March, 2010... How did it happen?

Well, hey, I thought I'd get in a last post for February, but the day turned into something completely unexpected. I mean, I slept in, puttered about for most of the morning, took Katie for a walk (she was completely thrilled) and then... found myself in a listless, pacing, weird state of mind. And dang it... I couldn't shake it.  There were plenty of things to get done, and I didn't do one of them. I hope that wasn't a glimpse of things to come.  Heck... I didn't even feel like drinking a glass of wine! That's how bad it was. 

I ended up taking a nap, hoping I could sleep it off kind of like the way I used to try to fall asleep on long car rides when I was a kid because of the nifty way sleep has of compressing time. If you can get to sleep, a day-long ride in the car seems more like a couple of hours.  And then I started this post on Monday, the first of March, and got derailed by some completely lousy news at work, and so now it's mid-week and I'm lagging behind.  In more ways than one.

Last week, I gave the radiation tech's my blog address and now I find myself wondering if I've made anyone feel bad in how I've reported on this journey. I sure hope not. But really, I'm not aware of having said *too* many rude things.  And it seems a bit presumptuous to think that there are a lot of people reading this. I know of a few, but most of them know me fairly well. In some respects, this is a bit like working as a disc jockey was for me (yes, I did that ...and worked as a radio engineer for a few years). There's something very unnerving about having a conversation with a microphone, which is a little like writing here. But that's not what I want to talk about.


The last post contained a bit of thinking (rambling, really) about what it might mean to be "lucky" to have cancer.  And in reflecting on what I wrote there, I thought there are at least one or two more angles to that. While it's simple to think the person who wrote to Lance was just talking about the ones who are "lucky to survive"... I don't think that's the whole story. (Besides, surviving seems to me to be more hard work and perserverance than anything close to what I'd call luck.)  But there's more to it than that...

What about the ones who have cancer and don't survive?  Are they still lucky in some sense?  This seems to be even more complex than just thinking that having the disease is somehow fortuitous.  To attempt an answer seems rather egotistical as if I've become Lazarus back from the grave ("...to tell you all, I shall tell you all.") and somehow have stumbled on the answer to life the universe and... oh wait... that's been done.
Further, what about the families and friends of ones who survive - or don't? I know something of the effect this has had on my daughters and wife and extended family, but I sure don't understand it

So, the questions abound.  As ever.  But the event that changed my direction still stands ... like a monolith in the road... and the effects from that event are still traveling out from that point.  I think... no, wait... I know... I am not the same man I was a year ago, or even 9 months ago, and part of the reason I am not the same person is directly related to having discovered that I have cancer. And, odd as it may sound, I am thankful for that.