My friend, Tracy, who writes “Is Anybody Here?” is obviously sharing my brain.  I’m sleepless tonight or should say I’ve been sleepless this week and have been taking melatonin in an effort to sleep through the night.  It’s time for my kidney cancer yearly checkup and here’s the paragraph in her blog I just read.

“For most people, I would never presume to speak for all, but for most thinking people, once you have cancer, you have it for life. It is always in your thoughts somewhere. Some days it is closer to your forehead, some days the thought is far back in your mind. Some days it’s shooting the word cancer out of your eyeballs like the Bat Signal.”

Spot on!

Two years ago March on my 59th birthday, I was diagnosed with kidney cancer while in the E.R. for a particularly bad case of diverticulitis.  Kidney removed the following June after the diverticulitis was  finally healed.  I’ve heard so many times that if you are going to have cancer, kidney cancer is the one to have because once the kidney is removed so is the cancer.  BUT…I have a chest x Ray once a year because I’ve been told if the cancer is going to return, it likely returns in the lungs.  For the past two years it’s frequently in the back of my mind but  the days before actually coming face to face with the reality of the cancer check, the word shoots out of my eyeballs like the Bat signal.  It’s also something my family and I don’t discuss.  I tell them that I have the doctor appointment and that’s the end of it.  I realize it is hard for them to think about too….and quite honestly what is there to talk about?  It’s probably mentally healthier all the way around.  So here I sit at 3 AM.

Until next time….