The Highs and Lows of Cancer

Thought the above saying should have gone with my previous post! I just got off the phone with another person on the palliative care team, and now I am on a high and hopeful again! It feels good having this palliative care team to deal with the emotional side and the symptoms of cancer, even if it is uncomfortable opening up to strangers. It feels good to have some people watching out for you and caring about and understanding what you are going through. I have been so fortunate to have such an amazing tribe of all of you, and now I am gaining a bigger tribe. I have never been very good at making friends. I have been good at making good friends, but it has never been easy for me to make friends because of some social anxiety. Talking to strangers terrifies me. I know these people are strangers now, but over time, over this cancer journey, they will not be strangers anymore — they will be part of my tribe who help me through the most difficult times of this journey, which are yet to come. I feel so fortunate to have had such a positive experience as I have had if I have to have this. I have had such caring, good doctors, caring friends, family and even strangers as part of my tribe; I have been lucky enough to have gotten good scans so far; and I have been really lucky with not having a hard time with side effects of treatment. It feels good to be where I am at in this journey so far, and it feels good knowing that when the going gets tough, palliative care and my tribe will be there to get me through it. And if palliative care extends my life, like the studies show it does, all the better. The woman on the other end of the phone asked me what my hopes were, and I said I want to continue on this new normal, this now, for as long as possible because it is good. I can handle this time, this day, and I want it to stay like this for as long as possible. That is my goal; that is my hope.