I Don't Know How To Do This

     I know that we have all heard this phrase many times. Probably we have even muttered it ourselves.

     Maybe when we first tried roller skating, writing, singing, you name it.

     I heard it applied to something the other day that I never thought of applying it to.

    Carrying on our life after a loved one has died. It was said by a young woman who had just lost her husband and was left with small children to raise by herself. She looked at the woman giving her condolences, and said, " I don't know how to do this."

     In this situation, none of knows how to do it, until we have to do it.

    I have been using this phrase in my head a lot this year. I don't know how to be a cancer victim. As a matter fact, I am not sure I am a victim. To me that is someone who has been damaged and broken. I am neither of those things. Neither do I consider myself a cancer survivor, and apparently, my doctor agrees with me. He wants to see me for check-ups a lot, at least for five years, which is the usual bench
mark for being declared cured.

     When this all started my main focus was on the surgery. I am a surgery survivor. No one really seems too interested in that, but it means a great deal to me. I had never survived surgery before, so it was kind of cool to be one. I also never considered the cancer part of the diagnosis, because the doctors and nurses we saw kept saying that if you must have cancer, this is the one to have, because it is contained and remove the container and you are done. NO ONE said, radiation, follow-up checks, or good ol' pelvic exams necessary, until after the surgery, I have done well, thanks to God and good doctors. If you do not believe good doctors are a gift of God, you have never been sick.

     That is also one my "not done this befores". I have not been sick. I don't consider myself sick, now, but I do have a lot of doctors to see. I am learning to do this. Because I have not been sick, I find myself really reluctant to share my concerns with doctors and nurses. Do I tell them every time my elimination is different? Why? Most of my life it varied with what I ate, did and how rested I was. Why should I tell them? I don't unless it is really different for me. And there is the answer. Know your self.

     While I am still on the " don't know how to do this", may I just say I don't know how to be old either.
I know that to a lot of people being in your sixties is not old. Let me tell you, it is compared to 40. I do not want to be old. I can be older, which are two very different items.

     I probably won't be considered mature by a lot of standards, either. I have so much fun being immature that maturing isn't on my list.

     I have had a good time learning to do things in my life: being a wife, a mom a grandmother. I think that when we think we cannot do something that is hard, God is there saying," I can." We need to let him and enjoy the ride.

     Here's to enjoying the ride and the learning.