Diversion Day -

Today is a diversion day.....a day when something happened to change the intended direction of this discourse.

Cancer is a life changing event. I knew that and had often imagined what it was like to have cancer. The truth is, I knew nothing. I now know, and everything I once imagined was woefully inadequate.

Cancer makes big things little and makes small pleasures a big deal. It has a way of putting things into perspective. Many things that seemed important, really important, all but disappear when you hear the words, "You have cancer". Likewise, some of the purist, simplest pleasures in this world take on a huge significance. Another paradox of cancer.

Today it's jigsaw puzzles.....plain, simple, 1000 piece, 2000 piece, 500 piece, jigsaw puzzles. The first time you enter the Huntsman Center you notice them. They are everywhere. Some are idle, some are being tag teamed, others host a solitary, intent puzzle solver.

My first thought was these are provided to pass the inevitable hours waiting to see a doctor. Wrong! You rarely, if ever, wait to see a doctor. So, what's the deal? It's taken me several weeks and an incident yesterday to understand.

We have a puzzle under construction at the radiation center. Everyday, everyone who comes for a zap session puts in a puzzle piece or ten. Everyday you anxiously look to see the progress from when you left the day before. Did someone find that one piece you couldn't? Everyone working the puzzle is there for the same reason, but the puzzle gives us another commonality and something else to talk about. There was one piece no one could find until one woman found it in her purse at home and brought it back.

I'm not a puzzle guy.....even though they have some great Dowdle puzzles, as in those created by Eric Dowdle of Green River. So my goal is one puzzle piece a day, at least that's what the others have decided. Hey, it keeps me on the team.

But the puzzle means so much more. It's your reward for going to that hideous, whirring, burning, cancer killing machine everyday. It builds a comradeship with others walking in your shoes. But most important, it is a daily symbol of progress in a world where daily progress is invisible. When you battle cancer, you don't see or feel daily progress. In fact, each day of your treatment you feel worse. You don't get stronger from the cure, you get weaker. And you can't see any results and likely won't for months. That puzzle is your tangible record of moving forward.

Yesterday, somebody trashed our puzzle......tore it apart....dumped part of it on the floor....left only ten pieces intact. I know.....it was just a puzzle....but it was so much more. We all had a setback yesterday.