Every choice you make has to have an additional parameter to consider, the cancer.
How has cancer changed my life now? Right now I am about half way through my radiation treatment. As part of the treatment I no longer have IV chemo, but take a handful of chemo pills (I call them poison pills) everyday I am scheduled for radiation. I hate the pills, but they are part of the treatment. Radiation itself consists me leaving work early daily for over 6 weeks to go to UCSD. Once I check in there I am brought back to lay on a machine similar to a CT, where I am positioned precisely using cameras to get me just in the right spot to get my tumor bombarded with X-rays. The actual treatment only takes about 10 minutes, then I'm off to home. The main side effect of radiation is fatigue. So once I go home I just feel like I need a nap. So I take one. When I get up I eat, take more poison pills, and shift to preparing for tomorrow-when it all starts again.
That's my daily routine, my new normal.
Sometimes I miss my old life. I miss going to work and not worrying about my physical limitations that cancer has made part of my life. Cancer has taken daily exercise away from my life. I have to be aware of where I am so no one bumps my drains. Showering is a complicated engineering procedure.
But cancer has not taken life away from me. It has just changed it.
I would never say I'm glad for cancer, but right now my favorite part of the day is the 10 minutes I lay in the tube getting radiation. I get a quiet time, alone, to reflect on what is really important. When I am done with radiation in a few weeks I hope to continue to find that 10 minutes of quiet time to examen my conscience for the good and bad.
And, once I'm done with radiation, I can do this reflection without worrying about the traffic I'm gonna be in on the 805. Does anyone in La Jolla know how to drive?
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