First Day

I am new to blogging, though I have journaled for a lifetime. I am musing on cancer, in my case, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I am musing on my muse, cancer, which I have had six times. How it, like Mrs. Bennet's nerves, has been my companion these last fifteen years. It shaped my sense of humor (black to blacker.) It shaped my family life (causing infertility, thus closing doors to a biological child.) It shaped my writing life (lots o' cancer poems and a very macabre operetta.) It shaped my marriage, testing my husband and I right from the start. It shaped my finances, my energy level and my optimism.

I am ridiculous and sublime. I am a six time cancer survivor. I am an anomaly. A guinea pig. I have been CHOPped, transplanted, radiated, IV'd, biopsied, cat scannned, transfused. I have been bald, eyebrowless, skeletal. I have puked in the bushes and passed out on the lawn. Like a noxious weed, I am hard to kill. And I have to start over again, with spots on my last CAT scans that must be dealt with soon.

Twelve years ago, I was a patient at Midwestern Regional Medical Center. There I met a cancer patient, Sharon Pendleton, racing around the aisles with her rolling I.V. When I am down, I remember what she said: "If you keep moving, they can't throw dirt on you. "

Until next time, Jumbliegirl