I went into the hospital expecting to deal with an enlarged prostate.

At my age, that is hardly an unusual story. It falls into the category of things older men discuss quietly with one another and younger men prefer not to think about at all. The surgery had been scheduled, the arrangements made, and there was every expectation that life would soon return to normal.

Then something unexpected happened.

While I was under general anesthesia, my surgeon decided to conduct a more extensive internal examination. During that examination he inserted a scope into my bladder and discovered cancerous tumors.

In a matter of moments, the purpose of the surgery changed.

Because I was unconscious, the surgeon telephoned Joy and explained what he had found. Together they made a decision on my behalf. The enlarged prostate could wait. The cancer could not.

The tumors were removed immediately.

I woke from surgery unaware that the plan we had made only hours earlier no longer existed.

There is something unsettling about that realization. We like to believe we are in control of our lives. We make appointments, organize schedules, and decide what comes next. Yet sometimes life quietly takes a different path while we are sleeping.

Instead of recovering from routine surgery, I awoke to learn that I had become a cancer patient.

I remained in the hospital in Thunder Bay for several days of observation and recovery. The staff were skilled, attentive, and reassuring. They did what medical professionals do every day: they cared for a person who suddenly found himself facing a future he had not anticipated.

Over the next several years I returned regularly for examinations. Each visit carried a measure of hope and apprehension. Hope that all remained well. Apprehension that it might not.

For a time the news was encouraging.

Then one examination revealed new tumors.

The cancer had returned.

My physician recommended a year-long course of chemotherapy treatments. Living in Marathon, that meant something more than simply attending appointments. Each treatment required a drive of nearly three hundred kilometres to Thunder Bay, the treatment itself, and then the long journey home along the North Shore of Lake Superior.

Those drives became familiar.

The highway between Marathon and Thunder Bay is one I have travelled many times throughout my life. As an educator with the Ministry of Education, I spent years driving northern highways. Yet these journeys felt different.

There is a particular kind of reflection that happens when one spends hours alone behind the wheel.

The great expanse of Lake Superior would appear and disappear beside the highway. Seasons changed. Snowstorms came and went. Spring returned. Summer greened the forests. Autumn painted the hillsides in gold and crimson.

And always there was another appointment waiting at the end of the road.

One of the realities of living in Northern Ontario is that specialized medical care often requires travel. Fortunately, the Ontario health-care system recognizes that reality. Through the Northern Health Travel Grant, assistance is available to help offset some of the costs of transportation, accommodation, and meals for those who must travel long distances for medical treatment.

For many northern residents, that assistance is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Looking back now, what strikes me most is not the cancer itself, nor even the treatment.

What strikes me is how many people carried a portion of the burden.

A surgeon who looked a little further than expected.

A wife who was asked to make an important decision while her husband lay unconscious.

Nurses, technicians, specialists, and family physicians.

The taxpayers of Ontario, most of whom I will never meet, whose contributions helped ensure that my care would be available when I needed it.

Throughout the entire experience I never once found myself asking, “How will I pay for this?”

My concern was getting well.

The concern of those around me was helping me do exactly that.

Years have now passed since that unexpected discovery in an operating room.

The enlarged prostate that brought me to the hospital that day has long since faded into memory. The cancer has not.

Neither has the gratitude.

Every so often I think back to that moment when a surgeon discovered something he was not expecting to find. A different decision could have been made. A different road could have been travelled.

Instead, while I slept, someone chose to deal with the greater danger first.

Sometimes the most important moments in our lives are the ones we never see coming.

And sometimes they begin when someone is looking for something else.