I remember early on when Cathy was first diagnosed with breast cancer, almost ten years ago.

I remember telling her some of the tricks that I learned enduring Crohns disease starting when I was ten, functioning with pretty nasty symptons doctors could not correct for six years before a couple of emergency operations kind of set my internal machinations right.

Since then--and those initial surgeries were in 1969--I have had bouts with Crohns but manage to muddle through. And, the experience has taught me a lot about endurance. And well being.

One of the things I remember sharing with her was not to "fight or battle the disease," but rather to learn to co-exist with it and master it. My logic was--and still is--simple: You don't want a battle going on within your body.

Aside from not wanting to function within real estate that is a battlefield, fighting implies winners and losers and difficult battles, and possibly even a war. For, over the long haul, Cathy--or rather her body--did lose that one.

But, we managed to try and live as normally as we could under that cloud (not necessarily dark, but we all make of it what we do) and Cathy was able to, as Steven Levine might suggest, "soften the hardness of the pain."

It does take a serious amount of concentration to do that, but, speaking from my own vast experience, it does work.

So, I have to be happy and marvel at the recent achievements of Jon Lester and Doug Davis, both of whom have had to deal with the oppressive moniker of "cancer."

And, I hate to think in terms of "triumphant," or "courageous" for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, illness, especially debilitating illness, is humbling in my experience, to say the least. To get an idea, try to think of the worst case of the flu you ever had, and then imagine walking around feeling that sick every day for six to eight months. For starters.

I am hoping that Davis and Lester did not suffer quite so intensely, but for the most part my six years was close to that barring an occasional couple of weeks, usually in the warm weather, when my symptoms would sudside a little and give me a chance to gather myself.

What happens, though, after a constant hammering of this is that one day, and I don't remember personally when this happened to me, suddenly life is "normal" with the discomfort, and feeling well is as abnormal as feeling ill used to be.

And that is a very strange thing to contend with.

Needless to say, it is a difficult road, but, as with any other challenge, it can be vastly rewarding.

For instance, those moments of stable health and peace were splotches of heaven sprinkled over my roughest years, and I certainly learned to appreciate and savor just a little internal quiet.

And, through the rest I learned a lot about endurance. Not only what I could endure, but that I could endure in the first place where logic suggests otherwise.

I am guessing Mssrs. Lester and Davis got a glimpse of this. I am also hoping, if not guessing, that neither cannot believe after all that they get to play baseball and get paid for it. In fact they might have felt that even before their respective travail.

But, I am also guessing that having gotten used to some kind of prolonged discomfort, both gets that walking around in a body with virtually no sensations--good, or bad, meaning "normal"--is such a kick. Not to mention a gift.

My guess as well is that both of them think, "wow, functioning when your are healthy is easy compared to functioning when you are not."

And, both would be correct. Congratulations to both from someone who has been there.