My quarterly shot

For those who haven't been paying attention, or perhaps just don't care, part of my cancer treatment involves getting a needle in my stomach every three months. I received my second one today. P.S.A. tests are done in conjunction with those quarterly shots, to monitor my levels and ensure that the treatments are still working.

The perfect scenario with the drugs that I'm on is that my P.S.A. level comes down to zero. A zero result means that my cancer has become inactive, it has stopped growing and essentially just lays there dormant. My levels have dropped from 164 to .059! It's on it's way to working perfectly! My Doctor would still like to see that number at zero, but he is happy with the obvious progress and confident that my next result will be zero, based on how it has worked thus far. It's an amazing relief to know that I have been given this "second chance" at life, so to speak. That I can almost certainly now measure my remaining time in years rather than months, it does however create a small predicament for me.

I am compelled now to examine the question, which was asked so poignantly by a certain penguin that I know in response to one of my earlier posts; "now what?", on a very serious level. It's a question that I never considered too much previous to the knowledge of cancer because I was pretty much just living my life the way I saw fit, through the eyes of a person who was comfortable in my false sense of immortality, always thinking there will be tomorrow to "do that". The cancer changed that perspective but because I was still so unsure as to how much time I actually have, I never really examined it much. I have been living day to day, considering what my future could hold, but never really believing that I had much of one. Now the treatment, and it's positive results, have given me the opportunity to live with that new perspective intact. I do have some tomorrows. So what do I do with them? Where do I go from here?

Am I in danger of falling back into that "comfort zone", now that I am feeling healthy again? I don't think so because I still have so much appreciation for the fact that I feel better now. I still say out loud how glorious it is to be able to pee normally every time that I do it. (I get some funny looks when I'm in a public washroom, but I still do it. It just comes out, I can't help it.) I still remember what it was like to be sick but I re-read my earlier posts the other day, the ones that I wrote while I was sick, and it brought me back to it on a level that I had not felt for a long time. It made me wonder if someday I would just "forget" and start living my life the way I used to; taking things for granted and wasting my time with vapid activities designed to do just that, waste time. Again, I don't think that's going to happen to me, but the thought did cross my mind.

I love my life, and all the people who are in it, the ones who allow me to be a part of their lives. As I said in a previous post, I have a new appreciation for everything and everyone, however, as I examine the question "now what?", I find some of the answers I'm coming up with are going to disappoint some of those people, and that hurts me.

The words of John Lydgate come to mind; “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”. Wise words. I need to truly take them to heart, and realize their veracity, so that I may move on with my life in the direction that I want it to go (irrespective of what some other people may want) with a clear conscience and no feelings of guilt.

I know that it won't be easy, but I guess that's life, isn't it?