Lifting the Weight

I have found myself counting my blessings even more than usual since 2013 began. Even when times are tough, I try to pay particular to all of the good things I do have in my life and be sure that I am expressing gratitude and thankfulness for those things. There’s been a lot of heaviness in the new year – the loss of my brother-in-law, who had been an enormous influence in my life as well as many deaths throughout the small community I live in, serious illnesses and more – and although the majority had very little close connection to me personally, they affected many people I know and care about in significant ways and I have had a hard time shaking the weight of that sorrow. Too many good people were having too much struggle in their lives, too many awful things were happening and it nagged at me as I tried for months to make sense of it all.

Continue reading “Lifting the Weight” →

Thirteen Years Ago Today

Thirteen years ago today, I found out I had cancer.

Here’s the surprising thing—I had no idea what the exact date was until a little while ago. I knew it sometime in late February, but it is only today when I came across a copy of the email sent to my surgeon and a print-out the doctor gave me to give me some background on this disease I was diagnosed with that I realized the date. And even more surprising, it’s today’s date.

Continue reading “Thirteen Years Ago Today” →

Getting Through It

Having survived stage 3 anaplastic large cell lymphoma, a rare form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma, at times it’s as if it never really happened to me even as it remains an integral part of who I am.

In the darkest days of that illness, while I did indeed worry if I would get through it, there was still a part of me that believed that this was just going to be one more twist in the legend of my own life and in the long run, it would be insignificant in the face of everything else still to come.

I don’t dwell much on that time, but every now and then, something brings it all back. The other night was one of those times. I watched the movie “50/50” with one of my sons and my daughter. I had wanted very much to see this movie, and had been looking forward to it for some time. If you’re not familiar with the plot, the main character, played so well by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, is a 27-year old man who finds he has advanced stage cancer and has a 50/50 chance of getting through it. Thank goodness, he did.

Continue reading “Getting Through It” →