https://onlinecommunity.cancercouncil.com.au/t5/Living-with-and-beyond-cancer/A-toe-in-the-water/m-p/1672#M227 I'm posting something for the first time. I've read through some of the survivor threads just now and I enjoyed the sense of recognition I felt on reading those perspectives. I too get silently huffy about people thinking it's all gone away now, people thinking I've been brave, people thinking (including a lot of survivors) that it's a fight to be won. My most vivid memory of my early days of diagnosis with multiple myeloma is standing in my hospital room (gown, drip bag, nothing else - is there anything else in life at that stage?) thinking to myself "Holy shit, what the hell just happened to my life?" And the very next thought was "OK, I start now learning to live with this". And that's what I've done for more than two years now. At no stage did I decide to 'beat cancer', 'fight the good fight', 'win (or lose) my battle with cancer'. I cannot relate to any of that language at all. I still have the vivid memory of deciding to live with a medical condition. I'm very proud of that decision. More and more so as time goes on. When I was told I was in remission I was pleased, of course, but mainly because I knew it would free me from being the recipient of everyone else's solution. And I was very sick of that. For me, though, it sounds strange, I know, but being told I was in remission didn't make much difference at all. I was already well down the track of 'living with cancer' and being told I was in remission seemed irrelevant. Isn't life strange! Tue, 26 May 2009 02:38:37 GMT harker 2009-05-26T02:38:37Z https://onlinecommunity.cancercouncil.com.au/t5/Living-with-and-beyond-cancer/A-toe-in-the-water/m-p/1672#M227 I'm posting something for the first time. I've read through some of the survivor threads just now and I enjoyed the sense of recognition I felt on reading those perspectives. I too get silently huffy about people thinking it's all gone away now, people thinking I've been brave, people thinking (including a lot of survivors) that it's a fight to be won. My most vivid memory of my early days of diagnosis with multiple myeloma is standing in my hospital room (gown, drip bag, nothing else - is there anything else in life at that stage?) thinking to myself "Holy shit, what the hell just happened to my life?" And the very next thought was "OK, I start now learning to live with this". And that's what I've done for more than two years now. At no stage did I decide to 'beat cancer', 'fight the good fight', 'win (or lose) my battle with cancer'. I cannot relate to any of that language at all. I still have the vivid memory of deciding to live with a medical condition. I'm very proud of that decision. More and more so as time goes on. When I was told I was in remission I was pleased, of course, but mainly because I knew it would free me from being the recipient of everyone else's solution. And I was very sick of that. For me, though, it sounds strange, I know, but being told I was in remission didn't make much difference at all. I was already well down the track of 'living with cancer' and being told I was in remission seemed irrelevant. Isn't life strange! Tue, 26 May 2009 02:38:37 GMT https://onlinecommunity.cancercouncil.com.au/t5/Living-with-and-beyond-cancer/A-toe-in-the-water/m-p/1672#M227 harker 2009-05-26T02:38:37Z https://onlinecommunity.cancercouncil.com.au/t5/Living-with-and-beyond-cancer/A-toe-in-the-water/m-p/1673#M228 Hi again Harker, You write with a refreshing honesty and I enjoy reading your thoughts about 'living with it' and 'remission' - And I have to agree with the annoyance of people who say things like 'you seem to be fighting it well...' etc. I honestly don't think I made a concious decision to 'fight' but just kept waking up in dreary mornings, eating my cornflakes, blah blah...you just get on with it, don't you? I did. Thu, 28 May 2009 06:15:37 GMT https://onlinecommunity.cancercouncil.com.au/t5/Living-with-and-beyond-cancer/A-toe-in-the-water/m-p/1673#M228 artist_in_recov 2009-05-28T06:15:37Z