by Dan Haley
2/24/2014

 Earlier this month the MetroWest Daily News was very kind to publish an op-ed I wrote about what it was like to be diagnosed with cancer twice, and what I’ve tried to do in the year since the second diagnosis to support the work of the fantastic doctors at Dana Farber and Brigham & Women’s who brought me through it both times.

Shortly after, a friend at HollistonReporter.com reached out with some very kind words and an invitation to write something on the same topic for the Reporter. I readily agreed … but after hanging up the phone felt a few moments of hesitation. Much as two rounds with cancer has changed my life in small but important ways, I have tried very hard not to allow those periods of my life, both relatively brief in the grand scheme, to define me. I don’t wear a rubber bracelet, I don’t participate in online cancer discussions, I don’t include the C-word when obligated in my work to summarize my biography for a speaking engagement or other such context. I have to be careful on this point, because plenty of people who have dealt with cancer do all of those things. Some of them go through hell, and afterwards very much define themselves in relationship to their trials—and the world is almost always better for their resulting lifelong commitment to cancer-related causes. I just don’t do those things myself—in part because my two bouts, while frightening, were so much easier than what so many cancer patients go through.

In any event I certainly don’t want to become ‘that guy who is always writing about his cancer.’

This general unease is heightened by the end goal of both writings: to help raise money for the research and treatment happening every day at Dana Farber by running the Boston Marathon. There is just something unavoidably self-aggrandizing about this kind of thing: ‘Hey, everyone. Look at what I’m doing. Send money.’ Ugh. Every couple of weeks I post a link on Facebook soliciting contributions, and every time I wince a little as I click ‘post,’ hoping that nobody on the other end is rolling his or her eyes: ‘we get it Dan, you had cancer and you’re really into running and cycling now.’

The few times I’ve expressed these misgivings to friends they have all responded with the same admonition: “Get over it.” So here’s the pivot point of this writing, where I try to do that and hope that anyone who has made it this far won’t think the above disingenuous or hypocritical.

I constantly remind myself that I am not asking for donations for me. A few weeks ago I read an article about a terminal cancer patient, Garth Callaghan, who wrote over 800 napkin notes to be put in his daughter’s school lunches every day after he passes. I keep that article bookmarked and read it every time I feel those misgivings about asking friends and family for contributions to Dana Farber. I think about my own daughter Sylvie, who I treasure beyond all else, and I never make it through the article with dry eyes. Garth Callaghan cannot run the Boston Marathon or ride in the Pan Mass Challenge. I can, and I am so unfathomably grateful for that. Anyone who wants to shut me up down the road need only play Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World. Clams me up every time. I am a lucky, lucky guy who just happens to have had cancer a couple of times.

There is absolutely such a thing as survivor’s guilt. I’ve wondered on occasion if these endurance event fundraisers might not be a kind of penance as much as anything else. Participating in them means, among other things, months and months on end of being sore all the time; rides and runs in the rain and the freezing cold; early mornings and late nights to stay on the training schedule; fighting through a series of annoying training injuries (a plug: without the excruciatingly painful but miraculously helpful ministrations of Thao (Sam) Thach at Holliston’s Tough Love Massage I’d have been forced to abandon the marathon quest weeks ago). In the end, though, the motivation probably doesn’t matter. Doing these things makes me marginally more comfortable asking for donations to a wonderful cause, partly in the hopes that maybe people like Garth Callaghan will be able to stick around to put those napkins in those lunches after all.

Here’s something else: every time I share some part of my story I am amazed anew by the kindness and generosity of the people in my life. They make contributions, of course, which is awesome. They also send me incredible, touching stories about their own—or their loved ones’—experiences with cancer. Many friends (and a couple of people I’ve never met!) shared my MWDN column on Facebook, with accompanying notes that triggered those pesky tear ducts again. Often friends thank me for asking them for money. Amazing.

So now to that ask. I’ll be explicit about it: if you’ve made it to this point, please click on this link and make a contribution in any amount to Dana Farber. One of the many things I’ve learned through my association with the Pan Mass and the Marathon is that a huge percentage of that institution’s budget comes from charitable contributions. The doctors and researchers working there cure people. They discover new breakthroughs that transform the way cancer is detected and treated. Every dollar contributed supports that, directly. There is no ambiguity about the good done with those donations.

If you are unable to contribute (or even if you can), please consider sharing my story or just that link with someone else who might. The kindness of strangers, I’ve found, is alive and well.

As I wrap this up I look out the window and see a beautiful, sunny day. The Boston Marathon is fewer than two months away now. Time to go for a run.