Frustration, Shock, Anger

Frustration? Sure. I actually tore a muscle because I was so frustrated with my inability to get back to my usual routine that I overdid the exercising. Shock? Oh, yeah. Like I said in the previous post, I couldn’t believe that it had happened to me. I had had normal pap smears for years, and suddenly this. Anger? Yep, for so many reasons.

Other times I’ve felt frustration, shock and anger? When someone has broken up with me. I distinctly remember one time the summer after I graduated college. Very nice guy, let me rant and rave for hours after he dumped me. I’m still not sure why, but I think it was guilt. First time I got fired, that was a big one. I walked for an hour or so just trying to make sense of it. Pretty much any time that there was an abrupt change in my life that I didn’t make and that I didn’t like. But, like a lot of other things, I had to work through it and past it in order to get on with my life and create my Future instead of dwelling in the past. It can be done, and you can do it, too.

Disbelief, Betrayal

I couldn’t believe at first that I had cancer. I kept expecting it to be a wrong diagnosis. I thought that for about a month and a half. I worked at a place where doctors read pap smears all the time. A lot of time they would get a not-normal diagnosis and the advice would be to get retested in three to six months. That’s what I expected. But, that rug got pulled out from under me, and within 2 months, I was in surgery, my first major surgery of my life.

I felt betrayed, a little by my body, but more by the medical community and a bit by my family. I knew that my mother had gynecological problems when she was around 40, but she refused to talk about it with my sisters, and everything I heard was from my sisters until my diagnosis. Once I was diagnosed, I got my family history. My mother had gynecological problems. So did my aunt, my other aunt, my grandmother, and my other grandmother. All the women of my family for two generations and on both sides had gynecological problems, but I didn’t know this until after I got cancer. First thing I did after getting that information was tell my sisters so that they could tell their doctors. It’s now in my medical file. I wish it had been years ago. As I read up on my cancer, I learned that one of the possible contributing factors was long-term birth control pill use. Well, gee, I’d been using birth control pills for years, and no one mentioned that to me. No my primary care physician, not anyone I saw back in college, not the gynecologist I saw, not the gynecologist-oncologist I saw, none of the nurses. I had to learn that on my own. You think that maybe, just maybe, someone would have mentioned that after reviewing my multi-year history of birth control pill use. But, no. Had I known, I would have switched to a different method long before I got diagnosed.

But, no matter how much I didn’t want to believe, and no matter who I wanted to blame, I had to face the fact that I had cancer. And nothing that anyone else had done or that I thought would change that. I had to accept that before I could move forward. Where you are now, what reality is right now, is something you’ll have to face in order to create your Future.

Fear

Fear is probably the emotion that’s first mentioned when talking about cancer. Will I die? Will I be scarred? How long do I have to live? What will my life be like from here forward? The truth is, yes, you will die. Eventually. Whether that’s by cancer, old age, a bus, or saving orphans from a fire, eventually you will die. But we don’t think about it. Getting the news that we are mortal is a jolt. Sure we know it, but it’s one of those things we don’t really think about. How long do I have to live? No one knows, not even the doctors. With the type of cancer I had and how long it’s been since my surgery, I have a less than 5% chance of recurrence. I could live to be in my 80s. But, I do have a 5% chance. I also have a chance to be struck by lightning, of falling down the stairs and breaking my neck, or this or that or whatever. No one knows how long they have, and neither do you. What will my life be like? Well, that’s a tougher one. Will you be lucky like me and have your surgery be curative? Will you need radiation treatment or chemotherapy? Will you have to visit doctors every month for the rest of your life? Or will you decide “screw this”, cash in your 401k and your IRA and take a trip around the world? It’s all scary, but then all change is scary. You have more choices than you think.

Feelings Associated with Cancer

Recently I attended a retreat for cancer survivors and patients. One of the things we talked about was all of the different feelings associated with cancer. We didn’t talk just about the expected ones or the “acceptable” ones. We mentioned all of the ones we were feelings, even the ones that people who haven’t been through cancer would find unusual or scandalous. For the next several posts, I’m going to be going over these feelings and talking about my viewpoint on them, not just for cancer but for life in general.

We also talked about things we lost when we had cancer, perhaps because of cancer, perhaps because of our reactions to cancer. I’ll go over some of those as well, because it’s not just cancer that can cause us loss.

There will be no more book reviews in my blog. Thank you to everyone who has commented on them before.

In Pursuit

I am still in pursuit of my dream, but I'm getting pressured to do it on another's agenda and timeline. That's not right for me. Perhaps I do need to do more than what I am doing right now, but that's for me to decide, not for another. Don't let someone else dictate to you what's right for you. Learn to trust your gut and your mind, and if this is too big and you don't yet trust, work on that first, because trusting yourself is more important than almost anything you're doing.

Why We Want You To Be Rich

Why We Want You To Be Rich: Two Men, One Message by Donald J. Trumb, Robert T. Kiyosaki, Meredith McIver, and Sharon Lechter. According to this book, the middle class will soon be a thing of the past, at least in America. It offers ideas and inspiration of how to get out of the middle class and become rich. It’s a fantastic book, easy to read. Most non-fiction books I read, I might mark two or three pages with a quote or a reference I want to note down. I had 20-30 pages marked. The only other author that beats that is Sark, who is just too great for words. I highly recommend it.

Everyone is Free

One of my favorite songs is "Everyone Is Free". One of the lines in it is "Do one thing every day that scares you". So much of my new business (ad)venture is outside my comfort zone, that a lot of it scares me. So, I've been getting practice at that. I just finished a draft of a letter, and that scared me. It was just a draft. I didn't send it to any one. It didn't have to be perfect, since it was probably going to be revised. No one was going to read it, not in that form, anyway. But, it was a step on the path, a path that's leading me places I've never been but that I very much want to go to. Fear can prevent you from doing stupid things, but it can also prevent you from doing some pretty wonderful things, too. Find one wonderful, scary thing and think about it. Or if thinking about it isn't scary for you, pretend you're doing it. Or read a book about it. Or ask someone questions. Or something, something that brings that wonderful, scary thing closer into your life. It's an amazing feeling when you're done.

Lack of posting lately

Remember how I told you that the challenge was not to change anything major in my life unless the perfect thing fell into my lap? The perfect thing fell into my lap, and now I am putting my money where my mouth is. I am building my Future and have gotten caught up in the whirlwind of new beginnings. As things settle down, I will post again.