#65 Leaving Worry Behind.

The kids left on Sunday. It seems like weeks. It's so quiet here, I go upstairs into their rooms and try not to feel sad. I know they're having fun with Erik. Ari's Dad just moved and he's not ready to have her over at her place so they're both at Madeleine's Dads, which is nice....it's where Madeleine grew up and really I think the only place Ari really remembers living. I worry if anything happens to me that they'll be separated. It's one of my biggest fears. Losing me and each other. I try not to dwell on it. These thoughts must come and go so I can continue to keep myself above the darkness.

I rarely wake up anymore in a panic that I'm going to die. Sometimes I have to calm myself down a little bit, but I've come to terms with my situation. Chemo didn't work, that doesn't mean it didn't kill some distant cells. I had a lot of residual cancer in my lymph nodes, a big tumor with necrosis and lymphovascular spread (which means it was in my blood vessels and lymph nodes). I had clear tumor margins which is good. I completed radiation which hopefully cleared up microscopic cells in the local region of my tumor. It's been almost two weeks since radiation ended and my skin didn't break or burn. Some redness but nothing like some horror stories I've heard and seen. We can only hope now that the cells in that area are dead. That any cancer that escaped before my surgery or after got killed by my immune systsem of Vitamin C. Now...I am on hormone therapy and supplements and I try to "live" my life. That's what all the doctors and therapists are telling me.

Today I drove to Toronto, had my Vitamin C IV, that took basically the entire day. When I got home I tidied a little and helped get dinner ready, ate and we went for a walk. That was life. Jason and I chatted about my fears of cancer coming back or being still there or recurring later in life. Basically, there's nothing I can do but what I'm doing and I'm doing everything I can.

In case anyone is curious about how my hair is growing in... Here's what I look like now. It's got it's own mind style wise. I don't do anything to it. It's like a silver mohawk. Chemo turned it grey...but hey. It's hair! I'll take it.

Anyway...that's me now.

A naturopath at the clinic today told me that A Chinese practitioner told him once that everybody starts out with a "health bank account" some people are born with millions, some with thousands. We can only spend what we have. This comment was made in context of me saying how I'm always amazed how people smoke and smoke and don't die, eat shit and live and so many people have terrible lifestyles and live without cancer. Sometimes some things are just beyond our control. But we do what we can.

Each day when I wake up, I take my vitamins, supplements and give thanks for being alive. I try to keep myself busy and stay positive, try not to think about cancer too much....it's tough. I go for a bike ride or to the gym and convince my body it's still strong and alive. I try all day long to enjoy the day. This is sometimes harder than it sounds, when my kids aren't around and sometimes there isn't much to do, it leaves me to think and worry. I could go down so many rabbit holes, but I'm getting better at controlling my fears.

I've always been a worrier, my therapist tells me that worry has been my way to try to control things, and a way I've always dealt with things since I've been a kid. Worry has been my constant companion. I leave it now and it feels odd. If I don't worry about cancer, will I have less control over it? Not true. If I worry about cancer I feed the thoughts of it.

Instead I focus on the little things in the day. Taking deep breaths when I remember, trying to just be in the moment. I'm soon going to start "passage meditation" and looking into the teachings of Eknath Easwaran. Here's a link to his work in case anyone else is interested https://www.bmcm.org/learn/ I'm going to pick a passage and recite it. There are so many to choose from and so many great teachers out there. I think I'll spend my time reciting passages when I worry rather than thinking about if there's cancer somewhere in my body.

Day by day now I live, the big treatments are done. We wait and see....hopefully time passes without incident and I get farther and farther away from cancer, but one day at a time is all I can do for now and I'm doing all I can. I tell that to myself when I go to sleep at night.

Today I did my best. I tried to do all the things to beat the odds. I tried to live in the moment. I tried to focus on the positive. Sure there were moments when I felt scared and alone, but they pass. I didn't give in to the comfort of the "worry" that had been my fall back to fear.

Tomorrow I'll try again, and I'll keep trying to live with this peace until the day I die. It's all we can do. Some days will be easier than others, but all I can do is try my best.

My naturopath asked me today "What do you think cancer is trying to teach you?"

There are so many answers I could suggest to that question, but I think the big one lately seems to be to appreciate the moment and to recognize when I'm doing my best and leave the rest to the God/The Universe.

Some things we just can't control but we can control our thoughts about the future and the day and we can control our reactions to our fears and worries. We can choose to think differently and have hope instead of despair.

I may not be able to choose how long I live. No one can. But we can all choose how we live.