Every Single Day

Not a day goes by that I don't think about this. At first I thought it would only last for a couple of months, or maybe even a year, but no, that's not the case.

It's always right there, ready to jump right back into my thoughts the second that it goes to the back burner, and I'm really getting fed up with it. I'm tired of thinking about it. I'm tired of it always being there and feeling like it has to take center stage in my life. Enough already...please.

When it comes into my head I do all I can to get it out of there. I think about other things. I distract myself. Nothing works. I'm ready to pull my hair out.

It's that terrible disease....CANCER.

Nutshell version for those readers who may not know. In August of 2005 I had a nasty stomachache, and ended up in the ER. I found out I had colon cancer. During surgery they removed a golf ball sized tumor, 15" of my colon, and left me with a colostomy. In September of 2005 I began my regimen of chemo and dealt with that until the end of January of 2006. In February 2006 I had surgery to reverse my colostomy. There are a LOT of details I left out and I even started to write about them here, but never quite finished the story. Maybe I should someday. Maybe that's what my subconscious is waiting for.

Yesterday I had a little bit of a stomachache, but it was nothing like what I had back in 2005. It was just enough to bother me and make me not feel very good. Last night I had a dream.

The beginnings of my dreams are always a little hazy, and this one was no exception. I remember that I was told that if I started to lose my eyesight, it meant that my cancer was returning and I would have about 2 days to live. It was a Saturday afternoon in my dream, and suddenly I could only see a little out of one of my eyes. One of my eyes would open up and I would see something in a thin line, almost like extra thin letter box format of a movie. The other eye would open up all the way, but I only saw darkness. I was so upset because I wasn't ready to die. I didn't want to have to face this yet. I was trying to be brave so that my family wouldn't be upset, but all I could do was sob uncontrollably. In my dream, I slept through Sunday completely, woke up Monday, and realized that my vision had returned to normal! I was hoping that it meant that I would NOT die that day, and I was soooooooo relieved.

Then I woke up. And I had no way of knowing if I was going to live or die.

It's just not fair that it invades my waking life and NOW my sleeping life too. Yes, the dream ended up alright, but it was still traumatic.

I sure hope that sometime down the road all the cancer thoughts leave my head.