When I started this blog, my first entry was titled The New Normal
I felt it was necessary to acknowledge and even declare that we were in a new situation – that life as we knew it was a thing of the past and we were in a brand new chapter. Well, here we are again. While I won’t feel comfortable saying I’m “in remission” until my scan in a couple weeks, let’s just assume that I am and that is the new state of affairs. No longer a cancer patient, no longer a cancer warrior actively fighting cancer – but rather a cancer SURVIVOR.
In some ways, this new era is trickier than the previous one. On one hand, you want to shout from the rooftops ” I BEAT CANCER!” and “GOD HEALED ME!” and “YOUR PRAYERS WORKED!” and “MODERN MEDICINE IS A MIRACLE!” and “MY DOCTORS ROCK!” And on the other, you want to whisper “but it might come back.” When you’re battling cancer, you’re a street fighter – you’ve got your enemy right in front of you where you can punch it square in the face – you KNOW what the problem is and where it is. You can see it. It’s big and bad and ugly and it scares you, but you have a target to hit. In remission, you are tempted to see yourself moreso as walking through the streets at night with a hoodie pulled down over your face, ducking your head and nervously glancing over your shoulder, flinching at every skittering leaf and alley cat.
I don’t want to be that. So I’m not going to. And this blog is now going to be the story of how I figure out how. How do I parent and work and be a wife and a friend and daughter and mentor and mentee and human SURVIVOR that is vigilant and responsible about my ongoing health, without living each day terrified of it coming back? I’m not sure yet. But I have some ideas – and I’m taking this bull by the horns and wrestling with it. Sorry for the mixed metaphors – but that’s how it is in my head for now. Mixed.