On Cancer Treatment Commercials:

I am so tired of the commercials about drugs and treatment plans that are suppose to give you your life back while going through cancer treatments. A) They only work for some people. B) They don’t work for all types of cancer treatments and C) And this is the biggest one here. People really believe these commercials and expect so much more from you then you can possibly give.

It belittles what cancer patents are indeed going through. ‘Take a pill, a shot, a magic bean and all will be well again, just like before.’ Well I’m here to tell you that just ain’t so. You are profoundly changed by cancer on so many levels. Both in physical and emotional ways. I personally will never be the same as I was before the cancer treatments. And cancer treatments were not the worst thing I’ve ever had to live through in my life. So all things being relative, I feel I know of what I speak. And don’t get me wrong here, I was a middlin' case here.

My cancer was not found early, for it had spread some before it was found, and not a bad case either because it had a slower growing rate and it was dealt with, no more has been found since then. But I have been living with the scars. Scars to my body, scars to my emotions and scars to my very soul.

And if I have to look upon yet another happy face telling me go here and do this and cancer will be a snap I‘ll just scream. Even my oncologist admitted that if he let anyone know just how bad it can be, and still is for those of us that have been through it, no one would ever start treatments.

My memory is shot. I have physical troubles and scaring. My brain functions differently now. I must always look for signs of the cancer coming back. I am stuck in a death thought cycle. (Not that I think of death all the time but things remind me of how close I came to death with the cancer treatments.)

You do know that chemo is killing not just the cancer but you too. And that they only pull you back from the poisoning death they are putting you through, when they think they have killed enough of the cancer. And you then get to survive with what they have left of you to go on with, don’t you?

If you are lucky you get to heal and repair your body for the next year or two or more as your hair grows back and you push yourself through the days thinking ‘How come it isn’t easier then this? They got the cancer and the treatments are over, so where is my life? Why isn’t my life and energy back? Why am I not ecstatically happy about life now?’ And yes I will admit it. ‘Where are the parades for me and what I just went through?’ Oh no, we just get blank stares from faces that say, ‘Those commercials make it look so easy, so what is your problem?’