Cancer Sucks

I think this whole blogging thing is kind of weird. Firstly, is anybody ever going to read it? Secondly, do I want anybody to read it? Thirdly, how do I play the fence about how personal or not personal to get?
It is good because it makes me feel more accountable, like, even if my mom is the only one reading it, it is still important to write every day. Who knows, maybe my kid will want to read it someday. I feel like there is a lot in me that needs to come out and what better way to do it, than in a blog that will remain as long as I want it. I also type a lot faster than I write and feel that more will come out than if I were just writing in a journal.
Anyways, maybe I will talk about cancer today.
Cancer sucks. (Someday I will buy that Cancer Sucks t-shirt.)
I was watching the favorite dance of the first 5 seasons of so you think you can dance today. The favorite was the breast cancer dance. It made me cry. Seeing the strength to support from the husband figure, as well as the hopelessness of the cancer survivor at the same time reminded me a bit of me.
When I was told that I had breast cancer, I remember thinking, hmmmm, I am not worried about dying. I am still hearing the rest of what the doctor is saying. In all the stories I've heard, hearing that you have cancer makes time stop and the only thing you can think is that it is all over. Not so for me.
But the hopelessness is there. The feeling that no matter what any doctor says, something is now withing me that has taken over. That has more power than I do. That can come again at any time and end my life as I know it. Cancer is so hard to find. It can stealthily move within you and relocate to somewhere that it might be impossible to find.
After my treatments, radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, etc... I am still on surveillance. It is one of the hardest parts. Every year I have to go for a mammogram. In a young person, under 50, the tissue in the breast is very dense and mammograms don't show much. So, usually I then have to have an ultrasound to see things differently. Then, there are some suspicious things that the doctors "wouldn't worry about in someone who has not had cancer, but with you, we want to check out". And then I have a MRI, or a needle biopsy. It has happened a few times in the last 5 years, this whole rigamarole of one thing after another. Then the dread time waiting for the phone call that everything is alright and they want to check again in another 6 months or whatever it is.
I went to the doctor a few months ago. So intent on hearing that I'm okay. That the 5 years are up and now I can worry less. But, the doctor felt something, in the same place as the previous cancer had been. Then came the mammogram and the ultrasound. A stern word from the radiologist that I need to have all of my MRI films in one place so they can look at them and do comparisons. Something of a difficult task when you have lived in 3 states since the prognosis. After finally getting them all there, and waiting, and waiting, I called and found out that they are not worried, just come back in 6 months.
So much for that 5 year end of worrying point. It seems not to exist for me.
Here's hoping that the pregnancy doesn't spike my estrogen and cause another breast cancer. Whenever the pregnancy happens that is.

Life is definitely precious.
My saying after cancer was "You only live once".
We have to find out what we love and do that. I am loving blogging. It is maybe therapeutic?