Cancer - Dealing With It - Reflections (some 18 years I think later)

 I somehow got to thinking about the good things as my little grandson and granddaughter had a party yesterday and my other grandson (he knows me as that) went along and they all had a wonderful time as children do.  It's not always the toys and the like that are important it is how they enjoyed playing with each other, making up games and the rules as they go along and interact with each other, the laughs and the tears, the bumps and falling over, overcoming their shyness until after a while they lose all of that and just enjoy being children.  

I forget that it is sometimes these simple things that are the most fun.  Maybe not for us but for them and it is their fun that's important, making memories and all that good stuff.  I bought some blow up hats that sit on their heads to make them look like different animals.  It wasn't expensive but it was good fun and they all enjoyed taking a hat away which is great.  It made me happy that they were happy.

So what's this to do with Cancer?  Well it made me think that at one time I never thought I'd see my own children grow up.  There yo go that's sobered things up.  When you hear the word cancer you immediately think it is a death sentence and it isn't really.  I like that people with a terminal diagnosis are able to face up to their future I'm not sure if I would have liked to face it all those years ago.  Of course I actually did think that I had a big possibility of having a terminal disease.  I am glad that it was found and acted on early, that it was treatable afterwards and after a while (if you read this blog from the beginning (it certainly is a cure for insomnia) that you can see how it slowly dawned that things were a lot better than seen at first sight.

You don't know that or anything at the beginning at all.  Gradually you understand what you have, what you may have to go through and that there's a balance.  I mean within 6 months I was cancer free and I was almost entirely free if I think about it after the first operation that removed it.  However they operated again to prevent reseeding and then I had the Immunotherapy which prevented any recurrence - I had another series of operations after that to check that things were OK and of course, here I am.

I'm cured.  I no longer need drugs or treatment and recurrence is unlikely (but it can come back - it's one of the worst for it).  Generally if you are clear 10 years you are pretty unlikely to recur.

So what am I saying about dealing with it?  Well it's not something that happens immediately.  You kind of grow into dealing with it.  It grows on you (sorry about that).  As you begin to understand it, understand yourself and then alter your life around it and your family acceptance grows but in my case so did the gap between myself and my Ex.  I do feel sad about that, she looked after me throughout the whole episode really well and I feel guilty that it ended up like it did.  No nastiness just huge sadness.