrong's Fighting Spirit
I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my stud wife and my ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire, the perfect contradiction to my once-anticipated poignant early demise. A slow death is not for me. I don’t do anything slow, not even breath….
You don’t fly up a hill. You struggle slowly and painfully up a hill, and maybe, if you work hard, you get to the top ahead of everybody else.
Cancer is like that, too. Good, strong people get cancer, and they do all the right things to beat it, and they still die. That is the essential truth that you learn. People die. And after you learn it, all other matters seem irrelevant. They just seem small.
––Lance Armstrong with Sally Jenkins, It’s Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life. New York: Berkley Books (Penguin), 2001.
The Lance Armstrong Method of Fighting
Here is a reply I sent to a person in the MySpace Armstrong Foundation Group who is having troubles in the midst of chemotherapy. We are not doctors and we don't know the individuals, but some recommendations to others can be selected from the weapons in our armory.
I think the best answer to fighting cancer is Lance's personal example: bear up under the chemo and look for the intended improvement; maintain a positive attitude; try to maintain a healthy body through diet and exercise; be determined and optimistic about the future. We know that a good attitude can have a beneficial effect on mental and physical condition and outlook.
Although it depends on each individual, I personally think that it is best to load up on knowledge and some realistic anticipation so that one can deal with the probable consequences of both the disease and the therapy. Falling hair is often a side-effect, and one should try to get past that in the beginning, even before it happens, so that one can deal with more important issues. I liked your joking response to minimize worry about shaved heads.
One last point: realism is compatible with hope and optimism. Cancer seldom moves in a straight line, good times and bad times must be expected, and we should neither get too depressed nor too euphoric as we go along, because both of those might be wrong in terms of the final result. Problems always arise, we deal with them as we would with most problems in life, and get on with living and enjoying ourselves with an optimistic outlook. I prefer to maintain a steady, optimistic attitude than try to deal with extremes of joy and despair.
P.S. My cancer looked bad a year ago, several lesions on the bone scan, but after a year of treatment, heavy exercise, excellent diet and nutrition, and an intensely positive attitude last week's scan showed no sign. However, I don't get either fearful or euphoric, I just take it into account, keep fighting, and keep getting the most out of every day.
Best wishes, John Roberts
Lance Armstrong is one of my major inspirations because he embodies the same fighting spirit that I absorbed in my life as a fighter pilot, and which I want to pass on to every cancer fighter.
Go to the Livestrong Foundation website above and join his crusade.
How Lance Fights Cancer
Live strong is exactly I guess what it says. It’s one thing to live, but it’s another thing to live strong, to attack the day and attack your life with a whole new attitude. This was a gift for me. I guess before the illness I just lived. Now, after the illness, I live strong.
I’m Lance Armstrong, and I’m a seven-year cancer survivor.
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