Do Hard Shit Mondays: 5 Lessons in Courage From a Little Girl With Cancer
What a cancer patient can teach you about life, this week's challenge, and celebrating Bob Proctor's wisdom
Welcome to The Art of Becoming: the Do Hard Shit Monday chapter. We explore what it means to lead a happier, wiser, and more prosperous life by doing hard shit. We learn to be more resilient and embrace discomfort in a complex and challenging world. And maybe, better people for it.
I hope you join me.
What you need to know
The 5 lessons I learned from a girl with 12 tumors in her body.
This week’s challenge: Squats, pushups, and a 2-mile run
3 Things Most People Want by Bob Proctor
5 Life Lessons in Courage From a Little Girl with Cancer
The girl is my daughter, Misha.
She is a two-time survivor of cancer.
Misha was four months old when a brain tumor grew out of her brainstem. After three years of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, Misha survived.
Twenty years later, she had cancer again. This time there were eleven fist-size tumors throughout her body.
Most cancer patients exude poetry of suffering and struggle and endurance. They showcase a clumsy dance between joy, resilience, pain, and death. Misha was no different.
I met hundreds of children with cancer. Marcus Aurelius cannot match the wisdom of a little girl (or little boy) fighting cancer.
A cancer kid does not have to meditate to be present, or know that life is fleeting.
Theirs is a wisdom found in their blood and scars and the chemicals rushing through their veins.
And ice cream. You’ll understand.
I learned patience in a thousand waiting rooms.
I saw courage with each needle poke, and I heard a mother tell a doctor to cut the tumor out of her son’s stomach.
No one gives medals for that kind of bravery. They should.
I understood a different, uncompromising love when a nurse held my daughter’s hand and said, ‘I’m here, darling. Whatever you need. I’m here.’
Misha and the hundreds of children with cancer who graced my life were my professors in suffering, life, and love.
Each of them had a story to tell and wisdom to share. Their movements and words abound with joy. The trick was being willing to listen with an open heart.
I tried to hear them. Here are their secrets.
Lesson 1: Make time for ice cream
Nausea is a constant state for cancer patients.
The times Misha felt like eating, ice cream was her meal of choice. She didn’t need much to make her happy. One scoop would do.
Most times, she could only eat a bite. On other days, she vomited so much that she couldn’t eat.
Life is short. There are only so many moments to be happy. Choose to do something, anything, every day that brings a smile to your face. For Misha, it was ice cream.
Happiness is a choice. You don’t need millions of dollars or travel to Europe every month to be happy.
The littlest thing can bring a smile to your face.
Do what makes you happy. Maybe it’s ice cream.
Lesson 2: Learn the Power of Not Yet
Misha loved sushi. Because of bacteria, raw food could harm or kill an immune-suppresed person. So, Misha learned to say not yet to most of her favorite things.
Most cancer patients sacrifice much to gain a couple of extra years. Their reality comprises surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, a litany of blood infections, low blood counts, and blood transfusions.
They are held hostage by both disease and treatment.
Cancer patients learn early that not every dream happens on a timeline. And some dreams are never fulfilled.
They learn to say not yet to most of the people and things they love.
Learn to say not yet to the small things that don’t matter.
You might have to postpone a few wants, TV time, partying with friends, and some ice cream to make your dream a reality. But it’s worth it.
Do what you must do, and then get some ice cream.
Lesson 3: Fight the real monsters
Misha had twenty surgeries, tons of chemotherapy, enough radiation to light up a house, dozens of blood transfusions, and multiple blood infections by the time she was twenty years old.
She has lived with real monsters her entire life.
It was easy to confuse chemotherapy or a surgeon as a monster. Chemo took her hair and weakened her system so she couldn’t fight off a simple cold. It kept her from eating sushi.
When she was five, Misha feared blood draws. For her, the monster was the needle. For me, I was afraid of what may grow in her.
But soon she learned the real monsters were the brainstem glioma when she was a baby and the eleven tumors when she was twenty.
When you know what you should fear, you become less fearful. Eventually, even the real monsters become smaller and smaller.
The real fight begins when we decide to face life’s real monsters.
One of Misha’s biggest wins was not surviving cancer or graduating from university. It was placing her arm on a table and not flinching when the blood was drawn.
In the gist of things, it was a small victory. But in her life, it was like walking on the moon.
Winning starts when we overcome our irrational fears and deal with life’s real monsters.
Lesson 4: Love is spelled T-I-M-E
It was Tuesday, May 18, 1993.
A little blonde doctor in high heels told my wife and me our baby had a golf ball size tumor attached to her brainstem.
That day I quit my job.
Fighting her cancer took three years. Dealing with the damage caused by the tumor and the treatment took even more time. I never left Misha’s side.
I know fathers who coach their sons’ Little League or soccer teams. Mothers who helped in their daughter’s Girl Scout troop. The best parents are at every baseball game, school play, and parent-teacher conference. These are not ordinary achievements.
Misha’s disabilities kept her from doing gymnastics or playing in soccer tournaments. My wife and I showed up in a different way.
We were at every MRI, surgery, blood draws, chemo round, needle poke, the scare with meningitis, and the several dozen times she was septic. We were there when a doctor put a kid with chickenpox in her room and a thousand other emergencies, big and small. I recruited the world’s best surgeons, oncologists, neurologists, and radiation oncologists to care for her. I found the best hospitals and treatments.
My wife and I were her coach, nurse, doctor, friend, and parent. And when Misha had a baby sister, her team became unstoppable.
I cannot hit a baseball or play soccer (football to the rest of the world), but I can read an MRI scan.
I know the difference between glioblastoma and rhabdomyosarcoma. I know which surgeons can cut away a golf ball size tumor without damaging the brainstem.
Intense is a word people use to describe me.
When Misha was ten years old, I overheard one of her friends tell her I had scary eyes. She said she didn’t think I loved Misha because I was so strict.
Misha looked at her and said, “I know he does because he has never left me.”
Love is spelled T-I-M-E.
Show me where you spend your time, and I’ll tell you who or what you love.
Lesson 5: Sometimes, there are no good decisions
Misha was almost three years old, and the brain tumor started growing again.
Despite the surgeries and tons of chemotherapy, her cancer kept growing. Nothing seemed to work.
We elected to have another brain surgery. It would be her fourth, and when it was over, Misha had changed.
She was still our little girl but a sadder, darker, angrier version of herself. Every two or three days, Misha went into fits of rage. Imagine a two-year-old Incredible Hulk trying to destroy everything she saw. That was Misha.
A month after the surgery, Misha had another MRI. The tumor grew, not as fast, but it was bigger.
Her oncologists believed it was time for radiotherapy. Something had to be done before the tumor progressed, where no treatment was a good or safe option. They recommended stereotactic radiotherapy — radiation fractionated over 29 sessions.
Radiation is a potential cure that can be worse than the disease. The treatment will destroy cancer cells. It will also damage a growing baby’s brain and create permanent disabilities. Misha could go through the trauma of the radiation and still die from the tumor. It was an either-or decision. Either do the radiation or do nothing. And nothing meant Misha would die.
There were no good choices: death or radiation. We chose radiation.
I made another choice. Regardless of the outcome, I would not regret my decision. I am not some almighty God sitting on Mount Olympus playing chess with the world.
I didn’t have the luxury of knowing if I made a right or wrong decision, so I made a decision based on love and the facts. That’s all I could do.
Regret hinders progress and remorse takes too much effort.
I know that’s easier said than done, but it is the best way to live with hard decisions.
Sometimes there are no good decisions. Do your best with what you have and know, and then move on.
Today, Misha is thirty years old. She graduated from college and is one of the three best people I know. The other two are my wife and my other daughter, Anna.
I learned many lessons from Misha and the hundreds of people I met fighting cancer. They changed my life. Knowing them and their families, the hundreds of doctors and nurses, made me a better person.
Maybe one day, I’ll share everything I learned from them.
This Week’s Challenge: Squats and pushups and a little run
The Challenge: Every day this week, complete 100 bodyweight squats and 100 pushups in less than ten minutes. When you’re done, run two miles.
The modification: Three days this week, run 1/2 mile, 50 squats, and 50 pushups.
The Obscene Challenge: Run 5 miles, 200 banded pushups, 200 weighted squats, every day this week.
The 3 Things Most People Want by Bob Proctor
Bob Proctor died a little more than a year ago, February 3, 2022. He was a visionary. I think Bob was right. Most people don’t want to be fabulously wealthy. They just want to stop worrying about money. They want to do the things (especially at their jobs) that make them happy. And, they want to be around good people. They want to feel good and be uplifted.
Thank you for reading. Don’t forget to eat ice cream and to fight the real monsters in your life.
Michael