It is 6 weeks since treatment finished and yesterday someone told me "remember your in remission" Remission is such a vauge word but it means well you maybe cancer free now all your treatment has finished, but we do not know yet.
The fear of the unknown has not stopped me feeling the best I have felt for 7 months. Internally I feel fine, lots of energy eating well, and I suppose wanting to get on with my life. The mouth sores are under control will various potions, hurting ocassionally at the end of the day but the pain is certainly reducing.
I have for the last 2 days noticed a distinct change in my life, very similar to right I can now start planning 3/4 months hence. When you are going through treatment there is no time or will to plan for the future because you have no idea how you may feel or what appointment you have to fufil, now that channel is clear and life has taken a more appropiate form.
Life still amuses me like yesterday the man who called me and told me that he had viewing my website and wanted some advice. I assumed it was cancer advice, but no he said: " I have been viewing your site and can you give me any information on callouses on the knee as I injured my knee walking in the Bulgarian mountains" At first I thought it was a joke, or some sort of code"we have been walking in the Bulgarian mountains" alas he was deadly serious, so I packed him on his way with plenty of rest and daily asprins :)
In reading an article written by John Diamond for the Guardian before he died he summed up my thoughts about the future and life:
This is what it's all about. It's about reading a paper on a Sunday morning while you're thinking about whether you can be arsed to go to the neighbours' New Year's Eve party tonight. It's about getting angry with me for having different opinions from yours or not expressing the ones you have as well as you would have expressed them. It's about the breakfast you've just had and the dinner you're going to have. It's about the random acts of kindness which still, magically, preponderate over acts of incivility or nastiness. It's about rereading Great Expectations and about who's going to win the 3.30 at Haydock Park. It's about being able to watch old episodes of Frasier on satellite TV whenever we want, having the choice of three dozen breakfast cereals and seven brands of virgin olive oil at Sainsbury's. It's about loving and being loved, about doing the right thing, about one day being missed when we're gone.
And that's all it's about. It isn't about heaven and hell or the love of Christ or Allah or Yahveh because even if those things do exist, they don't have to exist for us to get on with it.
It is, above all I suppose, about passing time. And the only thing I know that you don't is that time passes at the same rate and in much the same way whether you're going to live to 48 or 148. Why am I happy? Because I'm alive. And the simple answer to the question 'What the hell is the point of it all' is this is the point of it all. You aren't happy? Yes you are: this, here, now, is what happiness is. Enjoy it.
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2 comments:
I used to read John Diamond's column in my daily newspaper and so followed him through all his treatment and thoughts on it. He was a very brave, stoic man and you felt it had been a privilege to "know" him.
quote from Nigel whilst we were away; "If I live for another 5 or 50 years I will never come down this road again!" - nothing wrong with a tiny little ol' B road, Nige!
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