Thankful. Just Thankul.
Can I just say that I love my doctor? She is the perfect blend of knowledge and compassion, and visits with her are so reassuring. I met with her yesterday to go over my scan results – another clear scan and no treatment needed right now! And she assured me that if it comes back, we’ll go after it with everything we’ve got. She has a holistic approach, which I love, and it reminded me I have to really concentrate on getting myself in good fighting shape while I’m off treatment. I’ve been slacking lately in some areas of my approach, and I need to reassess and get motivated again. I have to remember not to take anything for granted. The new year will be good for my resolutions!
I have been so incredibly blessed. Yesterday, after losing a church friend within a year of being diagnosed with cancer, I went with some new friends from church and Tom to visit the Relics of St. Therese of Lisieux. It was amazing! I prayed for her intervention in my healing and for others. I prayed for my friend who died last week. I had a lot of survivor’s guilt this week, especially when it hit so close to home this time. It is really tough for me when someone is diagnosed after me and passes away before me. I’m not sure why I am still here, but part of my resolutions this year is to try to really use whatever talents I have been given to help others and be a testament to goodness, grace, and healing.
My doctor wants to see me again in six months. I think she would have pushed it out to yearly visits, but she knows I like to be reassured sooner, so I’ll see her nurse practitioner in six months and her in a year, if all is still well after six months. I am guessing my next scan will be in 9 months to a year? I realized that I am going to have to increase my faith and trust again. I was so used to living three months at a time, between scans, and now that my scans will be yearly, I’m going to have to learn to live with a little less fear of it coming back and just live. I’m going to have to trust a lot more and live a lot more, not focusing on the fear that’s always in the back of my mind. I’m going to have to listen to my own advice: Don’t worry till you have to. I think I’m getting there. I’m going to have to live like I don’t have cancer, which is weird because right now I don’t, but technically I do, since I have metastatic cancer. I’m a little in disbelief that I am still in remission. It makes me feel so free – not to be tethered to a diagnosis, fears, doctor visits, and free to travel and just live.
So, that’s what I’ll be working on this year. My new word for this next year, or this part of my journey, is going to be FREE or FEARLESS. I am going to work on getting this body in good fighting shape – mentally, physically and spiritually -- and I’m going to work on building more trust. I’m going to try the intermittent fasting my doctor is recommending, so I’ll have to flip my main meals to lunch and lighter meals to dinner, which is what many other cultures do anyway. Lots of change ahead as I look forward to the new year and the holidays. This Thanksgiving, I am happy to be here with the anticipation of living in 2026, eleven years after my initial breast cancer diagnosis. And I am feeling so grateful, thankful and blessed. And as the “anniversary” of my dad’s death approaches, I can hear him telling me to just LIVE. It’s my time to live on this earth, it’s our time to live, so we should not spend it living in the past or the future. We need to live in the present, which is the biggest lesson I’ve learned from cancer. So, on this Thanksgiving, LIVE – enjoy family, friends and the good times and the good memories. Have a nice Thanksgiving, everyone!! I’ll update again after my next port flush, within the next six weeks. Stay safe and healthy, everyone, and Happy Thanksgiving.