A curious thing happened this past week. An old friend popped up in Messenger on a grade school thread with random comments and photos. After days of this, I realized I started the thread a few years ago. It has been dormant for a while.
I have been acutely aware of the people who have showed up for me through my cancer journey. I don’t post about it much on social media. I kind of think that most people, although mostly well intentions, don’t know how to respond if I share an update. And two and a half years into my treatment journey, most people think that it must be something that is behind me at this point. Well, it’s not. I’m still in active treatment and still recovering from the treatments I’ve had to this point. I just don’t talk about it that much. Anyway, everyone has their own bag of rocks that they carry.
This old friend, who I used to be very close with years ago, had no idea about my health status. Do I blame it on the algorithms, life moving in different directions, or maybe that I just didn’t mean that much to them? Do I need to think or rethink about how I feel about the people who I thought would show up for me that didn’t? I had put feelings in a box during treatment, but they do surface.
A different friend who passed a couple of years ago once told me that life is a collection of memories. And as I look at the old photos the first friend sent me, I see myself so young and full of hubris. Life gives way to remedy that. Memory is a fickle thing as there are now some holes for events and names of people and things. Sometimes I remember, sometimes I don’t. I wonder if it is grace not remembering for remembering can be a burden.
A couple of weeks ago I had an MRI. Good news – no evidence of metastatic disease or obvious malignancy. But then there was the caveat. There are scattered foci that lit up that could possibly be microscopic cancer cells in 23 percent of cases or could be benign. It’s too tiny to tell. It’s watch and wait. I am currently alternating between MRIs and Diagnostic Mammograms every six months. I graduated from every three months at the two-year mark. So I keep taking the daily meds with awful side effects to keep the lion out of my fridge. (See one of my old posts for an explanation.)
And I sit here contemplating what the road ahead looks like gazing at the past.
#StillInTreatment #CancerIsNotLinear #HealingInProgress #ChronicCourage #InvisibleBattles #LivingTheWatchAndWait #ScanSeason #MRIThoughts #SurvivorStillFighting #TwoAndAHalfYearsStrong #WhatWeRemember #GraceInForgetting #WhoShowsUpMatters #UnboxedFeelings #BagsOfRocks
Our Humble Road 