the musings of a cancer survivor

hello world, well here we are in the hot summer of 2010. so far its been a pretty nice summer. ben had a rough period for a few months he had to take some time off work due to his body and its different aches and pains. he has arthritis pretty bad from all the years of working in the oil field and beating himself up with various injuries. he is doing much better thank god. he has returned to work at any rate. for how long i guess we shall see. hopefully he will be ok. so as he is working that leaves me at home to deal with lifes little bumps and mishaps. my daughter is doing pretty good as a single lady. she has a great boyfriend, eric. her daughter cass, graduated from high school and has been excepted at concord college in athens wv. 3 hours away from mommy. and an insulin dependant diabetic. god get her thru this.she is also engaged to a good guy. she plans on waiting till she graduates from college to get married. so far she has a good head on her shoulders. i hope once she is on her own she doesnt get to free spirited and screw it all up. jeremiah is fast becoming a young man. he is so inteligent. but lacks concentration and motivation. he struggles a lot with school work. i hope he can manage to muddle thru ok. me, well im living my days thankful to be alive. i so enjoy my family. i love not working because it leaves me free to take life in stride. im now 5 years since diagnosis. thank you lord! i go in august for mammo and dr brager. by then it will be 5 years since i finished chemo. i shouldnt have to see him again for a year. if everything goes well. as for my body, well its still struggling. i still have a lot of pain from all the surgeries. the scar tissue i guess. and i have a lot of it. still have a lot of numbness also. though i can get the oddest sinsations on the areas that are seemingly numb. sometimes i get pains where its numb. why? i have no idea. or an itch where its numb and i cant feel myself scratch it even. so how do i feel that it is itching? very strange indeed. its all just a lot of things i deal with on a daily basis. still havent got used to the way i look. still dont like to be naked in front of ben. though he doesnt say anything or seem to notice i just feel the need to stay covered up. i remember when i rarely wore clothes in the summer, lol. now the only time im totally naked in the house is if im alone. all this is not something i have shared with a lot of people. i have pretty much kept it in the family. and its rarely discussed anymore. i still have days when i am very angry my life has come to this. though im still very thankful im still here. its just hard to explain. after all this time i still have a hard time dealing with it. maybe i always will. i hope not though. i just want to be normal and never will be again. so i find ways to cope. mostly i pretend im normal. life is a game sometimes. i know everyone has problems. others way more serious than mine. how do you just not think about that? how do you just say fuck it i dont care. how do people cope with everyday stresses? the sad thing is some dont. some take drastic measures to get thru the day. they find an out. so to speak. one thing that relieves the stress. for some it might be exercise. others it might be food. for those that have even harder times coping there is always drugs or alcohol. no one has patience anymore. its all about now now now. we want it now. why does everything take so long. a rough patch financially. might last a few months. so you go borrow money to get you through. but then you just have to pay that back. we get a cold that might last a week or 2. you might run to the doctor. i need drugs help me doc. sorry it has to run its course. anything out of the ordinary is a pain in the ass. if it takes us out of our comfort zone god forbid. how to cope? what do i do now. this is not what im use to. shoot i cant stand to drive my husbands truck because my car has my conforts in it. it has gum it has a nail file it has a pair of nail clippers it has tissues it has lip stuff. i go in my husbands and im like shoot i dont have something this sucks.grrrrrrrr im going home and get mine. im addicted to my comfort zone. i rarely leave it. i cant cope if im not in it. im falling apart at the seems. lol.one thing happens to upset the normal flow of my day and im pulling my hair out. omg is it ever gonna end. i want my normal back. find a way to get thru it. i can understand why so many get hooked on drugs or alcohol. no one can cope with lifes little problems. we fall apart. i know families with kids and grand kids and no one knows what the rest of em are doing. who can keep up. you have to work eat sleep clean the house bye the food do the laundry. then this kid does this and that one does that and its grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. wheres my dam calgon??? though some how most of us get thru. somehow some way. thank god. and that was what was so hard about cancer and chemo. talk about out of my comfort zone. geesh i had to rest almost all day just to get thru the day. and it killed me to not be able to jump up and do things i would normally do. but i got thru. with a lot of praying i tell you. lol. where theres a will theres a way. you have to keep a positive attitude rely on friends and family to get you thru it. now im back to my normal life. not the normal i had to adjust to with each step of the way when i was diagnosed with cancer. and i love it. lol. life is good. in fact its great. so to ben and angie and bud and cass, i love you guys. so very much. my good friends that i would not have met had i died, pd, mike, fixx, john, and a few others thank you for being in my life. im so blessed to have you in my life. so til next time guys, enjoy life. padiddle.