Last week, in a spontaneous moment, I confessed to two co-workers that I owned this domain name/website/blog/corner of the internet universe.
And then I instantly had a Homer Simpson “Doh” reaction and thought, “Was that the wisest thing I could have done?”
See, for years, I have read the blog entries of my OVCA sisters and thought, “Man, how sweet would that be to just say, “My partner is an amazing id-jit” or “My co-worker is as useless as tits on a bull.”
Long have I envied the candor which my more anonymous compatriots have brought to their blogs.
So, there it was, hanging there. And I wondered, “Did I ever say, ‘Damnation… I work with a legion of fools and wankers!”?
Cuz, frankly, I have had my moments of thinking that. As have we all.
Anyhow… I am at least partially outed as a OVCA blogger, at least at work.
And this outing has sparked a couple of cancer related conversations, which have caused me to think, even three years after the fact.
So, here’s a thing I should say.
Sorry I have been so crabby. I tried to be all Lance Armstrong-like, but unless you know what it’s like to lay in bed for the best part of a year, wondering if you are going to croak like all the statistics strongly suggest, well, I am not sure you get to be critical.
I took a book out of the library recently. It was a Cancer Survivor’s Notebook, or some such title. I really should memorize the title because somehow the book got water damaged and it ended up costing me over $30.
And after all that, I didn’t even read much of the book, since I was trying to get ready to move. But one wee tidbit that I did read was about how cancer patients/survivors can come across as angry, because we are so absolutely terrified right to the bone of dropping dead. So, angry is really about scared. Scared in a way that you can’t know till you get here.
So, forgive me. And forgive any other crabby seriously ill person you encounter.
It is frightening in a way that you can’t know yet.
More later.
I’m sorry you’ve had to go through that terror Spike…and that it continues to be manifested in your life.
my dad was just diagnosed with esophagus cancer three weeks ago, it went from operable to inoperable in a week. my mom got ovarian when I was 16, my grandmother got bladder and breast, grandfather had hodgekins lymphoma and all my aunts, colon, breast, cervical had died from it by the time I was 20.
I am floating in the space of fear and anger and being alone. i thought a lot of things might have been hard but it’s nothing compared to this. to watching your friends recoil from hearing the word cancer. i have nursed my family through this horrible disease, one by one and here I go again. I am angry today too cause I am afraid.
I never thought you were angry, I always knew you were scared and sick to death of being sick. My mom just had a hysterectomy at 59 because of uterine cancer. We were scared to death of the C word at first but we got over it quick because her operation went well and her bloodwork came back perfect so we’re hopeful for a cancer free rest of her life. I have to start having mammograms this coming year because I am turning 40. (gulp) I am scared to death to have one and yet I have no reason to be really. I guess it’s just fear of getting older. sigh. Good luck to you Spike and keep on posting. Even if you’re scared.
I love reading your blog because you manage to express and explain feelings of a cancer survivor clearly, with grit and humor.
Speaking of dropping dead, if you are three years out, good for you!
I am 2 years out, and am going in for a pet scan because my CA-125 is edging up a bit. New second line treatments are yielding higher remission rates so no matter what I still have hope. I try to laugh alot even though my husband is humor impaired. If I do have a recurrence I might have to slip some prozac in his coffee…
Keep on blogging Spike, no matter what your co-workers or anyone else say.
From one crabby survivor to another.. spike, you crack me up!
Sometimes one just needs a laugh… and you seem to be able to take regular life and spin it into a laugh or a smile…
Thank you
vicki