No one has witnessed struggles I've survived. That's the motto im living by these days. A great friend of mine said that happy people have to put up with all the crap that the sad ones do, but just know how to be happy. I like to believe this is me. I believe that if almost everyone I know where to do the pain, the hardships, the day to day monotomy, the extreme sickness, and the distance that I do then they would not fair as well. What i have been doing since late May and for a year prior to that is literally fighting. I fight cancer. But let me tell you what it is to fight cancer. It is the obvious. It is the chemotherapy with hair loss, weakened muscles, tired and achy body, massive weight loss, nausea, and sickness. But there is plenty that "fight" that doesnt get the publicity as those other side effects. I'm talking about the never knowing when your life will look normal again, the changing of your life so that it can revolve sitting in doctors offices and hospitals. It is the averageing five hours of sleep a night. It is the getting looked at with pity by even your closest friends and family when all you want is a look of normalcy from them because nothing else in your life is normal. It is all of the afore mentioned and no one knows or understands that you going through it. It is the waking up for the first time in your life not looking forward to what is to come until they finish their treatment.
Cancer is the disease has amongst the highest publicity but has smal financial backing for the amount of publicity it gets. And that is a statement where one could pretty much plug in any disease and it would still be true
I have seen and interacted very closely with many patients who all have many underlying differences and similarities. One such thing that I have seen happen, not only to myself, but countless others that I have seen is that the "strap on your helmet, cock the gun" attitude is usually there no matter what the chances of life are. But the battle is so long and rough that your helmet falls off and you run out of ammo. This is the breaking point. Nurses and doctors have told me that everyone goes through it, yours truly included. That point is the bottom of the bottom, its where they realize that their life as they knew it is gone, they will never be the same for better or for worse. For me I started over after this bottoming out and clung to the fact that my future was worth this fight. And in the end that is the reason we fight, whether it is cancer, AIDS, or Iraq. We fight for what we have and if, while in that fight, we lose what we have, we either sit and wait for death, or we fight for the future.
The first time I went through all these things I clung to my old life, bottomed out, and chose to fight for how great I believed my future could be. And it was. Which is why when the cancer came back again it felt like the cancer was laughing at me or toying with me or something. So I strapped back on all the battle gear, and am again fighting for what I believe my life can be. My future. Some people are scared for the future some fight for it so that when that future comes and is great the fighters can smile and say that this is what they fought for. The future comes it won't be great because I fought for that future, it'll be great because I will be there to see it.
Friday, January 12, 2007
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