Five Years Ago - The Start of a Blog...

Hello everyone!

Thank you once again for reading this blog. With any luck at all, it has helped you our in some way when it comes to the journey with the beast... I can always hope.

The reason for this post is another anniversary.  Five years ago this week I decided to start the blog. It was a year post operation for me and in that year my view had changed and evolved quite a lot from what it was when I was going through it all. It was originally going to be just a personal journal... My thoughts and feelings and trying to work through all the changes and issues that come with cancer. The "new normal" as I am sure a lot of you may have heard over your journey. That's a very correct definition too.  It is a new normal. The old ways don't work as well any more, if they work at all. So you have to learn new tricks and behaviors. Not impossible by any stretch, but also not as easy as it may sound, at least in some cases.

As the journal went on, I shared it with a few people and they commented on the writing style and the fact that my journey might be able to help some people, both patients and their "watchers," better understand the journey. They said it felt like we were sitting at a table, having a drink and just chatting as friends do. That's when I decided to go public and turn the journal into a blog for anyone to see and read. Would anyone understand it? Maybe, especially if they are on the journey. Would anyone care to read it? Again, maybe. Depends on where they are in their journey and if they are open to other's ideas about it. Plus, who knew it was even there unless it is by a post on Facebook or word of mouth. Would it be able to help anyone if they did read it? Who knows. I still hope so.

Why do I have that hope? Mainly because of what happened on my journey. If you read the blog, you see that after my surgery I was a snapping turtle with my mouth tightly closed. No way was I going to talk about it or open up about the entire issue. No way at all. It had been cut out of me. It was gone. No need to talk about it any more. Move along. What I have found by talking with others is that type of thinking seems to be pretty common. If I don't talk about it or look at it or think about it, it didn't happen. The denial phase of the grief cycle. I talk about that whole thing in an earlier post too, so I won't rehash it here. The internal struggle I had about the whole communication thing stemmed from my parents, but not in a bad way.  Let me explain. My parents were married at the end of the Baby Boomer time frame, the early 1960's. They had certain ideas about marriage and ideals from the public and in the eyes of family and friends and the church, etc., about what it means to be married. Part of that is communication. They actually went to weekends and seminars about couples communication and keeping those lines open. They didn't have any marital issues that I knew of, but they always wanted to make sure they had open communication lines to each other. I saw that and how it worked. Then, when dad and mom were diagnosed with cancer, I saw them start support groups for that too. This was before the Internet, so they had meetings at our house or other member's houses every week. I was not included in them. Not because they shut me out, but because I was in my late teens and early 20's. Thats the general age where a human seems to think no one understands them or their problems. Especially their parents. At that age we just decide that WE know best. I was VERY much like that. Looking back now, I can see what I was able to get out of those meetings, even though I didn't go to them. Communication lines are like the pressure relief valve on a steam cooker. Keep the valve closed and after a while a seal will fail and the lid will pop off or the cooker could even explode. Without that valve, that release, we could blow up too. Talking and getting those feelings out is a release. You are not handling them alone anymore. You have others that know and can help and understand. You can get ideas for coping with issues, feelings, physical stuff...  everything. Opening the valve can be tricky. You can get burned, it can be loud, there are usually tears, but after that initial shock at the start of opening it, the pressure lessens. It really does help. So even though I wasn't involved in the meetings and groups, I saw what they did. What the meetings and the people in them meant to others and the kinship and friendships that were created because of them. I had hoped, and still do, that the blog would be an electronic version of that type of idea. All thanks to my forward thinking parents and their want and desire to communicate. Thank you Mom and Dad.  Just another reason I love and miss you both.

So, on this fifth anniversary of the starting of this blog, and over 42,000 page hits later, I can say that maybe, just maybe, I was able to help a person here or there. No matter how little of a help it may have been. The whole idea behind this was to show people that they don't have to go through this alone. The thoughts and feelings they are having, both as a patient and as a family member or friend, have happened to others. Maybe what I felt and how I handled those feelings would or will help someone in a similar situation. That was the entire idea. The underlying meaning of this whole thing is, "You are not alone," or, "You don't have to be alone." Some choose to be for their own reasons, and I respect that. Everyone copes in their own way. This helped me through some of the issues I was having with it, and still have some of to this day. The New Normal is a tough thing to get a handle on sometimes. But it is manageable. At least I think so.

After all that, you might ask why I quit making blog entries after a while. Mainly because I was into the New Normal at that point. I had a handle on it and it was just regular life again. Sure there are days that are better than others, and others that you wish you could forget, but generally it would have been writing about day-to-day life. I was afraid you would get bored with that, so I just stopped and let the blog stand on its own. It seems to be doing OK. When I remind people online about it, the usage spikes for a few days then back to pretty quiet. Like I said before, I am not in this to reach a million hits or for notoriety or fame... I just want to be able to help. To talk across that virtual table and let you, the readers, feel like someone knows and understands what you are going through. In a very personal and intimate way. No one know what it is like to go through this unless they have actually done it. They can read about it all they want, but until it happens to them, it is just words on a page or on a screen. My largest hope is that someday no one will understand the feelings here. Why would I wish that you ask? Because it would mean the NO ONE has gone through the cancer journey, so they have no way to understand it. I truly believe that time will come. Some day. Maybe not in my lifetime, but maybe in those of my children or grandkids. You know...  The ones I got extra time with and got to see and be with because I did go through the journey and was lucky enough to come out the other side. Not once, but three times now. That is not me trying to crow, that is me being proud of myself. That is hard for me too, but that is a whole other area of my brain that I haven't put in to a blog yet... Yikes.

Lastly, thank you for reading. I hope this makes some sense and that you weren't too bored with it. It's a big deal to me, and I wanted to share the feelings with you all too. Mostly because it was you that I wanted to reach. So thank you once again. I truly do appreciate your time. In the words of one of my favorite characters of all time...

May you all live long and prosper.