The Takeaway Part Three: The Only Failure is Giving Up

The Takeaway: Part Three

My memoir about the challenges of
life after cancer

Last week I went to Warwick's in La Jolla, the oldest continually operating independent bookstore in the country, to promote my memoir, Surviving the Cure: Cancer was Easy,* Living is Hard. I have to say, I had a great time talking about my journey and what I learned from it, as well as signing books for the audience. And now I want to share some of that talk with you.

In this three-part series called The Takeaway, I will go over the key messages in both my speech and my book. These concepts are not just for cancer survivors, but for everyone. Whether it's how you view the world, how you treat others, or how you treat yourself, anyone can take away meaning from the lessons of my story and apply them to your life.

In Part One: Support Matters, I addressed the need for cancer survivors to continue to receive support even after they enter remission. While battling cancer, many patients have a great deal of support from their community and medical team, but that support decreases drastically once someone is no longer battling cancer, and yet they continue to face complications as the result of their disease or treatment. It's imperative survivors continue to receive support so they can have the best lives possible.

In Part Two: Mentality and Humor, I discussed the importance of keeping a positive attitude throughout even the toughest times. How you view and deal with life's problems is entirely up to you. Life doesn't dictate how it affects you, you dictate how life affects you.

In this final section, I will reveal that there is only one way to fail: when you stop trying.

You Only Fail When You Give Up

We're so hard on ourselves that whenever we don't meet our expectations, realistic or otherwise, we consider ourselves failures. But is it really?

There were a lot of days I wanted to give up when I was dealing with cancer and all the after-effects of my treatment—especially shortly after I found out I was going to live after being given two weeks to live. Sure, I'd survived, but what kind of life did I have? I was dealing with drug addiction, bone pain, surgeries, lung damage and needing to be on supplemental oxygen, depression, anxiety, weight gain, diabetes, and collapsing joints. It was a miserable existence I wanted nothing to do with. So I'd pop a couple dozen pills and let my thoughts stop working for a few hours to escape.

It was so much easier to zone out on narcotics and barbiturates and tranquilizers than to experience reality. And if that was the rest of my life—floating up in the ionosphere, high on anything I could get my hands on—that was perfectly fine with me. In fact, that was preferable. I stopped caring if I recovered, stopped caring about the handful of people who remained as support, stopped caring if I overdosed and died. I gave up, plain and simple.

Hips, Knees, and Ankles Replacements

But after a year of this, I realized I was healing—losing weight, dealing with less pain, not needing as much oxygen. For the first time in a year and a half, it felt like things were finally starting to head in the right direction. A doped-up existence on the couch wasn't enough for me anymore—I wanted to live. It was hard to admit to myself I was a drug addict, harder still to admit it to anyone else. I felt like a failure for letting myself disappear into that black void of drug-induced semi-consciousness.

Once I was sober, I started to rebuild my life. Things went well—until they didn't. Setbacks are the one constant since I was diagnosed with leukemia ten years ago. I can always count on something to go wrong whenever life begins to improve. Try to go to UC Riverside? Ankle collapses. Try to go to UC San Diego? Knee replacement. Try to move out? Drug relapse. Anything else? Joint replacement surgeries—ten of them since 2010, almost always interrupting some progress I've made.

Those setbacks hit hard, they felt like failures. But they really weren't. Why? Because each time I got back up, dusted myself off, and kept pushing toward a better life. Sometimes it took longer to bounce back than others, but I always got back on my feet. Despite complications and detours, I refused to give up.

As long as you're still trying, you haven't failed. Failure only comes when you throw in the towel and let your problems win—whether it's cancer or side-effects or bullies or even ourselves. The only person who can defeat you is yourself. You choose when you give up, no one else gets to decide that for you. And as long as you keep fighting, you will never fail.

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Spreading the word about life after cancer is important. There are nearly sixteen million cancer survivors in the United States alone, and that number grows by a quarter of a million every year. With so many survivors out there, it is increasingly important that everyone—from the medical community to friends and family—finds ways to offer support once the cancer is gone. The more people realize what life is truly like for survivors, the greater the support we can give them, and the better their lives can become.

Please share this so we can get the word out about the reality of life after cancer and give survivors the quality of life they deserve.

Thank you,
Andrew Bundy