The Years After
- Cancer is not something anyone forgets. Anxieties remain as active treatment
ceases and the waiting stage begins. A cold or a cramp may be cause for
panic. As 6-month or annual checkups approach, you swing between hope and
anxiety. As you wait for the mystical 5-year or 10-year point, you might
feel more anxious rather than more secure.
- These are feelings we all share. No one expects you to forget that you
have had cancer or that it might recur. Each must seek individual ways of
coping with the underlying insecurity of not knowing the true state of his
or her health. The best prescription seems to lie in a combination of one
part challenging responsibilities that command a full range of skills, a
dose of activities that seek to fill the needs of others, and a generous
dash of frivolity and laughter.
- You still might have moments when you feel as if you live perched on
the edge of a cliff. They will sneak up unbidden. But they will be fewer
and farther between if you have filled your mind with thoughts other than
cancer.
- Cancer might rob you of that blissful ignorance that once led you to
believe that tomorrow stretched forever. In exchange, you are granted the
vision to see each today as precious, a gift to be used wisely and richly.
No one can take that away.