Below are some of my recent thoughts about living with cancer. They are "ditties", or small fragments of writing, like the bricks in a sidewalk. Maybe they will eventually turn into a path. Who knows? Perhaps this journey is the path.
The True Value Of Traveling Companions
For days after I heard my diagnosis I kept thinking, "This can't be real," and "Cancer happens to somebody else, not me," and "Where do I go from here?" I was shaken so badly that I could not concentrate or sleep, and I was moody and irritable. My doctor, John Parker, advised me to take a few days off work to consider my options, but I could not see any choices. I could not even plan what to do the next day. This is the time when new cancer patients are most vulnerable to losing sight of their life paths, precisely because there are no fixed and reasonable plans available. "Start as you mean to continue" my father used to say. He was an ex-navy man and believed in always setting a course before leaving port. So, there I was, a stranded traveler sitting in the harbor, with no map and no compass. Some sailor!
