I talked to my doctor last night and apparently it has been decided the next course of action is another biopsy, so next Monday is my day for that. It took everything in me to ask this question, "If cancer is found would it just be a matter of a little more chemo?" Will I be terminal? I did not ask aloud. He said, "If there is cancer in your liver that will involve an entirely different discussion so let's just focus on that not being the case." I should have asked him to elaborate, but I didn't. I am a coward.
Today is a peaceful day of sorts. My mood is seriously laid back, the glass of Roscato sweet red wine helped -- okay two glasses. I laid around, got up to eat, made bathroom stops, ate some more, watched a couple of episodes of the Charmed series, then ate some more. I do lazy really well. I like to turn a positive spin on it by calling it meditation: a search for that Zen state of being; self-examination and trying to look beyond what is happening to me to learn how to deal better. Cancer does things to you; makes you complacent on some days, obsessively reflective about the future -- do I have one? -- and really, really scared. Then there are the days when I feel like 'I've got this!' but then in-coming calls with the results from this test or that one where cancer has turned left when it should have turned right blindside me, and I find myself looking smack-dab into the unknown, again. I am always scared these days, I just need someone, anyone, to tell me with conviction that everything is going to be alright in the end, that I will have the happy ending in the sentimental Lifetime movies I like so much. But I know, I do know -- only time can give me definitive comfort like that.
I went on the Internet which is probably the worse thing to do for answers when fear is creeping up your spine, but I felt compelled. I was looking for another me, someone who was dealing with or who had successfully dealt with having more than one cancer. I didn't exactly find what I was looking for, but I found an article on patients with multiple cancers. Before getting half way through the daunting statistics on survival rates and all the other blah, blah, blah...my eyes glazed over, I felt chilled to the bone, so I shut it down. If the biopsy is not good this time, then the cancer could have spread or I may have a third cancer in my body. How on earth will I survive three different cancers in my one body? Whomever termed cancer a journey was not even lying because this stuff is a trip and seriously...I'm wishing I could just make it all the way to the appointed destination with no wrong turns or bad stops in-between. I know. I know. I know. More positive thinking!
I'm being selfish right now with all my weeping and wailing. I hate this kind of mood, it feels like something soiled and rotten, a defeatist state of being that doesn't do a bit of good but make me feel bad. It is what it is. I know there are people out there dealing with worst, and that makes my heart sore and reels me back in a bit. Tomorrow will be better.
Here's something I'd like to share, I've been given a carrot to focus on for the near future, a trip to Merida, Mexico in March 2014 -- 7 days at a luxury resort sitting poolside or napping in a hammock with a beer in one hand and a Margarita in the other. A place for healing, a place for reflection, a place for bottomless Margaritas and frijol con puerco. God willing, I will be having my happy ending and leave this paradise feeling absolutely satisfecho!
For all of you out there, especially those of you who feel what I feel because you are where I am at, my heart is connected to yours in a truly visceral way, and I hope you allow this connection to bring you comfort on those damn dark days. Knowing you are out there sending me good vibes; praying for me, listening to me, caring about me -- comforts my heart and my soul, and I am sending it all back to you a hundred times over.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.”
― Frederick Douglass
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