On My Yearly Health Check Up:

Today is my yearly cancer check up. It’s a good/bad day. I’m of course glad that the cancer is gone but at the same time worried that it might have come back. And of course I remember the treatments and how devastating they were on my body and mind.

The smell alone of the place brings back memories. Chemo is the smell of raw fear touched with hopefulness.

I take my bath in the morning assessing my body and the changes it has gone through. Today is a memory day. Many things are brought back to the fore. I touch the scars and note the healing.

Baldness, weakness, sickness, tiredness, fear, thoughts of death, strength, perseverance, will power, hope. All tied together like a knotted ball of string.

I am a cancer survivor. I say this with a touch of pride and disgust. I carried a lot of baggage at that time. Things I no longer care about or care if others still care. Now I live for today.

The office will be bathed in pink. Breast cancer month has come again. I don’t like pink, never have. But it has been pressed upon me in the last few years. I push the pink gifts to the back of the closet or drawer. I don’t do pink even if I am a breast cancer survivor. Others can carry that banner.

I’ll sit still for the blood work and exam then make my way to the car. Shaking the dust of the place from my feet. Holding close the love/hate relationship I have with the place and people within. Knowing I will never be the same for what I lived through.

One word says it all. Cancer.