Emotional Issues

"Wasted days and wasted nights"
It is not unusual to have 'emotional issues', hairbow, it is not so unusual to feel that you are not taking advantage of what you refer to as a second chance. As you recognize, cancer costs us beyond physical damage; it inflicts damage on our psyches as well, some of us at least.

If you think about it, before you received your diagnosis, even if you had close family members involved in the struggle, it is likely that the diagnosis sounded like a death sentence to you, both emotionally and rationally. After all, most of what we hear about cancer is about famous people dying from it; most of what we hear about cancer is that this friend or that, this co-worker or that, has passed away because of cancer.

It is not so often that we hear about people surviving, striving, thriving.

So, when we get the news, all of the factors associated with grief, the depression, the anxiety, the fear, the denial, the acceptance (and even something I refer to as a sense of entitlement) come to the fore, since, after all, we are in a sense grieving for ourselves. This is not pretend. It is for real.

Given the second chance you refer to, we can be disappointed in ourselves for not taking advantage of it in a way that we think we should. Perhaps it is a physical problem... we can't get out like we used to, or we don't want to eat in public, or we feel like everyone will notice we have lopsided breasts, everyone will comment on our baldness.

Some of these physical issues intertwine with our 'emotional' ones. We probably give more weight to our self-perceived problems than others do. Still, it keeps us, some of us, from doing what we feel we should be doing to celebrate this 'second chance'. And maybe it is not physical at all. Maybe it is anxiety, maybe it is depression of a milder or stronger form. There are any number of reasons why we might not feel we are taking advantage, there are any number of reasons why we believe we cannot take advantage, there are any number of reasons why we truly cannot take advantage.

Me, I do not consider it a second chance. I consider it a first chance. I consider it a slap in the face by mortality, something that most people never get. We are awakened to the very real notion that we will not be here forever and that we should celebrate each and every day.

MarineE5's response to your post is excellent, in my opinion, especially because he suggests that he reminds himself -- he is proactive on a daily basis -- that he needs to do some good with his day.
No one said it would be easy. No one said it would be 'fair'. It is what it is, and it is what we make of it. Again, as MarineE5 points out, we can choose to make it what we want it to be. You and I, both, all of us, we can choose to make it what we want it to be.

In parting let me add, Hairbrow, that it really makes little sense to go through all that you have gone through without having hope, without having humor, without celebrating your days and your nights and your loved ones. You have EARNED it.

Take care,

Joe