The Long Game: Living When Cancer Doesn't Go Away

When I was diagnosed with stage IV kidney cancer in October 2015, I thought there were only two possible outcomes. The treatment would work. Or it wouldn't.

Like most newly diagnosed patients, I viewed cancer as a problem that needed to be solved. A battle to be won. A mountain to climb.

What I did not understand at the time was that there was a third possibility. Cancer could stay. Not disappear. Not necessarily take over.

Just stay.

For many people living with advanced cancer, that is the reality.

The disease becomes something that is managed rather than cured. You move from one treatment to another. You celebrate periods of stability. You hope for responses. You adapt to setbacks. You keep moving forward. You learn to live in a place most people never imagined. For a long time, I struggled with that idea. I wanted certainty. I wanted an endpoint. I wanted to know exactly what the future held.

The problem is cancer does not make those kinds of promises.

Learning That Cancer Does Not Always Have a Finish Line

Over the past ten years, I have learned that living with stage IV kidney cancer requires a different mindset than the one I started with.

It requires accepting that not every victory comes with a finish line. Sometimes success looks different. Sometimes success is a stable scan. Sometimes success is a treatment continuing to work longer than expected. Sometimes success is simply being able to make plans six months from now. That may not sound like much to someone who has never lived with metastatic cancer.

But to patients like me, it can mean everything.

Why a Partial Response Can Mean Everything to a Patient

I remember a conversation I had with a scientist several years ago. He asked me a question that caught me off guard. Why was I satisfied with a partial response to treatment? From his perspective, anything short of a complete response felt disappointing. In research, the goal is always to eliminate the disease completely. I understood where he was coming from. But I also understood something he did not.

When you are living with stage IV cancer, sometimes a partial response is a gift.

Sometimes it means more time. More birthdays. More anniversaries. More family dinners. More ordinary Tuesdays. It means the opportunity to keep living. That conversation reminded me how differently patients often define success. Researchers see data. Doctors see scans. Patients see life. None of those perspectives are wrong. But they are different. And when you are the person sitting in the chair, your definition of success evolves over time. Mine certainly has.

The Milestones I Wasn't Sure I'd Live to See

When I was first diagnosed, I measured success in years. Would I see my daughters graduate? Would I see them start careers? Would I see them get married? As those milestones came and went, my perspective changed again. Last October, I held my first grandchild in my arms. As I looked at him, I could not help but think back to that terrified 48-year-old father who was told he had a large tumor in his kidney and advanced cancer. Back then, I was not sure I would live long enough to become a grandfather.

Yet there I was. Holding proof that life had continued to unfold in ways I never expected. Moments like that change you. They teach you something important about the long game You stop obsessing over what might happen years from now. You start appreciating what is happening right now.

Living With Cancer Does Not Mean Living Without Fear

That does not mean the uncertainty disappears. Trust me, it does not.

I still get anxious before scans. I still have moments when cancer reminds me it is part of my life. I still face treatment decisions and difficult conversations.

Living with metastatic cancer does not mean you've somehow mastered fear

It means you have learned to coexist with it.

Why You Can't Put Your Life on Hold for Cancer

One of the biggest lessons I have learned is that life cannot remain on hold while you are waiting for certainty. If I had spent the last ten years waiting for a guarantee, I would have missed ten years of living. I would have missed family vacations. I would have missed graduations. I would have missed weddings. I would have missed becoming a grandfather.

Most importantly, I would have missed thousands of ordinary moments that never make the photo album but somehow become the moments you treasure most. Cancer has taught me many things over the past decade. Some lessons were difficult. Some were unexpected. But perhaps the most important lesson is this:

Life does not begin again when cancer goes away.

For some of us, cancer does not go away. Life happens anyway. Right here. Right now. In the middle of treatments. In the middle of scans. In the middle of uncertainty. And if you are fortunate enough to learn how to embrace that reality, something remarkable happens. You stop measuring life by what cancer has taken. You start measuring it by everything it has not. Ten years after my diagnosis, that is the game I am playing now. Not the short game. Not the next scan. Not the next appointment. The long game. And despite everything, it is still a life worth living.

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