This picture goes back to a time before I knew melanoma in my life...
The last time I could claim some semblance of innocence and a measure of ignorance of it. I knew quite a few facts about it....but wasn't forced to know it on a personal level until the end of that summer. The summer of 2003. Wow...my kiddos were so LITTLE!
For better or worse, I was a different person then in so many ways. Sometimes I mourn the loss of the person that I was, or at least some aspects of who I was then...In some ways, I don't. But that time period? Man....I can't remember now what it felt like to have a day where at least some time during it wasn't spent worrying about the future and whether or not I would be a part of it....
It dawned on me that I haven't posted on this blog for damned near a month now. Just been cruising through each day on autopilot, I guess. It has popped in my head so many times that I needed to post something, I just haven't had much to say....
When I have, it has been negative. The last thing I wanted to do was post a bunch more bitching, moaning and complaining here. But then I realized that this was in part why I started the blog in the first place; a place to purge my feelings, even the negative and toxic ones out. Somewhere I could vent when I felt some part of me on the verge of crumbling. A place that gives me an alternative to dumping all that toxic spew on my family.
Aside from my often times black mood lately, things have been relatively normal. New normal, that is. Life is going on and I know I should be ecstatic to be a part of it, and it goes without saying that I am for the most part....But I feel guilty for having such lows even though it is inevitable. Feel still more guilty because to be a good cancer patient with a good positive attitude, I should be twirling around like that actress with the bowl cut hairdo in the Sound of Music singing on some non-descript green mountain top (Julie Andrews? I forget...) because for now, things are okay....
But I have just been trying to remain strong; fighting to stay positive... and the effort to maintain this attitude at something even resembling constant has sapped the energy right out of me....On the verge of crashing down now....
What did it this time was the very rude awakening I got that it is very possible that I am not getting melanoma cells in these vaccine injections that I recieve every week. Not only this...but this started it all....
I may not have had enough tumor cells after all. I could be one of the patients that is just getting the BCG without the modified melanoma cells. Not quite a placebo, but sorta close....
That put me in a black mood for a couple of days....
But on the flip side, I am contributing to research, which is definitely always a plus when it comes to this insidious beast of a cancer.
And I tell myself, with any other treatment I could have chosen, melanoma still is...at best...a crapshoot. When I think of this one, I have to remind myself to breathe. Slooooow. Let go of my need to be in control, because this one, I just can't...It is impossible. I can only control what I do on my end. I will do whatever I can to keep this shit from coming back again. Hope. Pray. Learn all I can. Take the seemingly most effective treatments out there that are offered up to me in the hopes that they will work for me.
And no matter what....Live only in the moment. For good or for bad, that is all any of us is really guarranteed, melanoma or not.
And the beat goes on...
