You Deserve to Know

I spent the night/morning putting all the posts together for this blog.  They're backdated to the days I originally wrote them, on another blog, in another place that shall remain nameless.

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And it was interesting, to sort of... watch my own journey from start to- well, not to finish, but to now.  I wonder if I should go back not just to the diagnostic days, but back to the year when I was undiagnosed and in pain.  That's a part of this journey too.

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But those days are so scattered. With no real pattern except the pain.  And maybe I will go back and fill in those spaces someday.  For now, it's emotional enough to watch the last 7 months unfold all over again.

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It's a strange thing, Cancer.  To treat it, you let them pump poison into your body- but you have to convince yourself it's not.  Your body disintigrates, your hair falls out, your bones ache, your joints throb.

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But that's the "cure".

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And you do it, because the alternative is... what?  Dying of Cancer?

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I'm one of the lucky ones.  Even if you account for my year of undiagnosed symptoms, my Cancer journey is basically... a 2 year investment.  When it's over, ultimately, I'll find a new job.  I'll have a new life.  In so many ways, Cancer is giving me a chance to start over.  To start fresh.

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And I know a lot of this blog is raw emotion, and bad language, and pain... but I think you should know that I am not without hope.  And as much as I decry being anyone's hero because I have Cancer- there IS strength and courage here too. 

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But when I started blogging about my Cancer, I decided to be honest.  Partly because I needed a place to just... vent, but partly because- the only thing you ever see about Cancer and Cancer fighting is this composite of the Strong, the Courageous, the Hopeful Cancer Warrior.   And while all of that IS true, there is so much more to it than that- and I think it is just as important that people see the nitty-gritty that lives underneath this facade of pink.

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I was talking to Kris about just that.  About the difference between the reality of Cancer, and the pretty, shiny, happy picture of seas of women in pink survivor shirts.  And maybe it is important that we keep that facade, or some of it anyway.  Maybe not so much for the victims, for the fighters- but for their caretakers.  For the families who walk along side us in these journeys.

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Maybe for them, we need to maintain that pretty pink photo-op. 

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But I think in doing so, in protecting those we love- we fail those that come after us.  The girls, and women who walk these steps after us- who will have to be scared, and surprised, and devastated.  Because they deserve to know what they're up against.  They deserve to know what may actually be coming.  Not to scare them.  I don't want to scare future Cancer patients.

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But I know how it feels, to raise a hand to my thinning hair, to have tears in my eyes from a pain I didn't know was coming.  To lie in bed awake and hurting, surprised by the creaking in my bones, the aching in my joints.

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I want this, ultimately, to be a message that is hopeful.  I will beat Cancer.  But I think that honesty is just as, if not more, important. 

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I will not be the last woman with Cancer.  And to those that come after me, I want them to know the truth about what Cancer can be.

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Because it is a battle.

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The good news is, for many of us- it's one that can be won.  It can be one that we walk away from ultimately.  As my adopted mom used to say:  This too shall pass.

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This too shall pass.  But you deserve to know about the journey you'll be on.