Wednesday, January 8, 2014

potato chips and windsurfers

so my new 'fear less' experiment is working out rather well.  true i haven't had any big scares to really take it for a good test run (the CT scan seems to have gone fine... i only have 25 rounds of radiation coming to me, as opposed to the 35 i would have had if they had seen something they didn't like), but i've surely had some minor little aches and pains and of course there's always my breathing issues to practice with.  my oncologist seems to only be confirming that what i'm mostly dealing with now is paranoia, as i asked her at an appointment on monday on the way out the door whether i should call her if a little pain in my side that had been coming and going since that weekend didn't go away soon.  'no,' she said matter-of-factly.  and it has hardly shown up since.  but even she cannot help but give me one more test, just to check everything out, once the radiation is over.  so sometime in april i'll go through another PET/CT and be believing that whatever little activity that showed up near my lung (that the doctors thought was probably because of sickness or some kind of infection) back in may is now completely gone... if it isn't, we have to figure out what it is.  so it seems there is always going to be another test to look forward to, always questions to be answered.  so of course it seems completely good timing to change how i look at this cancer thing.

but i'm afraid that more than one person is concerned that what i am doing is bottling up those 'bad' thoughts, not 'being myself', living in denial maybe, or at least not fully exploring all the dark corners of my brain, and i would have thought the same thing just a couple of weeks ago.  but i realized that i needed to do everything possible to ensure that cancer isn't going to kill me... at least not until i'm 91... and if positive thinking and being optimistic has any effect on that at all, well, sign me up.  when i first got diagnosed and was complaining to someone that i can't seem to get over my fear that i might keel over from this, she pointed out that it is completely against all instincts to just lie down and accept death, so of course it's not going to be easy trying to 'come to terms' with the idea of dying in my thirties with young children to leave behind.

so why did i let that fear just move in and take up entire rooms in my brain and stress me out with its doomsday soundtrack playing on repeat all the time?  and despite all my best efforts at trying to get the doctors here to confirm that there was a good reason for it, that i was valid in sheltering that fear, they just never have been willing to do it.  so... why shouldn't i kick it out?  why shouldn't i close the door on it whenever it comes around?  why shouldn't i rent out the space to some nice old 91 year old instead?  thoughts must be like anything else you put into your body.  they're either going to be good for you or they're not.  the way i was thinking was like sitting around eating potato chips all day and wondering why i couldn't seem to make myself feel good doing it.  and as out of the habit as i may be or as unnatural as it might feel to me to think uncynically and unpessimistically, as hard as it might be to be a "positive thinker", it must surely be like eating healthy or exercising or doing anything else differently than one normally does.  why should thoughts get a pass?

okay, enough of that.  pictures now and news that i just bought plane tickets to travel to the u.s. this spring for 2 weeks!  ahh!  i will have to get that PET scan rescheduled, but that's okay. i will not miss this trip!  post cancerland vacation.

pictures... four of them...

of henry setting up tracks in his brown house, despite the fact that william and i made him a crazy cool track on the floor...

and of the little man henry on a night walk with his parents last night...

and of last night's moon...

and today's fjord...

it is so warm that a windsurfer was out on the water... and when we had our window open last night for sleeping, it hardly made a dip in the room temperature.  and i'm sure none of you midwesterners or north easterners want to hear that, but those are the facts.  it is warm and snowless here in denmark in january.


3 comments:

Betsy Morehead said...

I feel compelled to give you a hug and dance a little jig of happy tidings. For you, for me, for all who feel better after coming through something icky and scarey and finding a new and renewed spirit on the other side - and that includes the ones we love and the ones that love us! So glad things are going well!!

nina said...

I can't wait for you to come home for a visit!
And more importantly, for your fears to recede to the back burner.
xo

Sara said...

I love imaging fear thoughts as potato chips, junk food. Of course they come unbidden sometimes but how long do they get to stay? Takes courage to move them out of the way but what a reward. Says I till my next mammogram when I'll hold my breath for the day...