How Soon is Now?

There's a club if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry, and you want to die

When you say it's gonna happen now
Well, when exactly do you mean
See I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

You shut your mouth, how can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am human, and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

How Soon is Now?
The Smiths
(click on above pic to hear song)

Don't worry, that depressing song has nothing to to with the way I'm feeling right now. I just like those lyrics and they've been stuck in my head for a few days now.

I found another blogger who has cancer (there are lots of us out there in the blogoshpere). His name is Leroy Sievers, he says a lot of great things that I can relate to in his blog, here's an excerpt of just one of his posts that spoke to me:

I think those of us with cancer are trying to understand ourselves. How did this happen, what does it mean, what will happen? There really are very few answers for those questions. And there is so much medical information to try to understand, as well: new terms, new concerns, a flood of new information. And always that nagging feeling that somewhere, buried in all that information, might be the answers we need.

And of course, that big question, "Why me?" We've talked a lot about that on this blog, and most of us agree it's not a question that's really worth asking. And of course, it, too, has no answer.

What I think we miss sometimes is how important it is for the people in our lives to understand what is happening to us. We know. We know the symptoms, the feelings. We live with all that every second of every day. But we don't always talk about it. Sometimes I think it's easy to forget that not everyone is going through this. Our lives become so routine, so mundane -- even the bad parts -- that we don't think to tell someone else. We don't think that maybe they want to know. That they need to know.

What exactly do people want to know? What it feels like? How it totally upends our lives and takes over so much? How we lose control of our lives? One friend asked me today about whether I felt pain. He was concerned about that.

Cancer is such a foreign experience, so unlike anything that most of us have ever been through. It must be even more mysterious to those on the other side of the line, those who haven't crossed over into cancer world.

I think you all know how I feel about this. I think that you have to talk about it, no matter how unpleasant that may be for the speaker or the listener. We owe it to our loved ones to honor their need to know, to try to understand what has happened to us. So talk about it. Answer their questions. And hope, with all of your might, that they will never ever get to know cancer firsthand.

There's more where that came from and I'll share more at another time, I'm sure. In the meantime, if you want to read more of Leroy's stuff you can click on his name up top and I have added a link over in the sidebar as well.

It sleeted in KC yesterday and it's sleeting again today. They are calling for snow now. My computer weather channel icon says it's 17 degrees.

I'm laying low again this weekend. I have a roast in the crock pot and I'm wrapped up in a soft cozy blanket that my dependable friend Vinda gave me yesterday (thanks and winkwink, Vin!).

My bloodwork from yesterday indicated that my counts are still in the danger zone, so I'm supposed to be taking the usual precautions. Oops, and I had a big salad yesterday for lunch thinking it was safe to venture into the world of leafy greens again. Oh, dear lettuce, why dost thou forsake me?

And why is that when you're told you can't have something it's what you want the most?

Friend+Enemy=Frienemy