Earlier this year I underwent two massive surgeries where my cancer tumors were excised from my lungs. Being rid of the tumors, I was going to be back on top of my game. Or, that is what I thought - that I would go back to being the way I was before my cancer came back. So, when I get tired or when I can't do what I want to do during the day I get angry with myself and wonder what in the world is wrong with me. Of course the thought never enters my head that I have cancer. I don't know how to interpret this. Is it a positive thing that I continue to look so far past my disease that it fades away in my consciousness? Or, is it a negative thing, that I am so out of touch with my body that I lose track of its exact state and needs?

 The past few days have been frustrating. I was doing well and then the norovirus swept our little valley and I contracted it. It only lasted about a week but since then I have had a hard time bouncing back. Tonight while I was once again wondering what was wrong with me, the realization finally came shimmering into my consciousness that I have been in active treatment for my cancer for over 4 years now. Four years of taking very strong medicine that progressively takes its toll on my body.

My red cell counts are falling. They have been since last September. No matter what I do I cannot get them back into normal range. I know this because every time I have chemo (really biologics and hormone treatments) I get a copy of my blood test and it shows my red cells are low, and my hematocrit, and my monocytes, etc. I suppose that is why I don't feel good. I don't have enough of whatever these are to do whatever it is they do.  

I guess it makes me feel better to have something "scientific" I can point to to say I really don't feel well. Why is it that the fact that I don't feel well is not sufficient? Why do I have to have corroboration from some impartial source? That is sad. That makes me very sad to know this about myself.

 I have always found it very hard to love myself when I am ill, to allow myself to sleep in a soft bed and to coddle myself, to spoil myself. Instead I go around feeling anxious and vaguely guilty and keep trying to do all of the things that I "should" be doing and, obviously, failing. I guess it is that Puritan ethic and a childhood of only being loved for what I did rather than for who I was.

This cancer continues to be my teacher. Most of the lessons are painful but they all seem to be calling me to an intrinsic fullness of life- not the fullness of life that others can see, but an interior sense of well-being and peace, of acceptance and self-love that has always eluded me. Maybe I will finally get it before the end, I hope so. I think that is the basic lesson of life, that you have to start by loving and accepting yourself before you can love and accept others.

Wish me luck!