Don't miss what God sends your way

Something has happened to the way I view my world since I found out I have cancer.  After vacillating wildly from anger to denial to self pity, and back again, I settled into an uncertain acceptance.  I began to share my feelings and thoughts with friends and family, and at meetings.  I also became more aware of the world around me.  I started seeing the wonders in my corner of the world.  Shortly after I was diagnosed, I was driving home from work.  The sun was setting behind me and a full moon was rising in front of me.  As I rounded a curve in the road, there was the moon, huge, silver, and so close I could have touched it.  As I looked at it, a flock of geese flew across the moon in a perfect V formation. Their black shadows a dark contrast to the white-silver  glow of the moon. They never wavered, they flew straight on to a destination known only to them, imprinted down through generations of migration.   It was so beautiful, I cried in gratitude rather than  self pity or fear.  That was the beginning.  When I was waiting to see the surgeon and schedule the surgery to remove two large lymph nodes from under my right arm, my head was going crazy with the "what if" game.  There was a possibility that I also had either breast cancer of lymphoma. I was scared, confused, and really struggling to be patient. During my worst week, a song came on the radio called "I am Strong".  It played every evening on my drive home for a week. It has become my anthem.  My God sings to me, and he was telling me to be strong, put my hand in his, and it will all be OK.

Today, I find myself sitting more  often in serenity than confusion.  I have accepted that I have cancer, and that I don't know how this journey is going to turn out.  It isn't my job to know.  It is my job to stay tuned to God, trust him with the outcome, and keep my hand in his. My thoughts now turn more often to what I can do for others, than my own self centered anger and fear.

I struggle sometimes with feelings of unworthiness.  I haven't begun treatment yet, and even though I don't feel well most days, I could probably be allot sicker than I am.  So, who am I to talk about living with cancer when there are so many people sicker than I am.  Then I remember that God has a plan for me, and that plan doesn't only involve me.  So I will follow where he leads, continue to work with other alcoholics, and try to remember every day that it is God who makes me strong.  For that gift, I get to see the beauty in my world, and I get to know that nothing is really hopeless, you just have to know what you are hoping for.

Who I am and other random thoughts

Hi, my name is Cary and I'm an alcoholic.  I've been saying those words almost every day for the past nine years.  They have been said with anger, gratitude, fear, humor, and sometimes arrogance. Those simple words remind me that I live every day with a chronic, progressive, and fatal disease called alcoholism.  Over the days, weeks, months and years of my recovery, I have learned more about who I am.  I have learned to face life with honesty, and integrity, and I have discovered what it means to truly give of myself to my fellow man.  I have come to know a deep and abiding faith, trust and love in a power greater than myself. I have found the God within me.  Today, I am able, at least most of the time, to deal with life and situations that used to send me running for the bottle.  Every life lesson I have learned has built upon the last to give me an arsenal of tools to live by,to face life as it comes, in short,to be human.  These are all very good things, because three months ago I found out I have another chronic, progressive and fatal disease.  CANCER  To be specific,Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.  When I heard those words "you have cancer", my life was turned upside down, and it will never be the same.  

There is a grief process that we all go through when we have experienced the loss of a loved one, a limb, or a way of life. I have lost life as I know it, that sense of immortality that we all hold onto somewhere deep inside ourselves.  You know, that belief that makes you think "that will never happen to me".  But then, it does happen to you. At first, you move around in a fog.  You aren't quite sure what has just happened to you.  After awhile, the fog starts to lift, and all those feelings well up inside you.  They fill every part of you, and spin and whirl so fast you don't know what to feel first. I became scared, and angry, sad, and unbelieving.  I would cry at the drop of a hat, and then be so angry at how unfair this all was.  Sometimes I would think that any minute some one was going to call and say how sorry they were, someone had read the test wrong, the lab had mixed your blood with someone else, anything to make it not true. but it is true, and gradually, I learned to accept that I have cancer, and I have got to learn to live with it.  

That isn't easy.  Every Dr visit and every test brings more questions than answers. I started doing my own research on the web.  I learned that there is allot of information out there about my kind of cancer.  It affects every one differently.  It is mostly found in people in their late 60's or early 70's.  It is not curable, but can be put into remission.  I am actually kind of young to have it, and that has my Dr scratching his head.  What I do know about it is that it can be indolent, or progressive, or aggressive.  So, we wait, and we watch, and we be patient.  There is only one problem with that, I'm an alcoholic, and patience is not one of my best things.  

My greatest challenge today, in this moment, is to stay sober, stay positive, do what I can to get as healthy as I can, and always remember I am not in this alone.  I have told my friends and family that I have cancer.  The hardest thing about that was telling my Mom. Most people don't know what to say when you tell them.  They say things like, "well, that's not a bad kind of cancer" or "Aunt Sadie had that and lived for years". The truth is, when you are the one with cancer, there really is no good kind of cancer.  Another thing that is hard to face is that people treat you differently.  My whole life has changed and will never be the same, I need the people who love me to treat me the same as they always did.  I am still a Daughter, and a Sister, and a Mom and an Aunt and a Grandma and a friend.  The only difference is that I am now all those things with cancer.  

So I have decided to write this blog not only for me, but for whoever else wants to come with me as I learn to stay sober and live with cancer.  It isn't easy, and it might not always be pretty, but I hope it will be real, sometimes amusing and informative, and always honest. I doubt I will make it back here every day, but I will try to share my life regularly. From time to time I will add links to information about cancer, and it's treatment.  Places to find support and help weather you are a patient, a family member or a caregiver.  Together, we will grow, and learn, and laugh, and cry. It will be a journey of love and hope.  Thanks for coming with me.