Where is that other shoe and when is it going to fall?

November 6, 2008 at 3:34 pm | In breast cancer, cancer, health | Leave a Comment

Monday was my last day at the mercy of the Cancer Center of Carolina’s finest radiation techs. I spent 6 weeks going there daily for my dose of radioactivity. It wore me out, burned my skin, and frankly, got really old really fast. But now I’ve graduated.

And I appear to be done with cancer treatment except for another surgery or two for reconstruction.

But, of course, I thought that before and ended up in radiation. But perhaps this time I’m really done.

And the cancer is simply not permitted to come back, since I can’t have chemo again.

But nagging in my mind always is the fear that the cancer will come back. I’ve willingly submitted to every manner of treatment offered and recommended. I’ve been a good little cancer patient. I really want to look ahead and plan for the future.

But my life has utterly changed: my home, my hometown, job, my outlook on life. I’m a little at sea. I’m trying, for once in my crazy life, to slow down and let the future unfold. Only I’m the person who always said that you make your own happiness and determine your own future. I feel an intense need to figure out what I am going to do next, and at the same time, a desire to just sit and be for a moment.

And, of course, that nagging voice reminds me that I don’t actually know what kind of future I have.

But I guess none of us really do.