So, What Was the Hardest Thing You Have Ever Done?

By Kevin B. Jones

In 2021, author Kevin B. Jones was diagnosed with cancer. His friend Billy told him, “Let the medical team take care of the cancer; you take care of Kevin.” Kevin runs ultra-marathons. Could he run through cancer? This is the tale of Kevin doing what Kevin does–living each day, running each day, as cancer and the treatment wrought their changes. This celebrates those who shared their lives and love with him in the most brutal race he ever attempted.

About the Author
Kevin B. Jones is a botany professor at Charleston Southern University. He retired from the Navy in 1995. He is an educator, runner, crazy cat person, gardener, and occasional writer. He lives near Charleston, South Carolina, with his wife, Anne Jones, and cat-persons Tigger, Spider, and Samwise.

• Language: English
• Publisher: RoseDog Books
• Release date: Mar 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890279309

Book preview

What Was the Hardest Thing You Have Ever Done?

In early February 2022, as I ran with my dear friend Karen Jackson in the dark hours of a Sunday morning, I told her about a conversation I had with my radiologist near the end of treatment for cancer.  I had asked Dr. Williams, my radiologist, How much worse am I going to get? as I was not feeling very wonderful. He said that I would not get much worse, but it would be some weeks before I felt better.

For context: the conversation with Dr. Williams was in the last week of radiation treatment, and I had just had my last infusion of chemotherapy drugs. It was a Wednesday in mid-June 2021.  I told the doctor, I have to tell you, this isn’t the hardest thing I’ve done, maybe not in the top 5. Bravado? Maybe. Making light of a dark situation? Maybe. I don’t know.  

But Karen (and, on a different occasion Melissa Fly) asked me, So what IS the hardest thing you’ve ever done? I paused.  I didn’t know.  What WAS the hardest thing I ever did?

I ran The Last Annual Volunteer State Road Race of 2019 (Volstate 2019), a stupid long foot race in July, and came near dying.  That was hard.  Getting a graduate degree at forty was hard.  That divorce in 1982 wasn’t much fun. Was it having to leave the home in the country where I raised my granddaughters for twenty years? Losing my mom and not being there?  Or losing my dad and not being there? So many things in a long life have been challenging. I didn’t know.  

I thought, and I thought, and after a month or so, I realized what it was.  

To begin, I was diagnosed with cancer in March 2021. It was found in the lymph nodes of my neck but traced to my tongue (Really, Universe? My tongue?) I was treated through the spring and early summer of 2021. This book is not about me having cancer or being treated.  It will seem so. Cancer was a big part of what happened to me, so it will be part of the story.  

Many people tell me I inspire them.  Many people inspire me.  Many people who tell me I inspire them are those who inspire me. So, these are stories of that synergistic phenomenon.

I am not trying to advise anyone on anything.  I am sharing what has happened to me and what I thought – when I thought – about it.  I try to learn from my mistakes – sometimes.  Sometimes I don’t.  I have a mantra of sorts:

Learn from the mistakes of others – you do not have time to make them all yourself.  

I intend to write as I think.  I know some grammar.  My grade-school teachers suffered great pains to teach me grammar.  I think grammar is good, though I do not worry too much about using it. I have also been known to make up words as I need them. My conversations with myself and often with others do not always use ‘proper grammar’ as a rule.  I like the period at the end of a sentence but don’t worry too much about upper-case letters. If there is an uppercase letter here, someone else or a program probably did it for me.  e e cummings is a bit of a hero of mine.

This work is a stream-of-consciousness thing. Imagine conversations on long runs.  I ramble sometimes.  I ramble oftentimes, but usually (sometimes?) get back to the original thought.  

I run, but this work is not about running.  It will seem so.  I run almost every day.  The tapestry of my life is embroidered now on the fabric of my running. I measure my well-being by my running. I do not run fast.  I have been known to run far.  Sometimes I look like I am walking.  Sometimes I am alone, and sometimes I am with others.  When talking about running to nonrunners, I’ve often been surprised when they expressed the feeling that I was trying to get them to run. I do not mind that some may not run.  I do not want them to run if they do not want to run, but I might enjoy a run with them.  I think and believe I am still alive today because I run and will be writing about running. I am writing about me, and I run – for me.    

Of Plato and Billy

Where to begin?  

Somewhere there should be a place to begin. But, as in many endeavors, that’s often the most challenging part. Confucius said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, or something very near that, and maybe it was said by someone else.

So, I begin.  

From a phone conversation with Dr. Glass, my primary physician, in the mid-afternoon of March 10, 2021:

He said, ... the biopsy results show you have metastatic squamous cell carcinoma. However, as it is in a lymph node in your neck, the actual site of the carcinoma is somewhere else, and the most likely candidate is in the lungs …

I don’t remember much of the rest of the conversation as I was trying to negotiate afternoon traffic on a 5-lane highway.  Perhaps I should have mentioned to Dr. Glass that I was driving in traffic when he called.  There was something said about counseling services and a referral to specialists, and really, I don’t remember much – and didn’t write much – about it.  

Before I go further, I want to say Dr. Glass is a kind and caring person in my experience.  This could not have been an easy thing for him to tell me.  I wouldn’t want to be the one that makes that call to anyone.

I remember more of the hours before the call than the hours after.  Anne and I were on the way back from our second covid vaccination.  We had gotten a call from our daughter Jennifer only 10 minutes earlier about her biopsy results.  She had one on Monday, March 8 as well. Her biopsy was negative, and we were delighted to hear that.

After the call, the hours were spent, as well as I can remember, telling those dear to me the news – and emotionally reeling.  One moment my world was sunny and bright – the next, I was crying.  Then all was well, and then I was crying.  In retrospect, I remember it as a very surreal moment in time.

By 5:15 p.m., I was able to put some thoughts together and wrote an open note:

A long one, but please bear with me and read to the end.

As some of you know, I had a biopsy on Monday. The results came back, and it sounds ominous, but I’ll know more as time goes on. It is cancer. And it is metastasized.

I have many friends. Some I see often, and some I see less often. But you are my friends, and I would want a friend to tell me if the roles were reversed. I have tests coming; next up is Wednesday morning, but I wanted to share my thoughts.

I was reading Plato on Saturday.

A man of quality ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong - acting the part of a good man or a bad.

and

For wherever a man’s place is, whether the place which he has chosen or that which a commander has placed him, he ought to remain in the hour of danger; he should not think of death or anything but disgrace. For fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown.

So, a man of quality (Plato’s words quoting Socrates) is on a never-ending quest to order his actions and deeds to learn from them, whether they are right or wrong, and to learn from them. We are all going to die, and we are all going to live until we die.

I am uncomfortable with uncertainty. As I have chosen, my place is husband to Anne, father, and grandfather. I am many things; we all wear many hats. I am a teacher, botanist, and runner. Therefore, I choose to put my thoughts on the places I have chosen and that have been chosen for me. I am choosing to think of and to put my efforts into the things I am and not in an uncertain future.

If you see me out and about, electronically or wherever know I am good and hoping to be focused on the positive and living the best life. Join me. If I am slacking on it, say something.

The next morning, I ran with Billy Simmons.  Billy and I have traveled some together and if you want to know what that means you will have to watch the movie El Dorado with Robert Mitchum and John Wayne.  On the run, amid much else, I told him that I had gotten the okay from Noah to run the Charleston 100, a 100-mile journey run in and around Charleston, S.C., early before I started any treatment.  Noah, the race director, said that he would be at the finish for me.  

Billy stopped on the trail, took out his phone, and asked, When is it supposed to be run?

I said, December 27-28.

Billy said, ‘You are going to run it when it is supposed to be run.  I am going to be there with you.  I am scheduling it in my calendar now, and I am too busy to keep changing my schedule, so you must run it then."

He then reiterated something he had said several weeks before when this whole cancer thing started to appear on the horizon: Kevin, you let the medical professionals take care of the cancer.  That is their thing; that is what they do.  You take care of Kevin.  That is what you do.

What would Kevin be doing? became a mantra to me.  

Though I did not have the thought then, in retrospect, that was at the core of what I was to do.  

Plato told me what to do: Live every day.  

Billy told me how to do it: Do what Kevin does.

What Does Kevin Do?  Who Is This Kevin Person?

As with most tales, there is a back story. The line I am born. was used by Mr. Dickens, and my birth seems long ago to me.  Though all my past does define my present, I think it would be a bit much for this work.

I’m an old guy. As I write this, I’m 66 and a half years old and have done much stuff.  My life, like everyone’s, has had its ups and downs.  Another mantra of mine, I have quite a few, is a paraphrase of Nietzsche: What did not kill me made me stronger or wiser.  Wise in my context is debatable by myself and those around me.

I joined the US Navy. After almost twenty years, I was discharged from the Navy for medical reasons stemming from a bicycle-auto accident. I was on the bicycle. Sancho in Man of La Mancha said, whether the stone hits the pitcher, or the pitcher hits the stone, it’s going to be bad for the pitcher.  In that accident, I played the part of the pitcher.  Much later, I was retroactively retired. Thank you, Mrs. Varn and Mr. Thurmond.

I got married, and I got divorced. Then I got married again, and as this tale begins, Anne and I have been together for 37 years. We had children, and they had children. We raised two granddaughters – Tina and Josie.

Anne, Tina, and I had recently settled into a new home and did what people do in day-to-day life.

Surprisingly, seemingly without trying, I am in a profession that I envisioned in high school to be idyllic.  The journey was circuitous – and would likely take, at least it would take me, a long time to sort out in the telling.  I love my job – being a professor at Charleston Southern University, teaching biology, primarily to first-year students, and the plant courses. I am a Botanist at Charleston Southern University and have been for 14 years, a career I describe to others as being in heaven.

I run.  I run a stupid lot, as some have told me.

I love cats. I take joy in my plants and my yard. I read.

I write a journal, letters, and essays.

Where I am now is not where I thought I would be now 10 years ago. In the spring of 2013, I weighed 100 lbs. more than now. I couldn’t climb one flight of stairs without a recovery to catch my breath and speak normally. So, I decided to reinvent myself on June 2, 2013, and in the ensuing years think the effort was successful. There is a whole tale there, and I will get to it.  

Part of that reinvention process was to start keeping a journal. The journal, in conception, was to be a running journal. It almost immediately became a running journal with much other stuff. Now it is an anchor in my day. I begin most days with an entry. I record running data in it, but I also write much of what I am doing, what I am thinking, what I am thinking about doing, and what I am thinking about what I did. Much of what follows is gleaned from the said journal.  

I talk to myself:  Sometimes in my journal, continuously in my head, and often out loud.  It is okay to talk to yourself.  It is okay to ask yourself questions and to answer those questions.  If, however, you ask a question and answer yourself with: I’m sorry, what did you say? you may want to seek a professional.

My day-to-day existence revolves around Anne, home, running, and stuff.  Stuff is a science-y word I use in the context of nebulous things not often definable in a few words. My day usually begins at a time many consider stupid early: think 2:00 a.m., as I like to write when no one else is up and about, and I enjoy running in the early morning. Writing in the stupid-early hours is undisturbed by distractions.  Running in the stupid-early hours has the advantage of being cooler in the summer, and I do not feel I am taking time away from family as they are sleeping. A glorious sunrise often rewards me.

I have been a denizen of social media – one in particular.  My usage of it has had its ups and downs.  Karl Marx once wrote: religion is the opiate of the masses. I will not address that.  But I will say that social media is likely crack cocaine or fentanyl. That said, however, I have gleaned much of what follows from essays I wrote on social media.  I should qualify that statement:  Much of what I have put out on social media for the last few years has been parallel with my journal. So, this work is essentially a peek into my journal.

The point where I choose to step off in painting the picture of my place in the universe is Monday, November 30.  An arbitrary date that I choose as it is the first entry in the current volume of my journal.

Going into December 2020, I observed in my green ink:

The picture I have of how things have been going in the last few months is of a river – swift and turbulent – that suddenly opens into a lake:  There is the rush of the waters approaching the confluence – there is a sudden rise in the water level – a bow wave as it hits the stiller water – and then calm.  I feel we are getting to the calm.

It was the first week of winter break – that pause between the fall and spring semesters. Teaching university has that perk of about 4-6 weeks off over the winter holidays.  It was the end of a tough semester at school.  The semester, as I wrote, wasn’t one of my best.  It was all online, and my happy place is in front of a class talking about biology. Well, biology and much else – I tend to teach as I do many other things; by telling stories.  Usually, the stories are in connection with what I am teaching.  The ones about running are not testable.

Anne, Tina, the cats, and I had recently moved from a small house in the country on several acres where we had lived for twenty years. We were now in a much larger suburban home. (There is a whole chapter here – primarily negative with many negative thoughts, and it will not in its entirety appear in this book.) On that Monday, we still did not have furniture beyond a bed, a few tables, bookshelves, and boxes – lots of boxes.  We were sitting on lawn furniture in the living room and on lawn chairs at the table for dinner.  

Anne and I have been married since November 26, 1983. It is a true fairy tale meeting as she literally found me swimming in the middle of a lake.  In November 2020, we had been married, or as I sometimes say – she had been tolerating my foolishness – for 37 years.  We have been through much, but I think most marriages go through much.  We are together; we are happy with each other. Like a great wine, our love has matured, and I cannot imagine an existence without Anne.  

Tina and Josie are our granddaughters who grew up in our home. Josie moved to Virginia after a year at Charleston Southern University. Tina moved back in with us in March 2019 and was staying with us for a few weeks on the way to moving to upstate South Carolina to establish her adulting life.  covid – yes, it should be capitalized, but no, I will not do it – happened after she had moved in with us, and all her plans fell through. She was effectively stranded with us. Her possessions were on the carport, in the hall, anywhere they could be. This wasn’t an imposition on us.  I love Tina very much and find her company delightful.  

True, we were a bit cramped in that small house in the country. Still, the kind people we rented from for those twenty years thought we would be more comfortable somewhere else and, after being neighbors and friends and all that stuff, suggested we move with this formal letter so they could do something else with the house, but I digress.

We moved at the end of September. In the move to our new home – I love my house, Billy – we had to give up much that we cared for.  That was the place where we had raised Tina and Josie.  That was the place where we buried the furry children. For me, that meant giving up, in large part, my plants.  I had, over the years, accumulated an extensive collection of plants.  I am gifted with a very green thumb and a passion for plants.  Much of my memory album is in plants.  I have had some for almost 50 years, some from places in my childhood and travels.  Having to move precipitously, I lost both of my greenhouses. I gave away to good homes six pickup trucks full of my babies.  Many had to be abandoned as they had set roots, though I did take cuttings, and some of the cuttings did set roots. A plant person can understand the pain.  

That is not to say I lost all my plants.  I only left them at the old place if I could not get them out of the ground. Leaving them meant certain death.  I kept perhaps 500.  I said I had a vast collection.  I spoke with the plants going into that winter and told them, Winter is going to be hard; all you can hope for is to exist huddled together under a sheet of plastic in the middle of the backyard. I will try to make you as comfortable as I can. Yes, I talk to plants and inanimate objects.

The move was difficult.  I once read that moving is one of the five most stressful things one can do. On that list, it is number three: after losing a loved one and divorce and before major injury/illness and losing a job.  I had friends that helped. I had wonderful friends that helped: That helped me move. That helped me move in the rain. The thank-you notes ran to over 30.  Most were friends from my running tribe, plant friends, and past and present students. There were a few of my assistants from school that helped.  From time to time, I would find a note from Crystal on a test, Remember, I helped you move – in the rain.  With it all, and even with all the help, I cannot say I disagree with the list.

In November, we lost Anne’s brother Arthur to covid. They were very close.  He was her partner in crime, as she called him.  It was before a vaccine had been found.  Arthur had retired in the summer to avoid contact with others but still contracted it. After a week, he went to ICU; after three weeks, we lost him. As the hospital protocols did not allow any visitors, and indeed travel and visiting would have been pretty stupid considering the plague, we stayed home. The distance took a toll, especially on Anne. Arthur is deserving of praise and of being celebrated.  Their relationship and their close friendship are also worthy of praise and celebration. But … this is hard to write about, so I won’t – here.

In addition to the humans in our home, the cats moved with us.  There were 5 of them.  I’m a crazy cat person and am okay with being a crazy cat person. But, as Anne is also living here, I have a