Here is my stance on survivorship:
I had read what Don posted, that if you don't die on the spot with the diagnosis, from that point on, you are a survivor. I read it, but counted from the time I had surgery and that nasty little critter was yanked out along with some good tissue and left behind some really scary mental monsters to deal with.
I read about two-year statistics and five-year statistics and felt that reaching certain milestones would "allow me to live" again and reclaim my old life. I was wrong.
I beat the odds that were stacked against me and made it to the two-year point earlier this year. For TWO YEARS, I felt as though I was living on borrowed time, that I had lived through diagnosis and surgery but that I was merely spinning my wheels because it would probably come back...
I WASTED two freakin' years waiting for the other shoe to drop. Not the whole time, mind you, I took in weddings and grandbabies and sixth grade graduation and planted flowers that I fully expected to see bloom, but in the back of my mind, that monster was still growling and getting loose at times...
I am now two years, six months and five days from diagnosis. I've been through two winters and autumns, three springs, three summers. My husband and I have married off his two daughters, welcomed three grandbabies, attended a high school graduation, adopted a puppy and built a new house. We have also buried two friends, two grandparents, an uncle and a beloved dog.
Life HAS gone on, although the cancer was a pit stop for me, life continued to zoom on at a fast pace. I am now the mother of a teenage boy with many rough days to come, I'm sure. Instead of wondering if I'm going to be around for all the new milestones in his life, I'm going full steam with all plans that I WILL be here, there is no other option.
Oh, the monster? He wrestles out around test time and then I beat him back into the corner and duct tape him up to his eyeballs. We are not friends, the monster and I. He represents too much negativity and doubt and there is no room for him in my life.
Anyone newly on this journey should understand that the wake-up call is a reminder not to WAIT to live, but to get on with the business of living because NO ONE KNOWS the date written as the end of their days in the big Book of Life. Beware of beer trucks!
...and I really didn't "waste" that time, I battled a monster in my mind that assured me I wouldn't live two years - and the monster was wrong. I DID live, I did participate in life, but many of my perceptions changed. I'm not afraid of much anymore, and that certainly changes how I deal with difficult people that live by intimidation. I don't have a "career", I have a job. They pay me, I work. I don't want to travel and be away from my family, I just want insurance and a way to earn money. If I died tomorrow, my workplace would be looking for my replacement the next day - my family could never replace me. Guess where my heart is?
Time to live...
Becky
