This Is Not A Gift!

Melissa Etheridge has been quoted as saying, "With cancer, you start looking at your whole life and cutting the dark things out of it. I often say that cancer is a gift in that way. " I wish I could agree with Etheridge but I can't. Cancer is not a gift it is a ripping away of your very soul. It is a sapping of energy that you once took for granted.

On April 8, 2005 I was told by my doctor that I had colon cancer. The news hit me like a ton of bricks and as they say, my life changed forever. I called my sister to tell her and she broke down and started to scream that I was goign to die. I had to calm her down while wondering to myself, who is the sick one here. I then called my girlfriend and broke the news to her. She was quiet as she always is and simply told me she was there for me. I then drove slowly, the slowest I have ever driven, to my sister's house where I was met by my sister and my brother in law. The rest of the day was spent wondering if this was indeed happening to me. I tried to get drunk that night but that failed miserably as my body had failed me that day. I awoke the next morning feeling like I had travelled to another world.

In the year since my diagnosis I have undergone chemotherapy and have endured side effects that one can only read about. I didn't lose my hair but I lost a lot more as my body was ravaged by cancer drugs. I would have gladly traded hair loss for some of the side effects I experienced. Through it all my partner stayed with me and loved me. She saw me through retching, pain and prolonged nausea. Throughout all of it I never thought it a gift nor did I think there was a lesson to be learned as a family member insisted there was. The only thing I was grateful for was that I was still alive.

A year later I have a re-occurance of cancer and have undergone liver resection and am back on chemotherapy. If there is a lesson here someone please fill me in. A year later I'm feeling angrier than I have felt in my life. The chemotherapy is worse and I'm sick for three to four days of my treatment. This is not a gift.

As I move through my days I have to accept my limitations which reinforces my anger. I have to accept the nausea, the constipation, the smell of cancer drugs from my pores, the inablility to concentrate, and the feeling that this may be for naught. All of this and more is what a cancer patient goes through on a daily basis. But, and there is a big but, I have my partner, family and friends that will not let me give up when I think of giving up. I also have an oncologist who believes that the drugs will work and for that I'm grateful.