LUCKY

I recently learned that a good friend of mine has MS, and has had it for almost 10 years. She is one of the most giving, creative, involved and cheerful people I’ve ever met. I by no means mean to imply that people with MS can’t be all these things—hardly. I was just amazed at how she has not let this diagnosis define her. It’s just something she deals with… has been for a long time, and will for a long time to come. Likewise, I have two friends who both only have one hand. Both of these woman are among the most stellar I have met in my life… regardless of any “handicap” (although you would never think to describe these woman as such). Another close friend has nasty back problems that required surgery last year and make it hard for him to walk sometimes, but he’s up in the mountains every weekend skiing with his kids… and my sister, who also has long standing back issues, comforted me, “my shoulder is numb right now, it’s not that bad” when I told her about the potential loss of feeling from surgery… I guess my point is that so many people have their own (often staggering) issues to deal with, and everyone handles everything so well… and all of them are asking what they can do for me. It’s humbling.
Today, I feel perfect. I have no symptoms. I have this lump in my breast which I can feel, but doesn’t hurt at all (when I first got the diagnosis I was certain I could feel it almost pulsing with malignancy, but I think that was part biopsy side-effect and mostly mind tricks). Both my kids and my husband are healthy (for a change). Work isn’t even that stressful (especially since I’ve canceled all of my business trips!).
Tomorrow I will go through significant surgery, but nothing compared to what my sister and my friend who have had back surgery have been through. Chemo is horrifying, but relatively short term. And radiation, well, at that point, I think it will mostly just be an inconvenience.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m making too big a deal of this? Am I letting it define me? Am I taking advantage of the cancer diagnosis to shamelessly solicit support when there are so many people that deal with so much more on such a long term basis without asking for anything?
Granted, after tomorrow, I likely won’t be fully myself again until around my birthday in October. (this is obviously more of a distant concept than a reality to me—that denial thing again, I guess) But the other day, I watched a fantastic movie, “Murderball”, a documentary about paraplegics who play rugby in the paraolympics, and was reminded again, that it’s just all so, so relative.