it gives and it takes, but the gives are winning....

Well, on Saturday, October 12th, it will be 7 months from when I had my surgery....it's hard to believe that it's been that long....As I think back over these past months, as I can't help but do---it makes me realize that, while there have certainly been challenges (most that I have not even met yet, and hopefully will not have to be put to that test), but more importantly are the subtle changes that having this culprit lurking in the periphery, bring about. I think back to the days when I couldn't stop crying--I hardly ever cry, but receiving the Stage 4 diagnosis was...difficult. For days and weeks after that, I would easily get weepy, but finally pulled myself together and have moved on. Of course, tears are healing, needed and helpful, but I don't like trying to function in that mode, and it makes it nearly impossible to stay hopeful and optimistic, so I go there rarely, get over it and move on. For me, that is what works.

I was at MGH yesterday for infusion day, and there was a gal there that I had seen in the opposite bed/lounger last week. She was having an infusion also, but into a port that had been inserted into her chest. Yesterday, she came in to the waiting room at MGH, without her wig, wearing a pink shirt and pink Red Sox cap over her bald head. She was weepy and emotional, saying that it was her last infusion day....she was so excited to move on. Hopefully, this chapter of her life is done, but the chapters to come will, most likely, be enriched for what she has been through.

Keith told me months ago that living with this was not going to be all bad--that it would alter my life in many incredible ways--and he is so right---how did he get so smart, sensitive and introspective? As I have been forced to deal with this, I have found that I actually can make a commitment and stick to it, that I have have dug down and found more optomism and hope hidden away than I thought was possible, that I have the energy to research this stuff and make intelligent decisions (hopefully), that I am able, most of the time, to not feel sorry for myself--most everyone I come in contact with most likely has serious life issues, many worse than mine, so I haven't wasted time asking "why me". Well it is me, and I have to go forward, not back. "Go Forward"---I've worn this Superman dogtag for years now, from way before this happened. It is from the Christopher Reeve Foundation. I starting wearing it because I so admired the way they lived their lives in the face of such adversity...with such grace and humility. I still wear it--it reminds me every day to.....go forward...that this culprit is what it is, and I have to deal. If I can emulate them even a little bit, in the way they lived, I will consider it a victory.

Cancer can't take away my spirit, it can't take away my hope, my joy and happiness or my laughter---unless I let it, and that's not in the plan. (Someone please remind me of this if the going gets tough). Up to this point, it has given more than taken away....it has given me a wake-up call. It has made me stronger, it has made me sit up and take notice of the small things that I had been taking advantage of, it has made me really feel and be aware of the love and support from my family and friends and has made me feel so grateful and thankful for it all, it has made me realize that....well, that I have a l-o-n-g way to go, many things to work on, and there's a lot of life to be lived. I won't list these things, as I have written a novel as usual. This was going to be a short post....whoever knew I was so bloody wordy!