One Year Of Blogging

Well, well. I started blogging on Oct 8, 2007. Today is Oct. 8, 2008. I have been through a lot during this year: some good things (like going to Hawaii!) and some bad things (like going through chemotherapy). I have changed the way I view some things and have had other views completely cemented. Writing in this blog is enjoyable, especially because there are readers besides me!

I do not live in a state of constant sadness (or do I?) but cancer is always in my mind. I think about it a lot. There are so many reasons cancer affects me everyday. It has stolen so much...if I go into an example it might end up an endless, endless list... (for instance: I'll never have another child, so never have the home birth I planned, and never get to nurse my baby till we are both ready to stop. I'll never chose another name for a child. I'll never get to be pregnant again. I'll never get to have a belly cast or do a henna tattoo on my pregnant belly. My son will never have a sibling. My parents will never have another grandchild with my genes (maybe a good thing, not to give my genes to another generation). I will not get to share the joy and rejoicing of having conceived a child together with my husband again. I will not use the carriers I sewed for my son. I could go on. And yet, I know this is nothing compared to the sorrow of wanting and not being able to have a child and I am aware that I am incredibly lucky to have had the experiences with pregnancy, birth, and parenting that I have had.) Perhaps from the above italicized example you can extrapolate how I feel about what else cancer has stolen from me, and from my husband, my son, my parents, et cetera. And I guess that's something has has happened to my viewpoint: I see clearly and intensely what has been robbed from me AND YET I see clearly and intensely what an amazingly wonderful (blessed, whatever your take on the significance of that word) life I lead.

I do not want to attribute anything positive to cancer, so if anything positive has come from the fact that I have this disease growing inside my lungs, those positive things come from within people (me and others), not from the disease. I do not think that the cancer has made anyone love me more, but perhaps the idea of someone you love suffering and fighting without much hope makes others feel love more intensely. Like for instance, the way my aunt and my sister got tattoos touches my soul. These two have loved me for a long time but there was never any reason to show it, because, well, there was no immediacy (on my part too, not trying to blame them for not doing things that I also did not do--it was the same for us all). But now that time is so magnified, we have the opportunity to make the grand gestures, like getting a tattoo. And yeah, grand gestures are meaningful and a tattoo will last as long as its wearer, so that's quite a gesture! :D

The truth that I cannot escape, my friends, is that I am going to die of cancer. Not tomorrow and not next year, but before my normal life expectancy. No clinical trial, drug, or chemo is going to save me. No alternative treatment is going to either. These treatments will only stabilize the cancer (i.e. make it stop growing) but I am not going to go into remission. There is no magic bullet.