The Good: I’ve come to realize that my drum doesn’t
necessarily beat to the same rhythm as everyone else’s, when asked if the glass
is half empty or half full, I think “it’s got water in it”.
I don’t feel like I’ve “battled cancer”,
I’m no freaking soldier and nobody gave me a gun to fight this with, and does
that mean I either win or lose, are my troops willing to die for the cause, is
someone going to give me a medal, or declare October 26th a holiday? I don’t want to be known as a “cancer
survivor”, I just want to resume my life and be known as me. And I hate “pink ribbons” just as much
as I hate the term “the new you”, fuck you; I’m happy being the old me.
I’ve come to realize that my drum doesn’t
necessarily beat to the same rhythm as everyone else’s, and I’m good with
that.
The Bad: Have you ever noticed that you can say the
same thing with a different tone or delivery and that same sentence can mean
something else?
For example, “Is the cancer gone?” delivered
in a flat non committal tone means I’m just asking you a question for
the sake of asking and I’m not really thinking about you or its content. What I thought was “the door has
barely closed since the last treatment, which you are aware of, how about we
give it a couple more days before declaring this a miracle”, what I said
was “I don’t know.”
Asking that same question with the addition
of a few words and some feeling, it could have gone something like this...
“Do you know if the cancer is gone?”
While the answer for both questions is the same, the person on the
receiving end doesn’t feel like nothing more than a useless check list and they
know you at least thought about what you were asking.
And for the record, just because I’m able to
do laundry, doesn’t mean I’m cured, and unfortunately I can’t predict the
outcome of my next follow-up appointment so don’t ask that same question two
different ways, and yes, I agree with you, some of these questions do sound
silly.
Think before you speak and mean what you say, a
checklist is merely a guideline of what needs to be accomplished, use it wisely
and you can get all the necessary results.
The What the ???: I was thinking the other day I’d like to wipe out my memory from October 26,
2010 to September 12, 2011. And if I can
do that, I’d also like to wipe out the events that occurred as well; although I
realize in doing this I’ll also erases the positives, what a dilemma...
What to do, what to do... I’ve decided to go
with the mind and event erase, but before I do that I’ll write down all the
good stuff people did for me so I don’t forget that part J
Lessons Learned: It’s October 26,
2011 and I’m sitting in a restaurant with a very good friend of mine sharing a
meal. We talk about the last year and I
get flashbacks as to why I hate this date so much, when a waitress walks to the
table in front of me with a huge cake, candles blazing, singing happy birthday to
its surprised recipient. I guess October
26th as a whole isn’t all that bad...
