With a Little Bit of Luck...

I did not "Will my Cancer away".  My will power and attitude only controlled how I felt about this whole battle and whether I laughed or cried.  The "cure for cancer" is a crap shoot, a card game, playing the odds,
a mixture of voodoo ingredients, hair of the bat and a little mustard gas and other stuff.  It is like going to Los Vegas.  It is a gamble.  It is not like take this medicine and you will be better!
     I was lucky.  Lucky that I lived a mile away from a good cancer treatment center. Luck that I have really, really good insurance.  Lucky that my career path took me to steel and I was incredibly strong at the beginning of this train wreck.  Lucky for the timing of it all and I had begun my retirement. Lucky that the cure didn't kill me.
     I don't believe that I was saved by God.  In fact, I would hope that God was busy.  There are people by the thousands that are in far worse shape than I was ever in.  My prayers were limited to strength and understanding, acceptance and to be able to laugh.
    Had the numbers been different, all coming up spades, well, I was ready for that too. My life can end but never disappear.  I have kicked too many rocks over, turned too many leaves.  It is like the butterfly wings and the flap of air they move clear across the the world.  There are consequences to living.  I did my best and never willfully hurt anyone.  Lucky too that I was ever alive!
My Other Blog is HERE.

Lucky!

To have had cancer and survived gives you both a sense of vulnerability and a sense of being indestructable! I don't think you can get much closer to the edge without falling off and I am left with a feeling of "that didn't get me!" There have been other times in my life that my number should have been called but wasn't and this all makes me realize how incredibly lucky I am.
I once stumbled and fell into an electrical panel putting my arm out to protect my fall. This was an open 220 volts on a 200 amp line and that really should have done it, at least it should have taken my arm off to my shoulder. It did throw me 20 feet across the room but otherwise left me unscathed! About ten years ago I was helping a friend put a roof on a Church steeple and my footing slipped and down I went, about a 20 foot fall onto the concrete sidewalk! I looked like a side of beef beaten with a baseball bat, but thirty minutes later went to lunch! I never should have walked away from that one! There were others and probably some I am not aware of,
two seconds earlier or later can make all the difference. These were all "instant" close encounters and cancer gives you plenty of time to think about it, knowing every day you are approaching that edge! It really makes you think that you have been extremely lucky and maybe I shouldn't be pressing my luck?

Test or Not?

That is the question? I am to see my main Voodoo Doctor today and we will discuss whether or not to get more testing done to see if the cancer is really gone or went into hiding, metamorphing
into some other alien creature. On the plus side I would know but I am not sure this means much. I am feeling better every day and have no lumps or bumps, no bad symptoms. The tests themselves cause cancer. They are the equivilent of getting 420 X-rays and then there is the question of what would I do if the cancer was still lurking? Could I and would I go through all this again, twelve more chemos? My hands couldn't take it. I know of people who have gone through chemo twice in a row, and then had surgery and top it off with radiation treatments, all
to extend their life...by a little bit, sick, in their bed, dieing. That is the difference I think. If you could extend your life three months living, (say in Paris, for instance!) that could certainly be a good choice. But to extend the process of dieing, to drag that out to see grief and fear and tears!
I am happy now and chose to think this battle is over and I won. Now I am painting and welding and creating again; I am living.

SAME IMAGE

This is the same image, taken inside my shop with a flash. hard to believe!

"Vertu and Fortuna"

This is the very same image as yesterday's post!

The only difference is this is taken outside in direct sunlight with no flash. How can that be?

How can light play such tricks and expose or hide all the details? I like the colors and feather effect here but this is not as imaginative as the one taken inside my shop. Had this been the only capture it would not have inspired me to continue playing with this medium. So, it was all "luck" that I caught it just right in the shop.

The Romans knew of this kind of luck and measured the mettle of a man by how he responded to it. "Vertu" and "fortuna", virtue and fortune. Fortune was the good luck and bad luck, those things that happen to us by accident, what we find in life and what is thrown upon us.

And Virtue is how we respond to these happenstance. Ralph (I will learn to link soon!) could have taken his inhaler to bed with him and lived out his life as an invalid but instead decided to throw it away and climb mountains! Sherry could crumble and fall apart but chooses dignity

and growth from her experience. Me? I am really lucky and just talking about capturing a piece of stainless steel in the right light, something that ultimately led me into painting and the world of art.