Cancer and the Worthy Fox

I know a lot of what is listed below is not exclusive to being a cancer patient, but of course that is my perspective.

Enjoy a series of interesting thoughts, complaints, and hilarious remarks done in the style of Jeff Foxworthy's "You Might Be a Redneck."

If you have to explain medical jargon to a healthcare professional, you might be a cancer survivor.

If you can spell doxorubicin and ifosfamide but you've never won a spelling bee, you might be a survivor.

If you find the most unbelievable part of a movie the medical scenes because you know the color of the medicine isn't right, you might be a cancer survivor.

If you've ever considered Zofran a topping for hospital ice cream, you might be a survivor.

If you've ever thrown a fit because the CT imagining center has run out of regular Sprite, you might be a survivor.

If you've ever wanted to slap a pathologist for commenting that your veins are hard to find due to dehydration knowing full well you had to fast before seeing them, you might be a survivor.

If you've ever excitedly called your wife to come see your lone chest hair in your 30s, you might be a survivor, or just a really late bloomer.

If you've ever lost your ever loving mind over a 98.9 thermometer reading that could possibly force an ER visit, well then you just might be a survivor.

If you've ever had a family member bake dozens of homemade cookies to bring to the nurses during a hospital stay trying to bribe priority treatment, you might be a cancer survivor.

If you've ever had to explain that traveling to a specialty care center is not a vacation to a co-worker, you might be a cancer survivor.

If you use the hospital's remodeling as a way to tell time over the years, you might be a cancer survivor.

If you park on the 4th floor, enter the hotel on the 2nd, and check into the hospital on the 3rd, all without any stairs, elevator, or incline, you might be an M. D. Anderson cancer survivor.

If you have favorite places to use the bathroom over a few hundred miles stretch of the great United States, you might be a cancer survivor or just avid Disney World family.

If you travel so much the locals consider you a local, see above.

Cancer and the D-Word

The "D" Word

A well respected and wise educator once said to me, “Sometimes there is the need to put words to paper. It makes them more real even if you do nothing with them.” A little while later, in a workshop, the same person leads a group of educators to the conclusion of what should happen to those real words after being put to paper. The finding, as I can best summarize, that as writers we tend to want to keep our words on the paper to ourselves, however, it brings more significant value to our understanding of those words to let them go out into the universe.  Furthermore, in doing so, we have the unique ability to unknowingly touch the lives of others we didn’t know may have needed them.  So here I am, putting my words to a medium and then letting them go out into the universe.

I am disabled. Admitting disability has been difficult to say aloud or write out because I have refused to believe it. I have been of the mindset that I can overcome any obstacle with sheer willpower. From a young age it was ingrained in me that anything I get, I earn through hard work. So to give in to my weak flesh is something I feel shame about doing. Even the insurance companies and such have me feel ashamed of it as if I am making it all up.

My most significant hurdle it turns out is the negative beliefs I have about being called disabled over the proof and science behind it. Much like a flat-earther, science has no place in a mind made up. The part of the brain where belief resides doesn’t care if the same brain is signaling pain regularly to a missing extremity. It doesn’t bother that the same brain is sending distress triggers from a collection of random sounds, it doesn’t bother that the nerves surrounding a place where lymph nodes once resided flare up with tension. Why should I be allowed not to work and make things difficult financially? Why should I concentrate on my health when so many others are unable to? Why should I receive assistance when there are others who take advantage of the system?

So This is Me

The answer to all those questions? I am disabled. I am slowly coming to terms with it. It helped after being haggled by insurance companies that according to the government standards for disability I meet over seven of their requirements. It helps to come to terms with is talking to those around me. I have been shutting myself in at home of my own accord because I have it in my head that if I am well enough to go to the store or the lakefront I should be well enough to work. However, it is not the same. I can stop those kinds of things whenever I please. A job would be long hours of standing, sitting, walking, concentrating, etc. that I am no longer able to do.

So this is me, not asking for sympathy, not looking for justification. This is me admitting on paper, and out into the universe...

I am disabled