back to the cancer roots

a friend of mine just e mailed me, and told me that he really enjoyed my blog, but didnt really see its connection to cancer. i thought it was a very interesting comment. so i told him that there was a very good reason for that; and instead of just explaining it to him... i thought i would share the answer with all of you.

cancer will ALWAYS be a part of my life. if i go in remission for 40 years, (g-d willing!)...i will still worry about my next lab or scan result. fear of recurrence is often worse than the original diagnosis. so...yes...i will always be plagued by cancer.

this brings me back to why i even have this blog in the first place. when i was first diagnosed in 2005, it was a big and fast whirlwind. not only was i in "freak out" mode, but i was thrown into a million doctor offices, a million and one tests and then surgery and chemo. i also had a six week old baby and was in the midst of building a house! yeah....i was literally picking out door hinges in between cancer treatments. crazy. and...my phone was constantly ringing. im not complaining about this...because, as ive said many times before... i feel fortunate to have so many friends who care and were concerned and wanted to know what they could do to help. BUT...i couldnt keep up with the updates. so i wrote a bulk mass e mail update to fill everyone in on what was going on with me. and i continued to do so. well....my e mails started circulating around town... and then some! my e mails were being forwarded to people i didnt even know. it was weird. i was told that people enjoyed them, because even though it was a serious subject and a difficult time; that i would write humorous things in them that uplifted peoples spirits. (their words...not mine!) another reason why it was important for me to write updates, was so people could hear about my experiences IN MY OWN WORDS! in the town i live in, gossip is a favorite pastime and often the story changes as it goes down the "gossip line". if i was doing great and feeling well, by the time it got to the end of the "gossip line", the story had me on my death bead. i wasnt! and if i was...you would hear it from me. (if i could!) and hopefully that wont be for a loooong time!  as time went on, my updates were getting more infrequent. life gets busy! and people missed reading my updates. i kept hearing that i should write a book. (its in the planning stages; but in my mind only!) when i first heard about blogging, i intended to do it as a sort of a continuation of my updates. 

this is where my explanation of my blog not being only about cancer comes into play. the reason why im blogging about this, as opposed to only explaining it to my friend, is because i hope that other people going thru this can maybe relate, and other people, can understand. my full time job is being a cancer patient. i think my car goes to the hospital on auto-pilot. its a constant thing. but that doesnt mean that my life is only defined by cancer. quite the contrary!!! i have lots of other stuff going on. and therefore...my blog reflects that. who wants to only hear about cancer? who only wants to read about bad stuff? not me! lawyers, doctors, janitors...they may all have full time jobs. but their jobs dont define them! they go home and have a life outside of the office. so do i! 

so i actually am continuing to do what i originally started out doing. i am giving updates on my life. and sometimes its cancer related. other times its not. one thing that i learned early on in my cancer diagnosis; is that life goes on. its strange, but i got used to it. i used to wonder how all of these people walking by me could go on with their seemingly normal lives, when i had cancer? i recall a nurse; upon when asking me how i was doing; smiled at my response. i told her that i was so busy with my kid and the rest of my life, that i kept forgetting that i have my cancer to deal with. she was smiling, because, as she said, "thats how its supposed to be." thats when i realized that, duh!....life does go on! and i wouldnt want it any other way. because why would i want to fight so hard for my life, if i was only going to waste time worrying about living, and not actually LIVING it!? what would be the point of adding extra years on to my life if i was going to miserable during those extra years? doesnt it make more sense to enjoy it? im not the most practical or brilliant person that ever walked this earth, and even i know this!

so that, my dear friend, and my dear readers...is why my "cancer blog" isnt only about cancer.