Wombat what you said is so true. I try and live as normal life as possible but what is a normal life with cancer. I will never be the same healthy, fit and out going friendly person that I used to be but I try hard.
There's not a day that goes by that I don't think of the cancer inside me that will never go away and that one day will take my life and every now and then I cry and I'm not ashamed of it.
It helps me to talk about it with the few friends I have made that also have cancer and I know it helps them also. In fact every time I go in for my chemo I meet someone new and even though we don't talk about our cancers we talk and get to know each other and it just helps to pass the time away whilst receiving chemo. I talk and joke with the nurses and staff and after all my hospital is now basically my second home.
Every now and then I email all my friends and relatives just to fill them in with how I am and what the latest cat scan says, or I post on facebook so that those that aren't that close to me are still able to catch up with my progress.
I try and plan a future knowing that it won't last long but at least I'm thinking outside the cancer
square and that is one of the main things to help keep the sanity, don't think of the end as you don't know when it will come. I plan for years yet even though I know I may only last maybe another 12months and when I'm through the next 12months I will extend my future plan.
I look at all future possible pancreatic cancer treatments continually and the latest with the laser treatment that should be through in about 5 years helps to keep me going.
I made a big mistake in trying to protect my loved ones and kept my feelings, doubts, insecurities to myself, this mistake nearly led me to taking my own life, now I know that I have to open myself up to them and they also know to make sure I don't keep my feelings to myself anymore. They now ask me more and we all talk more openly about my cancer. It no longer matters if it is just a very very tiny thought that gets to me, I now share it.
Just messaging on this site helps and knowing that I am not alone in this fight against cancer, reading others fights, despair, worries, happiness helps keep the sanity. It's only if we allow ourselves to drown within our own despondency that we lose sanity.
Cancer is a bitch and that's putting it mildly. While we are all on this site and talking we are fighting it to the best of our abilities and that is saying a lot.
My love, thoughts, prayers, hopes and dreams are for everyone on this site whether they be a cancer fighter or a carer.
... View more
