It seems so simple.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

It’s a very common greeting when running into someone on the street, as happened several times early this morning.

But for me such a greeting poses an immediate challenge, requiring me to quickly decide how to respond.

Do I treat it as a rhetorical question? Respond with a shrug, “not bad,” and then direct it back. “And you?”

Or how about an honest reply? “Well, I’ve been diagnosed with biliary tract cancer, potentially curative surgery failed, and I expect to begin a battle for my life within a couple of weeks when chemo and immunotherapy begin.” Probably a conversation stopper.

I usually choose something in between. “Well,” I say, “I’ve been better.” It gives me a second or two to consider the degree of self disclosure warranted by the circumstances and my relationship to the person I’m responding to.

If it’s someone I know, I try to provide the basics. “Meda and I have been in California for much of the past two months as I’ve gone through diagnosis and initial treatment of a small cancer in my gut.” It’s all there in one sentence and, without lots of details, it doesn’t hit too heavily. “Now that we’re back home, I expect to start chemotherapy and immunotherapy soon.” Normalizing the whole thing.

Making it more complicated is the fact that I don’t really know how I’m doing.

I have not asked for or received a prognosis, but am trying to just keep moving forward a step at a time with a positive attitude.

This does complicate practical matters, as some of the questions we face, such as what to do when our car lease runs out in September, would be easier to deal with if I knew more how much future I can reasonably expect to enjoy.

But, for now, I’ll accept that tradeoff and keep moving.