June 17, 2011 -- They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

In 1969, the movie “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” was released to a certain level of critical acclaim and 9 Academy Award nominations. Sadly, that acclaim meant little to me and my 16 year old brain as I watched a movie filled with depression. The movie is set in the Depression era and centers on the life of a young girl and the trials and tribulations that she faced.

To make money, people would do just about anything including dance marathons which is the center piece of the movie. These marathons could last for weeks as people would be on their feet for hundreds of hours with brief bathroom breaks in between. The title comes from the belief that we shoot horses when they are in great pain, but we have no solution for people when they are in either great physical or mental pain.

The reason that I bring up this movie is for two reasons, one being my current mental and physical state and the second being an incident that happened last weekend.

As has been stated by many in the past, when someone finds that they have an incurable disease, they go through many stages including disbelief, despair, hope and many others. I currently find myself in an interesting state of mind that finds my cancer slowly advancing, but it having little or no effect on my state of mind.

The nice thing about Multiple Myeloma, if there is a nice thing about MM, is that it is not a very fast acting cancer. Certainly it can take people very quickly, but generally you have years as it goes through its cycle. I’m now 29 months into that cycle (which coincidentally is the median life span of someone with stage III MM.) Despite the fact that my cancer inches slightly worse every month, I am in a great state of mind. I feel so good that it is easy for me to forget the fact that I am sick.

I’m sure others with cancer go through this stage. It is one that my doctor even talked about as an intermediate stage before the cancer starts to take its toll. The other reason that I feel good about where I am is because I have faith that God and the medicine that is out there will keep the cancer at bay for several years. It works for most, no reason not to believe that it will work for me.

However, the main reason that I picked this title is because of a run in I had with a couple horses on the way back from San Diego. Jason was in a 7 on 7 football passing league tournament on Friday and Saturday with his football team. As we have become accustomed, they won all seven of their games and won their second tournament of the season. He then participated in a football camp on Sunday put on by San Jose State.

We didn’t get out of San Diego until after 5:30 because some of the coaches wanted to talk to Jason and a couple other Hamilton players. The ride back was pretty uneventful as we did a quick McDonalds drive through and didn’t see a great deal of traffic. That all changed at 10:30 p.m.

The shortcut back includes a trip through an Indian Reservation. It is out in no man’s land and as dark as dark can be. The speed limit is 55 and the road is as straight as an arrow. I looked at the GPS to see how much further we had to go and that 27 minutes will be etched in my memory for the rest of my life. When I turned back to the road, there was a herd of wild horses rather casually walking across the road, far closer than I would have liked. In fact, far closer than at least two of the horses would have liked. I slammed on the brakes, but to no avail.

The sound was deafening as an adult and her young offspring were struck by the front of the car. The young horse was lifted up by the car and was probably dead before it knew what was happening as it crushed the windshield, the sunroof and Julia’s window. In addition to damaging the bumper, the hood and the roof, all four panels on the passenger side were dented. There were hoof marks on Jason’s window. The other horse that I hit just damaged two of the four panels on my side.

Amazingly, only Julia sustained any injuries as she had some minor cuts from the flying glass on her arms. The sight of those horses in my headlights is now etched in my memory despite my less than a second view. It happened so fast that we hardly had time to be scared. I still marvel how lucky we were.

I have been saying for a long time that I was not going to let Multiple Myeloma be my last chapter. I have gone so far as to actually say that I would not die because of it. I did not mean for God to interpret that as a wish to die at the hands, or I should say, hooves of a herd of wild horses. I need to be more careful what I wish for.