Recently, when the well was running a little dry of Blog ideas (I mean, after 364 postings, sometimes the pickins' get a little slim), I realized that cancer so pervasively insinuates itself into a "victims" life that it affects a lot of areas. In much the same way that Seinfeld is often considered 'a show about nothing' - cancer can be considered a condition about everything!
Ponder for a moment (in no particular order of importance), just a few of the ways that cancer affects the life of a patient (and their family or caregivers) - some of which do and some of which do NOT apply to me:
- Change or cessation of career
- Things that you 'just can't do' anymore
- Modification of diet or daily exercise regimen
- Sleeping more, sleeping less, always tired or always wired
- Increased trips to the doctor(s), the pharmacy or the infusion clinic
- Financial burden of decreased income and/or increased medical bills/needs
- How you view the world and how the world (including family/friends) views you
- Confrontation of one's mortality, or stark realization of potentially limited longevity
- A lifetime of medications, prescriptions, and managing their flow / renewals / alterations
- Compromised ability to travel, and more restricted mobility (even the capacity to drive)
The list of little and big ways goes on and on beyond this small sampling.
For me at least, fortunately my cancer doesn't affect me in most of the aforementioned ways. And I'm not going to let it upset me, control me or define me. But, inevitably it is now a part of me and everything that I am or do - so I'll bring it along for the ride, but I'm still the Driver.
