My cancer is back.
I had three good weeks in there. When I visited Kate in February, I was heartened to see her responding well to her hormone regimen. She is still sleeping a lot but has color in her face, her energy is returning.
I returned home with a lighter step, and for a whole week began to look to the future; to think about things I want to do; start planning what comes next.
Then, I found my own lump. *sigh*
I went in for a biopsy the following week, and as I was pretty sure they would, the results came back as cancerous - a tumor analogous to the one I had removed 13 years ago. Now, I'm in the midst of tests and appointments - all the things that need to be done to determine what I'm facing. How far has the cancer spread, is it treatable? I won't have answers for these questions for a few more weeks.
I am scared. No two ways about it.
But.
I have a choice. The answers are going to be what they're going to be - I can't change them. I'm not in denial about the tough road ahead. But I can choose to not let the sword dangling over my head ruin the next three weeks.
It is spring in these parts. The crocuses are popping up, the trees are blooming, the air is soft and welcoming (when the wind isn't trying to blow us off the map).
I can choose to be. here. now.
Like the birds, I am in nesting mode. Tidying up my space, finishing up a project or two, meeting up with friends. I have been tuning my ears to listen to the dawn bird song chorus as I take the dog around the block in the morning, enjoying the smell of spring on our long walks in the warm afternoons.
This approach works pretty well, until 4 AM. Then, I wake with my mind racing and my body tense and scared. It takes at least an hour most mornings to slow my breathing, relax my tense body, and purposefully turn my thoughts from a doom spiral that may well exist, but is not real here and now.
I choose to live today, the only day any of us ever have.
So, there!
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