It's been five years since I've had a chemo treatment... Cool. Time does fly sometimes. I probably only think of cancer once or twice a day these days, but not so much in terms of fear for myself anymore. My brother in law has been struck by cancer and is knee deep in battle this holiday season. My sister is staying as strong as she can but it's hard to watch. Their babies aren’t really old enough to understand but they understand enough.

We need a cure for cancer.

One of the symptoms of leukemia is bruising, poor healing, crappy clotting... Being a survivor of leukemia, I feel like I've got a heightened sense of where my blood counts are based on what I can see on my skin and how I feel. I've had enough CBCs to test out various hypothesizes and my biggest one has my blood counts dipping the most just before my period. I’ve mentioned this to my Dr and he agrees there are studies somewhere that support this thought but waved it off as dips don’t matter as long as it stays in the healthy range. But to me, it matters.. and I can feel it. Knowing this helps me not freak out when a bruise shows up out of nowhere or a cut flares up. Sometimes though, nothing can keep the fear at bay. I had one such occasion this month. While I was washing my face, a healing scab got rubbed off and it gushed blood (ok, a drop or two but to me, it was like an artery burst). It took me three bouts of applying pressure for me to stop it and in the 30 seconds or so that it took for me to get it to stop bleeding, my heart was on the floor. It felt like 30 minutes and it took at least that for me to calm myself down, feeling silly. Five years ago, it would have taken me 3 days to calm down and a CBC for good measure.. so I do feel good about my recover time and it’s been almost 6 whole months since my last CBC. But I still get angry at the fear anyway. I’m angry that the world dropped from out under my feet in a way I would have never known possible for a full 30 seconds and it’s been five years. It’s over now and I haven’t really dwelled on it.. I mean I’m not walking around pissed, but when I think about it. Hmph.

I’m almost done with my Yule shopping. I can’t wait to give the gifts I gathered to their recipients. Spreading joy with ‘stuff’ is fun.

Many peaceful and healthy wishes to you and yours this holiday season!!