Friday, April 25, 2008

Spring: Hope's eternal

There is nothing as beautiful as springtime in Virginia. Flowers, shrubs and trees come to life seemingly overnight, expressing colors only the greatest artist can imagine.

It didn't really happen overnight though. Like most things in life, spring is a process. Starting in late March, it rained for what seemed like nonstop days at a time, and mostly on weekends! Those rainy days were often cold and gloomy steel grey days that were anything but colorful. Yes, the sun did come out from time to time and the stars shone in the night time skies. And yes, those spring time showers were bound to bring up flowers sooner or later. Unlike winter, when grey days lead to more grey days and rain storms don't bring flowers, just mud.

If the diagnosis and treatments for cancer are like winter, recovering from cancer and its treatments is a lot like spring time. There are some very sunny and warm days. And there are some grey days. I cannot speak for other cancer patients, but I've read other blogs and plenty of literature, and it's normal to think that when the treatments are over, you're gonna feel so much better. But it doesn't work like that. It takes a long time to recover from the cancer. The diagnosis, the surgery, the chemo treatments and their side effects all take a toll that is like the Earth's winter scape. Everything is laid bare. Like trees with no leaves and flowers that are sleeping under the cold ground, that is what it's like those first few months after the treatments are over.

There's a tree in my back yard that didn't make it to spring. That tree is older than me, and maybe older than my house. I can't wrap my arms around it, that's how big it is. I can't wrap my head around why it died. But there it is, standing tall and bare, its branches reaching up to heaven as if to beg for just one more chance at blooming. But it's gone and I'll have to do a very sad thing and have it cut down. I moved into this house just for that tree and others like it around my home and my neighborhood. Standing tall and strong, the tree gave shade to my yard and that in turn created a habitat that flourished in dappled sunlight. Now the habitat is going to change because there will be much more sunlight in that backyard than there has ever been.

To be a cancer survivor is just like that. Things don't necessarily come back the way they were before the treatments, before the winter. Energy comes and goes. Some days you have it and other days not so much. Chemo brain still makes an appearance and the way your body looks and reacts to the world is completely different than it was before the cancer. You actually have to look at yourself differently because you are different. Other people may not see you that way, and they might not want you to think of yourself that way, but it is so. There are the physical changes ... like curly hair where there once was straight hair. And the mental and emotional changes, like having a deeper knowledge that life is finite and a desire not to waste a single second ever again.

Like my backyard, the landscape of my life is different now.

And though the tree in the backyard did not make it to see another spring, a miraculous thing happened in that same area where the tree is located. Honeysuckle is growing. Why would I think that miraculous? For the last three years I have wanted to smell honeysuckle in my backyard. And there wasn't any. There didn't seem to be any honeysuckle anywhere around my home and I spent many a summer night wishing for that sweet fragrance to waft through the night air as the crickets sang their evening melody. So now, I don't have a tree, but I have some honeysuckle.

To be a cancer survivor is a lot like that ... it's a miracle like spring.

For interesting look at "life after breast cancer" take a look at this article from the Journal of Clinical Oncology:

http://jco.ascopubs.org/cgi/content/full/19/15/3581

Friday, April 18, 2008

It's my birthday!

It's my birthday. I'm gonna party... it's my birthday ... let's celebrate now ...

Yaaay it's my 50th birthday. I am sooooo happy! I love my birthday because it is the one day that legally it can be all about me!

I'm so blessed to be having a birthday and the opportunity to celebrate it this year.

Some people may freak out a little about turning 50, entering the fifth decade. Not me! I am loving it!

First of all, I've hear that 50 is the new 30. I think "older" people are actually the "cool" people these days. I mean, look at Dennis Hopper! And I am in good company this year, too! Lots of the coolest people and things are turning 50 this year. I think Barbie is turning 50. Madonna is turning 50! Sharon Stone, Ellen DeGeneres, Matt Lauer, Prince, and Michelle Pfeiffer ... they are all going to be 50 this year. Mad Libs turns 50 and so does AARP ... oh, yeah, I get to join AARP this year. Anything that gives me special treatment and discounts to services ... I'm for that!

Okay, so thank you all for you love and support and helping me to get through the last several trying months! I'll be celebrating this 50th birthday as a milestone as well as many other milestones over the next several months. and I have you all to thank for helping me make it this moment in time! I hope you'll join me and celebrate each glorious day that we're all together here on Earth!

Happy birthday to me! Sing along if you want!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Nz9B1XFio

:)