Journey

It’s been way too long since I’ve posted anything here. I apologise. If anyone cares about it, I mean: I apologise. The thing is, I kind of got side-tracked. Not in the fun, oh something fabulous came up, kind of way either. No, more like in the heading out the door with a big goofy smile on your face, only to be kicked hard in the crotch, kind of way.

Literally the day on which I wrote the words “The End” to finish my book: my memoir about going through cancer and coming out the other end, I got the results from a routine CT scan, and, found out that the bitch is back.

So, these last months have been spent dealing with that. Again.

Against fairly good odds, some microscopic little cells survived, laid in wait, and surfaced in my left lung over three years after I was considered cured. It happens. I panicked. It didn’t look good. The word “metastasis” has long haunted me, but I really thought I was out of those woods. Accepting that I was going to have to board this roller coaster again was really tough. I wasn’t so sure that this was not going to be the end for me. That is one dark road, let me tell you.

Once I could be calm and listen, I realised, again, that this doesn’t have to be a death sentence. I’m lucky. I’m relatively young. I’m otherwise very healthy. And, because of my history, I am bound to have regular check-ups, so everything was found very early.

Two kinds of chemotherapy, twenty-five radiation treatments, biopsies, blood-clots, hospitals, clinics, doctors, nurses, friends, family, hours of research, one million appointments, one trillion tears, and lots of medical marijuana… and I am through it once again. Hopefully for the last time. Ever.

I realised, part way through this process, that I wasn’t writing about it at all. Last time, and really with almost any event or issue in my life, I journal all the time. I have books filled with all the mundanities of every day stuff. I’ve kept journals pretty regularly since I was about ten years old. But for some reason, I just did not want to face this with the complete vulnerability that a pen and a blank page gives me. I didn’t want to feel compelled to let it all out – I don’t think I knew where that might lead. It felt too heavy. It felt like if I really put down how it felt, I would have just filled page after page with dark black scribbles: anger, hurt, frustration. Beyond words, beyond structure.

I’m just finished the last of my radiation appointments. I am done with the chemo drugs. They say everything keeps working in your system for about six weeks after treatment ends. So, mid January I will have another CT scan, and await those crucial results.

I feel good about it. I feel positive. I feel better and more myself every day. It’s going to be okay: my accidental mantra – it’s going to be okay.

Anyway. That’s where I’ve been. Not exactly the adventure I was hoping to embark on, but I guess it’s just one more bump in the road. Like they say: it’s not the destination, it’s the journey.

More to come…

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