Yesterday instead of posting, I went blog surfing - using the "Next blog" button in the navigation bar to page randomly through the words of strangers.
Normally this pulls up an interesting assortment from everywhere - family chronicles from Idaho and Utah, tech-loaded schoolgirl effusions from Hong Kong or Malaysia, blogs written in beautiful, but entirely incomprehensible Arabic or Asian scripts (with pictures of beautiful children.)
This time I got cancer blogs - eight or nine in a row, all in English. Blogs written by the sufferer, blogs written by a partner or caregiver. Chronicles of chemotherapy, complete with pictures of bald patients.
It was not what I wanted to read. While I admire people who have the energy to keep their friends au courant in this way, I could not have written a regular blog about cancer or chemotherapy.
What is there to say, after all? At best, chemotherapy is unpleasant. The body finds all kinds of inventive and uncomfortable ways to fight back. When your white count goes too far down, you leave the infusion room crying because you CAN'T have the therapy that week, and the elusive end date is pushed farther back. For months the first thing people ask is whether you are going to lose your hair.
If any of this sounds familiar, and you accidentally surf over here - my very best wishes to you. I've been there and survived, and had more surgery and survived that, and still believe that what you can choose is your attitude.
