Hope...what is it exactly. I remember when I first began this journey I thought of it as "something that existed in the future"....but I now know that it is what exists right here right now. My understanding that hope is what moves us to the future has changed from that which was something evasive or unseen to that which gives us the energy neccessary to continue. My hoping this disease would go away has not worked, it hasn't even kept it at bay. My hoping that tomorrow will be better is senseless because only through my own efforts will that happen. So what is hope exactly???....I don't know if I can define it. A friend today mentioned a program that talked about 'hope' and so I listened to it. Joan Chitister defined hope as "being able to dance around corners"....I think I like that definition. It means that even thought my world is not the way I 'hoped' it would be, I don't have to be sad and sullen, the future may not be within my control but the present very much is. Hope I think is something more than a wish about a future happening, it is about how we deal with the happenings right now.
If I hope for something in the future and it doesn't happen, I will be disappointed. If I hope for the strength to deal with today and the struggles it brings I will be fulfilled. Who I am right now does not change because of the things I may not have tomorrow. I guess I can say I am hopeful. I know that in the beginning of this journey I could not have said that. I was hopeless because I didn't understand the purpose of hope....I truly believed it meant that you had to have the guarantee of another day...now I know it means that I must hope for tomorrow but live today with hope! By the way that is not my own profound thought but simply a paraphrase of the Dali Llama.
So much has changed over the past year. It is one year ago that I was told that the cancer was back...although it was never gone....we just couldn't see it. Ovarian cancer does not go away...it simply hides its ugly head until it decides to 'roar' into life again. The literature on this disease refers to OVCA as the 'cancer that whispers'. This may be true initially, because the symptoms are so silent and yet so deadly, but when it comes back there are no whispers.....it roars into your brain and continues to scream at you every day .......well the screaming has to stop...it is time that we do something to silence the beast again. I will be making some big decisions in the next couple of weeks, as well as having more tests. So glad there is no studying for these tests.....I would probably fail.....as positive in cancer is not a pass, a negative is not a fail. See how this disease turns everything on its head. I digress, as I was saying I will be deciding what to do in the next while. I am not very anxious to do this, and there are moments when I think I will just close the door and pretend the inevitable is not there....but the beasts is knocking very loudly and so I must go and slay the beast.
I am gassing up the bus and having it tuned up....the journey is about to begin in earnest as so 'all aboard' ....it is off to 'cancer land we go'. I know that most of you know the rules...but just incase remember no talking to the driver....unless of course you need to get off, and please keep the click clicking of the needles going....it gives me great comfort to know that things are being created even while I am killing something else!1!! So here we go.......
I have hope though....which is much more than I can say I had 10 years ago.......
1 comment:
I am reading and I am glad that you are in a peaceful place. When my mom was diagnosed I held on to hope. I had to let it go and learned to hold on to each day as it came. It is not really a very fair word and I wish the Canadian Cancer Society would not use it. Maybe a new word of phrase would be nice so that people would not have to deal with losing hope.
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