The roller coaster called Cancer

Hi everyone,

Had a bit of a scare this morning when I suddenly had swelling on the left side of my head where I've had a lot of the radiation. Luckily it was on the outside of by skull. There was no reasoning behind it. Didn't feel any lightheaded, lack of speech, seizure, etc. Regardless, how quickly fear takes over your brain is the obviously not a lot of fun.

We called the Tom Baker right away and talked to the on-call Radiation Oncologist and explained the situation. He feels that it was either an after effect of radiation on my skin, or an allergic reaction to something. Our neighbours next door have a such a cute puppy that I'm sure that I had a reaction to its fur and touch my head afterwards. Makes sense, doesn't it? It's logical now, isn't it? So easy to say. So hard to believe when cancer is on your head almost 24 - 7!!

As the infamous Hamlet says in Act 3, Scene 1 - "Ay, there's the rub". It's times like this that the true fear and challenge of cancer rears its ugly head. It's times like this that truly make you stop and see that every moment counts. It's times like this that unless we're dealing with a serious challenge, it's so easy to not think about how important the current moment truly is. A perfect example of this is a guy named Ryan Westerman 6 months ago when stress was the "Captain" of his airplane. His philosophy back then was "Stop and smell the flowers. Sure I'll get to that sometime next week."

The past is the past, the future is the future. All we can control is the here and now. So easy too say; so hard to do!

Regardless of how truly confident I am about getting through this challenge and prevailing, what happened this morning is yet another example of how easily we can hit the "black ice" on the highway and suddenly be out of control.

Please do everything that you can do to enjoy the present when possible. Even 2 minutes a day to chill out, think about the great things about being alive, and how lucky we are to be here in the first place. Again, so easily said yet so hard to do.

Peace, love and happiness.