Yes, Cancer Does Suck

Emotions build and creep in silently like an approaching, possibly threatening, storm. They run rampant like a fox hunt and bounce back and forth like a tennis match living with cancer. One minute you are living normal. Doing dishes. Laundry. Fixing Dinner. Cleaning up dog yak. The next you realize, you are not doing the things you set out to do. Spend quality time with your spouse. Go to the park. Study your child’s expressions upon her face. Finish the book you wanted to write for her, in case your not around and don’t get to tell her all the things you wanted to. Then you remember your last test came back with excellent results. You think to yourself, you still have time. So you go on with day to day things, not carrying out the precious things that mean so much to you. Next thing you know, you find out an acquaintance had that same clean test you did three months ago, but now has metastasis in much of her bones. Did they miss it last time? Did it just grow that fast? Couple days go by and you go back to blogs of others with similar diagnosis and someone else logged on for them. For the final message. To inform everyone the bloggers lost the fight and have passed on. Fear, panic and realization set in once again. While you hope and pray you’ll have 10 or 20 years more, you feel time slipping away. You’re bordering phobic once again. The possibility of only 6 months more creeps back in... at the same time you feel guilty for worrying about your own mortality more then hers. You feel sad for the friend that is having a horrible recurrence, sorry for the families that just lost their wife, mother, sister, aunt…Guilt of wasting time with droll things and not giving more of yourself to others.

Wanting to be cured, knowing you won’t hear words like remission for many years, maybe 10, but hoping you will be here AT LEAST that long…. Deleting web links off your favorite places of other sufferers, because they passed on… Hearing your doctor, trying to be encouraging, say, ‘I have one patient as bad as your case and it’s been 7 years. She’s still here.’ That’s great. It truly is. Then again, what about the others? What happened to them? Was her case so highly unusual that he brought her up? What did she do? Can I do it? Was she the same one that had a bad test when mine came back good? You find yourself in a vicious circle of neurotic obsession.

These are emotions and questions of mortality that are completely normal. But there’s no way around them.

Eventually, you get past what every one says are “negative thoughts” and move on with normal life, as always.

On the other hand, perhaps negative thoughts are needed. Perhaps negative thoughts can lead into something positive. Lead you to becoming.
Perhaps the negative needs to creep in to remind you to get your ass moving, worry about the truly important things, enjoy what you can while you can.

This can be said for ANYONE that forgets there are blessings in your life in small packages every day. You don’t need to have a disease to set aside the pessimism so you can become more productive, more appreciative.