It all started in October of 2014. First, my friend Nikii was diagnosed with colo-rectal cancer. Then, a friend’s mother from elementary school with pancreatic cancer. Another friend Gary, had been fighting for years, and another, Henry for about two years or so.
In February, I was diagnosed into my own brand of hell. My own cancer.
Volleys of attacks came shortly after that, from assholes. Assholes who didn’t see my kids during my diagnosis. Assholes who didn’t see them after. Assholes who didn’t watch me crouching at the toilet after starting chemotherapy. Assholes who didn’t see anything much further than the span of the end of their own noses. Assholes who didn’t see me fall into a heap, crying after knowing how bad it was. Assholes who weren’t there for breathing treatments. Assholes who didn’t go through radiation trials with me. Assholes who didn’t see how my hair thinned and began to fall out. Assholes who didn’t see the pain I was in. Assholes who didn’t (and don’t) know how much I hurt day in and day out.
Assholes who weren’t there when I coughed up so much blood onto my pillow that I spent two days in the hospital. Assholes who were so quick to accuse, but too far away to see.
Assholes who never should have been close to begin with.
People who I promised myself long ago I’d stay far away from, for my own reasons. People who made me tired and cynical and hateful of most of what was left of mankind.
Just. Assholes.
Assholes tend to do that, don’t they?
But let me tell you what the cure-all is for assholes. It’s cancer. Cancer makes you not give a shit about said assholes, or how they are doing or what they are doing or where or when or how. Cancer just makes you want peace. Peace of mind above all. So you let go of the childish, petty bullshit, you unblock them, you show everyone everything in your life because you just don’t care….because all you want in the time you have left is peace….for yourself.
Their peace is their business.
Because the one asshole you have to look at in the mirror everyday is the one you care most about having peace, and you know the only way to give that particular asshole (you) peace is to let go of the wrongs done, the wrongs you have done and just forgive without apology, and sometimes forgive yourself without having given an apology, either.
So? You out grace all the motherfuckers. You just let it all go. Because it doesn’t matter to you anymore. And if it matters to them, that’s their problem.
As I sit here at the end of a year of having known people with cancer, of knowing how much (or little) time I have left, struggling with the notion of giving up versus not giving up, I can say that three of the four of those people I mentioned have passed on while fighting this stupid, horrible, awful, disgusting disease, many after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and going hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt to fight it.
As have I.
And I don’t’ know what’s next.
And I don’t want support or to reinvite people from my past into my life again.
Ever.
And I don’t know what tomorrow holds.
What I do know is that the message is more important than the messenger.
What I do know is that sharing things like this is my message.
Cancer is a 95.5 billion dollar industry. It’s a cash cow for big pharma. And there really is a struggle for cancer patients…in being poisoned with the internal Clorox of chemotherapy and having to chase that with the poison of radiation. There are cocktails of drugs given to cancer patients…one drug given to offset the next, over and over again. And what do we do? We hope. We pray. We fight. We donate. We wait for that next clinical trial.
But we all die anyway.
Morbid? Sure.
Also truthful.
If it isn’t the cancer that kills us, it’s life in general.
When it comes to battles, life remains undefeated in knockout punches – when it comes to death, anyway.
So? Cancer or not.
Live.
Live in such a way that you just don’t care about petty, stupid bullshit.
Live in such a way that you can be proud of the life you left behind.
No bullshit.
No regrets.
I might hate fucking cancer, but I do love part of the ride until now, and I fully intend to enjoy the fuck out of the ride I have left – however long (or short) it might be.
Hate cancer.
Love that it reminds you that we don’t all live forever.
Because it makes you want to make the most out of today.
Because it makes you want to make the most out of today.
Xoxoxox,
Miss Adventures
