Commusings: The Hardest Thing I Ever Did

Dear Commune Community,

One of the hardest things I ever did was … walk down a hallway.

At first blush, that might not sound a particularly arduous achievement, but let me explain.

When I was thirteen, I developed an odd protuberance about the size of a grape on my left knee. I didn’t pay it much mind until I fell on it one day trying to dunk a basketball. The lump burst, only to reconstitute with more prominence.

My parents dutifully took me to the local orthopedic who had it biopsied. Two days later, I discovered that the tumor was malignant and further surgery would be required.

My doctor found me the only open bed at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. I was admitted to the pediatric ward.

My roommate was an eight-year-old boy named Adam with terminal leukemia. Hairless from chemotherapy, he couldn’t have weighed more than 40 pounds. Still, we bonded over soap operas. There was little to do except bide our time. Like sands through an hour glass, so are the “Days of Our Lives.”

I only consciously met my surgeon once. Doctor Markov was apparently the best in his profession but his bedside manner suggested he had few friends. His office was decorated unceremoniously with prosthetics that hung from the wall behind his desk.

Markov excised my tumor with little regard for aesthetics, producing a gnarly 12” incision across the top of my left patella extending into my lower quadricep. The entire mid-section of my left leg was deep purple and insufferably sore and tender.

After ten hazy days, the novelty of the morphine button wore thin. I was desperate to go home.

The doctors agreed to discharge me if … I could walk with crutches unassisted down the lengthy hallway and back.

Sweat bucketing down my face, I cried and grunted and moaned as I lumbered down the hospital corridor. I felt my heart beating in my leg. I don’t remember seeing my parents or the nurses or any of the other children. My attention was fixed on the next unbearable step. And … through sheer will, I made it.

The doctors gave me a few half-hearted claps and returned to the agonizing work of saving children from what Siddhartha Mukherjee calls “the emperor of all maladies.”

They signed my release papers and I was wheeled out a narrow egress onto to the boisterous city sidewalk. Upon leaving I remembered that I had entered through massive sliding glass doors. At Sloan, the entrance is wider than the exit.

My inestimable good fortune wasn’t lost on me. Adam never made it to the sidewalk.

Now, looking backward at the greater tapestry of my life, I realize that my time at Sloan was a rite of passage. I arrived a boy and left a man — the carefree exuberance of my youth tempered by an awareness of life’s appalling fragility.

Walking down that hallway was more of a necessity than a choice, but with the luxury of time, I now understand that doing hard things can lead to immense personal growth and spiritual awakening.

So, I ask you to reflect … what is the hardest thing you’ve ever done? And what was on the other side?

You can let me know at [email protected].

This is very much the topic of my new, free Commune Summit and book, GOOD STRESS: The Health Benefits of Doing Hard Things.

In love, include me,
Jeff

P.S. If you enjoy my work and are inclined to support it, then pre-order the book here and you will get the first two chapters now (in written form and audio) as well as a bundle of Commune courses from my favorite doctors including Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Gabor Maté, and Dr. Zach Bush (a $1,000 value!). You get my Good Stress summit and 21 days of yoga from Schuyler as well.