I am a cancer survivor.
More accurately, I am surviving cancer.
I was first diagnosed with Prostate Cancer in 1999.
There was surgery, then radiation, and I went on with my life.
Nearly 13 years after later, the cancer returned and I was treated.
Now, I’m being treated…again.
It’s been a journey.
Or a soap opera!
(That’s the short version. There is one with more details, if you’re interested.)
When my cancer returned the first time, I made the decision to journal what was happening to me.
(That’s what writers do.)
I called it my “C”hronicles, since it’s about my journey with the Big “C.” (Get it?)
I recorded my thoughts, feelings, fears, concerns, insights and experiences—the doctors, the tests, the questions, the doubts...and the waiting.
(OMG, there’s so much waiting!)
I also wrote often about some of the responses and reactions I got from people around me…from touching and tender to tacky and thoughtless.
Many of those journal entries became the “articles” you’ll find posted on this page.
I am not one to tell others how to feel about their cancer, nor do I contend that having this disease is some kind of cosmic learning experience. However, I have learned much on this journey, I like to think my experiences and observations might help others know what to do and what to say (and what NOT to say or do) when they learn of a loved one with this diagnosis. It’s those lessons that I share in these pages.
I’ll confess from the beginning to a somewhat warped, twisted perspective. I hope no one is offended.
(But hey, I have cancer…so deal with it!)
And on a final note, as someone who identifies as a Christian, my faith is extremely important to me. It has sustained me during my struggles with this disease—to endure the treatments and to recover from the damage it has done to my body.
References to my faith should not be perceived as an attempt at evangelism, nor condemnation of those who see and believer things differently.
