Measuring Progress

 I have a trick I have used for some time to measure whether I am making progress at becoming a better singer. I started to use it because developing competence in singing can be a depressing business. You are always so far from your ultimate goal, and you never seem to be moving forward, partly because the goal itself seems to be moving further away.

 

Other disciplines are similar – I also noticed it with golf. You start with a self-assessment which might be five out of ten and set yourself a target of reaching eight out of ten. But by the time you are prepared to accept that you have moved forward to six or even seven on the original scale, it becomes clear that there is so much that you now know about what you cannot do that your original scale was wrong and the first assessment should have been five out of twenty. Such it continues: progress is halting, and even as you make progress the goal is moving further and further away.

 

My trick in this situation was to give myself a fair indicator of progress. Most of the time I was struggling with new pieces, testing myself on tougher material and noticing how far I was from success. Every so often I would break the cycle by going back to try to sing a piece from a year or more ago that I had struggled with and reached a certain level but then discarded. I invariably found that, a year later, I could just pick up the former piece and sing it far better than I ever could before. This was proof that I must have improved during the intervening year. I just needed a way of noticing it and proving it to myself.

 

This trick works. I have used it repeatedly, most recently when starting to jam again with a friend. I have recommended it to other singing students and tried it with other disciplines too. It is great for morale and gives more motivation to continue to struggle up that long hill.

 

Recently I have started to use my trick in a completely different context, that of my cancer. With cancer, just like singing in some ways, progress is usually slow and easy to miss. You go forward in tiny steps but backwards with huge leaps. It is good for morale to find ways of measuring those tiny forward steps in ways that I can believe myself. Morale is important, especially when facing something where the long-term prospects are not good.

 

Luckily, I have had many opportunities to use my trick with respect to my cancer. Yesterday I went swimming at our local pool, after my neurosurgeon’s team finally agreed that it was safe once again to do so. I do enjoy swimming, and I always feel better afterwards, especially if I reward myself with a few minutes in the steam room. But yesterday there was another bonus. I was able to compare my swimming experience with the former time I had resumed swimming, back in April or May of last year, also after recovery from an operation or other treatment.

 

Yesterday I found myself able to swim sixteen lengths with relative ease. Furthermore, the walk home afterwards was easy too, despite the rather icy conditions. Using my trick, I thought back to last spring. The first swim then was only of eight or ten lengths, with some difficulty getting in and out of the pool and rests after every length. Even more telling, it was a real struggle to hike up the hill on the way home. The conclusion was inescapable and highly encouraging. Even though I had been deprived of the exercise for many weeks, I must be more fit now than I was last spring. It wasn’t just somebody trying to convince me to make me feel better, this was measurable proof.

 

Then another example presented itself. A year ago, a project started that involved teaching some songs to a class of kids on Monday afternoons. I was only a bit part teacher, but even so it was a real stretch for me at the time. I remember having something akin to a panic attack during the first session, which I attributed to having such a noisy and crowded environment around me while I was still suffering from double vision. Now, a year later, a similar class is being prepared, and I find myself quite comfortable in taking on more of a leading role. Again, I conclude this as evidence that I really must have progressed a long way from the dark days of January 2023. Those days did not seem all that dark to me at the time, but for sure the prospects now must seem brighter.

 

Another example occurs to me while reflecting on emotions during our two trips to Europe. Last spring it almost felt like a miracle that we were able to make it to Europe and back, something of a final blessing conferred on me. I spent a lot of the trip close to tears and in a mode of farewell rather than anything forward looking. There was a marked contrast on the trip that has just concluded. This trip was about relaxation, but also planning for the future, a future we both very much believe can come to pass. The only time my emotions got the better of me was on the final morning at Faro airport, when concerns came flooding back about a foreshortened future. We were still sanguine about what will eventually lie ahead, but now with a context of progress and the real possibility of future joy to anticipate if we are fortunate.

 

My last example is short. Yesterday I also paid my six-monthly trip to the dentist for cleaning and checkup. As I left the practice, I found myself saying to the hygienist that I would see her again in six months. Then I caught myself. Six months? Will I still be around in six months? Well, perhaps not. And perhaps the next hygienist I see will be in Portugal. But the realised that the careless farewell salutation was significant. It was proof that I am able to plan six months in advance, without cancer dominating the thought. This is surely a sign of mental progress. My prospects have not changed very much, but my mental attitude to those prospects has changed radically.

 

I recommend the habit of finding ways to prove progress, in whatever field. The setbacks are obvious when they occur. The recoveries can be less visible and easy to overlook. Setbacks are big, recoveries small. As a former boss put it in another context, trust arrives on foot but departs in a Ferrari. It is important to measure the progress, so that we can really believe it is happening and is not merely an attempt to build morale. For measures of progress are proof of progress, and the morale engendered is much more powerful. And for now I have all the proof I could ever wish for.       

Accepting Hope

 Acceptance was one of my big themes in 2023. It lay near the end of an emotional path I tried to tread as I sought to find a helpful response to my cancer diagnosis. I attempted to discard anger and resentment, acknowledge pain and grief, then move into thankfulness that would lead me towards acceptance and eventually peace. I can trace the steps of this journey quite closely, each stage marked by events or feelings. Acceptance grew during the period of advent, helped by some gospel readings of that season. Now at the start of a new year I did not really expect to witness, I find myself largely at peace, and I realise that it is time to couple the acceptance of my likely early demise with a different form of acceptance, that of hope.

 

After a lovely final week of 2023 in the company of friends and family in Holland, my wife and I landed in Portugal in the waning hours of the year. As usual, my Happy Place yielded its magical powers and I immediately felt well and relaxed. It is an ideal place and time to reflect on the year that has just finished and the year or years that lie ahead.

 

Prominent in the reflections was a realisation of how my time horizon has changed over the last twelve months. 2023 opened shortly after a major operation and with what seemed rather dim prospects. As warned by the surgeon, the operation led to a marked immediate decline in my peripheral vision, accompanied by some hallucinations and stubborn double vision. I was rather disorientated, and it was not encouraging to learn that the most positive likely outcome included weeks of radiation therapy and months of nausea-inducing chemotherapy. I could not help but draw stark conclusions when close family members thought it wise to visit New York in the dead of winter. At least I was able to convince the doctors to take me off steroids, allowing me to remove some of the frenzy from my emotions and death planning. This was acceptance of a kind, but hardly peaceful.

 

Then, somehow, the radiation period passed without setback and I started to witness cheery oncologist faces when they looked at my MRI scans. I alighted on the concept of Bonus Time, tentatively allowing myself and my wife to formulate plans for a few months rather than only days or weeks. The trip to Europe transitioned from an unlikely dream to a goal and then to a reality. Thankfulness was easy by now, and acceptance started growing; I noticed that every waking thought was no longer dominated by the context of cancer. My wife and I became ever closer as our emotional journeys interlocked. September felt like the start of a regular new cycle, not merely a coda of uncertain length but possibly more than a few closing chords.

 

A second trip to Europe came into view as a possibility, despite the worries caused by the infection during October and the other annoying chemotherapy side effects. A month free from chemotherapy had the welcome effect of restoring my appetite and greatly reducing my nausea. We made it into and through advent and then to Europe. We are not in miracle territory yet, but we are rapidly approaching the median survival time and surely few have the opportunity that I still enjoy of living a largely uninhibited life for so long with the disease.

 

Our first day in Portugal was the first of the year. Supermarkets were closed but some restaurants seemed to be open, so we headed to a resort area where we could walk and then eat. Walking together is part of the magic formula that has helped us to face our futures as a strong team, and it came as no surprise when that first walk yielded a wonderfully fruitful conversation.

 

Living together in Portugal has been a long-held dream for us, one that my wife has slowly come around to sharing fully, despite the fact that it holds fears for her as well as the prospect of joy. The date to embark on this dream drifted backwards but still steadily came closer, and the dream took firmer shape as we made plans for our life here and specific intentions, such as how to modify our villa. Then all plans, and the entire dream, were shelved abruptly upon my diagnosis; indeed that shelving was the first substantial thing we agreed upon on the very day that the bad news was confirmed.

 

As the prognosis has gradually become more hopeful, the dream has re-emerged into our shared thinking. On the long walk of the first of January, it took it several more steps forward, creating plans and schedules that feel very real indeed. Talking about the villa, we came up with a useful concept of three future time periods, which we called A, B and C. That helped bring everything into focus.

 

A is the time we can spend together living in Portugal while I am still in relatively good health. B is when my health worsens so that we have to restrict our lives somewhat, perhaps through stays in hospital or with much more everyday care or bound to a wheelchair or even bed. C will be when I have gone and my wife must live a future alone.

 

Unless we really do reach miracle territory, C will come to pass eventually. Perhaps we will never make it to Portugal at all before C. The period of B might be very short or rather long, but it is likely that there will be a B. We could be blessed with a long A or no A at all.

 

This simple model helped us to make things feel real during our walk and to plan accordingly. What should we do to the villa? Well, most immediate is A because that comes first, so we should make the improvements that are most important to us as a couple. But we must keep half an eye on B, planning for A in such a way that the transition to B will be as simple as possible. We have already made the most important choices here, by deciding to live on the ground floor and prioritising level and wide passageways and our bathroom. A quarter of an eye must also be reserved for C, so that the second transition will also be feasible and attractive to my wife.

 

The discussion has already paid dividends, because we have become more active than I anticipated initiating concrete projects. I can expect a few wobbles along the way from my wife, because she is the one making the longer commitment and sacrificing more options. Giving up work, moving continents and facing the likely loss a life partner are all daunting. Talking it through and dividing the challenges in to steps can only help.

 

Greater acceptance and preparation for C is valuable, and will drive us to action, hopefully action that will prove smart. We had previously rather avoided the topic of B, because that is scary for both of us, but facing its prospect head on and being somewhat prepared will surely help us both.

 

But for me, and I think also for my wife, the most valuable insight to come from our chat was the joyful acceptance of the possibility of A. I did not realise that we had been evading that aspect as well. Perhaps that was partly out of superstition or fear of being selfish, but now I believe the primary cause was insufficient acceptance of hope. I could face C and even B, but A was evaded because I did not fully accept its possibility. I sense the same feelings in my wife. We have already experienced benefits during the past wonderful week shared together in Portugal. For the first time, we are living A and accepting it fully. Wow, the magic in this place is simply awesome.