I have cancer... but cancer doesn't have me.

I have to laugh sometimes. This morning, I was feeling incredibly sad and scared and anxious. I sent an email to one of my friends kind of whining about it. And I thought to myself "what is my problem? Why do I feel so down?"

Umm, hello dummy, you have cancer.

Oh right...boo!

I think that is what pisses me off the most about this disease. It sometimes changes the way I (and others) think and feel. I am inherently a positive person, but yet I have doubts. I have always been cheerful (ask my brother Chris, he just LOVED it when I was cheerful at 7:30 am.) I have always been relatively easy-going.

Right now, I'm anxious. I'm relatively grumpy. And worst of all, I'm scared. I keep hearing the "what ifs" creeping in. It aggravates me. I'm not a "what if" kind of gal. Cancer messes with your head in that way.

I have to get my head on straight. I am going to beat the shit out of cancer (KA, see, I promised you another salty word). I have to. I have too many people who need me to stay right here. I have too many future survivors who will need my inspirational story to give them hope. I have stuff I want to do. I have cruises to go on and more Disney trips to take. I have a beautiful boy who needs his mommy to love him. I have an awesome husband who needs to get joy back in his life and to get his sense of humor back!

As I sat there today in the funeral home, I thought about Aunt Theresa living a long and beautiful life. She is my family, my blood, along with so many other tough cookies. It's in me to survive. It's in me to fight. If for no other reason, then just to fight back at this stupid disease for picking on me, and trying to make me something I am not.

It's funny, I remember when I was a little kid, I was picked on by a bully in first grade. Until that bully had to face my brother Chris (hey CMB, look at you! You got two shout outs in one post! Go you). Chris "helped" him to understand that picking on me would only lead to bad things... I remember thinking I was special because I had someone to stick up for me. This time, I have to stick up for myself. But I have a lot of people backing me up. I guess that still makes me pretty special, huh?

There aren't too many people who have seen me REALLY pissed, but when I am, I am pretty feisty and relentless, like ridiculously so. Cancer really, really was looking for a fight when it picked me. And man, I am going to kick and fight until cancer crawls into a hole and dies. The good news is, they will cut out the cancer in less than a week. So basically, we are going to stab it and literally throw it away. Then I focus on healing extraordinarily well so I can poison the hell out of it! And then I am going to burn it to death. And then, for good measure, I am going to starve it for the hormones it eats. Act of terrorism? Perhaps. But I consider cancer to be veritable enough of an enemy, and it deserves all the hell that's coming at it!

Just call me "Miss Scarlet in the hallway with the knife, and the poison, and the candlestick and the rope"...

I am going to survive this. Oh yes!