When I had cancer I never had “the talk,” like they show in movies and tv. The scene where your oncologist sits down with you in an office and says “you have stage ___ cancer and your chances of survival are ___. He called one day and said you have a more aggressive type of lymphoma than we first thought and its going to take more chemo and prolonged stays in the hospital to adminster the chemo. I was pissed! I questioned everything. is this really necessary? What do you mean spinal injections? What if I say no?

No was not an option…I had to think of Addy, I had to do everything I could to beat this. I used to have dreams that the hopsital was trying to trap me inside and someone on the outside was trying to take her away. Those thoughts and that stress was scarier than anything that was actually going on.

I knew I was really sick and obviously cancer can kill you, but I never sat there thinking “oh my god I have cancer and I could die”. My oncologist told me once “you have to own this” and I thought own what? I never thought I was going to die.

But words are a powerful thing and sometimes they hit you like a cement truck. At a visit to my oncologist about 5 months into treatment, he just came out of left field and said, “you need to understand that there is a real possiblity that you will die from this” I just nodded my head. My dad was with me, we left a few minutes later and on our drive home we were both silent. He reached over and grabbed my hand and said “I know thats not what you were expecting to hear” and I just burst into tears” after months of awful appointments and non stop vomiting and fatigue and fevers and shaking and not being able to do anything because I had no immune system, how could he put that in my head! I felt off all day, I had trouble sleeping that night. It was like he planted a seed, and it could grow…

I couldn’t let that happen, I can’t be afraid all the time. So I just put it out of my head. I found shows to binge watch with Addy, and focused on sleeping and took my pain pills, which honestly probably helped me cope with a lot more than just pain. They made me sleepy so I napped a lot which is really important when your body is trying to kill you.

Today was my 3 and a half year remission anniversary and my 6 month checkup with my oncologist. Everytime I see him now he gets emotional and tells me what a miracle I am. Today I asked him how close I actually was to dying, he put his thumb and forefinger together in a pinch and said that close. He said that most people who come in with symptoms and disease as advanced as mine was don’t survive. I feel lucky, but I also think it helped that I never internalized the fear of dying, I tried to embrace the changes in my body, I looked like a skeleton but it was fun to shop because all the clothes that I could never wear before fit perfect now. I was light as a feather and I could wear a different wig everyday or a pretty head scarf. I bought rainbow wigs and blue and black wigs and pink wigs, I still have them, I can’t wear them anymore because my hair has grown back really thick but they work great for Addy for halloween or just goofing around.

This post has gotten off track but in truth I have found blogging to be a much easier way to talk about cancer than actually verbalizing it. For some reason when I try to talk about it out loud I stumble over my words and have a hard time articulating what I’m trying to say.

Today after my appointment I was really emotional. On the drive home I thought of all the things that I went through, as much as I could remember, and I thought about how much life has changed since then. I don’t have to go back to see my oncologist for an entire year, and he told me today that if my disease was going to come back he thinks it would have already.

So today is a good day and I am grateful for so many things.