The appreciation of life with cancer.
It’s been a while since I wrote one of these in the dead of night. It’s 2am and I’m absolutely and totally wide awake. I’m soaking wet from another intense hot flush, the male menopause is attacking me again. Perhaps I’m making up for the fact that the previous evening I went to sleep at 7pm and apart from waking up to take my medications I then went back to sleep till my 7.30am alarm went off almost 12 hours of sleep.
Perhaps I’m subconsciously concerned about the week coming up. Concerned might be a touch light more like terrified. Yes it’s blood test time again this Tuesday, has my PSA risen or has it gone back to zero. Last month was the first time in almost a year it had changed for the worse. It’s incredibly tough to live this month by month lottery of life, I thought I was used to it but I guess this special feeling is reserved only for the cancer patient.
I’ve been a touch naughty and started to take myself off some of the strongest pain killers I ritually put inside my body each day. I was aware of how foggy my mind has become recently. I forget stuff almost before the sentence has finished. My thoughts are lets see how it goes. So far the slight rise in pain has been a good trade off for a better quality of memory and that’s after a week so I think it’s worth it. Do I need palliative care I’m living life pretty dam well at the moment isn’t palliative care reserved for the dying, no thanks I’m ok let’s just move on shall we Doc.
My gratitude of life has become so strong recently. I don’t know if I can make sense of this but when I leave my house each morning I feel like I’m walking on gratitude, it’s overwhelming. I realise how much of the world I’m grateful for. I realise just how much there is to say a little thank you for. I do this every work day drive into work I’m finding lately that my appreciation of life is getting deeper and more filled. It’s a wonderful thing to really appreciate life I’m guess it’s ironic that I only really discovered how much I love life when it’s being threatened to be taken away from me. I regular tell my cancer how grateful I am that it’s not hurting me too much and I thank it for opening my eyes to the real world.
My children are an almost constant source of gratification. I’m so proud of what wonderful young girls they are becoming. Many a tear appears when I see them, and I mean really see them, at times I feel I can see right into their very souls. They are beautiful and I have so much love in my heart for them. I never realised the power of being a father, it’s a feeling like nothing else it’s one I have only discovered in its entiety since I became very sick. Before cancer my children although I loved them, they often played 2nd fiddle to other things in life but now they are the orchestra the conductor and everything that’s good about my life. Why oh why did I have to be so sick just to discover this
My wife is the same, I’ve spent years just accepting she will always be there and as time goes by I stopped really listening to her and caring. I know now just how selfish life can make us become, work often goes above everything and the real important things get pushed to the side untill they are but shadows that are always following around but become indistinct from life and love. Perhaps the biggest thing I’ve discovered is that money is irrelevant when you are told you are terminally ill. Sure it’s great to have it but when you measure the value of trying to chase a higher paycheck against the dismissal of love in your family not intentially but more on a subconscious level that just kind of happens without us being aware, well at least I think that is what happened with us. We don’t realise what we are losing untill it has left the nest of life and flown away we only understand this when our mortality is being threatened. Love is a higher power that knows no limits, it returns when the dark nights of illness close in just when you think it’s gone it emerges holding in its hand a golden light of incredible power to turn the ever threatening eternal nightime back to daylight.
All of our hopes and dreams should be built around the foundation of love not the biggest paycheck we can get. I’m in a good place really, never have I been more aware of what’s good in the world. I rarely watch the news and my social media activity has slowed down. Although my YouTube channel is growing and I find I spend a lot of quality time talking to other people whose lives are being tortured by their cancer. I reserve that time now for after I’ve spent the real quality time with my family, they come first now and will forever.
The YouTube videos I make are just about a man being honest about his relationship with a deadly illness called cancer, it doesn’t matter which cancer they have they all bring a mind full of fear loaded emotions. I hope I help to calm some of those fears. Having cancer, especially when it’s at stage 4 is incredibly upsetting for anyone but I’ve found ways to turn the experience around and I want to share them with whoever wants to listen. I feel I have this knowledge and understanding of the mind and it’s connection with not just our bodies but also to the very universe itself.
How powerful can that become, perhaps this is the future for healing illness. Belief is powerful and my belief is as strong as it’s ever been in fact it’s growing into an incredible certainty I’m going to heal myself. I’m not chucking away the meds but with their help and the changes I’ve made in my life both externally and internally I think I’m on the right path.
Good night sleep well
Love Woody ❤️
