Fast facts (if you don’t have time to read the full post): I am still tired from my final chemo. My fingers are heavy with neuropathy. I have a CT scan on Thursday to track the progress of my tumors and to make sure that nothing else decided to grow during treatment. Cue scanxiety. I am nervous to discover whether or not the spots on my spine were indeed cancerous little fucks and nervous to see where the disease is in my body. I will meet with my surgeon next Tuesday to discuss surgery.

TO THE SHORT VERSION!

“You don’t have cancer, do you?” my neighbor asked me as I got into my friend’s car Saturday afternoon. “Yeah… yeah I do,” I said sadly. He shook his head and told me his wife just had open heart surgery and that he prays that God is looking down on both of us. The message was sweet but I felt bad since I had been avoiding my neighbor for this reason. I felt like for him to know I have cancer just made it feel more real, which is dumb given I have had it for five months and everyone else knows. This man I barely know is the last to find out and I feel bad I didn’t tell him sooner. Somehow confirming his curiosity as a neighbor who cares, who wants to be my friend and maybe even like gift give during the holiday season or borrow sugar when he has none, just felt like too much. He was the first person I didn’t know well to actually ask me about my cancer and for some reason that just made my cancer feel so real in that moment.

It is hard to explain. I don’t think I am in denial about my cancer or what I have already endured. But sometimes I just have to live my life for the day and try to find some sense of normalcy in the chaos of my internal mind. I hate thinking about the cancer in my body. I can’t control it and I am doing everything my oncologist wants me to do and I am basically hoping it is enough. But I struggle with not comprehending why patients who do what they are told like taking their meds, subjecting themselves to chemo and radiation, going to appointments, having surgery, why those things are not enough to kill the cancers that threaten to take us. On a scientific level, I understand. On a fairness scale, on a scale of humanity, I do not.

How is it I potentially will walk away from this train wreck with my life, but watch two other people in my life right now hang on for dear life, only extending the inevitable? The last 24 hours I have received sad news about the cancers taking over the bodies of humans I adore and that there is very little left to do. I cannot begin to describe the immense pain, the anguish and rage I feel internally. Don’t get me started on the guilt. Cancer just isn’t fucking fair. How is it I get to live and they don’t? How is it we live in this modern world and these chaotic cells still take lives? How can I be so sure that they won’t take mine?

Today’s song lyrics of the day are brought to you by Incubus.

“Sometimes
I feel the fear of
Uncertainty stinging clear
And I, can’t help but ask myself how much I’ll let the fear
Take the wheel and steer”

– Drive, Incubus