I'm still here!

And, as it turns out, apparently my story isn't over yet.  I've ignored the gentle prodding to continue the tale for quite awhile but it would seem that I have a responsibility to continue.  Perhaps there is someone out there who needs it and maybe it's just for me... likely I will never know!

Fortunately, I haven't seen a return of overt cancer in the past almost nine years (that's right cancer, we're pushing 10 years here!  Take THAT!) but, if I'm truthful, all the accoutrements are still here and frankly, they suck.  (a word which I would never let my children use and now that they are old enough to be reading this themselves, I should probably choose my words more carefully.  Sorry children!  "Precision of language", Parker.  😉)  My husband struggles when I say that I "have" cancer.  He wants me to say that I "had" cancer.  However, I still live with it every day.  There's the ever-present hot flashes (Thank you return to 90 degree weather in almost October.  Makes it so easy to dress for the rink.  Lovely), all the lymphoma nonsense, and the ongoing appointments (I threw an adult tantrum over the last round and am like 6 months... or more... behind on those actually.  Sorry Dr. P.  I promise, promise I will make them!  As soon as I order great room furniture, finish unpacking boxes and write this blog... lol).  These's the always reconsidering before I have that glass of wine, a french fry or any food of questionable origin (you know, meat whose name I don't happen to know or something from a package with more than 4 ingredients... makes all the hockey travel SO simple.  Wait... what is the point of having access to emojis without the eye-rolling face??  That is my second favorite one right behind the wide-eyed face!!  This is going to greatly hamper my story-telling... 😖 I guess I'll have to go with this...) I get to see all of my scars every morning when I get dressed, my back still isn't quite right from the fractures (the fractures!  Now that's a good story for another day...) and I wonder, in a little corner of my mind I always wonder.  "Did I have this headache yesterday?", "Why have I had this weird thing in my ear since July??", "Is there something, somewhere growing and waiting to just take over?"   UUUUGGGGGHHHHHH.

So when you tell me that I look wonderful (thank you, that's very kind) or I tell you that I'm good (I really actually am), it still doesn't mean that the cancer is GONE or that I don't feel it, think it and live it every single day.  It's my stuff and we all have our stuff.  It's a reminder of perspective and priority, of blessing and humanity.  Of Jesus' presence with me every day even when I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death (where I should be fearing no evil because THOU ART WITH ME).  I remember praying that we would never lose our perspective from the first days of learning that this was our new normal.  I just didn't know that this was what that would look like...