Thursday, October 12, 2023
Wowsa....perfect weather and pristine pool conditions!!!
And the pool was....very quiet....(I notice lots of swimmers swim Monday-Wednesday-Friday)....
I'd skipped yesterday due to fatigue and a re-scheduled appointment with my oncologist, and I was tired this morning, too....
BUT.....I needed this and I swam much, MUCH better than I'd anticipated....
900 short-course yards in just under 20 minutes, and 3400 long-course meters in about 90 minutes....
I'll take it!
THIS is why swimming is almost always the next right thing to do.
When I first arrived at the pool and while I was placing my bag in the upper cubby that I usually use, my phone rang. The number was a local Kailua number....most likely a doctor or the hospital, I deduced....and so I answered it, and it was a nurse from the imaging department at the hospital. She just started talking sooooooooooooo fast that I did not get her name, and a million words just rolled really rapidly off her tongue; I didn't understand a word that she said! I very calmly and politely instructed her (reminded her) that I do not do cancer everyday, that I do not readily understand the medical lingo, and that, as a relatively recently diagnosed cancer patient, I am already overwhelmed with the many challenges, changes, and uncertainties that are very suddenly a part of my life now. I asked her to please speak slowly so that I might understand, and then I asked her my questions. I then thanked her. I was pretty proud of the way I responded; there was a time when I would have impatiently and frustratingly and ineffectively handled that.
Something struck me. As I was talking to her, I was walking over to my lane of the pool and I heard myself speaking about and articulating the word "cancer"....in the open. It is not that I feel strange or uncomfortable about talking about my current cancerous situation, but I definitely have not told everyone about my diagnosis. First of all, I really didn't want to tell people about it early on because I didn't have a lot of answers and I didn't want to field questions from people. Secondly, I didn't want to have people reacting aghast and telling me how sad and sorry they are for me. Thirdly, while I'm pretty much an open book.....people can take me or leave me and either way it's fine with me....not everyone needs or deserves to know my personal information.
Fourthly, cancer does not define me. I'm not in denial; I'm not even upset about it. I've faced and am facing the situation; I have processed and continue to process the ever-evolving emotions and events; I'm OK. A cancer diagnosis has occurred, and my life has not ended or in any way ground to a halt.
Like every human being, I am a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional, emotional, physical, and spiritual being who is experiencing a life of never-ending change, challenge, and evolution....on this planet, for a brief time on the timeline of history...and I am a unique manifestation, though ever continuing to learn and to grow, of my experiences, observations, and perceptions of those experiences and observations.
I am not defined by a single....characteristic, event, experience...anything.
For many years....approximately 40....I did define myself by the trauma which I experienced in my young and foundational life and the ensuing PTSD. I defined myself as "broken" or a "failure" or "ugly" or "unwanted"..... I could not think about....no less talk about... my childhood, my family, any of it, without crying a million fresh tears! But....no more....
I no longer define myself by my past, by the events, by the trauma, by what was done to me, by what was stolen from me.....
And I will not....am not...defined by cancer, either.
Today, I'm alive and (literally) kicking, feeling GREAT and mighty GRATEFUL.
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