Winning the lottery…
It’s like winning the lottery isn’t it?
You’ve heard the words, “YOU have cancer.” Your world is shattered. Everything you thought was normal, steady, even routine, changes in an instant. None of those things apply to your life any more.
You’re a cancer patient now. You live in cancer world. Words like chemotherapy, radiation, scans, clinical trials: they all become a part of your new vocabulary.
You have a care giver now, some one who used to be your partner, your spouse.
It’s a different life.
So, you go through treatment and you’re lucky enough to walk away from all of it with the letters, N-E-D written on your medical chart. No more cancer. No evidence of disease. Your medical team says, “See you in 3 months,” and then it’s maybe 6 months, and if all continues to go well, no check-up for a year. It’s all good.
It’s like winning the lottery isn’t it? So, how many times have you heard people say, if they win the lottery they would change their lives? They would appreciate life more and help people who needed a hand? They would give some of their winnings to needy causes instead of buying cars and houses and gaudy jewelry. If the lottery changed them, it would change them in a good way.
Now, put those same ideas into the cancer box. Surviving cancer is a huge accomplishment. You are a changed person on so many levels. You appreciate life more and how many times during treatment did you whisper to yourself in the dark of night, “If I get through this, I’ll be a better person?” “I’ll help other cancer patients who aren’t as lucky. I’ll reach out and do what I can to make their lives a little easier?”
It is like winning the lottery, isn’t it? Maybe even more important because the lessons learned help others.
July 22, 2014 @ 4:35 pm
Achieving NED status is like winning the lottery. Achieving long term or permanent NED status is so much better. I know a woman who has been fighting melanoma for 5-6 years. It has invaded at one time or another her brain, lungs, intestines, liver, etc.. She has never reached NED but she fights on, never quitting. She is as tough as a piece of rebar and is as resilient as the human spirit can be. She is unbowed by the beast. She is one of my heroes. I pray that one fine day God will grace her with NED and it will be forever.
Another friend has melanoma. Currently Stage IV. Mets in lungs and in neck. Looks bleak. He was NED for about 5-6 years and the beast came roaring back.
As we all know, cancer is relentless and insidious. It seems to take a break and allows us to achieve the NED status for awhile. Others must continue each day to strive to make it to the next day. Perhaps a new protocol or drug will buy some time and maybe, just maybe allow NED to visit once again. The lottery is eradicating cancer from the face of the earth. Just as in real life when we purchase a ticket, the odds are against us. It seems that in the cancer world the long term odds are against us as well. My saying is “Always Believe in Miracles”. Maybe we will hit the lottery one day.
July 21, 2014 @ 8:15 pm
LOL, like winning the lottery where the carnage around the ticket is complete yet changing all the time. Instead of gaining unknown relations over night, those who are weary of the struggle, tired of the grind, fearful of the outcomes, drop off and you gain friends and family that understand, that will bend and sway in the winds with you, that is the the first pay off to the lottery ticket.
Then you just have to accept the new normal the second payment on that winning lottery ticket.