in it for the long haul

i've been fighting nonstop for a year. i was just getting to the point where i could imagine things out beyond my line of sight to the horizon and the doctor called and brought me back down to earth and welcomed me back into cancer world on a full-time level. at the time, i didn't know how long anything would last - treatments, my cancer, my life. i knew there would be a chance it would come back, but i guess i had gotten used to imagining myself as one who would make it through to the other side. i had begun to imagine year after year. now i am having a good day when i can imagine month after month. it isn't because i am particularly pessimistic. it is just terribly nerve-wracking and at times it even seems unfair to myself to think about the long term. what i know for sure comes in three or nine week increments and on that day a year ago, that is how my way of thinking was altered.

this morning mom called and left me a message. she told me she knew my mind must be preoccupied today, but that i am doing it, and i am doing a good job. short of a hug via the phone waves, this was precisely what i needed today. so often i feel as though i am not supposed to complain or feel badly about having to continue living this way week after week. while everyone has the outlying circumstances in their individual lives, i try to always appear to have it together, to be living my life to the fullest despite the cancer. but doing this does take a toll, and it does take a whole lot of work. marching in week after week to have iv drugs and scans... feeling tired and nothing like my former self... it is not the easiest thing in the world to do.

but it is all i have left to do. mom also reminded me there's nothing else to do other than continue to put one foot in front of the other, even on days like today when it is tougher than usual to see the positive. keep going, on this crazy, crazy journey i never could have dreamed for myself and my loved ones. i am doing a good job. it is the only thing i can do.