It was a beautiful spring day and so I decided to take a walk. As I strolled the campus, I found my mind drifting back, back, back. Forty years back. When I saw two young men throwing a baseball from a distance of a hundred-plus feet, I thought of my arrival on Westminster College’s campus in the fall of 1967. I was all of 17 years old and completely intimidated by this new (college) world.

Nonetheless, I eventually met an upperclassman who had professional baseball aspirations --- it was probably the only thing we had in common --- so, he and I would play catch in a dormitory parking lot until the weather finally prevented us from doing so.

Continuing my walk, I met some students from the pharmacy school fraternity who tried to convince me to purchase their “homemade hot sausage.” I (pardon the pun) bit on their pitch and ordered a sweet hot sausage with ketchup and onions. It was actually pretty tasty.

I next just sat on a bench and observed tomorrow’s leaders. “So full of life,” I thought to myself, “I wonder if they really have even a clue as to what’s coming?”

Working my way back to the office, I thought about the things that still had to be done before I left school for my radio show. I had students dropping in, and the big worry this week was the upcoming “E-Day,” a “mixer” between students and business owners to be held Saturday morning at the River’s Club.

When I got back to the office, I remembered that I had to make a phone call to my oncologist, Dr. Heather Jones. “I need to talk to Heather,” I mumbled to myself and Mia, “I’ve got to get the results of last Friday’s MRI.”

Heather had told me that she would, “be on her rounds” on Thursday morning and that I should just call her and she would give me a quick rundown.

Frankly, I had been avoiding Heather all week. Part of this was in an effort to get one more week away from having to take yet another chemo treatment. But the real reason had a lot more to do with, “not wanting to know.” You see, my liver has been giving me a great deal of pain lately, and any fool could see that it was swollen way beyond normal.

She answered on the first ring. “Dammit,” I growled, “Nine times in ten, I get voicemail.” After an appropriate amount of small talk, we got down to business.

“Ron, I have good news and bad news.” (How many times have I heard that, I thought to myself?).

“Give it to me,” I said.

“Well, the good news is that the tumors that were in your bones seem to have gone away completely. Also, we don’t see a lot of tumor activity in your lymphatic system.” (Here it comes, I thought to myself --- the other side of the coin.)

“But you now have a brand-new tumor on your liver. It’s pretty good size, it’s the size of a tennis ball.”

“Tennis ball!,” I repeated the words. My mind flashed to the ball that my dog, Vixen, and I play with when we take a walk in the woods. “A tennis ball is certainly smaller than a baseball,” I said to myself, “but a helluva lot bigger than a golf ball.”

Somehow I was now seated. I have 95% of my conversations on my feet. This is because I like to walk around while talking on the phone. But now I found myself in my chair.

“So Heather … how do we plan on getting out of this mess?” I asked with a great deal of hope in my voice.

She then proceeded to tell me about two optional procedures. One, I had been through before and had sworn to never repeat. The other was a newer procedure, and the feeling I got was that she was expecting me to choose it.

Heather was talking. This I know.

But the words and phrases coming from her were just sort of “out there.” I wasn’t connecting on all eight cylinders. I heard her using phrases like, “radioactive beads,” and “inserted through the main vein in your groin.” It was as if I was listening to an old vacuum tube radio that kept fading in and out.

Just phrases.

I thought to myself, “When did this all happen?” A half hour ago, I was enjoying a fine spring day and being conveyed back to my own college years. Now, I am again in the present and not liking it one single bit.

Have you ever been hit in the head by an ice ball? You’re walking along, just trying to get to your next destination, when “whap!” a hard, frozen ice ball hits you right in the side of the head. That’s how I felt while listening to Heather describe the change in my condition.

More phrases --- “We must be very careful with these seeds,” and, “they can travel to your lungs and you can easily die of pneumonia,” and “we need to move pretty quickly here.”

My mind next flashed to the Hillman Cancer Center and to Shadyside Hospital – 7th Floor. A floor I swore I would never set foot on again.

Earlier that same day, I had taught an intro class to a bunch of 19 and 20 year olds. Their assignment for class was to read two books so that we could discuss them. About half of them did so. It’s times like this that I just want to grab someone by the neck and let them know that they’re just wasting their lives.

Sometimes I want to take these people and just scream at them, “Go and change the world NOW!” And, “Don’t waste even one second of your time on things that are not important or that don’t help you reach that goal.”

And, things like “Today, you’re 20 years old --- but tomorrow you’ll be 60.”

But it probably wouldn’t matter. Because everyone has to learn their life lessons in their own time and in their own way. In the history of this world, no one has ever “changed” someone else. (Which reminds me of one of my Immutable Laws, “It’s easier to change people than it is to change people.”)

Cancer is like no other disease known to man. It’s the only disease that actually outsmarts us.

So maybe it isn’t really a disease at all?

Last Saturday, I had Sean McDonald on my talk radio show. Sean is the founder and head of a start-up by the name of “Precision Therapeutics.” Sean’s company is totally unique in that its “product” is actually a low-cost and highly-efficient means by which cancer patients can, and in a very short amount of time, “virtually-test” their tumors against a variety of potential palliatives.

One simply excises a piece of the suspect tumor and then sends it by overnight delivery to Precision’s laboratory. In a matter of hours, Precision can run that tumor sample against hundreds of known chemotherapeutic drugs. Even combinations of those drugs.

They then report back as to the efficacy of each drug or combination of drugs. To do this “one off” would take months and cost a small fortune.

I asked Sean during my interview, “So why can’t we seem to defeat this disease?” His answer was typical Sean, “The reason we have such a hard time with cancer cells is because they, and in essence, follow Darwinian laws. A vast majority of cancer cells are killed by the particular chemo agent being used at that time.

But no matter how potent your chemo drugs are, some cells are just not killed. These cells --- the ones that survive --- then immediately begin again to multiply. So, and in a very short while, you have a whole bunch of new cancer cells that are just as virulent as their recently-destroyed ancestors, but that are also impervious to that exact same chemotherapeutic treatment.”

I tend to think in analogies. To me, it’s like the survivors of one of those hellish concentration camps during World War II. While a majority of “prisoners” died from malnutrition and/or mistreatment, a small number of people who were either of stronger constitution or more mentally tough, lived on.

Those survivors had somehow learned how to cope and deal with the mistreatment from their captors. Thus, they’re more apt to survive future mistreatments.

(I know this is a crude and rough analogy --- but it was the only one I could think of while writing this article. Please do not castigate me for using this particular example.)

I believe it was Friedrich Nietzsche who said, “What does not kill me, makes me stronger.” I’m not sure how Nietzsche knew this, but he couldn’t have been any more on the money. Having now fought cancer for seven years (my anniversary was just last week), I can only tell you that each bout makes me even more determined to not only live on, but also to do whatever I possibly can to help others live on.

Last night, and while walking my dog around 8:30, I was cleaning out my voicemails. I get at least one or two voicemails or e-mails every week from someone who has heard me on the radio and who also knows that I’ve held cancer at bay for a better part of a decade.

This particular message was from an old secretary of mine --- a woman whom I will always be grateful to for helping me build and sell a wonderful company in the late 1990’s. I could almost predict what she was going to say and so when she said it, I wasn’t one bit surprised. Basically, she has a friend who has cancer and who needs help.

I told her that even though my cancer and his were quite dissimilar, she should have the gentleman call me anyway and I will do all that I can to help him through his ordeal.

I have no free time. None. I’ll repeat that, none.

But when it comes to someone who is going through their first bout with cancer, I always find a way to make time. I only need to think back seven years to the sheer terror I felt when first told of my disease.

Someday this will all change. (I’m right now reading Michio Kaku’s book entitled, “,” wherein he talks about machines smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, and in not so many years from now, traversing our blood streams, looking for anomalous mutations vis-à-vis cell behavior. The more advanced of these micro-machines will, and autonomously, fix the problem. The earlier-stage micro-machines will simply observe and report.)

Maybe this approach will end cancer?

Or, maybe we will correct the genes while the human is still in the womb?

All I know is that when and how this will happen will be driven by bright and curious people --- people who see problems and ask the question, “Why does this have to be?”

As far as I’m concerned, these people can’t get here soon enough.