Wednesday, April 7, 2021

Living With Cancer

EVERYDAY since I turned 60 years of age (and I am now 73), I have gone to bed, lived my life, and returned to bed with the constant realization that not only do I have cancer but my cancer could turn aggressive and my life could possibly shorten very quickly.

It is not the same feeling of a soldier going into battle because once that battle starts that soldier may or may not return...  for me it is a constant battle, not just one...  and, after the tour in the war zone, the soldier returns home...  but there is no returning home for me as my battle continues day after day, year after year, and decade after decade...  I am on my second decade now.

In addition to that hanging over my head, I can feel my body changing...  in the sense that the monthly steroid use has cause me to gain weight.  Constant chemo treatments over 12 years has left me with anemia and a very low immune system.  My susceptibility to other illnesses and disease is high and I have to be very careful everywhere I go.

Additionally, I must now live with constant fatigue that sometimes is there and sometimes is not but when it is, I can wake up in the morning after 8 hours of a really good sleep and feel so tired that I need to return to bed.  No motivation.  No desire to do anything.  Apathy all the time with no desire to try and shake it off.

Unless I am writing about my cancer and my physical condition, I try to ignore that I ever have cancer and live life as if I am perfectly fine...  although, since I also had a serious heart attack about 12 years ago, my physical movements are also limited and I no longer have the endurance that I used to have.  But, even with that also hanging over my head, I still try not to think that I am sick.

I work on my blogs and write everyday about something.  I watch the news and do research on the internet for subjects about which to write.  Every once in a while I teach a class for a local university which I am doing now, so I prepare for my class making sure that the students do not receive the SOS type of education.

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