One Year Bloggaversary

WARNING< written while on sleeping meds.


So, I've been writing my blog for 1 year. I started it for a few reasons. I had being desperately trying to connect with other people my age who had been though cancer and were more honest with the way they dealt with it. What I mean by that is they didn't subscribe to the stereotypes that are fed to us on a daily basis through the media and campaigns. "Be positive," "Cancer is a gift," "I am now ethereal being who has seen the light!"

I don't think so. There was so much seriousness and sadness out there but I love to laugh. I had to fight to be me. This fight was particularly hard because I had been through hell for a year and had been tapering off medications that made me ill and kept me from sleeping. I had been coming out of my fog to freedom. That was when the GVH popped up and started attacking my liver. This petrified me because I watched someone die slowly of liver failure from GVH disease. It was not pretty and I was terrified for my liver and my life. I received the news that the prednisone(evil) was back on again.

I knew the drill for the rate of deterioration my brain and body would endure. I felt fine for a month and then the symptoms rolled in full force. I was a zombie again, unable to function or retain any memory. By this point it was the summer and I was unable to take care of myself or my kids so they went to my parents. I spent that summer day after day alone and frustrated. Frustrated with my body, frustrated with how the world perceives cancer and for the lack of it being acceptable for a cancer patient to BE angry. I was angry, fuck it all dammit!

I scoured the internet looking for others but kept finding abandoned blogs where the writer had died. I felt quite grief stricken then. I wanted to find live people! I wanted proof that I could live and come out of this with flying colours.

I remember spending most of my summer on the hammock on my patio unable to move. I was too exhausted to make meals or even get a glass of water. I hated everything then. I hated my useless situation and I was burning to prove that being angry and being yourself when you had cancer was ok. Hell, it's necessary! Before I knew it, in my angry ass busting mode, I created a blog.

I knew nothing of my computer and I didn't know what a blog was. I just did it anyway.

The second reason was because I'm the strong silent type who keeps in all the hard stuff. I don't want to be seen as weak or as having needs. Idle chatter is not my thing. Talking about myself is not my thing. I've actually frustrated many a person I've known because I don't share or divulge much of myself. This blog helped me stretch those boundaries. I'm always about stretching boundaries because I am about pushing forward and my forward with cancer was to try and express it.

My way. Whatever I wrote, it was for me.

I also wanted a blog that would touch others and hopefully give them something good they could find when in they were feeling distraught. I would create the thing I wanted to see.

I also wanted to tell the truth.

Physically I'm not where I'd hoped to be today. I'm now back to the point I was over a year ago because my liver got better and the prednisone has been dropped. I'm still in a middle mode of healing. Where I will be in another year, I can't even tell. But I hope I'm still here.

Being here is good.

By the way, I turned 36 and I am SO thankful to be 36. 36 Rocks!