Although a lot of living with cancer is crap, there are some good times to be had. Living with cancer is responsible for changing peoples thinking, re-prioritising what they want to spend their time doing. Last Wednesday I had the most wonderful opportunity to attend the home birth of my best friends third baby. As soon as I got the call (in true birth fashion, 5am!) I was in the car, slipping and sliding down to Bega from Canberra, a 3 hour trip, only to get a little surprise when I arrived. That the baby was born after only 2 hrs labour! The proud father and little fella greeted me at the door and what followed was two of the most loved filled days I think I've had in a while. Nothing compares to being around to bond with a new baby, help your friends out and enjoy precious family time. To top of my great few days I've spent two lazy days in the little coastal town my parents live in, bonding with my blood family, discussing the always just out of reach possibilites of moving there permanently. My funny father decided it would be a nice idea to take me round the town looking at rentals, vacant blocks and "affordable" houses for sale. Nothing beats my mum's cooking and I dare say tomorrow when I make the long trek back up the mountain, it's going to be very hard to rationalise that my little life of part time work, share housing for too much rent and trying to fit time in with busy working friends is a better place for me to be instead of the easy-peasy semi-retired lifestyle living down the coast offers. It's not always sensible to make decisions for quality of life (trust me, I've been doing that for a few years now) but it's so nice to think it will all work out when you dream of it. If I didn't have cancer I dare say I wouldn't feel I have to right to just go do things and explain later. Society makes it very hard to put relationships above work as a priority, but it does recognise that when cancer is going to shorten a persons life, relationships and great experiences are among the most important things. I'll be poor for a little while but who cares! I GOT TO HUG A NEW BORN BABY, MY BEST FRIENDS AND MY MUM AND DAD. Yay!!
5 Comments
Jules2
Super Contributor
yayyy you cherrybird ... how wonderful to spend some special time with special friends in such amazing circumstances ... new baby!! wow Great that you got to spend some time with your mum and dad too. :) Julie
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vinouche
Contributor
It is for the good days that we go through with the treatment, and when we have them, it makes it all worth it. We need more "great day stories", thank you for this one. S
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harker
Frequent Contributor
cherrybird I really liked reading this because you use the same phrase I like to use. That phrase is 'living with cancer'. Once I started to say 'living with cancer' instead of 'got cancer' or 'battling cancer' or 'going to beat cancer', I found I had options and choices. Just like you have discovered on your trip down the Monaro. It is nice to have choices, isn't it. H
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deejjay
Contributor
Hi Cherry glad you hear you had a great few days. Bet the speedy birth lead to a few jokes. Anyhow any one living with cancer deserves as much quality time with special people and fun times as they can get. And you are right it's friends and family and those fun quality times that rate above work. I'm not sure what your situation is but maybe with careful consideration moving closer to your parents could be a good experience. Although when life is uncertain it's hard to know what decisions to make. I can relate to that myself as I'm in a job I don't feel respected or enjoy that much but feel it's a blip if I live a very long time. And there's trade offs (ie part time) I also agree the term "living with cancer" is a good one. Cheers Deejjay
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cherrybird
Not applicable
hey thanks for the great comments everyone!!
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