<p>You go, Sunrise-- even if your instinct isn’t entirely right (and I am hoping and betting it is), you are doing something so important by listening to that instinct and letting it guide you. Something we can all do more of, though it takes a lot of courage!</p>
<p>Sunrise – We’re rooting for you. A lot.</p>
<p>I believe you’re right, and I’ll be rooting for you one way or the other.</p>
<p>sunrise, I really, really want you to be right.</p>
<p>I’m betting on you, sunrise - and rooting for you as well.</p>
<p>Thanks for the update. I was wondering if you might have taken up your friend’s offer to go to Israel. Go get 'em Sunrise!</p>
<p>Thanks for checking in. You are a true gift to all of us lucky enough to see your posts and appreciate your perspective. May the week to come be a complete validation of your point of view.</p>
<p>I’m thinking of you, sunrise. And sending all positive thoughts and karma your way.</p>
<p>Hope you are having a good day, sunriseeast. Enjoy this week with family and stay strong and positive.</p>
<p>adding my well wishes and hopes for a bounteous and loving Thanksgiving holiday.</p>
<p>
Oh, thank you so much for this.</p>
<p>We are just starting on this journey with my husband. Don’t even have a treatment plan yet. I was just talking to my best friend (who dealt with her infant son having liver cancer) and one thing I was saying to her is that it is difficult to picture the future because all of a sudden everything has changed and I don’t know what do do in my mind about the things we had already planned because everything is so unsure right now. </p>
<p>John Lennon’s saying “life is what happens to you when you are busy making other plans” has been on my mind the last few days, but sunriseeast’s "regardless of what happens tomorrow, I will still plant the apple tree… " is lifting my heart now. Thank you. </p>
<p>Thinking of you and sending you positive thoughts.</p>
<p>Sunriseast: it is kind and generous of you to post in the midst of an unsettling situation.</p>
<p>Thank you. I and many others continue to hold you in our positive thoughts.</p>
<p>Swimcatsmom: I can’t imagine. Holding you and your husband in my heart. If you think the support will be helpful and sustaining, consider starting a thread. Your choice.
My very best
~Mafool</p>
<p>I have and it has already been so helpful. I don’t want to hijack sunriseeast’s thread, but I found her post so uplifting that I really wanted to thank her for it.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom,</p>
<p>So sorry to hear about your husband. This is a lot to deal with. It comes without a warning and plays havoc with everything you took for granted. </p>
<p>I can tell you that you will regain your sense of normalcy sooner or later. However, it will be a different kind of normalcy. But there still will be laughter, joy, and love. Yes, there will be moments of sadness, a sense of loss, and longing for what had been. Yet, you will move forward and there will be things to look forward to.</p>
<p>Objectively speaking, I am at a place where most people don’t even want to imagine to be at, and even among cancer patients/survivors, this is a pretty daunting place to be at. Yet, there are everyday joys and happiness. I don’t look back and pine for what had been. Life is an evolution. It moves forward.</p>
<p>Best to you and your family.</p>
<p>sunrise - thanks for checking in. You remain in my thoughts and prayers.</p>
<p>May I share a bit of an ungrateful side of me? Just thinking about writhing this post makes me feel like such a cad. </p>
<p>However, well, I am allowed to unload once in a while in a safe place, right?</p>
<p>So, here are some examples of responses from my friends/relatives. All of them love me and all of them care a great deal. All of them mean incredibly well, and I am grateful for ALL of them. That said, I cringe at some of their responses, and actually started to avoid a few of them… (by the way, the current situation has not been clarified yet. It could very well be the case that IT’S VERY GOOD, or that I am wrong. I will update you all when I have some data/evidence on where things stand. But on the surface, according to my doctor, things took the worse turn. So, people reacted to the news with the following…</p>
<p>***** Reality TV Interview *************</p>
<p>I have a very close friend who is an angel, but her compulsion to know everything has become such a burden that I ended up ignoring her phone calls and email pieces and told my H to somehow send her a signal. I am actually avoiding her for a while because by the time I satisfy her need to know, I am completely exhausted – like I have gone through all day cross examination at a witness stand. Besides, these are not exactly fun subjects to regurgitate over and over again going through every minute detail, you know.</p>
<p>****** A perfect eulogy for my funeral **********</p>
<p>Another friend sent me a very sweet note upon hearing about the latest turn. It was warn, laudatory and heartfelt, like, “the way you lived your life is an inspiration to me and makes me stop and think how I should appreciate my life’s every moment” – you get the idea. I felt like telling her “thank you. can you save it for my funeral?”</p>
<p>******* A quest to save my soul **************</p>
<p>I have a friend who is incredibly giving and warm, and a devout Christian. Knowing full well that I am not religious, my husband is Jewish, and our kids have been converted to Judaism at birth (since I was not Jewish) and had bar mitzvahs, she keeps sending me lovely notes that start with Bible and Jesus, discuss Bible and Jesus, and end with Bible and Jesus. </p>
<p>******* The Toilet training cheer ******</p>
<p>A friend of mind is very generous with her praises, especially for me, lately. Oh, how amazing you are that you are thinking through all this! Three cheers that you talked to your doctor so intelligently! Hurray, that you have been so well prepared…… A running laudatory commentary at every barf, hiccup, and sneeze. At certain point, I felt like I am being cheered on for fighting for my life the way a three year old going through a toilet training exercise is being encouraged and praised for every blob of poop that she managed to deposit into the toilet bowl correctly without having it splattered on the bathroom floor. </p>
<p>***** Hurray for the Home team ************</p>
<p>I got a note the night before I was supposed to get a scan. “you can do it. Go get them. Show your how good you really are”… As if a CT scan is a performance test. No matter how psyched I am on the day of my scan, the scan will show what it will show. </p>
<p>“You can beat this disease. You can show how strong and tough you are to all of them…” </p>
<p>Now, if the scan results are not that good, or if the next treatment is not working very well, I feel like I failed my cheer leading team. Performance anxiety is growing leaps and bounds…</p>
<p>****** Yes, you can ***************</p>
<p>Continual, exhausting, un-examined optimism & enthusiasm that sucks the oxygen out of the room. This friend took it upon herself to interpret everything going on in my life in the utmost positive light. “I am confident your next scan will be perfect. I am convinced that your next treatment will be a success. How wonderful you are to have a night out with your husband. It’s amazing how happy you will be when your kids come home for thanksgiving.” It goes on and on. </p>
<p>She is reinterpreting for me everything as a positive blessing. I know she means well - that, she wants to uplift me and makes me feel positive. </p>
<p>However, when things are not going well, every time she builds the podium higher and tries to intensify her effort to make everything sound positive and perfect I fall harder and hurt more when/if I fail to meet that expectation. </p>
<p>I am dealing with pretty serious, and potentially devastating stuff. Can you please allow me to feel the weighty nature of my predicament? Will you let me stay on the ground level and breathe?</p>
<p>******* Arm chair medical consultancy **************</p>
<p>Various medical opinions from well meaning friends and relatives when it is clear they have NO idea what this is all about…… It takes a lot of patience for me to feign the sense of gratitude and appreciation for their concern and advice.</p>
<p>*********** Finally a sane response *************</p>
<p>A friend, who happens to be a psychoanalyst, sent me email. Something to the effect that her thoughts are with me, and she is there anytime I want to talk, but only when I am up to it, and only share things that I feel like sharing…</p>
<p>Just that. No hyperbole. No anxiety provoking performance goal for me to meet. No request to satisfy her need to know… Just gentle kindness. When I got this email, I started to cry because I was finally allowed to acknowledge my feelings without somebody’s script to follow. No role to play, and no expectations that I may fail to meet.</p>
<hr>
<p>Oh, I am bad, bad, and bad… All of them are such nice people and well meaning. To my defense, I AM grateful, and I did not share any of these with them other than my husband, who said “would you rather I do all these, and have all of them come up with the kind of responses you find easy to deal with?”</p>
<p>he is absolutely right. My husband is pitch perfect. I love this man heart and soul. If there is an after life or reincarnation after all, I want to spend the eternity with him. I am blessed… truly… absolutely… Completely …</p>
<p>I have been following this thread since the beginning of the year - and have learned so much from you SunriseEast. Thank you. And my thoughts are with you.</p>
<p>My friend, with serious health problems, makes everything easy for all of us. When she feels she doesn’t want to talk, or that we are off subject, or not quit understanding what she means, she just says “let’s talk about you or the Dodgers.” She is (you are) the one in charge of these talks. And a toast to the apples to come.</p>
<p>I would just echo what your friend the psychoanalyst said. On this thread, I hope you feel you can say whatever you wish to when you feel like it. No need to perform and no need to take care of anyone here.</p>
<p>Oh, sunrise, I have not laughed so hard for a long time! The toilet-training cheer is my favorite.</p>
<p>I, also, am toasting the apples to come!</p>