Have you ever had a thought that seemed borderline crazy?  Well, I’m having one of those moments.  I have seen a lot of people of people go through the grueling treatment for cancer and very few of them came out on the other side as physically healthy as before.  Most of them could barely walk a couple of miles; Lance Armstrong not only survived, he flourished. After battling a cancer that almost killed him not only rode his bike, he rode it to the tune of seven Tour De France victories. 

My question: what were these drugs that gave this man his full health back...perhaps more?  Why are they not available to every cancer survivor?  Forget medical marijuana; where is that Lance Armstrong concoction?  Would you rather have ten years in the Lance Armstrong mode of recovery than twenty years living the life many survivors endure?  And, I’m not talking about the winning the Tour de France…I mean just being able to playing sports as one did before, going for long walks in the country, traveling abroad, or playing with their children.

Now don’t get me wrong; I believe Lance Armstrong is wrong for the years of lying and taking performance enhancing drugs that allowed him to steal the dreams of athletes who did not cheat.  But I can also empathize with how a man who worked to get to the top of his game and win and was knocked off his bike in the midst of his quest to be great might be too weak to forego the chance to do what he had dreamed of all of his life. Yea, yea, its a run-on sentence...but you get my point. I can see him trying to achieve all he could before the cancer returned. You see, that is the story of many cancer survivors…they are waiting for the cancer to return.

At the age of 25, Armstrong was diagnosed as having advanced testicular cancer. The cancer spread to his lungs, abdomen and brain.  After undergoing surgery to remove his diseased testicle, his doctor said that he had less than a 40% survival chance.

This is by no means meant to be an excuse for Lance Armstrong’s bad behavior. I would never condone his greed, cheating, pilfering and lying but I sure can see taking those performance enhancing drugs to resume life as I knew it. 

So, what do you think?