The Cancerversary – the 3rd edition

when-life-gives-you-reasons-to-cry

Today, I have at least 1000 reasons  to smile.

It’s my 3rd cancerversary, so let’s get this party started, ok?

I always feel compelled to mark my cancerversaries because they remind me of not just how far I’ve come but how much I have to be grateful for and how much I still have to look forward to.

The date of the cancerversary is itself a bit tenuous. Should I choose the diagnosis day of my first cancer when my doctor phoned me at work to break the news? It was as if for a teeny tiny second,  a light turned off in my world, and then when it came back on, all I could think about, was  how much shorter my life seemed to have got. And then, the more pressing matter of how I was going to break the news to David. I felt a lot of empathy for my doctor that day, who wants to be the bearer of that kind of news? Not me,  that’s for sure.

Or should my cancerversary be the day of my second diagnosis when the same poor doctor phoned to tell me that the cancer was back and, not content with occupying my thyroid, it had marched on into my lymph nodes too. That time, I was at the hairdresser’s and had just paid up front for a year’s worth of hair appointments (it’s better to buy in bulk) and all I could think about was if I had to have chemo, I’d just melted my credit card for no reason. And, of course, how was I going to tell David again? It was like deja vu of the worst kind.

Me and the Prof

My cancerversary could also be marked on the day I went radioactive or the day that I had my last appointment with the prof but it’s not.

Radioactive and loving it!

As it happens the day I choose to celebrate my cancerversary is the day of my thryoidectomy because that’s the day  I said goodbye to my thyroid and all the cancer that was in it. And besides,  the date, 10/10 is really easy to remember. It’s like alliteration with numbers. And everyone knows I love alliteration almost as much as I love exclamation marks (which is a whole lot.)

I'm off... to surgery!

This was me this time 3 years ago just before I was wheeled off to surgery. Happy as a lark I was. I just wanted to get that cancer out. And also my hair was looking rather good that day.

Life without a thyroid goes on. And rather nicely in fact. I may have piled on some pounds, have to pop pills every day and cat yawn like a hungry lion in the Serengeti, but I’m alive and loving it.

As it happens, I celebrate these cancerversaries, annually,  sometimes bi annually and I have been known to have a knees up monthly, if I feel the need because I’m only as good as my next check up after all. I’ll take all the good health I can get, thank you very much.

The cancerversaries are well documented on the blog, you can find out what’s gone down, here here and here.

I am sure some people think I am more than a little “off centre” for my upbeat commemoration of something that cast such a shadow over life as I know it.

But you see, I’m not celebrating cancer. I’m celebrating life.

What are you smiling about today? Leave me a comment and give me one more reason to smile!

photo credit A guy taking pictures via photopin cc