I Don't Have Time for This: My Battle with Cancer
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Most importantly, they wanted to know why the hell I was back at my desk so soon after surgery.
I had no answer for them, at least one that sounded plausible. The fact was I belonged behind my desk. I didn’t have time for cancer, so as far as I was concerned, as long as I felt normal, I was going to act normal.
It was that attitude, I believe, that contributed so deeply to keeping me alive. So many cancer patients, when diagnosed, receive the news as if it were some kind of death sentence. We’ve read the statistics, we’ve lost loved ones, watched them die slow, painful deaths. Why should I be excluded, we think, wondering how and when our last breaths will be drawn. We’ll learn that it’s human nature to think dreadful thoughts. After all, we have a disease. It’s the “C” word, the word that will always strike fear in people, whether or not they are even diagnosed with cancer. But to hide from the world, to crawl beneath the surface of life like a raccoon slithering into a sewer, was something I refused to do. That would be not only hiding from the disease, but also from life. How easily we could allow ourselves to let this be the first step for the disease to take over. How easily we could allow ourselves to let this be the first step in losing the battles to the disease.
I use battles in the plural because I had many to overcome before I could say I won the war. And even now, without any major battles to fight or any wars to wage, I still find myself looking around proverbial corners, never certain that I’ve truly won, but always filled with so much hope that I did.
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About the Book
For millions of people who are diagnosed with cancer, their first reaction is that they just received their death sentence. That reaction leads to a life of isolation, dependence and, often, misery for the cancer patient. One man refused to let that happen. He had a job he loved as a newspaper editor, a house to take care of, and, at 41 years old, a lot more years of life to live. So on the same night he was diagnosed with what would become a constant battle with cancer, he resolved to maintain a positive attitude. He would use that attitude to guide him through thirteen months of surgeries, as well as the physical torture of chemotherapy and radiation, and the emotional torture of MRIs and body scans.
This editor was a busy guy in April 2002 when he was diagnosed with lung cancer and, quite frankly, he didn’t have time for the disease.
In one of the most inspiring books about living with cancer, author Tom Canavan opens the doors to his life and takes readers on the journey through his darkest period. “I Don’t Have Time for This: My Battle with Cancer” is the story of a man who refused to surrender any part of his life while waging war against his illness. It is the story of a man who turns to his younger brother, an oncologist, who guides him along the road to remission.
“I Don’t Have Time for This” is a book every cancer patient should want to read to assure themselves that life can be just as happy and fulfilling even after the diagnosis. The book also is recommended reading for families of cancer patients who can find understanding in what their loved ones are enduring following surgery and during radiation and chemotherapy treatments.
Finally, it is the story of one man’s strength, courage and heroism in the face of so many obstacles that the readers of his newspapers have labeled him an inspiration to so many people.
About the Author
Thomas Canavan Jr. is editor in chief of Worrall Community Newspapers, a group of nineteen weekly newspapers serving twenty-three towns in