Forgotten cancerversaries

Hi everyone...

September 30th 2008 arrived...and for the first time since that infamous date four years ago I didn't dread it....I actually forgot.

On September 30th 2004 I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer...it was a horrifying defining moment and a dark date in my life...one that I never would forget...or so I thought.

But this year I didn't remember it...or at least didn't mark its approach. When I opened Outlook yesterday and checked email at work the date popped up at me like an old ghost.

I almost smiled when I saw it...thinking that although my life right now is so much about cancer---about helping other people who are experiencing it...writing, advocating, speaking for and fundraising for cancer...that in some way I am moving on.
Cancer...you didn't haunt me...at least not today. Not for this day.

Perhaps it was the fear of facing the very word, the anger of having to even accept it into my life that allowed me to dread dates and remembrances. But I've come a long way. I've grown and I've changed a lot in four years. I used to be embarrassed, ashamed and even lonely in the fact that I had cancer. That seems so long ago. Now I obviously am unafraid to put my heart on the electronic sleeve that is my blog. I used to be so hesitant to look in the mirror at the scars. Well, I don't celebrate them...not yet...but I know they are there and I can trace the lines of my story.

Cancer...it's not you...that is a part of me...it's what I gave to myself while I battled you. So there! Cancer.

September 30th
Then May 18th...
A cancerversary?
Really it's just another day.
Just another day...in a life I'm able to live

Life is good.