Beating Cancer...

To abruptly bring me back to reality, I had scans today. It's really not the scans that stress me out too much, but rather what the results of the scans will tell me about the monsters in my body. I will know on Thursday. I'm hoping for it to follow the same trend as it did twelve weeks ago. I did have a preview because I had my brain MRI a bit early due to my eyes doing some funky things. I was relieved to get good results from that and my doctor went so far as to say "Your MRI looks great! Everything is shrinking." It was the best Christmas gift I could have gotten.

Although life is full of uncertainties, having an incurable disease is even more difficult to predict. The Big C is unpredictable. The scans every twelve weeks are to monitor the yuck and make sure things are still headed in the right direction. The side effects of the chemo pills are constant and ever changing, and sometimes I don't know what is causing what. Is it indeed the chemo, the Big C or just something that has nothing to do with either? Each cycle seems to get a bit better and I'm learning what works and what doesn't. I also continue to challenge myself to let go of the things that I just can't figure out. That is not always easy, as I like to know the cause and solution to everything. But, this is just one more thing this diagnosis is teaching me. I'm learning that sometimes I have to let go and let be; I cannot have control over it all. 

However, there are some things I can control, like the way I live my life each day in spite of the monsters. The Big C will never win if I live daily life to its full capacity.

 When I see phrases like "...lost her 5 year battle to cancer", I am profoundly sad. One, because there is another death due to stupid Cancer and two, because these people who have probably fought harder than they ever did in their entire lives are considered to be "losers" of the battle. Most were fighters, living each day as best they could and even when they could fight no longer, they should still be considered winners because of how they lived. We can't let the Big C have the last word. It doesn't deserve that recognition.