Courage

Wednesday was my last treatment with the chemotherapy Docetaxyl. Next time I'll have the "red devil" AC. We started some medication intervention to prepare for that drug and the very idea that I needed to do this made me so scared for next time! I'm beginning to realize that having cancer really does take courage. I used to think it was dumb to assign courage to people who get cancer against their will, without any real control over their condition. How does getting cancer make you brave? Well the "getting" doesn't. But now I understand that it does take courage to face those two little steroid pills when you feel just fine, knowing they're going to give you electric blood to spare you the even more difficult side effects of chemotherapy, or to show up for a Nulasta shot that is going to make you walk like you're 90 and arthritic for awhile. It takes courage to sit in the easy chair with your chest hooked up to an IV, realizing that letting those drugs surge into you for the next two hours is probably contributing to turning your veins to asphalt, damaging your heart, or in some other way altering your general health for the rest of your life--all for the opportunity to survive. One day I'll have to listen to the results of this effort. I'll have to know if it did one speck of good, or if we have to start over, or if we can do nothing more to fix me. The suspense is indescribable. I guess I could choose to freak out and get all depressed about the things that aren't fair in life. I could be angry or bitter about being sick. But given these options, I think I'll attempt courage. If the obituary can say "after a courageous battle with breast cancer" I think I'll feel better knowing that I didn't freak. I think the people who survive one might do better if that person didn't freak. I've joked about dying in a very "high point" manner when I do it (oops--a Beckstromism that the rest of you might not get) like from wounds inflicted by walking through a spotlessly clean plate glass window, or being ejected from a Lagoon ride, or getting struck by lightening. I don't know how many points dying from cancer is worth. I think points for cancer death might be directly proportional to the demonstrated level of that "courage" I was speaking about earlier. Good people have died after a "courageous batter with cancer". I think sometimes having cancer is scarier than I can admit. Admitting to being scared is almost scarier than realizing that I probably have a right to be scared about having cancer. I'm optimistic about getting well. Fear is a normal, natural, healthy way to feel about having an illness as serious as cancer. So why do I feel like allowing myself to fear is like letting a crack develop in some essential armor? THAT scares me!