Today I was thinking about something I read ... something a friend of mine who is also a breast cancer survivor wrote.
She said, "Most days I wake up and don't even think about the fact that I had cancer. But some days I wake up and am gripped with fear that it has come back."
My sentiments exactly.
Most of the time I am feeling okay and despite the medicine I take that doesn't allow me to lose weight, and in spite of the fact that my energy level still isn't where I want it to be (that is, I am not superwoman), I can forget ... or not remember ... that I am a cancer survivor. Even in the morning when I stand in front of the mirror and see the absence of breasts. I can disconnect from the "cancer" and just see myself. Even when I put on the bra with the fake boobs, I can move beyond the cancer diagosis and concern myself with what outfit I will wear and how much time I have left before I am officially going to be late for work. Normal shit.
There are those days though ... like today. I felt a lumpiness under my left arm where my lymphnodes are located. It's a little puffy. It's visible in the mirror when I raise my arms. It's probably nothing ... it happens. And I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, so I'll get it checked out. My doctor will probably tell me what she told me the last time I freaked out because of something I found under my arm or on my chest ... it's fat. Yes, that is what she said, that is what is was.
But nonetheless, this morning I had a meltdown. I realized for the trillionth time that I am a cancer survivor. I HAD cancer. In the past. Had. Done. Over. I'm a survivor. Now. And the fact is, there is no way to really know for sure if the cancer will come back. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. Yet, I felt the urge to scream. Run away. Cry. Fold into a ball and hide in the corner. Fear. Gripping. Me.
I move forward. Breathing. I think ... what are my options? Besides crawling into a corner and folding into fetal position.
To be alive is to acknowledge the possibility ... the inevitability, really ... of dying. We all experience this, I think. I am sure I felt fleeting fear of death on more than one occasion in my life before breast cancer. After cancer, however, that fear really has a face. It's your own face. It's other people's faces. It's the cancer center waiting room. The chemo treatment room. The operating room. In fact, this fear of death isn't really rational, but it isn't irrational either. It just is. Cliche as it sounds, Hamlet (or William Shakespeare, as the case may be) had it right. The real question is, to be or not to be. And choosing to be means you understand that there will come a time that you will not be.
In the movie Shawshank Redemption, the main character says that there are two choices ... to get busy living, or to get busy dying.
I choose to get busy living. That's all I've got today.
