This was written off line

It may be a little overly dramatic now that I just re-read it but I was pleased with it. So I'm posting it.

Part 3:
There is something to be said about staring a disease square in the eyes and taking it on. Taking the hits and rolling with the punches that inevitably come your way. Some land harder than others. But you take the punches because not to would be admitting defeat before the contest even begins. The initial swing is the worst, it glances you near the temple and is designed to get your attention, but the attention it’s looking for is not just to scare you with the possibility of sickness, but to tell you that in fact you indeed have an illness and the fight has begun.

You immediately recalibrate your life. You take stock of where you are and where you were going and you slowly begin to realize that things have to change and adjustments have to be made if you expect to survive this.

Calls are made and some tears are shed as the news shatters expectations and makes others think the worst, even if for a few minutes. You can’t help but fall into the same pit early on as you contemplate life over the next 72 hours.

Hell, the next 24 hours are the worst. But eventually you visit professionals who have seen the conflict before and they eventually help you swing back and throw a few punches of your own. Soon you and your new opponent are in it for real and the fight turns into a war, it might last a few months, perhaps on and off for years. The war never really ends even when the first battle ends. The disease always looms in the background and sneers from time to time and sometimes decides to pick another fight, waiting to see how much fight you actually have left.

Each time you give it everything you have.

Because not to means death.

You take the slings, the arrows and the constant piercings. The rambling tests, surgeries, biopsies, blood panels, drugs… it’s a struggle to maintain any sense of normalcy in the middle of a war. Any given day is different from the last and sometimes it can be too much.

How do you shore up for a disaster? How do you prepare? You can’t. Life will do as it will and suddenly you wake up one day and you find a lump that wasn’t there the day before and a quiet visit to your doctor ends up becoming a full body CAT scan and life as you know it changes in the span of that exam.

Nothing is ever the same. New words immediately enter your vocabulary, the endless corridors of cold hospitals become your second home. Needle pricks become commonplace and acceptable weekly activities. Short, pleasant conversations with strange people in similar hospital clothing occur all too frequently. Soon some faces become names and the transition from your former life to your new one becomes a little easier.

You see that you are not alone. You share in each other’s pain. Empathy is quick and comforting. Soon you are one of them and you just understand. You keep moving and find the road is new to you, but well traveled by so many before you. The notes left behind make the trip a little easier. Some people have collected the notes and have made adjustments to treatments and care therapies. People have noticed the sacrifice of others who might have fought the fight but lost the war.

Life continues, the mundane still has to be dealt with and bills must get paid. There is no slowing down, there is no time to really let anything set in. If it did, we might not take up the fight because the task would seem too great.

Every scar is a story and perhaps a badge earned in the war.

Every mark is a reminder of where we’ve been since this began.

Every ache and every pain is par for the course.

We live in spite of it and defy its existence and we take the hits and send them back, we never surrender and never back down.

This is just something that spilled out of my head one night.

There's more where that came from. I'm starting to peak into the closed doors of my life. Looking for the truth to write about. I already know a lot of it won't be pleasant but it's important to be real and tell the truth. I'm going waaaay back. Digging around in my childhood for starters.

I'm writing. I'm thrilled. It's all I have right now. I have the time and I have the words. Hopefully I can make sense of them when they come together.

I am currently on medical leave and paying COBRA so in effect I am "unemployed" by Starbucks at the moment. In fact I am unemployed by anyone for that matter.

That makes me an unemployed writer?...how original.