My birthday card from my son August. (and a photo bomb from Kumo)
Scrappy as hell, y’all. And a persistent terminal optimist.
After writing my last blog, I had to drive into Boston for an ultrasound. Think johnnies, stirrups, probe. No no fun. And yet, as I lay there on the examination table, I kept saying to myself ‘I’m alive, I’m alive, I’m alive.’ And after the procedure, when it took me an hour in rush hour traffic to drive from Chelsea Mass to the Prudential center in Boston (six miles) I kept repeating it as well.
I get down, really down at times. But I don’t stay there.
Sometimes this takes a formidable amount of will. Depression has shadowed me since childhood. To that end I take an antidepressant and have had a standing appointment with the same (wonderful) social worker for a decade now. But the fact is, my life is fertile ground for sorrow and hopelessness both.
Knowing this, I fight back. In little ways, but ways that matter. When people ask me how I am doing I almost always answer ‘great’. When I fill out the patient reported outcome intakes at every oncology appointment, I give quality of life the top score.
I’m painting and writing and, with only some hesitation, planning for the future. I’m even still (and if this isn’t optimism in the face of progression, I don’t know what is) online dating.
So there you go. In two weeks I’ll have a biopsy and thereafter a better idea as to what the plan of attack is. But in the meantime, I’m not twiddling my thumbs.
Just thought you’d want to know 🙂
life and breath: outliving lung cancer 