Anniversary

Re-reading that last blog I might sound way braver and more stoical than I actually am. My ability to stay away from the edge of despair and terror this past year  has had far more to do with the generally favourable prognoses I have received throughout this journey. After those initial weeks of uncertainty, I have consistently heard that 1) my cancer (thymoma) responds well to chemo and radiation (which it did – these two treatments shrunk it by 50-60%) 2) it doesn’t metastasize, so, for example, it’s not going to show up in my liver or bone marrow; 3) if it grows back, which thymomas tend to do, they grow very slowly, and bi-annual scans – my first one coming up just before Christmas – will catch it before it gets to be grapefruit-size as was the first (and only?) one…

So, yes there have been concerns: about my wind, my cough, my “employability…” But, other than that first week or so, and unlike many who’ve heard the word “cancer,” little sense of that cold breath of death on my shoulder…

And, like so many who’ve traveled these roads, a heightened appreciation of the “little” things, the goodness and opportunities of each day, just enjoying the passage of time (the secret of life (?) to quote an old James Taylor song…) the richness of nature – those swans again, so many of them this year…their asthmatic wheezing cries overhead  (for all the stately elegance of their tight flying formations) and so on.

So less heroic bravery and more, I don’t know, just the stuff of needing to get up in the morning, of going about ones business, the kind of “heroism” that everyone gets to show on a daily basis, of getting on with life, in whatever context life presents…

I told you it was going to be random.

And now, dodging rain showers, I’m going to hang some lights on our fruit trees while Verna bakes and listens to Bruce Cockburn’s Christmas album.

“Mary had a baby, my Lord”

Blessings (oh yes)    Graeme