Here is a thought I had about two weeks ago or so, but was reminded about during a conversation I had with a friend today. I was having a down moment and thinking about how having a diagnosis like this brings you face to face with your own mortality. My oncologist has not given me any type of prognosis as far as how long I can expect to live which I am grateful for, but the literature at the hospital library said the goal of the doctors was to make you as comfortable as possible and to lengthen your your life expectancy as long as they could whether it be several months or several years. Several. I took issue with that word. Several, not many, but several. Several feels like 7 or 8 to me. It went on to say that there is no cure and you should view it as living with a chronic illness.
It was depressing. Nobody should ever have to read that and I find it quite irresponsible. But as I said I had a moment and in that moment I was crying out I did not want to die and that it was bullshit. Seven or eight years is simply not enough. Not because I am afraid to die, because I am not. In fact, I view death as a beautiful continuation of our existence. The next great adventure so to speak, but we will leave that for another time. Through a few experiences I have had over the last year or so I started feeling like I was beginning to understand my calling in life and was exciting to begin that work and 7-ish years was simply not going to work for me. I have too much to do.
But who said I had 7 years, hell it may only be a few months, and my head was spinning with the thought that I had no idea when cancer might have its way with me. It could be 4 months or 4 years or.... and that is when I started to laugh. I mean really laugh, belly laugh, because of the irony of it all. Here I was worried about dying from cancer and not having any idea how long I might have left on this earth and yet this is true every single day of our lives whether we are sick or not. I can sit around scared to death about dying of cancer, yet be killed in a car accident tomorrow just like anyone else. Having a diagnosis, in fact, has changed absolutely nothing as far as my mortality. Having a prognosis certainly could, especially for those who just buy into it and give up, but that is not me. You can ask both my mother and my partner, I don't like being told what to do and the more you insist, the more I resist.
Although my oncologist is optimistic, and assured me that some people live 20 years or more having this, she did tell me that I would die of this cancer, it was just a matter of when. Well I reject that. I will die from living my life, whether it be by car accident, falling off a cliff while mountain climbing, OD-ing on chocolate (hey it could happen), and yeah maybe cancer. Maybe...but not if I have anything to do with it.
So my good friends, sick or healthy, live every day like it's your last, because it just might be.
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