Corporate concerns

This isn't specifically about prostate cancer, but it's related... or at least it seems to be.  And lest anyone mis-read this post, let me say right up front, this is not a complaint about anyone. It's just how I felt.

There was a concern expressed about how I was dealing with this whole experience, and what effects it might be having on my performance at work.  And so I was encouraged to work with my doctors and fill out a "medical treatment report" form... which I thought was a kind of corporate intervention.  After some research, though, I am glad I work for the company I do, because there are structures in place to help protect people from the considerable pressure of the workplace while they are going through some other form of pressure (in my case, this cancer treatment fun). So, I got over the hurt pride, and am working on getting the form sent in.  We'll see if it helps or not.

But it made me think... what if I hadn't been working for this company? What if instead of a caring discussion about what was best for me, I worked for a place where they had just come to me and just said, "hey... things aren't working out so we have to let you go"? I have worked for places where that would have happened.  Thankfully it wasn't the case here. But there's more than that... I felt like a heel... for having been distracted doing research to decide on a direction to take for my treatment.  In the back of my head I knew I had been distracted, but thought I was maintaining my work at the same time. When questioned about it, I'm afraid I started to feel sorry for myself.  It wasn't my best moment, but that's how I felt.  I mean, I thought it was understandable that I might have been distracted, but at the same time being criticized for it (as nicely as it was done) made me feel like playing the "cancer card" and doing a bit of whining.  Is thinking about playing the card the same as playing it?  Not sure... but I don't want to go there.  It wasn't a shining moment, as I said.


I'm like many people in that I have tended to define myself by the work I do. But I can see that changing now as I feel my whole being alter course to concentrate on beating this (Go! Fight! WIN!!!).  The cancer patient who wrote to Lance Armstrong and said something like "we're the lucky ones" begins to make sense to me in ways I can't find words to describe.  There are certain things that are important and others that just need to get in line.  I have to be alive first, and then the other stuff can happen.

Not that I think this cancer will be the death of me.  I don't.  I think the course I'm on is the right one for my condition, and I'm on a trajectory to continue life after treatment. And a long, productive life I intend it to be.  But things have changed... 

We had a grand dinner with friends last night, a huge gathering (for our house) that was very important for me to get done before having the seeds implanted. That piece of the treatment looms... less than four weeks away, and I'm not sure how I will react to the procedure or the aftermath.  

Am I scared?  Yep.