| The author runs Gorge Falls on the Black Presque River. My cure for cancer by Brock Royer I laughed when I first got the call. But there I was, the day after I felt the lump last March, and I was sitting
in the radiologist's office.
I am 25 years old. At the time, I weighed around 182 pounds and was in the best shape of my life, thanks to my trainer Ray at the local gym. The water was just about ready to break free from winter's ice hold in Michigan's Upper Peninsula and I was geared up for adventure.
Before I had a chance to leave, the radiologist's phone rang. Dr. Kay my fiance Katey's boss, an oncologist
was on the other end. All I really needed to hear was him sigh before he began talking. That sigh told me everything and started me laughing.
What was it that prompted this reaction? Did my body somehow already know the answer? Was it that my brother had been diagnosed with the same type of nongenetic cancer?
Maybe I saw humor in the fact that I had been raising money and volunteering for First Descents, a kayak camp for young adults with cancer.
But I think what got me laughing at that particular moment was the sigh itself. It told me that a man I knew and respected had to give me news he really would rather not. It was just too much for me to sanely grasp all at once.
The author Robert A. Heinlein wrote, "The supreme irony of life is that nobody gets out alive." My life was now in the hands of God and my doctor. But on the river I found my quest to feel alive.
"So, are you going to run it?" Montana Mark asked me as I took a drink of water. I had a sudden case of cottonmouth as I looked at what lay ahead.
Mark is one of my best paddling buddies on the planet and we were on the first trip of the season. Dubbed the 12 Circles Expedition, the trip would be my attempt to run a dozen first descents in a single weekend. On three topographical maps I had circled each of the runs I intended to do, along with pictures and GPS
coordinates. I was determined, but in retrospect the idea was more than a little foolish.
We were standing at the lip of 90-foot Superior Falls on the Montreal River. It was running somewhere around 3,000 cubic feet per second (cfs) which is way beyond flood stage for a run that requires levels to be in between 500-800 cfs. The falls is the end of the Montreal River's journey to empty itself into Lake Superior.
Each time Mark and I successfully run a creek that dumps directly into the lake, we do a roll in our kayaks to pay our respect to the lake. It is a tradition that was taught to me by Mike Dziobak after a sobering paddle down the mighty Presque Isle River. The day before, on May 17, 2003, we lost Midwest paddling legend Jim Rada to the river just a few miles upstream. (Rada, 52, died of an apparent heart attack after
getting caught in a Class V hole.) I have passed the tradition onto new paddlers to the creeks and I hope it continues.
The north and south shores of Lake Superior are unique in that there are countless creeks, rivers and waterfalls that dump into the lake carved out by glaciers so many years ago. If you want to hit untapped whitewater in the lower 48 states, believe it or not, this is the area to do it.
The problem with paddling in the Superior region is the short window of time you have to catch these rivers in between suicidal and sane water levels. On a good year we have maybe five weeks, which amounts to only 10 days or so for the committed weekend warrior. We usually start with the smaller creeks, since they lose their water first, and work our way to the bigger rivers.
The Montreal is a middle-sized creek swollen to descent-sized river flow. The pucker factor of this drop is
just a little too big for either of us on this day. No matter though, because I was just happy to be there, breathing, living and boating.
Two weeks had passed since my first surgery on May 11. I still had odd shapes drawn on my belly with a purple marker. It was Friday morning and I was to start my first radiation treatment on Monday.
Some people breeze right through radiation treatment without too many problems, I was told. But I was
also informed I could expect to get pretty sick.
So as I looked upon Superior Falls, I felt fortunate and cherished the moment. For the next four weeks or more, doctors would be standing behind 4-foot steel doors as they zapped me with rays every day. I wouldn't likely feel as good as I did on the bank of that river for quite some time. I promised myself to keep smiling through it all as I replayed in my head trips like that one.
I thanked God before we shouldered our boats and walked around that goliath waterfall. We pledged to come back another day to be the first to run it.
But I suddenly asked myself, "Where is God in all of this?"
Boaters in general tend not to be a very religious bunch. Maybe it's because we deem our river trips to be soulful, even religious experiences in and of themselves. I know I do. I have always had my own relationship
with God that I've felt good about. And throughout all this cancer stuff at a time when most other people would turn to religion I kept my same faith. And paddling seemed to be my cure when I was feeling down. I think kayaking was God's gift to help me through this.
Kayaking, whether on flat water, play boating or steep creeking, it didn't matter. The pain just seemed to subside and I could somehow mentally prepare myself for whatever lay ahead. When you are running a
Class V drop, your head becomes totally clear. The sound from the whitewater ceases to exist. You are calm, collected and focused on your line. If you cannot mentally prepare yourself for running rapids of this magnitude then you shouldn't be there.
It is tough to explain to people how much kayaking spills over into my day-to-day life, and it was never as evident as with the cancer. Each doctor's appointment, each surgical procedure, every checkup I tapped
into the same calmness and focus as when I faced a serious rapid.
I had more than one doctor and multiple nurses, including Katey, ask me how I could handle everything so well. People react to situations in different ways. Some people fight their fate and get depressed and out of sorts while other people get angry and ask the "why me?" question. Others just accept the hand they're dealt and get on with their lives.
For whatever reason, I embraced my misfortune. I didn't welcome going through it all, but I figured the pain of this life-threatening experience would make all the other times in life just that much more sweet.
Lance Armstrong once said, "Surviving cancer teaches you the magnitude that you depend on other people, not for just self definition, but for mere existence. Cancer robs you of your independence and makes you
rely on friends, family, complete strangers, doctors and nurses."
In some ways, kayaking gave me back that sense of independence. Difficult whitewater is unrelenting, unforgiving, punishes and pushes people to their limits. It is also beautiful, awe inspiring, spiritual and alive. When choosing to run this type of water, you need to accept the consequences of a missed line or a badly
timed surge of water. In most cases, you are the only one that can help yourself. The choices you make are yours alone and the wrong choice can mean the difference between life and death.
"I'm going to have to pass on this one I think," yelled another great paddling friend of mine, Brian, over the roar of the water rushing down Superior Falls. "What about you, Mark?"
"Nope. I'm just not feelin' her today," I said. But believe me, I thought, I'll be back for her one day.
My first week of treatment started April 1 and left me sick as a dog. For three days I couldn't keep any food down and my weight had dropped to 170. I would lose another 12 pounds before rebounding.
A week earlier we ran the entire upper section of Silver Creek just outside of L'Anse, Michigan. It had been
a great weekend spent on creeks and rivers such as the Black, Presque Isle, and what turned out to be the only run of the year on the Slate.
My muscles were sore, I hadn't showered for a couple of days, but I felt great. What an amazing run we had on the Silver. The water was running at a juicy flow; a constant gradient producing Class V's, multiple Class IV's and some of the best scenery in the Midwest.
At the crux of the run and the end up the upper section, another piece of irony hits me. Jim Rada, among others, was the first to run the Upper Silver. They ran it accidentally thinking it was the Lower Silver. They disbelieved rumors that every rapid had been run because they walked around two particularly dangerous looking drops. They weren't about to try the section we found ourselves standing before.
This part of the river is called "the cabin section" after the beautiful log cabin perched just above the first big drop. The creek drops a hefty 300-plus feet per mile here, not leaving much time to think between drops.
I know I am ready because my mind is clear. I have gone over all the lines in my head. My incision no longer hurt, nor did I feel the pain from the radiation blasts. This is why I love kayaking; why I need
kayaking. The river doesn't care if I have cancer. It doesn't care if you are large or small, if you are black, white, blue or green.
For the next few minutes I am cured of all worries, all the doctor visits and the pain that came with it all. I snapped on my spray skirt and sat alone at the top of the rapid and looked down. The sound of the whitewater disappeared. Calm, focused and once again, I felt alive.
Brock Royer, 25, of Hinckley, Illinois, taught himself to kayak nine years ago. He was diagnosed with testicular seminoma on March 5, completed his first round of treatment April 27 and underwent surgery May 11.
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