THANKFULNESS TINGED WITH SURVIVOR'S GUILT...

Cancer thoughts. To be honest, I am doing this post out of obligation.  This little blog is an important part of my life right now... and although none of this is profound, it is what it is and I want to remember.  Some of my blog posts are scrapbook-like, a history of my family during this time in our lives.  Some of my posts are inspirational (I hope), thoughts that go through my heart as I go on this spiritual journey.  Then there's the "Soup of the week" posts.  LOL, my attempt at gourmet cooking and sharing with you my redneck opinion of it.

But since a month ago when my son was diagnosed with a Seminoma, I just have really been NOT THINKING about it (cancer) much.  Can you say DENIAL?  Usually I'm the first one to get on the internet and educate myself about medical matters.  I only looked this stuff up once, folks.  Maybe because it moved so quickly from diagnosis to surgery.  5 days!  5 days - no time to waste.  I'm really thankful for my son not waiting any longer to get it checked out, for his doctor for acting quickly and sending him to ultrasound.  I'm grateful for urologists who come in early to talk to us and make room on their schedule for surgeries.  Praising skilled hands that do delicate surgery like tumor removal.  Thankful that New Reign was adaptable when he had to miss 6 performances with them.  I LOVE that my son is still his crazy expressive self in a potentially embarassing situation.  I'm grateful to our friends and family for support through cards, calls, and prayer.  It really was holding me up.  Because I was in a state of numbness, however conscious I may have looked to others.  We waited a month for the CT scan, because of New Reign.  And now the scan has revealed what we were hoping for...NO MORE CANCER.  Praise God!  No treatment necessary. No banking sperm, which is a whole other issue.   He will continue regular doctor visits and scans over the next 5 years, but it's a small price to pay for what it could have been.

Maybe I would have seemed more worried about it, but my attention was divided - I also was helping my mother recuperate from knee replacement surgery which was the day after my son's surgery.  To me it was really BAD TIMING, an unscheduled (basically emergency) surgery the day before a scheduled one.  But now as I reflect I'm thinking it was really GOOD TIMING on God's part.  Something to fill  my days, thoughts, hands with...and no hours spent poring over the internet about Seminomas...

Truthfully, I was in a fog.  Days ran together with no slowing down of activity, then all of a sudden July was here.  I wish I could tell you I spent hours in prayer over this.  But I didn't.  I prayed but it was really hard to focus.  Yes, even with both my Dad and my husband's Dad succumbing to cancer, this was new and different.  Even with a good prognosis, you never expect that your child will get cancer before you do.

So we get to move forward.  This was not too traumatic - well I'm sure it was to my son - but for me, not too traumatic in the scheme of things.  We have more reasons to praise our heavenly Father - our son has been saved (again)!  We get to move forward, he returns to college life, and has every reason to expect good chances of fathering children, after he marries that special one, some day.   But I have a new perspective.  The perspective of the parent whose child has cancer.  Survivor's guilt for those who have lost their children and continue to battle...

THANKFULNESS TINGED WITH SURVIVOR'S GUILT.
Those are my thoughts.