Tim Mayer's Lymphoma Story

Tim Mayer is beating some very bad odds. He has survived cancer not once, but four times in five years.

A new report says the disease is now the leading cause of death in every Canadian province and territory. Latest statistics show it accounts for 30 per cent of all deaths here. It hasn't accounted for Mayer's even though he thought it would.

"You're going to die. That's the first thing that goes through your mind," he said. "And to this day, it still goes through your mind."

Mayer is still here despite a rough five years. He survived three forms of cancer four times; underwent a bone marrow transplant; and was denied experimental treatment he wanted to try in Michigan.

He celebrated each remission, every win. And then last year, when he thought he had finally won the war, his doctor called.

"It's never good when the doctor themselves call you. And she informed me that they found two nodes in my chest," he said from a chair in his Windsor home with two tumours still slowly growing in his lungs.

Mayer said he feels like he just can't catch a break.

The long-haul trucker can no longer work, although he wants to. He can no longer perform woodworking or camp — his two favourite pastimes. And his long-term disability runs out in March, after five years.

"I try to live life as normal as possible," Mayer said.

The cancer, he said, has made him more caring, more willing to help people and accept help himself.

His story, although extreme, isn't unique.

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, 40 per cent of women and 45 per cent of men will get a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.

The trick, according to Mayer, is finding a way to cope. For him, the internet has been his salvation.

He blogs and uses social media to connect with other cancer patients who share his fears and reality.

But that also means he loses more friends than the average Facebook user.

"It's emotional; like losing a brother or a sister," he said. "And I've had times where I'm on the computer and I'll break down and my wife says, 'who now?'

Recent high-profile cancer deaths, like those of Apple's Steve Jobs and the NDP's Jack Layton didn't help.

Mayer says the slow growing cancer inside him is just part of his new reality. But he's not calling it quits.

"Death. It's there. And if you let it get you, it will, if you let it," Mayer said. "But you take your moment think about it and then you move on."
(story courtesy of CBC News Canada)

http://mycancerjourneys.blogspot.com/