Unexpected - mixed feelings

I have been having a sense of mixed feelings lately.

On the one hand - I feel like this cancer has left me with almost a sense of a long term conviction. I may be in remission - I may have beaten this cancer - I may be alive - but life as I know it - will never ever be the same. This is not like anything else I have ever dealt with before.  All of the other problems, diseases, issues if you will - I could get over them. They may take a while - some longer than others. But they were all do-able. I joked about being that rare-find that got every statistical anomaly there was, every problem that came up.  But it wasn't a joke - it was real. I put on a good face.

And so when we "jokingly" started saying "Hey! It's been a year since I was last in the hospital." I was actually starting to freak out on in the inside.  That's not something you say to someone like me.  I inwardly actually had anxiety or panic attacks because I just knew it was coming.  But nowhere ever did I imagine something like this.  This was just cruel.

But I have been surrounded in a way I never knew possible since this whole thing began. I have been loved in so many ways and by so many people. I have been reached out to by people I didn't even know knew me.  In many times and in many ways I didn't even know they were reaching out to me.  But their blanket surrounded me at a time I needed it so badly that I believe that it saved me.

People came to me in the hospital. They stayed with me night and day - even when I didn't know they were there and couldn't acknowledge their presence or carry on a meaningful conversation with them. They stayed with me even when I argued with them. When they couldn't be there, they sent who they could. They made sure I wanted for nothing. They made sure I was never alone. I was visited by total strangers, but with ties to people I had not seen in 30 years. My church never left my side. My family would ensure I was never alone and had every answer to every question.

I didn't even know to be upset.  All I knew was to fight.  And fight I did. I fought may way back from the lowest point I had ever known. And almost 7 months later I am different person. Different from the days of my diagnosis in so many ways.  I can't possibly go into them here. I will never be the same. Part of that is just because of all I have been through.  But much of it is because of all of you. All that you have done for me.  I am a different person. And it is so unexpected. I don't even know where to begin. And I don't know how to thank you. I don't know what to say.

I have been reached out to by people who have expressed their own unexpected journey - either their journey through cancer - or a loved ones - and how it effected them. And not all of you are as blessed as I am.  Not all of your loved ones made it to the other side as I have.  I feel guilty - I feel ... wrong somehow for even being here at times.  Why me?  I don't know.  By all accounts and purposes I was not in a good place. I was high risk. I had one of the rarest types of acute leukemia you can get.  And yet - here I am.  In the triangle of North Carolina - near one of the best oncologists for this type of cancer you can ever find as he has studied it for years.  That can't be an accident I suppose.

I seem to have been wallowing in my own pity for a bit here ... in my own conviction.  I have had a lot to think about. It has occurred to me just how much I have to deal with moving forward in life. Just because I am in remission doesn't mean that life is hunky dory to be sure. But more and more I look around and can't deny that I am being shown that I need to accept he signs of life around me. I am alive! I have made it! I can turn this around! I have stared death in the face again! Again! I can't keep asking myself how many times I am going to do this.  I just have to realize that once again - I did it. It's me - I did it. Again. Throw me some more. I got this.

Acute Promyolytic Leukemia. Molecular and Hemotologic Remission.  BAM!
Ischemic Stroke. Walking and Talking and Reasoning.  BAM!

October 28, 2015.  Back to work.

After everything I've been through - maybe it's about time I found my Hallelujah?