Shamus Keough Reconstruction of Memory

Posted by Shamus Keough in College English · Pahomov/Rhymer · B Band on

I remember when the doctor told me I wasn’t going to live. I was an overweight man living in Detroit, living in an average house with my wife and child. While I was overweight, I still tried to get to the gym on weekends, and when ever I had freetime. I wasn’t the best with working out, but I always made sure I ran a few miles on the treadmill. I thought it would be interesting to try out running and see if I could lose some weight as well. The next summer after I started training I had already set up the idea to run a half marathon by some point in my life.

By the second month of training, I was starting to be really proud of myself. I had been doing some long runs, and at that point my farthest run had been nine miles. I was happy, and so was my wife, everything was going great. Until the doctor visit the next week.

I had gone to the doctor after work one day because I felt a little bit like I was starting to get the flu. I got to the doctor’s office and described how I was feeling to the doctor. The doctor said “Well… it might be a cold, but I just want to check if it could be something else. Would you mind taking an mri really quick?” I said sure, and got into the machine. The mri ended a few minutes later, and the doctor came into the room with a sad look on his face.

“I’m so sorry… it’s what I thought it might be. You have blood cancer.”

I later found out that I had only a few more months to live. I didn’t know how exactly to react, all I knew was that I was going to finish that half marathon I promised to my wife. I kept on practicing, every weekend, and any other free time I had. I had been practicing so much, I knew I was going to do his best, and even if I had to, make it the last thing I did in my life.

Author’s Note

The plot of the story is partially based off of my first experience running a half marathon. My first time running a half marathon was pretty difficult, so I tried to have my main character also have a hard time training at first. I had Terry start out training and have some trouble at first, which I can admit I also had some trouble when I first started running. After Terry starts running, I added him being diagnosed with cancer because I wanted to make Terry have some extra struggle with his training. I had the idea of him being diagnosed with cancer because I also had cancer when I was younger.


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