Saturday, February 5, 2011

"The Cancer Card"

   Have you played it yet?  You will; we all do. 

                             I can't do that, I have cancer.
                             Be nice to ME, I have cancer.
                             Help me, I have cancer.
                             You CAN'T understand, I have cancer.
Cancer wants to change your focus, take over your life and even knowing it will die, it wants to kill you in the process. The cancer wants to become you.  Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to sit back, feel sorry for ourselves and let others do things for us.  Finally we deserve the attention.  After all, we have cancer.

I admit that I have played this card.  Whenever I played it I knew I was giving in to this cancer, allowing it to win, to dominate my life, my thoughts, my very being.  I was becoming the cancer!

It cannot be a great experience to be the caretaker of a cancer patient or to be around them at all. Our illness becomes their focus too and cancer can control more than one.  They think of mortality, yours and theirs and have their own frustrations when they can't wave a magic wand and make us all better!  We leave them to pick up the pieces if we should die, pick up the pieces if we should live, continue about life, their worries and yours.  Yet, we still play that cancer card: "carry this and yours too!"
     Mostly that is not me and I kept the deck close at hand while dealing cards.  The cancer card is bad, not like the joker that can be anything, not like the ace that offers a winning hand.  The cancer card is a losing hand; it would be "checkmate" in chess, game over.
    Luckily, for me, I would offer  the opportunity to redeal, shuffle again, find new cards.  I learned the cards were marked.  Each one transparent, I could see which ones I was dealt and it became my choice to turn them over or not.  I grew to hate the cancer card and chose the humor card, the joker.  The one that could be anything that I wanted it to be.  I became quick to ask others of their day, how they were, before they could ask about mine.  My abilities, of course, were drastically slowed, but where I could once take the heavy pots to the table, now I could take the silverware!
      The world does not revolve around me and I do not not revolve around this cancer.  It is not what I choose to be and it is not a card I enjoyed playing.
My Original Blog, all the day to day skirmishes with this battle is on the top of this site. Scroll to the end and read it backwards!

4 comments:

  1. 'You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.' - Eleanor Roosevelt
    Cancer is not who we are StonePost although I have 'used' the card on occasions to get things done.
    One experience that comes to mind is having Telstra connect the landline at the farm. My patience was exhausted after waiting 12 months. I 'played' my card. Bingo! A courier delivered a phone, which arrived from Sydney within 4 hours.

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  2. Your prose becomes more and more eloquent.

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  3. Your writing gets better and better all the time. Not playing any of the feel sorry cards takes the spotlight away. It's a feel good experience just being you instead of the disease.

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  4. Yes Jerry I have played this card also hopefully not too often and not too recently but looking back I am aware I have . I really do much prefer though just being me.

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