Woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend... Just when I thought life could not get any better I heard a knock on my door, it was Cancer.
It changed everything but not for the worse. I choose Life and Hope .
BACK OFF CANCER is what I say!

The beginning of this journey...shaving my head

The beginning of this journey...shaving my head
Me, Francesca, on April 1st 2007, the day I shaved my head....

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Today I .....

. ..am going to do a PET Scan. Yup, that one that tells me if the Big C is back or NOT ... I am nervous but Positive and Optimistic. I welcome any special little prayers /positive vibes... I will take them all...

These past few weeks , I struggled a lot with the thought of "going back to normal"... and ( I THINK) I finally settled that there is NO going back to normal.. there is a NEW normal . .and fear and anxiety are just a part of it. I am NOT the same person, . .I am changed, hopefully to the better ..or just different. The reality is that I will never be able to be someone who had never had cancer... but HOPEFULLY someone who will NEVER HAVE CANCER AGAIN! Difficult/Complex thoughts... and feelings.. and I am more than ever thankful for the people around me.. I know at times is not easy and I must always remember that this battle is/was just as hard for them...

Below is an piece of a post of a fellow PC ( Planet Cancer) member.. Thanks Melissa! So many of these words could have been written from my thoughts. .she did a much better job!

Like Alice in cancerland, i'm falling down a dark and creepy rabbit hole.

That would explain a lot of the feelings i have been experiencing lately. my body does not feel like my own any more. i feel violated. I feel stripped, exposed and scared.

i have no idea what was injected into my voluptuous veins for the past year. After four or five or six... i don't remember; surgery's... whose hands have been inside me, wrapped me up and sent me back to the world looking as nicely cut up as possible. Friends have judged me and left me. Nearly hundreds of people have poked, picked and prodded me; analyzed me and made decisions about me and my body and my health without my permission. I did not ask for cancer. You don't get time to process ANYTHING. Especially not when you were stage four, and doctors are surprised you are alive. You are PUSHED through everything and you are whipped into shape by friends, family and doctors whenever you try to take a second to question your life. Is it all worth it? 98% of the time it is, however, when you consider the fact that you now have a thirty percent increased chance of developing other cancers because of your treatments i'm only left with 69%. I swear i have an alternate thought track playin on a loop in my mind. Thank God no one ever asks me what i'm thinking about. How i wish i could go back to the carefree innocence that i had taken for granted befor the cancer talon popped my little bubble . Life is messy and inconsistent (which is ultimately why it's so fabulous). Yet for a Virgo who hates change; it is also very unsettling! But cancer is no longer my first and last thought of the day. Life moves on. Cancer is just another thing in life that i have to roll with, it has become another interesting piece of my puzzle that seperates me in a good way. Once you go head to head with cancer and kick it's ass, there is nothing you can't do.

Daily screams when no one is around has become a theraputic ritual for me. For all the questions that there is no answer to, screaming spits em all out of my brain and sends them to the dirt so i can step on em.

But cancer has changed and so have i. Life goes on, even becomes normal again. i refuse to let cancer wreck my party. There are just too many cool things to do and plan and live for. i'm done.

I will update everyone once I have results and my mantra today is:

BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!!
BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!! BACK OFF CANCER.. .I CHOOSE HOPE .. NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME SHALL PROSPER !!!!

big kiss....

4 comments:

Alice said...

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!

Jul said...

Yes, good luck! Sending positive vibes your way today.

Betina said...

Frannie -- te desejo muita sorte.
Beijos,
Betina

Cecilia said...

Sending you good vibes!!!!hugs and kisses!