Cancer Strikes Again

I'm back. A little worse for wear, sliced up and stapled together, a bit rattled but here. I was diagnosed with cancer nine months ago and it was every bit as traumatic and difficult as you might imagine it to be.  Nobody's journey with cancer is ever easy and though mine wasn't the worst of stories it was the worst thing I have ever gone through. I've sat down to write this post about four times now and I can't quite seem to get clear what I want to say about the experience so I will just say it sucked...big time. My surgery has left me with a long scar that cuts along the top of my shoulder, loops up behind my ear and down again, then swoops around under my jaw to end in the centre of my throat. It would make a great track layout for Hot Wheels cars. It is quite something to see and definitely the most impressive of my surgical scars to date but that's just the physical reminder of the event.  It's the mental scars that are more concerning.

It takes an army to diagnose, treat and rehabilitate someone with cancer. I had that army on my side as well as many loving friends and family members without whom I don't know how I would have made it, especially my husband who was always there to hold me up emotionally and at times physically. Luckily, he is a big, strong guy in all ways and could handle that. Thanks, Ted.
This strange and difficult year, ushered in by my cancer diagnosis also contained cancer for friends and relatives along with the recent deaths of two close family members.  They were both women in their sixties and they died of cancer, different cancers than mine but it makes me feel that I am alone in a little boat, rowing upstream for all I'm worth while the mighty current of Cancer pushes me back.  It's hard work just staying in one place, but I'm not giving up.

Times like these make me admit I am getting older. I am hoping that this year was an anomaly, not the coming norm but a nasty voice whispers in the back of my head that this kind of stuff is going to keep happening. When you are young and hear of someone dying in their sixties you don't give it much thought, it might seem a bit early but not that much. When you are in your sixties it's shocking. Somehow it feels like all us nice people that eat our vegetables and get regular exercise should be given a pass on death until at least eighty. Apparently that's not how it works.

I have no great words of wisdom to give, no epiphanies to reveal. I don't believe in living life like every day is your last, that's way too much pressure for anyone let alone someone who is still recovering from illness. What I went through felt so random it's hard to make sense of it.  Even the doctors could only tell me it was bad luck when I asked why this had happened to me. That's some cold comfort. Bad things happen to good people and vice versa, that about sums it up. Will I now give up bacon, alcohol and the occasional doughnut? No. Will I take up smoking, fast food and suntanning? No. But I will try to worry less and be even more grateful for my life while pulling hard on those oars.

If you want to read more from me please go to my blog site at https://whatfayesaid.blogspot.com.
Thanks.