3/12/19
Today is the 29th anniversary of when my cancer journey began. I went to the first doctor’s appointment on this day, and that doctor had a small part in saving my life…
“Don’t take that for granted.” Health is a gift we are given each and every morning we wake up, and each and every minute of every day of every week of each year. To take something for granted means to underestimate the value or expect it to always be available. When our health is compromised, boy, it sure makes us look at its value. How often do we think about the chance that it may be our last minute on this earth? I do not mean to live in a place of fear that we may die, but live in a place of realization we have to make each minute count. I think about it often. About once a week, I wake up with the prayer of thanksgiving to God for the breath I have for another day.
Very unplanned, but it just so happens that today I am getting ready to head to a doctor’s appointment for a physical. For the most part since cancer, the effects of chemotherapy have not raised their ugly head. Chemotherapy is very hard on a body; most people understand the physical effects. The long term effects have made their way into my life in recent years, and even hitting the forty year old mark has added to my demise. I have heard people say once they hit forty they had all these new health problems. I say to myself that age was really what I am dealing with, but I have had confirmation from a doctor or two that we are dealing with chemotherapy effects. Well, if I got almost 30 years of a healthy life, I feel pretty good about it. Now along the way to this point, my husband and I dealt with the emotions of infertility, and that is another story I will share.
Skiing down the mountains in Colorado on a green run with my son a few years back, turned into a torn ACL and a silly trip on the medic sled. I had made a hard stop because he had fallen and down I went. Within a few weeks, a trip to the doctor in the nearby town and one at home, a replaced ACL, and crutches for a week because the doctor did not want any weight on it. No weight is not the typical pre-op instruction, but he had some concerns. At my follow-up the doctor explained that once he was in surgery, he had seen what he thought was AVN or a blood loss in certain spots of the bone that he attached the new ACL to, so I would need to be on crutches for eight weeks. Good as gold in the seven years following and a return to the slopes; although my skiing is not as crazy or hard core. Within the last year, I have had pain and the doctor said the AVN is progressing and laid out options. He confirmed AVN would be an effect of chemo.
This is one of a few things that I have dealt with in the last year. Not all have been associated with treatment, but it has become real to me that I may be dealing with a whole new way of looking at health now. I do not want to take for granted what health I have been given as something may be taken from me in the near future. The use of my knee is very much still there, it is just painful to do certain things. In addition, my sight has been compromised, lately, and health became even more important to me than in the past. I am very interested in laying all these things out on the table today at my physical, and hear his thoughts. Once a person has cancer they just need the confirmation each year that they are doing ok. They just cannot go each year without blood work or a physical to let them know everything is good. I moved away from all of my oncologists and the hospital that treated me, so finding someone to take you on is a little uneasy.
You see, about ten years ago I walked into this doctor’s office ready to meet a doctor that could keep track of me. I had told my OB/GYN that I really should find a doctor because of my history, unbeknownst to me she was married to an adult medicine doctor. She told me about him, and my husband and I set up an appointment. The doctor was pretty excited to see me because as he put it, his “group of doctors specialize in adults with childhood cancers.” What a God-send! We have had complete work-ups, and I have come out in really good health. Praise the Lord.
Living life makes it easy to take health for granted because living life involves so much. Home life, family, work, church, sports; all of these things keep us so busy that losing our life the next minute is further from our thoughts. But I think that is ok, because I believe that God put me and each person on this earth for a purpose; to live a life for Him. When we go throughout our day, it should be our thought to give God the glory for each breath, for each healthy part of our body, and for each unhealthy. The use of arms, fingers, knees, backs, are all gifts from God. I really do thank Him for the fingers I have to type this blog article, my sight to see the words on the screen, and my back to be able to sit up. Call me crazy, but I want to encourage us to think about all the little things to be thankful.
I had a journal last year that I started writing a 1000 things to be thankful for. I really must go back to that this year and keep going because I never did finish, even though at one sitting I could write down 50. A couple of the things I wrote I was thankful for were the drips in the faucet which reminded me that we have running water, and the piano practice with the beautiful and not so beautiful notes. The little things add up and remind us how wonderful it is to be alive and have the health we have. Please remember those little things and live a life for God today. It may change tomorrow.
God Said Cancer 