I’m Not Dead Yet (I.N.D.Y.)

There is a meeting on the first Thursday of every month for the Pancreatic Cancer support group.  As far as we know (including the facilitator of the group, who is an LCSW at Winship Cancer Institute), ours is the ONLY pancreatic cancer support group in the state of Georgia, yet only a handful of folks attend; however, we all are quickly getting to know each other well and at least I have enjoyed going.

All of the members at the meeting this past Thursday have had the Whipple operation within the last couple of years.  The discussion on Thursday, at one point, turned to how we all think of our cancer (meaning, we’ve all had the surgery, do we still think about our cancer?).  One of the participants, Rachel, who had her surgery last March (we talked about her celebrating her 1-year anniversary next week) talked about how she had cancer, but didn’t currently.  For her, the surgery ended her battle with cancer.  Another participant, Del Rica, says that after the first 4-5 months, he has stopped thinking about his cancer.  If it comes back, he and his family will deal with it, but for now, he really doesn’t really think about it.

I am envious of people like Rachel and Del Rica.  I spend a great deal of time thinking (and worrying) about my cancer.  I mean, I can honestly say that I am feeling (generally) okay at the moment.  I have been going to the gym and have been pushing myself more and more to re-develop my stamina to run.  (Before the surgery, I was able to run a 5k with relative ease, if not speed; now, I can hardly run for 3 minutes without getting winded.  I know that I just need to build up my stamina, but I have little patience during the process.)  I continue to live my life as close to the way I did before I was diagnosed, but I do spend a good bit of time wondering about when the cancer will rear its ugly head again.

When people ask me how I’m doing, I can say I’m doing well and that I feel fine, but I feel compelled to add the piece about my angst; to qualify how I’m doing by saying that who knows how I will be feeling tomorrow.  Now before you say it, rest assured that several of my friends have told me (on multiple occassions), don’t worry about tomorrow; enjoy today.  Luckily for me, I can do both — I can enjoy today AND worry about tomorrow; I know, it’s a talent (a talent I’m trying to unlearn).

As always, thank you for checking in on me (even though I have not been blogging nearly as often as I had in the beginning).  I would like to ask you all to consider taking the PANCAN Seven Week challenge.  The challenge includes different easy activities (e.g., sending Emails) that people can do to raise awareness of pancreatic cancer.  Thanks for doing this.

Merle

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