Partly Cloudy

  I've abruptly been yanked out of normal living today. You see, I went the entire month of August without one doctor's appointment...not one blood draw, cat scan, skin check...I didn't come near Mass General Hospital or any of their cancer care affiliates. I wasn't weighed, poked, prodded...I ran, worked, spent time with family, ate too much Mexican and drank one too many summer treats.  For one month, I almost forgot (minus the left over battle field scars and lymphedema)...but superficially, I lived a near normal life for one month.

  I have never considered myself a complete optimist or pessimist....more so, I have always coveted myself as a realist. Some may take this as being a pessimist....it is quite different actually than a pessimist...I see things as they are. I look for facts and logic. In certain aspects of my life, I do strive to do what might be seen as the impossible like in sport...and I do dream, but I am aware. I have to be, it's just how I'm built.

  Today I had the "routine" cat scan of my chest...in another three months (pending this scan is clean), I will have a full pet scan...and 3 months from then, another brain mri...and so on and so on. This is my actual normal living. This is a part of the plan when you've been diagnosed with cancer.  Just in case we forgot...the reminder that we have no guarantee...the black cloud that chases the sun....

  

  In July, I was still having a hard time walking...I worried that I may never run again. It was the hardest month of recovery. And it still has been an uphill battle...but I keep plodding along. I am out there, and it's not pretty...but I've finally gotten to the point that I am consistently running about 20 miles a week (far cry from what I was doing in the spring)...but I will take it. I'm starting to feel better on my runs. I have even recently had a few good ones where I could feel I am finally getting stronger and making progress to getting myself back into shape.

No clouds stealing this sunshine....

  I wish I could say the same when it comes to cancer. This is probably the part of the disease that I hate most. I know too many people that have been taken by cancer...their families are now left to bear the burden of that cloud alone. It makes me so angry when I start to count the number of families I know who are currently living this "normal" life of cancer treatments, surgeries, scans...this battle that is just another part of their life. It takes my breath away when I think of my own family and how they have seen me at my utmost weakest...not the vision of normal they were accustomed to seeing, and when they see I am off back to Boston for another scan & appointment instead of a marathon....the clouds come rushing in....

But, it is what it is. I have to continue on this new "normal living", trying to appreciate each day, each moment.  I am okay that they are not always mostly sunny which leads me to wonder...Perhaps being an optimist is not about seeing things half full or mostly sunny...maybe it is about appreciating a partly cloudy day...because it is still a day, one more day in my life where I take another step forward....perhaps I am the optimist after all....