8 months have passed since the
first time chemotherapy was flowing through my blood and my veins. 8 months.
240 days. 5760 hours. Feels like a lifetime. Sometimes, just sometimes, I want
to have a week's break from the cancer. That he will take a break from me. But
in chronic disease it’s not possible. There are no ready-made breaks, so I have
to create them. Over time, I began to realize that I had to create my own
reality where I want to live, and though I did not choose cancer to come into
my life, in the manner and intensity that he came, but I can choose how to live
the time that I have, with him. How much weight I give him, how much importance
he will have in my life.
I read all your comments, dear
readers: the emails, Facebook posts, and the comments here. Sometimes I even
respond. In the previous post, "Love you, leaving you", someone wrote
me that cancer is not a subject of ballads and songs. Maybe it's true. Perhaps
his powerful presence in my life leaves no room for romance and such
attribution. Another person wrote that some people with other difficult chronic
diseases struggle as well. It’s true as well. Chronic illness is not easy, and it’s
also challenging. The mental strength that is needed is enormous. But, and
there is a big ‘but’, I think sometimes it is in our hands to decide how and
how much weight to give these diseases in our life. Everyone makes his own
choices, and leaves his life in the shade, with and next to the disease. I
present here the way which I choose to operate in the face of cancer, and I'm
not going to apologize for that. Cancer is a part of my life, and I intend to
adopt it tight into my lap, that’s perhaps the only way he would leave. My body
is full of it. But I choose not to let it get into my soul. I choose to deal
with the reality of life in a certain way, which is the best way for me.
I did not choose cancer, and I did
not want him to come. But, it is already here. So, I chose to learn the lessons
that cancer teaches us in his own way. I chose to apply those lessons to my
life. I chose to live. I chose life. I chose to be. I chose to seize the moment
and enjoy it. I chose to enjoy quality time with my family properly. I chose to
enjoy my friends. I chose to enjoy writing the papers that I need so I can
finish my degree in university, that I want so much to finish. I chose to
fulfill childhood dreams. I chose to write a blog. I chose to look at the here
and now, not to plan too much ahead. I chose to be a better aunt for my lovely
nephew. Better sister to my brother and my sister. A better daughter to my
parents. A better friend, a better granddaughter. I chose that cancer will make
be better. Happier. Have more joy. To be more myself.
I did not choose cancer, and I did
not want it to spread through all my body. But he is here. So, I chose to do
everything in my power not to let it get into my soul. Do not give him a window
to my soul. To leave it only in my physical existing dimension. And hold it
tight until he gets tired of being in my physical body, and it will come out of
my body and go somewhere else. To another world. To the next world. And leave
me here in this world, with all the amazing things that the world knows to
offer us.
A new year has just began, and
every one of us is facing every day new decisions, older decisions. Each of us
chooses how he wants to shape his life and what content he wants to pour into
them. Even within the uncertainty and chaos, we have a responsibility to choose
our future. Even in a situation where there are factors, external, that can
change our decision. Our choices. I wish you all that we will know to choose
the best for us, at the current time, given the information we have today. I
wish all of us a year in which we will of leave behind the self-flagellation and
look forward. That we will learn from the past, live in the present, and
implement in the future. That we will dream about the future. And live it. Be. A
year of learning, doing, looking beyond our world – outside, as there are so
many things out there that are worth looking at. I wish all of to have a next
year.
I did not choose cancer. But he is
already here. And I? I choose life. I choose to live.
There is a quote that a friend of
mine sent me in English, which I choose to finish up this blog with:
"It is more important to
know what kind of person has the disease than what kind of disease the person
has" Sir William Osler, 1905.
אין תגובות:
הוסף רשומת תגובה