11 years later…
I just had my 11 year cancerversary this past weekend. As I mentioned in my last post, life is going really good for me these days. I’m almost to the point I was at BC (Before Cancer).
I’m starting to realize I have some fears that getting back to that point again may bring another life changing issue into my life so I’m dragging my feet and shying away from being successful.
And then shortly after I started writing this post I went to my dermatologist for my yearly skin check. Had to have a suspicious spot biopsied. Very nerve-wracking.
But fortunately I got the call yesterday, all clear. Big sigh of relief and a reminder that there are some things in life that you can’t control - all you can control is the way you respond to them, a hard lesson learned the last time around.
So I’m back to moving forward without letting the past hold me back while taking time to enjoy the journey, and most specifically, those moments of unexpected beauty in life that we come upon when we least expect it.
My, how time flies when you’re having fun…
Has it really been almost a year? Hard to believe.
So I quickly got the hang of the writing for the additional job skillz that I picked up this past year. As a matter of fact, I got the hang if it so well that I accepted a new position utilizing those skillz. Same department, same firm, just moved to a different team. And different hours. Which has enabled me to finally go out and do some local playing instead of just talking a lot about it but not actually doing anything about it. More on that in a follow-up post.
I’m finally off the skin drug I was on for most of last year. It was working for the most part, but the side effects were not tolerable so I finally quit taking it at the end of the year. And now…my skin is almost cleared up without it. Go figa.
I’m doing a lot of work on myself this year. Holding myself accountable for what I eat, working really hard to improve my fitness, both physical and mental. So far it is paying off, I just need to continue along this path. I have a couple of free sessions with a life coach lined up to help me with that. I have had a pattern in life of getting it going on in a good way and then self-destructing so I’m hoping a little guidance will help me move beyond that and on to continued health, happiness and well-being.
That’s the big update - I hope to post a little more frequently now. In the meantime…peace out!
Ten Years - A Cancerversary
10 years ago I sat in a doctors office and heard the words no woman wants to hear.
You have breast cancer.
Actually it was a much more involved statement but that’s the short version. Went home, cried all night, got up the next day and wrote in my notebook:
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
I will not die, I will beat breast cancer.
(I have a scan of it that I might track down and post but for now the text re-creation above will have to suffice.)
Then I called my mom and told her.
Then it’s all a blur of doctors and appointments and procedures. The further away I get from it, the less that I remember and don’t want to spend the time and energy trying to dig it out of my brain from where it has gotten buried along with the chemistry (better living through) and calculus and physics that I use to know.
And in the midst of all that another bombshell. Actually passenger jets used as bombs. Treatment on Friday, terrorist attack on Tuesday. It was a hell of a week. All the sudden that pesky little terrorist in my right breast took a back seat as I sat and watched them leap off the buildings and was transfixed by the the endless loop the networks showed, over and over again, the planes hitting the buildings.
Life had already changed in a big way for me that year and in another instant, it changed for all of us.
As I approach my 10th year of survivorship amazingly enough another hard 10 year fight has also been won with the death of OBL this past weekend. It’s kind of distracted me from my cancerversary. And much like the cancerversary, while on the surface it feels good after 10 years to have not had any major terror incidents, there’s always that chance that lurking under the surface is a little terrorist getting ready to wreak havoc and take Osama’s place, much like there very well could be a couple terrorist cells hiding out in my body somewhere taking a nap before they wake up to have a party in my liver or some crazy shit like that.
I guess if there is one thing I will take away from the past 10 years it is that you can’t let the terrorist(s) win. I spent too much time after my diagnosis living my life in fear of a recurrence instead of just living my life. Self-medicating because of my situations rather than taking chances and living my life the way i wanted to be living it to be truly happy.
Here’s to the rest of my life and living it well!
What’s the plan, man????
Plans? I got a ton of them right now. There’s Plan A. Plan B1 Plan B2 Plan B3. Plan C and if none of those work out, then I got Plan D. Well, I don’t *really* have a plan D but I know I better get one sketched out and maybe E and F options too just to have some backup.
But first apologies to my followers for not keeping up the writing every week. Turns out the writing I do at my job for the skillz I have been acquiring involves communicating in vague, short bursts of information and questions and bullets - in other words, it *appears* that I am starting to sound like an attorney. And that’s not really entertaining to read, so this new blog has, in a way, become a pointless exercise. Or not. It’s all up to how I want to use it. Or not.
Truth be told, the first couple of weeks that I started utilizing my new job skillz it was a struggle to put the words together for my emails (the primary means of communication at my job) but by the third week it started to feel like second nature. I might just be getting the hang of it. Or not.
Anyway, the plan(s). It’s been a long time since I’ve been big on plans and the future. Not since that day back in March 2001 when I found that lump in my breast. Yeah, all the plans kinda went out the window for a good long while. For example, if you would have asked me in 2002 where I thought I would be in 2007 my first answer would have been “Hopefully still alive”. It certainly would not have been “Moving to California without a job, no money and a newly declared bankruptcy”. Nope. Never would have called that one. If you would have asked me in January of 2008 when I was down to my last $50, freshly unemployed and on food stamps where I saw myself in 2013? Not really sure what I would have told you at that time but it surely would not be where it looks like I might be in life in 2013 now - but even that is up the the air right now - Plan A, Plan B, Plan C etc…???? But at the very least, I am in a much better place in terms of having my debt under control, a stable job and my relatively good health.
2008 was a turning point year, I ended up going back to the field I walked away from in NYC. This current job is an upgrade in many ways - no crazy boss harassing me and a laid back environment - but even it has not been without a stressful moment here and there. The layoffs at the beginning of 2009 really shook me up, but the firm seems to be doing very well both this past year and this year so I’m feeling more positive about my job security. The economic issues leading up to the layoffs made me think about a serious plan for the first time since 2001 - I had to make up a backup plan in the event of getting laid off. I realized I had stopped planning for my future after my cancer diagnosis and that maybe it was time to start planning again.
I got a cat in 2008 too. The cool thing about that was that it was a few weeks into it that I even thought about what might happen if I got sick again, what would happen to my cat if I died before he does, stuff like that. It was ultimately a good realization, that I was finally not putting my disease at the forefront of everything.
So now I’m actually thinking about where I want to be 5 years from now. Well, I know where I would like to be. It’s just a matter of planning.
A B C D E F….
Which will it be? Honestly, that depends on things that are out of my control right now. So all I can do is plan. For what I can control. And deal with the things I can’t.
Peace out.
