Learning to Move Foward

One of the biggest challenges of recovering from cancer is figuring out how to move forward without continually looking back. I try hard to keep my eyes focused on the all the successes, the good, the incredible things I have overcome, but no matter how magnificent the colors on the horizon, I find my eyes glancing back and becoming transfixed on the darkness swirling in the light that is fading behind me. It’s hard to believe that every physical malady is not a return to the darkness. I don’t want to be a hypochondriac, a former cancer patient that goes running to their oncologist every time they get a little sniffle, but it is almost impossible to believe that the cancer is not going to attack again. It is a sneaky and devious disease, it can strike anywhere at anytime. In order to survive, one must be diligent in the way they live their lives, the way they monitor their health. That is what is so difficult about moving forward, the past continues to mar the views of the present.

So I try to treat each unknown, uncharted symptom with clear and objective eyes, assessing the possible causes and potential outcomes, calling the physician only if I cannot reconcile all the symptoms in my head and in my heart; using prudence before crying out in alarm. But it is difficult to be objective when it is my very life and continued survival that I am assessing. What if I’m wrong? What if it was like the shortness of breath that I ignored in the beginning thinking it was allergies or the sore posterior ribs that the doctors attributed to broken bones? What if I ignore something that is critical or if I let the pendulum swing the other way and become the child that cries wolf too much?

So I do the best I can to find balance. I strive to treat each day with as much optimism and impartiality as I can wrench from my soul. Attempting to look at the world not through rose colored glasses, but through a clear and magnified lens that will enable me to stay free from this terrible darkness and keep me moving towards the light, towards tomorrow, towards a brilliant horizon, rich with all abundant color life has to offer. That is all I can do, it is the only thing that will allow me to keep my sanity, to keep my hope alive. For without hope, I would truly fall into bottomless pit of despair, never to return, and this life is too good to miss by spending all my time looking over my shoulder. There are so many outstanding things to see; right here in front of me.